The Reaper Plague

by David VanDyke

  “They’re halfway to the Mars orbit line. She’s sent a few texts saying everything is fine. Anyone with a radio telescope could pick them up but I swore all of the FC astronomers to secrecy and the media don’t seem to have found out yet. They will eventually, though. Someone always talks. Does it matter?”

  “I guess not. Nothing much we can do from here. Has she responded to our messages?”

  “Not directly,” said Cass. “I don’t know if her receiver is sensitive enough. I’ve been loath to send a high-powered transmission for fear of interception. I wish we’d set up a code of some sort before this happened.”

  DJ snorted. “Lots of things we didn’t do because we failed to anticipate something like this. Skull had a point – we were so focused on the plagues that we forgot about the spaceship and its technology. Five-meter targets.”

  “Shoot the nearest ones first, I know,” Cass responded ruefully, “but sometimes the farthest ones away are the ones that get you.”

  -12-

  Master Sergeant Repeth took a deep breath outside her office door and readied herself for her coming performance, then opened the door. Her five key noncommissioned officers stood at parade rest in front of her desk as she stepped inside. “At ease!” called Staff Sergeant Grusky, the command the Army used when a more senior NCO entered a room in a formal situation.

  “Grusky, stand fast. The rest of you get out and stand by,” she snapped. The four squad leaders filed out while Staff Sergeant Grusky stood stiffly at parade rest.

  Once they shut the door, she exploded into action. Her hands reached for Grusky’s shoulders from behind and spun him around, grasping his lapels in a classic bully’s grip as she drove him backward until he slammed into the bare cinder-block wall. She lifted him up onto his toes as his eyes bulged with shock and fear.

  “You know, Grusky,” she snarled, “my father, Marine Sergeant Major Marion Repeth, used to tell me about the old Corps and the days of wall-to-wall counseling. In my time in service, we’ve had a kinder, gentler military, but no longer. Welcome to my new old way of doing business.”

  She spun him two hundred seventy degrees around, slamming him up against the adjacent wall. His head cracked against the concrete and his eyes crossed. “We don’t have time for namby-pamby crap. You think because I’m an Eden I won’t put you through hell? Well think again.”

  She spun him again, one-eighty and five long steps to the far wall, this time taking care to knee him in the guts as she did it so his head didn’t take another blow. She wanted him conscious. “Oh look, here’s another wall. Are you an Eden yet, Grusky? No? Well maybe you will be before the day is out, either that or you’ll be in traction.”

  She manhandled him once more, this time sideways to bounce off the fourth wall, then she dropped him into the chair in front of her desk. Her voice menaced him beneath a mild, contemplative sarcasm. “Now just so we understand each other perfectly, I will tell you this in plain fifth-grade language. I will not tolerate the kind of attitude I saw from you today. It’s bad for discipline, it’s bad for the mission, and if it continues it’s going to be very bad for you personally. You have one chance and one chance only to straighten up, and this is it. You start demonstrating to me that you deserve those stripes right now, or you will be packing your bags. Are we clear?”

  The man struggled to his feet gasping, sweat pouring from his face. “Clear, Master Sergeant.”

  “I said ARE WE CLEAR?”

  “CLEAR, MASTER SERGEANT!”

  She turned her back on him, simultaneously contemptuous and giving him his shot if he wanted to take it. “Then go get the others and come back in.”

  She listened carefully for any aggressive move, but the only sound was the door opening and his feet thudding as he ran to get the others. She smiled to herself, knowing the story would spread like wildfire, making it that much less likely she would actually have to do it again. It should also shortly become obvious which way Grusky was going to break – for her or against her. She needed to know that right away, because there was no way she was going to go on a combat mission with an untrustworthy second in command.

  When her NCOs came back in she was all affable business. “Relax, people. Now, I need your names and very brief backgrounds before we go on.”

  The first to speak up was a round-faced black man, his manner precise and forthright. “Sergeant Nathan Tunner, 31 Bravo. Did my first tour at Schofield, then Fort Richardson, Alaska, then this.” He didn’t elaborate further, so Repeth nodded at the next in line, a Hispanic woman.

  “Sergeant Gennifer Doran, 3PO51A.”

  “Dog handler.”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant.”

  “Do you have a dog?”

  Pain crossed the woman’s face. “No, Master Sergeant. He got killed down in Mexico when some insurgents hit Azteca Air Base.”

  “Sorry about that. But you’re going to have to forget about that for now and lead your squad.” Repeth looked at Doran sharply. The other woman nodded, her jaw set. Repeth snapped, “You will answer me properly, Sergeant, and you will have to bury that grief until you have time to deal with it because right now people’s lives depend on you.”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!” Doran responded coldly.

  Better cold than soft and mushy, thought Repeth, and she better get used to compartmentalizing. It’s the only way you get through combat.

  The other two, Army Sergeants Derrick Shute and Randy Butler, ginger and blond respectively, gave simple, even bare stories of one assignment in Iowa. Repeth’s ears pricked up.

  “Sounds like you two were together, from the way you said that.”

  The two men answered “Yes, Master Sergeant,” in near-unison.

  “In Iowa.”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant.”

  “But I noticed you didn’t say where.” Her eyes were sharp, and she knew she was on to something.

  The two men stood silently at parade rest, eyes front and not meeting hers.

  “Out with it. I can’t have people not telling me things.”

  Butler licked his lips, then spoke. “Master Sergeant…we were Air Guardsmen at Des Moines Air National Guard Base…but when they reinforced Mexico with more SS they took us to Two-Forty to help them there.”

  “Two-Forty Internment Camp,” she said flatly. “I’m familiar with it.” Very familiar. One winter starving there convinced me the UGNA wasn’t going to come around to accepting Edens. “Did you commit any atrocities?”

  Sergeant Shute swallowed convulsively and led a chorus of “No, Master Sergeant!”

  “In fact, Master Sergeant,” he went on, “we smuggled food in to the S – the Edens there.” His eyes pleaded for understanding, for forgiveness.

  I’m not here to be nice to these people, Repeth told herself. Play the role of the hardass. They have to believe you’re tougher and harder and meaner than anyone here, that you won’t respect them until they earn it.

  “Is that supposed to make me happy?” she snapped. “Make me your friend, your buddy? I’m not interested in your past sins or the guilt on your souls. We’ve all done things we regret. I’m only interested in now and going forward, do you all copy? So the one thing that concerns me right now is how you two managed to end up together and as my third and fourth squad leaders instead of being split up. Well? Someone speak up.”

  “Uh, Master Sergeant…” Butler said, “I swapped with another guy that didn’t want to be here. Here in Fourth Platoon, that is.”

  Repeth stared ice at Butler, then the rest. They in turn looked hard at the wall. Finally, she growled, “Fine. I don’t want anyone in this platoon who doesn’t want to be here anyway. But if I see any problem with you two bosom buddies, we’ll flip a coin and one of you will get transferred. We clear?”

  ---

  After meeting her leadership team Master Sergeant Repeth spoke to the rest of her NCOs to establish her standards and expectations. After that she addressed her platoon as a whole as they stood in
formation after breakfast.

  This time SSG Grusky called them to attention and saluted smartly. “Fourth Platoon, all present or accounted for.”

  Repeth returned the salute, formally taking charge of the formation, and Grusky spun about, wooden-faced, and marched precisely to his position. She addressed them in her best parade-ground voice, pitched to carry.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the training schedule is posted on the platoon board. You may notice that today’s extends until 2100 hours, and each day from now on begins at 0440 wake-up and 0500 physical training. Every moment from now on will be full. And the first thing on the training schedule is a readiness line. We all know the drill – make sure your records are in order, your will and life insurance is updated – and inoculations.”

  She paused, looked them over.

  “Everyone here is going to receive a vaccine that protects against the Demon Plagues – Edens get a nanovaccine, normals get a biovaccine. This is mandatory. A copy of the written order is also posted on the platoon board. Once you get your shot, the Edens among you will move on and finish their readiness processing then report back to me here. Those of you who are not Edens will be given the opportunity to receive the Eden virus.”

  She let that declaration hang for a moment, watching her people. She saw a few darting eyeballs and heard a few coughs and indistinct sounds but by and large they stayed tight to the position of attention. Good. They heard about my wall-to-wall counseling already and are straightening themselves out. And it looks like Grusky is either a very good actor or has taken his medicine and is ready to get on with business. Their uniforms even look better. Some of them must have worked on them during the breakfast break.

  “Listen up. All Eden Plague carriers, on the command to fall out, fall out to my right and form two perpendicular ranks. The rest will stand fast. FALL OUT.” About a quarter of the people fell out and took places in a new, much smaller formation to the side.

  Repeth lifted a hand to point at a large Army corporal remaining in the second row of normals. “You. What’s your name, big man.”

  “Donovan, Master Sergeant.” He had a rough but intelligent face, and hangdog eyes that matched his Blue Ridge mountain twang.

  “Corporal Donovan, front and center.”

  The man moved out smartly and reported to her. She told him to stand to one side. “At ease,” she called, and the platoon relaxed slightly. “Many of you have a mistaken idea about Edens – what the Unies called ‘Sickos’ in their more lurid propaganda. They told you that Sickos can’t fight. Does anyone here think Edens can’t fight? Come on, be honest.” Some of the younger or bolder normals raised tentative hands.

  “So, Corporal Donovan,” she said, turning to the looming soldier, “I want you to attack me. Remember, I will heal from anything short of death. Come at me any way you want to – hands, feet, rocks, sticks, that knife on your belt, whatever you like. And make it good. I hate a weak effort.” She took a half-step backward and loosened her joints, opening up her gaze and focus to encompass her opponent.

  Donovan, nodded, stepped back, put up his hands and threw a couple of snapping jabs to test the waters.

  She’d picked him because taking down a big man is always more impressive. She’d found they usually weren’t as skilled as smaller people who’d had to rely on something other than bulk, but Donovan was different. Obviously had some boxing training. This is going to be even better than I expected.

  Neither Donovan nor the rest of the onlookers could know how she’d trained in FC Special Operations Section. How at first Spooky had drilled her personally, then brought in skilled instructors in the combative arts. How she’d driven herself to muscle failure, to battered broken bones, to shock and to pain, and how she’d gotten up each day fresh and healed and done it all over again, until there was no fear of pain left in her, no terror of destruction short of death itself.

  So she contented herself with letting him punch for a while, blocking his jabs and his hooks, dodging his uppercuts and absorbing his body blows, with no response, no expression.

  Then she smiled and gave him a deliberate opening.

  He reacted as expected, throwing a straight right that would have put an ordinary woman – or man – on the ground.

  She ducked into it so his massive fist hit her in the top of her forehead, right at the widow’s peak. Perfect. Her head rang and her scalp split in an impressive crimson spray. She stepped away for a moment, wiping the backs of her hands across her face, smearing the blood, letting her head clear. Then she put her guard back up and nodded. Try again. It’ll heal.

  Donovan went for the body as she kept her arms high, kept wiping her bloody face, kept accepting the hammering of his fists. Donovan hit her harder and harder as he realized she wasn’t going down despite being outweighed by a hundred pounds, despite feeling her ribs crack under his knuckles. She saw the puzzlement come into his eyes, heard the cries of the troops as if through an echo chamber, smelled and tasted her own blood sucked into her nose and mouth as the bellows of her lungs pumped in rhythm.

  She hadn’t thrown one punch since the start of the fight, and Donovan was finally slowing. Four or five minutes of intense combat tired the fittest man.

  Now to administer the lesson.

  Left-right, left-right, Repeth slammed triphammer blows to his ribs until he dropped his hands. She threw sharp elbows to his shoulders and arms, stomped his insteps and shins, kicked his thighs and buttocks and torso, punishing him, inflicting hurts without striking to the head, without the risk of knocking him out. Her skill and her exquisitely trained athleticism and her Eden Plague-perfected health allowed her to concentrate her energy into one incredible burst of effort. In nine seconds and twenty-five blows she had him kneeling, cringing, helplessly shielding broken ribs.

  The impacts of her fists and feet became more deliberate, but didn’t cease.

  One part of her, the softer part, felt bad about the beating she meted out. The harder part, the steel forged by the fires of her instructors and her own adamant will, the part that knew beyond doubt that this was a necessary thing, even a good thing, powered her fists and feet as she demolished an undeserving human body.

  If only he’ll accept his reconstruction.

  Her final blow was more of a push, almost gentle, that curled him into a fetal position. She stood above him, deliberately blood-drenched, waiting until he lifted a feeble hand in surrender.

  Of course I could have taken him down at any time with a precise kick to snap the knee joint or a knife-hand to the throat. But what would they have said? Okay, she’s quick, and skilled, and maybe she got lucky. Now they know I’m unbreakable, and they’re not.

  Now they know I’m the biggest, meanest damned dog in this junkyard.

  Repeth stepped back, momentarily raising her crimson fists overhead. The copper-iron smell of blood surrounded the tableau. Taking a calm breath, not straining at all as she pitched her voice to carry beyond her own platoon, to the other formations nearby, she called, “Anyone still think Edens can’t fight?”

  Silence reigned. Not one of the normals would meet her eyes.

  She went on. “No? But now we have a little dilemma. Corporal Donovan is messed up. He has two choices, only one of which is the right one. He can go to the hospital, lie in bed for a week, and miss the mission. Or he can go get an Eden virus shot in the readiness line and tomorrow morning he will be good as new. Better than new, because you know what else? Not only will he heal ungodly fast from any future injury, he’ll live a thousand years, they say.”

  A buzz swept the normals’ ranks, some discussing immortality, some healing, all of them unsettled. She went on louder, overriding them. “Officially you don’t have to take the Eden shot unless you want to. Maybe you’re afraid it will turn you into a Sunday-school-sucking wimp. Well I go to Sunday school. Anyone think I’m a wimp?”

  Build the image, feed the myth. Tell the story, because people live and die for the story. She swept
the ranks with her eyes. “Do you think maybe the Unies lied to you?”

  She let those questions sink in before she continued, putting sarcasm and contempt into her voice. “And here’s the clincher, people. The vaccines will probably – probably – protect you from the Demon Plagues. But none of us are getting the super-soldier nano treatment you might have heard about. And this assignment will be dangerous. Everyone has a much better chance of living through it if they have the Eden virus and the nano-vaccine that goes with it. So frankly, you’re an idiot if you don’t get the shot. And I don’t want idiots in my platoon. So it’s your decision, but if you haven’t got it by the end of the week, I’ll do my best to get you transferred out. You can go be a burden to someone else.”

  -13-

  When Skull awoke again his mind was rainbow clear where before there had been only blacks and whites. He felt young again, but his hands still showed their age. That proved the EP hadn’t gotten him. Getting up, he went into the waste closet - what passed for a bathroom, but there was no mirror. I’ll ask Raphaela later.

  Never had he felt so dependent on someone else, so out of control of his own destiny. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Kill some aliens, be a hero. Stupid and short-sighted. I always prepared thoroughly until now. Not like me. Must have been the nano. Here I am trashing the others, but the power-high got me too.

  The rancor and self-loathing he was accustomed to circled at bay, unable to break through his new and better mood. For the first time since Linde died, he didn’t want to kill something for breakfast, but thinking of his dead love threw him back to the day that gutted his life.

  ---

  Linde was beautiful, viewed as only a young man does, perfect beyond perfection. She was everything to him, and his world had been complete that day as a thousand cubic centimeters screamed between their knees, her body pressed against his as they took the turns at twice the limit. They’d raced up and down the California coast, Mount Tamalpais gazing down on them, a benevolent god. She’d laughed squealing, delighted, until the blind curve at the top of the hill.