Contagion

by David Ryker

  The room was packed with observers. A security detail ushered them out and closed the doors behind them.

  “Switch off the cameras,” the commander said.

  I hit a button and killed the live feeds.

  The commander leaned forward in the judges’ bench and studied the prisoners.

  “Now on to another matter. I can reveal that we received a probe from Earth.”

  Everyone left in the courtroom took in a deep breath – everyone except for the high command, that is. We had all been informed of not one but three Earth probes that had caught up to us. The rest of the crew hadn’t been told, and the news hit them like a bomb. Even the terrorists gaped and hung on her every word.

  “That probe was launched a couple of years after we were, and equipped with a faster engine that allowed it to catch up with us. It relayed the news that the Global Government had detected a number of Biospherists on board. It named you, Technician First Class Albert Lyncker, and you, Assistant Botanist Rachel Hemmings. It also named a number of the Biospherists killed by Commander Ayers and a number of colonists still in stasis. The government admitted that it did not have a complete list of those who had infiltrated the Nansen. They had captured one of your senior cell leaders but he did not have a complete list. Several of the Biospherists participating in the slaughter of the crew were not listed, and no doubt others among the colonists or crew that have since been woken up have also not been detected.”

  A smug smile stretched across the face of the male prisoner. The woman jutted out her chin, eyes glittering with defiance.

  “I give you a chance to save your lives,” Commander Loftsdóttir. “You know the penalty you face. Name those names, and we will let you go. We will exile you onto this space station, or any other world you choose. Name those names, and you can live.”

  Every one of the judges stared at her, stunned. It was a ballsy move. Letting these two assholes go would cause a fucking riot. Hell, I might have joined the rioters.

  Actually I don’t mean that. I’ve always stood for law and order. That was our only real hope. It’s why I did two tours of duty for the Global Government. As shitty and as inefficient as that government was, it was the only thing holding it all together. Even when I’d worked as a mob enforcer I stood for law and order. Leo Franzetti might have been a thug, an extortionist, a racketeer, and a killer, but his neighborhood was the safest in the North American East Coast Megalopolis. You played ball, you got streets you could walk down at night. And all the streetlights worked. Even the garbage was picked up regularly.

  We all looked to the prisoners. Did I see a hesitation there, a little less arrogance than before? Lyncker and Hemmings glanced at one another. Lyncker widened his eyes a fraction and pushed his head forward a little. Pleading?

  If that’s what he was doing, Hemmings was having none of it. She turned and looked right at me.

  Right at the guy who had ordered her to be guarded by the three men who ended up raping her.

  “We’d rather die than stab our comrades in the back,” she declared.

  Both raised their fists in the air and shouted, “For a new, clean world!”

  Crap. Lyncker looked just as committed as Hemmings now. That moment’s hesitation hadn’t lasted, not after Hemmings, who had suffered far more than he had, had shown him the way forward to martyrdom. He wouldn’t say a thing now, not even if we separated the two and worked on him. I knew. I had worked on people with far fewer restrictions than I had on this ship, and I knew when someone was never going to talk.

  Lyncker was now one of those people, just as much as Hemmings.

  So they would get spaced, and we would be left looking at our crewmates wondering which ones were Biospherists waiting for their chance. I listened as if from a great distance as Commander Loftsdóttir bullied, cajoled, and almost pleaded with the two terrorists to change their minds. They did not. I listened as she pronounced the sentence of death upon them, and informed the two attorneys that they would be put back in stasis so they would not let slip what they had learned. Only the high command knew there were undetected Biospherists on board, and several whose names we knew sleeping in stasis. We couldn’t afford to let that news get out. The commander also instructed Qiang to keep quiet. He replied with a snappy salute. I knew he wouldn’t talk. The secret was safe.

  The secret that we weren’t safe, that we had just as many enemies inside the ship as we did outside of it.

  Next it came my turn to salute, as Commander Loftsdóttir ordered me to take the two prisoners in a shuttle out of sight of the space station and send them out the airlock.

  Another two corpses on my conscience. I didn’t feel much pity for these two idiots, but killing always left a bitter taste in my mouth.

  Especially when I knew it wouldn’t do anyone a damn bit of good.

  5

  The two Biospherists died as they had lived—angry, defiant, uncompromising. They did not plead and they did not cry. They didn’t even have any last requests.

  How different from my three security personnel who I spaced after they gang raped Hemmings. They had acted like cowards, and their shameful final moments had been broadcast to the entire ship for all to see.

  This execution had been broadcast too, and I had no doubt that the whole ship stopped to watch it just like last time. I wondered what they thought when they saw these two terrorists, these two radicals who had murdered so many of their friends and colleagues, face death with a quiet resignation that three trained security officers couldn’t manage. I wondered how many Biospherists were awake outside their stasis pods and working among the crew. I wondered if they got inspiration from how their comrades died.

  I wondered when they’d take revenge.

  When I got back from the execution, I went straight to my quarters, not even acknowledging the several people I passed in the hall who tried to speak to me. Dr. Stark had given me a mild sedative to get through the execution without any heart trouble. Stress brought on palpitations. I was having a lot of stress lately.

  I figured I’d take the rest of my shift off. There wasn’t any crisis at the moment, which was a nice change, and the aliens were still discussing what technology they’d share with us. While the doctor had patched up my face, I still felt sore from the fight with the Dri’kai, and I was in a foul mood. A few hours alone in my quarters would help a lot.

  Even though I was commander of security and third in the command of the Nansen, I didn’t have much of a cabin—just a small bedroom, a common room, and a bathroom. The designers had skimped on crew quarters because the plan was to wake up close to Terra Nova. We were never supposed to spend much time on board.

  I took off my shoes, lay down on my bed, and let out a long, slow breath of air. I must have dozed for a while because the next thing I knew I was being woken up by the door buzzer.

  “Fuck,” I muttered. What was it this time? Invasion? Supernova? An outbreak of the clap? There was always some sort of crisis on this damn ship.

  I opened the door. Valeria.

  “Well, hello,” I said. She was far more welcome than a case of the clap.

  She smiled uncertainly. “Am I bothering you?”

  “Not at all. Come on in.”

  As the door slid shut behind her, she put her hand on the side of my face.

  “You okay?”

  I shrugged. How was I supposed to reply to that?

  We moved into my sitting room.

  “Want something to drink?” I asked.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  We sat. She moved her chair next to mine, and then reached out and took my hand.

  “You did your duty,” she told me.

  “I know. I hate executions.”

  Her brow furrowed a little. Crap. The way I said it made it sound like I’d done a lot of executions. I had, back in my mob days. I kept speaking to gloss it over.

  “I mean, they deserved it. Hell, they even wanted it. Still sits wrong, though. There are fe
wer than 50,000 human beings left in the universe. I don’t want to be spacing people.”

  “Maybe they’ll get their act together back on Earth,” she said. There wasn’t much hope in her voice.

  “Maybe.”

  “They couldn’t all be dead back there.”

  “No.”

  They probably wanted to be, though. A bunch of savages wandering around a used-up, toxic wasteland. Sounded like a nightmare. Despite all the shit we were going through, we were the lucky ones.

  “How’s your face?” she said, moving her hand from mine to lightly stroke the skin around my eye.

  “Nothing a few nanites and some anti-inflammatory couldn’t fix. Dr. Stark must be getting bored of patching me up.”

  “You’ve had it tough these past few weeks.”

  “We all have,” I said.

  Valeria shook her head. “You more than anyone.”

  I shrugged. “I’m still alive.”

  When you’re in a combat situation and people are dying all around you, you don’t feel sorry for yourself when you make it to the end of the day. No. You’re fucking grateful.

  She moved in close and planted a kiss on my lips.

  “Yes, you are alive. You’re one of the most alive people I’ve ever met. You’re a good man, too, Mitch.”

  Alessandro Ricci had pleaded with me on his knees as tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “Don’t do it, Mitch. I only took a few grand. I’ll pay it back. I swear!”

  Alessandro had run one of Leo Franzetti’s casinos and had been caught skimming. I felt no pity as I gunned him down. You stole from the boss, you died.

  Then I had stolen from the boss. I’d stolen a hell of a lot more.

  I was no better than Alessandro Ricci, and yet here I was still alive.

  Valeria stroked my cheek and kissed me again.

  “Don’t think about it,” she said. “Those days are past.”

  I blinked. “Huh?”

  “The wars. Don’t let them chew you up inside.”

  “Oh. Those.”

  Looking into my eyes, she said, “I was engaged to a veteran once, a long time ago. He couldn’t put it behind him either. Don’t do that. We have a new start here. A chance to do it right this time. Carrying all that burden from the old world will just poison the new one.”

  I snorted. “Tell that to the Biospherists.”

  She smiled sadly. “They’d agree. It’s just that their goals are different.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “It’s strange, but in a weird way I kind of admire them. They’re home free, away from their command structure and able to do whatever they want, and they’re still trying to do the mission. Qiang told me how after the Second World War, some Japanese soldiers left isolated on islands or in jungles kept fighting for years.”

  She kissed me again. This time I had the presence of mind to return it, slipping my arms around her slim form.

  After a minute we pulled back. She playfully jabbed me in the chest with her forefinger.

  “You still owe me a date.”

  “What? Seeing me getting my ass kicked by an alien doesn’t count as a good first date?”

  “It sure was an original one!” she said and laughed. “No. I want a quiet dinner and candlelight, and a drink I don’t have to suck through a respirator straw.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, saluting. “When would you like this special evening, ma’am?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Whenever we can find the time.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “Tell me about it. Speaking of, I need to go. We’re analyzing some scans we made of the alien races. Fascinating.”

  “More fascinating than me?” I reached over and plopped her on my lap.

  She glanced in the direction of the bedroom.

  “I can schedule you in for five minutes.”

  “You’re killing me.”

  “Enough about killing. Let’s live a little.”

  We moved to the bedroom and my heartrate went up, but in a good way. We stopped talking and let our bodies talk to each other. Hers said that I could touch anywhere, but the clothes stayed on. Her body also said that I could explore further at some other time.

  Five minutes was over all too quickly. Too much to do on this damn ship. As she straightened her clothes and hair, I ran an appreciative hand along her curves.

  “You lied to that Dri’kai,” I said. “You are in heat.”

  She gave me a playful slap. “Caveman!”

  I grappled her. “Ugh. Me like woman!”

  Valeria laughed. “Hands off. See you later.”

  I kissed her. “I sure as hell hope so.”

  I walked her to the door and we kissed again—a long, lingering one.

  Then she opened the door and went back to the world of professional façades. Feeling a lot better, I headed back to bed.

  The door buzzed again two minutes later. I groaned. Now came the crisis. There was no way I would get two pleasant surprises in one day. My life just didn’t work like that.

  Grumbling, I got up and padded over to the door in bare feet.

  I hit the intercom and asked who it was.

  “Assistant Electrician Steiner, sir. We’ve detected a wire break behind one of your panels.”

  More stuff wrong with this ship! It never ended.

  I opened the door to a thin man in his late twenties wearing an ill-fitting red technician’s jumpsuit. He had angular features and sunken blue eyes. In his left hand he gripped a toolbox.

  “Sorry for the disturbance, sir,” he said.

  “Not your fault. Come on in. I haven’t noticed any problems.”

  That was a nice change.

  “Oh, it’s not affecting your quarters, sir. It’s a wire that’s connected to the cargo lift at the end of the hall.”

  He moved inside and the door slid shut behind him.

  “Should be at the back of your bedroom,” Steiner said, indicating the open door that led to my bedroom. The rumpled bed was clearly visible through the doorway. Good thing I’m not the blushing kind.

  “Got me in the middle of a nap,” I said.

  He didn’t reply. I led him to the bedroom …

  … but only made it a couple of steps.

  They call it sixth sense. It’s not that. It’s not some woo-woo magic power. It’s your brain subconsciously noticing a few things that were out of place, finding the equation doesn’t add up. It tells your conscious mind to act before you even have time to think things through.

  Act first, think later. That’s how to survive. It makes people like me sound dumb, but I’ve known a lot of really smart men and women who died in their first combat situation. You’ve got to have your subconscious working at all times. Without that, I don’t care how high your IQ is.

  My subconscious took notice of four things—all of which I only figured out when I looked back on it later.

  First, Steiner had been gripping his toolbox. Not holding it, gripping it. White knuckled.

  Secondly, he was gipping it in his left hand. Only about ten percent of people are left handed. So what? I’m left handed. No big deal, right? Except added to the other facts, it set off a warning bell.

  Thirdly, his jumpsuit was a size too big for him. Everyone was issued with the proper size. People don’t lose weight in stasis, and he had been awake for at most a few weeks in a ship with plenty of food. It was not his jumpsuit.

  Finally, and this was the biggest one, he did not move immediately when I led him to the bedroom. He waited for a couple of steps, there was a click, and then he stepped.

  Once. The motherfucker didn’t get a second step. I spun around just in time to see him pull a cordless electric drill out of his toolbox with his right hand.

  Yep, the guy turned out to be right-handed after all. Just as the drill revved up to a nasty whine, I smacked at his wrist to make the thing go flying across the room.

  Or at least that was the plan.

  T
he guy ducked back, and I nearly impaled my palm on the fucking drill.

  Now it was my turn to step back.

  He didn’t give me much time to react. He dove right for me, coming low, tossing the open toolbox at me.

  The plastic case thudded against my chest and a dozen wrenches, and drill bits banged against my face and outstretched hands.

  They didn’t hurt, but they sure did distract me.

  That was the point.

  And I sure as hell felt his point, digging right into my shoulder.

  It was meant for my neck, but I was already dodging and all Steiner managed to do was to gouge a hunk of flesh out of the side of my shoulder.

  My dodge turned into a run, right around my bed to where my sidearm lay on the bedside table.

  Steiner saw it and leapt on the bed to cut me off.

  The room was too small for any other maneuver, so instead of trying to dodge again, I punched him in the balls.

  He let out a grunt and doubled over, but had the presence of mind to lash out with the drill. It grazed my ball-punching hand and left a nasty gash across the back.

  Backed against the wall and facing someone with longer reach and a deadly weapon, who didn’t look like the excruciating pain in his balls was going to stop him from killing me, I did the smartest thing I could do—the thing he least expected.

  I fell flat on the floor.

  He gave a wicked grin and jabbed down with the drill, thinking he had hurt me more than he actually had.

  I grabbed his weapon arm and pulled. He landed on top of me as the drill screeched against the metal floor way too close to my head and then slipped to the side.

  It’s hard to punch a guy when he’s lying on top of you and you’re both jammed between a bed and a wall, but I gave it a go.

  A short jab to the ear was a good start. Unfortunately, that was with my bleeding hand and I couldn’t get the strength that I wanted. My other hand was too busy holding the drill away from me. Steiner was busy trying to drill me a new ear canal.

  He didn’t have the strength he wanted either. While he was fit, I had training and a lot of years of combat on my side. I slammed his hand against the wall, hoping to knock the drill out of his grip. No luck. Next I took my free hand and stuck my fingers in both his eyes.