by Jamie Sawyer
“He’s lost it,” Lopez concluded.
Zero nodded. “Full Section Eight.” She looked over at Novak. “But it was easier than we thought. See, Novak, we got answers, and not a knife in sight. All we needed to do was be polite.”
“It was too easy,” I decided. “Why did he tell us that?”
Novak pulled a face. “He did not want me to cut him.”
“Why would he care about that?” I countered. “He was on a suicide mission to blow up this ship.” I watched Riggs move behind the energy field. He paced like a caged animal. “He was only telling us what he wanted us to hear. I need to discuss this with P. It isn’t…”
The words dropped from my mouth, and I staggered. A yawning, gaping chasm had just opened inside my head.
“Ma’am?” Novak asked, steadying me with a hand to my waist. “Something is wrong?”
The blackness was almost enough to floor me. I shook my head, grasping for the edge of consciousness.
The Valkyrie’s warning alarm sounded at that moment.
“Lieutenant Jenkins is required on the Medical Deck,” said the electronic voice. “Attendance is urgent.”
“Something’s happened to P,” I managed. “I can’t feel our connection any more. P’s not in my head.”
Riggs stood on the other side of the obs-field, grinning like a fucking maniac.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THEY BROUGHT IT BACK
We rushed to Medical as fast as we could. Feng, Lopez and Zero were with me, leaving only Novak to guard the brig.
With each passing breath, the dark in my head seemed to subside a little, fraction by fraction. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t going to kill me. But it wasn’t me I was worried about.
Dr Saito was waiting at the hatch, wringing his hands, anxiety large across his face.
“Where is it?” I asked, breathless. “What’s happened?”
“Is P okay?” Lopez said.
“I… I don’t know,” he answered. He shook his head, moving to the area of the lab where P nested. “I’ve sealed it in. This is beyond me.”
Dr Saito opened the cell hatch, and the smell almost floored me. It was P’s scent, magnified. The Jackals gagged and choked on the noxious smell. I peered into the cell, Feng behind me.
“Holy shit,” he said. “I… I think that it’s beyond anyone’s capabilities.”
“Anyone human, at least,” said Lopez.
P’s resinous gunk plastered the bulkheads, caking the lighting system and the air-vents. Strands of webbing hung from the deckhead, haphazardly criss-crossing the cell. Pockets held P’s self-produced equipment and ammunition.
“What the hell is that?” Lopez asked.
A cocoon dangled in the centre of the mess.
“Hand me a bio-scanner, Doc,” I said.
Dr Saito produced a handheld scanner. I tuned the device and panned it over the room. Most of the cell was alive in one way or another, and I got readings from the fibrous bundles of tissue lining the walls.
“P is in there,” I confirmed. “And it’s alive, although barely.” I approached the cocoon. Experimentally tapped a knuckle against it. “It’s hard. Solid. More like carapace, or shell, than flesh. P did this to itself.”
“It was injured, during the attack on Sanctuary,” Zero said. “Maybe… maybe it’s trying to heal. I mean certain creatures—animals—can enter a suspended state. Catatonic immobility, it’s called.”
“And P can do this ‘immobility’ thing?” Lopez asked.
“I haven’t heard of the Krell doing so,” Dr Saito replied, “but I suppose it’s possible. That, or some sort of further maturation. This could be another stage in the alien’s development. It could be a chrysalis.”
In which case, I thought to myself, what is P becoming?
“Did P explain any of this to you, Doc?” I asked.
Dr Saito shook his head. “Nothing. We’ve talked, at length, but it gave me no reason to believe this would happen.”
The cocoon was a huge, swollen sac of a thing. It dangled there, oozing fluid, straining against the webbing. The surface shimmered. I ran a hand over the outer shell.
“P? You in there? Can you hear me?”
For the first time in a very long time, I couldn’t sense Pariah. The xeno wasn’t communicating with me, and I couldn’t even sense it in the back of my head. That was a strange feeling; something only appreciated in its absence. I’d reprimanded P for invading my head before. Now I desperately wanted to re-establish the link, to somehow know that it was all right.
“We’d like to know that you’re still with us, P.”
The cocoon gave nothing away. I retreated out of the cell and wiped my hands across my fatigues.
“There is one other possibility,” Dr Saito said.
“Go on.”
“The warden-form that attacked Pariah carried Harbinger,” Dr Saito said. “This… this could be an immune response to the infection.”
“You mean the virus?” Feng said. “Not likely. Our fish is resistant.”
“But P tested negative for infection,” I said. “We talked about this.”
“We did,” Dr Saito said, nodding. “And I ran a further virology test. That came back negative as well, like the first.”
“Then what has this,” Lopez said, pointing into the cell, “got to do with the virus?”
“The Black Spiral released a mutated Harbinger strain on Sanctuary,” he said. “It was faster-acting and more aggressive than anything we’ve seen before. This could be a reaction to exposure.”
There was a drawn-out pause around the room, as that information sank in. The Jackals’ spirits dropped.
“Could P be infected with Harbinger?” Lopez asked, somewhat reluctantly.
Dr Saito rubbed his chin. “I don’t know. This is new territory, and Pariah’s genetic-sequence is so complicated.”
Zero swallowed. “Captain Heinrich will need to know about this. If P is infected…”
I completed her sentence: “Then it’s a liability, on a ship already carrying enough of those.”
“I’ll keep the compartment under surveillance,” Dr Saito said. “Anything significant happens, we’ll know about it.”
“We can’t let P die,” Zero said.
Dr Saito gave a smile and nodded. “I’ve become quite attached to the subject myself.”
“Fucking Riggs,” Lopez spat. “Another life that bastard has to answer for.”
As much as I didn’t want to, I knew that I had no choice but to report to Captain Heinrich. He had an office amidships, one of the compartments that hadn’t been hit. A trooper from Phoenix Squad was stationed at the hatch. He was skinned and armoured, with a plasma rifle over his chest. I recognised his name as Morentz.
“State your name and business,” he said as I approached.
“I think you know perfectly well who I am.”
“Identify name and business,” Morentz said.
“Fine. Lieutenant Jenkins, reporting to Captain Heinrich.”
I buzzed the hatch, and Heinrich answered.
“Enter,” he said.
I entered the room and saluted. Captain Heinrich’s office wasn’t big, but it was larger than the cramped barracks the Jackals had been assigned.
Captain Heinrich sat behind his smart-desk. Commander Dieter sat opposite, and they both looked very tired. Tumblers of amber-coloured liquid—something alcoholic—sat on the table.
“At ease,” Captain Heinrich said, waving a hand. “Take a seat, Lieutenant.”
That wasn’t expected. I took a chair on the same side of the desk as Commander Dieter.
“Drink?” Heinrich asked.
“Ah… yes, sir,” I said. “It’s been that kind of day.”
“That it has,” Commander Dieter agreed, sipping at her glass.
Captain Heinrich reclined in his chair. His uniform was unkempt, open at the neck, and his eyes were bloodshot. Whatever I thought of Heinrich, I knew that he was un
der some intense pressure now.
“This,” said Captain Heinrich, swilling the liquid around in his glass, “is ten-year-aged Proximan whiskey. Venusian filtered.”
“That so?”
“I doubt that you’ve ever tasted anything so refined before.”
“I have, actually. Aboard Secretary Lopez’s yacht, on Sanctuary.”
Captain Heinrich smiled self-assuredly. “Of course. But you’re not the only one to have a connection with the Secretary, Lieutenant.”
My eye focused on a picture behind Heinrich; a tri-D image of Heinrich in formal blues, shaking hands with the Secretary, both grinning at the camera. It looked like an Alliance function of some kind, and had probably been deliberately placed over Heinrich’s shoulder, forcing anyone addressing him to look at it.
Captain Heinrich saw where I was looking. “That was taken at the official opening of the Alpha Settlement atmosphere grid,” he said. “The Secretary and I have some history.”
“Proximans do tend to stick together,” I said.
“Proxima Colony is the closest thing the Alliance has to a seat of government,” Captain Heinrich said. “You’d do well to remember that. You’re an Old Earther, as I recall?”
“Californian, born and bred.”
“Ah, yes. I remember. That must be where you get your callsign from.”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“The old political powers are waning,” Commander Dieter chimed in. She’d been quiet throughout the exchange, possibly because she wasn’t Proximan.
“The universe is changing,” said Captain Heinrich. “The Black Spiral will be defeated at Ithaca, and we will enter a new era of progress. Men like Secretary Lopez will see to it.”
I stared down at the half-empty glass of whiskey. I didn’t really feel like finishing it. Was this what we had become? Pawns for Secretary Lopez and his cronies in government? It felt that way. I wanted the Spiral decimated more than anyone. But, as ever, it’s the “what comes after” that really defines whether a war is worth it…
“I take it that you’ve come to give me your report?” Captain Heinrich said, making clear that our discussion was at an end.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then proceed.”
I gave him a truncated version of Riggs’ interrogation. Heinrich listened in without interruption, occasionally sipping at his whiskey. Then I gave my report on P’s condition.
“So,” Heinrich muttered, slightly reclining in his chair, “you’re telling me that the xeno asset is no longer reliable?”
“It’s more than unreliable. P is out of the game.”
“Goddamn it.”
Captain Heinrich searched the room for something, or someone, to take his frustration out on. When he couldn’t find an immediate target, other than me, he launched into a diatribe.
“The Pariah Project has been a waste of resources from start to finish,” he exclaimed. “I told Command that it wasn’t a good bet. And now, when we need the fish most of all, it isn’t even available to us! When will it come out of this cocoon?”
“Dr Saito is observing the subject. I don’t think he—or I—can give an estimate.”
“Has it done this before?”
“No, sir. It hasn’t.”
“Well, isn’t that great?” Captain Heinrich asked rhetorically. “Another Alliance project turned against us.”
I narrowed my eyes at that. “What do you mean, sir: ‘another Alliance project’?”
“Nothing, Jenkins. Nothing.”
“What other assets have turned? Other xeno assets?”
That sense of creeping doom occurred to me again. It was a feeling that I had recently been experiencing far too frequently. Zero’s discovery—that the canister on Vektah Minor had originated from a Sci-Div bio-weapons facility—jumped to mind.
“You do know something, right?” I asked. “There are… rumours that the Alliance had a hand in the creation of Harbinger.”
Heinrich exhaled through his nose and stared at his desk, where data-streams jumped across the tri-D monitor.
“The idea that the Alliance created the virus is an old spacefarer’s myth,” Dieter said. “But I can assure you that there is no truth in it at all.”
“There’s no point in holding back on this any more,” Heinrich said.
“Then enlighten me, sir.”
“The Alliance had nothing to do with the creation of the Harbinger virus. The nano-tech involved here is so far advanced, beyond anything we are currently capable of developing.”
Commander Dieter placed her glass on the edge of the desk, and Heinrich refilled it. She looked at me coolly, framed by the view-port behind her. That showed a cluster of stars.
“I’ve been running Spec Ops missions for decades, Lieutenant,” she said. “I was deployed with the Alliance Army Rangers for a long time.”
Clade Cooper—Warlord—had been a former Army Ranger. More pieces fell into place, and I wasn’t sure that I liked where this was going.
“Did you know Clade Cooper?” I asked.
She nodded, sullenly. There was no pride in her revelation of the relationship.
“Yes. I knew him, before he became Warlord. He was a decent man, someone who would do anything for those that relied on him. His squad was like blood.” She smiled, and it was a weak and exhausted expression. “The Jackals remind me of them, in a way. The squad were called the Iron Knights.”
“What has any of this got to do with the Harbinger virus?”
“I’ll get to that,” Commander Dieter said. “As I’m sure you’re aware, this isn’t my first command. My virgin Special Operations command was when I was aged just thirty-two standard.”
Dieter pulled back the sleeve of her uniform. She was now pushing the ceiling of middle-age, but despite the years, the holo-tattoo on her arm was still active. It sparkled across her tanned skin.
I recognised the name.
UAS Iron Knight.
I looked at the tattoo, then back at Dieter.
“That… that was Clade Cooper’s starship,” I said. “You were captain of his squad’s ship?”
Something inside of me said that I needed a gun, a weapon, and I needed it right now. A voice screamed that this woman could be Black Spiral. But the words didn’t seem to cause any reaction at all in Heinrich. He already knew about Dieter’s background, I realised, and he still trusted her. Dieter was no threat to me. Her eyes looked glassy, as though she were fighting to hold back emotion. She nodded.
“I was captain of the ship sent to Barain-11, to extract Sergeant Cooper’s squad. We had worked together on several deployments by then, and he trusted me. He used to say that I was the best captain he’d ever worked with. By the time I came up through the ranks, Cooper had worked with several other crews, but we had a special bond.”
Dieter didn’t elaborate on that any further, and I decided not to ask questions. Something in her expression suggested—but no more—that this could’ve been more than platonic. According to his files, Cooper had been a family man. He’d faithfully renewed his marriage contract, dutifully supported his wife and children despite the distance caused by his constant deployments… But Cooper wouldn’t be the first to pay lip service to a contract, while he got his rocks off elsewhere.
“The operation should’ve been routine,” Commander Dieter said. She laughed, and the noise came out hollow and bitter. “What bullshit that turned out to be. Mili-Intel fed us bad intelligence. There were Krell everywhere, and I couldn’t reach the extraction point. Cooper was left behind. He—and his squad—were taken prisoner. He was a POW for two years.”
Two years. The period seemed impossibly long. Made all the worst because the Iron Knights hadn’t been simulant-rated. The Army Rangers recon teams didn’t utilise simulants. They were expected to do their work in real skins. Cooper and his Knights had paid the price for that operational decision.
“Riggs’ father was there as well,” I added. “What was their missi
on? Why were they on Barain-11?”
There was a long pause before Dieter answered that question. Heinrich stared at his glass, like it held all the answers.
“You’ve got to remember that this was at the peak of the Krell War,” she said. “When things were at their worst, when the Alliance would’ve done anything to end the stalemate.” Dieter swallowed, dispelling a bad taste. “Sergeant Cooper and the Iron Knights were sent to Barain-11 in search of a weapon that could be used against the Krell. They found the Harbinger virus in the ruins of a Shard facility, on the moon’s surface.”
“And they brought it back with them…?” I said, my words trailing off, dying in my mouth.
“Yes,” Dieter admitted. “The Iron Knights’ mission was successful, despite what had happened to Cooper. He survived his squad, and delivered the Harbinger virus into Alliance hands.”
“We didn’t use it, though,” Captain Heinrich quickly added. “Command thought that it was too powerful, too unstable.” He gave a strangled chortle. “That was one thing that we got right, I suppose.”
All of this made a certain, terrible sense. Clade Cooper’s mission on Barain-11 had been to acquire the Harbinger virus, but he had lost everything to achieve that objective, only for the Alliance to make peace with the Krell, and abandon him. His homeworld had been invaded by the Krell, by the Red Fin Collective, and his wife and children had been killed during the evacuation. If that wasn’t an event significant enough to cause a life-long grudge, then I don’t know what is.
“The Jackals found a canister inside the nest station on Vektah Minor,” I said. “I ordered Sergeant Campbell—Zero—to research the markings. She traced them back to a Science Division facility on Delta Primus. A bio-weapons facility.”
“Figures,” said Captain Heinrich. He was almost certainly drunk now, and poured himself another tall measure of whiskey. “When Clade Cooper left Alliance custody, after his rehabilitation, he stole certain restricted materials. Those included samples of the Harbinger virus. Early attempts at understanding the virus.”
Heinrich propped his feet on the corner of his desk, resting his glass on his stomach.
“It goes without saying that this is all classified,” he added, after the fact.