by F Stephan
Can I shoot a rocket launcher? No, I was recon infantry, sir. Nothing heavy for me. Not with my body, sir.
What am I doing now? I got bad radiation poisoning, sir. I am dying. This is my last trip to my family.
The sickness and dying were true and they looked sad. They knew all too well how slow and painful radiation poisoning was. And their medical scanners confirmed what he was saying. It got him up to South Sudan.
But, there, the CPC had set up a large checkpoint around the already fortified dirigible compound. There was no other quick way to cross the great northern desert. The trains had stopped after the attacks of the desert nomads. He was trapped. He couldn’t make the trip around the desert – it would be too slow.
He continued north. Five hours north of Malakal, he found a camp occupied by desert robbers – lazy fellows living at the edge of the desert, feeding on the desperate who attempted the crossing. Lazy enough that they had set up a proper watch. Josh killed them all that night, making it appear as an internal fight that had gone too far. He stole a desert camel, food and weapons, and headed north.
He had two weeks to go, feeling his body abandoning him, moving on by will alone. At night, hyenas came out of their underground lairs and hunted him. On two of the nights, they got close enough to bite his legs and the camel’s. He could barely walk after that but pressed onward, feeding on their meat. He hid by day, fearing discovery by the desert tribes, but his luck held. On the eleventh night, the hyenas killed his camel and he fled while they fed on it.
At last, he limped out of the desert to Massawa, a simple fishing village on the coast where a former mate had settled years before. They had been friends before the anger took him over and he joined the mercenaries to fight for the lost causes of the world. And he remained a friend in this dreadful hour, dressing Josh’s wounds, giving him fresh clothes and finding a passage on a fishing boat to the great Jizan in South Arabia. The city had prospered due to the ores found around it. It was a miner’s town where no one asked questions, and no one cared as long as you respected the local rules. That night, Josh was on the train to East Istanbul.
He mingled in the crowd and reached the central station, but not so quickly as to attract attention. He had spotted a CPC goon monitoring the station. I hope you’re looking for drugs and not me. He bought a night train ticket to Moscow via Belgrade and paid with his last prepaid card. Once done, exhausted by his effort, he fell asleep in his bunk for the night on the train, lulled by the noise.
The next thing he knew, he awoke in a white room, on a large couch. A blanket had been thrown over him, protecting him from the chilly air. He was alone. The room was reasonably well furnished, with a writing desk, an entertainment area, a kitchen, which he had never used before, and a bathroom. No windows, reinforced concrete walls, no connections to the external walls.
“Good day, Josh. Happy to see you back. We were worried.”
He looked around but he was alone. The voice was scrambled, distorted. Josh couldn’t identify his employers directly. He didn’t mind. He had already set up his dead’s man switch in Geneva.
“Good day, boss.” He preferred working for real people and calling them by their names. But one did as one could. “Operation security was compromised. Heavily, I might say.” He rose and didn’t feel his limp anymore. So, they had patched him up. Good on them.
“We aren’t sure our security was compromised. However, we’re certain they’ve struck back. So, time for us to change the target. We go back now to our primary job. The diversion is over.”
Josh swallowed. “Federation guys?”
“Yes. While they protect the spares for the station, we’re going back to hunting them. We want them out of our world.”
“But… the station will continue improving? The plan was to block its construction.”
“You’ve failed. Or the little brat outsmarted you.” The contempt in the voice made anger swell inside Josh. You win, I lose. Success is yours, failure is mine. He crushed these thoughts, looking unconcerned. “Anyway. We’ve rearranged our plans, taking this into account. Don’t think about it anymore. You’re not here to devise a strategy but to carry out operations.”
Josh bowed his head in acknowledgment. He wasn’t as dumb or subservient as they thought, but there was no sense in letting them know it.
“We’ve provided you with a list of targets and the means to dispose of them.” Sheets of paper appeared on the table. “You’re not to hire anyone. Assume all your usual contacts have been compromised. We have given you access to new weapons storage points. Memorize their locations and destroy the papers. Take two days to rest. In two nights, we’ll send you back on your way to Praha.”
“What’s the price for this?”
The silence that followed became awkward. They didn’t like to pay.
“Another year of life. And money to play during that time.”
Josh smiled and agreed. His employer’s nanites had saved him until now, and he wanted to live. Desperately. He took the chair and began to study his next target, his smile turning into a wolfish grin.
Wilfried
Kalgoorlie Station, October 12, 2140
The atmosphere was subdued on Kalgoorlie Station that night. The crab had broken down that morning, and repairs had taken the whole day, involving the crew from Charon. It had been a dreadful work in null gee, removing the damaged components from outside while wearing full space suits, rebuilding a new component on the 3D printer, and installing it again within the structure. This work had given Wilfried time to sniff around, looking for the nanite drug, but the mining station was perfectly clean. Nothing on the station. Nothing here. Yet it comes from space. Where have they hidden it?
Sara seated herself beside him, interrupting his gloomy thoughts. “We’ve lost a day. How will it impact your schedule? We need one more day to load your ship.” They were at one end of the large table of the main cafeteria, opposite the band that had begun playing jazz.
“We’ll make it back. Anyway, we had to recheck the entire environmental bay. We still have glitches from time to time. Hawkeyes Noul wanted to dismantle half of it. Now seemed as good a time as any. In the meantime, it got our team focused on the same target. Certainly, a good thing.”
She winced, and he sympathized with her. Coordinating the whole team had been horrible. Egos had clashed against one another, tempers had flared. When they had returned to the habitable modules, three fights had to be stopped. Wilfried had used a break in the day to sniff around for the nanite drugs, with no meaningful results. It wasn’t in the mining station.
She took her glass and gave a toast. “Safe return.”
He repeated the toast and took a bit of bland protein bar from the plate in front of him. He grimaced at the sour taste. “Nothing else?”
“Yes, I can’t stand them anymore. We don’t have enough surface for real crops up here.” She was grimacing. “If only we could reactivate Luna’s orchard, that would be something else.”
“What? Care to elaborate?” Luna had been closed before he got involved in the space program and he had never looked into it.
“Anton, Taisir, could you join us for a minute? Could you introduce our friend to Luna’s hydroponic farm?”
The two burly men moved along the table to join them. It seemed that everyone was watching the two of them, with the music dying away.
Taisir began. “I was in the crew that set it up. And Anton helped deliver the trees and plants. You see, it’s very hard to grow anything on wheels or in space stations. Not enough room, gravity shifting. It’s much easier under lunar gravity.” Taisir’s voice was a rumble, pitched so low that complete silence came upon the station. “We built a farm twenty years ago in a lava tube. It took us three years to get it running but, by the end, we had stable crops twice per year. This helped reduce Luna’s dependence on Earth.”
“What happened to it when Luna’s station was abandoned?” Wilfried remembered that part. The station was too
expensive to maintain and, located in its own gravity well, useless for future trade.
“We stopped it, all by the book. We left the air vents and the daylight cycles running on the generators and solar panels. You see, we intended to come back, and we didn’t want a dead station after all the trouble we had gone through to build it in the first place.”
Wilfried was stunned. “Why don’t we use it today?”
“Because no political busybody down there has witnessed how it worked. And the Envoy arrived after we closed.”
Anton added in his deep baritone, “And it keeps Acheron and Kalgoorlie dependent from the Earth’s supply chain and contracts. Simple and efficient.” From the looks of the other miner, everyone supported his explanation.
“How would we reactivate it?” What had been an idle talk for Wilfried was now a crucial conversation.
“You take our shuttle back with you. We won’t need it for next year, anyway. You go down there, power up both the station and the lander and set down a limited farming crew. A small team can run the farm. And the lander works fine going from Acheron on L2 to Luna. Half a day of flight, maybe.”
Nick had called up a 3D showing the old schematics of the base and was now running a space flight simulation for the lander. This could work!
“Was Maricar part of this effort? Could we ask her to help?”
Sara frowned. “She wasn’t part of it initially. She only came after. I’d advise to put someone else in charge.”
Wilfried looked at her, startled by her sudden distrust. He tried to press Sara, but she wouldn’t say anything further.
Boris
Reborn Russia, Siberia, October 12, 2140
Down on Earth, a bright sun rose over Siberia. The tundra was streaming heavily, and the fog would settle over the plain in barely an hour. But, for now, birds were chirping happily in the forest and Boris enjoyed his walk with his wife and daughter. They had all decided on the picnic the previous evening and the outing had been welcome.
Now they were walking back home, and the worries were returning.
“Are you clear with the procedure?” Boris’s voice was barely controlled.
Sacha looked at him gravely. At fourteen, she was as tall as her mother, as tall as she would ever grow. If. She wore a shapeless military blouse hiding her underweight body, a fur hat over her shaven head. She had bright brown eyes in skin that was too pale. She was the star of his life and, in her current condition, she would be dead in less than a week.
“Yes, I’ve rehearsed, I’ve prepared, and I know what to face. That’s not the question you should ask, father.”
Her tone was defiant, and her mother gasped at her side, clutching her hand. So mature, so young. What happened to her? Why this anemia? Am I the one responsible for her condition? Something that happened in the army? The question had nagged at him ever since they had discovered her illness.
She continued in her soft determined voice, breaking his thoughts, “Dad, will you do your part?”
They couldn’t contain the nanites if she lost control over them. If the little robots took over her body, she would become a monster, and a dangerous one at that. Boris kept in his jacket the precious grenade he had received so many months ago, at the same time he had received the nanite medicine for Sacha. This was the only way for her soul to escape.
“Yes, I will.” Don’t crack now. She doesn’t need it.
“Then I’m ready. We’ve waited long enough. Let’s act.” She had always had the strong character of her mother, ready to move on. She’s a strong girl, Boris repeated to himself.
“Then go.” He sped up his stride toward the old Cold-War base which had become their home for the last few years. It had never been a great human outpost, too isolated, being too far from anything. Later, it had been barred from normal access by the tigroids. Only his recon team had found a way to reach this enclave where the beasts did not venture. Something in the Tunguska disturbed wild animals. It had secure anti-atomic bunkers hidden from satellite detection, full life support machinery, and a highly advanced hospital that had kept them alive for years.
Igor had been waiting for them, knowing what would happen on that day. He took Maritschka by the hand to lead her to the command center. Boris kissed her salty cheeks and followed his daughter to the bunker. He closed it, sealing them in. It wouldn’t hold the nanites for long, but long enough for him to act.
“Ready to go?” Igor’s voice came from the loudspeaker on one side.
Sacha plugged in the monitoring seat her mother would use to control what happened to her. Then, she took a deep breath and injected the nanite syringe in her heart in a single movement.
Boris stopped breathing. At first, nothing happened. Then, the light went out of her eyes. Ripples appeared on her skin. First a single one, then another, and then more and more. Sacha shrieked in agony as her body twisted out of shape. Boris watched her fight to keep control of her body and clutched the grenade in his hand. I can’t let it continue. But there was no way to stop the process. The shrieks continued, tearing his heart apart, and amplified with the ripples in her body. Protuberances spurted here and there before disappearing.
Time slowed to a crawl. A clock ticked above. The median recovery time is thirty minutes, never longer than half a day, he had read with Maritschka.
Three immensely long hours later, Sacha fell asleep on her chair. For now, she seemed to have gained control over her new hosts. Boris continued to watch her, shivering in his corner, tears blurring his vision. Above him, he could see Maritschka crying softly.
Leopold
Space station Acheron, October 15, 2140
“Be careful.” Tasha’s words rang in Leopold’s head as he began his countdown.
“All station personnel?” he asked Kitem at his side.
“Accounted for in the shelters.” The answer was strained. The Marine had volunteered to assist Leopold in the main bridge for this operation. But, the bridge, even if reinforced, was not a shelter per se. If anything happened, their life would be forfeit. “Care to confirm the steps, Pilot?”
“Yes, I’ll link to all monitors on the station and start the AI. Then I’ll increase the power, confirming that the AI’s calibration is correct, and that the equipment withstands the connection. If all goes well, in ten minutes, we go down to the cafeteria for a coffee.” At that point, the computer would take over control of the energy grid and share energy, water and air across all modules.
Leopold nodded and activated his nanites. The tendrils connected him to the console.
Where are my monitors? Focus and feel. Focus and feel. One per module, one per solar array, one per regulator, one for each piece of the grid. There were thousands of them to control sending data to his mind.
Good, the grid is now monitored.
“Tasha, we are up and running. I’ve got the grid monitored. Going in.” This wasn’t complex, like the calibration Tasha had run in the previous days. Just intense.
I launch the first connector. Power coupling rises. It remains within tolerance. Good. Now to the next one. Engage. Spikes in zone three, four, and seventeen. Close all sections. Now, energy limiter on three. Good. Three back up. Good.
Only the lightning-speed reactions provided by his nanites allowed Leopold to finish the calibration and keep the energy from spiking. He implemented one shunt after another. As he progressed, he collected the issues in a part of his mind. They would adjust the power grid to eliminate those anomalies later. At last, the station would get a stable power grid.
The tenth connector is OK. Fourteen to go. Tired. I’m tired.
A distant part of him was aware his body convulsed on the floor, under the gaze by Kilet. But he didn’t feel it, didn’t listen to that inner voice calling for a break and a pause in the procedure.
I engage the twentieth connector. Spike! Spike everywhere. Noooo…
His mind reeled from the blast of energy and he fell to the floor. Tasha had prepared for this. Witho
ut a complete activation, the remaining modules decoupled themselves from the energy grid and returned to their previous state. He felt tremors from the bridge. The console pulsed red with alarms. Equipment had blown up in several parts of the station because of the power surge.
Leopold saw Kilet looking down at him, ignoring both the warnings from his bodyguards and his inner voice. Kilet had in his hands three syringes he had prepared in advance. Without any hesitation, he injected their content in quick succession, each one a jolt to Leopold.
“What did you…?” he said, then fainted.
Tasha
Space station Acheron, October 16, 2140
The station smelled of burned components. Plastic, mostly. The blast from the activation of the console had burned so many energy regulators that the lights flickered and the station was barely operational. We have gambled and lost.
Andrew called up a replay of the blast. With Nateiev still in the sick bay, he had taken charge of the engineering work.
“You see, Pilot,” he said deferentially, “there are more and more signals to control and the response time from Leopold weakens, one module after another. Until he loses control and it backfires on him.”
Tasha raged internally. I should have known. I failed Leopold. The solution was now clear. “We need a master regulator which would handle the normal situation. Our computer will calibrate each line individually and they will work from then on. I was wrong.” So simple.
“Pilot, no one has ever tried this. You couldn’t know.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I should have. And he wouldn’t be hurt today.” Tears began running down her cheeks.
Andrew was looking at her, his eyes filled with awe. He was waiting for her to perform a miracle. “You have found a solution; how could we implement it?”
“Jorge.” She focused her attention back to the task at hand. The Brazilian magnate was their best chance for such a global regulator.
