The moment she came within reaching distance, Bijin seized her by the arm and pulled her in front of the holo.
“What is this, doctor?” he demanded, thrusting his hand toward the image.
“One of the vials?” she asked, genuinely stumped by his line of questioning.
The stocky man rounded on her, hands on hips, jaw thrust forward belligerently. “Yes! The fourth vial! It is different from the third one. You lied to us!” Bijin’s face was apoplectic, his voice just shy of a scream as he flung the accusation in her face.
Sam backed away from the man, stunned by the attack that seemed to come out of nowhere. “Ex-excuse me?” she stuttered as her gaze swung from Bijin’s reddened face to Marceau.
The colonel’s face was set into hardened lines, and Sam knew it would be wise not to cross him.
“The vials you claim are chirally entangled,” Bijin said. “They are not the same!” He jabbed an accusing finger toward the holo.
He must have also sent the command for the feed to play, for as she watched, she saw the view widen until she could see a second glove box seated beside the first. Each one contained a vial held in place under a nanoscopic scanner.
Her gaze jerked back to Bijin as the man got up in her face once more.
“You said these vials were mirror images of each other and that they were paired. That is an impossibility!”
He was so close that spittle hit her face.
He seized her arm once more, thrusting her toward the holo. “One of those vials has a second, inner container. What is this third vial?” He punctuated his question with quick, vicious pulls at her arm, and she staggered as she twisted to get away from him, only to back right into Marceau.
“Answer him, doctor.” The voice that came from behind her was pitched low and sounded dangerous.
“I didn’t lie,” she said as she took a step back from them both, her gaze bouncing from one face to the other.
She held up a hand when Bijin began to advance.
“I didn’t!” she protested. “That third inner vial is something completely separate from the entangled pair. It contains the antigen for the non-chiral version of the virus.”
Bijin quieted, and his expression turned thoughtful.
“Did you think we’d create something that might accidentally find its way into the general population?” she asked. “That’s not how we work. We don’t experiment with dangerous pathogens without also manufacturing a cure.”
She couldn’t keep her anger from creeping into her tone, but Bijin didn’t seem fazed.
He turned his head to one side, eyeing her in that raptor-like way of his. “So that’s all this is?” he demanded suspiciously. “An antigen?”
He waved a hand, and the feed changed. In this new recording, Sam saw a closeup view from one of the glove boxes. Inside the protective ES field, nano-gloved hands reached in to unseal the vial, then poured its contents into a separate container.
The vial was turned so that its neck faced the feed, and Sam could now clearly see the inner compartment. A pair of tweezers came into view. They lifted the narrow cylinder out of the vial and placed it alongside the container without attempting to crack it open.
“That right there,” Bijin froze the feed, pointing to the removed component. “This is not some kind of Alliance trap? A, how you say, booby trap, in case it falls into enemy hands?”
The man’s accent had grown stronger, but as she realized what this man had just voluntarily—or involuntarily—revealed, Sam couldn’t help the look of horror that crossed her face, nor the instinctive step back she took.
“Doctor Bijin,” Marceau’s voice cracked sharply into the silence that followed the man’s outburst. “You are out of line. Dismissed.”
Bijin drew himself up, his snub nose wrinkling as his face screwed up in protest. “But—”
“Enough. Go back to your lab. Leave us.”
Bijin spared Sam one last annoyed glance before stomping off.
Sam took in a careful breath before she dared look at the person who had been pretending to be an Alliance military officer who knew her uncle.
Marceau sighed. “I see this one isn’t going to be smoothed over as easily as the last.”
“I beg your pardon?” she asked carefully.
“I’m curious. What did Gish say to raise your suspicions earlier?” The colonel studied her face as he spoke. “Or has it been Doctor Bijin’s behavior all along that gave us away?”
Sam’s heartbeat quickened. She tried to act confused, clueless. “I… don’t understand,” she wrinkled her brow.
Marceau’s expression told her he wasn’t buying it.
“Your acting skills aren’t as good as your medical ones, doctor. This charade has come to an end.” He reached for her arm and pulled her toward the door.
Recalling Ell’s comment about a door’s controls, Sam dug in her heels when they reached the exit, and grabbed the frame when the doors slid open.
“Look, I’m getting really tired of being hauled around,” she complained. “What do you mean ‘charade’?” Since confusion hadn’t worked, she tried for frustration and anger. Those, she could do.
Marceau turned with an impatient look. “Please, doctor. We don’t have time for this.”
Sam glared at him as she clung stubbornly to the frame, her hand groping blindly for the door’s controls. “I don’t care. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what in the hell is going on,” she said.
When she found the panel, she pressed her tattoo against it, praying that the internal mechanism was somehow tied into the rest of the base, and the app could have yet another means by which to send out its SOS.
Marceau pried her hand from the door and yanked her forward, sending her stumbling out into the corridor. His voice was cold and hard, and he didn’t bother looking at her as he marched her toward the nearest lift. “You are our guest, Doctor Travis, and will be treated as such for as long as you cooperate fully. Do I make myself clear?”
When the lift doors closed behind them, Marceau entered a code, and four new floors appeared.
Sam saw another opportunity and took it.
“Stop!” she cried out as she pushed her tattooed hand repeatedly against the controls as if to find a way to halt the lift. “Will you please just stop for a minute?”
Marceau made an exasperated sound. “The lift will not respond to you, doctor. Besides, there is no place for you to go on this station. You’re a smart person… Let’s cut the act, shall we?”
Sam dropped her hands and sucked in a deep breath before she squared off against the imposter.
“Who are you really?” she demanded.
“I’m a colonel, as I told you. And my name really is Marceau. Or at least, that is the standardized pronunciation of it.”
Sam attempted to sound confused. “Then why all the rough treatment? And what is with Bijin, anyway? He acts as if he’s working against the Alliance’s interests. Or at least, as if he and I are on opposing sides.”
Marceau shook his head, a chuckle escaping as he stared at her. “You really expect me to believe you’re still oblivious to what’s going on here, after what Bijin just did? It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’re running out of time, we need answers now. You will provide us with what we need, or we will force it out of you. It is as simple as that.”
The lift doors opened onto a different world altogether. She saw soldiers clad in strange military uniforms hurry past, and directional holosigns written in a language her wire translated as Akkadian.
She’d fallen through the looking glass.
BREADCRUMBS
Task Force Blue HQ
Humbolt Base, Ceriba
Task Force Blue’s combat center was located in a room adjacent to the team’s situation room. The entire team was present, as were Valenti and Cutter. They were grouped around a holotank that stood in the center of the room.
Thad looked up when Micah entered, and waved him over.
The colonel was standing on one side of the Marine, and the director flanked him on the other. Jonathan moved to make room for Micah, who slid into the opening between his twin and Gabe.
A quick glance around the room showed the rest of the team were at various consoles, scrubbing through information feeds or monitoring in-progress operations. He looked down into the tank to see the Procyon System displayed.
Valenti’s hands moved through it, enlarging a sector as she spoke. “Starshot data recorded a Casimir flare here, about two hours ago.” She pointed to a spot just outside the Klintis Belt. “The buoys then recorded a Scharnhorst signature an hour and a half later, originating here.” Her finger slid from the outer edge of the belt inward, until it hovered near an object that had been highlighted.
She spread her hands, and their perspective changed, the view growing until Micah could make out that the object was a ship. A dotted line grew from the pin she’d dropped to indicate the Scharnhorst signature, and a window popped up to show the distance between the two.
Fifty kilometers. Exactly the distance a ship needed to be from any object before it could safely jump to Scharnhorst space.
Whoever had been there was long gone by now.
Micah’s head snapped up as he pointed to the highlighted vessel. “That’s the ship the vial was supposed to be on?”
The grim expression on Cutter’s face would have confirmed it, but Valenti nodded anyway.
“Echo Team infiltrated. Their report just came in,” the colonel said.
Micah’s hand curled against the edge of the tank as he stared once more into the holo. “They beat us to the vial, didn’t they.”
Valenti nodded. “They did.”
Jonathan looked up. “Are we going on the assumption they’ve taken both Sam and the vials back to Akkadian space?”
“For the time being, yes. I have Delta and Foxtrot teams running through simulations to infiltrate the two most likely locations, and we’re working some back channels, trying to pinpoint exactly where they’ve been taken.”
“Our regular sources are telling us things are strangely quiet,” Cutter told them. “This behavior’s atypical. More than one of them have remarked that they suspect something big or off the books is going down.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Thad muttered.
“One of those sources dug a bit deeper. Possibly a bit too deep, since we haven’t heard back from them since,” the director admitted. “But thanks to this intel, I think we can confirm what Jurgens said.”
Gabe’s brows rose. “So he was right? The summit’s their target?”
“Yes,” Valenti said as she reached once more into the holotank. The Procyon System remained, but an image floated atop it.
Thad grunted. “Asher Dent.”
Cutter looked over at the team leader before sweeping his gaze across those standing around the tank. “Yes. Akkadian, and the Coalition’s minority leader. Dent also happens to be one of the people attending that defense summit on Hawking.”
“Well, damn,” Gabe said softly. “Would they be that obvious?”
At Valenti’s sharp look, he explained.
“Harper, Hyer, and Will have been poring over everything they can find about that summit. His name came up, and I thought maybe that’s how they planned to deliver the virus. It would be easy enough if he’d already been dosed with the antigen.”
Gabe hooked his hand around the back of his neck and began to pace, eyes dropping to the floor as he thought it through.
“Dent would burn his position within the Coalition forever by doing that, but it might be worth it, if it cements his position at home.”
Gabe paused and looked back up at Cutter. “There’s bad blood between him and the sitting minister of state security, isn’t there?”
Cutter nodded. “She replaced his father years ago. Rumor has it she was the one who leaked the intel that led to his execution.”
“You think Dent’s behind this?” Thad asked. “A strike this big would give him enough street cred with the premier that he could have her removed?”
Gabe shrugged. “It’s possible. It would be poetic justice, since she was responsible for ousting his father in the first place.”
There was a beat of silence as they all stared down into the holotank.
“A meeting between people at this level doesn’t happen without a lot of security, planned out well in advance,” Jonathan murmured. “Am I right in assuming that each delegation has sent their own forces to coordinate security for the event?”
Cutter nodded.
Micah shook his head. “I’m sure the Alliance has people swarming all over the place, then.”
Thad lifted a brow at that. “More than you can shake a stick at, ami. And now we have sensors on site that’ll detect chiral particles, too.”
Gabe eyed Cutter. “Whatever they have planned, they’ve either already planted it, or they figured out a way to deliver it that can’t be detected.”
Thad looked thoughtful. “My credit’s on some woo-woo delivery system, if they went to the trouble to kidnap the doc.”
“We’re certain the intel this Jurgens gave us is accurate?” Addy asked. “Should we be considering alternative targets?”
All eyes swung to Cutter.
“All our pipelines are coming up empty,” he told them, “and the asset close to Enlai who seemed to confirm what Jurgens said about the summit has gone dark.”
“I have confirmation!” Hyer’s voice called out from a nearby console. She stood and crossed over to join them at the holotank. Her eyes tracked to Gabe and then Valenti.
The colonel nodded. “What do you have?”
“Remember the surveillance nano I dropped on Janus this afternoon?” she asked Gabe.
When he nodded, she continued.
“Well, I just got a ping from it. Janus met with someone from the Akkadian embassy on the downlow just a few minutes ago. You know how the surveillance nano is set to go dormant each time it senses it’s come into proximity of a sensor sweep?”
Gabe made a rolling motion with his hands, and Hyer cleared her throat, muttering a quick “Sorry” before she began again.
“Anyway, it just came back online. At first, it sounded like he was just reporting in—standard stuff, the ‘I’ve been interrogated by the enemy’ thing. But then he asked if it had anything to with the summit operation.”
She grinned widely as she added, “Pissed his handler off, mentioning it aloud.” Hyer’s eyes rounded when she realized what she said. Mumbling another “Sorry,” she eased away and turned back to her console.
Micah’s lips twitched when he heard her chastising herself as she returned to her seat.
“No joking around the boss. No using the word ‘pissed’ in front of the director. Seriously, Katie, what the hell are you thinking?”
A quick glance at Cutter’s face told him the director had heard as well. For the first time since this madness had begun, Micah saw the man’s expression ease momentarily.
“Okay, then,” Cutter said. He straightened and turned to Valenti. “Hawking is a go. Prep a team.”
“Hang on,” Addy cautioned, raising a hand. “For this particular mission, I think the weapon should dictate the team.”
“Come again?” Thad asked. He braced his forearms against the tank and leaned around Cutter so he could make eye contact with the doctor.
Addy’s gaze moved to Micah. “There are three individuals who have a natural, built-in immunity to any viral weapon Akkadia tries to throw at us. That’s Micah, Pascal, and Sneaky Pete. Their chirality makes them immune to the virus.”
Thad reared his head back. “You want me to send a ferret on a mission, cher?”
Addy huffed a small, annoyed sound. “Look, I’ll grant that it’s unorthodox, but you already use Pascal. Both animals have basic E-V comm implants. And,” she added, “a ferret is small enough to fit into places—”
“Places a drone can fit just as easily,” Thad c
ountered.
“But a drone can be jammed,” Addy pointed out. “Any signal can, except for the entangled connections our chiral pairs share.”
He slashed his hand through the air. “No to the ferret. But you do raise a good point.” He turned to Micah. “What do you say? You up for a feline partner?”
Micah nodded, and opened his mouth to speak, but Valenti beat him to it.
“We take a standard team, we interface with security already onsite, and we keep everyone on the search until the delegations have landed on the habitat.”
She turned to Micah. “You and Pascal will go in. The rest will retreat to the perimeter and try to round up he Akkadians who infiltrated to place the weapon.”
Thad shook his head, muttering, “I’m really beginning to hate those bastards.”
Micah snorted. “You and me both.”
The Marine straightened, slapping a hand on Micah’s shoulder. “Okay, hoss. Let’s get you started on some intelligence and mission prep—”
He was interrupted by the sound of footsteps pounding down the hallway. The doors split open to admit a breathless Harper. She came to a stop just as Addy began to scold her.
“I told you, you need to take it easy while you’re recovering, Harper.”
“This is too important, Captain.” She wheeled to face Cutter. “I found Sam!”
TEST SUBJECTS
Akkadian Base
An-Yang Dust Belt
Proxima Centauri
The area where Marceau had brought Sam was clearly a military installation. This, more than anything, proved to her that ‘Rosen Base’ was merely a ruse to ensure her cooperation.
Sam stared stonily ahead as the Akkadian colonel led her off the lift. “Where are we really?” she asked.
To her surprise, he answered. “An abandoned asteroid base in An-Yang’s outer belt.”
“So, Proxima Centauri, then,” she murmured as she took in the signs of disrepair that were a bit more evident here than in the small area they’d staged as an Alliance research center. “That’s odd. Why not use a base closer to home? There are rumors about places you people have hidden within the Sargon Straits. Surely, they’d be more convenient—” she paused and looked around, “and in much less disrepair than this.”
The Chiral Protocol – A Military Science Fiction Thriller: Biogenesis War Book 2 (The Biogenesis War) Page 21