Burning Eagle

by Navin Weeraratne

  He stared at his reflection, the clouds framing his head.

  A dark spot broke through them.

  He looked up, just as the sonic boom arrived.

  “Doctor Jovanka,” he tapped his comm bead, “The pirate has turned up.”

  “Nice office you have here,” Diamond looked around. The canvas tents were ringed round the still-smoking fire pit. Rugged ATVs were parked with mud-splattered trailers. Someone had put up a flag – a retasked soccer jersey in Heidelberg’s colors. Awkward academics and scowling native helpers eyed the interloper suspiciously. “Catch a lot of alien computers up in the mountains?”

  “So far no,” Jovanka smiled. He took the kettle off the fire and poured Diamond some tea. “But I won’t find the Transcendent sitting away in my lab on the Washington. I thought I would at first, but after several weeks I knew the answers would be harder to find.”

  “So you’re out camping? Not that I blame you. I didn’t know places like this still existed on this planet.”

  “They don’t. We’re here so I can use instruments like this,” he patted a small, steel-grey box with a touch screen. “This is a Geiger counter, Mister Diamond. I’ve calibrated this one to pick up Thorium and Plutonium decay products. It’ll screen out everything else, and alert me if it finds anything.”

  “What for?”

  “The Xeno-Transcendent is clearly hiding, but an immense computer will need immense power. It is hard to hide something like that. One of my team had the idea that it may be using a Thorium reactor, or even thermoelectric generators using plutonium waste. There are deep cave networks in these mountains, they would help mask the radiation. A band of resistance fighters hid out here before they died out. The aliens never caught them. It is possible that the Xeno-Transcendent is now hiding out here too.”

  “That’s pretty neat, and not just for the irony.”

  “Thank you. The Geiger counter is part of our standard field kit.”

  “You guys have ‘standard kit’ for looking for alien Transcendents?”

  “It’s whatever we can fit into a single bag. We send someone to a site, and they will do a few simple tests. If we need more elaborate equipment, we bring it in afterwards. It is easier to rule out false leads first with the simpler tests, though. It is how a physician works as well. Cheek swabs first, the MRI only when you know you must.”

  “Can I have a kit?”

  “Certainly. Do you have a site you’d like to look at?”

  “All I have is a hunch right now.”

  “Please don’t feel shy about sharing it, Mister Diamond. It has been six months; the only ideas left are the ridiculous ones.”

  “Well in that case, I think it’s an evil god that lives in a temple, about fifty miles from here.”

  “Ah.”

  “Thanks for the tea.”

  Havelock III

  I buzzed the door.

  Giggles replied from behind and the beats of small, running feet. The door opened and yanked against its chain. A gremlin stared at me with dark, bright, eyes.

  “Password!”

  “Uncle Rex is tired and hungry after a really long day working with grumpy people?”

  “Wrong! Two more tries.”

  “Hmmm. I better be careful then. Is it – I brought Nathan and his little brother some candy?”

  The gremlin’s eyes grew.

  “Candy?”

  “Yes. But you can’t tell your Mom, and you have to eat all your dinner or they’ll know, and we’ll get into trouble.”

  The chain rattled free and the door swung open. Cheery, yellow light streamed out into the cold hallway. I could smell grilled meat, mashed potatoes, baby shampoo. I put my shoes in the shoe rack, moving aside a bright blue plastic starship.

  “Here you go trooper,” I handed over foil-wrapped contraband. “Now remember, one of these is for Carl.”

  “Thanks Uncle Rex!”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “Dad’s setting the table; Mom said he’s not good for anything else.”

  “She’s right,” I hung up my coat. Beside the wrack was a picture of two, grinning, boys. They had already managed to get their pants dirty. Behind them on one side was a younger-looking version of myself. On the other side was a wife much too good for him.

  “I heard that,” a ghost from around the corner. I went to lend a hand.

  My brother looked up from the table of white cloth and gleaming plates, one fist full of knives another full of forks. The same smile that helped in schoolyard fights, sneaking past curfew, and through grandpa’s tales of a world best forgotten.

  “Glad you could join us! You’re only half an hour late.”

  “Not by Brown People time. Here you go Sir.”

  He took the bottle out of the paper wrapper and whistled.

  “Chesterfields! Nice.”

  “We get a duty free allowance. I decided I may as well use it, right?”

  “You can’t even find that stuff at Marks’ here. Chesterfields just got clearance for another vineyard.”

  “They did?”

  “A garden comet they’ve bought from the Ice Merchants. Mostly for nonhuman consumption.”

  “Makes sense. The Ice Merchants have enough Old Ones. They get quick approvals.”

  “People are already bitching on the news, saying we should be getting more housing to get people off the slum ships rather than room for rich people’s vineyards.”

  “Let them bitch. They’re only living in slums because they want to.”

  “Are you two talking about politics already?” a brunette sliding towards plump stood leaning in the doorway to the kitchen. One hand was on her hip, the other waved two guilty candy bars.

  “It was your husband’s idea. I told him no, but he insisted on dark chocolate.”

  She rolled her eyes and gave me a big hug.

  “Nathan and Carl aren’t the only little boys in this house. Thanks for the wine, its lovely.”

  “I got a red. I’m thoughtful like that.”

  “That you are. Jeff, I’ll put that on ice. Take a seat Rex, let me get you something to drink.”

  “Just some water will be great.”

  “Sure? Nothing stronger? You look pretty tired.”

  “I am, and no, water will be just fine. I need to rehydrate.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Jessica is very happy you came. She was worried you’d get pulled into another shift with the deportations.”

  “We are doing extra shifts, but my team isn’t as involved with those. My partner is covering for me right now.”

  His tone got quieter. “Is it as bad as they say? They’re going to move thousands of people?”

  “We have to play ball with the rest of the fleet, or at least be seen to be. Relocating people throughout the fleet makes it impossible for the terrorists to strike anywhere without killing humans too. Our Old One has protected us in the past; he’s not going to let the others push him around.”

  “Who are they going to use as the human shields?”

  “It’s going to be a lottery system.”

  “A lottery!” his eyes flashed. “Damn slum ship Scum are the ones making the bombs! We should be deporting them!”

  “You know deporting just the Scum would be political suicide. We’ll buy safety from terrorists and some comfort for ourselves, in exchange for a justifiable civil war between us and the Scum later. We’ll institutionalize sedition.”

  “You said it yourself: they’re the ones who have chosen this life.”

  “Yes. And we’re the ones who get to choose if we’re at war with them or not. Call me crazy, but I think that would be a bad idea.”

  “Rex, do you really think some terrorist with an antimatter bomb is going to think twice if its people like you and me onboard? The scum hate us as much as they hate the aliens.”

  “They’ll figure something out. Probably mix the groups.”

  “Great. Let’s stick loyalists
with Scum. Have people forgotten the bombings we survived, growing up? They checked our schoolbags for bombs!”

  “I remember Jeff, I was there too.”

  “I’m not sending my boys somewhere they have to check their bags for bombs.”

  “No one is saying that’s going to happen to them.”

  “Of course they won’t. How can they say that out loud? You can’t tell people when you’re selling them out!”

  “Keep it down in there,” a stern voice from the Old One of the kitchen.

  “I don’t see why we should suffer because of a bunch of assholes we should dump out in space. The Scum want to be free? Let them be free.”

  “Calm down. You don’t even know if they’re going to send you and your family yet.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Well – yes. Why wouldn’t it?”

  “That we might get deported to some alien ship? How do Jessica and I prepare against maybe being sent off?”

  “Everyone has that same problem right now. Stop worrying about things that might not even happen.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. How is it your problem?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We could be away for who knows how long, on a ship of hostile aliens, who are probably going to make us live in their sewers and clean their floors. You think that’s going to happen to you? You’re Alliance Security.”

  “And you’re a dick.”

  “I get to be a dick. I got kids to worry about. You don’t.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You two – shut up now, or get out of my house. You can argue all you like in the street. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen, and there isn’t a damn thing spoiling this meal is going to solve.”

  Silence.

  “I’m sorry,” I shook my head.

  “It’s alright. Here’s your water.”

  Poured from a kitchen counter cooler with love, it tasted better than pre-Liberation whiskey.

  “Jeff, we’ll sort this out. I’ll sort this out. It’s going to work out.”

  “I know,” he said quietly.

  Even the children knew I was lying.

  Cullins IV

  Camp Benedict, two miles east of Villablanca

  “Let’s see her.”

  Commodore Cullins gestured towards the gurney in the center of the white tent. The doctor nodded and aproned orderlies lifted away the yellow, biohazard sheet. Lights on chrome stands flooded the contents, displaying them like award-winning hams.

  “You weren’t kidding about the exploded belly.”

  “I was imagining more a popped balloon, you know?” said Diamond.

  “I’ve still got medics at scene, pulling out whatever scraps they can find with tweezers,” said the doctor. His gloved arms were folded, his Heads-Up-Display raised like a welder’s mask. The patch on his right shoulder was a lieutenant colonel’s. The one on his left said WRIGHT. “This poor woman went off more like a messy shotgun.”

  “Do we know how it happened?” asked the Commodore.

  “Yes. She was taken over by a nanovirus – these people have no immunity to such things. It turned her lymphatic system into a toxin factory, but it kept it separated from her bloodstream.”

  “Why?” asked Cullins.

  “To keep her on her feet and moving as long as possible. In the last stage it rebuilt her fat and some muscle into protein shrapnel, filled with toxin. It then used her own stomach acid to react with her bones, to create hydrogen. It heated up the hydrogen, and then tapped her lungs for oxygen to set it off. I’ve never seen anything like this. I’m not ashamed to say I’m impressed.”

  “Good,” said Diamond, “because I’m way impressed, I just didn’t want to say anything.”

  Cullins stepped to the gurney and peered at the corpse. Her remains stared back, eyes glassy like a large fish at a market. Her skin was clear, her features sharp. Her hair was long, dark, thick. Clotted blood snaked from the side of her mouth down her chin.

  “She volunteered for this.”

  “Volunteered?” asked Wright.

  “She would have been in a lot of pain. Look at her face – she wouldn’t show it, down to the last. What about the survivors?”

  “None in the immediate area,” said the Wright. “Everyone hit with a barb died within twenty minutes. Anyone exposed to the toxin died over the next hour. It was a fifty meter kill radius.”

  “And there’s been no spread?”

  “None, the nanovirus is inert. It only reacted with her tissue; it was a tailored virus.”

  “That tells us two things,” said Diamond. “One, this can’t have been made far away. At least some part of the design was finished somewhere in Villablanca, with direct reference and testing on her.”

  “What’s the second thing it tells us?” asked Cullins.

  “They decided to make a tactical attack. Typhoid Mary here could just as easily have spread a self-replicating weapon. Making it specific to her, is harder than designing it to run rampant. This could be chewing through the whole city right now.”

  “They wouldn’t go strategic,” said Cullins.

  “Because they’re nice terrorists?” Diamond.

  “Because that would wipe out their own people. People are the only assets they have left to fight us with. It’s perfect. Our victory condition is to save these people, not burn them from orbit. They’ve figured it out.”

  Silence.

  “I’ve had enough of this tent,” Cullins motioned and they all stepped out.

  Outside, the white sun was hanging in the mid-morning haze. Manmade sandstorms blew out from the tilt-rotor whoop whoop of mega-lifters. Goggled soldiers in desert fatigues drank water from clear plastic bottles. White tents and silver inflatables stretched out, ordered into civilized blocks and streets. ATV tractors clattered along dragging heavy trailer. A platoon jogged by in sweat-stained t-shirts and a triumphant cadence.

  “Doctor Wright,” asked Cullins, “Could you design something like this?”

  “On my own?” he shook his head. “I don’t have the skills or training. Any big military or commercial lab could do it, but they’d take a few weeks. That’s if they have a Transcendent doing the number crunching. Without it they’d take months at least.”

  “So the real question is how do people denied advanced technology, know how to make this?”

  “Precisely the same way they’re making more and better firearms,” said Diamond. “The same way for every weapon workshop we raid, three more start up. Advanced machining. High tensile metals. Compatible moving parts. Farmers and beggars suddenly waking up engineers. This proves it beyond all reasonable doubt.”

  “Proves what?” asked Wright.

  “I have a theory about all this.”

  “What’s your theory?”

  “God,” said Diamond. “He hates us.”

  “That doesn’t help us,” said Cullins.

  “Doesn’t help us? It’s a nanovirus that that requires Transcendent help to design. Not only does this confirm there’s a Xeno-Transcendent, it shows how it behaves. It talks to people in their dreams. It’s gained loyalty through worship.”

  “It doesn’t help us because it’s not actionable. I think you’re completely right, but now we need to see where this takes us. The problem now is that we just don’t have much time anymore.”

  “What do you mean? It’s been six months already.”

  “And it’s used those six months. We’re in real trouble, Jack. The nanovirus weapon was a very bold attack: The Transcendent gave itself away, and revealed what it can do. It wouldn’t do that that unless it’s at the final stages of preparation. It doesn’t care that we know. It’s final testing and learning.”

  “You think it will strike soon?” asked Wright.

  “Yes. Perhaps sooner once it realizes that we’re finally on to it. Its big advantage now is that we still don’t know where it is or h
ow to strike it. ‘God’ is just not a valid target.”

  “Don’t worry Gerard,” Diamond cracked his knuckles. “I’ll find his ass and kick it.”

  Tennyson, Part I

  Tennyson, 81 Years Ago

  The shooter had picked the spot carefully. It was right in the middle of the camp. Men ran right past her, yelling back over their shoulders at each other. Trucks revved by, yellow warning lights flashing, overloaded with ration packs and mini-nukes.

  Two men in green, tank crew jump suits, leaning against a container. She took interest and studied them. One produced a cigarette pack; she delighted at this rarest dirty habit. She took aim and inhaled. One lit his lighter; the other leaned in to share the flame. The shooter exhaled, squeezed.

  Click.

  They looked up, noticing her. One looked away but the other smiled and waved. She nodded and smiled back, always be nice when doing street or candids. Men could leverage size or menace, and there was always just running. Women didn’t need to do either. They could just smile.

  “Nice shot!”

  She looked up at the voice. A business suit stood there, mike clipped to her jacket. She had a face built for gaining trust in 3D. Small, black, imager drones floated soundlessly above her shoulders.

  “Samantha Kilbride, GEN News,” the business suit held out her hand.

  The shooter couldn’t run, or leverage size or menace.

  She smiled.

  “Farida Shakoor,” she took the hand, their chips exchanged business card information. “I’m freelancing for Deccan Digital.”

  “DD? Bloggers! Right on, girl. I’m like, the only journalist I know who likes bloggers. How are you guys liking this war?”

  “Um, it’s – it’s pretty different. I’ve never shot a war before. It’s pretty incredible. I think I’ve been blessed that I can be here today.”

  “Me too! Have you heard the latest?”

  “What’s the latest?”

  “The aliens are still orbiting the main gas giant with their armada. The wolf packs they’ve been raiding the asteroid belt with, have got bigger. Sun Tzu says they’re stepping up from scouting now that they have a better idea of how to fight us.”