by Chris Hechtl
The doctor smiled thinly at the admiral's use of a favored term in medicine.
"In the meantime, see what you can do to find a way to treat it on as broad a spectrum as possible. I know there isn't a magic cure-all with the limited amount of data, but see what the labs can think of," he ordered. The doctor nodded. Admiral Irons turned to Admiral Sienkov. "Yorgi, work the intelligence angle again. Who are the culprits? Check the timing," he said.
"I did. It is too pat; it sounds like those ships that went into Tau recently from Fourth Fleet," the intelligence secretary said. "One of them, the Gorgon returned due to structural damage. She met up with a Nelson who had captured a pair of ships in the New Dublin jump chain. Both warships were destroyed in Nightingale as you know," he said. The admiral nodded. "Unfortunately, due to their destruction, we didn't have much to get out of their computers. Nothing at all from their personnel of course," he said. "There were no survivors from Gorgon. She was the most likely ship to have data."
"Okay, but the other personnel we captured from Fourth Fleet? Anything from them?" Moira asked, leaning forward.
"I'm having Monty check the databases now. My belief is that if they heard scuttlebutt or something they kept it to themselves for fear of retaliation. Spreading a biological weapon is a war crime," he said.
"We still haven't confirmed it was Fourth Fleet," Doctor Kraft pointed out. Accusing eyes turned to him. He spread his hands in supplication. "Call it playing devil's advocate here."
"I doubt the public will cry any crocodile tears if anything unfortunate and permanent happened to Horath," Secretary Martindale said, shooting the admiral a significant look.
"Possibly not, but I want our ducks in a row," the admiral said. "Get on this," he said with a nod to Yorgi and Doctor Kraft.
"The good news is we haven't gotten any reports of this in Pi or Sigma sectors," Admiral Sienkov said.
"Could this be a one-off? Someone wanting to test the weapon in a sector?" Secretary Custard asked.
"That is my general feeling, but it is supposition at this point," Yorgi replied with a nod to the agricultural secretary. "I know we've gotten as deep as Tir na nog in Pi and the reports do not mention any sort of illness." Doctor Kraft nodded. Tir na nog was the latest star system in Pi to request an application to join the Federation.
"How are we going to handle the media?" Moira asked. "They are bound to find out eventually," she said.
"We can work on crafting a series of responses that are contingent on what they know and how they got it. Considering this is currently classified, I'll come down hard on anyone who leaks it," Admiral Irons said with a black scowl. "We don't need or want a panic. That can kill more people than the actual virus."
"People are people, Admiral; they react in fear to things they seemingly can't fight," Doctor Kraft said. "We do need to educate our people on what to look for."
"Agreed," the admiral said. "But, we can do that over time. For the moment, we're going to focus on getting resources into Tau while containing the threat and preventing it from spreading to our population through Airea 3 and other points of contact," he said.
"They have so far only used biological weapons once here in Rho on Epsilon Triangula," Doctor Kraft said with a nod. "The vaccination initiatives we started should help with any possible plague unless it is Xeno or something new cooked up in a lab," he warned.
"Only used in ET that we know of," Yorgi corrected. "We still have limited data on the other star systems in the eastern section of this sector—the ones currently in the enemy's hands."
"I think we need to recess for a moment. I'm going to put a call in to Admiral Subert and update him and have him get the shipping moving on his end while getting as many hospital ships and supply ships thrown together as he can. I'm going to put calls in to the civilian yards too," he said. He turned to the treasury secretary. "We're going to need to pay for them," he said.
"Emergency funds, sir," T'rel'n said, signaling first-level agreement. "If ever there was a reason to use them, this is it. Just give me a list of where you need to send the money to and the amount," he said. "We can tidy up the details with congress and the Oversight Committees later."
"Okay, good," Admiral Irons said with a nod of approval. "Mnemosyne, I'm going to be calling the Yard Dogs. You might want to have them ready," he said.
"They can build some hulls as they've proven, sir, but they don't have the ability to build the necessary medical equipment," the A.I. warned.
"We'll take care of that. Getting the hulls is the most important thing now. If you can call them and Prime, I'll work on ETMI and the others," the admiral said. "Giving Faith an order of hospital ships makes sense actually. She can work with Commodore Richards to man and equip them."
"ET has been exporting some good medics," Captain Broken Antenna said with a nod. "And I know they've been working on expanding their medical equipment and pharmaceutical exports."
"What about Bek?" Admiral Sienkov asked. Moira looked up with interest.
"We can try them," the admiral said guardedly. "But, it will take time to get the ships out of the rapids and then into Tau," he warned.
"True," Admiral Sienkov admitted.
"While we're working on that," Admiral Irons turned to Doctor Kraft. "Get with Commodore Richards and others. See what they can come up with. I don't mean just cures but also equipment and personnel," he said. The doctor nodded and made a note.
"I don't need to remind all of you that we don't need news of this to break out. If it does, it could invariably start a panic that we don't need or want to have to deal with at this time," he said. Heads nodded or signaled assent somberly. "Good. Let's get on this then before it gets worse," he said.
"I believe it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better," Doctor Kraft said with a heavy sigh.
"In the meantime, while I've got the rest of you here," the admiral said with a small smile, "we might as well hit on a couple of things so we can bump Monday's meeting?"
~~~^~~~
Nara struggled to wake fully as her implants pinged insistently at her. “Bloody hell,” she muttered. “I'm awake. What's the emergency?” she growled, opening her bleary eyes to look at the clock on her HUD. It read 2:00 a.m.
As a doctor she had grown used to sleeping when she could; you never knew when an emergency cropped up. She had also learned to work with little sleep. Her implants helped on that score, but her recent schedule had her on a more normal sleep cycle.
And now she was paying for it apparently.
“Incoming download. Classified level blue,” her implant computer stated flatly.
“You woke me for that?” she demanded. “Can't it wait?”
“A medical emergency threatening the entire Federation is involved, Doctor,” the computer replied.
“Oh, bloody hell,” she said as she rose out of her warm bed. She wanted to flop down but instead forced herself up. She swung her legs out from under her duvet and into the slippers, then grabbed her robe and swung it over her shoulders to shrug it on. “This'd better be good. And I think I need coffee.” She'd only recently gotten to bed after seeing the lab put to right after the series of storms. They'd lost four of the larva due to the salt contamination. It had bothered the hell out of her. She'd offered to put the others in tanks, but the adults had refused. Getting the remaining salts filtered out and a treatment program for the larva had taken a lot of her time and concentration.
The computer didn't respond to her obviously rhetorical statement.
She rose and stretched, yawned and then made her way to her kitchen. “Okay, start filling me in. Start at the beginning.”
“Understood, though you may wish to wait for the caffeine supplement to enter your blood stream,” the computer stated, making her wonder how sentient it was.
“You are stalling,” she said grouchily.
“Very well. Approximately five hours ago an ansible transmission came in from Airea 3 alerting the Admiralty of the pr
emature arrival of the courier vessel Dancer. She carried news about a series of plagues that the Horathians supposedly have unleashed in the Tau quadrant …”
Nara stopped dead in her tracks, eyes wide. “You are …,” she licked her dry lips and then recovered some of her consciousness. “You are right. I need coffee. I don't know if I can handle this on an empty stomach, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to want to eat after I get it all,” she said grimly as she made her way to the kitchen.
~~~^~~~
Epsilon Triangula:
Medical Commodore Helen Richards checked her staff for reactions as she took her seat. She was still feeling her new rank and star out. She'd finally accepted it and enjoyed some of the prestige that went with it. But, with that prestige came even more responsibility she thought as she picked up her cup of coffee and took a sip before she put it down again.
She listened with half an ear as the group discussed the plague and its implications. Speculation on what was the vector and how to combat it was one of the major topics as expected. Her mind wandered slightly as she thought of how best to get the suggested remedies to where they were needed most in a timely manner.
Obviously, one of those spiffy Sojourner class couriers with antimatter power was the answer she thought. That was how she'd gotten her most recent promotion a year and a half ago, she reminded herself. The same ship that had carried the promotion of Shelby Logan had made stops along her return flight to hand out other promotions and keys. Apparently, Admiral Irons had believed in getting the biggest bang for his buck.
"I believe it is airborne; it has to be. Physical contact or blood transmission wouldn't spread it fast enough and obviously not between species. The question is a methodology of treatment. Vaccines direct to the individual?"
"We'd have to culture the virus first. We don't have it," Doctor Ivanov said. He looked over to Doctor Hadjiri who nodded in agreement with him.
"A broad-spectrum delivery method is the most effective at getting at the population, but it is hit or miss—airborne of course. We'd most likely have to engineer our own virus to bring the cure to the effected in such a way as it doesn't infect the uninfected," Yosef mused.
"I see your point," Doctor Ivanov stated. "I think the answer is nanites," he said, eyes twinkling. That made a few of the doctors sit up and then nod slowly. There were three ways to handle the outbreak of a bioweapon attack of this magnitude. The first was a traditional approach with mass inoculations of vaccines and treatments of any outbreaks. Traditional methods were hit or miss. The more effective means of attack was a nanotech serum specifically programmed to kill the virus or in this case viruses.
The third option was labeled the ET option. That would involve adding an artificial immune system to every person. Not a simple or easy task.
"They can be reprogrammed though. It is dangerous. There is also the threat of public backlash," Doctor La Plaz warned.
"True," Helen replied with a nod.
"We also have legal issues with using nanites on a friendly population, ma'am," Doctor Ramius warned with a hiss. All eyes turned to the Naga medic. "We'd have to look into that. Hell, I'm not even certain our implants will let us use them in the first place," he said.
"They did here on ET. Why not abroad?" Doctor La Plaz asked.
"True. We can look into it," Helen said. "Okay, look, we keep everything on the table," she said as she got an alert of an incoming message from the ansible. "And that's my cue to leave it in your hands while I go deal with someone calling through the ansible," she said. She opened her inbox when it indicated she had mail. She frowned as the others murmured to each other. Her eyes moved back and forth as she scanned the document. "Okay, on top of playing researcher, we've been tasked with building medical equipment they'll need plus finding the warm bodies to run it all," she said after a moment.
"Fun," Doctor Milinkov said. "We've become not only the one-stop medical shop, but now we're exporting?"
"Get over it," Helen said flatly, eyeing the virologist.
The virologist turned to her. "I didn't say I wasn't in agreement, I was just …"
"Can it. It is necessary for the survival of all," Helen said flatly. "I'm going to recommend we work on looking for this or other diseases and up the mandatory vaccine lists," Helen replied. "We need to get more people vaccinated so they are less susceptible to such attacks," she said.
"Are we certain this is an attack?"
"For the moment, we're labeling it as such, but we are not making it public. For the time being, we're going to do everything we can to stop it. Focus on that," Helen ordered. The people in the room nodded or signaled assent.
Chapter 6
Antigua
“I just woke Nara and a lot of medical people in the navy up and got them on this,” Admiral Irons stated as the cabinet meeting continued. “How bad is it really? Now that you've had some time to process the latest data … is there any good news or just worse?”
“In a word, bad. All bad. As bad as it gets given the situation. We're talking about weaponized viruses and diseases. Our vaccine program will barely protect our population,” Sprite stated. “Many of these things are designed specifically to get around vaccines and such.”
Doctor Kraft nodded in support.
“No, I can envision worse,” Admiral Irons stated mildly. “The fact that we're all still here is giving me hope.”
Iab, the Neochimp secretary of communication stared at him and then shook himself. “Okay, I don't want to know.”
The admiral glanced his way. “The Xenos …”
“What part of that last statement didn't you get? I like to sleep at night you know,” the Neochimp asked testily, fur rising ever so slightly.
“Back up for a second. If they can get the viruses here, to our population centers, the panic will be debilitating. And it will be a political nightmare on top of genocide. It'll tear our government apart,” Moira warned.
Grim heads nodded around the room.
“The good news is that Doctor Kraft has instituted mandatory vaccines here in the Federation. He started with children and has moved up and down from there. Some planets already have them in place. The program is getting some resistance; there is always some idiot anti-vaxxer out there and also the people who think herd dynamics will protect them,” Sprite stated, pursing her lips in annoyance. “Organics are illogical on those fronts.”
“Heh. Says the A.I. who has problems with accepting patches, upgrades, and her own antiviral vaccines,” Admiral Irons said. “We all have our problems and paranoias. Don't go throwing bricks around glass houses.”
“I … okay, we're getting off track,” Sprite said, ruthlessly cutting off her impulse to argue. “We know from Dancer's report that they have resorted to this. The scientists in Airea 3 have gone over the data, and we now know as of this morning which viruses and diseases they are using. Yes, it is a multi-prong approach. That became evident when they compared the data. The medics on the ground were overwhelmed. But, now we know so, forewarned is forearmed.”
“We also know which segments of the populations they are targeting,” Emily stated.
“That too.”
“Must be nice to be human,” Iab drawled sourly.
A few people shot a sour look to the Neochimp but the humans in the cabinet looked uncomfortable. “I can't help who I am and the bias of other people so I'll ignore that last. We're all in the same boat,” Admiral Irons said reprovingly. “What steps can we take to head this off?”
“Well, we're passing the word quickly, and making the general vaccines and treatments open source and spreading them far and wide,” Doctor Kraft stated slowly.
“The problem is, word will bring a stampede of refugees here,” Bengali, the Neotiger Head of Housing stated sadly.
“If they can find the transport and pay for it,” Sprite reminded them.
“Then we're going to have panic on worlds all over the galaxy,” Emily said. “That's going to make our job
even harder.”
“But it will be an incentive for governments to stop dragging their feet and sign up with us,” Professor Turner, the secretary of education stated. Moira Sema nodded in agreement with him.
“True. They'll fall into our arms. Those that don't get cynical and think that it is a scam. Or those who have the Horathian fifth columnists already in their government circles. They'll want their populations reduced,” Moira pointed out.
“That … is a nasty thought,” D'red, the Veraxin cyber attorney general admitted.
“It is indeed. Something State will have to deal with,” Admiral Irons said with a nod to Secretary Sema. She nodded grimly back.
“Knowing who is doing it will make people wary of ships and especially Horathians. This is hitting us right when we're at the tipping point. Our newest planets and systems are still an economic drain since we're getting them on their feet and up to speed. But established ones are already there and getting tired of supporting them and especially paying for them. We are starting to see more of a return on our investment, but it is slow. A trickle.”
“This will be a boon or bust, there is no doubt of that. Which means it is up to us and how we handle it.”
“Some star systems could institute quarantine. Though how they'd enforce it …?” Iab stopped himself when all eyes fell on him. “Oh, sorry, tangent I guess.”
“No, it's a good one. We need to set up airlocks and blockades. We need to keep everyone informed too about potential plague ships. Put a plug in certain areas, stop all shipping and have them heave to for inspection,” Admiral Irons mused, taking up the thread. “Sorry, we'll get back to the economics in a moment, T'rel'n,” he said with a wave of his hand to the Veraxin treasurer. The treasurer signaled first-degree patience as the admiral turned to Yorgi and Sprite. “We need to get word out to our ships in those areas. We need them to set up stations in strategic bottlenecks. Force all ships to heave to for inspection. Search them and check everyone for signs of infection. That will hopefully stop the spread. They can also pass on vaccines and tech to stop the spread while they are at it.”