Edge of War (The Eternal Frontier Book 2)

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  For comparison’s sake, Tag scrolled through the data on the Drone-Mechs and selected a scan of the Drone-Mech’s blood. “Computer, tag the nanites in this sample.”

  The view magnified past the collapsed discoid shapes Tag approximated to be red blood cells and the occasional spherical cells that composed the Mechanic’s immune system. Protein structures and other small, granular components loomed into existence until the magnification had reached the level of displaying nanites. Silver lines appeared around the edges of the nanites as the computer highlighted them, giving them a metallic gleam on the holoscreen.

  “Fascinating,” Tag said. “Look at how the nanites are already assembling in the Drone-Mech’s blood.”

  Alpha nodded as she studied the images. The nanites seemed to be coalescing into spiracle structures, looking like tiny starfish swimming through the bloodstream.

  “These must serve as the seed for the self-assembly process,” Alpha said. “And once they reach the neural tissue, they link together into the rest of the antenna.”

  “That’s my guess,” Tag said. “Computer, show us nanites in the free Mechanic’s blood.”

  Tag expected to see a similar image on the holoscreen as the Drone-Mech’s as the display’s magnification zoomed past the blood cells and into the realm of the nanoscopic. But there they were greeted with a very different sight.

  “Didn’t you say there was a comparable concentration of nanites in the free Mechanic’s blood as the Drone-Mech’s?” Tag asked Alpha. “There are none of those coalescing seeds.”

  “That’s correct.” Alpha leaned toward the image as if it would suddenly become clearer to her.

  “Then where are the nanites? Computer, identify nanites.”

  The computer highlighted the location of the nanites. Unlike the Drone-Mech’s, there weren’t any in starfish-like formations. Instead, the silver nanites appeared to be individually trapped. Cubic molecular protein-based structures surrounded each.

  “Those structures,” Alpha said, “appear to be subcellular in nature.”

  “I think you’re right,” Tag said. “Maybe they’re like human platelets. Something to do with the Mechanic immune system. I’m going to send this data to Bracken and see if she can have some medical professional there confirm our findings.”

  “And then if we are on the right track,” Alpha said, “we can use what we learn about the Mechanic immune system to develop a vaccine.”

  “Right. There must be something different about this Mechanic’s acquired immune system—or maybe their DNA—that we can track down into the immune system.” Tag sighed. “But whatever it is, I’ve spent my life studying humans. I’m not sure how much of my knowledge or experience is really going to translate here. Hopefully the Mechanics have an answer for this one.”

  ***

  Even after a couple days into hyperspace travel, Lonestar and Gorenado were still in the regen chambers. Tag was studying their status, switching the cartridges that fed the regen chambers’ nutrients and engineered stem cells, when the hatch to the bay opened behind him, and before he even looked, he recognized Bull’s heavy footsteps and self-assured gait rattling toward him.

  “Sergeant,” Tag said in a perfunctory greeting as he perused the regen chambers. Gorenado’s terminal still reported that there was no estimate for when he would be healed enough to leave the chamber. Lonestar’s indicated her body was fully stabilized, with complete replacement of lacerated tissues. She would need a modicum of physical rehabilitation to get the new tissue feeling less like rubber and more like living flesh, but she would be fine.

  “How long do we give Gorenado?” Bull asked.

  Tag let out a long breath as he snapped a cartridge into place on Gorenado’s chamber. “We don’t have much time until we reach the next station. I’d rather focus on the mission at hand than add another complicated variable right before we enter normal space.”

  “Your complicated variable happens to be my man.”

  “Trust me, Sergeant, I understand. Remember my training is all about saving lives. Taking your man out too early could put Alpha and me in a situation where we have to choose between giving him the proper treatment or being at the bridge if the Drone-Mechs—or for that matter something else like the Dreg—shows up. Not a choice I want to make.”

  Bull inhaled with what sounded like a slight snarl, and he placed a hand on the regen chamber holding Gorenado. “Don’t let him die.”

  The marine didn’t give Tag time to respond and turned to leave. The hatch opened again as Alpha entered with an air of nonchalance. Bull shouldered past her, and she watched him, a glimmer of surprise in her black eyes.

  “Captain, he appears to be distressed,” Alpha said. “Does he need medical attention?”

  “He might need attention of some sort,” Tag said, replacing the second cartridge on Gorenado’s chamber. “But I don’t think there’s anything you or I can do to make him less distressed right now.”

  “That is curious.”

  With the threat of running into more Drone-Mechs or Dreg and the challenge of finding a vaccine for the Mechanics hanging over him, Tag wasn’t ready to spend several hours explaining human psychology to Alpha. Thankfully, she dropped the subject and turned her attention to one of the lab’s terminals.

  “We received a report from Bracken’s medical team,” Alpha said. “Would you like me to go over it?”

  “Please.” Tag undid the almost-empty cartridge of engineered cells from Lonestar’s chamber. “You know, this used to be your job. Back before you had a brain.”

  “Should I do that instead of go over the report?”

  “No, a little mindless physical labor is good every once in a while.”

  “I am not sure I follow your logic.”

  “It’s not always about logic.” Tag pursed his lips as he tried to pull out the nutrient cartridge. It seemed to be stuck. A slight buildup of salts and grimy liquid sealed the cartridge to its port.

  “I will log this conversation for analysis later. I sense that I should prioritize our discussion regarding Bracken’s report.”

  “Your senses aren’t leading you wrong.”

  “I am pleased to know I am more capable of picking up on the subtleties of human communication.”

  “Great.” Tag clenched his jaw as he peeled the cartridge back. It finally came off with a plastic pop. He wasn’t sure he was being too subtle, but he wasn’t about to distract Alpha anymore by telling her that. “Now how about that report?”

  “Ah, yes, Captain.” Alpha’s fingers tapped against the terminal, ringing out with a metallic clicking. “It reports that our initial suspicions were correct. The cubic structures we witnessed surrounding the nanites are indeed part of the Mechanic acquired immune system.”

  “Very interesting.” Tag faced Alpha, holding the fresh nutrient cartridge in his hand. “That’s an extremely important distinction. If it’s part of the acquired immune system, then it means the Mechanics somehow developed resistance to the nanites. There might not be any innate or genetic difference that gave these Mechanics their ability to stall the nanites.”

  “From Bracken’s team’s description of the cubic molecular structures and my acquired knowledge—do you see what I did there, Captain? That’s humor.” She allowed herself a forced and rather uncanny smile.

  “Yeah, sure. Funny. Go on.” This was a different Alpha than the one who had talked with him about the power of killing your enemy.

  “From my knowledge of the human immune system and this new report, I believe the cubic molecules to be akin to a human’s antibodies. They are attracted to specific antigens, sequester those antigens, and signal the Mechanic body to rid itself of the offending antigen. In this case, the antigen would be the nanites.”

  “Good deductions,” Tag said. “But there’s one thing we’ve got to consider. Antibodies are around in a person’s body because a person has already had to overcome a particular disease. So, for instance, I had ch
icken pox when I was a kid. I’ve now got the antibody for chicken pox.”

  “I think I see where you are going with this.”

  Tag plugged the fresh cartridge into Lonestar’s chamber. “Do you?”

  “Yes, the presence of this Mechanic’s cubic antibodies would indicate that those Mechanics with the ability to resist the nanites would have at some point encountered the nanites before.”

  “And that begins to pose a problem,” Tag said as he leaned against Lonestar’s chamber. “How did these Mechanics come across these nanites before? And who introduced them?”

  Alpha’s black eyes seemed to be staring at a point Tag couldn’t see. He waited for her to come up with an answer to his questions. From the way she seemed to be frozen in thought, he worried he might have somehow short-circuited her neural-computer interfaces.

  But then a smile cracked across her face. “Those are trick questions, aren’t they, Captain?”

  Tag grinned. “And why do you say that?”

  “You mentioned to me once before your greatest weakness is your tunnel vision,” she said, parroting the words his dad had once told him. “You sometimes forget all the available paths and avenues you have to approach a problem.” A cold spring seemed to well up in Tag as he recalled his father’s advice to take a step back from problems and think outside the options he had limited himself to. It sounded strange coming from her. “And I think you told me that so I wouldn’t be limited by shortsightedness.”

  “Where are you going with all this?”

  “Edward Jenner.”

  “What about him?” Tag asked.

  “He was a scientist and physician—not too unlike yourself—in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And he discovered the first vaccine for smallpox.”

  “Nice history lesson. You’ve paid attention to some of the encyclopedias on store here.” Tag checked Lonestar’s terminal to ensure the new cartridges were working before he joined Alpha at the laboratory terminal.

  She continued. “He discovered that people who experienced cowpox, even though it is a different disease, became immune to smallpox. Exposure to cowpox enabled the creation of antibodies that actively responded to smallpox. Because of this, cowpox could be used as a vaccine.”

  “You got it.” Tag started walking toward the hatch and nodded for Alpha to follow him. “My hope is that we can find out what gave those Mechanics their acquired immunity to nanites in the first place. It’s very likely that it isn’t, in fact, the same nanites that control them. And if we can identify this analogue, we don’t have to invent a vaccine.”

  “Because it already exists,” Alpha said.

  “Exactly. We just have to find it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Tag and Alpha briefed the other members of the crew on their findings. After sending a report to Bracken, they made final preparations for entering normal space, and Bracken provided them a holo of their next target, Herandion Station. This one had a similar halo-like structure reminiscent of Nycho, though it was almost half the size. It had served as a trading port with other species in the far reaches of Mechanic space. Tag wondered if its differing role had mattered at all to the Drone-Mechs or those that had controlled them. He somehow doubted it.

  If the Drone-Mechs had been to the station, it was probably a wreck like Nycho. But Bracken had been the most curious about Herandion because of its relationship with other races. She promised the Mechanics had connections with sentient, spacefaring races that were more amenable to trade and communication than the Dreg. And maybe, if they were lucky, they would come across some of them. There stood a small chance, however miniscule, that a species looking to establish economic ties to the Mechanics and unaware of their current nanite blight might be heading into the area to do business at the station. Or maybe if the Drone-Mechs had already been through and left the place vacant, one of those species had set up shop to replace the gap in the current interstellar economy.

  Tag reminded himself not to be nearly so optimistic. Jumping from station to station seemed like a good way to depress their moods further. If they knew the locations of the stations, surely the Drone-Mechs did too. He wished there was some way they could better contact research and military vessels that had escaped like the Stalwart had. Sofia suggested sending out several courier drones in varying trajectories, but trying to send out courier drones randomly throughout space was like throwing a message in a bottle into one of Earth’s oceans and hoping it somehow made it to Luna.

  The med bay hatch hissed open, and Tag entered with Alpha close behind.

  He strode to Lonestar’s regen chamber and exhaled slowly. “Time to wake her up. You ready?”

  “I have emergency sedation supplies prepared in case she has a negative reaction.”

  “Here we go.”

  Tag tapped on the terminal, each press of the touchscreen sounding a light blip. A single command blatted across the screen, asking him to engage the awakening process. He confirmed his choice, and the blue fluid in the regen chamber drained. The chamber’s door glided open, and Lonestar’s body started to slump forward. Tag undid the clasps holding her in and gently lowered her onto a nearby patient crash couch.

  Her eyelids flickered, bulging with the movement behind them as if she was still asleep and caught in some nightmare. The muscles in her arms tensed and relaxed in unpredictable spasms, her fingers clenching tightly, digging into her palms.

  “Is this normal?” Alpha asked, leaning over Lonestar.

  “Everyone’s reawakening is different, but it’s normally not this intense.”

  Tag drew a blanket over Lonestar. Her thrashing threatened to fling it off. For a heartbeat, he wondered if whatever violent dream she was in would end. Another heartbeat passed, and her body went still. Sweat beaded down her forehead, and a tear budded from the corner of one eye. Pallor sucked the vibrancy from her expression, and her eyes pinched hard together, causing wrinkles to spring from the corners of her closed lids. She still seemed to be in pain, though to Tag it looked more emotional than physical now.

  “Lonestar?” he tried, softly. “You’re all right. You just came out of regen. Can you understand me?”

  Her eyes shot open, and she clutched the sheet to her chest, squeezing herself against the slightly inclined crash couch. For a woman built with genetic enhancements and a disciplined weightlifting regimen, she looked strangely tiny and afraid.

  “What...how did you...” Her breathing settled, but she didn’t let go of the sheet. “You aren’t...you aren’t...”

  Tag had never had a patient stuck in such a confused state for so long. Then again, with the Argo’s initially peaceful mission up until he became captain, patients needing a regen chamber were pretty damn limited.

  “I’m not what?” Tag raised an eyebrow. “Lonestar, do you know where you are?”

  “The Argo.”

  “And do you know who I am?”

  Her nostrils flared almost imperceptibly, but Tag noticed it. He’d been looking for any symptoms of something wrong with her and continued to study her every movement. “Tag Brewer. Commander Tag Brewer, former chief medical officer, and now...now captain of the Argo.”

  “That’s right,” Tag said. “We’re in hyperspace. We just had an encounter—”

  “With the Dreg.” Lonestar relaxed her hold on the sheet, letting it drape lightly over her body again. The light-brown hue returned to her face once more, washing away the ghostly pale. “I was attacked. I remember making it back here, but then it all went black.”

  “Your memory recall is accurate,” Alpha chimed in cheerfully.

  “Are we returning to normal space soon?” She swung a leg over the side of the crash couch as if she was ready to get suited up.

  “We will be,” Tag said, “but you’re not up for it yet.”

  “The three hells I’m not!” Lonestar said. “Get knocked off the horse, you get back on.”

  Tag placed his hand on her shoulder, trying to gentl
y coax her back down. She shoved him off, let the sheet fall, and stood. When she straightened, her face screwed up into an agonized wince, and she flopped back into the bed.

  “Good gods,” she said, arching her back. “My spine.”

  “Yeah,” Tag said. “Alpha, let’s get some pain meds for her.” He tried to put on his best bedside manner but found forcing a calm expression slightly awkward. Even though it hadn’t been much longer than a couple months since he’d had a patient, so much had happened between then and now that it might as well have been a decade. “Lonestar, I know you hate to hear it, but the nerves and muscles under that fresh skin are going to need some work. You aren’t going to be one hundred percent immediately. Your new cells and tissues need a few days out of the chamber before you can hit the weights again.”

  Alpha placed a patch on Lonestar’s arm and then pressed it to ensure the insertion of the hundreds of microneedles within the patch would inject her with pain relievers. All the tightness in Lonestar’s expression faded.

  “How long’s that going to take?” Lonestar asked. “I don’t want to sit this stuff out.”

  “If you do what I prescribe, you’ll miss one station mission, maybe two, tops.”

  “If everything heals the way it’s supposed to.”

  “If everything heals the way it’s supposed to,” Tag confirmed. He selected an exercise regimen for her on his wrist terminal then flicked his finger to transfer it to hers. “Take this to the fitness facilities when you feel up to it. No earlier than two days from now, got it?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m serious.”

  “All right, all right.” She held up her hands in a placating gesture.

  “The AI in the fitness facility comps will keep an eye on you. Listen to it. That’s a damn order.”

  “Captain, we have our final briefing with Bracken in fifteen minutes,” Alpha said.

  Tag faced Lonestar again. “Take it easy. Let Alpha or me know if you need something. You’re going to feel good enough to stand up before the end of the day, but don’t. Give yourself a little more time. Trust me.”