The Ares Weapon

by D. M. Pruden

  Nothing happened.

  “Ten-seconds.”

  A moment later we were bounced about as the shrapnel from an exploding warhead rattled off our reinforced hull. My hand convulsively gripped the arm of my chair.

  “Twenty-seconds.”

  Everyone seemed to hold their breath, willing the deadly warheads to miss us. A more violent shaking caused me to cry out. Hodgson’s hand reassuringly covered mine.

  “Thirty-seconds.”

  What sounded like gravel spraying our exterior chattered over our heads and I looked up expecting to see stars and experience my lungs exploding as the atmosphere was sucked out of the cabin.

  “Forty-seconds.”

  Only five-seconds left. I started to believe we would survive the gauntlet of destruction Athena laid out before us.

  The ship shook violently and the lights went out on the bridge. An emergency alarm went off and the hands of Garrick and Limn flashed across the bright red and green buttons blinking at them in the darkness. A rapid exchange of commands and responses went between the two of them. For the first time since everything began, the calmness had left Limn’s voice.

  “We are clear of the firing solution,” she announced.

  “Damage report,” shouted Garrick, his hands still flying over the control panel.

  “We took a hit along the port engine casing. Power is out. Gravity is out. We are on ancillary power. No loss of pressure,” responded Schmaltz.

  “Navigation and sensor array down. Life support failing. No response on any critical system. We need somebody down in engineering,” said Limn.

  “On it!” yelled Schmaltz as both he and Bogdan unstrapped themselves and floated to the exit. As I watched them leave, I remembered the blinking green light in medical. I released myself and drifted towards the door.

  “Please remain seated,” Garrick ordered. “We’re awaiting a complete assessment from engineering.”

  “Does medical have power?” I asked impatiently.

  “We have no power anywhere at the moment Doctor.”

  “I need to go down there.” I resumed my motion to the door and didn’t pay any attention to what he yelled after me.

  With the power off, nothing prevented the nano-virus from breaching its confinement except for my little engineering kludge with the backup battery. If I couldn’t activate it, we would be as dead as the previous crew.

  ♢♢♢

  I never faired well in weightless conditions and with the additional disorientation of the darkness, I fought to keep from puking up my last meal. In my rush to escape Garrick’s protests, I neglected to find and take something to light my way and so my progress was slower than I planned.

  When I reached medical, I opened the access panel and activated the manual override controls to the door. Finding the emergency kit, I recovered the torch and shone the ghostly white beam around the room.

  The green LED on the containment chamber was not on, as I feared. Nudging my weightless self towards it, I banged clumsily into the wall, finding difficulty judging my speed in the darkness. Within a few moments, I located and attempted to activate the switch I’d built.

  Nothing happened. I desperately flipped it off and on again, at least, a dozen times, with the same result. No backup power. Somewhere along the line, I fucked up. The blood pounded in my ears as I checked the time.

  Almost twenty minutes had passed since the power went out. At best, the virus wouldn’t breach the dense chamber walls for another forty minutes, but they would be breached. If I couldn’t restore power, we were all going to be dead.

  I remembered my synthesis process and pushed myself towards that part of the lab. Retrieving the replicated nanites from the unit, I held the container up to the torchlight to reveal the milky fluid supporting the few million of them I managed to build. There was enough for one dose with no guarantee of any match for the nano-virus. But this vial contained the only chance for its recipient. I intended to be that person.

  As I prepared the hypospray, images of the dead bodies we found aboard this ship only a few days before flashed into my mind. I placed the injector on my forearm and I hesitated. By doing this I doomed everyone else, with the possible exception of Hodgson, to a horribly painful death. A small voice in the back of my head I normally paid little attention to reminded me of my Hippocratic oath and all the other accompanying bullshit. Altruism was a luxury I couldn’t afford. No fair way existed to select who would receive the injection, and I would not leave the decision up to Dunn who would choose himself. If the others knew anything about this possible vaccine, they would all murder each other and me in an attempt to claim the dose for themselves. I wanted to live.

  I injected the compound into my arm. The conflicting emotions of relief and guilt battled inside of me. Perhaps I just saved myself; possibly I’d accomplished nothing. I stared at the empty injector and a great shroud of emptiness covered me. My self-serving act certainly hadn’t helped anyone else aboard. With a growing sense of remorse, I came to the realization I had to somehow tell the crew about the impending release and, at least, give them a fighting opportunity for survival. If we all put on our pressure suits and boarded the drop ship we stood a realistic chance of escaping with our lives. The walls of the containment unit would keep the nano-virus at bay for a short time.

  The comm panel, like everything else, didn’t function. My chronometer showed only ten minutes before the first of the nano-viruses breached the chamber seals. Once they entered the general ventilation system, there would be no stopping them. Only one needed to enter a human host and begin to rapidly replicate. There was not enough time to save them all. Schmaltz and Bogdan were in engineering which would take me five minutes to run to and convince them of the danger. Then I would have to inform those on the bridge, including Dunn. I couldn’t possibly warn everyone in time. Schmaltz was my friend. That should trump every other consideration.

  Memories, unbidden, came flooding back to me. I tried to forget the events of that day, but they would no longer stay behind the wall I built to contain them.

  A year and a half after graduation the terror attack changed everything. Every emergency room in the city overflowed with the injured and dying and resources were stretched beyond anything disaster planners ever imagined possible. I’d been called in after just getting off a long night shift and was running on adrenaline.

  In a situation like that, people cease to be individuals and become statistical outcomes. I found myself making critical care decisions based on stupid things like likelihood of survival. Professional detachment became the only tool even close to useful in the chaos, an instrument of self-defence.

  Only after the situation came under control and things slowed down I realized one of the attack sites was near my own apartment building. Two days later, after a lot of anxiety and searching, I learned what happened to Carlos. He’d been on his way to my place to prepare our dinner, just like always when I finished a string of night shifts. I located him, or what was left of him, unclaimed, in a makeshift morgue. He was an unrecognizable mess and they only identified him at my insistence from a DNA profile on file. Some doctor made the call his wounds were too severe to treat and allowed him to die alone on a gurney in the hallway of the hospital. It was the same kind of decision I made for other victims countless times during the crisis.

  After that, I decided professional detachment was a disease of the system and I wanted no part of it. I would not let it determine the fate of people like a lottery. If I couldn’t help friends first, then what the hell was the point of being a doctor?

  I drifted my way through the medical centre door and into the dark corridor. I pushed hard off the edge of the door to propel myself towards engineering. As I did so, everything became flooded with blinding light. I cried out involuntarily and covered my face, unaware the gravity field had also been restored. A second later I was sprawled on the floor. I remained face down and took inventory of my injuries. My scraped chin, along
with both elbows and knees, all suddenly became forgotten as I remembered the bio-sample chamber.

  I ran back to medical and peered inside. There across the room happily blinked the green power light on the panel of the bio-containment unit. I checked my chronometer to note it had been out for eighteen minutes. Whatever nano-viruses made their way into the walls were incinerated when the containment field reactivated. They probably weakened the integrity of the seals, but nothing could be done about that. We’d bought ourselves a stay of execution only.

  I heard running behind me and turned to see Dunn.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything came back on with moments to spare.”

  He eyed the backup containment unit in the corner which contained the three undisturbed virus tubes.

  “If we lose power again, we’ll be forced to abandon the ship. We won’t have the time to move anything from here without being contaminated. I don’t want to risk losing what we’ve gone to all this trouble to recover. I’m ordering Hodgson to put it back aboard our dropship.”

  I started to tell him about what I used it for, but he interrupted me. “I’m well aware of your little backup plan, Doctor. How well did things work?”

  “Umm. I’m afraid it didn’t.”

  Dunn did not appear surprised. “Then the unit is wasting its purpose in here. Mister Skorupa will repair whatever damage you’ve done and store it aboard the drop ship. If the power fails again, we will abandon ship.” He looked around the isolation chamber. “I would feel more comfortable if you would do another viral scan. Just to make sure nothing got out.”

  “Of course.” I wanted to tell him he would already know if a release happened.

  After he left, I inspected my backup connection. While I am not an engineer, neither am I incompetent. I had trouble imagining how I screwed up. I checked the actual battery and found it functioning properly, and the switch seemed to work as well as when I first installed it.

  Dunn’s knowing about my modifications bothered me, though. I held no doubts he was capable of sabotaging my efforts, but I could not imagine why he would, as doing so placed his life in the same danger as the rest of us.

  Deciding I couldn’t solve the mystery, I collected the viral detector and began my detailed scan about the room. I would need a couple of hours to complete the entire ship to his satisfaction which suited me. I’d go crazy sitting on the bridge with nothing to do.

  I absently rubbed my arm where I impetuously injected myself only a few minutes earlier. I now possessed a third nanite population floating around in my bloodstream. I felt fine; none of the symptoms experienced at the hands of the MP. In the calm following the drama, I worried I may have done something irreversibly stupid.

  Chapter 25

  Regis Mundi sat grim-faced at his elaborate desk. It was the only piece of furniture in his palace not of roman design. He rescued the baroque monstrosity early in his career and remained fond of it for many years as it gathered dust in a Terran storage locker. He dreamed of liberating and putting it to use for so long he was willing to forget its anachronistic quality. He hated any sort of waste.

  On the desk lay a pad containing the report he had been awaiting. Annoyed Felix Altius was not here to present to him directly, he understood even his exceptionally talented lieutenant remained limited to being in only one place at a time.

  The dour man who stood before him swallowed hard.

  “I’m aware you’re here, Marcus,” Mundi did not look up. The disturbing content of the report occupied him. “How did this happen? We pay these people well, do we not? Was he not one of your most trusted agents?”

  “I had no reason to doubt his loyalty, Dominus.”

  “And yet, you have been betrayed.” He flung the offending pad skittering across the polished surface. Marcus stood at attention, only his eyes moving to note its crash to the marble floor. He returned his eyes to Mundi who scowled at him.

  “Start at the beginning with what you know.”

  Marcus swallowed hard and took a deep, cleansing breath. “The last reports we received indicated the Terran captain was in pursuit of the Helios...”

  “I knew that, fool! I want to know how the idiot came to fire upon our ship!”

  “Our agent is a low ranking bridge officer, Dominus. He is in no position to interfere with the Captain’s orders.”

  “The person you refer to is NOT our agent. He is a watchdog set in place to keep an eye on the Captain, who is our agent, at least until the moment he decided to act without our permission and attack our vessel.”

  “Yes, Dominus.” Sweat beaded on Marcus’ forehead.

  “Continue.”

  “We believe the captain did not fire with the intent of hitting the Helios.”

  Mundi sat forward in his chair and glared at Marcus. “How do we know this?”

  “Our...watchdog took the initiative of reviewing the firing solution. It was designed to miss. Our conclusion is the Captain is, somehow, in league with Dunn and Dunn intends to sell the item to the Terrans.”

  “That is the first intelligent thing I’ve heard you say. You are dismissed.”

  Mundi’s eyes stalked the nervous man exiting the office. He remained undecided whether to allow Marcus to continue in his service. He would have to defer the matter to Felix, who handled such matters less emotionally.

  Now he pondered the avoided question. Should he cut his losses and start over?

  Against Felix’s council, he granted Agent 324 permission to proceed with the recovery mission. Felix thought it less risky to simply point the Martians to the location of their virus and let them deal with the jurisdictional issues. As pointed out, they were the fools who originally lost it.

  But Regis had been desperate to regain the good will squandered so long ago. Return of the virus to its rightful owners would have put them into his debt and allowed him to approach the Triumvirate as an equal, instead of grovelling before them for the crumbs of commerce they offered as an insult. He risked much to gain much, but now he stood to become a fool for being outwitted by his own man.

  Agent 324, or Dunn as he now called himself, had exceeded his reputation for byzantine scheming within plans. He was most certainly aware of Felix’s interception of his recovery vessel. The death of the new agent, the woman whose name he forgot, proved that.

  Dunn made arrangements to sell the prize to the Terrans. That would never be permitted. Failure to deliver was one thing, but allowing the weapon to fall into Terran hands was something the Triumvirate would never forgive him for.

  Mundi opened a drawer in the desk and accessed a secret compartment. He pressed the concealed button and the desk’s top hummed and cracked open to reveal a quantum communicator. The unwieldy machine was the prototype, and he maintained it as an amusing enhancement to his antique desk. The usefulness of a device permitting instantaneous communication with its counterpart, theoretically located anywhere in the universe contrasted dramatically with the anachronistic piece of furniture it lay hidden within. Such contrasts amused him.

  Struggling to recall how to operate the radio, he took a few minutes to adjust the finicky settings to begin the process of linking it to the one in the possession of Felix Altius.

  Felix’s distinct voice emerged from the speaker. “Agricola, this is Omega Prime. I await your instructions.”

  Regis Mundi opted to maintain the prototype because it only communicated in audio. He hated the risk of revealing his identity by visual communication and did not trust the assurances of his scientists the signal from the quantum radio would never be intercepted.

  “Omega Prime, this is Agricola,” Mundi giggled to himself like a small child. He’d invented the code names himself and had eagerly awaited the opportunity to use them. “Our gardener friend has invited himself to the bacchanal.” He covered his mouth and sniggered at his clever turn of phrase, confident Felix correctly interpreted his meaning.

  “That is unfortunate, but not unexp
ected. They will, of course, be arriving late.”

  Mundi thought carefully. He had the option of ending the party completely by destroying the Helios. Then while his Martian friends would not get their prize, and he would lose face, at least, the Terrans would not get the virus. But he wasn’t ready to call an end to things if there remained a chance Felix could salvage the situation.

  “There is a concern the host of the event may want to spend his time with the gardeners instead of fulfilling his obligations. Should that occur, the gardener and the host must be released.”

  The silence of a long pause filled the air while Felix interpreted Mundi’s meaning and composed his own coded response. When the delay extended into the second minute, Mundi began to fear he had been too cryptic. He wanted Felix to destroy the Terran ship and Dunn if he attempted to go to them.

  Felix’s voice jumped from the speaker.

  “The gardener is falling behind. I will watch for his late arrival and prevent him from attending if necessary.”

  As always, Felix thought things through with a clear head. It only made sense to wait until the Terrans actually posed a threat. Felix seemed to think they would not arrive in time to interfere with his recovery of the virus from Dunn. He was happy to defer to his lieutenant’s experience.

  “Very well, Omega Prime. I leave you to check the invitations.”

  “I will keep you apprised. Omega Prime, out.”

  He regarded the marvellous device before him with satisfaction. He trusted Felix, above all others, to do the right thing. Of course destroying a Terran military vessel was a poor, last resort. Even if Felix made the incident look like an accident, which lay within his capabilities, the very fact Mundi exerted influence in a search ending with the loss of a warship would not play well under any circumstance. The complications from such an action might cripple his business enterprises for decades to come. Felix was right to suggest less drastic measures to begin with.

  Satisfied the situation under control, he concealed the radio and rose from his desk. Soon, the treacherous Erik Dunn would be dealt with and all his operatives involved in this mission would breathe their last. Mundi thought it a shame, the need to kill so many. He hated waste.