Tau Ceti - The Phage

by M. D. Cooper

  the AI highlighted the route he wanted the cat to take.

  “Yesssssss,” the cat spoke audibly, his words part hiss, part growl.

  He squeezed past Logan’s frame and dropped, slithering around the propeller and then disappearing into the field below.

  Logan sent to Terrance and the medics, and only then did Marta realize that the profiler’s interaction with Beck had been limited to those inside the shuttle.

  She began to protest, but Logan held up a hand, waving her to the back of the craft and safely outside the range of any weapons fire.

  She watched tensely as Logan dropped a pin on the cat, tracking his progress. She knew the instant Terrance realized what Logan had done, because the exec inhaled sharply. But he could do nothing else without endangering the cat.

  As Marta watched, Beck crept ever closer, a silent wraith, sliding skillfully among the flowering plants, intuitively freezing each time a raider glanced his way, testament to the hunting prowess bred within his kind.

  she whispered.

  * * * * *

  The raider named Nev shoved Chilters toward Terrance and the other two medics. She stumbled forward, and George jumped to catch her before she fell. His movements caused the band of marauders to stiffen and swing their weapons to the man’s head.

  Terrance raised his hands in a placating gesture. “He was just catching her,” he assured them, making an effort to pitch his voice in a calm, unassuming tone.

  Kodi advised, sensing the same tension, almost desperation, emanating from their captors.

  Terrance was relieved to see the three medics nod slightly in assent.

  The raiders closed ranks, tightening their ring around those from the Eidolon. Their leader, standing shoulder to shoulder with the one called Nev, had just ordered McCone to open the airlock when Terrance heard Logan connect to the net.

  He heard Marta whisper her caution to Beck, and his focus snapped to the pin identifying the cat’s location. He felt a flash of fury at Logan’s use of the uplifted animal.

  he raged at Kodi as he tracked the cat’s progress.

  Kodi cautioned, and then Terrance sensed a momentary but rapid exchange between Kodi and Logan, before Logan spoke.

 

  Terrance was nearest to the nose of the shuttle, which placed him within arm’s length of the two nearest raiders. Based on Beck’s path, the cat had instinctively judged them to be the alphas of the pack and had made them his primary targets.

  Recalling Logan’s instructions, Terrance began to shift his weight away from the airlock, but the leader must have come by his shabby GSC jacket legitimately, for the pistol in the man’s hand swung unerringly toward Terrance.

  “Don’t,” the man warned. “All we want is your shuttle. Don’t try anything, and no one gets hurt.”

  Terrance spread his palms wide, using the gesture as an opportunity to take another step to one side, clearing the line of fire.

  Logan’s voice came over the net.
  A mental growl sounded inside Terrance’s head and a part of him marveled at the control it took for Beck to selectively choose to do so only via Link and not audibly. Another part of him doubted the cat’s willingness to comply with the AI’s directive.

  Terrance asked privately.

 

  Kodi was interrupted by Logan’s call.

 

  A loud, ripping snarl sounded behind the two men closest to Terrance, and the three medics dropped to the ground as Logan leapt through the airlock’s hatch, firing. At the same time, a blur of cream and white launched itself onto the shoulders of Nev, the man nearest Terrance, who felt blood spatter his face as the man's throat was torn out.

  Terrance bent to scoop up the weapon Nev had dropped, as Beck’s powerful hind legs launched him onto the leader. The man whirled, knife blade glinting, as his arm swept down toward Beck. The man was a moment too late; two-centimeter-long, needle-sharp claws raked through his face, gouging into the man’s eyes and slicing across his cheekbone, flaying it open.

  Terrance grabbed the rifle he’d just retrieved in both hands, thrusting it upward to block the knife’s trajectory; he then swung the weapon around, driving its stock into the man’s solar plexus.

  Beck had already propelled himself toward the next raider, when a sharp report caught him midleap. With a gurgled scream, the cat spun to the side and fell.

  The shot was answered by a short burst from Logan’s gun, and then the AI called out,

  Terrance raced toward the downed animal as he heard Marta cry, “Out of the way!”

  From the corner of his eye, he could see her charge down Eidolon’s ramp, triage kit in hand. She slid to a halt next to Terrance as he knelt by the inert form of the Proxima cat. Beck was panting, his eyes glazed. Terrance placed a comforting hand on the cat’s head and was surprised to feel a rusty purr begin.

  the cat whispered.

  “Doc….” Terrance looked up at her, a wordless question on his face.

  “Let’s take a look,” she said, and the cat flinched. “Easy, now.”

  Terrance looked up as McCone pulled him aside so that the medic could kneel next to Marta and assist.

 

  Logan’s voice was stark, and Terrance had to bite back a scathing retort.

  The AI had used the tools he’d had on hand; Terrance couldn’t fault him for that. He heard a note of remorse in Logan’s tone and knew the profiler was blaming himself for Beck’s injury.

  Kodi said.

  Terrance could feel the admiration emanating from Kodi, and admitted he felt much the same.

  he conceded. He knew his tone came out harsh, colored as it was with worry, and he felt bad when he heard Logan’s contrite words.

 

  Marta looked up. “Okay, I’ve got him stabilized. The shot went clean through his haunch. Let’s get him into the shuttle, where I can pack it with biofoam.”

  Kodi mused as they watched the medics move the cat up into the shuttle,

  Terrance snorted, bending down to secure one of the weapons dropped by the man Beck had blinded.

  A soft rustling in the lavender field had him spinning around, weapon raised—to come face to face with Khela Sakai.

  * * * * *

  Ramon had reported as the transport vehicle neared the lavender field where the Avon Vale’s shuttle had set down.

  Shit. The last thing they could afford was for one of those roaming bands of abandoned GSC soldiers to beat them to the landing site.

  she sent, and she heard the weariness in her own voice.

  Mentally, she shook it off, doing what she could to compartmentalize and focus on the immediate task at hand. The bands of soldiers had become an increasing problem, both for those in the Q-camps and for the three Marine Spec-Ops.

  At least they had
Spec-Ops teams to help combat these threats, thanks to Colonel Banks and the four teams he’d managed to smuggle dirtside.

  Khela knew they owed a lot to her former commanding officer, and it hurt to know he’d fallen victim to the nanophage that Reya deSangro had purposely injected into him to monitor its proliferation.

  The ripping snarl of a wildcat’s cry pierced the air, and the team froze at the unfamiliar noise. Moments later, the clamor of fighting echoed through the woods.

  Khela held up a hand.

  She crouched, approaching the nose of the craft low to the ground. She paused once to fist her free hand into the ground as one of Hana’s memory fragments washed over her. She groaned silently in frustration, shuddering as she rode the wave of double vision and vertigo brought on by her dead partner’s fragment.

  Lena grasped her shoulder and continued on, sending her a quick,

  The Marines on her team were inured to the random curveballs the phage threw at their infected team members, and they picked up the slack as needed, knowing their compromised team member would reengage when he or she was able.

  Khela hated being made vulnerable. She knew it was just a matter of time before the phage would strike at a critical moment when her people needed her most.

  Her vision cleared, and she resumed her crawl, joining Lena as the woman crouched, watching a few of the shuttle’s crew restrain the raiders they had evidently just disarmed, while an AI in a combat frame bent to pick up the corpse of—

  Xiao’s voice drawled over the net.

  she agreed.

  Ramon advised.

  Khela sent a mental nod his way, and then rose from among the lavender bushes and strode silently forward to meet them.

  The man she’d tagged as their leader had been kneeling, helping to tend what looked like a wounded animal of some sort. She studied him as he rose, helping steady the animal the medics lifted. He turned his head and watched intently as they carried the animal toward the shuttle’s hatch.

  He was broad in the shoulders and muscular, blonde hair trimmed into a neat, almost military cut. He bent to retrieve a weapon, his back still to her, and she could tell by his motions that the man had seen battle before. She thought about clearing her throat to give herself away as she approached, but before she could do so, the man whirled, and she found herself staring down the barrel of a pulser.

  She raised her dark eyes to meet his icy blue ones and smiled crookedly at the blond man. He was rather pleasant to look at, and the thought flitted through her mind that she, on the other hand, was not.

  The instant he sighted on her, something shifted behind his eyes, and they switched from a cold blue to something much warmer as he straightened. She could have sworn he breathed her name as he lowered his weapon—but that was impossible. He couldn’t know who she was, could he? She’d never seen this man before; she would certainly have remembered him if she had.

  Lena, standing by her side, had brought up her weapon as swiftly as the man had, but when he lowered his pulser, she did not follow suit.

  That had better not be pity I see in his eyes, Khela thought defiantly as she lifted her chin in challenge.

  He responded with a smile as he took a step toward her, ignoring the threat Lena’s weapon posed to him.

  “You are Khela Sakai?” the man asked.

  His voice was deep, his words polished, and he tilted his head in inquiry as he spoke.

  “If you know that, then you know my father sent me to escort you—and the formation material we so desperately need,” she added, with a glance at the shuttle, “to meet him at the bunker.”

  She signaled her team forward, and her Marines stepped out from behind the craft.

  “We do indeed.”

  The voice of the man standing before her did funny things to her stomach, and for the first time in a long while, she felt the unfamiliar urge to lean on another human being and let them help carry her burdens.

  The man’s eyes warmed even more.

  “I’m Terrance Enfield. We’ve come to help.”

  * * * * *

  Terrance was surprised at the immediate attraction he felt toward the woman standing before him. He’d been intrigued by her image back on the ship, but the holo somehow hadn’t captured the intensity behind those eyes, despite the shadows he saw—both in their depths and smudging the hollows beneath them. The woman looked like she’d been through hell and back, and yet she held herself with a strength that defied anything and anyone to get the better of her.

  Her BDU-underlayer had clearly merged with her body—covering almost all but her hands and the right side of her hairless head at this point. From certain angles, she almost appeared to be a hominid combat drone, with the underlayer having reinforced joints and musculature.

  But his gaze was drawn back to the deep pools of her eyes and the mix of dignity and steely resolve within, and he was amazed that she was unbowed by her circumstance.

  He holstered his weapon as Kodi whistled inside his head.

 

  He gestured her toward the shuttle’s ramp as he tapped a finger against his temple. “I’d like to introduce you to my partner, Kodi,” he said, and breathed a little easier when he heard the AI’s polite hello.

  He thought Khela’s expression might have clouded briefly, but decided he was mistaken when she gazed steadily back at him with a small smile.

  “Hello, Kodi. Nice to meet you.”

  He saw an icon appear, inviting the woman next to him to join their shipnet as Kodi responded,

  Terrance’s eyes strayed to the shuttle as they approached. “We weren’t sure how long it would take you to get here, nor how hard the GSC might work to try to locate us,” he explained, reaching out to finger the ghillie netting.

  She merely nodded, letting her gaze sweep once again over the field in which they’d landed.

  “Xiao,” she nodded to one of her men, “double-check the field, please, and make sure there is nothing that will identify this area as a landing site.”

  “Aye, Cap’n,” the man said and then turned smartly and began to jog down the length of the field.

  Terrance opened his mouth to explain that had already been done, then thought better of it. No harm in one last check, he thought.

  “What’s your recommendation for the safest place to hide our shuttle?” he asked as he gestured for her to precede him up the ramp.

  Khela paused, considering, her eyes sweeping the tree-ringed field. She looked up at the canopy Terrance had brought the shuttle to rest under, and nodded thoughtfully to herself.

  “Nice job, getting her tucked into the trees like this,” she murmured, and Terrance felt absurdly pleased at the compliment. “I’d say this is as good as any, to be honest. We’re only about a fifteen-minute hike from my father’s camp.”

  Terrance shot her a surprised look, and she shrugged. “We weren’t in the camp when he notified us of your arrival. We were out delivering supplies to one of the Q-camps.”

  Kodi’s voice queried, and Khela’s mouth twisted as her eyes flashed with what he suspected was an expression of bitter rage before she suppressed it.

  “The quarantine camps where the ring banished all AIs—and anyone suspected of being either a carrier or a victim,” she said, her tone flat. “There are sixteen locations, ringing the outskirts of what was once Hokkaido, the city at the base of our main elevator.”


  “I’d like to hear more about that,” Terrance said as gently as he could, able to tell that all of this was quite painful for her.

  Khela canted her head as she ducked inside the shuttle’s cabin. “I’ll tell you,” she agreed, “once we’re on our way.”

  She passed Logan as the AI’s mech frame stood guard at Eidolon’s hatch, and Terrance paused to introduce them.

  “Logan, this is Captain Sakai, Noa’s daughter. Khela, this is Logan. He’s our head of security, and a former El Dorado Space Force intelligence officer.”

  The two exchanged nods, and then Terrance saw Khela’s eyes sharpen as they landed on the sleekly-furred and now-stirring form Marta was bent over.

  “That’s Doctor Marta Venizelos, and her patient there is Becquerel. ‘Beck’, for short,” Terrance informed the Marine.

  the cat grumbled as he lifted his head and struggled to sit.

  Khela’s startled eyes flew to Terrance, and he chuckled as he knelt next to the cat.

  Glancing up at her, he added, “Beck’s been uplifted. Although,” he turned to glower at the injured animal, “after what he just did, I seriously question his intelligence. What were you thinking, buddy?” he asked, knuckling the top of the cat’s head.

  The cat released a sound that sounded halfway between a growl and a purr as he butted Terrance’s hand.

  “Well, no more of that, you understand?”

  the cat muttered, and Terrance slid the profiler a glance as Marta shot Logan a scowl.

  “Yes, he was conscripted, against my better judgement,” the doctor retorted, reaching once more for Beck, who yipped and twisted as she resettled the regen gel pack over his flank. “No walking about just yet, understood?” she remonstrated the big cat.

  The cat’s grumbled complaint startled a short laugh out of Khela.

  Terrance sent her a commiserating smile. “Takes a bit of getting used to,” he admitted, standing and gesturing to the rest of the team. “The rest of these fine folks are medical volunteers who offered to come and help your father.”