Rescue Branch (Kinsella Universe)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  Once again she stood placidly by, listening this time to the eulogies about a person she'd never met. It wasn't that she didn't care, but it was concern in the abstract sense; sadness for her friend's loss, more than the loss itself.

  Finally it was over and only a few dozen were gathered in John's house, drinking Irish whiskey, or ice tea as they preferred. John sought her out after a half hour or so and pulled her into the kitchen.

  “I'd usually say something like, 'You're awfully quiet,' but then you usually are,” he told her.

  “Unless I have something to say,” Stephanie agreed.

  “Exactly.” He waved towards the rest of his friends in the main room. “I suppose this is a betrayal of my wife and daughter, but from the time I went to the Naval Academy up until Margaret died, my life was wrapped up in career and family.

  “All of that time, I never quite realized what it was that bothered me. I'd be at sea, feeling the toss of a ship or the thrust of a jet engine -- and there'd be something on the edge of my senses; I never wanted to talk about it with anyone, afraid they wouldn't let me fly. In my head I called it the 'phantom lurker' like in the Wizard of Id.”

  “It's the 'lone haranguer,’” Stephanie said absently.

  John chuckled. “It's been a lifetime since I last sat down and read the funny papers. Not since I was a teenager.

  “The thing is, when my daughter died, I finally met the phantom face-to-face. I have met my nemesis and it's me.”

  “You?” Stephanie said quizzically.

  “Yep. All my life I did what people expected of me. In fairness, I wanted it myself... who wouldn't want to fly jets?

  “Still, in the back of my mind there has always been a mental reservation. I didn't know what it was. When I was sixteen, my father gave me a car of my own. I had two years with it, Stephanie. I turned it from a pumpkin into a veritable rocket ship. Then I got my appointment to Annapolis and I put it in the garage and chased after my naval career. I didn’t stop chasing career and family until now.

  “Yesterday I went back to my roots; I'm so different from who I once was! I've learned so much! I've seen so much!”

  He turned to her. “I'm going to strap on a car, Steph. I’m going to have turned it into the next thing to a space ship. Then I'm going to go down a track and beat the bejesus out of everyone else. I'm going to have all the groupies swarming around. I'm going to smile, pat a few of the prettier girls on the butt -- and then get in my car and do it again.”

  “John, you have to know that I'd never approve of someone patting me on the bottom,” Stephanie quipped.

  She was surprised when he guffawed. “Steph, you are just like any other groupie! Groupies live for that pat on the butt; they climb into your bed and mark a tally on the wall: been there! Done him!

  “You, Steph, joust with Mother Nature. You go to planets and say, 'Been here! Had you!’”

  “Not so much lately,” she said sourly.

  “Steph, don't lie to yourself. If you had your choice, we both know where you'd be.”

  “No one has ever consistently given me what I've wanted,” she groused.

  “And look where you are! Tell me you aren't happy doing what you're doing!”

  “I’m okay with being here -- but I’d rather be out there,” she said, waving upwards.

  “And we both know that you can't be the only one. Like I said, Steph, you are a groupie at heart. What groupie doesn't want to be her hero's one and only?”

  Stephanie sighed. “You are corrosive to good order and discipline, John.”

  “And who did I learn that from?” he asked her.

  Stephanie saw her flag lieutenant appear in the kitchen door. The lieutenant walked right up to Stephanie. “Admiral, it's the President. He says it's urgent,” she told her admiral, handing her a cell phone.

  John laughed. “Steph, your heart's desire!”

  “Am I so transparent?”

  “No, but you aren't as complex as you'd like to think!”

  Stephanie reached out for the phone. “Admiral Kinsella, sir.”

  “Admiral, I hate to interrupt your evening...”

  “I was at Admiral Gilly's daughter's wake, sir.”

  “Give him my apologies. I understand you have a Fleet shuttle at your disposal.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Admiral, there has been a Stone Face incident. The Federation Council has preliminarily invoked Article XXIX of the Federation Charter. Admiral, I've assigned you to head the mitigation effort. Please proceed forthwith to a site southeast of Erfurt, Germany. Your pilot will have the coordinates and a priority clearance.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Three members of the Supreme Court of the Federation will be an hour behind you. I assume that, with all expedition, you can be there within the hour?”

  “Sir, thirty-five minutes, max.”

  “Please, the max. This is most secret, Admiral. The site commander doesn't want to broadcast the details, even over encrypted channels. Please, visit the scene, make your own determination and report it to me as quickly as possible. I may or may not be on the way by then.”

  “Yes, sir. We'll leave in a few minutes.”

  “Keep me posted, Admiral. The site commander is playing this very close to the vest; the Marine Commandant says he's a good man and that I need to treat this with all due circumspection.”

  “Yes, sir. As soon as I get off the phone, I'll be on the way.”

  “Let's hope he's hysterical,” President Campbell of the Federation told her, “We don't really need this, so soon after the plague.”

  “I'll get to the bottom of it,” Stephanie told him.

  “Do your duty, Admiral,” he told her.

  She turned to John. “I have to go.”

  He shrugged and she smiled wanly. “I've never been jealous of you, John. Today, I am. Stone Face.”

  He grimaced. “You go enjoy yourself,” he added.

  “Steph, once upon a time I'd have mugged you to come along. Now... it's not going to happen. Go with God, Admiral Kinsella.”

  “They said it's Stone Face -- once again he's turned his face from me.”

  Stephanie headed for the door, her flag lieutenant in tow. She was pleased that the younger woman didn't speak. Stephanie went to her shuttle, a few hundred meters from John's house. She spoke to the pilot. “Lieutenant Carmichael, Fleet dispatch will have a vector for you. A fast vector. If you would, take us there forthwith.”

  She reached out and touched his sleeve. “Can I tell you something, Lieutenant?”

  The young pilot grinned. “Anything you want, Admiral.”

  “I chose a Navy pilot instead of a Marine, because of days like this. We'll be on a fast path; a Marine would deliver me and apologize for breaking flight rules, having taken no pleasure in it. You, on the other hand, will be there with a big grin on your face, having enjoyed every moment. You, of all of us, might find joy in today.”

  “Not to worry, Admiral. I'll get you there safe.”

  Stephanie chuckled drily. “There are times, Lieutenant, as you progress in your career, that you should be careful what you promise. Please, get us up.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral. Please, be seated.” He'd been reading the course as it was downloaded. “We have a priority tasking; a priority orbit. Three gravities and change, Admiral... you'll want to get comfy real quick.”

  “Hurry, Lieutenant,” she told him.

  It was sad, Stephanie thought as they lifted, that ships these days lifted with a whine of turbines and not on tongues of flame. Flames were important; they were significant... they had a cachet that hums and whines didn't. But that's not how things worked any more.

  * * *

  It was a very fast path. They went straight up, accelerating moderately all of the way. Fleet had reserved the space from 200 kilometers above mean sea level, to 225 kilometers above it, for priority Fleet traffic. Other vessels could transit it, but they had to be rising almost vertically.
Her shuttle did the same, going nearly straight up.

  At a two hundred kilometers her pilot had them on a great circle line that led towards her goal, pushing the shuttle rapidly to three and a fraction gravities -- they added two kilometers a second to their velocity every minute. After five minutes they went to free-fall; the free fall lasting for several minutes before they decelerated and began to lose altitude.

  Twenty-seven minutes after she'd sat down in the shuttle, she was out of her seat, having arrived a third of the way around the globe, in Erfurt, the Federal Republic of Germany.

  A Marine lieutenant colonel was waiting for her. “Admiral Kinsella, I'm Ellis Morse, the operations officer of the Second Battalion, the First Marine Brigade, tasked to investigate a possible bio-war facility. About five hours ago we received an anonymous phone tip about a possible bio-war facility at this location.”

  “You're not wearing containment apparatus,” Stephanie pointed out.

  “No, sir. Admiral, when we entered this building we lost about a third of our people who went in -- but it wasn't to a bio-hazard.”

  “You're being obscure, Colonel.”

  “I know, sir. You have to see this for yourself. Sir, about a third of my people can't endure this. I would suggest leaving your flag lieutenant behind.”

  Stephanie added the one and one on display and swallowed. “Stone Face?”

  “Yes, sir. I never thought about that code word until I saw this. Now, sir, it will haunt me until the end of my days.”

  Stephanie turned to her flag lieutenant. “Siobhan, go as far as the door. Remain there; I'll be in touch directly. In the meantime, keep everyone else out. Send a runner if any of the brass hats show up. I'm expecting a bunch.”

  “I'm okay, Admiral.”

  “I know. Please, I'm going to humor the colonel to see what this is about. Humor me until I know for sure.”

  “I was told never to go far from your side, sir.”

  Stephanie frowned. “I don't know who told you that, but next time, you'll want to check with me first. You are, Lieutenant, requested to remain at the entrance to this building,” Stephanie told her, waving at a building that look pretty much like a warehouse. “I will have orders for you directly.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral.”

  Stephanie followed the colonel through the doubled entrance doors, then down a long tiled corridor to another set of double doors, behind which were a set of steps leading down.

  He opened the door on the right and Stephanie stepped through. He followed right behind her. When they reached the basement he cleared his throat.

  “Admiral...”

  “Colonel,” she said primly.

  “I had no idea they were going to pick you for this; if I'd have known, I'd have asked for someone else. I prepared the introductory brief with one thought in mind. You, sir, aren't the thought I had in mind. Sir, please, as I've said, I've already lost people. Don't you lose it.”

  “Colonel, I'm being charitable here and giving you the benefit of the doubt. Proceed.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral. Please remember that this was intended for anyone else.”

  He went down another long corridor, but only a few feet, before going through another door. They were just outside a huge room, more than two hundred meters long and sixty or seventy meters wide. Along the left wall was a solid line of curtained off niches, each about ten meters on a side. There were ten-meter aisles between rows, and the room had a lot of other rows of curtained-off enclosures.

  Stephanie was expecting the worst. Instead, the first enclosure she was led to was filled with a half-dozen bassinets, each with a baby in it.

  There was a female Marine sergeant standing near the entrance, her hand on her pistol, glowering at the colonel and Stephanie.

  “Stand down, Sergeant,” the colonel told the woman.

  Stephanie saw the woman's eyes go wide. “Admiral Kinsella?”

  “Yes,” Stephanie replied.

  The woman's expression went from hostile to hunted. “I can't, sir. I never expected this... honestly, I can't...”

  To Stephanie's shock the sergeant pushed past them and left.

  “Colonel,” Stephanie said patiently, “I see a half dozen infants.”

  The colonel walked over to one of the bassinets and plucked a card from a plastic holder above it. He returned to Stephanie and handed it to her. The baby followed him with its eyes, but without making a sound.

  Stephanie looked at the card, blinked, and then blinked again, looking at the baby. The baby was like her, a mild chocolate brown. It seemed inconceivable.

  “Tell me this isn't true,” she demanded, waving the card.

  “Sir, I can't say that.”

  “It's a lie.”

  “Sir, I can't say one way or the other. Sir, with all due respect, that is the least of what has passed here.”

  Stephanie held the card up. “I'm not very good with German, but these words are clear. ‘Baby girl Kinsella. Out of Stephanie Kinsella, daughter of Malcolm and Renee Kinsella by Richard Rampling, son of James and Charlotte Rampling.’”

  She glared at the hapless Marine. “This can't be true. Yes, Dick and I donated eggs and sperm together, before our last mission; the one he didn't return from. That was at the Fleet Hospital, Maunalua. Nowhere else.”

  “Sir, we are working on this; I swear.”

  “This can't be all,” she told him, her voice cold.

  “Admiral, this is as good as it gets. Sir, all I can tell you at this point is that a third of my people go off the rails at one of the two next stops. The third is the hardest. I urge you to think long and hard about anything you do.”

  “Get on with it, Colonel,” Stephanie said harshly. She waved the card. “Then we'll return to this.”

  They were in the small curtained-off area, with just the half dozen infants. The colonel pushed apart a curtain on one side, then held another open beyond it as Stephanie stepped through the first.

  Instead of bassinets there were things like high playpens. Each held a black Labrador retriever puppy. It took Stephanie a second to connect the dots... the intelligent look in their eyes was her first clue. Then their obvious interest in her.

  It hit her like a sledgehammer. “Oh, no!”

  “Admiral, out best guess is that these are four human-canine chimeras -- mixtures of human and the canine genome.”

  Stephanie remembered the glimpse of the huge room they were in. She'd hadn't seen much, just a lot of shrouded enclosures.

  “How many?” she said, trying to get a grip on her emotions.

  “Originally I called them batches, sir. I regret that more deeply than anything I've ever done in my life. Sir, the groups number from four to a dozen individuals. We've found six hundred and fifty one subjects.” He paused searching for the words.

  “Admiral, I don't have the people for this. A third of us, sir, couldn’t get past the third group. My people break down. I've been limiting them to one or two groups, but even then, it's been rough. I've lost a third, Admiral. Mostly, they sit down and start crying.” He waved at the Labs.

  “Sir, this is the clearest way I've can say this. Sir, there are other groups that are far, far worse.”

  “Worse?” Stephanie said, still stunned.

  “Admiral, these are the product of two genomes. One of my corpsmen, sir, before he went berserk, says that some may represent combinations of a half dozen species. I'm really short of medical personnel, Admiral.”

  “More than a hundred groups?” Stephanie asked, trying to deal with too much information.

  “Certainly more than a hundred and fifty, perhaps a hundred and seventy-five. Admiral, there is one more thing you need to see.”

  He waved her forward, and Stephanie walked woodenly, not entirely sure she was ready for something more. Something more turned out to be what looked like a restaurant refrigerator with two doors. It was standing alone in another curtained-off area, a Marine sergeant major, weapon ready, was stand
ing fierce guard.

  “Do you see the number on the door?” the colonel asked Stephanie. It was three digits, written in grease pencil.

  “One hundred and eleven. Three ones.”

  “Yes, sir. We believe this is the morgue and the body count.”

  Stephanie turned to him and then took a step forward and got into his face. “Who did this?” she demanded.

  “First indications are that the lead individual responsible was one Otto Koop, a Dutch researcher who was a lab head at the University of Erfurt's medical school, studying genomics. It appears that people started abandoning the lab after the plague; the indications are that the -- subjects -- were vaccinated against the plague. When we arrived there was no one present. I have people looking through the records now to see who was employed here. Most of the computers have been wiped, but we found a few with data.”

  “Widen the loop. I want to know what their phone records and email records show. I want the names of the employees and their phone and email records, both here and at home. I want the names of their suppliers and then I'm going to want to the names and addresses of anyone these people have ever talked to.

  “Do you have liaison with the local police?”

  “The facility is served by a narrow two-lane road off of a larger two-lane road. There are a couple of homes on the east side of the road a few hundred meters to the north. I have a roadblock where the two roads meet, plus people at all of the driveways. It's not dawn yet, and while some lights came on when our shuttle landed, no one poked their noses out.

  “However there is a German police car by our roadblock. They are parked across the street and haven't approached my people.”

  “Get on the radio, have someone go up to them and have them get their Chief of Police here right away.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He spoke into his radio and turned to Stephanie, a wry grin on his face. “Speak of the devil. Someone just showed up there saying he's their chief. He wants to talk to whoever is in charge.”

  “If you have more than one vehicle up there, they can escort him here. If not, the chief waits until we get another vehicle there.”

  The major laughed. “Admiral, we have a pickup we commandeered from this facility... and that's it.”