Gabe turned to Sasha, motioning between Rafe, Micah, and Ell. “I guess most of you are already acquainted?”
Sasha nodded. “Our paths have crossed a few times, yes.” She inclined her head toward the man who stood beside Ell. “Though this is a new face.”
Gabe smiled and turned toward Ell. “Want to introduce us to your bloodhound?”
The compact woman shot Gabe a quelling look that stopped just shy of an eyeroll. “I’m sure he appreciates the comparison, too,” she said in a dry tone. “Charles, meet the guy who recruited me to criminal investigation, Gabriel Alvarez.”
Gabe smiled. “Couldn’t let the opportunity pass. The Unit’s loss was our gain.”
Charles murmured his agreement as he shook the agent’s proffered hand.
Next, Ell turned to Sasha and gave her a brisk, no-nonsense nod. “Captain, good to see you again. Meet Charles Quinn.” She turned to Quinn as the man reached to shake Sasha’s hand. “I’d tell you her last name if I could pronounce the damn thing.”
The leader of Foxtrot barked a laugh and let out a spurt of Russian. Ell responded in kind.
Micah looked over at Gabe and Rafe, and the three exchanged knowing smiles.
“I forgot Ell’s dry sense of humor,” Micah said.
Rafe laughed. “And the fact that she speaks Russian—along with about three other languages.” He shook his head.
They were interrupted by Ell, who turned and poked Micah in the shoulder.
“Zander tells me you were the one who helped seal that magnetosphere breach we had here a few years back.”
Rafe snorted. “No, Ell, I told you he blew plasma out his ass to seal the breach. Get your story right.”
Yeah, but it wasn’t me who flew it. I didn’t even exist at the time. The bleak thought flitted through Micah’s mind as Ell and Rafe continued to discuss an event that occurred prior to Micah’s creation in Luyten’s Star.
Ell shot Rafe a longsuffering look. “Facts, Zander. I deal in facts, not wise-ass pilot speak.” She turned back to Micah. “At any rate, thanks for plugging that hole while I was chasing down the Akkadian assassin who caused it.”
Micah blinked. “Wait. What? That whole thing was Akkadia’s fault too?”
Ell’s gaze turned quizzical and something approaching humor flared in her eyes as she exchanged a look with Rafe. “You could say that. Or you could just say it was the result of a bad paint job,” she added.
Quinn choked, and Micah realized some sort of inside joke had just passed between their three hosts. Before anyone could ask about it further, Ell held up a hand.
“If you happen to run into Thad when you get back, ask him to tell you the story. I’m sure you can loosen him up over a few beers.” Her comment had a ring of finality to it that seemed to draw the social exchange to a close.
Rafe motioned for the group to follow him, and Micah fell into step beside him, Sasha on his other side. The two four-person teams that made up Delta and Foxtrot trailed along behind, while Gabe walked with Ell and Quinn.
The major led them over to a table that had been set up just inside the doors that led from the hangar into Nimitz Base. He gestured around them.
“We put you in our secured hangar, across the base from the rest of the wing,” Rafe told them. “We were also told this op’s top clearance only, so we have countersurveillance and jamming apps running.”
Ell looked at Sasha as she took a seat. “This is going down at the Merki Institute?”
When Sasha nodded, Ell pulled out a portable holoprojector. “I’ve been through that building a few times. I’ll walk you through the setup, and then we can hop a flight to the Belly Band for an initial recon.”
Quinn caught the confused look that crossed the face of one of Sasha’s team members. “Belly Band’s the nickname locals gave the ring that circles the middle of Hawking’s McKendree cylinder,” the man explained. “It’s a quick twenty-minute flight from here, and then we ride the elevator down to Midland.”
“And that’s where this Merki Institute’s located? In Midland?” Sasha queried.
Rafe nodded. “Second largest city in the habitat. Set up right against Olympic Lake and a nice stretch of forest land, about fifteen thousand hectares’ worth.”
The team leader nodded, expression thoughtful.
Clapping his hands together, Gabe’s gaze swept the group. “Okay, then. Let’s get this briefing started.”
LIVE FIRE
Akkadian Base
An-Yang Dust Belt
Proxima Centauri
With Marceau holding both Linnet’s life and those of the other Alliance scientists in his hands, Sam felt she had no choice but to go through the motions of cooperating with Bijin.
The medical scientist had samples of both the chiral and non-chiral versions of the hantavirus projected onto a holo above the glove boxes. He used a nanoprobe to pierce the protein envelope that enclosed the chiral virus. As he did, the view jumped to show the RNA material inside.
Bijin manipulated the probe, pushing through the material until he came to the khufuvirus, floating amongst the RNA strands.
“Ahhhh,” the man breathed in apparent satisfaction. “Now this, I can work with.” He glanced sharply at Sam, and then over to Marceau. “I need assurances.”
Marceau stirred. “What kind, doctor?”
“I need to know that no anti-tamper sequence has been introduced into the strand that will cause it to terminate if manipulated in the wrong way.”
Marceau looked toward the airlock, and Sam saw one of the soldiers stationed outside straighten when the colonel caught his eye. He went over to the cell that held Linnet, and placed his palm beside the controls for the ES field. His other hand rested on his weapon.
He turned. “You think the Alliance may have failsafed the virus?”
At Bijin’s nod, Marceau glanced over at the cell where Linnet was being held. His next words were directed at Sam. “If it disintegrates when Doctor Bijin touches it, so will Doctor Thompson. Are we clear?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
Marceau inclined his head toward Bijin. “Tell the doctor what he needs to know.”
Sam sucked in a lungful of air. “Begin at the juncture between the third and fourth segment in the strand.”
The doctor didn’t acknowledge her; he merely turned and bent over the glove box once more. He slid a sidelong glance her way, and the crafty look in his eyes made her want to throw up.
Sam knew all too well how easily this virus could be reassorted into a devastatingly efficient killer. A killer like Marburg. Ebola. Lloviu. Sargon. She had been holding out a fleeting hope that Bijin might be more of a generalist than either a virologist or a biochemist.
However, the way he transferred the viral material out of the vial and into an RNA manipulation unit and began working it put paid to that possibility.
She bit her lip as she watched Bijin bring up a different image on the screen, a modified Sargon virus he’d clearly been working on. Her hands clenched in impotent rage when she spotted the extra gene-modified variant he’d added—the viral equivalent of pouring accelerant onto flames.
“Now this….” Bijin’s voice was low but filled with a satisfaction that bordered on glee. “This will work very nicely, indeed.”
Monsters.
Sam’s brows drew down in puzzlement when the man went against her expectations and added a sequence that rendered the entire thing inactive. When she saw him bring up another screen that showed an enzyme she knew would cleave the sequence back into action, she understood.
This was his trigger mechanism.
She followed his movements as he brought up the other vial on his scope. She knew he was checking to see if the material was indeed entangled at a quantum level.
Sam silently castigated herself once again for letting that critical bit of intel slip. It didn’t matter that she’d believed this was an Alliance research facility at the time; she should have known better than
to mention it.
She looked on as Bijin inserted a probe into the non-chiral sample, deftly maneuvering past the outer envelope and through the RNA material until he came upon the mirror khufuvirus.
Sam’s heart sank, and Bijin chortled with satisfaction at what the holo showed.
The mirror virus had indeed been transformed to match its entangled twin.
Bijin wasted no time transferring the newly reassorted virus into a culture bath. Once completed, he sent it over to an RNA replicon machine.
The man turned, satisfaction written on his face. “It is done,” he told Marceau.
The colonel looked shocked. “That quickly?” He looked from Bijin to Sam and then back. “If altering a virus is so easy, then why did we go to all this trouble to obtain it? Why not simply do the same thing from within your lab on Eridu?”
Bijin dismissed the question with a scoffing sound. “You do not understand, Citizen Colonel. It is not the manipulation of the virus that is so difficult. It is the entanglement of the particle itself that is the masterpiece here.” He cocked his head, a grudging admiration showing in his eyes as he looked over at Sam.
He hummed, rocking back on his heels as he sought to explain it in words the colonel might understand. “It is like shooting a firearm. All you do is pull the trigger and the weapon fires. Simple, yes? So why the need for soldiers, or sharpshooters? Just have an SI do it.”
Marceau scowled. “It takes extensive training to properly handle and discharge a firearm. If the target is moving, it takes exceptional hand-to-eye coordination. An experienced, battle-tested soldier develops an instinct for it that no SI can master.”
Bijin nodded sagely, crossing his arms over his chest as if Marceau had just made is point for him.
Sam realized that he had.
Marceau didn’t connect the dots, however. “Doctor. Elaborate.”
Sam would have laughed at the colonel’s annoyed growl had the situation been any less dire. Instead, she willed them to ignore her and keep talking. The longer they talked, the greater her chances that help would arrive before something deadly was unleashed out into the cosmos.
Bijin sighed long and loud. “Fine. It is like this. What I just did? Reassorting a virus? That is something a student learns how to do in school. Equivalent to a novice soldier’s first week at a shooting range.”
He turned back to the holo and pointed to the image of the chiral supraparticle. “Knowing that a certain type of material can be inserted inside another without it being rejected as a foreign body, having the vision to build it into a supraparticle shell, using that shell to safely hide a material that most certainly would be rejected by its host, and then doing so successfully?”
Bijin bowed to Sam, the lowest bow she had seen from any of the Akkadians thus far.
“That, Citizen Colonel, is the work of a virtuoso.”
Sam felt the eyes of both men as they turned to regard her. Bijin’s were admiring, almost envious. Marceau’s were thoughtful. She hated them both.
When the replicon beeped, signaling the sample was ready for use, her gut twisted. She took an involuntary step toward the unit, but checked her motion when Marceau lifted a brow in silent challenge.
Bijin hummed to himself as he bustled around the lab, filling a canister full of aerosolized colloid nano with the viral agent. That task complete, he turned and presented the canister to Marceau with a much smaller bow.
“Citizen Colonel, I believe we are ready for our first test.”
Marceau waved Bijin forward, and the doctor went over to a bank of panels Sam hadn’t noticed before. As they lit up, she could see one of the consoles was connected to the isolation rooms’ environmental systems.
He pulled one of the rooms up on the holo as he inserted the cylinder into the console. With a glance back at the colonel, Bijin said, “Initiating test now.”
* * *
The Akkadian operatives who accompanied Bijin to his laboratory didn’t follow him inside. Instead, they took up stations on either side of the airlock. That gave them an excellent view of the experiment about to take place.
The citizen doctor had ordered the prisoners separated into two groups; he’d told the soldiers that one would be the control, the other the first experimental wave.
Neither man knew what the doctor was talking about, but that was nothing unusual. Ever since they’d arrived and been assigned to his support staff, they’d been subjected to a running commentary that meant less than nothing to them.
At first, this had seemed to annoy Bijin, but then the citizen doctor had muttered something about being able to increase the sample size if they didn’t work out. That seemed to have restored the man’s good humor somewhat, and this relieved both of the soldiers.
Being assigned to escort a medical scientist might seem to be menial work, something their counterparts back home would scoff at, but their participation in this pivotal event would go in their records, and after Asher Dent was defeated, their careers would be assured.
The first soldier stared across the hallway at the prisoners behind the ES field. Too cowed and beaten to be a threat, they moved with a numb lethargy, hopelessness etched into their faces.
“How does one disperse a bioweapon like this without being killed along with the intended victims?” one asked the other softly, his voice barely above a whisper.
The other looked oddly at him. “You sound as if you aren’t willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the cause.”
“It’s not that,” the first hastened to assure him. “It’s just… surely they must have a way to keep this weapon from turning on its wielders, yes?”
A haughty expression crept over the other’s face as he recalled what he had overheard Bijin tell Citizen Colonel Marceau earlier that day. Nodding toward the cells, he said, “The mixture is oxyphobic.”
“Oxy— What? It is afraid of air?”
His perplexed tone had the other soldier puffing his chest out in self-importance. “No, oxyphobic means it reacts in the presence of oxygen.”
The first soldier leveled an accusing look at his companion. “You have no idea what you are saying. You’re just parroting what you overheard.”
The other shrugged. “I heard enough to know that the virus is inert until it is aerosolized.” He nodded at the ventilation system in the sealed rooms. “Once it is introduced into the air ducts, then we will see who knows what he is talking about.”
They watched as Bijin approached the clearsteel wall from within the lab. A portable device sheathed his hand and forearm, while his other hand was buried in the holo projected just above it as he input a string of commands. He looked up at the men in the first cell one last time, nodded in satisfaction, and then triggered the sequence.
The soldiers turned back to the cells to watch.
At first, nothing seemed to happen. After several minutes had passed, the four subjects huddled together began to cough. One by one, they collapsed onto the floor as their bodies began to succumb to the viral agent.
The control group looked on in horror as the clearsteel sheeting separating the two rooms gave them an intimate view of the gruesome results of an airborne version of a hemorrhagic virus.
Sobs erupted from the woman as one man turned to the side, dry heaving in reaction to the sight. Another pounded furiously on the clearsteel wall separating them from the soldiers standing guard.
“Murderers! Bloody fecking murderers!”
PANDEMIC
Royal Ceriba Yacht Atliekan Queen
Atliekas Nebula Park
The first indication the captain had that things had turned south was when Josh pinged her to report they had their first casualties.
{We need to get back to port now,} he said, and she could hear he was approaching full-blown panic.
“Just calm down, Josh, and tell me exactly what’s going on.”
She knew she didn’t need to speak the words to be heard, but she found that in situations like this, she
thought with greater clarity if she repeated aloud the conversation that was going on in her head.
“You’re saying that you’ve given them the antigen that the Navy captain sent us from the CID, but it’s not working?”
{That’s exactly what I’m saying. But it’s not just that.} Josh’s words were clipped as he rushed them out as quickly as he could think them. {It’s altered. I just took a sample from one of the deceased—stars know there is plenty of material to work with.}
That last was said with an odd timbre, and the captain was suddenly glad Josh had opted not to use the holo.
“Okay, then. Which destination did the CID say we needed to head for?”
There was a pause on the other end.
{They didn’t.}
“What do you mean?”
{Look, Captain. All I’m saying is that if we don’t get these people more qualified help very soon—and I mean immediately—there’s going to be no one left alive to bring this ship into port. Any port, anywhere.}
“Stars, Josh, you’re laying the drama on a bit thick, aren’t you?”
{No, Captain. I’m really not.}
* * *
A comm came in from the Novastrike squadron shadowing the Atliekan Queen. The NSA analyst monitoring the feed stepped into the situation room where Cutter, Addy, Toland, and Valenti sat.
“We have a problem, sir, ma’ams,” the analyst said. He gestured to a nearby holo, and the feed he’d just intercepted came online. “It’s the Atliekan Queen. Captain on that ship has turned for the nearest port and is pinging the CID with an urgent request for medical assistance. Says they’re experiencing heavy casualties.”
Addy exchanged a swift glance with Toland before she returned her attention to the holo.
“Play it,” Cutter ordered, and the analyst turned back to the screen.
“This is Captain Nolotov of the Atliekan Queen, requesting a redirect to the nearest port with advanced medical facilities, and a liaison with someone in the CID,” they heard a woman’s voice say. “Repeat….”
The Chiral Protocol – A Military Science Fiction Thriller: Biogenesis War Book 2 (The Biogenesis War) Page 24
