Burning Eagle

by Navin Weeraratne

  “Atlantis - that’s in the decomm fleet, right?”

  “That’s right. Flying scrap heap. It was vacated thirty years ago when its main life support gave out, now it’s a flying freezer. It’s big, it’s worthless, and it’s off-limits. Perfect place for a Resistance weapons factory.”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “Paradiso Fifth Planetary. They’re getting help from their smuggler contacts. Independence Day has a dog in this pit fight too.”

  “Fifth and Independence Day are working together?”

  “Would you believe it? A charismatic leader has popped up and has been smoothing things over. All your paranoid terrorist fantasies are coming true.”

  “What do you know about the operation itself?”

  “Fifth was sniffing around for some life support equipment recently. It was expensive, and only justified if it’s for several hundred people.”

  “Several hundred? They’re building another ark.”

  “No, they gave up on arks. Atlantis is the only place it could have gone.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. If they had hundreds of people there, we would have found out a lot sooner.”

  “How?” he poured himself another measure. “It’s the decomm fleet, no one goes there. Fleet Security shoots human trespassers first and asks questions later. It’s a self-sufficient cell. Word only leaked because Independence Day couldn’t keep shut after learning about it.”

  “You mentioned a new leader. What do you know?”

  “Only that they call her the Storyteller.”

  “The Storyteller?”

  I put the cup down, and walked into the corridor. The sobbing sound from one of the doors hadn’t stopped. I wiped the dirty window set into the door and looked through it. Inside was a young woman wearing rags, curled up in a corner. There was a bowl of water and some bread in front of her, untouched. She would have been attractive if she hadn’t been weeping.

  “We’re leaving.”

  “Already? You didn’t even finish your drink.”

  “We’ll pay you for the information, but I’m shutting down this little racket of yours. I let you get away with a lot, but you’re not getting away with slavery. You’re releasing these girls and that’ll be the end of this.”

  He leant back in his chair and smiled.

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “Oh you heard me. Do you know why you have come here, Agent Havelock? To my little office here in filthy London so you can decline a perfectly good drink? Because you’re a race traitor, that’s why.”

  He got up and walked up beside me, peering through the one-way glass. He tapped it once, twice. The girl looked up, startled, and huddled deeper into her corner.

  “Do you fancy yourself a hero, Rex? You think she’ll be grateful to you if you get her out of here? Maybe find her a new life getting pats on the head from the aliens like how you do.”

  He put his finger on my chest.

  “The likes of me are the only people who will still talk to you, the only people who will still offer you a drink. Now what does that say about where you stand in the human hierarchy?”

  He gave me a key.

  “Go on, let them out. See if even a slave thinks you’re worth the time of day. If any of them leave with you, you’ll have no complaint from me.”

  He smiled, and went back into his office.

  I left the hallway, closing the red curtain behind me. The toughs were still seated, but one held a cloth to his nose. He gave the other tough a dirty look and started picking up his scattered cards off the floor. The cloth was turning red.

  “He was cheating,” said the other guard, pointing with a sausage finger. “You’re friend said so.”

  “Yuri!”

  “What?” My partner shrugged. “They were playing for money. I couldn’t just watch and say nothing.”

  “Come on, let’s go.”

  We turned to leave.

  “Hey what was that?”

  “What?”

  “What you just left on the counter. Is that a key?”

  “I really wish it was.”

  Cullins V

  The sun rose, golden with enlightenment. It entered the kovils and came down the ghats into the river. Waist deep, a naked devotee washed away his ash markings and praised the light. Beside him, a yellow hazmat suit filled a sample bottle with holy river water. It added red reagent from a dropper, swirl-stirred, and beheld it.

  No change.

  A thin urchin boy waded past, float-dragging a jute bag behind him. He climbed out of the water and emptied it on the stone steps. Iridescent, wet, beetle corpses glistened in golds, blues, and reds. He looked up and noticed a staring man.

  “Would you like to buy one?” he proffered up a handful of corpses. “Blessed by the holy river!”

  Commodore Cullins shook his head.

  “Can I have money?” The boy suddenly looked sad. “I’m hungry.”

  “Well, then you know what? I think I’ll buy one of those blessed beetles from you after all.”

  An alien religion’s dominance went up by five liberated dollars. Drones whispered by on tilt rotors, tasting the air for poisons. White, UEF tents clumped awkwardly in a kovil’s grounds like fat tourists. Pastel statues bared their teeth at them and danced with swords and flowers. Utterly bored worshippers resigned themselves to slow moving lines. Buzzing them were yellow hazmats, taking names, temperatures, and cheek swabs.

  Cullins walked over to the nervous clump of tents. In the center, was a larger tent more nervous than the others. He stepped through the negative pressure air corridor, it self-sealed behind him. A yellow warning light glowed over the door in front of him. It read his rank and let him in.

  “About time you showed up,” said Diamond, swinging his legs.

  He sat on a bed in the center of a cage. It was made from touch screens, white boxes, and politely invasive tools. Hazmat suits took his pulse and looked at readings. A couple were watching the football with him. On the bed in front of him was a grey box. RESEARCH DIV was stenciled on it in black lettering.

  “You’re fine! Well, you look fine,” said Cullins.

  “That’s because he is fine,” said Doctor Wright, stepping away from a knot of orderlies. “I’m keeping him in here for another twenty-four hours. Standard procedure with self-replicating threats.”

  “What happened?” asked the Commodore.

  “Foreign active nanobodies entered his system. His nano immunity engaged them, and they put up enough of a fight for him to fall ill. His skin turned green like it’s supposed to, and he called it in.”

  “Do we have any samples?”

  The doctor frowned. Diamond looked away.

  “We don’t have any samples?”

  “Mr. Diamond here had refused to allows his immunity to be linked with any of our medical networks. No data about the nanobodies was uploaded.”

  “Was it at least recorded?”

  “No. His immunity didn’t keep a log.”

  “What? Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Very,” said Diamond, his fingers tapping at the grey box’s touch screen.

  “We took some blood and tissue samples, it was enough to get working on. From what we’re seeing so far, it’s similar to what we found in the human bombs.”

  “They were trying to blow him up.”

  “I think so,” Wright nodded.

  “Nope, you’re both wrong,” said Diamond, still tapping away.

  “What are you fiddling with? Can’t it wait?”

  “This is a Geiger counter, Gerard. I’m calibrating it to pick up Plutonium decay products. It’ll screen out everything else, and alert me if it finds anything.”

  “They attacked you with a nanoweapon, not a nuke.”

  “I’m not looking for a nuke. I’m looking for a power source. Signs of a Category Two. If there’s a bug-worshipper connection, the holy city is the best place to look. Jovanka says our best chances are to detec
t energy usage.”

  “Fair enough. So why is this doohickey more important than us discussing a nanoweapon attack?”

  “Because it is more important. There was no nanoweapon attack. Why would they use me for a human bomb? Their bombs are carefully designed for specific hosts. Why put trouble into me when anyone will do?”

  “Turning you into a bomb sends a message,” said Wright. “They can strike at us.”

  “Putting a bullet in my head sends a message. I think something much more sinister was going on.”

  “Which is?”

  “The local population has no nano-immunity, something purged it from their systems, decades ago,” said Diamond. “The UEF though are well protected, their immunity is military grade. No point attacking them. However, their nanotech has certain telltale markers. Mine doesn’t have them, I got my immunity on the black market. The bug didn’t recognize me as UEF – so it tried to start the process.”

  “The process?” asked Cullins.

  “This is where things get silly,” Wright rolled his eyes.

  “I think they were trying to subvert or turn me, somehow.”

  “Like a double-agent?” asked Cullins.

  “Like a bug worshipper. The insects are alien, Gerard. Alien, domestic, insects. The Calamari don’t seem to have had any obvious use for them.”

  “Maybe they were pests that came with their ships,” said Wright. “Like rats or roaches.”

  “But then they would have been killing them. These insects bite people, and I believe, inject them with nanomachines. That wasn’t going on for long here, before everyone started worshipping them. People don’t abandon their religions, Gerard. Certainly not during hard times.”

  “Are you suggesting that all the xeno-beetles are capable of this? Doctor Wright, can we test this?”

  “We have tested this actually,” said Wright. “I wanted to rule out other possible causes, so we did a random sampling of beetles and checked them for nanomachines. We found nothing.”

  “Which proves nothing,” said Diamond. “When paleontologists from Europe first studied pre-human sites in Africa, they said they had found no evidence of tools. They had been looking for flint, what they were used to. They didn’t recognize the quartz tools that were all around them.”

  “Even allowing for that, Occam’s Razor says you’re wrong,” said Wright. “These people are mostly Hindu. Adding another god to the pantheon doesn’t cause doctrinal problems. The rapid spread is just simple syncretism. Also, the biggest hole in this is that UEF staff get bit by these things all the time. Why don’t they get injected with nanites when this happens?”

  Maybe not all beetles carry the nanites, we’ve yet to catch one that matches my description. Maybe that species is only here, in the holy city.”

  “I’m sorry Jack, but I have to go with Doctor Wright on this one. The easiest solution is that they were trying to make you into a bio-bomb. Find me hard evidence that something strange is going on here Jack, just a little shred, and I’ll bring the whole damn fleet down on this place.”

  The grey box began crackling sharply. Its display lit up green with overlays.

  “What’s it doing?” Cullins leaned forward.

  “Proving that there’s a nuclear power plant underground. There’s your shred of evidence.”

  Tennyson, Part IV

  81 Years Ago

  The sniffer dog poked its muzzle into the rubble. It pawed a few times, and sniffed again to be sure.

  “I found another one,” it barked over its shoulder. “This one’s alive.”

  A pair of rescue workers ran over. They loped like wolves in their carbon exo-frames.

  “Right here?” one pointed.

  “Right here,” said the dog, and stepped aside.

  The exo-frames got to work. They chucked aside hunks of concrete and torn steel like scavengers kneeling in trash. They stopped abruptly.

  “I need a doctor!” one yelled.

  A white drone floated over, a red cross painted on its hull. Its arms were tipped in instruments and full indemnity cover. It hovered between the workers, it arms snaking down. The dog wagged its tail.

  “Did I do good? Are you happy with me?” it asked.

  “You did great! We’re very happy with you,” said the drone. “Can you do it again?”

  “Of course!”

  It bounded away.

  “Go on,” said the drone to the workers. “I got this one.”

  “Do you need help getting her out?”

  “Not just yet, it can do more damage than good to move her at this point. But she’ll live.”

  “Hey!” The dog barked excitedly. “Hey! Hey! Hey!”

  The two exo-frames stood and started stalking over.

  “I found another one! I found - ”

  The dog was flung away, rolling end over end. A second tentacle thrust out, plated in charcoal grey chitin. A third and a fourth followed. They felt about and gripped. The dog howled, its leg shattered.

  “Help me!” it whined.

  The alien began to pull itself out from under the rubble.

  The power suit landed in a sprinter’s crouch, slamming into the dirt. Rubble fountained as Jahandar pistoned to his feet, joint servos screeching. His arm bucked with each thunderclap of the boarding pistol. His other arm punched the air, and a blade telescoped from the vambrace. It glittered like a shard of iceberg, crackling with blue electricity.

  The alien launched itself at him.

  The Calamari survivor was a fully grown specimen. Four tons of muscle, plating, and cybernetics. It was no crashed pilot or combat tech. It was an assaulter, a marine, a killer. It was trained, desperate, and had nothing to lose.

  For one, two, three instants, pistol rounds cratered its torso. Black ooze sprayed out in clouds. Then it struck like an asteroid, slamming him down and skidding over him. Four tons pressed down: his armor bent and twisted. Suit alarms all went off at once. Glass shattered and cut into an eye.

  The nanoserrated blade screamed.

  It tore through the alien’s innards with murderous purpose. Chitin championed in mating battles for a billion years, shredded instantly. Alien and human blood mixed and burned like acid. The creature bellowed, and tried to shove the broken doll into its mouth parts.

  Jahandar stuck his pistol into its mouth, and emptied his clip. Each shot rippled through its body. Its grip weakened. He kicked away, crawling out from under the beast. Creaking and spitting sparks, he staggered back to his feet. Gyro controls told him he was teetering. He responded by kicking the alien, as hard as he could. It scrambled and flailed, oozing black ichor. He got down on one knee, and stabbed the beast with the nanoblade. Stabbed it. Stabbed it. Stabbed it with the nanoblade.

  The blade turned black.

  Click.

  His helmet turned at the sound. A blood-misted HUD hissed and slid open.

  “Farida?”

  Down on one knee, she took a portrait shot. Then she came out from behind the camera, her grey eyes tearing.

  “Darling,” she ran to him and took the index finger of his armored gauntlet in one hand, and stroked his cheek with the other. “Darling, you were incredible.”

  She tiptoed, closed her eyes, and kissed him.

  It pawed at the ground, head down, and sniffed. Many things had died here; it didn’t take heightened senses to know this. Most of what was dead was alien. The handlers would have liked this, but they were all dead now.

  It dug with both paws, dust and rubble caking under its nails. It struck flesh – a body. Cold now, but still good. Jaws clamped and meat tore. It gobbled it, gristle and all. Powerful acids would make easy work of the alien tissue. Bones were exposed. They crunched and cracked in its jaws like old, dry, leaves.

  It looked up suddenly, its ears turning.

  Something was coming.

  It scampered back, and crouched in a small crater. Its scales turned milky and then blended grey with the rubble. Its eyes clicked into infra
red.

  It was a small alien, all on its own. It didn’t wear the armor that so many eggmates had failed against. It carried no weapon, except for a small, black, box. It stopped just meters away, and raised the box to its face.

  Click.

  No energy streamed out, no stinging pellets that tore through metal and hide. Just a quiet, harmless, sound. The box-user was no threat, it decided. Just then, the alien lowered its box and began to move away.

  The beast got up and crept after her quietly. They tasted better, warm.

  “We’re closed,” the bartender looked up from wiping the counter and shook her head.

  “It’s alright,” said Sun Tzu in the doorway, his white uniform as crisp and clean as his victory. He pointed at the far end of the pub, “I’m just here to pick him up.”

  Her face softened and she nodded.

  The man sat alone in a booth. In front of him were six empty bottles, one lying on its side. An empty pint mug was in his hand. He stared beyond it, eyes glazed.

  “This seat taken?”

  The man said nothing. Sun Tzu sat down across from him.

  “Lieutenant Jahandar?”

  He looked up at that. His eyes focused on humanity’s latest greatest hero.

  “At ease soldier, stay in your seat.”

  “Sir.”

  “I’m here to say that I’m very sorry for your loss Lieutenant. She was a very brave and remarkable woman.”

  “You came – you came to see me?”

  “Of course! Why does that surprise you? You just helped win a war for me, Lieutenant. Least I can do is come see you at a time like this.”

  “I wish – I wish she was here to see it. To see you,” he looked back down at the empty glass. “She’d take a picture.”

  “She would. She was very talented.”

  “Yeah. Yeah she is. She was.”

  “It’s alright to feel this way, Lieutenant. Even when death was common, people had trouble dealing with it.”

  “I’m dealing with it. I’m fine.”