Colin swallowed. “Fuck.”
Bowman met his eyes. “What do you intend to do?”
“I don’t know,” Colin said, in frustration. “I really don’t know.”
“So you keep saying,” Bowman said. “Here are your options. You can do nothing. You can seek him out and apologise. And you can … well? Is there anything else you can do?”
“… No,” Colin said. “Unless I ask for a transfer.”
“You’d better come up with a damn good reason,” Bowman said. “You are nowhere near important enough to request a transfer, not yet.”
Colin smiled. “My sergeant thinks I’m a lout?”
“Hah,” Bowman said. “That’ll get you a lecture from the CO, not a transfer. You want my advice?”
“Yes,” Colin said. “I came to ask for advice.”
“Send him an email. Apologise to him. Have as little as possible to do with him afterwards. You’re in different departments. You don’t need any interaction outside actual combat, where I expect you to handle yourself like a mature professional. You didn’t ask to meet him onboard ship and I’m sure he didn’t ask to meet you either. One of you will be transferred off, soon enough. And then let the matter rest.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Colin said. “But … what if he refuses to accept my apology?”
Bowman raised his bushy eyebrows. “And you think you have the right to force him to accept your apology?”
“No, Sergeant.” Colin felt his cheeks heat. “I just want to put it behind me.”
“I’m sure he feels the same way too,” Bowman said. “Make your apology, then let it go.”
“I should try to find a way to make it up to him,” Colin said. “I can’t just let it go.”
Bowman snorted. “Are you going to beat yourself up? Maybe give yourself a black eye? Or pound on the bulkhead until you smash every bone in your hand? Or … or what? If you were a total wanker to him, do you honestly think there’s any chance to make it up to him? Do you honestly think there’s any way you can?”
He shrugged. “And seeing you came back early, you can help me with the paperwork,” he said. There was a wry sparkle in his eye. “It should quench any dreams you have of becoming a sergeant.”
“Yes, sergeant,” Colin said. “Is this a cunning plan to keep me from trying to get your job?”
“Oh, bugger, you’ve found me out,” Bowman teased. “You’re officer material for sure.”
“Thanks,” Colin said, sardonically.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Thomas didn’t feel much rested as he was escorted through the security screening and into the admiral’s office. The two days after the party had been marred by discussions with his wife that had turned into arguments, mostly over trivial matters. Lady Charlotte had expected him to stay longer, even though he was no longer the master of his own fate. The days when he could take a day or two away from his duties at short notice were gone. They’d died when he’d assumed command of Lion.
And if I kept pretending I could leave whenever I liked, he thought, I’d return home to find the airlock hatch closed.
He smiled humourlessly as he looked around the office. Admiral Onarina sat at a table, flanked by another admiral and a civilian Thomas didn’t recognise. Captain Campbell sat facing her … Thomas felt a sudden stab of paranoia, wondering if Campbell had been summoned ahead of time. That boded ill … he told himself, firmly, that he was being ridiculous. He’d been in the navy long enough to know that passing through the endless security checks could take longer than anyone intended. Captain Campbell might just have arrived a little earlier than he had. Admiral Onarina nodded to him, then waved to an empty seat. It seemed that informality was the order of the day.
Thomas sat, schooling his face into a bland mask. Captain Campbell was lowest-ranking person at the table, unless one counted the civilian, yet he seemed unfazed by being the low man on the totem pole. Thomas almost envied him. He was all too aware that saying the wrong thing to the wrong person could come back to bite him, often so much later that it was hard to draw the line between the act and the consequences. Admiral Onarina tapped a switch on a datapad - the hatch locked, loudly enough to startle Thomas - then smiled at the junior officers. Thomas had the uneasy impression of a shark making its way towards an unwary swimmer.
“Thank you for coming,” Admiral Onarina said. She activated the holographic projector, displaying an image of a blue-green world. “Brasilia.”
“I take it we’re paying it a visit,” Captain Campbell said.
Thomas wanted to bite his head off for speaking out of turn. Admiral Onarina seemed unfazed.
“Quite.” Admiral Onarina adjusted the display, pulling back until the entire system was clearly visible. “Brasilia was discovered roughly thirty years ago and claimed by Brazil, which embarked upon a full-scale terraforming and settlement project. The wars slowed colonisation down a little, which caused a multitude of minor problems, but matters were proceeding apace until this war began. The virus invaded and infected the system shortly after it began its push into human space and … well, as far as we know, there’s no one left uninfected. Recon sweeps through the system revealed no hint of surviving uninfected colonists.”
“They could be lying doggo,” Captain Campbell said.
“Yes,” Admiral Onarina agreed. “But, as far as we know, there are no uninfected people on the surface. Worse” - her eyes narrowed - “the planet’s atmosphere is uniquely good for the virus, a threat we didn’t anticipate until it was too late. If anyone survived the first landings and infections, they’d have to be pretty much permanently in environmental suits if they wanted to remain uninfected.”
Thomas shivered. He’d grown up in a world where there was very little privacy, unless one wanted to go completely off the grid, but this was an order of magnitude worse. The idea that one could be infected, in a single moment of carelessness, and turned into a soulless monster was terrifying. Anyone left on the planet would have to remain underground and hope for the best, knowing it would never come. Given time, the virus could grind down resistance and eventually obliterate it.
“There’s a possibility the virus might be studying the terraforming stations,” the other admiral said. “It may be trying to figure out how to alter Earth’s atmosphere.”
“Shit,” Thomas said, quietly. “If it tries … can we stop it?”
“We don’t know.” Admiral Onarina looked pensive. “We’ve built up quite a body of expertise in terraforming and weather modification, but … no one’s ever tried to terraform a planet like Earth. Small modifications - the introduction of human-compatible plants and animals - are as far as we’ve ever gone. Full-fledged tectonic adjustments and suchlike were formally banned, after we started to exploit the tramlines. Thankfully” - her lips thinned until they were almost invisible - “the virus would practically have to win the war before it could start heating the atmosphere, melting the icecaps and whatever else it would have to do to alter the atmosphere.”
“Thank God for that,” Captain Campbell muttered.
Admiral Onarina smiled. “The interesting fact about this system is that it is actually somewhat isolated from the remainder of pre-war space. The neighbouring systems are practically useless, at least to the Great Powers. The virus doesn’t seem to have shown much interest in any of them, beyond blasting a handful of colonies and driving others underground. Given the system’s location, we think the virus has decided the planet is unimportant and only deployed a handful of ships to the orbitals.”
Captain Campbell smiled. “A perfect target.”
“But meaningless, if the system is truly unimportant,” Thomas countered. “The virus could have downloaded everything from the terraforming stations by now.”
“Perhaps,” Admiral Onarina said. “The planet’s … oddities may actually work for us, as well as against us. Admiral Mason?”
The other admiral cleared his throat. “What I’m about to tell you is classifi
ed at the very highest levels,” he said. He looked around the same age as Admiral Onarina, with brown hair slowly turning to a darker hue. “If you breathe a word of it, before the mission is declassified, you will spend the rest of your lives in Colchester. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Thomas said.
Admiral Mason nodded. “We’ve been studying the virus from the moment Invincible made First Contact,” he said. “It’s a complex entity, easily the most complex … thing …. we’ve encountered. It actually seems to work a little like a distributed computer network, with subunits merging and separating without any issues at all … at least, as far as we’ve been able to determine. Worse … it doesn’t so much take over a host as it simply … builds its own control networks within the host’s body. It’s a little like attaching additional rockets to a starship and pushing it in the wrong direction.”
Captain Campbell leaned forward. “But it’s capable of … accessing information within the host’s brain.”
“Sometimes,” Admiral Mason agreed. “We’ve watched the process carefully. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. We’ve been trying to put together a biological defence, but - so far - we don’t have anything that will stop the infection without killing the host. Indeed … accidentally poisoning the host and killing him make it easier for the virus to take over the body.”
Admiral Onarina smiled. It didn’t touch her eyes. “You remember those cartoons about little people inside the human body, pulling on ropes and pushing buttons to make the muscles work? It’s a little like that.”
Thomas frowned. “You’ve been testing this on living people?”
“Some of them were infected when they were moved to Alpha Black,” Admiral Mason said, bluntly. “Others … were prisoners, who were on their way to the gallows when we offered them a chance to serve their country instead. They were going to die anyway.”
“That’s horrific.” Thomas felt sick. “I thought human experimentation was banned.”
“They were going to die anyway,” Admiral Mason repeated. “Would you like to see the files? Would you like to know what they did? I forced myself to view the files, all the evidence collected by the police before they were put in front of a jury, found guilty and sentenced to death. There was no doubt about their guilt.”
Thomas winced. “But …”
“But what?” Admiral Mason looked displeased. “Do you think we’d have done it if we’d had any other choice?”
“The decision was made by the War Cabinet,” Admiral Onarina said, sternly. “The remainder of GATO made similar choices. Continue.”
Admiral Mason took a moment to compose himself. “Like I said, we’ve been studying the process. Our attempts to create an effective vaccine have largely failed because the virus isn’t really a virus, not in any true sense. The old fear of us catching an alien version of the common cold and dropping dead, or vice versa, hasn’t really been realised. There’s little hope of producing proper antibodies because the virus doesn’t attack the human body directly. Instead, it builds its own control structures and takes over.”
“I’m sure that makes sense on some level,” Admiral Onarina said, dryly.
“It’s never easy to explain,” Admiral Mason said. “The point is, the virus isn’t quite part of the host body. It’s something that just happens to co-exist with it.”
“Like putting marines on a starship,” Captain Campbell said. “The marines are on the ship, but not part of the crew.”
“Close enough for government work.” Admiral Mason grinned at them. “Point is, in theory we can break the virus down without killing the host bodies. In theory … which we’re going to try to put into practice.”
Thomas felt a frisson of excitement, mingled with fear. “What do you have in mind?”
“We’ve been experimenting with the virus itself,” Admiral Mason said. “It took us some time, to be honest, to accept that we were dealing with a biological warfare problem on an unprecedented scale. The tailored viruses that got loose a century ago are nothing compared to the virus. It’s not only extremely aggressive, it’s adaptable and more interested in taking control - in turning itself into a parasite - than even the nastiest biological weapon. The most virulent biological weapons don’t spread far because they make their hosts ill very quickly, which reveals their presence. They burn themselves out. This one doesn’t.
His eyes hardened. “And it’s very nature may prove to be its weakness.
“We’ve been producing a modified version of the virus, a virus that preys on the virus. It spreads the same way as its unmodified cousin, but attacks the command and control structures the virus builds to control its hosts. As long as it has a steady supply of food, it keeps going; when it runs out of food, it starts to die. And the only thing it can eat is unmodified viral matter.”
“You made a virus intended to kill the virus,” Campbell said. “Sir … does it work?”
“We’ve tested it in the lab,” Admiral Mason told him. “It works.”
Thomas swallowed, hard. “And what happens to the host bodies?”
Admiral Mason looked grim. “It depends,” he said. “Based on our experiments, some return to themselves.”
“And some die,” Thomas said. Dull horror washed though him. “How many people are we going to condemn to death?”
“They’re going to die already,” Admiral Onarina said. “Do you think that anyone, anyone at all, would agree to risk committing genocide if they thought there was any other choice?”
Thomas stared at his hands. Biological weapons were an obscenity. He’d seen the records of the plagues that had washed over Africa and the Middle East, threatening to break through the defences and infect the civilised world. He hadn’t known - he hadn’t wanted to know - that Britain was experimenting with biological weapons. In hindsight, he’d honestly never thought about it. It should have been obvious. The only way to defend against biological weapons was to study them.
He looked up. “How many people are living on Brasilia?”
“Before the infection, there were over five hundred thousand registered settlers,” Admiral Onarina said, quietly. “Perhaps more. The records were never very good. Now … each and every one of them has been condemned to a living death. They’ll regard death as a mercy.”
“If we demonstrate the ability to hurt it, to really hurt it, perhaps we can force it to come to the table,” Captain Campbell said. “It must be able to talk to us. It simply doesn’t want to.”
“Wishful thinking,” Admiral Mason said. “We’ve never been able to open communications.”
Thomas shook his head. “What’s to stop it just copying our anti-infection protocols? There’s no way we can hide the infection, the counter-infection, from the virus. It would know what we’d done.”
“Nothing.” Admiral Mason smiled. “But it would have to practically shut down the biological datanet, if it wanted to keep the infection from spreading. Either way, we’d come out ahead.”
“Until it devises a counter,” Thomas said. “I’m not comfortable with committing genocide.”
“No one is,” Admiral Onarina said. “But, right now, we are faced with the uncomfortable choice between being the perpetrators or the victims of genocide. There is no way we can negotiate, there is no way we can surrender … defeat means the end of the universe. It will be the end.”
And if I refuse to carry out my orders, they’ll find someone else who will, Thomas thought, sourly. He knew the admiral was right. He just didn’t want to believe it. We must destroy the virus, or be destroyed in turn.
He cleared his throat. “What do you want us to do?”
Admiral Onarina smiled. “Operation Thunderchild,” she said, as she touched her datapad. A handful of lines appeared on the starchart. “Lion, Unicorn and a handful of other ships will proceed through the tramlines to Brasilia. You’ll engage the enemy ships and take control of the high orbitals, then land marines. They’ll deploy the BioBombs and secure a
handful of tactical positions on the surface, including the terraforming facilities. Ideally, the bombs will work and liberate the planet’s population.”
“And leave them in a state of shock, at best,” Thomas pointed out. “The virus has had four years, more or less, to burrow into their minds.”
“We know.” Admiral Onarina looked grim. “There’s nothing we can do to save them.”
“Fuck,” Thomas said. “Have we really fallen that far?”
“Yes.” It was the civilian who spoke. “The virus is maintaining its pressure on the defence lines. It’s only a matter of time until it breaks through and smashes its way to Earth. We’ve being doing what we can to ensure the war will go on, if Earth falls, but it isn’t enough. We just don’t have the resources to expand our industrial base while meeting the military’s demands. We are coming to the end of the line.”
“And so are our allies,” Admiral Mason said.
“Yes.” Admiral Onarina nodded. “The decision to deploy the BioBombs was not taken lightly, Captain. We see no other choice.”
Thomas said nothing for a long moment. He wasn’t blind to the implications. The biosphere that made the planet attractive to the virus would also make it attractive to the BioBombs, ensuring it would spread widely. It might not expand so far, or so fast, on Earth. And testing the BioBombs somewhere hundreds of light years away would safeguard the homeworld, if it turned out the BioBombs were as great a threat as the virus itself. And … he felt his stomach churn. The idea of condemning hundreds of thousands of people to death didn’t sit well with him. It was no consolation to tell himself that they were already trapped in a living hell and would welcome death.
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