It soon became apparent as to why everyone had taken flight. Further up the passage, not far from the edges of the panicked crowd, Brabazon and Dunbar came across a river of advancing green gunge. It crept forward, moved by the myriad of arachnids which swam in the nutrient rich fluid. Within this slow moving river could be seen the outlines of lifeless bodies. Some were the unfortunate souls who had vomited the arachnids, others were those who had been engulfed and then devoured by the green tide. Finally, there were the faintly moving bodies of those who were infected with the biological nanobots. The arachnids ignored those people, creating strange fluid free islands around them. However, this was no act of mercy, they were simply leaving their nanobot brethren alone to continue their work of mutating the human DNA.
‘Crap!’ Brabazon swore as they stood breathlessly, stuck between the advancing tide and the panicked crowd. ‘What the frack do we do now?’
He could just make out the other side of the gunge, where the passageway was still clear. It was about one hundred metres away, and he knew the entrance to his laboratory was not much further on from there. However, crossing the river of arachnids seemed an impossible task. He could see no way of getting safely through the fluid. The solid granite walls of the passageway were smooth, the construction boring machines having left no potential hand or footholds. There were power and network conduits suspended from the ceiling, but these were several metres above them, and Brabazon doubted they would hold their weight, even if they could reach them.
Standing beside him, sergeant Dunbar began removing his equipment. He dropped his backpack of ammo and grenades to the floor and opened it. Then, he rummaged around inside and pulled out two hand-grenades. These he passed to Brabazon saying, ‘Here, take these and put them in one of those big lab coat pockets of yours.’
‘Why? What have you got in mind?’ He asked the giant trooper. ‘I’m a scientist, not a soldier. I’m not much use in a fight.’
‘I’ve read you profile,’ Dunbar replied, handing him an automatic pistol and a couple of clips of ammo. ‘You’ve been in enough scraps in the past to know the basics. Put this in your other pocket and then climb onto my shoulders.’
‘You want me to do what?’ Brabazon exclaimed.’Are you mad? You can’t carry me across that gunge. As soon as you enter that fluid the arachnids will attack and find a way under your skin. You’ll be dead before we reach the lab!’
‘I will almost certainly be dead before we get to your lab, Brabazon… but, I wager I’ll not succumb before we reach the other side of that green shit!’ Dunbar told him bluntly. ‘Besides, what other option is there? You reach the lab and complete the mission, or we fall and die in the goo—at least we will have died trying. If we stay here, we’re gonna die anyway….’
With that, he knelt down and gesticulated for him to climb onto his shoulders. Brabazon hesitated, appalled at what he knew was a death sentence for the giant soldier. However, he had no alternative plan and the river of arachnids was advancing relentlessly. Dunbar was right, they were out of time and out of options. The mission took precedence over everything, including their lives. Reluctantly, he climbed onto Dunbar’s broad shoulders and hung on tight when the squad leader stood up, carrying Brabazon’s weight as if he was a small child. Without a word he stepped forward into the green gunge.
Sergeant Dunbar took wide strides, heading for the first ‘island’, a fluid-free area surrounding one of the poor souls overrun by nanobots. Brabazon sat on his shoulders, hanging on grimly and peering down at Dunbar’s boots as he waded through the sea of tiny arachnids. He could see the green, nutrient-rich fluid, cling to his combat boots and begin to climb up past his ankles. It was a strange and frightening sight to see the liquid behave in such an unnatural manner. The giant squad leader reached the first island and moved on to the next and then the next, his step never faltering.
At first, Brabazon could almost believe they would make it to the other side of the gunge without incident, such was the confidence Dunbar began the crossing. However, he could feel the tension in the squad leaders shoulders increase with each stride, and his breathing become increasingly laboured. It wasn’t just the exertion of carrying Brabazon’s weight on his shoulders, which was making Dunbar breath hard. Glancing down, Brabazon saw that the arachnids had climbed up as far as the sergeant’s thighs. By now, they would be gnawing through his combat fatigues and burrowing into his flesh. It was no wonder the giant trooper was beginning to tire, the pain must be brutal, Brabazon thought to himself.
Without complaint, Dunbar continued from one grim island in the goo to another. However, by the time they reached the far-side he was staggering under the weight of Brabazon. He struggled on for another few steps, ensuring they were some distance from the river of green, then collapsed to his knees and fell forward. Brabazon managed to jump clear of Dunbar’s shoulders as he collapsed, avoiding the advancing arachnids which had reached to the poor man’s waistline. He stepped smartly to a safe distance before turning back to look at the fallen giant.
The squad leader lifted his head and looked at his charge through bloodshot eyes, his face a mask of agonising pain. ‘See,’ he whispered, spitting blood in the process. ‘I told you we’d make it. Ah….it hurts….’
‘Can you get up?’ Brabazon asked the stricken soldier. ‘My lab is just a few metres from here. If we could get you there, maybe we could do something? Look for something that would ease the pain…’
Dunbar winced with pain as the arachnids made their advance through his organs. ‘There’s only one way to ease the pain now…’ he told him through gritted teeth. ‘You know what to do…’
Brabazon took a step back. ‘No, I can’t possibly…’ he protested. ’I’m not a killer. I’m a scientist!’
‘Bullshit!’ was the response. ‘I’ve done my duty; now you do yours Brabazon… I can’t move and you have to complete the mission. Please….I’m begging you! I’m in agony…’
Some what abashed, Brabazon nodded and took the automatic pistol the sergeant had given him out of his lab coat pocket. He took a step forward, flicked off the safety catch with his thumb and aimed the weapon at Dunbar’s head. He pulled the trigger, a neat hole appeared in the centre of the forehead, and Dunbar was dead. For him the mission was over and the pain at an end. Dunbar was right, Brabazon thought to himself; he had indeed been in enough scraps in the past to know how to use a weapon. He put the pistol back in his pocket; for himself, the mission had still to be completed. As the green, nutrient rich, arachnid swamped fluid, enveloped and devoured the sergeant’s corpse, Brabazon sighed sadly. Then he turned and set off at a jog for his science lab, determined to ensure the deaths of Dunbar and his team, wasn’t for nothing.
He ran up the passageway, turned left down another, and arrived at the entrance to the science labs, pistol drawn and one of the grenades in his hand. The heavy blast door was wedged open by the body of a lab worker. He lay face-down, arms outstretched, as if imploring for help that never came. Brabazon stepped carefully over the corpse and entered the laboratory, weapons at the ready. Inside, there was further evidence of a hasty departure by the lab workers. Stools, chairs and equipment lay strewn over the floor, left there by people who had taken flight and dropped whatever they were doing, in the rush to escape. The question was, what were they trying to escape from? He scanned the laboratory, automatic pistol raised and cocked. At first it seemed that the place was empty, but he soon noticed several bodies lying on the floor, or propped against workbenches. He recognised the majority of the infected, they were once colleagues he knew well. Some moved weakly, others appeared lifeless; but were in fact comatose. The biological nanobots were already changing the DNA of their human hosts, leaving the very souls of their unfortunate victims trapped in their unresponsive bodies. They might be aware of what was happening to them, but they were powerless to stop it. It was horrific and heartbreaking.
The entrance to his personal office was toward the rear of the lab on the
right, beyond the large glass partitions that separated the admin area from the main laboratory floor. He would have to move over and around some of the poor souls who had succumbed to the virus, but they were hopefully incapable of interfering with his progress. Taking a deep breath he cautiously moved forward, stepping over the detritus on the floor and the first of his fallen colleagues. He chose a path between two laboratory workbenches which contained the least number of bodies, advancing steadily towards the glass door and glass wall of his office. Brabazon was nearly at the end of the aisle, within a few steps of the door when he felt something grab his right ankle. Looking down, he saw a hand had stretched out and grabbed him in a vice-like grip. The hand belonged to the previously inert body he had just stepped over. Unlike the others, this infected body had reacted to his passing and was attempting to stop his progress. Brabazon looked at the face of the poor infected soul and realised to his horror, that it belonged to one of his close colleagues.
‘Dammit Humphreys! Let go of me!’ he blurted at his erstwhile friend. He realised it was pointless trying to reason with a poor soul once they were overcome by the nanorobots, but he couldn’t help it. ‘I’ve got to get to my office. Let go man…Frack!’
The lab scientist once known as “Humphreys” looked up at Brabazon, his face contorting strangely, his eyes wild and bloodshot. The mouth opened and a torrent of green arachnid nutrient poured out of his mouth and all over Brabazon’s feet. Horrified, he pointed the pistol at Humphreys and shot him in the forehead. The vice-like grip went limp and he jumped back rapidly. He was out of the spreading pool of green gunge, but it was too late. The arachnids were all over his feet and ankles. He was infected and time was short.
‘Dr Brabazon! Thank God, you’re alive!’ came a voice from the vicinity of the door to his office. Brabazon turned away from the horror of Humphreys infected corpse and turned to look. Positioned between himself and the entrance to his office was the figure of one of the young lab assistants. Brabazon remembered her name was Monika Mills, a pretty young thing who was very popular with the young men in the science team. Or at least she was until they were all infected.
‘I thought I was the only one still alive…I’ve been hiding. You don’t know how terrifying it has been! But now you’re here, I know I am safe…’ she intoned, then stepped towards him arms extended in anticipation of an embrace. Brabazon examined Monika’s attractive face and was dismayed at what he saw. This was not the Miss Mills he remembered. The Monika Mills he remembered was pretty, but painfully shy. The words coming from her mouth were not her own. The blank eyes and twitching at the corners of her mouth could mean only one thing…
‘Stop, stay right where you are!’ he ordered, pointing the pistol at her.
‘I’ve been so afraid…please…I just need to be hugged,’ Monika Mills replied in a strange mechanical fashion. She smiled at him and continued to move towards him. Brabazon noted the tell-tale signs of green fluid at the corners of her upturned mouth. With a heavy-heart he pulled the trigger. What was once Miss Monika Mills was thrown backwards by the impact of the bullet in her breast. As she fell a stream of green arachnid grunge poured out of her mouth which opened wide, as if in a silent scream.
Poor Miss Monika now blocked the entrance to his office, a large pool of green gunge spreading from her corpse. There was no point in trying to avoid the arachnid fluid now, he told himself. He could feel the critters working their way into his skin and up his legs. Time was now of the essence. He had no way of knowing how long he would be conscious for, how long before the lethal mix of bio-nanobots and breeding arachnids overwhelmed him. Or whether there would be any other attempts by the collective intelligence of the nano-technology to stop him from completing his mission.
Without ceremony, Brabazon dragged the dead body of Miss Monika by the feet and cleared the entrance to his office. Stepping over her inert body and ignoring the staring, lifeless eyes, he punched the code into the security pad and the reinforced glass door slide open. Gratefully, he stepped inside, pulling one of the two grenades from the pocket of his lab-coat. He turned and punched the button to close the door. He pulled the pin from the grenade and lobbed it back into the science laboratory. The door hissed shut. Brabazon took the few short steps to his desk and collapsed into his office chair. The grenade exploded with a crump, muted by the thick reinforced glass partition. There were a few wisps of smoke and then the sprinklers came on and doused everything in the science lab with fire-inhibitor. A warning strobe light began to flash on and off. The accompanying siren could not be heard in the sound-proof office and the distracting strobe disappeared when he flicked the switch to darken the polarizing glass, blocking out the light.
Brabazon sat in the dark and soaked in the peaceful silence. He was exhausted. It would be so easy to sit there in the comforting dark and simply wait for the inevitable. He took a few moments in the calm of familiar surroundings, and let his pulse and breathing settle. Then he switched on the holo-viewer of his personal terminal. With a few swipes of his hand and the tap of his fingers, he logged into the sub-ether network; the one that his team and himself had so recently completed. With quantum sub-ether transmitters strategically placed around the globe and on several moons throughout the systems of Earth, Dyason and Heligsion, the network used quantum entanglement to allow instant communication across vast interstellar distances. More than that, the transmitters allowed access to the sub-ether itself, replicating in a small way the abilities of an operant human. It was this quirk of quantum physics that given him the idea. A set of algorithms, known only to himself, which once launched would take effect instantly across the vast distances that separated the three star systems. It was, if successful; the last chance, the last throw of the dice for humanity.
Brabazon leant forward, and ignoring the pain of the arachnids which were rapidly invading his body, he entered the codes to commence the Armageddon algorithm. There were no flashing graphics, no warning klaxons, no drama. The holographic-view displayed a visual display of the sub-ether network and an acknowledgment that the algorithms had commenced their work. In a few minutes time he would know if the sacrifice of so many people, had been worthwhile.
He reached into his lab-coat pocket and pulled out the remaining hand-grenade. Placing it on the glass-top of his desk, he contemplated the small explosive device. Then he leant back in his chair and shut his weary eyes. The pain would soon become too much to bear, but he hoped he could function long enough to see the results from the last roll of the dice.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Between lunar orbit and the orbit of Mars
18.10hrs, Universal Standard Time. August 21st 2057.
The Starweb hordes smothered the TWDF Home Fleet. Gargantuan dreadnoughts pushed relentlessly through the defensive lines of Flyships and Snubfighters, as if swatting annoying insects to one side. Slim, ergonomically designed Webfighters fell upon the Terran ships. Their deep metallic blue, composite hulls and needle-sharp noses, bled into swept-forward canard winglets which in turn melded into large, flat delta wings. Without pity or mercy they swept through the home-defence squadrons, picking them off one by one. There was little, if any, resistance. Their human pilots were either partly, or totally, incapacitated by the pandemic of bio nano-robots. They were in no state to fight back.
The vessels of the Starweb fleet had dark, composite structures that reflected little light, in contrast to the bright heat-reflective skins of the TWDF ships. Which is why, from a distance, it looked like a black fluid was pouring over the Home-Fleet, drowning the vastly outnumbered Terran battleships and cruisers. Behind this melee, bringing up the rear in a futile bid to distract and divert the Starweb vessels, were the remnants of Fleet Admiral Donahue’s fleet. Their numbers, now pitifully few, kept on being depleted as vessels large and small, dropped from formation and carried out their last acts of defiance. Many never got as far as their intended targets, destroyed by the wall of firepower they were forced to fly through. Some m
anaged to survive the onslaught and actually managed to fatally wound a Starweb vessel, even though their sacrifice made such little impact on the numbers of the dark hordes. The remainder of the admiral’s fleet continued as best they could, relying on their increasingly incapacitated crews to fight as well, and for as long, as they could.
Black sat in the captain’s chair on the bridge of Excalibur, feeling increasingly helpless and despondent. They remained in formation at the rear of the TWDF fleet, relying increasingly upon the abilities of Excalibur’s sentient AI computer, to carry out crew tasks. The bio-nanobot pandemic was sweeping through the ship, incapacitating the crew at a frightening speed. As more and more decks of the ship became swamped by those infect by nanobots and tiny crustaceans, those areas were sealed. It was left to the ancient starship’s artificial intelligence to run vital systems and utilise its own nanobot technology to combat the Starweb invaders. Black thought it ironic that it was only thanks to ancient, sentient, artificial intelligence, that Excalibur could continue to function. The TWDF’s fear of reliance on AI was now proving to be its downfall.
He stared at the large holo-screen which dominated the bridge of Excalibur. His attention was drawn by three small blue icons, which had somehow managed to evade the defensive screen of webfighters and were making a beeline for a Starweb cruiser. For a moment his heart lifted as he watched the remaining three surviving Snubfighters of Excalibur’s Attack Group defy the odds. But then, each icon winked out of existence. Black glanced at Hausean, Excalibur’s Fighter Group Controller. She caught his eye and shook her head slightly. The Flyships and Snubfighters which once filled Excalibur’s hangars were all gone. The Fighter Groups were no more.
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