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

by L. L. Richman

  Jonathan flipped over to the isolated channel the team was using in time to hear a woman’s voice say, {Ten centimeters… five… and hold.}

  There was a beat of silence, and then, {Bravo Charlie active. I’m dropping into the vent. Feed coming at you in five.}

  The feed from the Unit soldier’s optics showed a long, narrow shaft with handholds welded to one side. The woman descended more than a dozen meters before the vent stopped abruptly at a hatch.

  The soldier’s arm came into the feed, another BC in her hand. Jonathan saw the moment the breaching canister’s light flashed green, indicating it was safe to enter.

  {We’re green. Repeat, green,} the advance scout called out, and instantly, three more bodies passed through Wraith’s hatch and into the shaft.

  Jonathan watched the ship’s telltales, but waited for confirmation before moving.

  {Hatch is sealed,} Will reported.

  {Go! Go! Go!} Thad called out, and Jonathan nosed Wraith up, sending her to the next insertion point.

  The drill was repeated three more times before Jonathan brought the Helios in front of their final stop: the asteroid base’s massive docking bay doors.

  {See you on the flipside, ami,} Thad called out as he, Boone, and Asha dropped from the ship’s hatch.

  {Good hunting,} Jonathan replied, but the Marine had already cut the connection.

  * * *

  Bijin’s testing of the viral weapon had been halted at Marceau’s order—not out of compassion, but expediency, Sam was sure. It was more important for the doctor to fill the requisite number of canisters with the bioweapon than it was to confirm the test was repeatable.

  Thank God for small mercies.

  That left her alone in the lab with only the watchful eye of a pair of guards to keep her company for the remainder of the day.

  She’d been hesitant to test her boundaries at first. As time went on, she’d screwed up enough courage to try to approach the equipment. The soldier nearest her had raised his pistol, barking out the order that she step away. She’d done so, hands raised.

  Then she’d moved restlessly about the perimeter of the room, seeking anything she could use as a weapon, eyes probing the area for weaknesses. She found none.

  Eventually, Marceau returned. She wondered if she imagined the banked triumph in his eyes, but refused to engage him in conversation beyond a demand that she be able to join Linnet and the other two scientists.

  Marceau ignored her, hustling her through the lab’s airlock and back to the quarters she’d been assigned. She immediately tried to access the room’s door, and found exactly what she’d expected: it was locked.

  The night passed and the next morning came without anyone coming to her door. Sam tried the base’s network only to find she’d been completely cut off. She wondered fleetingly if they’d just abandon her here, now that they’d extracted the information they needed.

  Fear of being left to freeze or to run out of air rose in her mind. She pushed it away, willing herself to find a way out.

  She walked through the room—her prison—once more, seeking weaknesses that she could use to her advantage. She discovered a small DBC unit that had been tossed carelessly into one corner of the room’s single utilitarian desk. The unit functioned, however it had only one brick of formation material attached to it.

  She had the unit handshake with her wire, and then began probing at it, seeking a backdoor she could exploit. She knew if she could hack her way in and get it to accept alternative forms of matter as formation material, she might be able to print herself a weapon.

  It was a long shot. Both the reprogramming and the actual creation of the weapon would be a slow process—if it was even feasible. Any number of things could go wrong, not the least of which that she could get caught at any point along the way.

  She had nothing better to do, however, so she settled back onto the bed, resigned to long hours of tedious work.

  That came to an abrupt halt when she heard alarms sound in the distance.

  Her head snapped up just as the overhead lights began to strobe in a universal warning that something was amiss. She smiled grimly.

  Help had arrived.

  PITCHED BATTLE

  Akkadian Base

  An-Yang Dust Belt

  Proxima Centauri

  Wraith remained on station, hovering mere meters above the access point where Thad, Boone, and Asha had inserted into the base. Yuki had a sphere of sensors working the section of nearspace surrounding this side of the asteroid, and Jonathan had both of the Novastrikes’ sensors up on secondary screens.

  So far, it seemed their arrival had gone unnoticed, just as planned. Everyone knew that wouldn’t hold for long.

  Nina had her weapons trained in two directions, both at the asteroid and outward, prepared to engage any aggressors who might suddenly appear. Will had both hands sunk into his console, his face a mask of concentration. His fingers swept through the holo before him, an intricate weave of gestures and jabs, pushes and grabs as he sought something Jonathan couldn’t see.

  He grunted, the sound breaking the silence that had descended upon Wraith’s cockpit since the teams had deployed.

  {Talk to me, Specialist Morris.} Jonathan sent the words softly, not wanting to jar the man from his absorption.

  Will’s head jerked up anyway. He blinked rapidly, his eyes refocusing on his surroundings. And then he grinned.

  {I’m in,} he announced.

  * * *

  The entry point Thad had chosen for Blue sat two meters above a catwalk that ran along the length of the bay. Even better, it was located in an unused corner of the hangar, the area cast in deep shadow.

  The three infiltrators slid from the vent, landing on the mesh walkway with quiet thumps masked by colloid audio chaff. Thad motioned for Boone to cover them.

  {You’re up, cher,} he told Asha, and the medic knelt and extracted her carbyne-jacketed rope.

  A quick look around, and she nodded to an area up ahead where a support beam would hide their movements from the Akkadian vessels they could see lined up on the far side.

  After attaching the rope to the catwalk’s steel frame, she clipped a set of handholds onto it and fast-roped down. Thad waited for her to position herself where she could provide covering fire before he followed her down the rope.

  {Your turn, ami,} he ordered once he was planted, and Boone closed the distance on silent feet within thirty seconds.

  With a sharp tug and a mental command, the carbyne rope fell into Boone’s waiting hands, and he coiled it as he crossed over to where Thad and Asha crouched, then handed it to the medic, who tucked it away.

  {Okay, exactly as we rehearsed,} Thad told them. {Boone, you’re scout. I’ll bring up the rear. If you see anything—}

  He was cut off by an incoming message, a brief, encrypted burst from Wraith. He knew those onboard wouldn’t break op silence without good reason.

  {Go,} he barked.

  An icon appeared.

  {Will managed to hack into their systems.} Jonathan’s voice sounded inside his head. {Want us to contact the other teams?}

  {Negative. I’ll do it from this end. Tell Will I owe him a beer,} Thad replied as a connection request appeared on his drakeskin’s combat HUD.

  He toggled it, and information came flooding in, along with secured visual feeds. Will had tagged the vials’ location; he’d also found where Sam was being held, as well as the three Alliance scientists.

  Thad’s mouth thinned into a hard line as he saw the notation that they’d been marked for elimination.

  He passed the information along to Boone and Asha, and then reached out to the leaders of teams One through Four. He added two quick instructions to the comm burst.

  {Team Three, the L4 lab’s in your sector. Team Four, rendezvous with Three. There are two vials inside, and six prisoners to extract.}

  The brief EM signal could pinpoint their locations for the enemy, he knew, but the tactical informat
ion provided by Will’s hack into the base was worth the risk.

  Four sets of two-clicks confirmed receipt of his transmission, then Thad went dark once more, his only link now the low-powered one that he, Boone, and Asha shared.

  {Sam’s nearby,} he sent, highlighting the room two levels up where she was being held. {Let’s go spring the doc and do a bit of vermin extermination along the way, what do ya say?}

  {Oo-rah,} Asha said, her tone sounding much more bloodthirsty than usual.

  * * *

  Jonathan sat back with a satisfied smile. {Good work,} he told Will. {That ought to cut their time inside significantly.}

  Will shrugged off the compliment, but his face held a slight smile as he returned his attention to his console.

  Jonathan felt a mental tap, and widened the pathway he and his chiral twin shared.

  Now a good time? Micah asked.

  Sure. The teams just infiltrated. You know how it is, he told his doppelganger with a mental smile. We’re just the taxi service, hanging out, waiting for them to return.

  There was a pause. Any news yet?

  Jonathan could sense the concern in the other man’s words.

  Yeah, Will hacked into the base and located Sam. The team’s on their way to spring her now.

  The relief that came across their connection was palpable, but then turned to quick annoyance. And you didn’t think to lead with that?

  Well, I—

  Jonathan stopped as a sharp exclamation from Yuki brought his eyes rocketing to his readouts.

  Gotta go, he shot the words toward his other self.

  He barely noticed Micah’s mental retreat as Wraith’s proximity alarms began going off.

  He plunged back into his merge with the ship, his awareness of the cockpit melting away as the blackness of space enveloped him once again. His overlay began to populate with information as Yuki fed him datastreams from her drones.

  {Four Hydra Mark IVs,} she sent, the words delivered in a clipped, staccato-like tone. {Two converging on Blackbird Two, the others are going after Blackbird One. Novastrikes are maneuvering to engage. I don’t think they know Wraith’s here, Cap.}

  Jonathan sent Wraith hurtling toward the nearest Novastrike even as he asked, {Where the hell did they come from, Lieutenant?}

  He felt more than saw her headshake.

  {Don’t know, Cap. Katana didn’t report seeing any when she was here earlier. Likely, the big belch from that star over there hid their EM signatures from us, just like it hid our transition out of Scharnhorst space from them. Took ‘em a while to notice us. Not sure what tipped them off, either.}

  Jonathan’s eyes narrowed as he saw the ships arrowing toward Blackbird Two. Wraith interpreted that as his desire to investigate further, and the ship’s SI magnified that sector of space.

  {Their headings indicate they came from there and there,} Will joined in, dropping pins on the locations where Wraith’s drones had initially picked them up. {Hidden behind a few smaller stones.}

  Jonathan didn’t bother acknowledging; he was too busy analyzing the situation before him. His gaze swept from one engagement cone to the other, nearly one hundred eighty degrees opposed, with respect to the asteroid.

  What he saw wasn’t encouraging. Two of the Hydras had already engaged Blackbird Two and were slinging railgun fire at the fighter. The Novastrike’s pilot sent the ship into a dive to dodge the initial salvo, and then put the vessel through a series of random jinks to evade the second Hydra.

  As Jonathan watched, Blackbird Two flushed a cloud of chaff, and its drone complement went into point-defense mode, firing lasers at the metal slugs the Akkadian ship was slinging at its armored hide.

  {Nina! Steel!} Jonathan called out, and the gunner went weapons-free, engaging the Hydra that was the fighter’s biggest threat.

  {Reconfiguring,} Yuki announced, and Jonathan saw the drone swarm that surrounded Wraith shift as the lieutenant manipulated the complement under her command.

  She recalled some of the sensor drones and exchanged them for more effective point-defense and electronic countermeasure platforms. The Dazzlers went winging toward each of the four Hydras, a small but mighty part of Wraith’s arsenal.

  One from each pair immediately began producing powerful jamming signals, while the other emitted decoy EM meant to draw smart weapons toward them and away from the ship they had been programmed to target.

  Jonathan saw tracer fire and then felt the deep foomp foomp that accompanied the firing of Wraith’s RAU-19 railguns as Nina let loose with a stream of steel-jacketed slugs. Yuki’s point defense lasers joined those of Blackbird Two as they battled the Hydras’ onslaught.

  A lucky hit rocked the Novastrike just as its pilot was jinking, and Jonathan saw the ship kick over into an uncontrolled tumble.

  {Ah, damn,} he heard over comms. {Shoulda zigged instead of zagged.}

  {Status!} Jonathan barked as he sent Wraith into a slip that would give them a least-time intercept to the hail of bullets raining down upon the Novastrike.

  The pilot’s voice sounded tense. {Took a direct hit to the interlock between the nav controls and the drive. Both aft and port thrusters inoperable.}

  {Cap, there’s a small rock directly in his path. It’s too big for his ship’s magnetic sweepers. He’s going to need to eject,} Will warned on their private ship’s net.

  {Copy,} Jonathan responded, and then switched back over to the combat net. {Ben, you see that rock about to hit you? Get the hell out of there. We’ll cover you.}

  A two-click hit the net just as Jonathan saw a puff of air expelling from the fighter’s cockpit and a small figure go jetting outward. Five seconds later, the rock impacted the Novastrike.

  Yuki sent a pair of point defense drones to provide cover for the pilot while Nina dealt with the Hydras. Jonathan spun Wraith, and the gunner let loose with a tungsten sabot that embedded itself into the Hydra’s flank.

  The fighter was too well-armored for the sabot to pierce its hull, but the fighter’s pilot would surely know his bell had been rung.

  While he was shaking that off, Nina let loose with another spate of railgun fire, concentrating on three of the Akkadian fighter’s known weak points.

  The Hydra’s partner began harrying them in retaliation. Nina growled a low {Bugger off,} and then flung a tungsten sabot at the second ship.

  The fighter broke away, allowing Nina the precious few seconds she needed to nail the first ship.

  She let out a mental whoop as the fighter’s accel abruptly dropped, and it shot past at a steady velocity on a heading from which it did not deviate.

  Unfortunately for the Akkadian piloting the ship, that heading would intersect with another large rock in exactly three minutes.

  {He’s too busy shitting his pants to do much else, I’ll bet,} the gunner said smugly.

  {Good. Do it again,} Jonathan ordered, pointing Wraith’s nose at the remaining Hydra.

  He brought them in low, giving her a good look at the fighter’s underbelly as he split his attention long enough to check on Blackbird One.

  {How you doing over there?} he asked.

  {Yuki sent me a present,} a female voice responded. {Damn those Dazzlers are nice, but a Banshee? They make nice holes in ships, didja know that?}

  Jonathan chuckled. {I take it you’re not in any immediate danger?}

  {Nah, just playing tag with this last joker, bouncing him between the two Banshees Yuki sent. He’s running scared. Just do me a favor and fish Ben out of the drink, will ya?}

  {Roger,} Jonathan replied.

  He gave Nina a mental heads-up that he was about to maneuver, and then turned the ship toward the pilot’s transponder blip, his attention still partially on the Hydra that Wraith’s gunner had engaged.

  As he watched the way the Hydra moved, his gaze intensified. He waited to be certain he wasn’t imagining it, but Wraith’s SI had noticed the same thing.

  Maybe it was pilot fatigue. Maybe the pilot was injured and
had handed over some of the nav to his ship’s control. Whatever the reason, Jonathan saw a repeating pattern emerging.

  He nudged Nina. {Pilot’s got a tell.}

  He studied the Hydra for another few seconds, mentally anticipating the moves the other ship was about to make, and then projected a specific location on the Hydra’s spaceframe onto Nina’s targeting reticle.

  {Put a slug right here in ten seconds… mark.}

  Nina didn’t waste time with words. Leading the ten-second mark, Jonathan saw tracer fire. At ten seconds, the Hydra’s radiation shadow shield shattered when it steered right into the artillery Nina had unleashed, pieces scattering into the void as the fighter’s fusion drive went into auto shutdown.

  The four members of Wraith’s flight crew held their breath as they awaited the Hydra pilot’s next move. A tense second later, the craft exploded.

  {Dammit. I hate when they self-destruct,} Will muttered. {Tell me you saw the pilot eject before that?}

  Jonathan shook his head slowly, his gaze searching the debris for the pilot, but there weren’t any pieces large enough to be an escape pod.

  {Damn Akkadian policy,} he muttered. {There is no reason for a pilot to go down with his ship like that.}

  {They consider it the ultimate sacrifice, Cap,} Yuki murmured. {It’s a shitty mindset.}

  Jonathan took a deep breath as he focused once more on the situation with Blackbird One. {You doing okay over there?}

  {One suicide boom, one running for the gate,} the Novastrike’s pilot said in a tone that was part annoyed and part furious. {Clear over here. You get to Ben yet?}

  {Headed there now, Lieutenant,} Jonathan assured her, as he sent Wraith surging toward Blackbird Two’s black box transponder signal.

  Yuki’s drone made it there before Wraith’s sensors did, and he heard her drag in a harsh breath.

  {Cap….}

  Her one-word comment trailed off, and Jonathan felt his own breath leave his lungs at the gut-punch visual that assaulted his eyes.

  It looked like a piece of shrapnel from the damn Hydra’s self-destruct had impacted the escape pod’s durasteel surface.