The Chiral Protocol – A Military Science Fiction Thriller: Biogenesis War Book 2 (The Biogenesis War)

by L. L. Richman

  “Did you hear anything they said? Any mention of why they had come to visit her?”

  “Oh, they weren’t visiting her,” the man corrected. “They’d come to escort her somewhere.”

  “Where?” Jonathan stepped forward, lifting his head to look at Janus.

  The doctor looked up at Jonathan as he neared, and his eyes widened slightly in recognition. “Captain Case,” he murmured, a calculating expression flashing across his face. “I see you made it out of deGrasse in one piece, too. Or should I say all new pieces….”

  Inwardly cursing Jonathan’s temper, Gabe nodded his thanks to Hyer as she moved to block their guest’s view.

  “You said they were taking her somewhere,” he repeated, capturing Janus’s attention once more. He leaned forward, getting right up into the other man’s face. “Where, doctor?”

  The smirk was back on Janus’s face, only this time, it was accompanied by a darker emotion. Triumph, maybe, or a vengeful gratification.

  “They said to tell anyone who asks that Doctor Travis has been called away for a few months. Something about an exchange program at a Coalition university.”

  ENTANGLED VIALS

  Rosen Base

  Undisclosed location

  Sam blinked in disorientation at the unfamiliar surroundings when she awoke the next morning. It took a moment before memory came flooding back.

  The secret facility. Colonel Marceau.

  Throwing the covers off the bed, she rose, her internal chrono telling her that she had half an hour before she was required to be at the lab Marceau had shown her yesterday.

  She dressed quickly and exited, swinging past the small mess hall to grab a coffee and pastry first. Guards seemed to be at every intersection. They nodded politely, but remained watchful and silent.

  As she turned down the corridor that led to the laboratory, she had her wire search for network access. There was only one network available to join, and it continued to display limited connectivity.

  Marceau was standing outside the lab, conversing with a guard in low tones. Their words were indistinguishable, but the expression on the colonel’s face was severe, almost threatening. She heard him say something in a sharp voice just as the soldier looked up and saw her.

  He must have alerted Marceau to her presence. The colonel pivoted to face her, once more the affable man she’d met upon her arrival.

  “Good morning,” he said as she came to a stop by the lab’s entrance. “Ready to meet the team?”

  He took her elbow. Pushing through the lab doors, he escorted her to where two others stood.

  “Doctor Travis, meet Doctors Gish and Demuth. For security reasons, we ask that you not discuss your work prior to coming here.” The colonel turned as footsteps sounded behind Sam. “And our final guest, Doctor Bijin. He’s the lead for this project. If I’m not around, all questions should be funneled to him. Doctor, would you give us a brief tour of this lab, please?”

  Bijin was short and barrel-chested, his face rounded, and his nose flat. He reminded Sam of a bulldog, until he bowed slightly, and she found his manner to be oddly formal. When he spoke, Sam heard a trace of an accent she couldn’t quite place.

  “Of course,” he said, and then gestured to a row of terminals against the wall. “Each of you has been assigned a workstation. As you can see, there are more workstations than there are people to run them. Others will arrive soon to join our team.”

  He gestured to a nearby station, where an RNA replicon manipulator was mounted beside a 3D printer with an optical centrifuge. He laid a hand on the printer.

  “Samples of chiral material identical to the stolen vials are being sequenced and loaded into the two machines you see here. Your job is to identify as many ways in which the material can be weaponized as possible.”

  When he didn’t continue, Sam spoke up. “And then neutralize them.”

  Bijin shot her an annoyed look, his gaze flickering to Marceau and then back to Sam. “And neutralize them,” he echoed.

  “You’ll have to excuse him,” the colonel murmured to Sam. “The doctor’s an old warhorse.”

  Straightening, Marceau stepped forward and raised his voice. “Doctor Travis is here from the Centers for Infectious Diseases. She and a small team of doctors and scientists have been working with the chiral material ever since it was recovered from Luyten’s Star. She will now walk us through what their research has found. Doctor?”

  Sam stepped forward. “As you are aware, the CID works to protect humanity from life-threatening agents of any type. This includes any potential threats that may arise from chiral life found on the planet Vermilion.”

  She looked at Marceau and gestured to the nearby holoscreen. “May I?”

  He nodded, pushing the holo’s token to her over the lab network.

  As the unit flared to life, she loaded the document she’d spent the previous afternoon compiling onto the screen.

  “As you may know, chirality grants pathogens a certain degree of immunity. A mirror virus or microorganism cannot infect its non-mirror host. Which, at first glance, would seem to render them harmless.” She turned from the screen that displayed two simple, mirrored organisms.

  Marceau and Bijin were nodding, but the other two were standing stoically, their expressions carefully blank. Marceau motioned for her to continue.

  Sam turned back to the file. Reaching toward the holo, she gestured, shrinking the images and bringing up a new one.

  “There are two primary ways in which chiral material can be weaponized. One is a slow-moving, brute force instrument. It’s not something you’d ever consider using in conventional warfare, because it would render the battleground completely unusable by both sides,” she said. “In essence, you’d end up fighting over nothing.”

  “And why is that, doctor?” Marceau prompted.

  She turned to face them once more. “It’s a weapon of mass destruction, good only for genocide.” She made a frustrated noise. “That’s too small a word. Planet-o-cide? It would wipe out all life wherever you unleashed it. Chiral life would, in essence, choke out its non-chiral mirror image.”

  “How would it accomplish this?” Marceau asked.

  “All you’d need to do is introduce a very small amount, a droplet, really, of cyanobacteria into a world’s ocean,” she said. “Cyanobacteria is the foundation of an ocean’s food chain, and it replicates through photosynthesis, which means it wouldn’t require chiral fuel to subsist. After that, it would just be a matter of time before the entire ecosystem collapses.”

  “You said it is slow moving, doctor,” Bijin spoke up, eyes almost raptor-like in their intensity. “How slow?”

  Sam cocked her head. “It’d be a few centuries,” she admitted. “It would take a while for the carbon dioxide in the ocean to be converted into mirror material. After that, it would begin to draw more CO2 down from the atmosphere. After a few hundred years, standard carbon dioxide is depleted to the point that photosynthesis no longer occurs, rendering it impossible to grow crops.”

  “So people would starve to death,” Marceau said thoughtfully, rubbing a hand along the edge of his jaw.

  “That’s the first set of problems,” Sam agreed. “Followed by an ice age. You’d be looking at a complete evolutionary reboot.”

  “That isn’t a weapon,” Bijin scoffed. “It’s a long-term strategy. Tell me, doctor, if your idea of ‘slow’ is measured in centuries, is your idea of ‘fast’ measured in years?”

  Sam narrowed her eyes at the man, intense dislike bubbling up within her. “What kind of doctor did you say you were, again?” she asked sharply. “Because you seem awfully bloodthirsty for someone who has taken an oath to first do no harm.”

  The two doctors, who had up to now remained silent, shifted uncomfortably at her verbal attack.

  Bijin stepped toward her, anger written across his face. Marceau raised a restraining hand, and the shorter man visibly struggled to control himself.

  As Marc
eau continued to stare at Bijin, the doctor gave a short jerk of his head. “My… apologies, Doctor Travis. I have been practicing war far longer than I have medicine.”

  As apologies went, it didn’t do much to explain his behavior, but she nodded her acceptance anyway.

  “Please, doctor, continue.” Marceau’s voice was soft but firm.

  Sam sucked in a lungful of air and, on a quick exhale, turned once more to the holo. “Fast,” she muttered. “You want fast? I can give you fast. The other main way in which chiral material can be weaponized is to use it to encase an existing biochemical weapon.”

  “Why would that give the Akkadians an advantage, doctor?”

  Sam met Marceau’s eyes. “Because the chiral cloning process developed by Lee Stinton also engenders a state of quantum entanglement at the molecular level, so when a small, entangled, biological compound like a virus replicates, those particles are entangled too. That’s why—”

  She broke off when she heard an audible gasp from one of the doctors, and saw shock and a dawning awareness arise in Marceau’s eyes. Unease settled in her gut.

  “I… thought you’d been read into this, Colonel.”

  “Not to this degree, no,” he murmured. He straightened abruptly as if suddenly recalling where he was. She saw a wry expression cross his face as he added, “I’m going to have to give your uncle a hard time about this, Sam. He’s been holding out on me.”

  Bijin stepped forward, eyes alight with banked excitement. “They are truly entangled? To what extent? What would happen if we were to program a release sequence into a chiral pair? Could you plant one light years away on a distant world, and use the other as a trigger to activate it?”

  Sam stared back at the man, unable to comprehend the elation that had seized him.

  She felt Marceau’s hand wrap around her upper arm. “Answer him, please, doctor.”

  She swallowed, unease transforming for the first time into genuine fear. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “We haven’t come that far in our research.”

  “But in theory?” Bijin demanded.

  Sam felt the hand around her arm tighten, and she nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, you could.”

  MISSING TRIGGER

  ‘Rosen’ Base

  An-Yang Dust Belt

  Proxima Centauri

  The open hostility between Bijin and Travis made Marceau realize it had been a mistake to give the man leadership over the research team. As they dispersed to find their workstations, he pulled Bijin aside.

  “We can’t afford another clash between you two,” he said quietly. “Please gather your things and move to the lab on the other side of the base.”

  Far from being upset over the order, the doctor beamed. “Excellent. I will be able to continue my work uninterrupted.”

  And your presence will cause no further disruption, Marceau thought, but he merely nodded his agreement.

  After Bijin left, the colonel remained until he felt sure Sam had settled in and was reviewing the data on her workstation. Only then did he decide it was safe to leave the lab.

  He strode toward a nearby lift, placing his palm on its controls. His biosignature allowed him to bypass security measures that kept Samantha Travis confined to this level.

  The lift descended. When its doors parted, the gimlet-eyed soldier who exited in no way resembled the Alliance officer he had been tapped to portray.

  When he spoke, his words weren’t in Standard, but in the little-used Old Tongue. It was a language spoken almost exclusively within the ranks of the Junxun Tèzhǒng.

  “Citizen General,” Marceau sketched a crisp bow.

  “Doctor Travis is cooperating?” Che asked, and the Junxun agent inclined his head in a brief nod.

  “She appears a bit cautious, and has asked to confirm with her uncle, but I believe I have managed to assuage her concerns for the moment,” he said.

  He looked over at McGee, who stood in parade rest behind the general. “Do we have an ETA for the other scientists?”

  The man who had posed as an NSA agent to retrieve Travis stepped forward. “They should arrive later this afternoon. “There are three: an Alliance pathologist and two biochemists. One is from Brower Biologics, the others from the Merki Institute on Hawking.”

  “Good.” Marceau’s breath left him in a gust of air. “The medical corpsmen we have in the lab right now posing as doctors will not be able to stand up under close scrutiny for very long.”

  “That is why you ordered them not to interact, is it not?” Che asked.

  Marceau nodded. “Yes. Their lack of expertise would soon be evident if Doctor Travis were to engage them in conversation. Speaking of which, I know we require Bijin’s expertise, but he very nearly cost us the ruse with his response to her imperialist opinions.”

  “Bijin may be a terrible actor, but he is loyal to Rin Zhou,” Che reminded him. “And we need a biochemist to assemble the delivery mechanism for our biochemical payload.”

  Marceau inclined his head, acknowledging that fact. “I know his role is vital, but I believe he’ll do more harm than good if he interacts much more with Travis, so I asked him to restrict himself to our side of the base.”

  Che jerked his chin down in a brief nod. “Whatever it takes to complete the job.”

  “Five days until the summit,” McGee shook his head. “That’s very little time for us to pull off this operation.”

  “Thus our subterfuge,” the general said. “If Doctor Travis believes she is working to benefit her own people, she will gladly do the work for us.”

  “I would be happy to provide her with an incentive to perform.” The voice was low and seemed to come from out of nowhere.

  Marceau turned to see Che’s shadow, the assassin, stepping away from the wall. He hadn’t seen her or sensed her presence until the moment she spoke.

  She glided toward them, closing the distance until she stood by the general’s side. A glance down showed she had pulled a karambit and was turning the handle so that the blade glinted under the room’s lighting.

  “Deception will get faster results. Coercion may take longer than we have,” Che murmured, reaching out and gently lowering the hand wielding the blade. “Her worth isn’t only on her knowledge, but in the value her uncle places on her. She is his closest living relative. I’m sure she will be useful in other ventures, if not this one.”

  He turned his attention back on Marceau. “Do you have any more updates for me, Citizen Colonel?”

  “Yes, actually. It’s why I came down here,” he said with a slight grimace. “Doctor Bijin confirmed that vials one and two contain nothing more than simple protein chains from Vermilion plant life. It would seem our person inside the CID failed to deliver the requested material.”

  Che’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. “It’s at times like this that you truly regret not being able to go back and kill someone all over again.”

  McGee shook his head. “The programmer? I wouldn’t have thought she’d be brave enough to do something like that.”

  “And yet she did,” Che said, his gaze shifting from McGee to Marceau. “Let that be a lesson. Never underestimate an opponent. Even a dove can turn on you if provoked.”

  Marceau bowed his head, acknowledging that truth.

  “Please, Colonel, continue,” Che said. “Did Bijin have anything to say about the third vial?”

  Marceau felt the room’s sudden interest, and he kept his expression carefully neutral as he replied, “That is the other reason why I came. The third vial does contain a viral pathogen, and it can be weaponized.”

  He leaned in slightly and lowered his voice as he delivered his next line.

  “Travis’s briefing included one vital bit of information something we were previously unaware of. The vials are paired, one chiral, one non-chiral. In order to use the third vial against those attending the summit, we must get our hands on the fourth.”

  Che’s brow creased, and he pulled his head bac
k with a frown. “Are you saying this is a two-stage weapon?”

  Marceau shook his head. “Not precisely, no. But if you control one vial, you control the other.”

  He purposely kept his words vague, aware that others might be listening in.

  Turning to McGee, he asked, “Did I hear you have a team working to acquire it?”

  McGee grimaced. “One of our agents was to meet the man who purchased the vial on a mining torus in Procyon. An Alliance recon unit got to him before we had a chance to intercept him.”

  “So the material is lost to us, then?” Che asked sharply.

  McGee shook his head. “No. This man has a properties manager who took possession of the vial. We will go after her next.”

  “Do we know where this properties manager is?”

  “Yes, but it will be a race to see who gets there first. I’m sure the Alliance will get her location out of the man shortly.”

  Marceau turned to Che in alarm. “Sir, I would strongly urge you to put as many resources behind this as you can. The entire operation may hinge upon us acquiring that fourth vial.”

  He felt the weight of Che’s gaze as the other man studied him quietly for a long moment. The general shifted his eyes to McGee and nodded once. The man stepped away, motioning to one of his people to join him at a comm console.

  “Now then, my friend,” Che said, lowering his voice and stepping in closer to Marceau. “Tell me exactly what it was you did not say about that missing vial. Why it is so imperative we have it?”

  Marceau met his eyes, willing his superior to feel the import of his next statement.

  “The vials are connected. When we plant the bioweapon inside the ballroom where the summit is being held, this final vial will act like a remote control. Whatever you do to the contents of one vial, the other will emulate. You will be able to release the bioweapon from anywhere.”

  He paused a beat, and then added, “And I do mean anywhere.”