Old Ironsides

by Dean Crawford

  ‘Can you get us in?’ Nathan asked.

  Schmidt’s image flickered as he devoted precious power to accessing the building’s security system. Moments later, the red light turned green and the door lock clicked open. Nathan, relieved to have the opportunity to use a normal door for once, opened it and slipped inside.

  ‘There are numerous security systems inside,’ Schmidt said, but they’re all based on ID chips rather than motion sensors like outside. You should be able to move freely.’

  Nathan eased his way through a small office and then out into a warehouse, the interior gloomy and dark, illuminated only by shafts of white light from the compound outside. Nathan saw a stack of boxes nearby, smooth silvery metal that caught the light.

  ‘Over there,’ Schmidt said. ‘Those are hermetically sealed, exactly what we’re looking for.’

  ‘And exactly what are we looking for?’ Nathan pressed.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Nathan moved to the nearest box and examined the lid. A metallic clasp kept the box sealed and he felt the slightest touch of moisture as he lifted the box, the metal cold to the touch.

  ‘It’s being stored at below freezing,’ Schmidt warned.

  Nathan pulled the cuffs of his sweater down over his hands before he flipped the clasp open and lifted the lid, instantly seeing a puff of vapor from within the box that rolled down to the floor around his boots. Inside, packed into neat rows, were vials of what looked like a scarlet fluid.

  ‘Blood?’ Nathan asked.

  Schmidt nodded.

  ‘Yes, Nathan. Your blood, synthesized and converted to type O Rh D negative so that it can be received by any recipient. It’s standard practice these days, so that any donor’s blood can be received by anybody who needs it.’

  Nathan stared at the boxes, row upon row of them, stacked head-high. He carefully pulled one of the vials out and brushed the ice off it to read the label stuck to its surface. A stream of unintelligible codes appeared, but Schmidt nodded knowingly.

  ‘It’s a vaccine for the plague,’ he said finally. ‘How would anybody know to have a cure already manufactured and in place,’ the doctor asked him rhetorically, ‘if you don’t yet have a plague to fight?’

  ‘Because the plague itself is manufactured,’ Nathan gasped. ‘This whole thing, it’s been set up long in advance. Havok was right, the Aleeyans aren’t behind this. But why save a population, then remove that cure only to cure them yet again? It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Because they want to be seen as the saviors of mankind, to justify their grab for complete power over the human race,’ Schmidt said. ‘What better way to gain the absolute loyalty of an entire generation than to save them from a fate worse than death in one heroic battle right in front of the earth itself?’

  Nathan thought of Titan’s heroic last-moment rescue of New Washington, the mighty flagship of the CSS fleet coming to the aid of its most run-down orbital city and saving it from certain destruction at the hands of the hated invaders, the Aleeyans.

  ‘Marshall provokes the Aleeyans into open combat inside the solar system with the media watching, saves the population and then cures them. The close-call battle requires a stronger military presence and so Marshall takes power for himself with the support of the entire human race, overpowering the Senate by democratic will,’ he said finally.

  ‘The republic becomes an empire,’ Schmidt said, ‘with Marshall at its head and with his entire fleet here in orbit around the earth. Nobody can oppose him now. I’ll bet he’s already on his way down here to New York City, ready to take the reins of power from Director General Ceyron.’

  Nathan looked once more at the vial in his hand.

  ‘But why infect the population with a new plague?’ Nathan asked. ‘They could have allowed the Aleeyans to get within an inch of destroying New Washington and still achieved a victory.’

  ‘Eugenics,’ Schmidt replied sadly. ‘You know how Marshall feels about the population of cities like New Washington. He sees them as an eyesore, a mass of ungrateful, drug-addled losers. This cure, Nathan, it’s not for them. It’s for Marshall, it’s for the elite, the governors and the generals and the Senate and the military. That’s why Marshall wanted you dead – they’ve used your blood to perfect a permanent cure, and then you as a carrier to help spread the new plague in the orbital cities. You’re the evidence they’ve been trying to erase.’

  Nathan slipped the vial into his pocket and closed the lid of the box.

  ‘Universally received you say?’ he asked Schmidt.

  ‘Yes, the blood can be transfused to any recipient without fear of rejection. Why?’

  Nathan turned for the exit. ‘Because we’ve got a life to save to prove our innocence and nail Marshall for what he’s done for once and for all.’

  ***

  XLVIII

  CSS Field Hospital,

  New York City

  Nathan stared out across the broad expanses of North America as the cruiser sailed through ethereal veils of high altitude cloud that glowed like golden angel’s wings as the craft began its descent toward the space port.

  Vasquez and Allen had arrived in the early hours after taking an unmarked police pool vehicle and slipping out of New York City unobserved. Nathan sat in the rear seat, both of the front seats occupied by Vasquez and Allen.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Vasquez said, for the fourth time.

  ‘We get that,’ Allen replied.

  ‘He saved New Washington from certain destruction and maybe the Earth too.’

  ‘That’s all part of the plan,’ Nathan said, also for the fourth time. ‘They knew that this would happen, knew that the plague would be released in New Washington. The whole thing: my being assigned Kaylin Foxx as an escort, the drugs rings on the orbital city, Shiver, everything: all of it so that the Ayleens would be blamed for starting a new plague and that I would carry it and spread it into the orbital cities. That would be the justification for destroying them, for claiming that there was nothing that could be done to save the people. Marshall takes full control, the Republic falls and a new empire begins with him at the helm. CSS effectively becomes his own personal army.’

  Vasquez shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘And the Aleeyans? You tellin’ me he paid them off to come here and be blown apart?’

  ‘Icing on the cake,’ Nathan said. ‘The Aleeyans knew that they were being framed and Havok was willing to risk all to defeat Marshall. He figured that if they were going down, they wouldn’t be going without a fight. I wouldn’t mind betting that Marshall had it in mind all along: he knows better than most the nature of the Aleeyans, maybe even figured that if provoked far enough they’d come here on a mad killing spree rather than try to prove their innocence. All Marshall had to do was ensure that he was in the right place at the right time to come to the rescue.’

  Allen leaned back over his seat.

  ‘You’re talking about a guy who is a national hero, somebody who already held influence in the halls of power. Why would he bother? He already had it all.’

  ‘Marshall said it himself,’ Nathan replied. ‘The Aleeyans remain the greatest threat to human existence and the orbital cities represent the weakest link in the defences of Earth, the easiest way for the Aleeyans to infiltrate human society. With the fleet based out near Saturn, there was always the chance that they could slip through. He wanted to remove that chance, and also remove what he called “the unwashed masses” from play. He thinks that everybody aboard the orbital cities is some kind of low-life, unworthy of protection or even the gift of life. Given the choice he’d have probably blasted New Washington himself if he could’ve gotten away with it.’

  ‘My assistant, Jean Alliso, was an Aleeyan sympathizer,’ Schmidt said, his projection still reduced in size alongside Nathan. ‘He was used as a connection to this, the precise kind of lead needed to bring suspicion upon the Aleeyans for starting this whole war.’

  ‘But Captain Dwight, befo
re he died, said that the Aleeyans were responsible,’ Nathan pointed out.

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Schmidt corrected him. ‘He merely said the word “Aleeyan” before he apparently was unable to speak further. He could have been saying that they were on their way to help him, we’ll never know. We simply assumed that he was assigning guilt to them for the attack on Icarus.’

  ‘So who did attack the colony ship?’ Nathan wondered out loud.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Schmidt admitted, ‘and we probably never will. If Marshall or anybody else with sufficient means was maniac enough to arrange an attack on a defenceless colony ship and then to set loose a plague aboard her, they’ll likely also have been brutal enough to then kill the hired guns too.’

  Vasquez concentrated on guiding the cruiser down through a layer of scattered stratus cloud as the brilliant sunrise seared the horizon ahead of them.

  ‘Well, guilty or not, you’re gonna have a hard time provin’ it.’

  ‘He left me behind on an Aleeyan warship,’ Nathan snapped. ‘He then blew that warship up despite knowing that I was still aboard, having arrested both of my doctors and shutting one of them down. He’s opposed me every step of the way and has wanted me dead ever since I was brought back to life.’

  Nathan hesitated as he realized how odd his statement sounded.

  ‘Man,’ Allen said, ‘since you showed up everything’s really taken a turn for the weird.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Nathan murmured.

  Nathan saw the city of New York appear ahead, a glistening jewel embedded amid vast forests alongside the shimmering coppery expanses of the Atlantic Ocean. Overhead the city hovered two CSS frigates, each a quarter mile long. Their aggressive silhouettes were dark against the molten metal of the dawn sky, long shadows cast across the veils of cloud over the city beneath them.

  The cruiser drew closer and lower, passing slowly beneath one of the massive frigates as Vasquez talked to air traffic control and got clearance to land. Nathan looked down at the vast crowds lining the streets of the city as Vasquez guided the cruiser in toward a glossy, oval building clad in reflective blue glass that managed to make it look both inviting and mysterious at the same time.

  ‘That’s the hospital?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘Best in the country,’ Schmidt replied from the front seat alongside him. ‘They took Foxx there as soon as Titan won the battle. She’s in quarantine.’

  ‘No way in bro’,’ Vasquez said. ‘I don’t know how you think you’re going to get in there, especially not with everything else that’s going on.’

  Nathan peered down past the cruiser’s wings to the city streets and saw them densely packed with immense crowds.

  ‘What’s happening down there?’ Nathan asked, kind of already knowing the answer.

  ‘Same as is happening on every city on Earth,’ Allen said. ‘They’re celebrating the victory of yesterday, just like they celebrated the end of the last major battle fought against the Aleeyans. I’d wager that Marshall’s down there right now and about to be paraded through the city streets as a hero.’

  ‘Which he still might be,’ Vasquez cautioned.

  ‘I need to do this alone,’ Nathan said as the cruiser slowed to land.

  ‘Like hell,’ Allen said. ‘If you’re right and Marshall’s got the entire CSS on his side, he’ll have you killed the moment you surface.’

  ‘They can’t track me,’ Nathan pointed out. ‘I still don’t have an ID chip, but they can track all of you and if they even suspect that I’m alive and you’re helping me, it’ll be the three of you who come under attack. At least I’ll have a few minutes in that building before they identify me, and those crowds might conceal me too.’

  Nathan could see that Vasquez didn’t like it, but that he knew that there was no other option.

  ‘What’re you gonna do when you get in there?’ he asked.

  ‘Prove for once and for all that Marshall’s behind everything, that he’s the only person who could be.’

  ‘How are you going to do that?’ Allen asked.

  Nathan didn’t reply as the cruiser settled onto the landing pad alongside the vast blue-glass building. The doors opened up and Nathan hopped out, then saw Allen’s hand thrust out toward him.

  ‘Good luck.’

  Nathan gripped the detective’s hand and shook it. ‘Thanks. Get going, or you’ll miss the party.’

  ‘You got it.’

  Nathan hurried off the landing platform and down a series of steps to street level, the hospital entrance to his left. He saw the cruiser lift off again as Allen and Vasquez flew away toward the CSS Headquarters building.

  The city streets were filled with tens of thousands of people, all of them lining a route that led from the main spaceport toward the CSS Headquarters building a mile away. Nathan looked up at the city’s towering spires, like giant golden swords soaring up into the ethereal clouds, and then he turned and hurried toward the hospital.

  The glassy surface of the building reflected the morning sky and the blue tint gave the massive glass panels the appearance of halos of oil swirling in rainwater. Crowds were amassed outside, and as he hurried toward them so he heard a great cheer rise up. Tens of thousands of voices thundered in delight and pointed up into the sky as Nathan slowed and turned to look behind him.

  The clouds above tumbled aside as the immense hull of a warship descended through them, sunlight glinting off the angular hull strakes and the dull, distant rumble of the vessel’s mass drive reverberating through the city. A mile long and heavily armed, Titan looked far more imposing here and now, descending over the city of New York, than she ever had when dwarfed by the immensity of deep space. While the crowds were cheering and revelling in the protection offered by this huge battleship, Nathan felt himself reminded only of the alien invasion movies he’d watched as a teenager, none of which had ended well for humanity.

  He turned and jogged up the steps to the hospital, walking in through the main doors to find the reception area almost empty. Most of the staff and even the few permanent patients were outside watching Titan as her captain prepared to travel from his ship to the CSS Headquarters.

  Nathan made his way swiftly to the elevators and then reached into his pocket and activated Schmidt once more.

  ‘Are we in?’ the doctor asked, whispering.

  ‘We’re inside the hospital but I don’t know where Foxx is.’

  ‘Stand by.’

  Nathan slowed and eased alongside a holopanel, the light display showing a map of the hospital for those without ocular implants to display the information into their line of sight. Moments later, Schmidt gained access.

  ‘Level four, room twenty six.’

  Nathan stepped across to the elevators and travelled up to the fourth floor, exiting onto a quiet corridor. Opposite, a holosap nurse stood beside a reception area and smiled warmly at Nathan, her long hair tied up in a pony-tail. Nathan briefly wondered why she would bother when technically she had no hair at all. Or a head.

  ‘Hello, how may I help you?’

  ‘I’m here to see a friend, Kaylin Foxx,’ Nathan said, hoping that feigned innocence would see him past any security.

  ‘I’m afraid that Miss Foxx is in quarantine sir,’ the holosap replied. ‘I have been instructed to allow no personnel inside her room.’

  Nathan decided to push his luck. ‘I know, that’s why I’m here. Miss Foxx has been poisoned and I have the cure right here.’

  Nathan slipped one hand into the pocket of his jacket and retrieved the vial he had stolen from the warehouse in Denver.

  ‘Miss Foxx is suffering from the early stages of plague,’ the holosap frowned. ‘She can’t yet be cured and…’

  ‘Have you shut her down yet?’ Nathan asked Schmidt.

  ‘Almost.’

  The holosap nurse’s features collapsed into panic and she instinctively whirled to run for help, even though Nathan knew that she didn’t need to run anywhere as she was a part of the c
omputerized systems inside the hospital. Human instinct was a tough beast to tame.

  Suddenly, the holosap shimmered as though the transmission had been broken, and Nathan heard a horrible cry of fear, a warbling scream of broken data before the woman’s semi-transparent form collapsed into streams of visible data that tumbled toward the floor like glowing blue water and then vanished.

  ‘They’ll be on to us,’ Schmidt said. ‘Hurry!’

  Nathan ran down the hall and saw room twenty six on his right, the door firmly locked as he ran up to it. This one was not of hard light but solid and sealed around the edges to ensure that nothing from within the room, where the air pressure was kept lower than the rest of the hospital, could get out.

  ‘It’s locked,’ Nathan said.

  ‘I’m on it,’ Schmidt replied, his own transmission now broken and hard to understand as his power began to run out.

  ‘Give it everything,’ Nathan said. ‘Just get me in there!’

  He heard a faint warble of unintelligible noise in his ear, but Schmidt’s power was now almost completely gone. A door crashed open further back down the corridor and Nathan saw two security guards plunge into the reception area.

  ‘Hey, you!’

  They charged toward Nathan, both of them drawing plasma pistols.

  ‘Schmidt!’

  The door clicked and Nathan shouldered his way through it as the guards rushed closer. He whirled and slammed it shut behind him, then dragged a table across so that it slid beneath the door handle.

  The two guards skittered to a halt outside and crashed against the door but it held firm as Nathan staggered back from it and turned to see Foxx lying unconscious on a bed, her body encased in a glowing sarcophagus of blue light.

  ‘Get out of there!’ one of the guards yelled.

  Nathan leaned close to Foxx, touched the blue shield around her. Hard light repelled his fingers, protecting Foxx from interference and the rest of the world from her lethal infection. Nathan turned and searched for the source of the hard light transmission. A power converter was attached to the wall, just like the ones he had seen all over New Washington. Beside Foxx’s table was a large jug of water.