by Bob Mayer
“I could have.” They came to the front doorway and looked out. Ash was still falling. Thick clouds roiled overhead.
“Death is in the air,” Nekhbet. “Not the Danse. But pure death.”
“Yes. It is everywhere. But the aliens and their monsters are gone.”
“They just took people?” Nekhbet asked.
“As far as I can tell,” Nosferatu said, leading her down the stairs toward the helicopter they’d flown here from Paine Field.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Nekhbet gave a low laugh. “Perhaps they want the blood?”
Nosferatu considered that. “It is a possibility.”
“I was joking.”
“But it is a possibility,” Nosferatu said, opening the door on the co-pilot’s side and helping her in.
“And what will we dine on if there are no people?” Nekhbet asked.
“I doubt the Swarm found everyone,” Nosferatu said. He walked around and assumed the pilot’s seat. “After all, they didn’t find us.”
Nekhbet laughed out loud. “Seriously, my dear, sometimes you are too much.”
Nosferatu started the engine.
EARTH ORBIT
Turcotte vented the Fynbar. He opened the hatch and jetted to the Nimue. The nuclear missile wasn’t hard to find on such a small craft. It was in a pod on the bottom right. It had escaped the blast that had cored the ship and killed the co-pilot. He took a few moments to examine the way the launch pod was attached to the ship. It was obviously not part of the organic design of the spaceship, but an add on.
“Why use a wrench when you can use a hammer?” Turcotte said, his voice echoing inside the helmet of the TASC-suit. He brought the MK-98 to bear. Zeroed the reticules on the heads up display at one of the attaching points. Fired.
The uranium core round easily severed the metal. He aimed and fired three more times. The warhead pod was separate from the wreckage. Turcotte clipped himself to the nuke, finding the concept a darkly amusing, and jetted back to the Fynbar. He disconnected the tow cable to the Nimue and secured the nuke to the upper deck of the Fynbar.
He entered the Fynbar and sealed the hatch. Then hit the control to re-establish the atmosphere inside. He noted that it was taking longer than it had the last time. But once it was done, he took off the TASC-suit and resumed the pilot’s depression.
SWARM CORE
The current of the soup was slowing as there wasn’t any more material falling in. The last of the ‘monsters’ were in the soup. Darlene’s arms and legs were gone, but she had feeling beyond her body. She was becoming part of the Core. It was all connected. It was alive. This ‘soup’ was actually its ‘blood’. Once over the edge, it flowed in large tubes, arteries really, throughout the Core, constantly in motion, taken to become part of the ship. Billions of humans were now integrated with the Core. Part of the Swarm.
Darlene began to laugh, except she didn’t have enough of a body to make a sound.
The folly!
The irony!
SS SAROV, STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA
The Russian submarine surfaced in the Strait, northeast of Port Angeles. The Captain was the first man out the hatch onto the small bridge atop the conning tower. Grey ash was drifting down from thick clouds. It was chilly but there was no wind. The stillness was unsettling. He leaned over the front of the conning tower toward the over-sized torpedo tube. Vladimir, armed with a pistol, was behind him.
The hatch at the rear of the bulge opened and Volkov stepped out, pulling the goggles off his head.
“Why haven’t you disarmed Poseidon?” the Captain demanded.
Volkov had a small box in his hands. “I am doing my duty.”
“Your duty is to disarm the warhead.”
“My duty is to destroy our enemies,” Volkov said.
The Captain turned to Vladimir. “Take him.”
Volkov held up the small box. “I have rigged Poseidon to explode if I push this button. We will all be vaporized.”
“Lieutenant Volkov,” the Captain said. “I am ordering you to put that box down and step away.”
“You are no longer in command,” Volkov said. “Sir,” he added with a sneer. He indicated the compartment containing Poseidon. “Look at it.”
The outer hull of the Sarov was battered. There were long tears in the metal, where krakens had taken hold and tried to crush the submarine. The front of the Poseidon compartment was bent in.
“It will not launch,” the Captain said. “All the more reason to disarm it.”
“No,” Vladimir said, training his gun on the Captain. “You are no longer in command.”
“Now,” Volkov said, “we will do our duty.”
THE FACILITY
The lights came back on. The HDTV screen lining the roof of the Facility presented a surreal scene given the reality above. The sun shone brightly, with a few thin wisps of clouds.
It was almost believable except it came from the system’s memory, not the reality above.
“Where is Rex?” Sofia asked as Asha entered the med-lab.
“In the outer lock,” Asha said. “We’ll need to decontaminate him before we allow him inside.”
Sofia didn’t look pleased.
“Darlene?” Asha asked.
“I can still hear her,” Sofia said. “Very faint. But she exists even though most of her physical existence has been absorbed by the Swarm. She has given us some valuable information. The Battle Core is organic. Almost completely. Except for the FTLT drives.”
Asha cut in. “It looks like the warships are gone. Are they? Does Darlene know?”
“She confirmed that all Swarm warships except one and all the scouts that were on Earth have returned to the Core. Others that were exploring the solar system are returning to the Core. It is preparing to depart the solar system.”
“You said there is still one warship on Earth?” Asha asked.
Sofia closed her eyes. “Darlene says there is one Swarm warship still on the planet. And it will remain. It is in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Digging itself deeper into the sediment.”
“Why?” Asha asked.
“It carries a cargo of specially designed hadesarchaea,” Sofia said, stumbling over the last word.
Asha was confused. “Thermopile microorganisms? Why?”
Sofia opened her eyes. “To attack the planet.”
ON THE LAST DAY
SS SAROV, STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA
“Everyone out of the control center,” Volkov ordered.
Vladimir waved the gun, emphasizing the point.
The Captain stepped in front of the rest of the crewmembers crowded in the rear of the center. “Listen, men. There is still time for you to—“
“We are the only loyal Russians in this crew,” Vladimir snapped.
Volkov had the destruct in one hand, the other hand hovering over the button.
“It is not about being Russian any more,” the Captain said. “It is about being human. You saw the Strait. Nothing moving. Where is everyone? Where are the aliens?” He indicated the radioman who was still at his station, headset on. “We have picked up nothing on any band. There are no GPS satellites. We can’t get a bounceback off any communications satellite. We well might be the only humans left alive on the planet. The last thing we should be doing is firing a doomsday weapon. Or fighting among ourselves.”
“Firing Poseidon should have been the first thing we did,” Vladimir insisted. “We should have done our duty.”
“That was not my orders,” the Captain pointed out.
“I want everyone out of the control center,” Vladimir repeated.
“As pointed out, you can’t even launch Poseidon,” the Captain said.
“We will take the submarine as close to the American base as possible,” Vladimir said. “Then we will destroy all.”
SWARM BATTLE CORE
All warships that had gone down to the planet had returned. Except for the one filled wit
h the hadesarchaea. The scouts and warships that had been deployed during the entry into this solar system were being recovered.
The Scoop had delivered its cargo of recharged ruby spheres to the FTLT engine room.
The Swarm was evaluating reports from the mining ships on Mars and those in the Kuiper Belt, determining what raw materials would be needed and what could be ignored. A course was readied to transit out of this solar system, picking up the needed material, before engaging FTLT.
PRIVATE ISLAND, PUGET SOUND
“Where are we going?” Nekhbet asked as Nosferatu lifted the helicopter off the ground.
“I’ve been pondering that,” Nosferatu said. The chopper was above the island, but below the thick layer of clouds. “Our first priority is to feed.”
“Thank you,” Nekhbet said. “Sometimes it seems you never consider that at all.”
“Thus we must find survivors,” Nosferatu said. “Could you do me a favor and turn on the radio?”
Nekhbet did that. Both their headsets were filled with static.
“Dial through the various frequencies,” Nosferatu suggested.
EARTH ORBIT
Turcotte had to travel halfway around the globe to get to the point that Darlene had directed him. Lacking GPS, and with the planet almost completely covered by the cloud of ash from the India-Pakistan War, it wasn’t easy to get oriented.
Through a break in the ash he spotted the northern coast of Alaska, which was close enough. He piloted the Fynbar down to get under the cloud and navigate by sight.
THE FACILITY
“Darlene said the biology of it is complicated,” Sofia said. “In essence, the hadesarchaea will infect the sediment in the subduction zone. They will burrow their way deeper into the planet and spread along the Cascadia fault line. Then infiltrate other fault lines until they have infected the entire planet. At that point they will have adapted and begin to degrade the fault lines. And then--“
Asha waved for the girl to stop. “Did Darlene say how we can stop this?”
Sofia blinked, surprised at the interruption. “She directed Major Turcotte to the site. He has a nuclear weapon he recovered from the Nimue. However, we fear that he might not be able to target the weapon and detonate it.”
“Why do you fear that?” Joseph asked.
“Because Major Turcotte doesn’t think he can do it,” Sofia said, as if that were clearest explanation in the world. “He doesn’t know how that weapon is armed or launched.”
“You can reach Turcotte?” Asha asked.
Sofia nodded. “Not directly, but through Darlene we could pick up their conversation. He is not one of us. But he is linked to us. It is a puzzle to Darlene and to us. Perhaps—“
“Hold on,” Asha said. “The Nimue? I can get that information.” She pulled the flexpad out of the deep pocket on her coveralls. Pressed the button to turn it on.
“Ethos is off line,” Joseph reminded her. “So is the Tesla sub-routine.”
Asha’s fingers were flying over the screen. “I’m turning both back on.”
“What if the Swarm picks that up?” Joseph asked.
“Not a priority right now,” Asha said. The screen flickered and came alive. She looked up at Sofia. “Can you ‘whisper’ to Turcotte?”
“Not directly,” Sofia said. “And Darlene is growing fainter. There is little of her left.” A puzzle look crossed the girl’s face. “She is—“ Sofia stopped, at a loss for words. “She is gone. But she was laughing. At the very end. She was happy. And laughing.”
“Why?” Joseph asked.
Asha was typing on the screen.
“I don’t know,” Sofia said. “Something about folly and irony. I don’t understand.”
AIRSPACE, PUGET SOUND
“Stop!” Nosferatu said. “Dial back slightly. Did you hear that?”
Nekhbet tweaked the knob slightly. A voice, crackling with static.
“That’s Russian, isn’t it?” Nekhbet asked.
Nosferatu nodded. “Yes. And on FM. They must be close.”
AIRSPACE, ALASKAN COAST
Turcotte was flying south, keeping the coast in sight. He’d lost touch with Darlene and feared she was gone. This half-ass plan was less than that now.
An irritating buzzing caught his attention. It was coming from inside the leather satchel he’d received from Mrs. Parrish via Maria from what seemed forever ago but was only a week. He brought the Fynbar to a hover and pulled out the flexpad.
He tapped the green button and saw Asha’s face. “What?”
“Major Turcotte. I can get the information on the nuclear weapon from the Nimue. Do you have it?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
Turcotte updated her. “What am I looking for?”
“All we know,” Asha said, “is that a Swarm warship is burrowing into the Cascadia Subduction Zone and releasing a microscopic agent that will have a devastating effect.”
“How do I target that?” Turcotte said. “I’ve got a missile designed for space that I can’t launch and a single nuclear warhead. I don’t even know if it will go off in the water. And will a surface detonation be enough to affect whatever this warship is doing?”
“I have no idea,” Asha said. “But I have the specs on the weapon and launcher.”
SWARM BATTLE CORE
Inside the Core, Darlene, but no longer Darlene, had the faintest trace of ego. The connection to the Metabols, to Turcotte, even to most of herself was gone.
She finally understood so much. The hadesarchaea wasn’t actually designed to destroy Earth. It was going to ‘reboot’ the planet. By igniting the Ring of Fire and affecting other subduction zones around the entire planet, it would change the face of the planet, cause massive destruction, and wipe out almost all life.
But not all.
The planet would start over again.
Brilliant, Darlene realized. In hundreds of thousands of years there would likely once again be Scale life on Earth. Ready to be reaped.
But the Swarm wasn’t that smart.
It had made a big mistake.
A fatal mistake.
The Swarm’s reaction when it realized what she had figured out just minutes earlier was so powerful, it sent a jolt of energy to her.
The virus that was the Swarm now knew it was completely infected by the three deadly viruses that had infected the vast majority of humans it had metamorphosed. By themselves, the three viruses would have posed no threat to the entity that was the Core, but now that the billions of humans were completely part of it, to a significant percentage, their cells were susceptible.
The intergalactic virus was thoroughly infected with a human virus and was incurably sick.
END GAME
PUGET SOUND
“Hello?” Nosferatu said in Russian as he keyed the radio. “Who is this?”
“Of course you speak Russian,” Nekhbet muttered. “You learned so much all that time I was in my tube.”
SS SAROV, STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA
The radioman raised his hand, getting the Captain’s attention. “Sir. I have communications with someone. He speaks Russian. Asking who we are.”
The Captain went to the communication console. He put on a headset. “This is the Captain of the SS Sarov. Whom am I talking to?”
“Get away from the radio,” Vladimir ordered, waving the gun. “We must head in to Puget Sound. Get as close to the American base as possible.”
The Captain ignored him and Volkov’s hand over the detonator.
THE FACILITY
Asha saw a small dot blipping on the bottom of the screen on her flexpad. It meant another flexpad was active besides Turcotte’s. She tapped that one and a strange image filled the screen, someone she didn’t recognize.
PUGET SOUND
There was a buzzing noise trying to be heard above the sound of the helicopter’s engine and blades overhead. Nosferatu glanced back.
“In my case,” he told Nekhbe
t. “There is the flexpad that Leahy gave us.”
“You are becoming very popular,” Nekhbet complained as she reached back and grabbed it.
THE SWARM BATTLE CORE
Darlene, but not Darlene, still had a semi-consciousness of self inside the infected life stream of the Core. She was following the alien reaction to the massive infection.
The first was to warn off all incoming vessels that had not yet docked. The handful of warships and scout ships were directed to hold their distance to avoid infection as the Core assessed the damage.
AIRSPACE, PACIFIC OCEAN
“Talk to me,” Turcotte said. “Asha?”
“Hold on.” She sounded distracted, which Turcotte found amazing given the fact he’d been tasked with saving the world by Darlene and had a nuclear weapon strapped to the hull of the Fynbar.
He was holding position over the Pacific Coast, off the Olympic Peninsula.
Hello, Major Turcotte.
Sofia? Turcotte felt stupid ‘whispering’ that. He knew it was her as much as he ‘heard’ the words.
Yes. Darlene has become part of the Swarm. We cannot reach her. But things are happening. Here. On Earth. Asha is in communication with Nosferatu. And there is a Russian submarine. Near you and Nosferatu.
Turcotte had forgotten about dropping the two human-Airlia hybrids on the island in Puget Sound. A detail among many of the past several days. He accelerated the Fynbar toward Puget Sound.
What is the Russian submarine doing? He asked.
Asha is trying to determine that. But it appears it is in place to attack the American naval base in Puget Sound with a powerful weapon.
Well, duh, Turcotte whispered.
We know, Sofia responded. Asha is coordinating.
