Syn-En: Plague World: The Founders War Begins

by Linda Andrews

  Richmond ran her fingers over the damage. No trace, but from the damage, I’d conclude some ordinance dropped from the ceiling and exploded about head height.

  Very good. Bei stepped to the side. You take point.

  Richmond stepped forward then drew up short. Three sensors located on the right, three meters in. She shifted to the side. From the damage to the opposite wall, I would say projectile weapons.

  And the threat level?

  The ensign shifted to the left. I don’t see the weapon’s housing. I believe it might be hot.

  Bei pinged her cerebral interface in approval. Appropriate response?

  We could trip it and disable the weapon when it activates but that would reveal our presence to any enemy. We could slip under the trigger, but that might cause difficulties in our egress. The best thing would be to find the weapon and disarm it.

  Proceed. Crossing his arms, Bei planted his feet in the guard station and accessed her cerebral interface. Her heart rate was elevated, so were her adrenalin levels.

  Richmond didn’t ask for illumination as she slipped into the corridor. She alternated her sensor sweep then groaned when the results came up with no new information. One meter from the trigger, she paused. She switched back to sonar and scanned the bullet holes. From the angle, penetration, and area of the damage, she backtracked and located the weapon in the ceiling.

  Bei grinned. Security Chief Rome was correct; Richmond was a natural.

  Settling her rifle on her hip, she gathered static electricity along her armor then sent the charge arcing toward the sensor in the wall. One after the other, the triggers went dark.

  Bei waited. Would she make a newbie mistake and declare the situation secure?

  After another follow-up sweep of the sensors, Richmond crouched low then leapt high. Her hands flattened against the ceiling, her elbows bent, and her legs performed the splits. Boots planted on opposite walls, she hovered one point six meters off the floor. She tapped the ceiling in front of her face and an automatic rifle lowered. Within ten seconds, she’d emptied the chamber, jammed the ammunition feed, and pocketed the extra brass.

  The rifle returned home as she dropped to the ground. The second booby-trap at the end of the hall has already been dismantled.

  You’re on point. Bei gestured for her to precede him. She deserved the honor of entering the data warehouse first.

  In the WA, her avatar didn’t just hum but sang the theme song.

  Bei understood the plot of the serial, but it didn’t match the lyrics. If the passengers and crew were on a deserted island without anyone knowing and the ship unseaworthy, wasn’t the boat lost? Perhaps, his wife loved the show because it was as illogical as she.

  Richmond paused at the last guard station. She set her hand on the damaged wall. Concrete crumbled to ash at her touch. This explosion burned very hot and probably damaged the door. The warehouse is open for business.

  She jerked her head toward the black opening.

  Check it. Turning his back to her, he glanced down the hall. Empty. Still. They were in a blind with only one way out. Two if you counted them dying. His sensors twitched. Their luck couldn’t hold forever.

  The warehouse is clear of booby-traps. She gasped. Alpha, I have drawers.

  Metal scratched metal.

  Bei winced at the racket and raised his rifle. Nothing stirred in his crosshairs.

  Sorry. Her avatar yanked on her hair, then she performed a happy dance. I have three crystals.

  Copy the data to the CIC. ASAP.

  Aye. A faint chinking sound followed, then a blue glow invaded the guard station. Sending information to the CIC.

  Shit. Bei scuttled over to the warehouse threshold, positioning his body to block as much light as possible. His black camouflaged armor absorbed some of the light but enough remained to cast his silhouette down the hallway. With a thought, he switched from ultrasonic to night vision. He layered on thermal imaging.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  An alarm sounded in his head.

  The first sensor had been tripped.

  We’re about to have company. Bei’s grip tightened on his rifle. He thumbed off the safety.

  The blue light winked off. A blood red glow replaced it.

  First data stream uploaded. Doc acknowledges receipt. Second data crystal at twenty-nine percent copied. Richmond shifted behind the protection of one of the walls.

  The crimson glow filled the closet-sized warehouse.

  What about the other drawers?

  Empty. The spaces are open like cubbies.

  Sub-level Two’s alarm sounded.

  The Scraptors moved at a fast clip.

  Richmond’s avatar paced in cyberspace. Come on. Come on. Faster. Upload faster.

  Bei recalled the map. Solid rock surrounded them. They couldn’t blow their way out.

  The red light faded. Yellow splashed the walls.

  His armor hardened. Potential strategies flared in his head along with survival odds. Three registered in the teens. The rest were single digits.

  Sub-level Three activated.

  Richmond whistled through her teeth. Ninety percent done.

  He counted down. Ten. Nine. Eight.

  The room fell dark. Metal scratched metal as the drawer slid home.

  Done. Stuffing the data relay in her pocket, she swished past him.

  Bei switched to ultrasonic vision and swept his energy rifle left when she moved hers right. He charged hard on her heels.

  At one klick every two minutes, her eighth generation prostheses couldn’t match his speed.

  The last alarm flared.

  She charged into the atrium.

  Bear right. Stay in the shadows. Bei entered after her. Radio silence. The enemy might be monitoring their wireless frequency.

  Balls of light bounced around the space. Their source—two Scraptors bounding down the stairs. One had brand new armor with six arm-like appendages.

  Groat.

  Ridges ran down Bei’s sleeves. He flattened them out. Now was not the time to deal with the Bug-ugly.

  Richmond glided to a stop near the entrance of a collapsed hallway.

  Bei halted in front of the second one.

  Groat froze before a puddle of water. His sword limbs stabbed the wall beside him, blocking his companion’s path. “Do you smell Human?”

  Chapter 27

  “Why can’t we touch them?” Sitting on the dining room chair, Nell glared at the cubes floating above the table on a platter of fermites. The black spy-bots were loaded dice, slanting the game in the Founders’ favor.

  Sitting on Nell’s right, Apollie glanced up from the etablet in front of her. A diagram displayed an image of a new energy weapon. “You shouldn’t touch them because the trackers release low levels of beta radiation.”

  Nell stumbled out of her seat and folded her hands over her belly. “Radiation?” She resisted the urge to kick the Skaperian’s seat. “Why didn’t you say something earlier? I’m trying to get pregnant here.”

  Standing at the head of the six-foot by three-foot table, Davena twirled a black curl around her finger. “What is radiation?”

  “Deadly invisible waves that destroy an organism at the genetic level. Like your fermites.” Across from Apollie, Doc snatched the spy-bots from their platter and smashed them on the table. The fermite platter dissolved, raining upon the crushed pieces. In a twinkle of light, the remains disappeared. He glanced at Nell. “The radiation levels never rose above normal background variation. Any child you conceive will not be affected.”

  Davena threw back her shoulders. “The Meek do not destroy organisms.”

  Spinning around, she floated across the room. Her petal pink robes fluttered behind her as she mounted the stairs.

  Nell shifted her seat away from Apollie’s. “You still should have told me.”

  “I will next time.” The Skaperian tugged a bead from her hair, then unbraided the
yellow feathers.

  “Next time?” Nell didn’t want there to be a next time. Ever. She dropped onto the warm metal chair.

  Apollie added a blue bead to the colorful pyramid she built with the others. “The Founders will have implanted the trackers in all the Humans slated for rescue. They need information just as we do, and they do not have people they can torture for intelligence.”

  Doc stared at the empty railing on the floor on the loft above. He sighed when Davena’s footsteps faded down the long corridor to the waterfall outside the shelter. “We don’t torture people, we debrief them. There’s a difference.” His eyes darkened to pitch as he merged with the computer. “I’ve sent a subspace message to our fleet. They’ll check all the rescued biologics for spy-bots.”

  “Will we be able to detect them?” Doc had missed them the first time. Not that Nell was pointing fingers. Evil aliens were supposed to insert GPS chips, anal probes, and perform sexual experiments, not gather information by some latent master spy. How irritated would the Scraptors be, if she sent them box sets of Hollywood movies clearly defining their part?

  The Founders would really hate the endings.

  Humanity always won.

  Apollie worked her fingers through another braid. “Your medical scans won’t be able to detect the trackers through radiation. The beta waves won’t penetrate Human organs and tissue in measurable levels.”

  Doc grunted. “We can check for the tissue damage caused by the radiation.”

  “By the time the damage is significant, the trackers are full and the carriers are dead or dying.” Apollie flicked her fingers over the screen. The schematic of a fighter ship scrolled up and was replaced by design specifications. “Since most Human societies dispose of their dead quickly, the spy-bots are rarely discovered. It is most ingenious.”

  “It’s murder.” Nell nearly kicked the Skaperian again.

  “It is war, or the lead up to it.” Apollie highlighted passages on her screen. “We will have to incorporate a few modifications to the new battleship designs to overcome the Scraptors’ advantage.”

  “Their weapons focus is primarily projectile and energy based.” Doc leaned backward. Bracing his elbows on the table, he laced his fingers together and clasped them over his flat stomach.

  “You two need therapy.” Humans shouldn’t be considered pawns in a war game. That was just messed up. Nell powered on her etablet. If they weren’t going to look into the spy-bots, she would.

  Closing his eyes, Doc turned his face to the ceiling. “We are not a couple. She refuses to leave, even knowing she will die.”

  Nell blew her bangs out of her eyes. He was a fine one to talk. The Syn-En were always willing to risk their lives for a good cause. What better cause than the freedom to choose? Even when that choice wasn’t necessarily the smartest move.

  “Maybe Bei will let me sedate Davena and the villagers and transport them to the America.” A smile curved Doc’s lips. “I’m sure I could talk her out of her anger once the deed’s already done.”

  Fermites created a fog around Nell’s hand. She condensed them into a puff ball the size of a quarter and tossed it at his head.

  He jerked then rubbed the spot. “What was that for?”

  “If I can do that after being a fermite carrier for a few hours, what do you think Davena will do? Tear the ship apart with everyone in it and return to Surlat. And that’s if the atomic pests allow us to leave with the villagers in the first place.” Duh. Nell set her fingers on the LED keyboard and typed in her search parameters—bug, spy-bot, and design.

  The computer tapped into the Syn-En CIC where Bei had uploaded the data from the crystals.

  “I don’t want her to die.” Pushing away from the table, Doc rose and paced the room. “Maybe you could talk to her? Oracle to oracle.”

  Nell shook her head. “If she won’t leave for you, she certainly isn’t going to do it for me.”

  Her etablet screen blanked then search hits filled it. She tapped the first link.

  Doc paused at the base of the stairs. “Maybe I—”

  Apollie rapped her knuckles on the table. “Stop your whining. Unlike most males, you can do two things at once. Go seduce her while you are combing through the data. If she decides your lovemaking is worth it, she will accompany you. If not, learn new skills and perhaps you will succeed next time.”

  Red flooded Doc’s face. His jaw hung open.

  Biting the inside of her cheek, Nell controlled her laughter. It really wasn’t funny. And yet… A yellow squiggly line filled her screen. She checked her fingers for misbehaving fermites. Just the usual gnat swarm. Of course, those were only the ones she could see. The invisible ones had better not be messing up her computer. She got irritable if she couldn’t play a couple of games of Spider Solitaire.

  She tapped the reload button.

  Doc found his voice. “Is that what you told your boyfriend, Gaug? Is that why he wasn’t on the NSA ship Nell Stafford?”

  With a growl, Apollie leapt onto her seat. Her velociraptor claw hooked over the edge and her vambraces powered on. “Gaug is sensitive.”

  “That is enough.” At Nell’s words, the air misted with fermites. “Both of you, sit down and shut up, or I’ll sentence you both to the…” She searched for something dreadful and painful. Coming up blank, she resurrected something neither would recognize. Let them imagine the worse. “The cone of silence.”

  Apollie’s brow furrowed.

  Doc cocked his head.

  Neither said anything. Nell drummed her fingers on the table. Their silence wouldn’t last long. Doc was probably using his brain box to search for the meaning of the punishment. He could search all he wanted. Get Smart episodes were lost in time. Her time. “I don’t want to use the cone of silence. And I’d really rather you didn’t make me. Bei would be most displeased if I did something that could lead to charges of war crimes.”

  And he would. But that was completely irrelevant to the conversation.

  “From now on, the topic of your mates, potential mates, and mating in general is off-limits.” She pinned them both with a stare. “Understood?”

  Apollie shrugged. “Human mating is messy anyway.”

  Eyes narrowed, Doc scratched his goatee. “And Skaperian mating is just plain stupid looking.”

  An ache built between Nell’s temples. Why did she want children? She had an alliance full of them. Of course, hers and Bei’s child would be perfect. “Now, to your corners. I want something to show my husband when he returns.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Doc glanced at the ground floor balcony before sitting on the bottom riser. His eyes blackened and he tapped his boots.

  Apollie leaned back in her chair and set her etablet on her lap. “I already have five things to show the admiral.”

  Someone always had to have the last word. Nell checked her screen again. Darn, that squiggly line was back. Maybe she should check another file. Her fingers brushed the etablet and the image scrolled up. Words appeared underneath. She skimmed the gobbledygook. This wasn’t about the spy-bots. Her attention snared on one word.

  Virus.

  Then another.

  Plague.

  Her heart stopped beating at the prognosis.

  Death rate: Ninety-five percent.

  Oh, God. Oh, no. No, not even the Founders would be so evil.

  Doc sat up straight. “Nell Stafford? Health alerts are lighting up your systems.”

  She pounded on her chest to restart her heart. Stars danced in her peripheral vision and black framed the edges.

  Apollie wrapped her fingers around Nell’s wrist and took her pulse. “Is it the fermites?”

  Nell shook her head. “This.” The etablet slipped from her numb fingers and spun across the tabletop. “This can’t mean what I think it does, can it?”

  Slapping her palm over her mouth, she wrapped her free arm around her waist. Please tell me I’m wrong. Please. Please.

  Apollie stopped the computer
from spinning and skimmed the data. Her lips firmed.

  Doc stood over her shoulder, reading the pages with her. Serrated blades ran down his arms as the slider thingie neared the bottom of the scroll bar.

  Red eyes wide in her pale face, Apollie sagged against her chair. “What do you think this means, Nell Stafford?”

  Nell wet her dry lips. “I think, I mean, it looks like… I mean…It looks like the Founders created the Plague virus in a laboratory here on Surlat so they could sell more of their cure-all.”

  She looked away when they pulled up the projected profits and the line graph soaring toward infinity.

  Doc swore softly. “That’s exactly what it is.”

  “Good God.” Nell ground her teeth. So many dead, so many species on the verge of extinction and for what? Profits? “We have to tell Bei.”

  Apollie’s fingers flew over the LED keyboard. “We have to tell everyone.”

  Chapter 28

  Bei kept Groat in the crosshairs of his energy rifle. Could the Scraptor really smell the Syn-En? Nell often stated she could smell Bei, but that was Nell. And Syn-En didn’t sweat. Furthermore, nothing the Skaperians had on file about the Founders’ minions indicated the Scraptors’ olfactory senses had been enhanced.

  Groat had to be bluffing.

  The next few minutes would either prove or disprove Bei’s theory.

  At the four o’clock position, Richmond remained still as a statue. The games the Syn-En played as new inductees took on new meaning on missions.

  Bei was grateful Captain Pennig had insisted they be taught. Their camouflage worked better on a textured background than bare, concrete walls.

  “Tridit, what do you say we celebrate our victory over the Plague with a little exercise?” Groat’s flashlight bounced a ball of light around Sub-level Five of the research complex. “What do we do when we find Human scum?”

  The Scraptor on the stairs behind Groat took two steps then performed an aerial somersault. Tridit landed with a heavy thud. His pinschers snapped and clacked. “We chop off their hands at the wrist.” Spinning on his heel, he butchered the air. “Lop off their forearms.” He continued the deadly dance with a two step bringing him within a meter of Richmond. “Then remove their upper arms.”