The Chiral Conspiracy – A Military Science Fiction Thriller: A Biogenesis War Prequel (The Biogenesis War Book 0)
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A BIOGENESIS WAR PREQUEL
THE CHIRAL CONSPIRACY
LL RICHMAN
About the Biogenesis War™ Universe
Humanity has reached the stars.
With colonies established throughout the Sol system, explorers hungry for new ventures traveled beyond its borders to colonize nearby Alpha Centauri.
At the same time, a brave pair of ships set their sights a bit farther afield—the binary stars of Procyon and Sirius. Those who settled there called themselves the Geminate Alliance.
Such distances made interaction prohibitive. Even with the Scharnhorst drive’s ability to triple the speed of light, travel between the colonies was measured in months, if not years.
In the mid-twenty-fifth century, that all changed. The Geminate Alliance stunned the known worlds with the invention of the Calabi-Yau Gate. The gates folded space, enabling instantaneous travel between star systems. True interstellar commerce became a reality.
Those the Alliance had left behind had formed a loose alliance known as the Coalition of Worlds. Though most of its star nations treated the Alliance fairly, there was one in particular that did not.
The Akkadian Empire was an oppressive regime whose actions propelled it into a state of cold war with the rest of the settled worlds. Its Ministry of State Security was rumored to have its hooks in every star nation from Terra to Sirius.
The Geminate Alliance had no idea how thoroughly they had been compromised, but they were about to find out….
THE CHIRAL CONSPIRACY
Copyright © 2020 by L.L. Richman
The Biogenesis War™ is a registered trademark of L.L. Richman
All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this eBook may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles, reviews, or promotions.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by Delta V Press
Cover Copyright © 2020 L.L. Richman
ISBN-13: 9798649217163
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Produced in the United States of America
ALSO BY LL RICHMAN
You can always find the most up to date listing of book titles on LL Richman’s Amazon Author Page.
The Biogenesis War
– Book 1: The Chiral Agent (Summer 2020)
– Book 2: The Chiral Protocol (Fall 2020)
– Book 3: Chiral Justice (Winter 2020)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank those who helped refine this into the best tale it could possibly be. Steve and Dawn, your years serving in the military helped make these scenes much more believable, and any mistakes are entirely my own.
Crystal, your keen eye as a copy editor and proofreader are without peer. Maine, I couldn’t have done this without you. (And since I snuck this page in after you guys checked it, if there are mistakes, well, that’s on me.)
When crafting a story that involves science, it’s always good to have a second, or third, set of eyes on it. Even though I spent years working in radiation physics, that doesn’t mean I’m fully conversant in other branches of the hard sciences.
For that, I turn to experts in the field. John, thank you for your insights, and for catching things that slipped past me.
Lastly, I want to thank Marty for all the support you gave as I worked late into the night to get this thing wrapped up. The cats, especially, wish to thank you for this!
~ LL Richman
Leawood, May, 2020
CONTENTS
About the Biogenesis War™ Universe
ALSO BY LL RICHMAN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CONTENTS
EPIGRAPH
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
TERMINOLOGY
WEAPONRY & ARMOR
ALSO BY LL RICHMAN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EPIGRAPH
It is easier to denature plutonium
than to denature the evil spirit of man.
~Albert Einstein
PROLOGUE
Super Earth
Luyten’s Star (uninhabited)
Annexed by Geminate Alliance
The probe sent by the Geminate Alliance Navy exited Scharnhorst space two Astronomical Units away from the planet. No one was around to see the Doppler blueshift flare as the Casimir bubble that enveloped the unmanned spacecraft winked out of existence.
Deprived of its bubble, the probe’s drive was no longer able to use the Scharnhorst effect to jump past the speed of light.
The abrupt step-down from 3c to 0.03c would have caused more stress on the craft’s spaceframe than it could handle, had the Synthetic Intelligence onboard not slowed the vessel before its transition to realspace.
Still, the unmanned craft crossed the three-hundred-million kilometer distance at an acceleration no human would have been able to withstand.
A little before the nine-hour mark, the probe flipped, its burn now employed to decelerate the vessel. Within a matter of hours, the small spacecraft had reached the world it had been sent to study.
Procyon scientists had named it Vermilion. A super-earth, three times the size of Terra, the planet orbited just under a tenth of an AU away from the red dwarf.
Ordinarily this would have rendered Vermilion barren, but Luyten’s Star was more quiescent than most. This, combined with Vermilion’s strong magnetic field, allowed life to form.
Those back in Procyon had long suspected this. Distance probes and long-range studies showed a temperature and a climate conducive to living organisms. That drove the Alliance to annex the nearby system, claiming it as Geminate territory.
The planet’s mass, combined with its nearness to the star, gave it a 3:2 spin-orbital resonance. One year was a mere eighteen Earth-days long, but twelve of those days were spent waiting to see the next Vermilion sunrise.
The p
robe cared nothing about such things. Its single purpose was to observe, gather data, and report back to its creators.
It eased its way into the planet’s thermosphere, collecting telemetry as it went. Specially shielded sensors measured radiation absorption, particle interactions, and the strength of the planet’s magnetic field.
It measured the waves and tides of plasma in Vermilion’s ionosphere. A meteor accompanied it into the mesosphere, where the probe observed noctilucent clouds to its east and auroras at its nearest pole.
Above the terminator, a thunderstorm gathered. Sensors measured the massive electrical discharge of a sprite flickering in the sky above it.
The probe passed quickly into the troposphere, onboard sensors registering the air’s composition: nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and other trace elements.
As it entered the stratosphere, the SI scanned the planet’s surface for an appropriate landing site. It adjusted the probe’s course, aiming for a stretch of land on the planet’s daylight side, just shy of the terminator.
It came to a gentle stop on a rocky shelf jutting from a field of verdant foliage. Where day gave way to night, deep green leaves began to glow with photoluminescence.
A hatch slid open near the probe’s nose, and sensor drones began to gather specimens. One drone targeted a nearby rock, a laser lancing out with surgical precision. An onboard spectrometer analyzed the plasma gases within the cloud of vaporized matter.
Sample tubes were delivered to a special section of the probe, where they were examined using a variety of methods: x-ray fluorescence and crystallography, DNA extraction and RNA isolation.
Liquid chromatography separated each sample into its individual parts. Each component was then exposed to circularly polarized light.
Had the SI onboard been capable of emotion, it would have been disquieted by the results from this final experiment. Instead, it dispassionately gathered the data, and then transmitted it to an orbiting communications buoy the probe had deployed upon arrival.
When the message arrived in Procyon, it was met with a mix of excitement and deep consternation. Heated arguments ensued. Opinions varied wildly on whether the information should be contained, and if so, to what degree.
On one thing, they all agreed. Vermilion should be paid another visit—very, very soon.
ONE
National Security Agency
St. Clair Township, Ceriba
Myr (Procyon B)
Geminate Alliance
The office was a tastefully understated blend of statesmanship, technology, and high-end security.
Its occupant, the director of the Alliance’s National Security Agency, privately thought of it as a gilded cage.
Duncan Cutter’s job forced him to spend far more time inside its walls than he cared. It bred a sense of restlessness he found he could rarely shake.
The feeling tended to spike during times of national crisis, when issues that threatened the Geminate Alliance’s security came to the forefront.
Like they did today.
A noise alerted Cutter that someone was approaching, but the report open on his holoscreen demanded his attention, and he resolutely kept his eyes glued to the data stream before him.
“Duncan.” The word was followed by a quick rap on his open doorframe. Cutter spared a quick look at his AD, waving him in. The assistant director jerked his chin at the open door, a question in his eyes.
Cutter grunted. “Go ahead and close it,” he said in a resigned tone, his eyes returning to the report.
Sullivan laughed quietly, triggering the doors shut behind him. “You know it drives your protection detail nuts that you insist on leaving your door open.”
“Yet surprisingly, they still manage to do their jobs,” was Cutter’s dry riposte. He gestured to the display hovering above his desk.
“You read the Vermilion report?” he asked.
Sullivan nodded.
“Sounds a bit dire,” Cutter continued, watching carefully for the AD’s response.
Sullivan’s mouth twisted and he dipped his head in reluctant agreement. “It has the potential to be, or so the science geeks say.”
Cutter steepled his fingers and stared thoughtfully at his subordinate. After a moment, he pushed away from his desk and strode to the bank of windows that overlooked the NSA’s inner courtyard.
“How concerned are they that this discovery could pose a threat?” he asked.
He heard the rustling of fabric behind him, and knew it for the tell it was. Sullivan had a habit of adjusting the cuffs of his suit jacket when he was nervous.
The man blew out a breath as he stepped up to the window beside Cutter.
“Pretty concerned,” Sullivan admitted, “but I can’t decide if it’s because they aren’t sure what Vermilion’s ecosystem could do to us, or because they do know and it scares the shit out of them.”
Cutter barked a humorless laugh. “They’re hedging their bets, then.”
Sullivan coughed. “You could say that, yes.”
The AD waited while Cutter mulled over the implications. By now, Cutter knew his subordinate was used to his manner of working through a problem.
Where some people talked things out and others paced, Duncan tended to go preternaturally still, his entire being focused inward as he turned a problem over in his head, examining it from all angles.
After a good five minutes had passed, Cutter stirred. Inhaling a long, deep breath, he turned and faced Sullivan.
“Have them move the portable gate to Luyten’s Star,” he instructed. “And notify Admiral Toland that her research station’s about to be relocated.”
The gate he referred to was a Calabi-Yau Gate, a novel technology recently developed by the Alliance. The Geminate claim that it had transformed interstellar travel was no boast.
The gate’s ability to fold the higher dimensions of spacetime, allowing instantaneous travel between one inhabited system and another, had connected distant star nations for the first time in centuries.
The integration of local markets into a true interstellar economic system resulted in a robust growth in trade between the various sovereign systems.
At Cutter’s mention of sending deGrasse through one such gate, Sullivan jerked his head back, surprise evident.
“You want to move the station to Luyten’s?” he repeated, his tone dubious. “That’s an awfully tall order. Are you sure it’s warranted yet?”
Cutter looked at Sullivan with mild incredulity.
“It’s not as if they haven’t done this before,” he reminded the man. “They moved it into Sirius’s planetary nebula when they were studying the increased output of Big Blue.”
“Well, yes, but Duncan—”
“And while they were at it, they developed an entirely new class of mobile magnetic shields for the Helios attack craft,” Cutter reminded him, tone sharp.
Sullivan raised a hand in unspoken capitulation.
Suppressing a flare of irritation, Cutter returned to his desk and swept a hand over the holographic unit embedded into it. Minimizing the report he’d been studying, he opened the file that had accompanied it.
A list populated on the screen before them, detailing the Vermilion probe’s findings and its potential impact upon the rest of inhabited space.
He turned to Sullivan, one brow lifted. “Did you read the addendum?” he asked.
When the AD shifted uncomfortably, Cutter passed a hand over his face, suddenly weary of this discussion. Dropping his hand to his side, he met Sullivan’s eyes, letting the man see his resolve.
“Toland isn’t an alarmist,” he said firmly. “She says her team is concerned about what that probe sent back from Vermilion. Concerned enough to claim it could pose a clear and present danger to the Alliance. Yes, moving deGrasse is warranted.”
Sullivan nodded acquiescence, a resigned look playing about his face.
“It’ll take time to spin up an operation of that magnitude,” he warned. “Call it�
�a week to get the gate into place, even longer to move the torus into position to transit. Are we going to use the same cover story we did last time, to conceal deGrasse’s existence?”
“Gate down for routine maintenance? Yes. Go ahead and have Leavitt Station post notices.” Cutter blanked the holo and sent Sullivan a steady look.
Sullivan straightened and stepped away, taking the hint. “Yes, sir. I’ll contact Toland immediately. We’ll get it done.”
* * *
Admiral Amara Toland’s wire implant flashed an incoming message on her heads-up display. She came to a halt when the overlay informed her of the person’s identity.
Wheeling, she headed back the way she came, a startled lieutenant jumping out of the way when she exited the officer’s mess.
As she strode down the passageway to her office, she instructed her wire implant to accept the transmission.
{Good afternoon, sir,} she began, but the NSA’s assistant director brushed aside her greeting, cutting right to the point.
{We’re mobilizing deGrasse.} Sullivan’s words were blunt. {You have gate priority. How quickly can you make it to the Procyon heliopause?}
Toland’s lips pressed together at this. It wasn’t the decision to mobilize that surprised her. After all, the probe had been a deGrasse project, its findings forwarded from her offices to the NSA.
The swift response, though—that was a bit unexpected.
Then again, she thought with a wry laugh, Duncan Cutter’s never been one to shy away from decisive action before. Why’d I expect anything different now?