Shiver Me Timbers

by Chris Hechtl

  But the real problem was she didn't have a lab. And she'd found that the only way to engineer a cure was from a sample of the viruses and bacteria. Essentially, she needed them on hand to tease and weaken them with carefully administered doses of poisons and other chemicals in order to come up with a weak or nearly dead virus to use as a vaccine.

  That was the major problem. Without it she was just spinning her wheels and becoming as close to an expert as she could in theory.

  But once she did have samples, she had plenty of other hurdles to overcome. For instance, she needed to find the right mix to weaken the plagues and the right vaccine to immunize the patient without killing them.

  And to do all that she needed a lab. A place where the plagues were contained and she could work in quarantine, most likely in a hazmat suit.

  The good news was that the Feds had taken a lot of the basic research out of it. They'd explained in excruciating detail what to do and how to do it. They'd dumbed it down pretty well; she was confident she could handle it. She'd carefully hand copied their notes from their files to her own computer. But the images and videos had to be copied over another way.

  The lab—it would all start with the lab. If, she didn't run into the plagues first without one. As long as she had access to a lab, there was hope. If she didn't she was screwed. Her own people would tear her apart just like they had with the Horathians.

  She shivered a little but then got back to work.

  <()>^<()>

  Tau-33ZD Black Hills

  Captain Hammer hadn't realized how tense he was until the convoy Saladin was escorting had made it to the Tau-R1344 jump point.

  He'd been aware of the dangers of passing through the destroyed star system. Not just the navigational hazards but also the keen awareness of a possible ambush. If he had been in charge of the other side, this was where he'd do it. But they hadn't shown.

  Of course, the star system was so wrecked there was no way to find an ion trail in the soup. And their sensors were useless beyond twenty million kilometers.

  But, no sign of the enemy. So far, so good.

  The admiral had gotten the yard engineers to make good on what repairs they could. Saladin had gotten some of her oomph back, but she wasn't back to where she'd once been. Definitely not fleet of foot. The only reason he'd agreed to the escort mission was to get his ship's speed back. So much for that.

  At least none of the thirty-four sheep under his stern gaze could outrun him if they dared.

  They were making their final jump preparations when CIC reported an IFF signal.

  “How the hell can anyone see through this mess, let alone punch a signal to us?” he demanded.

  “It's a broadband, sir. It's from Black Death.”

  “So, the admiral is behind us.”

  “Aye, sir. Should we wait for him?”

  “Oh, hell no! He wouldn't do the same for us! No, he no doubt kept the faster ships for himself. He'll probably catch and pass us in hyper. No, we proceed as planned.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Comm, send our IFF and a log letting the admiral know we're here and about to jump. He can play cat and mouse in this cursed system; I've had my fill of it.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  <()>^<()>

  Admiral Ishmael felt a bit of relief that Joe had passed through the star system unscathed.

  It had occurred to him early on that the system was a perfect ambush point for the enemy. It had been one reason he'd structured the three convoys as he had. If Commodore Logan had taken the bait, she would have sent at least a couple ships to try to catch one of the earlier convoys.

  After all, it was what he would have done. He was an aggressive leader; that's what they did. He'd been surprised when he didn't see any sign of one. A little put out too. Had she turtled, seeing the forces in his last convoy? That was quite possible.

  He'd hoped the first two convoys would have enticed her to send a couple of her warships after them. That was why he'd timed things as he had, though he hadn't expected the problems with the Gantry ship to slow them down as they had nor had he anticipated Saladin's own lack of speed would have altered the interval. Only Lady Luck's blessing had kept it relatively close.

  If the enemy had come, he might have been able to pick them off for the sacrifice of one or two of the convoy ships. Joe wouldn't have fought to protect them; the code said, fight to run away. Picking off a few of the enemy warships would have helped him attrition her forces and doing so in the nebula would have negated a lot of their advantages to allow that to be possible.

  But, it was not meant to be apparently. Which meant there was more frustration from his crew over not getting some revenge.

  It was sorely tempting to turn his warships south and to come after her again. But he refused to do it. Again, the code said, fight to run away. There was no profit in going in and getting killed. Black Death might be a functional warship again but she'd lost much of her fighting trim. He needed time and the parts waiting in Dead Man's Hand and elsewhere to get her right once more.

  Besides, he had no intention of breaking his teeth and claws on her fixed defenses. No doubt she'd improved on them since his last visit.

  No, he'd keep on course for Dead Man's Hand and then see if things could be turned around there.

  <()>^<()>

  Kix looked at the plot and frowned thoughtfully. The admiral had cold-bloodedly dangled Saladin's convoy out as bait, but apparently, the enemy hadn't gone after it. Either they hadn't gotten the word or the commodore was smarter or more cautious than they'd thought.

  He still refused to relax until they were in hyper once more though.

  He'd honestly thought the admiral would have had a change of heart and turned back. He was fully aware that some might be considering that the admiral was a broken man, that he'd lost his confidence. He was definitely quieter.

  Black Death had twenty-six other warships with her, plus twenty-five prize ships of various sizes. They had to travel at their best speed, which had turned out to be the gantry ship carrying the core of the shipyard.

  Which meant it was going to be a long drawn-out run north to Dead Man's Hand.

  If there was no plague sign in Long Sands, would the admiral order a layover? He hoped so but doubted it.

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” he growled when he caught a tech giving him a sidelong look. “That means on your instruments and not on me, Mister Kinian,” the Neochimp growled.

  The unfortunate sod winced but then went back to staring at his instrument panel.

  Chapter 22

  TauR15-1 Purple Nights

  The orbital fortresses and picket ships on duty at the TauG16-81 Stunning Sunsets jump point surged to full alert when an unknown ship arrived at the center of the jump point.

  The ship was identified as a warship so they went to full alert. When she didn't transmit an IFF, a warning was sent out for the ship to stand down or be fired upon.

  The ship tried to turn but a shot from the command fortress across her bow glanced across her shields. The capital ship graser overloaded the ship. The cruiser listed and then tumbled as her shields died. A boarding shuttle was dispatched to capture the ship.

  When the Marines boarded the ship in their armor, they were appalled to find most of the crew near madness. “It's a plague ship,” a Marine reported back to the command fortress. “They aren't in much of a position to fight. They were driven by madness to come here.”

  “Another one,” Admiral Broken Tooth said. “Finish securing the ship and I'll report it to higher command. Full decontamination protocols are to be enacted.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The admiral scowled as the transmission ended. It was the second ship to have arrived at the jump point in the past month. The first had been a civilian ship running from the plagues. This was a problem though not a big one. Both ships would be interred until higher decided in their sweet ass-dragging time what to do with them.

 
<()>^<()>

  TauG5R19-11 Minox IV

  Director Blacksight shook his head at the latest news report from Purple Nights. The navy was on top of that problem. He glanced at the latest report from his CIB agents in the field. For the past century, his people had been chasing an elusive rumor of a Federation sleeper yacht trying to make changes to the sector. “Oliver Twist,” he murmured.

  According to the latest report from Tau-O79XP the ship was there in orbit trying to treat the plague. It would be nice if his people could catch that ship, but he didn't have any active assets in the area available to generate an intercept. The navy wouldn't allow him to “borrow” a ship to go after them either.

  He checked the field reports again. Many of the worlds that had the plague had gone dark. According to the last report from the last surviving agent in Lebynthos, a Federation convoy had stopped in the star system, and he'd been forced to enact the final protocol.

  The Federation, if it didn't rain it poured, he thought in annoyance. How the hell had the spirits of space arranged that? The plague, the Federation … all coming together in the same time period?

  Maybe some of the conspiracy nuts in the government were right and the Feds were behind the plague? He was pretty sure some of the government would push for his people to craft intelligence to reflect that. Not that it was true.

  Besides, the news of the plagues were out there in the wild. And the herd knew that the pirates had been spraying worlds. He'd let that information out over a month prior. The herd was incensed about that and a call for action had been started in congress.

  Not that he expected it to go the way the liberals wanted. The liberals were finally getting behind the idea but only as a way to help the populations afflicted by the plagues. He was pretty sure the resistance to that idea would fade in their counterparts once they realized the liberals were giving them the opening they needed to begin enacting their plans to expand the Confederation. And, the bastard pirates had started their cleansing program for them, hammering away at many of the undesirable species. It was leaving behind open and ripe worlds for his people to pick.

  And, no doubt he'd start to get calls for proper intelligence on those worlds. Which was why he needed to deploy more of his agents into the field to restore the cells that had been lost.

  He had a lot of egg on his face with the Federation though. He and the other intelligence directors. He needed intel on them; he needed it badly. Trying to figure out which way to jump with priorities was going to be fun he thought, wuffling a sigh.

  <()>^<()>

  President Bent Tip shook her head as she listened to the debate raging in the Confederation congress chamber. “The time to do something is now! While we wait billions of our brothers and sisters are dying or going mad from these plagues!” the honorable Fatgrass growled, banging his fist onto the podium for emphasis. He was so incensed his cheeks were red and his jowls shook.

  Of course she knew a good part of it was theater. Fatgrass was well-known for his theatrics when he spoke. It was entertaining to some and definitely kept them awake and paying attention to him.

  Unfortunately, he was a member of the active military policy—those who wanted to go on the offense and take back the entire sector. Fatgrass might find some reluctant allies in the Liberals, but she knew it was only a temporary alliance. Already the liberals were trying to temper his party's urge for conquest to just medical relief.

  She rubbed her brow gently as she closed her eyes and sat back. She'd seen most of the reports from the agents in the sector. The plagues were bad. But, the Federation was worse. She had no idea how they were going to react to some of the government's policies she'd inherited. A cover-up could just create more of a problem.

  So far luck was on their side; the Federation was occupied by the pirates and the plagues. So occupied that they had only sent one medical relief convoy in the Confederation's direction.

  She frowned as Fatgrass began to gas on about how the Confederation was the rightful inheritors of the sector. He was hitting a nerve; she knew it. She also knew he might be trying to get her to react and get him off the floor.

  Fatgrass had the clearance to know about the Federation resurgence. He considered the Irons Federation as illegitimate. He was also urging them to move and strike without waiting for them to get agents in place to find out what was truly going on.

  No. She flat-out refused to move until she was ready to act. Not until she was ready to enact policies that wouldn't cost her the position she'd spent a lifetime building up to. Nor did she want to enact a war of conquest that could have them going toe-to-toe with the new Federation. No one wanted a repeat of that.

  Well, no one in her camp at any rate.

  <()>^<()>

  “You do realize that if we took Stunning Sunsets we'd almost have to take the neighboring star system behind it. And what of the defenses in Purple Nights? We've spent ages building them up. We'd have to move them out to Stunning Sunsets. And if we went further? How far are we going to go? How will that affect our deployments? We would no longer need the front line force we currently have in Purple Nights and elsewhere,” Clipped Toe demanded. That set off a rumble in delegations from Purple Nights and the surrounding area as well as those that had an extensive naval picket.

  Realization began to sink in that if they did move into their neighbors it would mean an end to the fat naval contracts the locals were getting. Not to mention the money they were drawing from basing rights and the money the sailors and Marines spent when on liberty and their families who were housed there.

  Clipped Toe nodded to Fatgrass who looked nonplussed and drummed his thick fingers on his blotter. “With respect to my learned colleague, we need to think these things through very carefully.”

  <()>^<()>

  Admiral Silvertip shook his head as his fingers stroked the scars on his left cheek. They were a legacy of his time as a lieutenant when he'd talked them into surrendering, only for his CO to go against is word. It had been a bitter learning experience for all parties. For him, in that he'd found that there was no give in the policy that his people had enacted in Kai's name ever so long ago.

  He didn't blame the Neo female for lashing out as she had. They and other non-Tauren species were trapped in a system stacked against them. It hadn't always been like that, but the great Kai had put them on that path of isolationism long ago.

  The hijackers had only wanted out of the Confederation. They'd been cornered. Desperate people did dangerous and stupid things or so he'd thought when the fleet had cornered and disabled the ship.

  She and the other hijackers of the ship they'd desperately managed to take had been tried, sentenced, and in the cases of the leaders, executed. The women and children had been sent to the internment camps. Now there were reportedly few if any children left. The government had enacted a policy to lace the food with drugs to sterilize the population and to keep them more docile.

  There were some non-Taurens still out there, and even some Taurens who secretly supported their efforts. Many were radicalized. They didn't understand or didn't care that the occasional mass casualty event they engineered worked against them in the public eye. The herd saw those times as clear proof that internment was the right course of action. He saw it as people lashing out in despair since they had no other recourse to fall back on.

  He pitied them for that. He pitied their victims even more though.

  He'd done his homework in history class; he knew it hadn't been that way before. It wasn't the path Kai had set them out on initially. Historians pointed to the Great Kai having non-Taurens in his cabinet as well as friends. Non-Taurens had served in the military and government for decades until the conservative isolationist movement had stripped them of that.

  The trend Kai had started in his latter days in office had snowballed. And, because non-Taurens couldn't be trusted, the government had closed the borders to prevent them from emigrating elsewhere over two centuries ago. They'd done it on t
he pretext of the raids by the pirates at the time, but he knew it was to keep knowledge of the Confederation out of the hands of others.

  After all, had others known the jewel they'd had they would try to come to the Confederation. They'd swamp it with refugees.

  Apparently, no one had taught his ancestors about sharing. Or, they'd forgotten those lessons he thought in annoyance.

  It didn't matter. He had his duty. He took refuge in that, that he was doing his duty to protect the Confederation.

  Sometimes though it sucked. His eyes turned to the news report. Recently some factions had begun to press the government to expand the borders and even extend the cleansing program to those as well. The plagues had roused the population into terror and fury, even more so when someone had leaked that it had been a deliberate plan of the pirates.

  He was pretty sure the commentators were right that it had been a liberal leak to try to discourage the war faction from their push to go on the offense. Either way it had only stalled what some were seeing as an inevitable desire to expand. Most likely the corporations were really behind the push. They wanted new markets to exploit, but it could be more than that.

  He went from scanning the news report to the latest ONI feed.

  According to ONI and CIB, the Federation movement was indeed real. Their surviving agents had confirmed some of the tech involved. It was a major black mark with the ONI, Confederation Intelligence Bureau, and the other intelligence circles that they'd been blindsided by the appearance of the Federation on the sector stage.

  He grimaced afresh. It hadn't gotten out yet; neither side was willing to leak the news to the public at least until they'd gotten confirmation. The problem was they were dealing with vast distances and the plagues. Many of the spy cells had gone dark due to the plague. Their people might be immune to most of the plagues, but that didn't mean they were immune to the violence sparked by the madness it had engineered.