Solbidyum Wars Saga 9: At What Price

by Dale Musser

  “Can you make it tomorrow?” I asked.

  Norcar’s expression became rather startled. “Is there some reason for the haste, First Citizen? Do you think you’re going to die soon?”

  “No, but with the way this war has been escalating the last few months, I’m not feeling as secure as I once did,” I answered truthfully.

  “I see. Well, I can understand that. We’ve been monitoring your situation in the Federation and we’ve heard that the Brotherhood is now using biological warfare. Nasty stuff that. It has caused us to tighten up our own security and anyone coming or going to the planet surface must undergo a two-day quarantine in one of our space stations before coming to the surface. Is it true that so far there have been no survivors of this disease?”

  “Only the Nibarians. They seem to be entirely immune to the pathogen. I have the Federation’s top scientists researching potential cures as we speak.”

  “Good. Very good. Well I wish you luck with that messy business.” Norcar leaned into the vid screen and tapped the fingertips of his hands together as he changed the subject. “So how is that young swordswoman in your crew doing? I’ve not seen or heard anything about her for a few years now.”

  I had to keep myself from laughing at Norcar’s obvious infatuation with Jenira. He had become fascinated with her long before he met her, when word of her swordsmanship had begun to spread through the main channels of the galaxy as if she were a living legend. Then, after our visit to Weccies before the Tottalax attacked the planet, Norcar became thoroughly smitten to the point of practically worshipping her.

  “She’s doing fine,” I replied. “She spends a lot of time working with the children of the NEW ORLEANS crew as well as the orphans who live at the estate.”

  “What of that young man who headed your security, Pada… something or other?”

  “Padaran. He’s now a Captain in the Federation military. He’s taken over Captain Slater’s place training the entire Federation’s ground assault troopers.”

  “He seemed like a bright young man. Do give them both my regards. I’ll have someone get back in touch with you about meeting with the attorneys tomorrow.”

  “Excellent. Thank you. Oh, are you using the estate on Epsirt much these days?” I asked.

  Norcar’s face eased into a huge smile. “We were just there two weeks ago and had a lovely time. I actually make use of it often.”

  I had bought and paid for the estate many years earlier using Norcar as a means of getting on the planet to investigate some Brotherhood activity that had come to the Federation’s attention. Epsirt was a non-aligned world that remained closed to outsiders. The estate was owned by Rinncal Haf-joab, a Brotherhood sympathizer who had been imprisoned by the Federation for aiding the enemy. He had no love for me, so we needed someone from a neutral world to buy his estate. Norcar agreed to present himself as the buyer and I gave him the property in exchange for being able to use the estate to find the Brotherhood training facility for the terrorist group known as the Reduviids. I was glad to learn that he had continued to enjoy the property with his family as a vacation home over the years.

  Once my call with Norcar had ended, I returned to the GLOMAR ROSA and was alarmed to find Padaran and Reidecor there waiting for me.

  “What are you two doing here?” I asked.

  “I’ve got men trapped on two worlds being killed off by a contagious disease and I haven’t heard anything from you since the attacks began and you ask me what I am doing here?!” Padaran asked angrily.

  I suddenly realized he was right. I should have had him involved from the beginning.

  “I’m sorry, Captain. You’re right. I’ve been quite caught up in this and was called into Leader Pheosa’s office early today to answer to him as to what’s going on and I’ve scrambled to meetings with Doctor Danjuma, A’Lappe and Cantolla trying to address this pathogen issue before more people die. I just haven’t had gotten to you. I may not be prioritizing things correctly. I'm just dealing with matters as they come up and as I think of them and I should have been more mindful of contacting you early on.”

  “I’m sorry, Admiral,” Padaran said in a softer tone. “It’s just that the last reports I had from Agraious and Frandee state that over half the troops there are dead and the remainder are ill, and I heard from Sambal that the situation is contained for the moment, but the troops are all confined to their HAZMAT suits and quarantined within the base. On top of that, Commander Embrodie died a few minutes ago, a Lieutenant has been left in command and he is panicking, practically begging for orders. Before long, all the troops on Agraious and Frandee will be dead, except possibly for the dozen or so Nibarians on the base, and they’re going to be busy disposing of the bodies. I’m feeling angry and frustrated by this situation and there hasn’t been any communication or plans outside of the broadcasts and I haven’t received any orders as to what we should be doing.”

  “I understand, Captain. Just what do you think we should be doing?” I asked coolly.

  “Uh, well, sir. Disposing of the bodies, I guess. The safest way is cremation, maybe send remote-controlled ships to the surface for the bodies to be loaded and then fly them into the planets suns.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t do that. I said. Aside from the fact that these worlds are on strict quarantine, there isn’t enough manpower or ships to handle that number of bodies. Those corpses will rot before the few Nibarians there will get to even a fraction of them. Think about it. Within the next twenty-four hours it is likely that ninety percent of the people on Agraious and Frandee will be dead. You’re talking about billions of people. There’s simply nothing more that can be done in terms of seeing to their interments. Unless our scientists find some way of neutralizing this pandemic, we have no idea how long this pathogen will remain virulent. Until then, the Nibarians on both planets will just have to cope on their own.

  “Sambal is another matter. As far as I know, the disease is still confined to the base and we still have uninfected men there. We may be able to save them, but we still have to find a way to get them out of their suits safely. This stuff Ming is using doesn’t die with our standard sterilization methods. A’Lappe and Cantolla are working with Doctor Danjuma’s teams and the Federation’s specialists to find an effective and reliable way to sterilize the infected suits without killing the people wearing them. If they can find something quickly enough, we can get those troopers into specially prepared ships and sterilize their suits, so they can get out of them. Then we can move them to a quarantine center on an old space station somewhere until we can be a hundred percent sure they’re safe and uninfected. But they can only go so long without food and water, and right now if they try to get either, they’ll be exposed to whatever Ming has released inside that base.”

  “Dad,” interrupted Reide. “What about sending more Nibarians to Sambal to help? If they’re immune to the disease, they could at least help search for a possible cure or a means of sterilizing the suits.”

  “I would only consider that idea if they were volunteers,” I said. “Because they would be stuck there indefinitely inside the quarantine zone. Just like those on Agraious and Frandee, they become potential carriers upon exposure. Until we know how to fight this thing, anyone and anything that goes into an infected site stays there until such time as we find a cure. The Nibarians that were present at the first exposure sites are already collecting data and running tests for A’Lappe and Cantolla and though I know they would like to leave those worlds and go home, they simply can't. I don’t want to create that situation for more individuals if it can be avoided.”

  “I would think they would be able to return to Nibaria safely, since Nibarians are immune to the disease,” said Padaran. “Humans can’t survive in their atmosphere without environment suits and air tanks. Their atmosphere would most likely kill the pathogen.”

  “Maybe you're right, Padaran. But we don’t know that for a fact, and until we do it’s too big a risk to take. It could just a
s easily be that the germ can live in the Nibarians’ bodies and survive just fine their atmosphere. What if we let the Nibarians go home and they turn all the people of their worlds into carriers of the disease and then none of them can ever leave Nibaria or their moons again? Do you want to take that risk?” I asked.

  “No. Of course not. But by the stars, we can’t just let our men perish like this!” Padaran said with frustration.

  “I’m afraid we have no choice in the matter. Unless we find a vaccine, a cure, a sterilization method or some combination of the three, those planets and the people on them are essentially on their own.”

  “Sir, what do you want me to do?” Padaran asked.

  “Make sure every trooper has a HAZMAT suit and keep it within their immediate vicinity at all times. Compartmentalize work environments as much as possible. Follow the tighter protocols for receipt of freight and cargo and limit the movement of bulk materials and deliveries once they pass into the base. At the first sign or suspicion that there might be a trace of the Ming’s disease pathogen in the air, an alert is to be broadcast and everyone is to don their suits immediately while quarantine is locked down and the ill are secured within secondary quarantine areas inside the hot zone. I think most of these details are being prepared for broadcast by the interagency task force. Why don’t you follow up and take the lead as liaison between the task force and the Admiralty? That would take a load off my shoulders. At the moment, that’s the best we can do with this issue.” I looked back and forth between Padaran and Reide as the realization of what I was saying sank in.

  Finally, Padaran’s head slumped in defeat as he nodded in reply, “I thought being the leader of the Ruwallie Rasson was difficult. Dealing with this stuff makes what I did with them look easy. So there’s really no chance at all that we’ll be able to save any of the people on these worlds, is there?”

  “It’s highly unlikely. And we might lose everyone on Sambal too. I’m sorry. It’s not looking good at the moment.” I pushed out of my mind the totality of what this really meant, but the mounting knot in my gut was a sign that my body wouldn’t let me ignore it for long.

  My comlink beeped.

  “Tibby here.”

  “Admiral. Three ships are attempting to leave Frandee. They’re refusing to return to the surface. What do you want us to do?”

  My stomach felt a familiar twist of pain that reminded me of the horror I felt at Glomar Rosa. I couldn’t bring myself to follow through with my original orders to shoot down anyone leaving the quarantine zone. “Tell them they can station themselves in orbit, but if they try to leave, tell them you have orders to destroy their ships. They are to give a full accounting of the people onboard and each person is to undergo and transmit a full physical via the ship’s med unit, including periodic follow-up physicals as required by our medical staff. If after three days no one on their ships has become sick or has died, we’ll escort them to a location set up for quarantine and observation until we are certain they’re disease free. Only when the Federation deems it is safe will they be released from quarantine and allowed to return to society. Issue orders to all our ships that the same procedure is to hold true for any worlds where the Brotherhood releases this disease.”

  “Admiral, do you know what the population is on Frandee?” asked Padaran.

  “Two point five billion, I believe.”

  “Yes. Two point five billion… and by this time tomorrow only a few may still be alive. Sir, we’ve got to find Ming and stop him before the Brotherhood attacks other worlds like this.”

  Even though I had said the numbers out loud and I understood the nature of the pathogen that was sweeping the planet, I hadn’t really allowed myself to internalize the magnitude of and speed of these biological massacres. Perhaps part of me was holding out hope that A’Lappe and Cantolla would find a cure before the devastation would be complete. But the next morning when I asked for an update, Marranalis reported that the only remaining lines of communication to the surface of either planet were being kept open by the Nibarians, who were advising that they had been able to find only a small number of humans who were still alive, and those few were essentially lingering in comas and expected to die within the hour. It finally sank in that what Ming was accomplishing with a few canisters was essentially the same destruction that I caused when I fired the PLABE onto Glomar Rosa. He was wiping out entire planets’ worth of humanity forever and he was going to continue to do so – planet after planet, world after world – and there was little we could do to stop him.

  First I felt sick, then I was overcome with rage that exploded from my fists as I smashed a station table in the War Room. At that moment, I wanted to erase that soulless psychopath from existence no matter what the cost. Marranalis tried to ignore my outburst, the likes of which he had never seen from me before. He continued with his report, though my ears buzzed with so much anger that I could barely hear him through the din inside my head. From what I could make out, he was trying to tell me that the Public Relations Division was being overwhelmed with calls from news agencies Federation-wide wanting details about these catastrophic biochemical airstrikes, but other than confirming the death tolls, we had nothing to offer them.

  I listened to the rest of his report the best that I could, then stood up, took a deep breath and did my best to calmly apologize to everyone for my behavior before stepping aside to speak quietly to Marranalis.

  “I’m sorry, Marranalis. I seem to be letting my emotions get the better of me these days. If I pull any more stunts like that, please remove me to another room until I get a grip on myself. Agreed?”

  “No need to apologize, sir. Honestly, we all want to hammer Ming into the table. And yes, I’ve got your back. If you need me to help you step back and regroup, I’ll certainly do so.”

  I left the GLOMAR ROSA to meet with Kala and the Weccies estate attorneys to finalize a will and seal it with our DNA, retina scans, voice prints and palm prints. The bankers of Weccies were nothing if they weren’t thorough. Kala and I left there feeling secure that our wealth would be distributed to our children, loved ones and philanthropic interests the way we wanted, in the event something happened to either one of us. I at least had peace of mind and control over one matter in my life.

  After we returned to the NEW ORLEANS, Kala left to take care of some business and I went to visit the lab, where A’Lappe, Cantolla and the interagency science team had worked through the night, communicating remotely with the Nibarians at the quarantine sites. In that short amount of time, they had managed to develop a device that could effectively detect traces of the pathogen. A’Lappe described the device in layman’s terms as an intense infrared light fitted with a filter that removed the specific heat signature produced by the pathogen. Essentially what this meant was that the contaminated areas show up as black blotches when this light was focused on an infected surface. A’Lappe said it worked like an ultraviolet light on fluorescent compounds, only in reverse. He also said that, while the light didn’t destroy the pathogen, it did retard its growth.

  Cantolla was unwilling to classify the organism any more specifically than to call it a causative agent. Actually, she was quite frightened of its very nature and properties, perhaps even more than the rest of us, because of its uniqueness. She said it was neither a bacterium nor a virus, but a completely new organism that was essentially non-carbon-based and from what she could gather from the mass spectroscopy, it wasn’t silicon-based either.

  “So this light thingy won’t kill it?” I asked.

  I’m afraid not,” replied A’Lappe. “We’ve tried every frequency in the spectrum. No single frequency or combination of frequencies has caused this pathogen even the slightest bit of damage.”

  “That’s because it’s not biological,” said Cantolla. “At least not in the traditional sense. This pathogen isn’t entirely organic. If this organism was engineered, it was probably modeled to some degree on the morphology of viruses, particularly on virus mu
tation. Though its two-phased lifecycle is stable and predictable, it unfolds somewhat like a mutation. But that’s where the comparison ends. For the most part, it has a somewhat unstable crystalline structure that rearranges itself into its lethal form after about ten hours. This stuff isn’t likely to be effected by chemicals unless it’s a strong acid, but it would have to be a compound so caustic that it would destroy everything else in its environment along with the pathogen.”

  “You need to destroy it with sound,” called out Rory from across the room. He had been working there on some unrelated project and apparently had been listening to our conversation.

  “What?” said A’Lappe, becoming alert to Rory’s comment.

  “You have to use sound to destroy it. Crystals don’t like sound,” Rory repeated casually without looking up from his workstation.

  A’Lappe turned to Cantolla as Cantolla stared back. It just might work,” they said in unison. A’Lappe began typing manically at his station, while Cantolla continued to think out loud.

  “It’s very possible that a focused sound beam at the right vibration could destroy the organism’s crystalline structure. Or maybe we have existing tools that can neutralize the pathogen on a broader scale with little or no adaptation to the equipment, like the resonant ultrasound instruments that are being used by the Earth geologists or even the transducers that are commonly used in the surgical med units. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’d be able to cure anyone, but a sonic device of some kind might actually work sanitize a large area or even get those people in HAZMAT suits on Sambal decontaminated. We need to get the Nibarians on Agraious and Frandee to test it quickly. If it works, we might be able to save those people trapped in HAZMAT suits before they die from starvation or dehydration.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “Marranalis told me this morning that two of the people at Sambal have broken the seals on their suits – one to get a drink and one to relieve himself. They thought it was a safe bet and now they’re paying the ultimate price for their gamble. We’re running out of time to save the rest. Thirst is going to drive a lot more of them to take the same risk soon.”