This is Skull, captain of the Alan Denham, signing off.
Absen licked dry lips. “Replay that on all channels. Everyone should know.” Under his breath he said, “Because we need heroes like that.”
***
Rick Johnstone finished his shift mechanically, his brain well trained by the chips in his head. They did all the work while his mind took a dazed vacation. He passed messages and patched parties through his board like an old-fashioned telephone operator. With the damage to many bases and the Van Allen belts of Earth filled with ionizing radiation, comms had gone to hell in the proverbial handbasket.
Moving Orion toward a lunar orbit helped, and once more the old warship-turned-station proved its worth as the nerve center of EarthFleet. Rick was thankful for the busyness, for it kept him from thinking of Grissom Base on Callisto, and the bomb that had wiped out the surface facilities and the invading force with it. With still no idea who had done that, and no word from those in the bunkers, all he could do was work and wait.
Wait to see if Jill still lived.
With the Destroyer gone, the guidance packages on the rocks seemed to lose their ability to adjust. Once Rick thought about that, it made sense. The barely intelligent engines could not easily see around their own asteroids, could not look to the front to figure out what to do. Fully fifty percent soon developed projected tracks that would miss the planet. Those could be ignored.
The rest, the remaining forces took care of and, though they were ready to do it, the captain and crew of Orion did not have to throw themselves in front of a flying mountain after all. Rick felt very glad of that, and also glad to finally end his shift as his relief showed.
Clumping along in his vacuum suit toward his quarters he had to dodge the revelry that spilled into all the main corridors. Stateroom doors stood open and everyone seemed to have a drink in his or her hand. Fumes from dope or hash drifted through the ventilation system, and no one seemed to care, least of all him. Music…
Let them party, he thought. They earned it. All I want to do is get this damned suit off, shower and sleep, and maybe when I wake up, there will be a message from Jill. At least for us there’s a chance. For others, their hopes have already been dashed.
He pushed through knots of people, hands slapping him on the back in greeting. A bleary blonde tried to lay a kiss on him but he pushed her gently away with a smile. From one darkened cabin he heard the unmistakable sounds of coupling, and he reached over to shut the door.
It’s like those films of VE day or something, with people dancing in the streets and kissing strangers. They think it’s all over, and for now, it is, but I’m married to a Marine and, no matter what my inclinations, I’m a Navy man.
For us…will it ever be over?
Epilogue
Rae Denham approached her meeting with Admiral Absen aboard Orion with a certain trepidation. Amid the celebration of the last week, his communications with her had taken on a decidedly chilly tone. She suspected she knew why, and wished she could avoid confirming her suspicions.
Somewhere, deep down inside the half-alien goddess she’d become lurked a scared young lieutenant, still impressed by a formidable senior officer. Sometimes she wondered if someone older wouldn’t have been a better choice for blending.
Buck up, Rae. You’re not Sylvia Ilona anymore. You’re the same person that told the Pharaohs how to build the pyramids, and you’re the same person that ended up, maybe more by luck than anything, saving Skull so he could in turn save Earth.
That made her feel a little better. Not much, but a little.
When Steward Tobias ushered her into Absen’s spartan quarters, he stood up from behind his desk but did not extend his hand, and waved her to a seat well out of arm’s reach. Then he sat down, and so did she.
“I see from our relative positions that this visit is not to be cordial,” she said as her butt hit the cushion.
“That’s because it’s personal, not professional,” he replied with a sour expression. “Professionally I am jumping for joy that your husband sacrificed himself and your ship to save all of humanity. How else could I react? As far as I am concerned, he deserves every posthumous decoration, every possible paean of praise that humanity can bestow. But you…” Absen pointed an accusing finger.
“What did I do that was so terrible?” she asked, knowing full well the answer but not willing to concede without a fight. “I told you we all have our secrets.”
“Secrets I can accept.” Absen stood and turned to pace, but did not leave the area behind his large desk, keeping it as a barrier between them. “You led me on. You flirted with me. That was…slimy.”
“Slimy?”
“I couldn’t think of a better word.”
“I’m sorry, Henrich –”
“Don’t you dare call me that!”
“All right, Admiral. I apologize. I’m not perfect. I wanted to maintain a good working relationship with you, so I tried to thread the needle. Obviously I missed. Oh, well.” Rae threw up her hands and then stood up. “If that’s all you wanted, I’ll be going now.”
“Probably for the best.” Now Absen came out from behind the desk, but only to open the door for her. “Goodbye, Colonel Denham.” His words came out flat and final.
“Goodbye to you, Admiral Absen. Thank you for your efforts against the Meme.”
“Likewise.”
The thunk of the shutting door had a ring of finality.
Only after boarding her shuttle and separating from Orion could she think calmly, as she stared out into speckled space. She put this fresh wound aside, overshadowed as it was by the enormity of her husband’s loss. The loss of their children’s father, too. Damn you, Skull, to leave them alone. Couldn’t you have found another way?
The stars upon the black glared at her unwavering, and did not answer.
At least I have them. Like any warrior’s wife, standing at graveside saluting a flag, I have to look my children in the face and explain why he did it, and why we should all go on. I have to explain why he sacrificed himself and why we should sacrifice ourselves for a human race that barely acknowledges our membership in it. How without our help and technology, of Meme heritage and of mad scientist children, they would all be enslaved.
It seems the more the gods do for them, the more people grow to hate and fear them.
Her mouth turned up in a reluctant smile. Perhaps that’s a good reason not to play god.
***
Admiral Absen lowered himself slowly into his chair, feeling very old. The rejuvenated body of his did not fool him one bit. Decades of stress and war had aged him inside, where it counted. The one bright spot in his life lately had been this mad dream of his, that the most desirable woman in the solar system might be interested in him, and he’d just thrown all that away.
His wounds, the ones he thought had healed, had opened up again. Kathleen had been his first love, childhood sweethearts ending up in a fairy-tale marriage, with three wonderful children. When nuclear hell had stolen them, he thought perhaps he could recover, eventually, especially when that little seed of feeling inside himself had been briefly watered by Raphaela’s attentions.
He was wrong. Her flirtation had turned out to be a cruel, adulterous and dishonorable joke from a woman who knew full well she was still married.
Raphaela had used him. She’d incorrectly thought, he felt certain, that he needed some kind of managing, massaging, some kind of handling, to make sure he did his job.
What an insult. Perhaps a Blend really was a completely different entity, a deviant species, not human at all. Certainly the one that Huen had captured had been a traitor, an agent. While he didn’t think Raphaela was one, he now knew that she was as conniving as any Machiavelli, Richelieu or Borgia.
He took a deep breath, and prepared himself for a long hard career leading EarthFleet, defending humanity against the Meme…and keeping a close eye on her.
***
“Welcome back, First Ser
geant Repeth,” the fuzzy figure said in a voice sounding like it echoed down a tin tube. “You’ll be all right eventually, but for now, we’ve shut down your cybernetics for your own safety and ours.”
A face pushed close to hers, resolving itself into a mask and medical eye protection. Why they bothered anymore with Eden Plague and nano to cure everything she didn’t know. Rules were rules, she imagined.
“Just relax. Actually, you won’t be able to help it,” the doctor said cheerfully, “as we’re pumping you full of happy juice.”
Time seemed to drift for a while, with hours passing in a fog before clarifying again. Eventually she could see another figure sitting by the hospital bed, but her vision was still too fuzzy to see the face. “Who?” she rasped.
Sergeant Dasko leaned forward. “Just me, Top. How you doin’?”
“I’ll live. I guess we will too, huh?”
“For now. We’re all just sealed in down here, and the civil defense chief doesn’t want to make any moves until we have to. Until we’re sure they’re gone.”
“How long?” she croaked.
“Two days, about.”
“Miller?”
“She’s like you. Next room over. You guys really cut it close, you know that?”
“Cut what close? The bugs got the techs. Killed them. We saw it on video.”
Dasko shrugged. “They must have set the fusion bomb timer after all. Lucky you guys hustled, Top. Would have been tragically ironic if you’d have died in the blast, just sitting there jawing.”
“Ten-dollar words, there, Sergeant. Guess you’re not a dumb grunt after all.” Repeth reached for Dasko’s hand. “Thanks, Jorgen. For everything. You and your people did a hell of a job.”
Dasko gripped hers. “Yeah. I guess we found out why we were buying time. Never thought I’d say it about a couple of zoomie bomb techs, but…damn.”
Repeth leaned her head back, thinking on the military people she’d known over her lifetime. “It’s not the color of your uniform that makes you a hero, Dasko. It’s what’s in here.” She slapped her free palm against her heart. “Ow.”
Dasko cough-laughed once, sadly. “Yeah. I know that.”
“So…two days. Earth might be a smoking hole. Our families might be all dead.”
“Pretty sure not.”
“Why not?” Repeth asked.
“Engineers are boring through the rock, making a shaft well away from the base. They ran an ultra-long-wave antenna up and say they have picked up some comms. Nothing definitive, but…”
“That’s good news.” Assuming it’s not just from whatever’s left after Earth was scoured clean of life.
“Sure is.” Dasko squeezed her hand once more, then let go. “I’m going to check on Captain Miller.”
“Can you send in a doctor?” Repeth asked as he stood.
“Sure.”
A moment later one of the medical staff came in. “Yes?”
“Hi, Doc. Any chance Captain Miller and I can share a room?”
The woman smiled and nodded. “I think that can be arranged.”
“And bring me a tablet please. I’d like to compose a letter to my husband.”
***
Vincent Markis stepped off the executive jet at the Carletonville airfield to see a group of at least a hundred people, complete with banners, waiting for him at the bottom of the steps. He was glad he’d had the downtime on the long trip from Australia, where the shuttle full of returning Aardvark pilots had landed, to rest and prepare for this moment. He was also glad, though feeling a bit guilty, that the Chairman’s – his father’s – official airplane had been there to carry him home.
Still, it had been four years since he left home. Add the detox to rebalance the brain chemistry of all of the VR-addicted pilots… The special treatment, not to mention the full lieutenant’s bars on his shoulders, he had to admit he had earned.
Elise, his mother, had taken pride of place, tears of joy streaming down her face as she hugged him as if she would never let go. Then his father Daniel, his brother Zeke and his sister Elizabeth and Uncle Larry and Aunt Shawna and soon he lost track as many of the people he had grown up with right here on the South African research base mobbed him.
The last to do so made an impression, a body firm and curvy in all the right places with a sweet flowery aroma that made him remember he’d been celibate ever since Stevie died. “Dannie?”
The young woman squeezed him one more time before stepping back, still holding onto his hands. “All grown up,” she said, twisting left and then right as if showing off the spring outfit she wore.
“You sure are. You’re…”
“Twenty. I graduate next year. Biogenetics.” Her smile cracked the ice in his heart and his good day suddenly got even better.
“Come on, kids, you can catch up at the barbecue.” Daniel Markis’ boyish smile belied the command beneath his words as he waved the throng toward the gaggle of vans, SUVs and an official bus. “Today,” he said, raising his voice, “my son has returned, and I’m ordering him to have fun – and all the rest of you miscreants too. So…let’s have a party!”
-
The End of Comes The Destroyer.
If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or any other book site.
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For more adventure in the Plague Wars universe, read on for an excerpt from First Conquest, Stellar Conquest Book 1, contained within the anthology Planetary Assault.
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Sergeant Major Jill Repeth, EarthFleet Marine Corps, gasped as the slimy tracheal tube withdrew and she began to breathe on her own again. Lifting her hands to rub her face, she carefully opened her eyes for the first time in what must be nearly forty years. Lighting glowed dim and no klaxons wailed, no strobes flashed, so she figured Conquest to be on schedule, nearing her destination.
Repeth felt the living coffin, another product of adapted enemy biotech, loosen on her lower body, and she winced when the catheter probes withdrew. Naked, she was birthed anew. She welcomed the sound and fury to come; after nearly sixty years of Marine service – plus the forty in stasis – she still looked forward eagerly to righteous battle. Neither guilt nor moral ambiguity troubled her thoughts of killing aliens hell-bent on genocide.
Sixty years. She’d never expected to serve for that long, but the Eden Plague virus conferred immortality and rapid healing, so such spans were now commonplace. She could have easily been an officer by now, but she’d always hated the idea of separation from the rank and file. Offered her choice of warrant or commission many times, she had always refused, preferring to stay where she was most comfortable – top enlisted Marine in a front-line combat unit.
Looking around, she marveled at the rows upon rows of the biotech cocoons that had kept everyone alive, healthy but in stasis for the last four decades. Lines of them extended in a vast adult nursery, incubators of military personnel. She could see at least a thousand of the things from where she stood, in various stages of processing, BioMed personnel bustling among them, and she knew there were many thousands more spread throughout Conquest and the ships attached to her.
Stumbling for the female showers in the deliberately heavy gravity that matched the target planet the astronomers had named Afrana – she was grateful for the protocol that decanted key leaders in order of rank. Brigadier Stallers and the rest of the Marine brigade’s officers should have been awakened ahead of her.
Under hot water she soaped and sluiced, scrubbing remnants of bio-gel out of her ears, and then gingerly tested her cybernetics. As far as she could tell, her laminated bones and polymer-enhanced musculature had come through without degrading.
Holding up her hands, she extended her claws in sequence to their full two centimeters, starting with the thumbs. The pain of the ferrocrystal knives slicing through her skin from beneath was familiar, comforting.
Like the anachronistic bayonet, she seldom used the cutting blades in combat, but they’d come in
handy for covert missions, back before Earth had been unified.
Thoughts of Earth threw her mind back to her last view of that fragile blue marble hanging in space, and all the hopes and dreams of its inhabitants. Leaving behind everyone there was hard, and once again she crammed down the gentler part of her humanity, coating her soul in armor not so different from what she wore in combat. Only one man was allowed past that façade: her husband, Commander Rick Johnstone.
Having him along kept her human, but the time for softness was past. Conquest and the ships attached to her had one simple mission: kill any Meme craft in the Gliese 370 system, destroy all resistance from the aliens nicknamed “Hippos” on the planet Afrana, and then colonize.
She thought then about the briefings on the Hippos, what little they knew. So called because they were huge and gray and thick, they were reported to have technology similar to Earth’s, or possibly better.
It’s gonna be a hard fight.
Repeth touched her palm to the locker she had closed forty years ago and it hissed open, revealing her carefully-packed kit. Looking in the mirror set inside, she saw a severe, strong-jawed face, intense brown eyes, and skin tinged with the blood of at least one Hispanic ancestor.
A warrior’s face.
Once dressed in crisp utilities she felt like a Marine again. With her starched eight-point cap settled carefully on her head – an affectation from her wet-navy days – she went in search of coffee, information and her commander, in that order, probably all in the consolidated wardroom, where officers and senior NCOs ate.
Drawing a steaming cup of “lifer-juice,” the muddy coffee dispensed by the industrial-sized brewer, she nodded at Brigadier Stallers sitting with his battalion commanders. One of those was her own, infantry Major Joseph “Bull” ben Tauros, originally of the Israeli Defense Forces before volunteering for EarthFleet Marines. A hulking brute of a man, he was the only one that seemed completely normal without hair; the cue ball was his usual look.
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