by David Smith
She pulled up a diagram of the physical structure of one of the GECLLs and alongside it, data about its DNA profile appeared.
‘They ate his hand . . . ‘ mumbled O’Mara to herself in shock.
Skye L’Amour moved closer to the screen ‘That’s odd. . . . ‘
Hollins looked across ‘What is?’
‘They ate his frickin’ hand . . . ‘ mumbled O’Mara softly.
L’Amour went to a computer terminal and took control of the data on the screen. She scrolled around some of the fine detail and said ‘I’ll check with Seong-ran and Milano, but I’m pretty certain that DNA sequence is different from what we created in the lab.’
Mengele looked surprised. ‘You have a definitive structure?? We have identified at least fifty distinctly different molecular structures within the sample taken from Duvall. This is merely the most common.’
It was Skye’s turn to be shocked. ‘Fifty?? They should all be identical! We designed it to carry out a single function, so they all had to be exactly the same.’
‘That is clearly not the case’ stated the doctor. ‘I will forward all of our data for you to examine.’
Skye left the room without looking back. ‘I’ll get right on it.’
‘They ate his hand’ whispered O’Mara.
Hollins stared after L’Amour nervously. ‘I appreciate that’s odd, but their genetic structure doesn’t worry me right now. What does worry me is that if these things might not be overly fussy about where they get their source material from. I can’t help wondering what else is on the ship that they might be tempted to eat.’
The doctor turned towards him, giving O’Mara a very hard stare as her gaze swept around. ‘Obviously, there’s whatever damaged carbon is left within the plasma conduits, any number of plastics, oils, greases etc, but the largest remaining source of carbon on the ship . . . ‘
‘Is us’ mumbled O’Mara in shock.
‘What??’
O’Mara held her face in her hands. ‘Us. The crew. About twenty tonnes of carbon ready to be converted into diamonds just like Duvall’s fingers.’
--------------------
Hollins did his best to remain calm.
It wasn’t easy. The knowledge that there was a lethal bio-hazard on the other side of the invisible force-field made it very difficult to remain objective.
His Science Officer was a gibbering wreck and his Engineering Officer was occupied thinking very dark thoughts about what she’d like to do to the Science Officer.
‘Ok. We’re in trouble. The Jekylls, or whatever you call them, have escaped from the purge system and have infected at least three other systems. The systems they’ve infected are ship wide, and as yet, we don’t know how they managed to get into the fourth system. The fourth system they’ve infected is the main drive power transfer system, which is the biggest plasma system on the ship. Within that, they’ll be happily eating and breeding, which is fine, but at some stage, when they’ve run out of nice tasty contaminated carbon in that system, there’s the possibility that the crew would serve as a tasty dessert.’
He looked around the group, the ship’s senior officer corps, and was devastated to see that they looked as uncertain and scared as he felt. ‘So. How bad is the situation, and what‘s our next move?’
As the Engineering Officer went to stand up he hastily added ‘I will discipline the Science Officer later, taking things out on her now is not going to improve our position, no matter how cathartic that may feel.’
Romanov slumped back down into her seat, growling under her breath in Ukrainian and folded her arms across her chest angrily.
Her deputy, the senior Propulsion Engineer, Lieutenant Jonsen, looked sideways at her and said ‘We can’t work out a way of safely purging the systems. Last time these things were outside they attached themselves to the hull and we all saw that they could absorb any form of energy, so we figured it’s better to keep them contained. We’ve checked the stasis valves and all of them seem to be holding up ok from emergency power supplies, but as a long-stop we’re physically isolating systems where we can. The downside of doing that is that we won’t be able to use any high-power systems, so all drives, weapons, shields, deflectors and inertia dampers are off-line indefinitely.’
He paused and scratched his head. ‘What’s really got us flummoxed is how the damn things managed to turn off the power supply to the valve between the purge system and the main drive system. There are hundreds . . . thousands of supplies they could’ve attacked, but they chose that one. As far as we can tell, that’s the only one they attacked.’
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Hollins broke it for the sake of comfort as much as anything else. ‘But they can’t access any of the other high-power systems now?’
Jonsen nodded. ‘No. There’s a physical lump of tritanium alloy plate in their way and we know that they couldn’t affect the hull, so the plates will stop them.’
The Captain nodded with a small sigh of relief.
Lieutenant L’Amour had been looking at O’Mara all this time, but she seemed shell-shocked, so the little Kiwi decided it was best if she brought everyone up to speed on the latest happenings from the science team.
‘We’re cooking up a batch of the complex organic acid we need to kill the GECLLs off. The chemists are running through things with the engineers trying to make sure there’s nothing in the conduit system that will be adversely affected by the acid, and the biologists are working on a quick and easy method of testing for contamination that doesn’t depend on losing a couple of fingers. In the meantime, we’ve recalibrated a couple of tricorders so we can at least detect the presence of the little buggers inside conduits.’
Hollins nodded. ‘Good. We need to decontaminate as soon as possible. If we can’t work out how they got into the main drive system I want them gone before they throw any other surprises our way. That’s good work Skye, assign someone to work with the engineers to map out how far the infection has spread.’
He turned back to Jonsen. ‘So, Yon, if the high power systems are all isolated, how secure are the low power systems?’
With that, all the lights went out.
--------------------
The ship’s senior staff clustered around the entrance to a Jefferies tube on the Main Engineering Deck, peering nervously into the gloom. The lighting on the deck blinked intermittently as the power supplies fluctuated.
There was a rumble of movement as someone clambered through the confined space and the group had to hurriedly shift aside as Lieutenant Sato dived out of tube like a frightened cat and screamed ‘SHUT IT!!!’
O’Mara had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. At some level, her scientific curiosity wondered how low her brain could fool her stomach into thinking it had dropped.
Sato was breathing hard, her uniform was torn and her hands and knees were scuffed and bleeding from her panicky scramble through the tube. ‘They’re everywhere!’ she groaned.
‘What??’
Sato looked panic stricken. ‘The damn things have opened the stasis valves into the rest of the low power systems. We’re screwed!’
Commander Mengele had joined them. The cool German doctor was renowned for being completely unflappable as well as humourless. Having digested the bad news she made her thoughts known whilst calmly scanning Lieutenant Sato for signs of contamination.
‘We should abandon ship as soon as possible, effect quarantine procedures for the whole crew and warn headquarters immediately.’
There were murmurs among the cluster of officers, but O’Mara noted that no-one actually argued the point.
It was only Commander Romanov that pointed out the obvious. ‘I would agree with you Doctor, but we can no-longer use the transporters safely due to the fluctuations on the auxiliary power systems. And if the infection is as complete as Lieutenant Sato has suggested, I doubt we’ll even be able to open the air-locks or the shuttle bay doors. We are probably trapped on
the ship.’
There were groans all around and Hollins had to raise his voice to stifle them. ‘Ok people, let’s focus on the issue here.’
The room went silent and he continued. ‘So we can’t leave the ship. It still hasn’t changed our starting position: We have to work out how to get these Jekyll things out of the systems, or if worst come to worst, contain them until help arrives.’
Hollins was interrupted by his Communications Officer, Lieutenant Shearer. She was a breath-takingly beautiful woman but was hard to get to know, largely on account of her incredibly thick Geordie accent.
‘Wal, we’re ina hawl lawda trouble there en all, liek! Ah canna configah the output arrayz fu’ the lyfomee, man. Ah ken awnly assume the crittaz hav gannen infected oor comms powah grid.’
The Captain stared at her blankly, but the rest of the Bridge crew had worked with her for long enough that they’d come to understand her. Sort of.
‘So the infection is still spreading??’ asked the Tactical Officer nervously.
‘Why aye! I canna get booger al worken liek!’ replied Shearer.
The Captain interjected before the bad news exacerbated the nervousness already apparent in the crew.
‘Ok, it narrows down our options, but at least we now know what we have to do. It’s them or us.’
There were worried looks around the group and an air of uncertainty hung over them.
O’Mara was grateful when the silence was broken by an incoming priority call for her. Skye L’Amour had news that wouldn’t wait.
‘O’Mara here. What’s up Skye?
The little Kiwi sounded as nervous as the rest of them. ‘We’ve completed the molecular analysis of the samples Doctor Mengele took from Duvall’s fingers. There are more variations to the GECLLs than the Doctor thought.’
O’Mara shifted nervously in her chair. ‘How many more?’
Skye sighed. ‘Truthfully? We have no idea. There are so many variants we’re struggling to find two GECLLs the same.’
‘But they should all be identical!’ gasped O’Mara.
‘Well they should be, but they aren’t now. I can only guess that when we changed the base code of their DNA, we’ve stuffed up its stability. The damned things mutate at the drop of a hat, and we’ve given them access to heat, radioactivity, chemicals . . . every mutagen you can name: We’ve created a monster.’
‘Will the acid still work?’
She nodded. ‘It should do: it’s designed to break down organic molecules and we’re only seeing very minor changes in each GECLL. Lots of variations, all in different places, but the changes are tiny compared to the overall structure of the molecule. The acid only needs to break each strand of DNA in three or four places and that’ll be enough to stop them functioning.’
Hollins nodded. ‘So that’s still our best option. How do we use it?’
‘The GECLLs are behaving like the LOAVEs did, absorbing heat as well as most other forms of energy. The temperature in the system is very, very low now, around fifty Kelvin and that’s led to a corresponding pressure decrease. The chemists tell me that if we heat the acid before we introduce it, it should flash-off into a vapour and flood the system quickly and completely.’
O’Mara had recovered enough to be thinking onward. ‘We’ll need to make sure the systems don’t recontaminate, so our best bet would be to clean the auxiliary power systems out, regain control of the stasis valves, then clean the other systems one by one, isolating them as we go.’
Hollins nodded again. ‘Sounds like a plan. L’Amour, get your team to keep making the acid, I want to have more than enough. Romanov, analyse the schematics of the auxiliary power system. We need to work out the best point in the system to introduce the acid to facilitate its spread and effectiveness. O’Mara, you work with Sato to make sure we have a logical sequence to purge the rest of the systems.’
The team stood up a little straighter, still looking nervous but at least with objectives to work towards now.
‘Ok people, let’s crack on. The sooner we get this sorted the better for us all.’
--------------------
The next day the team gathered on the Main Engineering Deck. L’Amour and the chemists had several flasks of acid stored at very high temperature ready to go.
Romanov and her team had identified a plasma relay manifold that would act as the injection point. O’Mara and Sato were manning a console that had been modified to enable the crew to monitor the progress of the acid and its effect on the mass of GECLLs within the ship’s systems. Other engineers and scientists were scattered around the compartment and throughout the ship with various items of portable monitoring equipment.
There was an air of nervousness around the deck, not helped by the intermittent flashing of lights and consoles as the GECLLs continued to wreak havoc on the ships auxiliary power supplies.
The Captain stood just behind Romanov and O’Mara, literally overseeing the two of them. Far more casually than he felt, he asked ‘Are we all set?’
O’Mara turned and nodded nervously. ‘Viral concentration is averaging two point one four million GECLLs per litre volume, with slight density increases where the system is warmer.’
Romanov didn’t turn, being engrossed in the data already streaming into her console, but said ‘Aye sir. My people are all in position, system pressure is stable at thirty-four Pascals, temperature around twenty-eight Kelvin and still falling slowly.’
The Captain noted that her grip on her favourite hammer was exceptionally tight.
‘Ok. Lieutenant L’Amour, when you’re ready please.’
The little kiwi nodded and turned to her team. The crew held their collective breath as the chemists connected the first flask to the target manifold. O’Mara thought she heard her sub-ordinates voice break a little as she said ‘Injecting acid.’
There was an audible hissing, bubbling sound as the hot, energetic acid boiled off into a vapour and flooded through the auxiliary power system conduits.
All around them, console displays bleeped and chirped as data about the changing condition of the system began to flow in.
‘Pressure increasing throughout’ stated Romanov.
‘Acid is vapourusing as planned’ added Sato. ‘Temperature is increasing, but the thermal gradient drops away quite sharply as it gets further from the injection point.’
O’Mara checked her figures ‘We’re showing a big drop in life-signs near the injection point, tailing away at the remote end of the system.’
Romanov was still focussed on her display. ‘Pressure still building, the acid is reaching the far ends of the system.’
O’Mara smiled ‘It’s working! Numbers are crashing near the injection point and falling consistently elsewhere.’
There was an audible beep which drew their attention to a warning symbol flashing on the edge of Sato’s display. Her brow wrinkled as she checked it out. ‘That’s odd, stasis valve delta four-six has just activated.’
The hairs stood up on the back of O’Mara’s neck. ‘What does that mean?’
Romanov didn’t look up but there was a hard edge of tension in her voice. ‘It’s the auxiliary power system feeding energy into one of the other systems it supplies.’
O’Mara blinked and ran through what she knew before making her next statement. ‘I thought you said you’d locked out all the stasis valve controls?’
‘I did’ said Romanov through gritted teeth.
There was a pregnant pause before Hollins asked the question that everybody wanted an answer to. ‘So why has the valve opened?’
Romanov was staring at the display on her console so hard O’Mara thought it might actually burst into flame. Despite herself she found her feet edging her away from the volatile Engineering Officer.
Romanov’s teeth were very, very gritted. ‘I would suggest that these Jekylls, or whatever the stupid scientists call them, are making a tactical withdrawal.’
O’Mara tried to laugh, but managed nothin
g more than a slightly worried snort. She had a thousand thoughts racing through her permanently crowded mind, but all that came out of her mouth was ‘No.’
The deck went deadly quiet, over which everyone could hear O’Mara remonstrating, apparently with herself.
‘No. Of course it can’t be. No! No no no no no no no. No. Not ever. Can’t happen. That would require a degree of planning and forethought. Feck, some of the crew couldn’t have managed that.’
She snorted another laugh and continued talking, apparently to herself. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous!!’ she announced to nobody in particular, her eyes sweeping around the deck and not meeting anyone else’s.
She shook her head. ‘That would imply that the GECLLs have some form of intelligence which is patently impossible for a life form that consists of one fecking strand of DNA. Can’t happen. That’s just ridiculous.’
Skye L’Amour was looking at her Senior Officer nervously. ‘Take it easy, Aisling . . . ‘
‘NO!’ shouted O’Mara, fixing her eyes on L’Amour. Even though the little kiwi had said nothing of consequence, O’Mara decided to argue a point. ‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous! It’s just DNA! There is no way in a billion years it could have developed any cognitive ability! It would’ve had to recognise the geometry of the system, identify an exit and worked out which valve to operate. That’s completely absurd!’
L’Amour was about to gently suggest O’Mara should calm down, but O’Mara continued, the pitch of her voice rising as did the speed at which she was talking. ‘It’s patently impossible, there’s no way DNA can think. There’s no way it could possibly have developed some kind of collective awareness, let alone an ability to process its knowledge of the layout of the system, the key components that control it and understand how to operate the damned things!!’
She began pacing up and down, waving her hands in exasperation and talking faster and faster, shouting louder and louder, the pitch of her voice rising while she became less and less coherent.
‘It’sridiculous,there’snowayDNAcanhaveanycognitivecapabilityitjustdoesn’thaveenoughfeckingmolecules.Absolutelyridiculousyou’dhavetobeacompleteretardtoevencontemplateacollectiveintelligence.Andacollectivefeckingintelligencethatcanfeckingoutthinkus!!ITSTOOFECKINGRIDICULOUSTOEVENFECKINGCONTEMPLATEYOU’REJUSTFECKINGPULLINGMYFECKINGLEG . . . ‘