He yelped as he slammed his head into the overhead bunk, the pain snapping him back to reality. Kevin was on the deck, hissing loudly as he kicked and beat at the air like an oversized spider. Colin stared, unsure what to do. The stimulants in his pack, the drugs they’d been cautioned not to use unless they were desperate, were intended for human use only. At best, they’d be completely useless if he injected them into the alien; at worst, they’d kill him. Colin cursed the uniformed politicians under his breath as he stood and stumbled towards Kevin. How did one help an alien through jump shock? They didn’t even have a workable sedative!
Something else to put in the report, he thought, sourly. We need ...
He ducked a wildly-flailing fist and caught hold of the alien, pushing him onto the deck. Kevin had a gangly look, as if whoever had designed him didn’t quite know what he was doing, but he was surprisingly strong. Colin gritted his teeth and held him down, all too aware the alien wasn’t in his right mind. Hitting a superior officer was a serious offence, even if one used the term officer lightly. There’d been a skit once about a private who’d attacked a senior officer and discovered, too late, that he’d attacked the one and only officer who’d actually earned his medals. It had been hilarious, at the time. It wasn’t so funny now.
“It’s alright,” he said, although he wasn’t sure it was true. Kevin’s teeth were snapping at the air. They looked sharp enough to bite through a human arm. “I’ve got you.”
He glared at the rest of the platoon as they staggered to their feet. The sergeant was going to kill them ... probably. Colin had no illusions about what would have happened if they’d stumbled back to base drunk off their heads, unsure if they’d made it back in time, but here ... he shook his head. They’d known jump shock would be bad. The sergeant was probably suffering the effects himself.
Kevin stared up, blearily. His eyes rolled, peering in different directions. Colin couldn’t help feeling a twinge of unease, as if he was in the presence of something unnatural. Kevin and he were practically brothers, compared to their races and the virus, and yet ... they were two different species. And Kevin was completely alone. There was no one for hundreds of light years who’d understand him.
“Most Highest Lord,” Kevin said. “General ...”
“Corporal,” Colin corrected. The poor bastard was coming out of it, but it would be a while before he completely recovered. “We do all the real work around here.”
The alien blinked at him. Colin silently kicked himself. It was no time for jokes ... although, he had to admit, calling a corporal a general was pretty funny. Somehow, he didn’t think the major would be too amused. He let go of Kevin and stood, silently daring the rest of the platoon to say something. They looked as dazed and unsure of themselves as Colin himself. None of them were in any state for a fight.
“Fuck,” Willis muttered. “What was I drinking last night?”
“My head feels like there’s a Frenchman living in it,” Davies finished.
“Stow that chatter,” Colin ordered. His eyes swept the compartment. “If any of you lot need the medics, say so now or forever hold your peace.”
“Hold your piece,” Willis said, with a giggle. “That’s funny.”
Colin helped Kevin to his feet, then checked the display. The battlecruiser - and the rest of the fleet - appeared to be safe, for the moment. There was no immediate danger, as far as he could see. The rest of the marines would be recovering, probably stumbling to the exercise compartments unless their services were required elsewhere. Colin hoped they wouldn’t be needed. His hands felt as if they’d cramped up, to the point he couldn’t so much as operate a datapad. He prayed, silently, that it wouldn’t be permanent. He didn’t like the thought of being invalided out of the marines.
“We’ll go put in an hour or so on the machines,” he said. “Some exercise will do us all good.”
He ignored the handful of good-natured complaints as the platoon opened the hatch and started down the corridor. That was a good sign, he supposed. If they were complaining, nothing was actually wrong with them. Probably. He kept a wary eye on Kevin as they made their way into the exercise compartment. The alien seemed to have taken the jump shock badly. There’d been no way to know what to expect, of course, but Colin still felt as if he’d failed. It would have been wiser, perhaps, to sedate Kevin before the jump.
If we had a working sedative, he reminded himself. The xenospecialists hadn’t focused on the Vesy, when it came to devising alien medicines. Anyone with any skill in the field was trying to devise a vaccine against viral infection and possession. Colin understood the logic, but it was hard not to resent it. We don’t know what we have to do if he gets really hurt.
He made a face. He’d taken courses in battlefield medicine, of course. He knew what to do if one of his comrades got hit. He’d even studied the files on Vesy biology, although he was grimly aware he’d barely scratched the surface. The Vesy themselves had barely scratched the surface. Reading between the lines, he’d had the impression they hadn’t known much about how their bodies worked until they’d made contact with humanity. And the xenospecialists had been severely hampered by their reluctance to force the Vesy to let themselves be studied.
We’ll just have to do what seems best, he thought, glumly. And hope it works.
***
Susan had never been a fan of alcohol. Her father had banned her from touching the stuff, as a girl, and she’d never had the funds to indulge herself as she grew into a young woman. Her one experience with getting drunk had been enough to convince her not to do it again and yet ... she felt, now, as if she’d been bullied into drinking enough cheap rotgut to kill herself. She rubbed her forehead, remembering how the girls of Hanover Towers had celebrated their eighteenth birthdays. That wretched Ethel had forced her to drink ...
She shook her head. “Report!”
“The fleet is coming back to life, Admiral,” Richardson said. He looked surprisingly unbothered by the jump shock. “However, right now, we appear to be operating at seventy percent of ...”
Susan nodded, cutting him off. The reports flitting across her display were all too clear. A handful of crewmen were dead and a number of others were in urgent need of medical treatment ... she wondered, sourly, just how the virus had intended to survive. The shock might have killed it outright, except it wasn’t the first time it had used a catapult. It had to have some kind of solution ... perhaps its mentality was just too big to feel much in the way of shock. Or maybe it was just quicker at recovering than the average human.
“We’re safe, for the moment,” she said. The display was clear. There was nothing within attack range, unless the virus had invented a whole new line of cloaking devices. “But that will change.”
Her eyes narrowed as she studied the tramlines. The captured files insisted there was a major alien settlement on the far side. It was only a matter of time before someone popped their heads through the tramline, if only because they were using the desolate system as a shortcut to somewhere more populated. Susan had few illusions. The fleet could go straight back into cloak now and still risk detection, given how much energy they’d been pumping out. And it was quite possible the virus had picketed the system. Human navies kept a watchful eye on systems adjacent to their core systems, just in case. The virus might have the same tactical doctrine.
“Order Unicorn to make transit and confirm our survey data,” she said. “And prepare two more frigates to follow in her footsteps.”
“Aye, Admiral,” Richardson said.
Susan nodded, returning her attention to the status display. The fleet was recovering, but was it recovering quickly enough? They were in no state for a fight ... she glanced at the starchart, silently calculating how long it would take the virus to mobilise a reaction force. It was impossible to come up with any solid figures. They were deep in the enemy rear. It was quite possible the virus didn’t have any heavy forces on standby, ready to react to a potential threat ...
She leaned back in her chair, feeling every one of her fifty years as her fleet came back to life. They’d been lucky, luckier - perhaps - than they’d deserved. They’d taken one hell of a risk. She rubbed her forehead, wishing she could go for a nap. Her body clock insisted that she’d been awake for days, even though she knew it wasn’t true. She would start seeing things soon enough.
“Admiral, the remainder of the fleet command network is back online,” Richardson said, calmly. “All units report ready for action.”
“We’ll wait for Unicorn,” Susan said. She understood the value of aggression, but she disliked the idea of jumping blind. They’d done quite enough of that already. Besides, she couldn’t come up with any real operational plans until she got a picture of what was waiting for her. “And then we’ll decide how to proceed.”
She stood, telling herself she needed to move. There was nothing for her to do, not until they engaged the enemy. Her staff had the CIC under control. She issued orders for them to alert her if something happened, then stepped through the hatch into her office. There was no sign of her steward. She’d told him to stay in his cabin, at least until the jump was completed. She poured herself a mug of coffee - she’d known officers who would have been horrified at the thought of pouring their own coffee - and sat at her desk. The warm liquid made her feel better ...
Her eyes narrowed as she studied the starchart. They were alone, hundreds of light years from the nearest friendly star. And there was no way to hop back ... they’d have to fight their way home. She shivered, suddenly feeling the weight of command crashing down on her. She was the fleet’s commanding officer, completely alone ... she was alone. She relished the challenge and yet she quailed at the thought of everyone relying on her. She hadn’t been so alone since her stint on a survey vessel. And she hadn’t had to worry about hostile aliens then.
But this time I have an entire fleet under my command, she told herself. She switched the display to tactical view and studied the fleet. The formation looked ragged, but she knew it would be effective if they ran into the enemy. And we have enough firepower to give the enemy a very hard time indeed.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Transit completed, Captain,” Lieutenant Sam Hinkson said. “The drive is recycling now.”
Mitch nodded, stiffly. His head still felt fragile, but a quick power nap and a bite to eat had done wonders. He was going to pay for the stimulant later, yet that had been deferred. For the moment. Staci was already keeping an eye on him, ready to insist he went to his cabin when the after-effects finally began to bite. Mitch hoped they’d wait a few hours longer. He needed to be on the bridge as they began their mission.
“Sensors,” he said. “Report?”
Lieutenant Hannah Avis looked pale, although she’d taken the jump better than most. “The system is big, Captain,” she said. “There are a lot of sensor emissions.”
Mitch bit down the urge to make a sharp remark about Underling’s Basic Descriptive Inability Syndrome. “How big is it, compared to Earth?”
“I’d say the system is bigger than Earth,” Hannah said. “It’s on roughly the same scale as Tadpole Prime.”
“Fuck,” Staci said, quietly.
Mitch understood. Tadpole Prime was the most heavily-industrialised system in known space. Earth came close - and he’d been told there was more redundancy built into Earth’s industrial halo - but the Tadpoles still had the edge. It helped, he supposed, that they hadn’t spent an awful lot of time trying to outdo or simply kill each other. And yet ... his eyes narrowed as the display started to tighten up. There were so many energy signatures around a single world - and one of the gas giants - that it looked as if the entire planet was encased in a globe of industrial nodes.
His mind raced. Earth’s industrial base was spread across the system. The asteroid belt housed a sizable number of industrial nodes, as well as mining stations and independent habitats. There were larger stations orbiting the gas giants as well as Earth herself. He’d been told it helped make life harder for anyone attacking the planet, although he wasn’t sure that had worked out so well in practice. It was also hard for the defenders to cover each and every potential target. The virus had gone the other way. It had concentrated everything on a couple of planets. There was no way to be sure, but it looked as though the asteroid stations were nothing more than mining camps.
“Helm, take us closer,” he ordered, grimly. “But keep us well clear of their sensor platforms.”
He frowned as Unicorn started to glide deeper into the system, the sheer scale of the virus’s activity becoming all too clear. The virus hadn’t given a damn about the risks of massing so much industry above a habitable world. It looked as if it had practically turned the world into ... into something. There were three orbital towers and dozens of space elevators, including a number that had been established well clear of the equator. Mitch had seen plans for turning uninhabitable planets into giant factories, but they’d always struck him as pointless. Why bother when it was easier to establish the factories near the asteroids? The virus, it seemed, disagreed.
“Captain,” Hannah said, breaking into his thoughts. “Please, could I deploy probes?”
Mitch frowned. The probes were designed to be stealthy, and he knew from experience that they were very hard to spot, but the entire planet was practically glowing with sensor emissions. The probes might be detected, through inference if nothing else; they might alert the enemy to the fleet’s presence. Assuming, of course, the enemy didn’t already know the fleet was there. Mitch wanted to think the virus was ignorant, but he didn’t dare count on it.
“Keep them a safe distance from the planet,” he ordered. “And make sure they’re as powered down as possible.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Mitch kept his eyes on the display as more and more data flowed into the sensors. The planet’s mobile defences were strong, centred on a sizable force of battleships and heavy cruisers. There were no carriers, but Mitch was fairly sure the orbital battlestations were crammed with starfighters as well as missile tubes and energy weapons. The virus seemed to be far more paranoid than any other known race, although Mitch conceded it had good reason to be concerned. Anyone who deduced its true nature wouldn’t hesitate to sterilise an infected world. Alien-One had been reduced to radioactive ruins a decade ago.
His skin crawled as he studied the planet. The world had been habitable, once. Now ... it was all too clear the atmosphere was deadly. The virus was everywhere. The planet itself was practically alive, seas and clouds teeming with viral particles ... he felt sick, just looking at the reports. There weren’t as many details as he’d hoped, but he didn’t need them to know the danger. Anyone who set foot on the world without a suit of heavy-duty armour would be turned into a zombie within hours.
And if they did wear armour, he thought, the zombies would tear it off them.
The sheer scale threatened to make even him quail. He was looking at a giant living thing, a single mind in billions of bodies ... no, a single body composed of billions ... his head hurt just trying to think about it. The flashes of light within the storm might be part of the virus’s mentality or ... he shook his head. How could they fight something so big? It was beyond them, beyond anyone. It was hard to believe the BioBombs would be effective. The virus was just too big.
We can kill it, he told himself. It might be powerful, and alien, but it isn’t God.
“Captain,” Staci said. “How close do you intend to go?”
Mitch shrugged. They’d noted and logged all the industrial nodes. The virus had dragged hundreds of asteroids into high orbit, strip-mined them for raw materials and finally turned them into more orbital nodes. He could see a dozen shipyards, concentrated rather than spread out; he could see a handful of ships in varying stages of construction. It was hard to be sure, but the operational tempo looked impressive. He
tried to tell himself that the virus didn’t need to worry about such things as life support, computer datanets and everything else the human race needed to keep its ships running, but it wasn’t convincing. It wasn’t good news either. The virus could churn out more ships if it didn’t have to worry about the fiddly little details.
“We’ll make one final sweep from a distance, then check out the gas giant,” he said. He’d once read a proposal to ignite a gas giant and turn it into a sun. It had proven impractical, from what he could recall, but the idea had lingered. It would make one hell of a weapon, he’d thought at the time. And it would make taking out the industrial node a great deal easier. “And then we’ll return home.”
Unless we find something that demands closer inspection, he thought. The roiling storms pervading the planet’s atmosphere hid a great deal of the surface. Who knew what lurked beneath those clouds? What little they could see wasn’t encouraging. The virus didn’t seem to care about fouling its own nest. Or they realise we’re watching.
Fighting For The Crown (Ark Royal Book 16) Page 20