The Lion and the Unicorn

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “I can probe the nearby systems,” Captain Campbell said. “And see if I can spot death coming our way.”

  “I think it would be a waste of time,” Thomas said. The nearest systems to Brasilia were largely barren, as well as being off the shipping routes between Earth and Alien-One. It was unlikely the virus had bothered to do more than survey them briefly, as it burnt its way towards Earth. And besides, there was no way to predict which route the reinforcements would take. “You’d be better off covering us here.”

  He ignored the flicker of irritation in Campbell’s eyes. Thomas understood Campbell’s annoyance - independent command was a dream come true, a dream he wouldn’t enjoy as long as Unicorn flew with Lion - but there was no time to worry about it. They were sitting on the edge of a branch, with the virus moving heaven and earth to saw it off behind them. It was just a matter of time until something happened, from the counter-virus being victorious to a major enemy fleet arriving with murder on its mind. The peace of the high orbitals was an illusion. The true test was yet to come.

  “Yes, sir,” Captain Campbell said, finally. “We’ll continue our patrol route as ordered.”

  Which will give you some independence, Thomas thought, although not as much as you might wish.

  He snorted, inwardly. They’d seeded local space with passive sensor platforms - and kept their active sensors online - but he was all too aware the enemy might manage to sneak up on them. He’d kept a wary eye on the tramlines, yet … they were just too far from the gravitational lines to have any hope of spotting a fleet as it made transit. They just didn’t have enough starships and sensor platforms to do anything more than lull themselves into a false sense of security. Better to keep reminding themselves they couldn’t watch all the approaches than accidentally convince themselves they could.

  “And we’ll keep track of developments on the ground,” he said. “If we’re lucky, the BioBombs will actually work.”

  “Yeah,” Captain Campbell agreed. “The virus might be frightened.”

  Thomas leaned forward. “How do you mean?”

  “Humans react badly to the unknown,” Captain Campbell pointed out. “And also to invisible killers, like radiation and poison gas and the virus itself. They frighten us, even though the risks can be handled. There were millions upon millions of Luddite idiots who marched against nuclear power a couple of centuries ago, just because they thought the risks were unbearable. The virus might feel the same way.”

  “It’s never shown fear before,” Thomas reminded him.

  “It should be capable of feeling fear,” Captain Campbell said. “We just needed to find something that could scare it.”

  Thomas considered it for a thoughtful moment. Captain Campbell might be right. The virus could shrug off thousands of dead host-bodies, and hundreds of destroyed ships, because it knew it would continue. The virus wasn’t quite a hive mind, but it was as close to it as any intelligent species could become. And yet … the BioBombs threatened it with total destruction. Brasilia would become extremely unwelcoming to infection, at least until the counter-virus died out. The virus might blanch at the thought of something that couldn’t be countered. It would be a very personal threat indeed.

  “We’ll just have to hope,” he said, finally. He would have liked to believe it, but blind optimism had never been part of his nature. The virus might be far more capable of reacting to a viral threat than any merely human immune system. If nothing else, it was fighting on the same level. “Until then …”

  Captain Campbell raised a hand in jaunty salute. “See you on the flip side,” he said. “Bye.”

  His image vanished. Thomas stared at the blank display thoughtfully. It wasn’t easy for either of them, as the first engagement gave way to a long period of boredom. He’d expected fighting on the surface, or an enemy fleet to arrive within the first few days, but instead … nothing happened. It wasn’t very reassuring. He feared the worst. The virus might be scared, it might be terrified of the counter-virus, but it could handle it. The counter-virus needed direct contact to spread. It could no more survive in vacuum than an unprotected human.

  He keyed his terminal, bringing up the projections even as he damned himself for risking a false sense of security. The projections were only as good as the data he - and his tactical staff - fed into them and he knew the data was little more than guesswork. He wouldn’t have been very sure of it if he’d faced a purely human enemy, let alone the virus. There was no way to be sure what assets the virus had nearby, ready to deploy. It could have nothing, or an entire battle fleet, or anything in between. And there was no way to determine how it would react either. It might just write the entire system off as worthless. It might not bother to so much as scan the system to see what had happened to the colony, let alone dispatch a fleet to liberate it. There was just no way to know.

  Thomas felt his stomach churn. He knew something was going to happen, but he had no idea what or when. It would be so much easier to take if he knew the worst, even if it was a hundred battleships bearing down on him. He’d certainly know to turn and retreat if he knew such a large fleet was on its way …

  He shook his head. There was nothing he could do, but wait and see.

  ***

  Colin knew, without false modesty, that he was good at sneaking around. He might be a big man, by human standards, but he was tiny compared to the battlefield. An entire squad of marines could go unnoticed, particularly if something was happening to distract the enemy. He lay on his belly and crawled forward, heedless of the mud soaking his uniform as he sneaked up on the ridge. He’d been in worse places. Probably. The viral matter in the air - weakened, the boffins claimed - might beg to differ.

  He braced himself as he reached the ridge and peered down at the small town. It looked surprisingly well laid-out for a colony town, a handful of prefabricated buildings flanked by wooden huts and stone houses. The colonists had been urged to use local materials wherever possible, if only to cut down on shipping costs. Colin was no expert, but it stood to reason that the price of anything shipped from Earth - or even New Washington - would be astronomical. Better to use wood and stone than anything from Earth.

  A shiver ran down his spine as his eyes passed over the buildings. There was something … decayed about the town, even though there was little actual decomposition. The townspeople looked … odd, like creatures out of a horror movie. They moved in odd patterns that seemed completely random, their skins covered in viral patches that looked like rotting mould. A handful lay dead on the ground, ignored by the rest. Colin touched his mask, checking the seals for what felt like the thousandth time. There was so much viral matter in the air that the slightest breath would be enough to damn him.

  “They look as if they’re in shock,” Davies said. He’d come up behind Colin, while the remainder of the fire team hung back. “Look at them.”

  Colin said nothing as he surveyed the scene. It was deeply disconcerting in a manner he knew he couldn’t articulate. There was enough familiar, enough human, about it for the rest to be fundamentally wrong. The townspeople were zombies. The virus ruled now, turning their bodies into extensions of itself. And yet, some of the host-bodies had dropped dead. He didn’t know why, or how long it had been since they’d died. The bodies didn’t seem to have decayed, but …it was meaningless. The virus had changed them on a very basic level. He didn’t have a baseline to estimate how long it had been since their death.

  Since the death of the virus within them, he mused, as he took photographs and forwarded them to higher authority. The boffins hadn’t been allowed to go any closer to the once-human settlements. They might not be able to recover.

  He shuddered, considering the implications. The briefing had skipped over the details, but he was no fool. If someone was infected so completely they lost all control of themselves, perhaps even the awareness of ever having been aware in the first place, what would happen when the control was gone? He was familiar with how oddly hostages c
ould behave when they were kidnapped and held prisoner, but the infected were at least an order of magnitude worse. Would they recover? Could they recover? No one had been cured, once the infection passed a certain point. Colin was all too aware that he might have to shoot someone - a friend, perhaps - to save them from a fate worse than death. A living death …

  “There’s nothing here for us,” Davies said. “They should burn this whole place to the ground.”

  “They probably will,” Colin said, although he wasn’t sure there’d be any point. The prefabricated buildings were designed to last, but the remainder wouldn’t last long without proper maintenance. A couple of years without human occupation would be enough to return the settlement to the jungle. “I think …”

  He broke off as he heard crying. Not a child, not an adult … he frowned as he started to crawl down the ridge towards the source of the sound. It sounded like someone pushed to the breaking point and beyond, someone like … guilt stabbed into his heart as he remembered making Richard - Tobias - cry. He’d hurt him … no, he’d done worse. Boys didn’t cry and, if they did, they were ruthlessly mocked. Colin gritted his teeth, putting the memory out of his head as he checked his weapons. The crier was unlikely to be friendly. Anyone who’d been on the planet since the invasion had almost certainly been infected.

  “Stay back,” he muttered to Davies. Better one of them was in danger than both of them. Davies might be required to perform a mercy kill if Colin got infected. He’d heard of infected marines who’d killed themselves, when they knew it was hopeless, but he didn’t know if he could do it himself. “Call it in, then cover me.”

  The sound grew louder as he peered into a gully. It had once carried water down to the town. Now … a young figure lay on the ground, sobbing helplessly. Colin shuddered as he saw the viral blotches on the figure’s visible skin, warping the figure so badly he couldn’t tell if it had been male or female. It looked like a young teenager, but … he couldn’t tell. The form was so emaciated that it could have been older … he felt sick, recalling some of the horrors he’d seen in refugee camps. The refugees had been starving. Here … the virus had made things worse. Much worse.

  “Careful,” Davies said, after he’d finished speaking to the operations officer. “Please.”

  Colin nodded as he advanced closer. The figure was shaking helplessly, sobbing so deeply that he couldn’t help feeling sorry for it. He reached forward with a gloved hand and turned the figure over. A blotchy face looked up at him, one eye missing behind a viral growth that looked utterly wrong. Colin staggered back, feeling the urge to retch. The sight was disgusting, disgusting beyond words. It was inhuman … He had to swallow, hard, to keep from throwing up. Vomiting in the mask would be a good way to get himself killed - or worse.

  The…person…shuddered one final time, then lay still. Colin eyed it warily, unwilling to risk going any closer. Dead? Or shamming? He didn’t know. The viral detector bleeped an alert, warning him that there were high concentrations of both viral and counter-viral matter in the air. He guessed the virus, or what remained of it, was trying to escape. It could abandon a body as easily as a human could abandon a starship or a shuttle.

  His earpiece bleeped. “Corporal, we have a recovery team on the way,” the operations officer said. He sounded astonishingly dispassionate. Colin hated him with a sudden passion, even though he knew the officer hadn’t seen the body. Davies’s description hadn’t done it justice. “Stay on guard. Don’t let them take the body.”

  “Yes, sir,” Colin said. The figure hadn’t moved. It was still impossible to tell if it was male or female. There were no visible bulges that might have suggested one or the other. “Tell them to come in full armour.”

  He stepped back, his stomach churning. He was going to have nightmares. He just knew it.

  Davies stood beside him. “Is that the fate that awaits us all?”

  “Probably, if the virus wins,” Colin said. The counter-virus might have killed the virus, but … the host hadn’t been able to survive. “I just don’t know.”

  “Fuck,” Davies said. “Just … fuck.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Mitch knew he did not cope with boredom very well. He was the kind of person who always had to be doing something, from chasing women to picking fights with alien ships. Inaction had never sat well with him, even if logic insisted he had to wait. The idea of patrolling the outer edge of the formation, in hopes of either picking up an incoming fleet or luring it to him, simply wasn’t enough to keep him engaged. He would have preferred to scout the connecting star systems, just to ensure he was doing something.

  He scowled at the empty display as Unicorn patrolled the system. The helmsman was having fun, following a semi-random course that was designed to tempt any cloaked watchers with a chance to sneak closer to the fleet that didn’t exist, but everyone else was just as bored as their commanding officer. Mitch had ordered a handful of drills, just to ensure everyone kept their skills sharp, yet there were limits to what they could do in a combat zone. The risk of someone not taking a real emergency seriously was just too high. He forced himself to settle back in his chair, trying to set a good example. It was probably too late. No one volunteered for corvettes if they wanted a quiet life.

  And we should be deploying the BioBombs everywhere, he thought. The latest reports from the surface had made it clear the BioBombs were working, although slower than he would have preferred. And that the host-bodies were largely beyond recovery. There’s nothing left to salvage.

  He felt his scowl deepen. The Troubles had taught the Great Powers that giving in to terrorism was the worst of a set of bad choices. Mitch wouldn’t deliberately kill civilians who’d been taken hostage, but he wouldn’t let the risk of accidentally killing them paralyse him either. Better to teach the terrorists that their tactics brought them nothing but pain than give in and deal with worse problems in the future. And now … they couldn’t let fear for the virus’s victims stop them from deploying the sole effective weapon they’d found. He’d seen the images from the surface, too. The virus promised nothing but perpetual living death.

  It’s them or us, Mitch thought. Captain Hammond had qualms, moral qualms … Captain Hammond had never been in a position where the slightest mistake could cost him everything. Mitch understood morality, but he also understood the dangers in letting morality dictate tactics. The entire human race was staring down the barrel of a gun, facing complete extinction. We have to destroy the virus, or be destroyed by it.

  It wasn’t a pleasant thought. Humans and Tadpoles had managed to figure out a way to co-exist. Humans, Foxes and Cows had managed to work out how to live together. Humans and Vesy … the Vesy were primitive, simply unable to pose a threat. But the virus … the universe simply wasn’t big enough for the virus and anyone else. It was the soulless alien menace the human race had feared, ever since it reached the point of being able to comprehend the possibility of non-human races. How could they share a universe? They couldn’t even talk to the virus. It didn’t even bother to demand surrender!

  “Captain,” Staci said. Her voice was carefully controlled, but he could hear a hint of excitement. “Long-range sensors are picking up hints of turbulence.”

  Mitch leaned forward, all boredom gone as hazy icons appeared on the display. It might be nothing - it probably was nothing - but the contacts needed to be investigated. They were further away than he’d expected, yet … he made a mental note to commend the boffins for the latest passive sensor platforms. They’d picked up something …

  Of course, it might be nothing, he told himself. But at least it’ll be a change.

  “Helm, alter course to intercept,” he ordered. “Communications, alert the flag.”

  He studied the display, silently running through the possibilities. The enemy - if there was one- was moving under power, rather than pretending to be a hole in space. He wasn’t too surprised. In theory, a starship could move on a ballistic trajectory; in pract
ice, it wasn’t so easy to build up a decent velocity without setting off alarms across the system. And using drive fields would give the intruder a chance to evade, if - when - it realised it had been detected. A skilful intruder could break contact and escape, leaving him unsure if there’d ever been an intruder at all. He’d done it himself, more than once. There was something very satisfying in sneaking up to an enemy fleet, acquiring all the data his superiors could possibly want, and then slipping back into the darkness.

  Staci glanced at him. “Captain, they’ll know we’re coming.”

  “Yeah.” Mitch considered it for a moment. There was no point in trying to hide, not even if they powered down and went completely passive. The enemy would have a rough idea of where they were for quite some time. And yet … he could take advantage of the situation instead. “Ramp up all the sensors. I don’t want a single piece of space dust to remain unexamined.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Staci said.

  Mitch leaned back in his chair, waiting. The enemy would know precisely where they were. The enemy could target their weapons without needing active sensors of their own. But, at the same time, they wouldn’t find it easy to hide. The more their cloaking device was challenged, the harder it would be to pretend to be a hole in space. And Mitch had dozens of passive sensor platforms monitoring local space. The enemy might hide from Unicorn, but not from the ever-watching platforms. It didn’t even know the platforms were there.

  Although it might deduce their presence, he reminded himself. The virus has certainly had every opportunity to read our tactical manuals.

  His eyes narrowed as the range steadily closed. The hints of turbulence grew stronger and stronger, although the enemy cloaking fields remained intact. There was definitely something there. Mitch issued orders, readying his ship for charging the enemy position or swinging around and running as fast as they could. If they were unlucky, the range would narrow to the point they’d have to charge the enemy and hope for the best. They simply wouldn’t be able to change course and run before it was too late. Mitch disliked the idea of suicidal tactics, but their options were steadily narrowing along with the range …