by Chris Hechtl
<()>^<()>
It started with talk in small groups but then swelled abruptly as panic overtook sense. When life support shut down fans in one area to conserve power, it sparked the fear into terror as people broke.
Fight or flight was known to the residents of the station; smart ones didn't fight a hopeless battle. You lived by not fighting a bigger bully or the shore patrol. They knew they were in a hopeless battle, one they had no control over. Instincts finally kicked in, and they began to congregate in the main areas and then riot in the port as the locks shut to cut them off. It started with fear but then some called out to find some way to try to escape the deathtrap they were all caught in. That led a stampede to the locks with people like Ned and Sammy at the head of the group or pushing them along.
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Captain Baker grimaced when he heard the initial report of unrest in the port. It was long overdue in his estimation. The news that the medics had all but given up on finding a cure and were treating the worst sick with heavy doses of narcotics, in some cases lethal overdoses, was making the rounds.
It was true he knew. The medics had their hands full. Several had been injured and at least one nurse killed at the claws and teeth of their feverish, angry, and desperate patients. Now this, he thought as he checked a quartet of video feeds, sample videos of the base. He saw some with weapons, most without. They were grim and terrified. Some were pressing into the port, trying to get into the shuttles that remained there.
They weren't going to get far; each shuttle would be destroyed the moment they launched. He smelled a familiar smell and turned to see the admiral looking over his shoulder. “Sir …”
“I see it,” the admiral rumbled. “I think we need to restore order quickly before this dross gets out of hand,” he growled. “Put me through to the leader of security there and then the PA.”
“Ah, I'm not sure who that is,” Kix admitted, kicking himself for the admission almost instantly. As XO it was his job to keep on top of that. However, in his defense it had been hard with the chain of command suffering so many recent hits. “I'll find out.”
“You do that,” the lion said, watching him move at a faster pace. “Soon.”
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Pell grimaced as the Neochimp practically shrieked at him to get moving. “We are. I wanted to concentrate my forces to be effective,” he repeated.
“I don't care! Get that lot under control! Mutineers are to be spaced! You are authorized to fire!”
Pell grimaced further but nodded inside his suit. So be it.
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Troy knew some were trying to get into the shuttles but he'd taken a different path. There was no way they'd get them all off; there were too many people. Instead he'd headed for the gumby suits and the tugs. Those were unsecured.
He was halfway to the nearest bay where they were stowed with a partial plan when he heard a series of gunshots. He froze and then slowly got to the wall, placing his back to it and looking around.
He heard another shot and then saw a body fall behind him. He turned as panic began to kick in to the crowd. A few who were armed snarled and turned on the armed guards and robots but were instantly gunned down.
A crackle made him look up. On the main screen he saw a familiar image. The admiral was there, in full uniform. “Listen up. I've ordered Dred to deal with this mutiny. The leaders will step forth for judgment!” he said.
The crowd slowly quieted and looked at each other. No one stepped up. Troy couldn't blame them; he was fairly certain what they'd get for their trouble.
“All right, guards, you may kill ten of them.”
The guards didn't hesitate. They fired like a firing squad and ten bodies fell.
“Let's try this again. The leaders are to step forth to walk the plank. Should they fail to do so, the next ten will be shot, and then so on and so forth until we get through you all or you get it through your thick heads that you aren't going anywhere.”
“Why?” a woman demanded. “I'm human! Some of us are human! We're immune!” she pointed to the group.
“There is one,” a guard said grabbing the woman.
“No! No!” She began to shriek that she wasn't a leader but was ignored.
“Who else?” the admiral growled, surveying them with his glittering gold eye. “I should let you into the shuttle. The moment a shuttle launches it will be target practice for my gunners,” he growled menacingly.
Troy gulped and slowly backed away from the bay. Apparently he'd fooled himself into thinking he could flee.
“Ten seconds and then we execute the next ten!” the guard commander barked. He started a countdown as the group tried to shuffle as those in the line of fire tried to get behind others.
When he got to two someone yelled wait. He paused as a group jostled two people out of the crowd and threw them at his feet. “Here!” one said.
“Take them,” the guard commander ordered.
“And those who gave them up,” the admiral stated.
“What?” Sammy stared in shock at the camera and spread his hands imploringly. “I didn't lead this! No one did! We just panicked and ran for the exits! Please, sir! We are giving you what you want!”
“A likely story,” a guard said, clubbing the man in the gut to force him to bend over. The man gasped and wretched on the ground before he was dragged away. Troy gulped. He was grateful he hadn't been close to them for Sammy to finger him as a scapegoat.
Troy kept his hands up as the nearest guard swept him with a look. A twitch of the man's muzzle made him back away from the lock with his hands up.
“We need to keep and maintain order! I will have order!” the admiral roared, cowing the group back into submission. “Now! Attend to your duties you mangy lot or I'll have the rest of you all spaced!”
Troy gulped, knowing the lion meant it. Slowly the group broke up. They slid away from the robots and remaining guards and broke up to head to some other safer destination.
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Sho heard about the riot and shook his head. There was no breaking quarantine. The ships out there couldn't and wouldn't accept any shuttle or person from the base. They were all doomed unless they could find a cure.
He wasn't certain if it was even possible.
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There was little progress in stopping the plague. Leonidas had to be truthful, at least with himself. The plague and chaos it was causing was sapping his strength. So was the lack of being able to use the base.
His people were reforming what they could around the yard, but it wasn't easy. Wilda had detached the yard's habitat modules and kept her people contained and on their own canned life support. Three full days had passed without any sign of infection so he was pretty sure they were clean. A series of umbilicals were powering the modules, but more and more they were relying on internal power from one of the ships moored in the slips.
The isolation of the main base was a problem; there was no way of deflecting it. But, in a way they were returning to some semblance of order once the plague's spread had been confirmed as contained. There was some mutterings of cauterizing the wound and starting over.
He couldn't do that. He wasn't sure what they could do about the base. Would it ever be habitable again? By now the bacteria and viruses were everywhere despite the filters and best efforts of the medics and surviving life support engineers.
And there was another problem. With the base in chaos, he couldn't mobilize to kick the Feds out of Tau-1252 now. There was no way. He needed the warm bodies and knowledge, but many were dead or dying.
He needed to do so too. He needed to kick the Feds out before they rebuilt and dug in further. It might already be too late. He wasn't confident about their chances though. If they could muster sufficient firepower, they could go back and capture a cure but people were looking to themselves.
He was beginning to dread the future and the next bad report.
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Doctor Sho cl
osed his eyes in pain as he saw the covered body of Doctor White hauled out of the ward. The people trying to move the gurney groaned with the weight but kept their complaints to a minimum.
The doctor had held out through it all, even trying to remain coherent as the plagues ripped through his body. He'd even described symptoms. But, when they'd taken their toll on his mind, the ape had quietly altered his chart to give himself a lethal dose of whatever sleep drug was left in their inventory.
His passage had been quiet and initially missed by all. And he would be missed by all Doctor Sho thought with a tired shake of his head. His entire body ached from being on his feet and on duty for so long. But he had to continue.
“We've confirmed there was never a cure. And there were at least a dozen viruses and bacteria in that cocktail Doctor Brueshe took before she was caught,” the tired lab tech Rob said over the vid chat.
“Understood.”
“I'm trying to figure out what the individual ones are, Doctor.”
“I know. Keep trying, Rob,” the doctor stated.
“We're down to human staff only,” the lead RN stated. He turned to her. “Half the staff is down from exhaustion. I think one or two went AWOL, but I can't confirm it. I don't have someone to go looking.”
“No point anyway. We need all hands on deck.”
“Doctor White held out the longest. But he's the last of the medics who got infected to pass away from it,” the RN stated.
“Understood.”
“The bitch who caused this didn't suffer. My only regret was that she didn't suffer long enough.”
“Agreed. But that's not getting us any closer to a cure or cures plural.”
“Well, the good news is Doctor White's prompt actions halted the spread to us and possibly one ship in port. The admiral is handling that now.”
“Understood,” Doctor Sho stated. “Rob,” he turned to the lab tech. “Can you isolate just one culture? Compare it to what we've got going here? Some might be timed to go off on a delayed basis. If we can knock one down, specifically the most virulent, maybe we can get some breathing room.”
The overwhelmed lab tech looked frightened but nodded. “I can try, Doctor.”
It was only when the lab tech moved and the camera showed the scene around him did Doctor Sho blink in surprise. Bodies were nearby. “What happened?”
“They lost control. One of them realized I had to be protected so she … she killed them,” Rob said with a shiver as he looked over his shoulder briefly and then sharply back to them.
“Then don't let her sacrifice or theirs be in vain, you got it?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir, I'll try not to.”
“Do more then try.”
It was a lot of weight to put on a lab tech, but at that point, Sho didn't care. He had enough on his shoulders; he might as well spread the burden around a bit. Besides, it was true. A lot was riding on that tech. “Make sure you send regular updates to the ships out of port. The medics there are supposed to be researching things from their end.”
“Yes, sir. Captain Baker had me set up a download of the Horathian database. They are supposed to be going over it on their end.”
“Good. Good,” the Asian doctor murmured. “Keep us posted. Even the smallest discovery might be the first step in beating this thing.”
The tech nodded. “Aye aye, sir.”
Chapter 5
The Tortuga star system's usual routine was interrupted by the explosion of energy announcing the unexpected and rather unwanted arrival of a ship at the Tau-1252 jump point.
Or, at least in the vicinity of the jump point. The ships detailed to cover the jump point were dismayed to find the ship was well outside of the jump point. And even as they were getting their drives warmed up, she was leaving the zone of her arrival and headed into the outer dark of the heliopause.
“Secure from jump but keep the hyperdrive charged. Back us off. What's around us?” Ship's Captain and Lieutenant Commander Milton Fortrain asked, sitting as comfortably in his chair as he could. He knew he was supposed to project a professional air of confidence … even though he felt like he'd just tried to pass a pine cone and wanted to be anywhere but where he was.
“Too soon to tell, sir. We can't launch an RD until the jump wake clears,” the TAO Lieutenant Jorge Adams warned. Jorge was not thrilled about the mission. None of the crew was; Demon Chaser was an Arboth class destroyer not a cruiser. She lacked the long-range ability of a cruiser, not to mention their ability to lurk in stealth.
“But we are where you wanted us to be, sir. Well off the jump point and hopefully clear of any enemy units for the time being,” the Neochimp navigator Lieutenant Junebug stated. “It looks like … seventeen million kilometers from the jump zone.”
“So, out in the boonies. Let's keep it that way. As soon as our surroundings are cleared, we'll stand down and run silent. Let's do our best to imitate a black hole while we launch those birds.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Can't be soon enough for me,” a spacer murmured softly. The captain only grunted in reply.
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Captain Gutt snarled as he heard the report of the Fed arrival. Black Corsage was still twenty million kilometers out from the picket. He was concerned, but then the concern turned to surprise when the follow-up report stated repeatedly that it was just one ship.
His ship had been on her way to take charge of the picket ships on station. It was clear instantly that none of them knew what to do. Three had tried to give chase while the other three had milled about radioing the flagship for orders.
“What are they doing?” he demanded, seething.
“They don't know if they should chase it and abandon their post or not,” his XO stated. “I think.”
“You think. And while people think the enemy is getting away!”
“Yes, sir. But if we run after them, won't we be leaving the jump point unguarded?”
The Neoorangutan stopped his rant to stare at his XO for a long thoughtful moment. What he'd said made a sort of sense. A lot of sense, even if there was an element of backside covering in it. Finally, he grunted. “Point.”
There was also the unsaid point about chasing another warship. The Fed warships had gained a fearful reputation, one that had only grown in the retelling of the stories from some of the survivors. He was aware of it in his own crew but the only way to counter it was to show them again that the Fed ships weren't invulnerable.
But that meant exposing his beloved ship to combat once more. And he hated a fair fight.
“Sir, we're getting radio calls asking if they should go after the intruders.”
“What, twenty minutes late? Sure, fine, tell two to go after them. The rest can hold station,” he growled, large lips writhing in the urge to spit. He had asked not to be sent to the jump point. It wasn't out of fear or a healthy dose of self-preservation. No, it was with the awareness that he was stiffening up spit with buckshot. The lily-livered cowards who were running around the star system were running scared of the Feds. Sure, they were brave when it came to running down a helpless deer of an unarmed civilian ship, but face a true opponent?
He shook his head. “Amateurs,” he grumbled, watching the plot as the picket ships fell to arguing over who got to go and who stayed. He wuffled a sigh when he recognized the signs.
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Captain Fortrain's lips quivered in an almost smile of relief as they got clear of their original entry point unmolested. It looked like his ploy of arriving well short of the jump point and going into stealth right away was going to work. He didn't want to jinx it by stating it out loud though, at least, not yet.
Demon Chaser had taken some damage in what some were calling the battle of Tau-1252. He'd been lucky and they'd managed to get enough of her repairs completed for the commodore to order his ship to stand guard initially.
Once they'd gone through a cycle of repairs, he'd been less enthused by having two of his junior off
icers, two low-ranking petty officers, and two promising spacers poached for other duties in the fleet. Not that he'd had any choice in the matter of course. Each of his people had been bumped up a grade. In the case of the noncoms, they'd been mustanged to officer status and then sent to cover holes in other ships who'd suffered far worse damage than his ship had.
As his ship moved out, she dropped a series of buoys and a stealthed recon drone behind her. The drone was set to passive feed only. As his ship ran, his CIC and tactical department worked with the ship's A.I. to compile a report on the defenses at the jump point.
An hour into the chase, when he realized how badly off the two destroyers chasing him were, he ordered a decoy shot off on a divergent course and then to cut their main drive. The ploy worked; the enemy ships went after the decoy.
Give him another hour or two and more inept opponents like that and he'd be free and clear. Not that he could count on the ineptitude of his enemy. Nor would he.
“We need to find a nice place to hide. A dark hole or an asteroid or comet we can hide behind and send the recon drones in,” the captain said, following their plan. “A place we can play spider and listen to what our RDs feed about the strings being plucked around our web as they weave it.”
“Sir?” the XO asked carefully.
“Yes? What is it?”
“What about our orders?” the XO asked, indicating the plot. If they were in a hiding spot they wouldn't be able to directly observe the system. It would also mean unstepping the ship's hyperdrive if they were too close to another mass. That would leave them vulnerable to a sneak attack.
“Our orders are to observe and report. If they seem to be marshaling a force to come after the base. we need to jump out ahead with their numbers and get to the base to warn them. That's it. But it looks like they are still getting their act together.” The captain turned away. “And for that I suppose we can be grateful.”
The XO nodded. “Yes, sir.”