“What do you want me to do with all these crabs?” Mun asked.
“Gather them up a little way from the base and disarm them,” Sansar said. All of a sudden, she was bone tired as the adrenaline began leaving her body. More troopers dead. “Let them eat their dead; that’ll at least dispose of the remains before they begin to stink up the place too badly. We need to figure out what the hell is going on before it’s time to feed them again.”
* * * * *
Chapter 17
Hallway, Main Base, Trigar 2-A, Trigar System
Sansar trudged into the prefab building and turned toward her office. By the Blue Sky, she wished their CASPers were fully operational. Fighting from a wall with nothing but a hand-held rifle while crabs climbed up the other side was not something she wanted to do again. Ever. She opened the door to her office and dragged herself through, looking forward to dropping off her gear and getting a well-deserved shower. Her suit had been a mess when she took it off—it had been a near thing—there had been far more blue Xiq’tal blood spattered across it than she remembered getting splashed with. Apparently, the battle had been even closer than she remembered.
“Colonel Enkh!”
Sansar looked back down the hallway. The shower would have to wait; the intel analyst was running toward her. Her name was…Bolormaa. Corporal Bolormaa Enkh. “Yes?” she asked with an internal sigh.
“I’m glad I caught you!” the corporal exclaimed. “I figured it out!”
“Figured what out?” Sansar asked. She was dead tired, and her brain wasn’t working well.
“I figured out why the suits all died today.”
“I’m too tired to guess,” Sansar replied. “Can you just tell me why it happened without making me think a whole lot about it?”
“Yes ma’am,” the corporal said. “It all comes back to the paint, just like we all thought it would. I took a sample of it, analyzed it under a microscope, and guess what I found?”
“No guessing, remember?”
“Oh, yes ma’am. Sorry, ma’am. Well, you know how the paint has a little shine to it, and they said that was part of how it reflected the laser energy?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it turns out the shine is due to the nanites inside the paint. As they move around, looking for Human contact, sometimes they tend to clump up. When enough of them do, they reflect the light and you get a little flicker or shine.”
“Nanites? What the hell are nanites doing there? Do they help with the laser reflectivity?”
“Well, they probably do help, a little, but they’re really there waiting to find a host. The nanites are programmed to seek out Humans, and if they can, they will attach themselves to you and get inside your body. I had a hard time keeping the sample still; the damn things kept trying to attack me.”
“They try to get inside our bodies?” Sansar asked, instantly alert. “I can’t think of any good reason to have them there.”
“No ma’am, there isn’t any good reason. I went to medical and had one of the medics look at one of the people injured in the battle. His body was full of nanites. In fact, anyone who comes in contact with the CASPers has probably been infected with them. Every CASPer driver and every maintenance person I checked was infected.”
Sansar felt her skin crawl. Little machines were crawling around inside her? How many? Hundreds? Thousands? What were they doing there? “Were you…uh…were you able to determine what their function is?”
“Yes, ma’am, I was, but I have to ask, with all due respect…who did you piss off?”
“Piss off? What do you mean?”
“I mean there isn’t one type of nanite in your body, there are four. In seven days, they are each set to release a toxin cell into your blood stream. One releases a concentrated version of anthrax, which is bacterial. Those are clumping in various parts of the host’s body. Another has a variant of spongiform encephalopathy, which is prion-based and will attack the brain. It’s kind of like mad cow disease, only much, much worse. Not surprisingly, these all seem to be heading toward the host’s brain. The third type is virus-based; it’s a refined and extremely concentrated variant of hemorrhagic smallpox—a disease that is almost always fatal, all on its own. The fourth has Ebola, whose name alone will cause a general panic in the population. If you only had a couple of nanites of the stuff, you might be able to fight it off. As it is, though, you probably have thousands of each of these nanites in your body, and all four are set to go off at the same time in seven days.”
“What’s the expected loss rate?”
Bolormaa looked at her slate. “Each one of these is nasty, and all of them are hard, if not impossible, to cure. The hardest to cure would be spongiform encephalopathy, because it’s a mutated protein strain rather than a virus or other foreign body. If a person hit with all of these toxins was unable to seek treatment, they would most likely first show anthrax symptoms at 1-5 days after activation. If they survive the high fever and shock with it, Ebola is up next, with symptoms starting to show between 2 and 21 days. On top of breathing troubles, they will have uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea leading to severe dehydration. If they make it to the one-week mark, the hemorrhagic smallpox will kick in, with active bleeding from oral and nasal mucous membranes, as well as the gastrointestinal tract. Ebola has a serious cough that comes with it to the point where coughing up blood is possible; however, with the anthrax they will also have difficulty breathing.”
She looked up. “Everything I have found suggests that shock will set in soon after, as well as a severe fever that will cook the victim’s brain. In effect, the victims will be lying in pools of vomit, blood, and feces, their brains will be cooking, their skins covered in boils and pustules, and in the end it’s going to be a race between whether the dehydration or asphyxiation kills them first. It’s going to suck. They will be long dead before the spongiform encephalopathy sets in. Total time from infection to death can be as short as 3-4 days.”
Sansar closed her mouth, which had fallen open halfway through the description, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Okay,” she finally said into the silence that followed; “this is where you tell me we can treat it, and I’m not going to die from four horrible diseases all at once.”
“Oh, totally,” Corporal Enkh replied. “Two of the three that will kill you first are treatable with antibiotics, and the other can be survived if you have enough fluid to replace what you lost. A decent hospital might be able to save quite a few of the people who get infected. That shouldn’t be an issue with us, though, as we can deactivate the nanites; no problem. The medic started doing that, but then we realized we’d need to treat the CASPers first, or you’d just get re-infected.”
“So, we have seven days to get the CASPers and all of our troops sterilized?”
“Yes, and all of the maintenance people as well. I’d want to check their families, too, in case some of the nanites got transferred to them via…well, however they might get transferred.”
“Why seven days, though? What is the point between having the CASPers going dead at one time and the infection starting at another?”
“I had the same question, but didn’t initially have an answer.”
“But now you do.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes ma’am, I do. When we found out that it wouldn’t take place for seven days, the first thing the medic, Sergeant Polanis, said was that we needed to get back to Earth to warn everyone else. Before I thought about it, I said, “We can’t; even if we had a ship, it is a seven-day trip back.”
She looked at Sansar, as if expecting an answer, but the colonel didn’t reply. Her brows were knotted as she worked to tie the events together, all of her processing power working to solve the questions.
“See, ma’am,” Corporal Enkh said after a pause, “that’s the point; it’s okay for us to find out now, because we can’t get back to warn Earth. By the time we discovered the flaw in the suits, it’s too late to get bac
k and warn everyone. Everyone on Earth that uses or maintains a CASPer is going to start dying in seven days because they won’t be expecting the global pandemic that’s coming…and there’s nothing we can do about it! Everything is tied together. The suits fail, and whoever we’re fighting swoops in and picks them up. Even if there isn’t someone nearby, the suits won’t be operational for a while, and all of us keel over in seven days, and then someone can come pick up the suits. Someone wants our CASPers…but they want us all dead. Who did we piss off?”
“So this…this is the end game,” Sansar muttered, lost in thought. Her eyes were unfocused, and she didn’t appear to have heard the corporal. “This is how the enemy takes over Earth…or kills us all, or maybe that’s the same thing. This is their play. Whatever it is they’re planning, it happens in seven days, or right after that. Yeah, right after…that’s the way I’d do it. Give the government time to see everyone dying from horrific diseases, maybe leak it to the press…there’d be mass hysteria, and the mercs would get the blame for causing all of the diseases. It wouldn’t even matter that there weren’t any of us left to defend ourselves. Everyone would be more worried about the global pandemics and how to stop them…the panic would be worldwide…and then it happens. Whatever it is. Damn.”
Sansar’s eyes came back into focus, and she nodded. “You were right; there are plans within plans, and no matter how or when anyone figures them out, they are helpless to stop whatever happens to Earth in a week. There’s only one person I know who could have thought all of this up. Peepo.”
“Peepo, ma’am?” the corporal asked.
“Yes, Peepo. She’s a Veetanho, and she is generally acknowledged as the greatest military mind of our generation. She quit taking contracts a little while ago, and no one knew why. Apparently she wasn’t out of the business, though—she was working on a plan to kill us all.”
“But why, ma’am? Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we were cutting into their profit margins too much. Maybe the other races got tired of us taking the good contracts; it’s impossible to say. Somebody wants our suits, but doesn’t like us and wants us dead.” Her eyes narrowed as she processed the information. Finally she nodded. “I get it now,” she added.
“Get what, ma’am?”
“It’s the prophecy; this is why we had to come off-planet. We had to come here to find out the suits don’t work and then figure out the rest of it.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you, ma’am,” Corporal Enkh replied. “How does this help? We are saved, or we will be, anyway, once we clean the suits, but what happens if Earth falls? What do we do then?”
Sansar gave the corporal a fox’s smile. “Peepo isn’t the only one who has plans within plans,” she said, “and I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“But how are we going to get back to Earth in time to save them?”
“Getting to Earth in time to save everyone will be the easiest part of the plan,” Sansar said. “Everything up to that, though; now that’s going to be the challenge.”
Corporal Enkh blinked a couple of times. “I’m sorry ma’am…what?”
“Don’t worry about it. What I need you to do is to go call all the officers and senior enlisted. We’ve got a lot of planning to do and not much time to do it. Some of them may be in bed; wake them up if you have to. Have them meet me in the conference room in 15 minutes.”
Corporal Enkh saluted and raced off down the hall.
“Hey, Corporal!” Sansar called after her. The junior enlisted stopped and turned back. “You better have the mess start four or five pots of coffee, too,” Sansar added. “It’s going to be a long night.”
Commander’s Conference, Fleet Maintenance Yard “B,” Golara System
“General Peepo,” Rear Admiral Grakapoonga said. The Bukulu’s tentacles twitched in shame. “I regret to inform you the Winged Hussars escaped the task force sent to destroy them.”
“How is that possible?” Peepo asked in the quiet voice she used when she was most displeased.
“We don’t have all of the details yet, but Captain Shebalooda sent his regrets for his inability to complete the tasking.”
“Shebalooda?” Peepo asked. “Admiral Omega was the commander of that task force, with Geshakooka as the fleet’s second-in-command, should it prove necessary. Shebalooda was third in line. Where are Admiral Omega and Captain Geshakooka?”
“Admiral Omega and Captain Geshakooka were both killed.”
Peepo’s eyes made a circuit around the table. No one was willing to meet the fury they saw within her eyes. “What is the point of creating the perfect plan if your subordinates are too incompetent to carry it out?” Peepo finally asked. “There were three fleets, with battleships, sent to destroy one small task force with nothing bigger than a battlecruiser in it. How did they fail?”
Silence filled the room.
“This is the third time you have failed me. I understood with the Cavaliers. Somehow, they found not one, but two operational Raknar. That could not have been foreseen. It is most unfortunate they learned we have the Canavar, but it could not be helped.”
She looked around the table again; still, no one was willing to meet her gaze. “Even Asbaran, I understand,” Peepo continued. “I knew his grandsire; he was the most accomplished general it was ever my pleasure to test wits with in battle. I should have overseen that operation more closely in case his spawn was equally capable.”
“How could we have known he would go behind the lines and strike the Blood Drinkers’ home base on Bestald?” asked Lieutenant General Beelel. An Altar, the giant ant-like creature’s antennae twitched in shame and outrage.
“How could you have not known he would do that?” Peepo roared. “You used a Besquith to set up the team; you should have prepared for the possibility that Shirazi might track you back through them.” She met the eyes of the lone Besquith in the room, Colonel Grag-Ro. “Besquith are ferocious in battle,” she said, eliciting a predator’s grin from the colonel, “but they aren’t overly bright. You should have thought of that.” Grag-Ro found something interesting to look at on the floor.
“Letting the Hussars get away, though, is a travesty, especially Cromwell and the Pegasus. Her death was essential to the plan. It is incompetence of the highest level.”
“Captain Shebalooda reported the Pegasus was damaged before it went into hyperspace,” the Bukulu rear admiral noted, “and they couldn’t find where the Hussars came back out. It is likely they have been lost with all hands.”
“Have the Humans ever shown the same levels of gross incompetence and utter stupidity you have?” Peepo asked. “No, they haven’t. What is far more likely is they escaped in such a manner that you couldn’t find them…and that is worrisome to me.”
Peepo stood up.
“Where are you going, general?” Lieutenant General Beelel asked. “Shall I send a steward to fetch you something?”
“No,” Peepo replied. “That won’t be necessary. Except for competent subordinates, I lack for nothing. No, I am going to oversee the campaign to wipe out the remainder of The Golden Horde. Hopefully, that can still be salvaged from your incompetence.”
“But General,” Beelel said, “their main force should have been wiped out on Trigar-2. All that remains on Earth is a small contingent of their support staff, and I have five legions of Tortantulas with which to wipe them out. I designed the campaign, myself. There is no way the Humans can stop me.”
“Have you checked to see that Sansar Enkh was indeed killed on Trigar-2?”
“No, but there is no way she could have escaped. Besides, I was just about to leave to oversee the final assault myself, in advance of the fleet’s arrival in their system.”
“You can still do that,” Peepo said in a tone that killed all discussion; “however, I will need 10 minutes to pack my bags. I’m coming with you.”
* * * * *
Chapter 18
Conference Room, Main
Base, Trigar 2-A, Trigar System
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Walker said, “but I’m going to have to strongly advise against your plan.”
“Apparently, you weren’t listening, Staff Sergeant,” Captain Anderson said. “Colonel Enkh just said every single merc on Earth is going to die in a few days if we don’t make it back. Yes, it’s going to be risky, but we have to do it. Every merc is counting on us to get the word back—we have to take the chance. Our employers are supposed to be here soon. We need to neutralize the MinSha before then.”
“I’m okay with mounting pods on the fighter and launching the CASPers at the planet. There has to be a better way than trying to out-fight the fighters, though, because that’s got no chance of success. You haven’t seen what the MinSha fighters can do. There’s no way I can out-fight two of them in space; it can’t be done. I’ll be dead before I get to the launch point.”
“And I’m telling you it has to be done,” Captain Anderson replied.
“I get that, sir, probably more than you know. However, I’ve seen these fighters in action—”
“You’ve seen these fighters in action? I’m your company commander; why am I unaware of this?”
“I have, and—”
“He has,” Sansar added, cutting in. “The story is too long to tell now. Just accept he’s seen them.”
“Okay,” Walker said, “I’ve seen them in action. If we can’t find a better solution, I’ll do it, but I know this isn’t going to work. There’s got to be a better way.”
“What about if you took off in the opposite direction,” Sansar asked, “and flew around the planet, building up speed so you could launch the CASPers from further out?”
“That might help with the CASPer launch, but it’s still not going to work.”
“Why not?” Sansar asked.
“Because after the fighters kill me, they will track down the pods and kill them. We need a way of killing the MinSha fighters if we’re going to have a chance of doing this.”
The Golden Horde (The Revelations Cycle Book 4) Page 23