Old Ironsides

by Dean Crawford

  ‘Talk to me,’ she said as she approached the admiral.

  Marshall ignored her for a long moment as he listened to the reports coming in from his bridge crew.

  ‘Scanners clear, no jump signatures or gravitational bow shocks detected,’ the tactical officer said.

  ‘All Phantoms turned around and ready for re-launch,’ reported the CAG. ‘No targets detected in this sector.’

  ‘Shields up, plasma batteries recharged and Captain Reece is in position aboard Endeavour on our starboard flank at ten thousand metres,’ the XO called.

  Marshall surveyed the scene for a few more moments, and Foxx noted that they were now in orbit close to Jupiter, only a single leap away from CSS Polaris near Saturn.

  Marshall turned to her, saw Sergeant Agry behind her in his own biohazard suit. Data pads on their chests recorded vital functions, and already new information was streaming onto the bridge as blood samples taken by the Marine medic were analysed and the results shared with the crew.

  ‘Blood work shows that most of the Marine party are not infected with any known pathogens,’ Marshall reported. ‘However, Foxx, you’re infected with plague.’

  Marshall’s abrupt announcement, devoid of any sense of sympathy that she could detect, seemed callous in the extreme. Plague. The deadliest known infection ever to have struck mankind and that she had thought had been eradicated so long ago was back and now she was the carrier, the ground zero.

  ‘I’m immune,’ she replied.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Olsen said as he stepped forward. ‘We had a priority signal arrive direct from New Washington right before the Aleeyans arrived. Your detectives figured out what you were sprayed with during a confrontation with a criminal you were pursuing.’

  ‘Viggo,’ Foxx said. ‘He hit me with something that took away my memory for a day or two.’

  ‘It took more than that,’ Marshall said, and now she saw the concealed anguish behind his gaze. Marshall knew that everybody on the deck was listening. ‘It’s designed to reverse the brain’s understanding of its immune system, to erase immunity to plague. Looks like somebody spent some time modifying the street drug Shiver to carry a virus that does the work of removing immunity, and then all it takes is exposure…’

  Marshall stopped talking as Foxx reached out for a console to steady herself. She already knew enough about the plague to be certain of what would happen next. Hell, every school kid knew what happened, had played games and sung songs based around the hellish decline faced by anybody carrying the plague with them. The Falling. A haunting nursery rhyme she had not heard since third grade echoed in melancholic tones through the vaults of her mind.

  Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,

  The Falling is coming, we must say goodbye.

  Don’t cry for us when we are all gone,

  Cry for yourself, you’ll live only so long.

  ‘Foxx?’

  Sergeant Agry’s hand was on her shoulder, his grip firm but gentle. The Marine looked at the admiral.

  ‘The Aleeyans knew where we were and they were waiting for us,’ he snarled. ‘They knew about the plague aboard the ship, too. I gotta assume that this is all something to do with them, that they know how to manipulate the drugs to wipe our immunity away.’

  Marshall nodded.

  ‘The Aleeyans have failed to defeat us in open battle for decades, centuries even. It makes sense that they’d make a move like this, exploit human weaknesses as a means to eradicate us from within.’

  ‘Which means that this plan has been in the making for a long time,’ Olsen pointed out. ‘The Aleeyans must have attacked the colonization vessel and then used the drug to remove the occupant’s immunity. Once the plague was reintroduced to the ship, it would have taken just days for the crew to degenerate into rotting piles of dead flesh and…’

  Olsen cut himself off as he glanced at Foxx, who was still leaning against the counter.

  ‘We don’t have long,’ she said. ‘If I’ve been exposed to a drug that removed my immunity, then it’s a fair bet that thousands have been likewise exposed on New Washington, New Chicago and countless other orbital cities. It’s even possible, based on our work so far, that the modified Shiver drug may have found its way onto the surface, on earth, because the drug had been aerosolized.’

  The bridge of the warship fell silent as the crew considered the implications. Foxx recalled that once infected, the victim developed a mild fever within an hour or so, such was the speed with which the infection moved through the human body. The fever passed but left in its wake an incredible weakness, the limbs and head seeming ten times as heavy as the body’s immune system went into overdrive attempting to eradicate the virus.

  It was this intense lethargy that gave the plague its name: The Falling. People were bed ridden within hours of infection no matter what medication they received. Within twenty four hours the virus would overwhelm the body, and at this point the lethargy would fade and the victim would be compelled to move about again. This compulsion signalled the point where the virus had entered the brain and was engaged in attempting to spread itself far and wide into other victims.

  The horror of the plague was then revealed in all its gruesome glory. Riddled with the lethal infection, victims would start moving about even as the flesh began to fall from their bodies as the plague tried to infect others. Teeth would spill from open mouths, limbs would drop off, chunks of flesh would tumble from torsos but still the victim would carry on, eventually sinking into shock and becoming an automaton, a real-life zombie wandering aimlessly until the decay and degradation of the flesh became so acute that they would literally collapse where they were into a seething mass of crumbling limbs and organs.

  Nobody had ever discovered precisely when the victim was actually dead, but all had agreed that the immense, groaning hordes of shuffling misery that had surged through the streets and fields of every country on earth had not been zombies but simply human beings compelled to move by forces beyond control, their haunting cries the pleas of the dying for help or surcease from their suffering.

  ‘Foxx?’

  Foxx looked up, blinked, jerked out of her reverie by the admiral’s voice. ‘Yeah?’

  Marshall regarded her for a moment and then made his decision.

  ‘You’re out of the game,’ he told her before he turned to his crew. ‘Send a priority signal to CSS Headquarters and inform them of the danger. We’ll need a complete isolation of all known drug users and runners across all orbital and surface cities.’

  ‘That could take weeks,’ Foxx said. ‘We don’t have the manpower.’

  ‘Then we’ll involve the military,’ Marshall insisted.

  ‘We need Schmidt,’ Foxx snapped back.

  ‘Schmidt may be the damned cause!’ Marshall growled. ‘He stays in shutdown until I decide otherwise!’

  ‘You’ve shut him down?!’ Foxx echoed in horror. ‘He’s the only one with the expertise we need to find a cure for this before it’s too late!’

  ‘Schmidt’s assistant, a man named Jean Alisso, has been found dead on waste ground in New York City,’ Marshall shot back at her. ‘Apparent suicide, after being linked to Aleeyan sympathizers when it turned out that he was the link between Arwen Minter, Viggo Polt and the drug business.’

  Foxx worked her jaw as she tried to speak. ‘That doesn’t mean that Schmidt’s involved too.’

  ‘It doesn’t absolve him from guilt either,’ Marshall pointed out.

  Foxx stared at the admiral for a moment, and then she looked at Agry. ‘Where’s Nathan?’

  The sergeant offered her an apologetic look. ‘I was ordered to leave him aboard Icarus.’

  Foxx stared at the Marine in horror and then turned to Marshall. ‘Why?’

  Marshall lifted his chin in defiance. ‘The Aleeyans wanted him, asked for him by name. I had no choice. It was Ironside or the entire crews of two CSS vessels.’

  Foxx could barely believe what she was hearing. ‘He’
s not going to last five minutes. You know what they do to people, what they’ve done in the past, and you left him behind?’

  Marshall kept his features stoic. ‘This is war, lieutenant. It’s not supposed to be fair.’

  ‘This is a criminal investigation and you’re hindering our work,’ Foxx insisted, suddenly suspicious of the admiral. ‘You either free up the resources I need to solve this case or I’ll…’

  ‘This is a military vessel and your case is on New Washington, detective,’ Marshall cut her off. ‘You have no authority or jurisdiction aboard my ship and right now you’re a contamination risk.’

  Marshall looked past her to where Sergeant Agry was still waiting.

  ‘Your men are cleared from biohazard restrictions, sergeant. Place Lieutenant Foxx into quarantine until we can figure out what to do about her contamination.’

  The sergeant hesitated. ‘Without her, we wouldn’t have figured this out.’

  ‘With her, we’ll all end up with plague,’ Marshall snapped back. ‘Quarantine her, now!’

  Foxx glared at the captain through her hood, but already she felt as meek as a lamb and could barely move her legs as the sergeant gently took her arm and led her away from the bridge.

  ***

  XXXV

  Nathan Ironside stepped into a corridor aboard the Aleeyan warship and was immediately hit by the hot, dense air that seemed to gust past him as though he were standing in a midsummer’s New York subway as a train approached.

  The walls of the corridor glistened with moisture, the lights in the ceiling casting their misty glow through the ship as Havok joined him and noted his confused gaze.

  ‘The planet that we settled, Aleeya, orbits a dwarf star at fairly close range,’ he explained. ‘It’s a brown dwarf, a very stable sun but much smaller and cooler than Earth’s star, Sol. The closer orbit means higher doses of radiation, hence our stronger skin, and the planet’s smaller size and mass than earth resulted in our taller stature as it has a lower gravitational influence.’

  Nathan looked up at Havok’s muscular form, who towered a couple of feet above him.

  ‘What about the rest of you?’

  Havok’s crooked grimace of a smile creased his jaw as he led Nathan through the ship, which felt something like walking through a steaming and partially metallic jungle.

  ‘Prey animals on Aleeya are fast, aggressive and resourceful. In the early days only the strongest and most robust of the colonists survived, and that natural selection led to our growth in stature and strength. Our males pride themselves on both their courage and resilience in battle and to the wilderness. We will openly compete to win dominance over a harem.’

  ‘You have harems?’

  ‘All men have harems, although it’s sometimes uncertain who is really in command.’

  Nathan detected a faint undercurrent of self-depreciating humor in Havok’s tones, a ghostly relic of their shared ancestry.

  ‘Nothing much has changed then,’ he replied as they walked, keen to cultivate an ally until he could escape from this vessel. ‘The women are in control but you have to answer to more of them than we do.’

  ‘The women govern from the home,’ Havok replied, ‘and the men defend our world from beyond. This is how it has been for centuries.’

  ‘You attack Earth repeatedly,’ Nathan pointed out.

  ‘They cast us out into the cosmos,’ Havok retaliated.

  ‘You left of your own free will.’

  ‘Lies,’ Havok scowled. ‘They marooned us out here, believed us impure, inhuman. It is our right to return if we wish, but they deny us and our children that right.’

  ‘You’re not helping your cause by sharpening your teeth and cannibalising your victims,’ Nathan pointed out. ‘It’s not quite the kind of dinner etiquette we’re used to.’

  ‘Needs must,’ Havok said. ‘We are still human in some ways, but we are also savages and ostracised by humanity, much as you are now a stranger in a strange land. You must have learned much in the few days you have been here.’

  ‘How do you know so much about me?’ Nathan challenged. ‘My reanimation was supposed to have been top secret.’

  ‘As is so much,’ Havok agreed and gestured ahead.

  Nathan saw a set of double doors and recognized them instantly as the entrance to the ship’s bridge, the layout strikingly similar to Titan’s if he ignored the thick air and cloying heat. He stepped through the doors and saw the broad and circular bridge, work stations occupied by Aleeyans who looked up with yellow predator’s eyes at him and in unison they snarled at once.

  ‘This human is my guest,’ Havok growled. ‘He will not be harmed.’

  The Aleeyan officers snarled in disgust and continued to glare at Nathan as he was led to the captain’s chair by Havok, whose mere presence dominated the bridge so effectively without him having to say a further word. Nathan stopped beside the seat as Havok eased himself into it.

  ‘You were the birth of our people,’ Havok repeated once again. ‘You effectively were the vessel through which the plague travelled into humanity and started the process through which we came to be. For that, we give you thanks.’

  Nathan looked around at the Aleeyan officers still glaring at him. ‘I don’t think that’s a universal feeling.’

  ‘Pah! Ignore them, fools!’ Havok said as he glared right back at his crew. ‘They, like the humans, would tar all with the same brush. They believe that any human is an enemy, perhaps as you believe any Aleeyan to be a threat.’ Havok leaned close to him. ‘Or any human to be an ally?’

  Nathan got the hint. ‘Not all allies, or enemies, are equal.’

  ‘Quite true,’ Havok grinned, and watched him for a moment before continuing on. ‘You believe that we have created a new virus with which to attack humanity.’

  ‘The admiral believes so, and we know that you’ve taken Lieutenant Foxx’s immunity to plague away from her using modified drugs. She’s already sick.’

  Havok nodded slowly, those terrible yellow eyes never leaving Nathan’s. ‘And yet we have not entered the Solar System for decades and the drugs of which you speak are grown and distributed on Earth only.’

  ‘Colony ships have been leaving the system for centuries,’ Nathan countered. ‘Users no doubt ended up aboard them, making it easy for you to acquire Shiver for your experiments.’

  ‘Assumptions,’ Havok accused him. ‘You’re right about the drug’s travel beyond the solar system, but assume we have been doing experiments. Why?’

  ‘Because it’s logical.’

  ‘Because it’s prejudice!’ Havok snapped, and clenched one thick fist. ‘Because even you assume our guilt before even a single shred of evidence is presented!’

  ‘That colony ship is evidence,’ Nathan said. ‘It was attacked before the crew died of plague. The captain’s last words were that you were behind the attack.’

  ‘Space is full of undesirables,’ Havok replied. ‘Pirates, corsairs, murderers, miners and other lowlifes forced out of the solar system in search of a new life among the stars. Who knows what this ship encountered, or even when. It certainly wasn’t us.’

  ‘Plague acts quickly, and the crew lived long enough to send distress messages,’ Nathan pointed out. ‘Then you and your fleet show up right after we arrive to check those signals out.’

  Havok smiled at him. ‘And if we showed up in response to those same signals?’

  ‘Out of the kindness of your hearts?’ Nathan asked. ‘The only association I’ve seen between Aleeyans and hearts is the desire to eat mine while I’m still alive. Forgive me if I’m suspicious that you’d have come here to save lives.’

  Havok stood and towered over Nathan, and for a moment he thought that he had gone too far and the Aleeyan intended to kill him. But instead, Havok spoke softly.

  ‘That is what your father intended,’ he said.

  Nathan stared at the towering Aleeyan, speechless for a moment. ‘My father? What the hell does he have to do with
this?’

  ‘Everything,’ Havok replied, ‘and nothing at the same time. His legacy and yours are not of your own doing. This is the difference between our culture and that of human beings, Ironside – we do not visit the sins of the father upon the son.’

  Nathan’s caution vanished and he took a threatening pace closer to Havok. ‘My father was a good man.’

  ‘Yes he was,’ Havok acknowledged. ‘And it is in his name that such evil is being spread. I take it that such an injustice is one that you would wish to see avenged?’

  Nathan spoke through gritted teeth. ‘I don’t believe any of it. You people are here to spread the plague, to conquer mankind.’

  ‘No,’ Havok insisted. ‘We came here to stop it.’

  *

  New Washington

  ‘Yo, ‘sup?’

  Vasquez barrelled into the precinct office toward Allen, who was already watching a news feed at his desk with several other officers gathered around.

  ‘One of the fleet’s frigates just turned up at Polaris,’ Allen reported. ‘There must be media aboard the ship because every news station from here to Pluto is all over it. They were engaged by an Aleeyan fleet that’s already orbiting Neptune.’

  Vasquez almost fell over himself to get a better view of the feed. ‘You’re kidding me?’

  ‘No,’ Allen replied, ‘that would be a really bad joke. Twelve ships, four of them capital vessels. CSS is scrambling to gather a force to intercept them.’

  ‘What about Foxx?’

  ‘No news,’ Allen replied furtively, biting his lip before he went on. ‘All we know for sure is that there was an engagement between Titan and one of the Aleeyan capital ships, and that Titan bugged out when the rest of the enemy fleet arrived.’

  ‘She ran?’

  ‘Smartest thing to do, man,’ Allen said defensively. ‘Admiral Marshall probably figured it was better to draw the line somewhere deeper inside the system than to face certain death and open up the door to earth for them.’