The Aggressive (Book 1 of the Titanwar saga): A science fiction thriller

by Gem Jackson

  Ramachandran smiled. “What a good question. I’m glad you asked. What do you know of heavy water?”

  “It’s like normal water but heavier?”

  “That’s funny, agent Long. Normal water consists of one hydrogen atom and two atoms of oxygen. Yes?” Tem nodded. “Well heavy water is very similar but contains a proportion of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen. So instead of normal H2O, you get ²H2O, D2O. Still happy?”

  “Absolutely not. But I’ll take your word for it. Why is this important?” asked Tem.

  “I’m getting to that.” She furrowed her brow before continuing. “Despite being chemically different, heavy water is almost indistinguishable from the normal stuff to anyone using or consuming it in an ordinary manner. Particularly because a large dose here or there, providing the stuff was pure enough, wouldn’t do the slightest bit of harm. You see, in humans heavy water doesn’t become toxic until it makes up a very significant proportion of your own body water.”

  “What sort of proportion?”

  “Well, let’s say if you replace twenty-five percent of your body fluid with heavy water you’ll probably become infertile. But that’s long term. Immediate effects on health won’t become noticeable until forty to fifty percent of body fluid is replaced.”

  “So what happens then?”

  “Indeed. What happens then? This is the interesting bit. At this stage a person would begin to suffer from cytotoxic poisoning. That’s when cells start to break down. They necrotise and die. Cell walls lose integrity. They stop dividing. In other words, the body begins to collapse from within. Patients will start losing hair. They will bloat as water begins to accumulate outside of cells. The organs begin to collapse, causing vomiting and internal bleeding.”

  “That’s radiation sickness. You’re describing radiation sickness.”

  “Yes, and no. It would appear to be radiation sickness, but for the fact that heavy water is not radioactive. It sometimes contains radioactive elements, if not sufficiently purified, but in itself it brings about the effects of radiation poisoning without any increase in radiation.”

  “Fucking hell. That’s it. It has to be.”

  “It could be. If you can explain how anyone convinced an entire spaceship crew to consume enough heavy water. Remember, you can drink litres of this stuff to no ill effect.”

  “Fuck, you’re right. How long would it take to replace half your body fluid with that stuff?”

  Ramachandran paused, eyes flickering upwards as she thought. “Assuming there were no other sources of drinking water, an average person might take anywhere between two weeks and a month. There’s so many variables, it’s difficult to be more precise than that.”

  “Fucking, motherfucker. He did it at Titan.” Tem collapsed backwards, covering her face with her hands.

  “Did what?”

  “The Enigma was scheduled for a turnaround at Titan. The logs show a routine flush and refill, I’m sure of it. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.” Tem shook her hands through her hair a few times and forced herself to focus. “Doctor, would this be plausible? If the entire drinking water stock of the Enigma were replaced with heavy water at Titan, undetected, the crew would not notice much until a few weeks into the return leg, which would put them—“

  “ —around Ceres.”

  “Yes, exactly, around Ceres. By this point increasing numbers of crew would be suffering from what appeared to be acute radiation sickness. But the anti-radiation protocols wouldn’t work, would they?”

  “Because it isn’t radiation sickness.” Ramachandran nodded encouragingly.

  “One or two well-placed saboteurs could easily remain exempt from the poisoning, by using their own supply of fluids. Hell, they could share drink after drink with the rest of the crew provided they kept it in moderation. Then, as the crew died off, they would have the ship. Fuck. Easy as that.”

  “You’re still missing a lot there, Long. How would they jam communications? How could so much heavy water be produced? How could it replace the Enigma’s supply at Titan? There are a lot of questions to be answered yet.”

  “Oh yes, you’re right about that. But this is the best lead we have. And the answers, well, they’ll be around Titan, if they’re anywhere.”

  Tem pressed two fingers to her neck. A hundred and ten beats per minute. Her heart was racing. This was it. She could feel it. She had him. They had him.

  “Doctor, we owe you.”

  “Yes, you do. You can start by getting your friend back with those drinks.”

  At that moment, there was a knock on the door.

  “Perfect timing,” said Tem.

  “Get that for me, will you?” asked Ramachandran. Tem heaved herself out of her seat and went to the door. She opened it to see two men waiting outside. Both young. Both large. Neither of them were Tariq.

  “Who the fuck are you?” asked one of them. He pushed Tem backwards, and they walked in, closing the door behind them. “I said, who the fuck are you?”

  His accent was familiar. She recognised it from McVeigh; Scottish with a Cerelean twang. He had some bulk to him. Some of it muscle, some not. His friend, who had taken up a position behind him, was smaller but looked considerably rougher round the edges. Both of them wore loose, dark clothing. It looked expensive. Their ears and wrists glittered with small, bright pieces of jewellery.

  “Boys, boys, come in!” Ramachandran swept over and guided them into the flat. “This is my niece. She’s come for a visit. She was just about to leave.” The boys looked at one another.

  “Your niece? She ain’t Indian doc. Are you fucking with us?”

  “I’m her brother’s girl,” Tem interjected, “My mother is Spanish. I took after her more than my father.” This seemed to satisfy them. Ramachandran continued to fuss.

  “Come through here and we can sort the stuff out,” she gestured to another room. Tem had seen enough drug deals to know what was going on. She returned to her seat and gathered up the few bits and pieces lying on the coffee table. She had what she needed. Now was as good a time to leave as any.

  She heard the door open again and looked up. It was Tariq. He shuffled in with two large bottles of spirits, one in each hand. Ramachandran noticed and looked. The boys noticed and looked. Tem was struck with the sinking realisation that every single person in the room was now wearing an expression of panic and guilt.

  “There’s two of them,” said the shorter one, almost to himself. The other one nodded slowly. “You think it’s the two that—”

  Ramachandran interrupted again, “Boys, we’ve got something to sort out, haven’t we? Through here?” She waved them frantically to the other room.

  “I think it can wait, Doc.” The two boys each took a gun out of their trousers and directed them towards Tem and Tariq. “Well, well. What do we have here?”

  “Apart from a cliché?” Tem rose to her feet, head cocked at the large man in front of her.

  “Everyone, this is a misunderstanding,” Ramachandran put herself between the larger man and Tem. “This is my niece and her fiancé. He’s brought drinks. Why don’t we—”

  Blood splattered across the floor, reaching as far as the wall, as the larger drug dealer whipped the gun across Ramachandran’s face. Tem instinctively took a step forward, fist cocked, and stared into the barrel of the firearm which had quickly been re-trained towards her. She held back the punch and opened her palm wide to indicate submission.

  “Shut the fuck up, Doc, we know exactly who we’ve got here.” His eyes flitted back and forth as he slowly joined the dots. “You two are with that Earth ship docked out there. You’re poking your noses around. We’ve heard about you two.”

  “Listen, we came to talk to Dr Ramachandran and we’ve done that,” said Tariq. He was using his best conciliatory tone. The smaller drug dealer had his gun pointed low at Tariq’s abdomen. “Let’s not make this anything more than it is.”

  It wouldn’t work. Tem had seen the flush of adren
aline hit the drug dealer in front of her seconds before. She saw his pulse rate through the visible throb of the jugular vein just to the left of his trachea. She estimated it to be close to one hundred and twenty, maybe thirty. His eyes were dilated. His forehead began to shine with sweat. He wasn’t holding himself in the relaxed way he had when he first walked into the flat. He was tense. On edge. Already his pain receptors would be dulled and his senses would be heightened. There was too much testosterone in the room for this to end peacefully. Still. It was nice of Tariq to try. He was always good like that.

  “I was looking forward to this visit, y’know? I was looking forward to seeing Doc again.” He glared at Ramachandran as he spoke. She was picking herself off the floor. Her head stayed low, staring at the floor, eyes hidden behind a veil of dishevelled silver hair.

  “Danny, they’ve finished,” Ramachandran gestured them to follow. “Come through with me. We can sort things out.” Tem could barely make out her voice. The bold, sardonic scientist had been replaced with someone smaller, humbled and scared. Tem had seen this before too. Far, far too often in her line of work. She knew drug dealers like this. She knew men like Danny. Danny, the drug dealer. Danny the rapist.

  “You see? She can’t get enough of me,” he leered at Ramachandran, grabbing his crotch with his free hand for emphasis. “She’s fucking rampant this one. The old ones, they love a bit of this. They do, they fucking love it. But who do we have here?” He focused on Tem. “You’re not exactly young yourself. I bet you’d love a bit of this cock, wouldn’t you? Yeah, I can see you thinking about it now.”

  “I can assure you, one hundred percent, that I’m not thinking about your cock.” She adjusted her footing, strengthening her pose. Things were reaching a crescendo.

  Ramachandran moved to put herself in front of Tem. “Danny, leave them alone, come on, come with me—” Danny flung his arm sideways fired the two gunshots into the wall. Tem winced as the percussive force of the noise enveloped her. As her nervous system returned bodily control, she saw Ramachandran had dropped to the floor, huddling beside her as Danny raged.

  “For fuck's sake you stupid bitch! Stay down and shut up. Harvey, keep him covered. No chances. He moves? He dies.” His silent accomplice raised his gun to Tariq’s head.

  “You come with me. And you’ll stay quiet if you know what’s good for you.”

  Danny grabbed Tem’s forearm tight and went to yank her away. Tem resisted, not moving an inch. Danny stumbled awkwardly, not expecting that level of resistance and unable to pull Tem’s arm more than a millimetre or two.

  “What the fuck?” His eyes widened.

  Tariq spoke out, “Don’t put up a fight. It’ll only end up worse. Just take it easy, okay?”

  Tem snorted.

  “What’re you laughing at? You should listen to your friend. Fighting is only gonna make it worse—”

  Tariq interrupted him, “No, you don’t understand. I’m not talking to her. I’m talking to you. You’re in a bad spot right now. Don’t make things worse.”

  A number of things happened in rapid succession. Tem rolled her wrist around, breaking Danny’s grip and replacing it with her own grasp of his forearm. She pulled him effortlessly towards herself catching his other arm as she did so. With a quick adjustment she had firm hold of both arms. She held him where the forearm met the wrist, both limbs pulled together, forcing his elbows uncomfortably close. In this position he could only maintain a limp hold of the gun, pointing upwards between them in front of his face. Happy with the manoeuvre, she glanced towards Tariq and saw exactly what she expected; he was now in possession of the other gun. Tariq held it pointing towards the back of his Harvey's head whilst maintaining a painful-looking arm lock.

  “Tem, let’s make it quick. We have places to be.” He was breathing heavily, but otherwise looked comfortable. Ramachandran had taken the opportunity to scuttle away to the side of the room. She sat low, knees drawn up protectively.

  “Oh, we won’t be long. Don’t worry, Tariq. But first I want to have a chat with Danny here.” She squeezed the soft flesh inside his wrists, building pressure until she felt the pop of meat and gristle collapsing beneath her fingers. Danny screamed and dropped the gun. It fell heavily onto the carpeted floor.

  “You were going to rape me, weren’t you Danny? You are a rapist, right?” He struggled hard, twisting and heaving to break away. It didn’t work.

  “Fuck you.” He tried kicking at Tem’s shins, but each time he went to do so Tem could feel him shift his balance. She merely twisted his upper body this way or that way, breaking his momentum and leaving his legs flailing pathetically in the air. With him like this she was, to all intents and purposes, holding him up.

  “It wasn’t enough for you on its own though was it, Danny? To rape me. You needed me to be scared. You needed me to know what you were going to do. Does it give you a thrill, that fear? Do you come harder that way?” By now he was like an animal. He thrust his head towards Tem’s knuckles and snapped at them, trying in vain to bite down.

  “Now I want you to know what I’m going to do to you,” she continued. “I’m going to break your arms and wrists, Danny. I’m going to snap them. In about one minute. It’s going to hurt. You see, your wrists will flex and extend up and down quite easily.” She flapped his hands back and forth as she might if playing a game with a toddler. “I could pull or push your wrists to anywhere between seventy and ninety degrees without any discomfort on your part, this way. But you see this movement here? How I’m pushing your thumb up towards the towards the inside of your elbow? That’s called radial deviation. You can manage about twenty degrees without any discomfort. Any more than that and it’s really going to hurt. The human body is not meant to bend like that. Let’s start, shall we?”

  She located her thumbs firmly into the base of his hands, at the bottom of his little fingers and applied pressure manipulating the hand away from the ulna. He resisted for mere seconds. Grunting and staring her straight in the eye as if it were a battle of wills. She allowed that to continue for a moment before pressing harder and harder. The grunting became a painful wincing and finally the panic set in as he understood just how serious she was and exactly what was about to happen. He shrieked and pulled and pushed. He kicked and lost his footing, his legs collapsing onto the floor, yet still Tem held him up, pressing and pressing and pressing. She leaned into the hold, felt the radius of each arm splinter and crack beneath the skin. She felt the ulnas on the opposite side of the wrists become torn away from their connective tissue. At some point Danny had passed out.

  “Have you quite finished?” asked Tariq.

  Tem sighed and let the drug dealer fall to the ground. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “What are we going to do with this one?” Tem shrugged noncommittally at him. “Fair enough, two more broken arms it is. But don’t worry little guy, I’ll make it quick.” True to his word, Tariq didn’t mess around. In a few seconds Danny was joined on the floor by his counterpart, twisting and grimacing. The sight of their misshapen limbs made Tem feel a little queasy.

  “What did you do?” asked Ramachandran.

  “Let’s call it taking care of things. I don’t think anyone is going to haul us in over this. Not out here.”

  “You’ve got to take me with you now,” said Ramachandran. She made her way back to the sofa and sat breathing heavily.

  “What?”

  “I can’t stay here. Not after this. They’ll kill me. You must know that? I need to come with you.” Ramachandran was subdued but she wasn’t panicking. She said it as a matter of fact. That has happened and now this needs to happen.

  “I’m sorry, we can’t do that,” said Tariq. Tem threw him an inquiring look. If this whole thing did depend on heavy water, then it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have a scientist around. “Can we? Tem?”

  “Have you got money? We can’t support you.” Ramachandran rose to her feet, unfurling like a plant emerging back to life after a cold w
inter.

  “I’ve got money. Don’t worry about that. You won’t regret this.” She moved about the flat gathering bits and pieces into a shoulder bag. Tem picked up Danny’s gun and put herself to one side, covering both the muttering, swearing bodies. Threats, curses and the odd whimper. The two of them had obviously decided against causing more trouble. Before long, Ramachandran was done.

  “Can you lock them in?” asked Tariq. Ramachandran nodded and grabbed a cardpass concealed behind the intercom at the door. Tariq searched the drug dealers and took their phones. “Right boys, we’re leaving now. I’m sure you’ll figure a way out. Eventually. However, I feel you should know. You see that large empty vivarium there? The good doctor here says that whatever normally lives in there will be back soon when it’s hungry. So don’t hang around too long.” The drug dealers craned to stare at the vivarium.

  “They’ve been here before? They know what lives in there?” asked Tem.

  “Oh yes,” replied Ramachandran as they left the flat. “They know.” She laughed to herself, locking the door behind her.

  Chapter 15 – Leon

  The holding cell was cramped. The drones led Ardbeg, Leon and the others through the ship into what looked like a medical centre. The vessel was brand new and well put together. Leon noted elements here and there that pointed to a level of technical sophistication just beyond that of the Aggressive. Every so often he would spot a panel or interchange that he felt had a functional equivalent back on the Aggressive, except here it was just a touch more refined, a touch less utilitarian.

  In the medical centre the group were ordered to disarm, led through a full body scanner to check for hidden weaponry and contraband, as well as pathscanned, before being placed into a small, bare cell on the other side of security door. The cell was one of six, arranged in opposing pairs, running along a corridor that extended from the side of the medical unit. If the incongruity of having secure holding cells was lost on anyone, Hail was been quick to point it out.