The Only Game in the Galaxy

by Paul Collins

  ‘Look, you guys beat us hands down when it comes to designing vast engines of unprecedented destruction – not that you didn’t, if the stories are true, have a little help from certain shady non-human sources – but when it comes to sophisticated hardware and system penetration, you ain’t seen nothing!’

  While Herik stood guard, Anneke interfaced with the chamber’s control and security system. Cutting-edge for its day, it was, as she’d suspected, simple for RIM technology designed a thousand years in the future.

  First, she sidelined the security net, looping it in on itself so that it couldn’t detect any outside interference. Just to be sure, she laid in a viral-package that would launch a self-diagnostic program, a process that inevitably acted like a smokescreen as it monitored and measured itself at a tediously slow speed. Simultaneously she downloaded all physical alarms: pressure pads, laser and gravitic sensors, heat detectors and anything and everything else she could think of.

  Safe from setting off any warning signals, she proceeded to strip bare, layer by layer, each of these security barriers, neutralising, nullifying and sometimes crashing each system as she found it.

  Within ten minutes, all electronic locks, alarms and barriers were either down or incapacitated, and any errant feedback – those pesky warnings that brought a horde of hotheaded hunkies down on your back – had been caged.

  To make life interesting, she added some viral bombs that could be launched remotely, or would self-detonate if certain forms of snooping occurred.

  She closed up her interfacer and switched on her dampening field, extending it to enclose Herik. ‘Okay, that’s it.’

  Herik furrowed his brows at the tonal change in her voice.

  ‘It’s the field,’ she said. ‘You get used to it.’

  ‘So we can just walk in?’

  ‘Well, we can.’

  ‘But we shouldn’t?’

  ‘Look, everything is shut down or switched off. Everything obvious, that is. Problem is, while there might have been things that were impassable by your technology, there certainly wasn’t anything terrible.’

  Herik looked at the reinforced metal door through which they would have to venture. ‘Meaning there still might be some nasty surprises in there?’

  ‘Yeah. Like a pit full of Rutillian sand vipers. One bite, that’s it. No known cure. You’re dead so fast the brain doesn’t register that you’re about to die.’

  ‘Your gadgets are no good against sand vipers?’

  ‘Actually, they are. But that’s not the point.’

  ‘I get the point.’ He sighed, and Anneke realised how weary he was. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Thirty minutes later, Herik was dying. Fast.

  They’d opened up the chamber by burning a hole through the wall, following Anneke’s reasoning that doorways were too predictable, hence dangerous (not quite terrible, but she was trying). Then they entered a large room in which sat a huge plastisteel safe the size of a small house. Anneke scanned it every way she could, disabled autonomous booby-traps not synched to the primary security frame – one not even drawing power from the main grid – and assessed the safe sceptically.

  She decided to go in through the roof. Using sticky fields, she swarmed up the side of the safe – to Herik’s amazement – unreeling a filament with an attached grip and hauling him up after her. She didn’t tell him she could have jumped to the top of the safe using her Normanskian leg muscles.

  She ran more electromagnetic and seismic scans, including x-ray and sound waves. Nothing. All clear.

  She burned a pinhole through the safe, dropped a pea-probe into it, taking readings as it buzzed around the inside of the safe like an annoying mosquito.

  Still all clear.

  She didn’t like not detecting anything, but there was nothing more she could try. So she augmented her field, surrounding the two of them with a spacesuit field: nothing could cross that barrier, not even a molecule. Then she burned a bigger hole, and they both clambered down inside.

  The master key sat inside a glass case like a museum piece. The glass was bulletproof but could not resist a blaster.

  She and Herik exchanged uneasy looks. He gave a shrug, and vaporised one end of the case.

  Three seconds later, he dropped to the floor, gasping, his eyes bloodshot and flecks of foam at the corners of his mouth.

  Anneke dropped next to him, cradling his head. ‘What’s wrong? What’s happening, Herik? Are you hit?’

  He shook his head. ‘Can’t breathe,’ he wheezed.

  Tiny blood vessels zigzagged under the surface of his skin. Anneke put a hand to his forehead. He was clammy, his body temperature down. So fast!

  She ran another scan of the room. No projectile weapons, darts, nothing. No radiation, no beams of any kind.

  ‘The air,’ he wheezed. He convulsed in a coughing fit. Blood spattered her tunic.

  Anneke used a shaped field to capture and hold some air for analysis, subjecting it to myriad tests. She stared at the read-out, and paled.

  ‘What – is – it?’ asked Herik. He stared slightly to one side, as if his vision was affected.

  ‘It’s a virus. It must have been inside the case.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘The terrible kind.’

  A ghost of a smile crossed his face. ‘See. Told you.’

  ‘Herik, you’ve been infected with Amuletta virus, the Pox of the Apocalypse …’ Her voice trailed off.

  Herik stared, licked dry lips. ‘Doomsday virus,’ he whispered. His eyes looked up to the hole in the ceiling.

  Anneke shook her head, moved by his concern for others. ‘It can’t escape my field. I’ve already destroyed all traces of it in the air and on our bodies.’ She looked at Herik, and then away. He was dying and there was nothing she could do.

  Then she straightened. ‘You’re not supposed to die!’ she muttered, frantically searching for answers.

  Herik’s voice broke in on her thoughts. ‘Why – not – you – sick?’

  Anneke sat back. ‘Good question.’ She ran a quick analysis of her bloodwork. The virus was definitely present and by now, by all rights, she should be as sick as a dog.

  Why wasn’t she?

  She accessed her database implant, her miniature library, which was automatically updated when in range of an appropriate network (in her time). She found an encyclopaedia article on the virus, scanned it, and stiffened.

  But only for a moment. She took a saliva sample from Herik, ran his DNA, and found it was compatible with hers, very compatible. With no time to ponder the significance of this, she used her field shaper to form a thin syringe and inserted it to extract her bone marrow, then turned to Herik.

  ‘Listen, the Amuletta Virus kills within half an hour. I’m going to inject you and it will hurt.’

  ‘No point,’ said Herik. He looked terrible. From the bruised look of his skin he was already experiencing internal haemorrhaging. ‘No cure!’

  ‘Shut up,’ she said, inserting the syringe into his spine. He flinched, then fainted. ‘Men,’ she muttered.

  By the time Herik recovered consciousness they were back in the room where Anneke had first interrogated him, and several days had passed. Herik was resting peacefully on a divan, covered with old drapery. His temperature had returned to normal and his pulse had stabilised.

  Anneke poured a little water from her canteen onto his dry lips. His eyes fluttered and he awoke. Slowly, a frown gathered on his face. He reached over sluggishly and pinched her arm.

  ‘Ouch,’ she said.

  ‘Not dead?’

  ‘Not today,’ said Anneke.

  Against her protests, he made her help him into a sitting position, a look of wonder on his face. ‘And came then an angel and resurrected him,’ he quoted, eyeing her with awe and disbelief. Anneke started at the quote, remembering the historical reference.

  Maybe she was meant to be here.

  ‘How did you do it?’ asked Herik. ‘Dozens of worlds have
sought a cure for Amuletta for centuries, and you solve it in half an hour?’

  ‘Wish I could take credit for it,’ said Anneke. ‘A cure was found about a hundred and fifty years from now, and fifty years after that, immunity was gene-spliced into the DNA of a human seeding sample – they also discovered a population stream with natural immunity dating from’ – she paused, suddenly thoughtful – ‘genetically dating around this time – and this place. By my time, there’s not a single human in the galaxy who doesn’t carry the immunity. All I had to do was make sure my bone marrow wouldn’t kill you.’

  ‘Can you inoculate my men? If the Empire uses this as a last ditch weapon …’

  ‘I can.’

  He tried to get to his feet, but Anneke forced him back down. He protested. ‘We have to get back. Warn people. This could turn the tide of the war!’

  ‘Too late.’

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  ‘We do need to get back, but not to win the war.’

  ‘To do what then?’

  ‘Win the peace – which could be a whole lot harder.’

  Herik stared at her. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The war’s over. You won. Commander Quizko formally surrendered six hours ago.’

  QUIZKO had retreated to his personal command bunker, deep within the Fortress of Kestre. There he kept a skeleton staff of assistants, including Maximus, whose main function – when not overseeing the refitting of dreadnoughts by remote viewing – was acting as liaison to the War Room, nominally under Colonel Bok’s command.

  Unfortunately this frequently placed Maximus and Bok head to head and did not endear the colonel to the ‘direct orders’ that Maximus relayed from the commander. Each time Maximus passed along an order, Bok insisted on seeing Quizko’s personal command seal.

  It grew tiresome. For both of them.

  ‘I want to talk to the commander directly!’ shouted Bok.

  ‘The commander is busy!’ snapped Maximus, making no effort to keep the contempt out of his voice. Bok’s face turned the colour of boiled lobster.

  ‘I insist!’

  ‘Colonel, the commander can’t come to the comm right now.’

  Bok seethed, and Maximus knew he’d better watch his back. Bok had better watch his back, too.

  Commander Quizko was becoming grim and grandiose, convinced the Empire could win by holding out until all the dreadnoughts were refitted for the new power source, making them invulnerable to fluctuating supply lines. That the enemy had seized two dreadnoughts did not seem to worry him. It took some time for Maximus to discover why.

  When he did, he was startled and mystified.

  An underling, a raw lieutenant promoted after a successful field battle, let it drop when Maximus complained that sitting in his bunker wasn’t going to win the war. The lieutenant said, ‘It’s not such a bad tactic, sir.’

  Maximus grunted. ‘And why’s that?’

  The lieutenant smiled wearily. Like everyone else here, he had lived on caffeine and n-doze, but not much sleep. He leaned closer, keeping his voice low. ‘Because the dreadnoughts cannot fire on the Fortress of Kestre.’

  Maximus sneered. ‘Don’t tell me, an ancient gentlemen’s agreement?’

  ‘Just a fact, sir. When Klankis designed and built the dreadnoughts he hard-wired in a core-level command.’ Core-level commands could not be removed without gutting the entire system, software and hardware. ‘The dreadnoughts are forbidden to fire on the Fortress of Kestre. No one knows why. Maybe Klankis had a soft spot for the Fortress, maybe –’

  ‘Maybe he was an alien, as they say,’ said Maximus, thoughtfully, ‘with an alien’s agenda …’

  The lieutenant shrugged. ‘The Fortress is the only spot in the galaxy I’d want to be if there was all-out war with the dreadnoughts!’

  ‘I take it, then, that Se’atma Minor cannot be destroyed?’

  The lieutenant nodded. ‘Attacked. Bombed. But not blown out of space.’

  Maximus filed this information away. Odd that this notion failed to survive in future databases. Clearly, someone had erased the fact from history. He wondered who that could have been, and why.

  He did not wonder long. There were other matters to deal with, Commander Quizko being top of the list.

  History was once more at fault.

  Maximus had grown up knowing everything about the commander: what he looked like, where he’d spent his childhood, his food preferences, even the size of his boots.

  The history books maintained he was a slimy cowardly man without conscience who cared only about himself.

  But history needed some revising.

  Quizko was no coward. And he did not put himself first.

  He cared, first and foremost, about the Empire, which he had served all his life and which his ancestors had served for three hundred years. He believed the Empire had an almost religious duty to bring civilisation to the galaxy. He wasn’t a bad man. He merely believed the rhetoric of Empire, its propaganda – unquestioningly.

  Maximus regarded the concept of unquestioning obedience as tantamount to a capital offence. ‘Sentient beings who do not question’ was a contradiction in terms; such beings should be put down.

  And that’s what Maximus intended to do.

  The foolishly brave, heroically loyal Commander Quizko would have to die – not because he was a traitor, but because he wasn’t.

  Maximus’ own skin needed protection: Quizko’s refusal to deal with the enemy was going to get Maximus eradicated from history.

  Maximus couldn’t let that happen.

  But he admired the man. Maximus analysed the attachment he felt for Quizko and saw that it was transference, a need for a father figure.

  That didn’t change his feelings.

  Or the fact that he was going to murder the man, take his place, and surrender the Fortress to the Insurrectionists.

  And it didn’t change the fact that his act, his betrayal of the Empire, would resound down the centuries as the ultimate act of treachery.

  Even as a slave boy, he had known of Quizko’s Treason, had grown up with the same contempt everyone shared, even by those who condemned the old Empire.

  Yet the person everyone had hated, all along, was him.

  It was terrible, to take on someone else’s destiny.

  But he accomplished it. In the space of forty-eight hours he had two assistants reassigned, one sent on an urgent mission, and another take to his bed with an explicable illness.

  He also spent considerable effort constructing an identical, virtual replica of the commander. Fortunately, timing wasn’t an issue. The historical database implanted in his neo-cortex told him when the announcement of surrender had been made. He even found a reference to himself in the database: an unknown major, recently attached to the commander’s staff, had related how the commander had deteriorated quickly towards the end, issued the surrender notice, then blown out his brains with an old-fashioned weapon.

  The reference spooked him.

  He’d read that same passage in his first year at RIM, whilst training to become an agent. Thinking about it sent an existential shiver down his spine.

  The only hitch was Bok when he turned up unexpectedly in the command bunker a few hours before Maximus’ intended coup de grâce.

  Bok demanded entry and would not be refused. Commander Quizko, Maximus and Bok gathered about the war table, a replica of the holographic model in the main War Room, where Bok had come from.

  ‘The tide has turned against us,’ said Bok, smacking his fist into his palm. He looked older than when Maximus had last seen him, just three days earlier. His salt-and-pepper hair was more salt than pepper, as was his beard.

  Commander Quizko said, ‘The conversion of the dreadnoughts –’

  ‘Is not proceeding fast enough. We’ve only converted two percent of the fleet!’

  ‘It’s a complex refit,’ said Maximus.

  ‘We don’t have time,’ said Bok. ‘We need
to create a setback for the Insurrectionists and we need to do it now.’

  Quizko stiffened, Maximus noted, puzzled. Bok said nothing. A tense silence descended on the trio.

  Maximus broke it. ‘Am I missing something? Sir?’

  Quizko patted Maximus’ arm in a fatherly way. Maximus felt oddly emotional at the gesture.

  ‘Colonel Bok is referring to our … ah … secret weapon,’ Quizko said.

  Maximus shifted his eyes back to Bok. The commander continued, this time to the colonel: ‘I’m afraid I don’t agree. What honour is there in winning by such means?’

  ‘Winning is its own honour, Commander.’

  ‘I will not destroy our own people on Se’atma Minor, just to avoid defeat!’

  Bok waved his hands in annoyance. ‘Infection time is so fast, most will be spared.’

  ‘And if it mutates?’

  ‘It hasn’t mutated in sixty years. Why should it do so now?’

  Maximus observed the interchange between the two men. ‘Let me understand this,’ he said. ‘You have a biological weapon in reserve?’

  ‘Weapon?’ said Quizko, with a laugh. ‘A doomsday device, more like!’

  ‘The commander is exaggerating.’

  Maximus reviewed his database. His mouth gaped. ‘Amuletta! You have a store of Amuletta!’

  Quizko and Bok stared at him. Then Quizko chuckled. ‘You continue to amaze me, Major. You deduced the correct answer on little information.’

  Bok’s eyes narrowed. ‘Too little, if you ask me.’

  ‘Now, now, Colonel. Let’s not confuse genius with cynicism. The man thinks outside the box. But my final word is that I will not go down in history as the Monster of Kestre! As the man who unleashed the doomsday virus on an unsuspecting galaxy.’

  Bok nodded curtly, saluted, and left.

  Twenty minutes later, Maximus had penetrated the commander’s personal comm system and located the remaining viral stock, all two grams of it. He also noted that it was a last line of defence in the protection of the master key – the key which he knew, if history was correct, had already been stolen by Herik of Vane … with the help of an ‘angel’…