A Darker Magic (Starship's Mage Book 10)

by Glynn Stewart

  41

  “There has to be another way.”

  Cardinal-Governor Guerra sounded exhausted. To be fair, Roslyn felt as bad as the planetary Governor sounded, and she stared past the image of Guerra’s face on her helmet to the crowd of refugees filling the park.

  The prospect of killing tens of thousands of his citizens was still unacceptable to him—a damn good thing, in Roslyn’s opinion.

  “I agree,” she told him. “I’ve got everyone I can spare trying to access the databases of the Orpheus lab and people tearing down a decontamination chamber we aren’t using to try to identify if it’s doing anything differently.

  “If we can establish that the standard class six biohazard decontamination protocols can neutralize the nanites, then we can at least begin considering evacuating the not-actively infected portion of the population,” she continued. “Until we can establish that, though, the current quarantine has to remain in effect—and I’m not certain we’ll find a way to disable the Orpheus weapon in the people it’s already taken control of.”

  “What can I do?” Guerra asked. “I am praying as hard as I can, but God acts through people.”

  “We will forward everything we learn from the Orpheus facility,” she promised. “You have the resources of a planetary government. I have a handful of Marines and whatever engineers and techs ended up in my evacuation zone.

  “Also.” She paused. There was something, but it was planning for a victory even she wasn’t sure she’d see.

  “What, Envoy Chambers?”

  Roslyn shivered at that title. She’d be happy to burn that fucking Warrant when this was all over.

  “We know that even if we do manage to deactivate the nanites, the victims are badly injured afterward,” she told him. “The first version of the weapon we encountered was neutralized by standard bioscans, but the victims went into comas and lost autonomous system control.

  “If we find any answer, we’re going to be facing tens to hundreds of thousands of people requiring immediate major medical attention, and there aren’t enough doctors in a city of two million to handle that.”

  “Sorprendidas has some of the finest medical seminaries in the Protectorate,” Guerra told her. “We train priests from ten worlds to be doctors—and laymen from a dozen more. While we focus on the mental health and psychological well-being of God’s children, we also train many thousands of surgeons and general practitioners.

  “Give me time, and I will have an army of doctors ready to handle anyone you can save, Commander Chambers,” he promised. “We will be ready when you need us. I presume your Captain Daalman has information on the symptoms and problems you’ve encountered?

  “I hope—I pray—that we were already working on finding a treatment for this…post-Orpheus syndrome,” the priest said calmly. “But I assure you, we will have one. If you can save them.”

  “I don’t know if I can, Your Excellency,” Roslyn admitted. “I have half a dozen chances to find a way, though. We have to have hope.”

  “No, my child,” Guerra said quietly. “We have to have faith. In God, yes. But also in your Marines. In our fellow humans. I have faith in you.”

  “I’m not Catholic, Cardinal, and I served in the war,” Roslyn told him. “I’m not sure how much faith I have in anything, let alone myself.”

  “No one is perfect, Envoy Chambers. I will have enough faith in you for us both, then. You will find an answer.”

  Roslyn swallowed, both touched and stunned by the quiet determination of the man in charge of Sorprendidas.

  “I hope you’re right,” she said. “And I will do everything I can to make it right.”

  A new icon blinked on her screen and she forced a smile.

  “And there is the next call on my schedule,” she continued. “We’ll keep your people informed of everything we find, but now I need to talk to Captain Daalman.”

  Mage-Captain Daalman somehow managed to look less tired than Roslyn or Guerra, but some of that had to be a façade. Roslyn knew the Mage-Captain had been following everything since Roslyn had first taken her Marines underground—and that felt like it had been weeks ago, even though it had been less than four hours.

  “Where are we at, Chambers?” Daalman asked.

  “Quarantined,” she replied. “We’re clear for six to seven kilometers out from the park on three sides of four, but the closest mob of infected is only seven kilometers from the entrance we’re using.

  “I have Marines trying to blockade the street entrances and add distance, but we don’t know how well it will work. We have established that we can engage at ranges in excess of about sixty meters safely, but…”

  “But the infected are just as much victims as everyone else,” the Mage-Captain agreed with a sigh. “Any good news, Chambers?”

  “We know the Orpheus decontamination chambers could kill the nanites—or so they told their own people, at least,” Roslyn said. “That gives us a starting point. We’re tearing one apart now to see if they’re doing anything different.

  “Otherwise…” She sighed. “I swear there’s an answer in front of my face, sir, and I’m too damned in the middle of things to see it.”

  “That’s about how it normally goes, but you’re not a doctor, Chambers,” her Captain said gently. “You’re a tactical officer and the Voice of the Mage-Queen of Mars. Your job, right now, is to provide other people the authority to do what they have to do.”

  Roslyn exhaled.

  “I don’t think I like that job, sir,” she admitted.

  “Get used to it. That’s also a description of being a starship captain,” Daalman told her. “We’ve run out of drop pods for supplies, but if there’s anything we can do to support you…”

  “Knight is linked up to our cyber department on Huntress, right?” Roslyn asked.

  “I authorized it, at least,” the Mage-Captain agreed. “Where’s your MISS agent? Shouldn’t he be helping?”

  “He vanished in the lab. No idea what happened to him and no time.” Roslyn knew she was turning time into a curse word. “We didn’t even manage to fully sweep the lab before we started pouring evacuees into it. We’re clear now, but…

  “Hell, I need to check that we sealed the accesses to the storm sewers,” she admitted. “Too many moving pieces, sir.”

  “Can we help coordinate?” Daalman asked. “We’re that step removed and above everything, but we have overhead visual and we can see everything going on. Kristofferson and I can help organize things—I’ll have him check with Andrews on the storm sewers.”

  “That would help,” she said with a sigh. “I… I’m running out of options that aren’t ‘kill a lot of innocent people,’ sir.”

  “Well, what are their targeting priorities?” the Mage-Captain said.

  Roslyn blinked.

  “I don’t think they have any,” she replied. “From what Lafrenz said, they’re basically just running on an order to kill everything that isn’t Orpheus-infected.”

  “So, they’re not actively hunting for your evac zone,” Daalman pointed out. “If you lure them elsewhere, that buys time, right?”

  “That’s brilliant, sir,” Roslyn said. “I… I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.”

  “You’re face-down in the middle of it all, Commander,” her boss told her. “I’ll start picking people’s brains up here and elsewhere on the surface. We’ll see what we can come up with for clever ideas…but you’re on the ground. A lot of it ends up on you.”

  Roslyn nodded, swallowing hard—and then it hit her.

  Bioscans.

  “Sir, I need to talk to my tactical team,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ve got a final answer, but a possibility just occurred to me.”

  Roslyn managed to get both of her Mage-Lieutenants and the ship’s doctor on a single conference within a couple of minutes, a sign of the priority her Warrant and the situation were getting her.

  “Commander Chambers, how are you feeling?” Dr. Judith Br
eda asked immediately.

  Roslyn snorted.

  “I’m going to have some new nightmares and PTSD symptoms when this is over, doc,” she told the other woman. “But that’s a ‘Future Roslyn’ problem. Kirtida, Semele.”

  She nodded to her two direct subordinates as their images appeared on her helmet screen. They couldn’t see much, but hopefully they’d get the intent.

  “What do you need us for, sir?” Kirtida Samuels asked, getting one second ahead of Semele Jordan asking the same question.

  “I need you three to sit down with whichever Chief is most familiar with our new modular warheads for the Talon Ten ground-bombardment missiles,” Roslyn told them. She could see the confusion in everyone’s eyes—especially Dr. Breda’s.

  “I want to know if you can rig up a warhead to pulse the entire city with the radiation pulse of a standard bioscan.”

  The call was silent for several seconds.

  “A standard bioscan involves a lot of different types of sensor and pulse, Commander,” Breda told them. “It includes, over the course of a ten-second sequence, X-rays, ultrasound, magnetic imaging and several other EM radiation pulses.”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m not sure much of that can be duplicated outside of the very specialized structure of a bioscanner,” she noted. “We might be able to manage the radiation sequences, but to achieve it on that kind of geographic area, you’re going to drastically increase a series of other medical risks.”

  “Doctor, if we can’t disable the Orpheus weapon, those people are going to starve to death,” Roslyn pointed out. “I will trade ten years off the average life expectancy of Nueva Portugal’s people in exchange for saving them today. That decision I will gladly make.”

  “But why a bioscan?” Samuels asked.

  “The nanites from the first Orpheus weapon we encountered dissolved in the bioscan, fast enough that we didn’t even see them on the scan, right, Doctor?” Roslyn said.

  “That’s correct,” Breda agreed. “There was very little on the bioscans of the living—or dead—victims of the Orpheus weapon to suggest they’d been infected with anything at all.

  “Given the sturdiness of the delivery mechanism required to survive an explosion, that designed fragility surprised me,” she admitted. “This is extremely sophisticated nanotech…with literal magic baked into the design.

  “Even what little information Commander Chambers got from Dr. Lafrenz suggested a level of sophistication on both the nanotech and magitech sides of the equation beyond anything I am familiar with.”

  She shook her head.

  “Even the science parts of this may as well be magic, I’m afraid. It is entirely possible that the nanites dissolve on exposure to the magnetic fields present in a bioscan unit, before we even commence the scan.”

  “We live in a nation that for two hundred years has relied on magic for almost everything,” Roslyn said quietly. “And I think this might be the first thing I’ve ever seen that I would actually call black magic. Nothing about this thing isn’t inherently evil.”

  “I don’t believe anything is solely evil, Commander,” Breda countered. “I can see potential for the use of nanites writing runes like this. Just not…the use they’ve made of it.”

  “Fair. But…can we do something to convince the nanites they’re in a bioscanner?” Roslyn asked. “I know we can’t do the magnetic fields, not across an entire city, but the X-rays?”

  “If the doctor can get us the frequencies and energy levels the bioscanners use, we might be able to rig up something,” Jordan said. “I’ll have to talk to Chief Westcott, but I think we can rig the EMP warheads to pulse at a lower energy level. It won’t burn out the unit like the EMP does, so we should be able to get a sequence of a given radiation…maybe.”

  “It might not work, but I agree that it’s worth a shot,” Breda said. “We’ll take a stab at it, Commander Chambers, and get back to you.”

  “I have a plan for buying us more time,” Roslyn told them all. “Well, Captain Daalman had a plan. We’re going to see if it works—but we’re still talking hours to rig this up, people. Not days.”

  “We know,” Jordan said quietly. “We’ll do whatever we can, sir.”

  “I know,” Roslyn replied. “I have faith.”

  And if she didn’t, apparently Cardinal-Governor Guerra did.

  42

  Roslyn took a few moments to assess where her people were with everything as she returned her attention to the surface. Barricades were going up across the streets connecting to the park., mostly being assembled by volunteers.

  They had enough personal protective equipment to cover everyone who had gone out, but they still weren’t sure they could clean the suits of the nanites. The people on the barricades weren’t going to be able to go into the underground sanctuary—and unless Bolivar had done differently than Roslyn had told him, they knew that.

  But there were far more people in the park than they’d ever be able to get underground. The only real hope for tens of thousands of people was to hold the rough line they were assembling around the park.

  On the other hand, the longer she could keep the infected away from the line, the more secure it was going to be and the better chance she had to save everyone.

  “Sergeant Colburn,” she pinged the Marine. “Is there someone actually in charge of you Marines I should be talking to rather than just calling the latest noncom to answer my messages?”

  The Marine laughed.

  “Mage-Captain Daalman made damn sure our officers didn’t pull any crazy stunts, sir,” he told her. “Major Dickens and the Lieutenants are still in low orbit above the city, providing overwatch from the last pair of assault shuttles that didn’t drop.

  “I’ve been letting him know what you’re telling us, but everyone figured we were a bit too busy to insert another person in the loop.”

  “Well, now I need all of the Marines, so let’s loop them in,” Roslyn replied. “Can you get me into the Marine command net? I need to talk to all of you.”

  “Give me five seconds,” Colburn told her. Maybe half that later, a small chirp announced she had access to a new channel.

  “Marines, this is Commander Chambers,” she announced herself after flipping over. “Who have I got?”

  “Captain Chiyembekezo Dickens,” the Marine CO said instantly. “Lieutenants Firoz Kneib and Ainoa Figueroa. Sergeants Colburn, MacCrumb, O’Mooney, Toft, Day and Kaiser. Six of eight squads, Mage-Commander. One went in with you and Sergeant Mooren; one is still onboard Huntress with Sergeant Carl Horton.

  “What do you need, Mage-Commander…Voice…whatever title you want.”

  “Mage-Commander will do, Captain Dickens,” Roslyn said calmly. “I assume you’re also in contact with Corporals Andrews and Knight?”

  “I am,” Dickens confirmed levelly. “I’m doing my best not to joggle your elbow, Mage-Commander. You’re in the middle of all of this mess.”

  “I needed every Marine I hadn’t already sent underground for the next step, so I figured I should talk to their commander,” Roslyn admitted. “How many are down here? I’ll admit I haven’t kept as much track as I should.”

  “Five squads on the surface. Kaiser is up here, playing bodyguard to a trio of officers who should know better than to want what they want,” Dickens told her. “You’ve got sixty Marines to hand, Mage-Commander, and fifteen more of us on high, plus twelve more on Huntress if things get real messy.”

  “They aren’t already?” Roslyn asked. “I didn’t know zombies were part of your training.”

  “As much as anything, Mage-Commander, my understanding is that we’re hoping for solutions that aren’t going to involve Marines and automatic weapons,” the Captain said grimly. “When the answer comes down to Marines, a lot of people are going to die.”

  “Not yet,” she said flatly. “And not ever, if I have my say.”

  “Good. What do you need of us now, then?”

  “
Bait,” Roslyn told them with a chuckle. “Mage-Captain Daalman asked me what the mob’s targeting priority was. My understanding is they don’t have one—they’re operating on a single order from the nanites that basically says kill everything.

  “If we give them targets away from the park, they should chase. But even with hazmat gear, if I send regular folks in on foot…”

  “They’re going to get run down,” Dickens agreed. “But there’s no way in hell mind-controlled civilians are going to catch exosuited Marines.”

  “That’s what I was hoping you were going to say, Major,” Roslyn said. “There is a mob of twenty thousand of said mind-controlled civilians three kilometers from the perimeter we’re drawing. I want them going every direction but south.

  “Think you can do that?”

  “Only one way to find out, Mage-Commander,” Dickens told her. “Sergeants, you heard her. Think Marines can distract an army of zombies long enough to cure them?”

  “Oorah!”

  “Thought so.” There was a grin in Dickens’s voice that Roslyn could hear, even if she couldn’t see him on this channel. “There’s enough Guardia and civilian volunteers to keep building the perimeter if we pull the Marines out.

  “Marines, report back to your shuttles. It’s time to do what we do best: maneuver.”

  Even with the rush and chaos and pressure on everyone, Roslyn was surprised by how quickly the Marines made it back onto their shuttles. She had access to the video feeds from the spacecraft and, after a moment, realized that the Marine command net gave her access to the video feeds from individual Marines.

  That was dangerous. She still had a job to do in the park.

  “How many people are we at?” she asked Bolivar, rejoining the Guardia officer at last.

  “Hard to say,” he admitted. “We’re only registering and tracking people as we send them inside.” He shrugged. “Sixty thousand still on the surface? Maybe more?”