Esther's Story: Special Duty (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 4)

by Jonathan Brazee

  For once, the government got involved. A series of helojets were landing, picking up the anti-viral, and taking off to get it distributed. Esther watched the most recent aircraft lift off the makeshift landing pad, the rotor wash whipping her hair. It felt good to be out of the PPE’s. They were far more comfortable than what she’d had to wear on Kepler 9813-B, but that was only relative. Bing insisted that they still wear surgical masks, and she was fine with that.

  “How much is that?” she asked Erika Stadt-Ellis, the team’s logistics chief.

  “That gets us to 64%. As long as the incubators don’t run into problems, we can have full coverage by morning. Of course, that assumes everyone is getting inoculated right away.”

  And why wouldn’t they? Schleizen is a nasty way to die, Esther thought with a shudder.

  “Then what? I mean, what do we do?”

  “We’ve got to hang around for another few weeks. We’ve got people still coming in . . .”

  Which was true. Just ten minutes prior, a young woman was carried to the gates, her tearful husband softly begging them to cure her. It was too late, however, Esther knew. She was admitted, but her prognosis was poor.

  “. . . and UAM-Health needs to certify the treatment. There may be—scratch that, will be—tweaks to the vaccine, at least, but this is the easy part. We’ve tackled the demon yet once again.”

  “How many times have you done this?”

  “For a new disease? This will be number 14,” Erika said with pride.

  As she should have. Esther was no different than many in the military in that she hadn’t given much weight to civil servants such as those in F-AID. She knew of their various missions, if vaguely, but somehow, being a Marine, sailor, or even FCDC trooper seemed to her a more valuable way to serve the Federation. But right here on Lorton-Delos AD, this team of which she was part, had saved some 30,000,000 people, maybe more if the virus had managed to escape the planetary quarantine.

  Esther hadn’t had any direct impact on the development of the vaccine and treatment, but still, she’d participated, and that was something of which she could be proud. It was different from assaulting an enemy position, but what was a virus but an enemy of humanity? It was all a war, and the doctors and techs of F-AID were the front-line soldiers in that war.

  Esther was not about to resign her commission and join the agency. Her expertise was as a Marine. But she was proud of having worked with them, and offered an opportunity, she’d be proud to work with them again.

  Chapter 35

  Esther sat on a crate watching the local crew start to assemble the load out. Erika ran around like a mother hen, haranguing them to be careful.

  “I feel a little guilty just sitting here,” Jim said from where he sat on the adjoining crate, then added, “Well, not too much,” when Esther gave him a sidelong glance. “Erika’s got everything under control.”

  The last two weeks had been rather relaxing, all things told. For three days after first the anti-viral, then the vaccine had been distributed, patients had still arrived, begging relief. Twelve of them had not survived, but the rest were saved and had since been discharged.

  Things could have been worse. Only—and Esther didn’t like to use that word—only 300,000 people had died during the epidemic. That was a huge number, but in the history of pandemics, it was barely a drop in the bucket. Even with the lightly settled world, that number comprised slightly less than 1% of the population. That number could have been halved if the planet-wide quarantined had been put into place earlier. Panicked people fled the three main centers of the disease. Many of them were infected and spread the virus to smaller population centers. An earlier implementation of quarantine procedures would have saved lives, but with the infection rate growing in geometric numbers, Bing told her that had the officials waited one more day, he guessed the death rate would have approached a million souls.

  UAM-Health declared the planet safe, and after taking samples of the virus to their pathogen library out in the deep reaches of the Black, had returned the medical administration to the local government. F-AID was in the process of sending teams to assist in the aftermath, but as for Bing’s team, they were done. Tomorrow, they’d be lifting off planet for the return to the home system.

  “So, are you coming with us tonight?” Esther asked Jim.

  “Is this a date, Captain?” Jim asked. “While we are on duty? I’m shocked, I am. Shocked.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Penelope and I’ve got the hots for you. Can’t keep our hands away.”

  With normal life returning to the capital, Penelope Smith had invited Esther and Jim to a local restaurant. Esther had become close to the woman during her time on the planet. The woman was a rock. Esther couldn’t imagine losing a child as she had and still function as well as she’d done. It was a little humbling that Penelope wanted to thank the two for coming to the planet when they hadn’t managed to save Krysandra.

  “I can’t blame you. Is it my sparkling wit or my devilish good looks that draws you?”

  “I’ll give you ‘devilish good looks,’” she said, trying to kick up a rock at him.

  Her legs weren’t long enough to reach anything, and she was too lazy to get off the crate at the moment. She gave up and looked over at him.

  He is a good-looking guy, she thought, studying his profile. But such a baby! Even Penelope’s got him by three years.

  She wasn’t sure why that thought had come unbidden into her mind. Penelope had gone through some emotional trauma and would not be looking for a hook-up. At least she thought she wouldn’t. She didn’t need to be playing matchmaker, even if she had to admit Jim would be a pretty fine catch for most women. Penelope would be a great catch for any guy, she thought. Logic would dictate that they would be a good match.

  The Universe rarely unfolded in a logical manner, however. Neither one of them had expressed the slightest degree of interest in the other, and that wasn’t going to change in one last evening.

  “Captain, can you come to the gate?” Michelle asked.

  “What’s up,” Esther asked, idly watching the next crate appear from the lab. “Erika won’t be getting to your gear for another couple of hours, I’m guessing.”

  “We’ve got someone at the gate. He’s sick.”

  Esther didn’t need to be told how the man was sick.

  She jumped off the crate, telling Jim, “Come on. We’ve got another patient.”

  “Veta, are you free?” she passed to the doctor.

  “No. I’m up to my ass in alligators with the load out. Why?”

  “Michelle just called me. She says we’ve got some guy at the gate. He’s sick.”

  “Now? He just showed up now? Shit, that means we’ve got another pocket somewhere. I’ll meet you there.”

  UAM-Health had declared the planet free from the virus. If this really were another case of Schleizen, the planet would be slapped with another quarantine.

  “Maybe it’s something else?” Jim asked as they hurried to the gate. “Another disease.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” she said despite not believing it.

  The gate had been dismantled, but none of the equipment had been crated yet. Michelle’s team had gathered around three people. Two were supporting a third who seemed to be having a hard time standing. As soon as Esther came up, she knew. The man had Schleizen. She’d seen enough people die from it that she didn’t need any scanner to confirm it.

  Chapter 38

  “What’s the zeta?” Bing asked.

  “I’m getting 24.7,” Lori said, her head bent over the readout.

  “Damn!” Bing shouted, throwing his stylus across the room.

  “What’s that mean?” Esther quietly asked Veta.

  “Anything over a 15 means this is not just a variant, but a new virus.”

  “You mean this planet’s being hit with something entirely new?” Esther asked, aghast at the horribly bad luck.

  “N0, not entirely new. Schleizen’s
mutated. The anti-viral we’ve created is programmed to adjust to normal mutation, up to a zeta of 10, but it can’t make a 24.7. We’ve got to come up with a new one targeting the virus.”

  Esther didn’t have a clue as to what a “zeta” was, nor how bad a “24.7” was when compared to a “10,” but from the expressions on each of the team members’ faces, this would not be an easy fix.

  “Veta, I need you to get on the hook with UAM-Health. Get Dr. Glory to Him, not that Confed asswipe leading their delegation. Tell him we’ve got three newly-infected patients.”

  “And the zeta? Give her that?”

  Bing barely hesitated, but said, “Yes. We might need their help. See who she can spare.”

  From conversations with the team over the last two weeks, she knew that their rapid development of the vaccine and anti-viral would have been a huge career boost for Bing, in particular, but for all of them. So, to have to face failure could not be a good thing, she knew. And to ask for UAM assistance would be even worse, yet he’d just opened that possibility.

  Not many bureaucrats would do that so readily.

  “OK, people, start setting up again. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  Esther gave Jim the high sign as the medical team burst into a flurry of action. She left the lab and waited for Jim to join her.

  “OK, tell Michelle that we’re going to need the gate fully functional again. Erik’s here for the tear-down, so I’m going to ask him for help.”

  “Roger that. We’ll get it up and running.”

  She split from Jim and headed back to Ward 2 where she’d seen Erik and his crew gathering. To her surprise, half of the ward had already been dismantled, and one of his crew was spraying the back half of the pad with the catalyst. The foamcrete was disintegrating right before her eyes.

  “Stop!” she shouted, breaking into a run. “Erik! We need the ward back up. We’re not done yet!”

  Someone should have stopped the break-down when the first patient arrived. She didn’t know whose task that would have been, but she’d seen the Open Arms crew arrive, and she could’ve taken the initiative.

  Erik turned to her looking confused.

  “We’ve only got today to break all of this down,” he said.

  “We’re not breaking down. We’ve got more cases.”

  “Miles, stop!” Erik shouted to the man on the catalyst, then to Esther, “You’re sure about this? Did Dr. Bao say that?”

  Esther didn’t have time to get into a snit because Erik questioned her. The mission was too important for that, and she had a feeling they’d be needing the ward again soon. Already, another ambulance was approaching the compound, and more would be coming.

  “Yes, Dr. Bao ordered the camp set up again.”

  He hadn’t exactly ordered Ward 2 to be set up, but she was pretty confident that had been part of what Marines called the “commander’s intent.”

  “OK, you’ve got it. We’ll foam up the pad again, then put up the building.”

  “Thanks, Erik.” She started to leave to go to the gate when she realized there was one more thing yet to do. She turned to Erik and said, “And get everybody PPE’d up. This is a hot zone again.”

  Chapter 39

  “I don’t like the memory wire on top of the fence,” Jim said to her as the two walked the perimeter.

  “Neither do I. I asked Erik before they took off if we had any more somewhere, but nada.”

  “A simple set of wire clippers and they’re in under the wire. We’ve got zero security.”

  “Not zero. Any break in the fence sets of the alarm.”

  “Come on, Esther. You know what I mean.”

  And she did. They simply didn’t have the means to secure the compound. Sure, they’d know the instant someone cut the fence, but what could they do about it? Not much.

  “Yeah, I do. But if anything goes down, it’s going to be up to us to do something about it.”

  And two days into the new outbreak, it looked more and more that there could be an incident. Crowds had gathered, and most seem to be accusing the F-AID team of not only failing to cure the disease, but of actually spreading it on purpose. As one blowhard haranguing the crowd had said, what better way to shift the planet to a full member of the Federation than to kill off the present population? Esther, who’d been listening from inside the compound had almost snorted in disbelief, knowing no one could believe that, but many of the people out there had shouted in agreement.

  Only an hour ago, an ambulance had been waylaid outside the gate. The crowd had rushed it, rocking it until its skirts hit the ground. A very sick person had emerged, and after what looked to be an intense conversation, the person was led away.

  From all reports, the current outbreak of Schleizen 2 was exploding, and this time, the local government was taking action. Infected people were required to enter quarantine at any of the 179 camps planet-wide. But the people were not coming in any significant numbers, despite the fact that the existing anti-viral could slow down the progress of the disease, even if it couldn’t cure it. Of the 118 patients who’d arrived at the compound, either by choice or escorted by the police, only nine had died so far. The rest were hanging in there, thanks to Veta and her three-man team.

  Despite this relative success, the protestors called the compound the “Death Camp,” where horrible experiments were being conducted on people before they were “eliminated” once the experiments were completed. Whether people believed it or simply because they feared to go through the gauntlet of protesters, the numbers of new patients had dwindled when every computer model showed the numbers of infections were skyrocketing.

  Esther and Jim stood together, looking at the back fence. So far, no one had gathered on the other side, but she knew both Marines were thinking the same thing. If the crowd was determined to break in anywhere along the back fence, there wasn’t much they could do about it.

  “We could pre-position a couple of the M99’s back here, say, in back of the incinerator.”

  Esther thought about it for a moment before saying, “I don’t think we’re at that point yet. I wouldn’t want to leave them unattended so that if anyone did break through, they could pick them up.”

  “Trigger locks?”

  “Which we didn’t bring. No, let’s leave them in the shed, right where we put them. Easier access to any point in the compound.”

  The two Marines had brought six M99’s in the case now in the shed. She was sure Bing didn’t know about them. They’d only told Michelle an hour ago, who hadn’t been too happy about it, but had grudgingly identified herself and three others who could use the weapons in a pinch.

  The two Marines turned to head back to the gate. Esther had spent most of the last 40 hours there, just observing. It hadn’t been difficult to convince Bing that the entire team, along with Dr. Glory to Him and her two techs, needed to stay on the compound. No one was leaving. For all of them, it was pretty much around the clock anyway as they worked to break the virus.

  “Go on ahead,” she told Jim. “I want to check the status.”

  She broke off to enter the lab. It was surprisingly quiet, but she knew that was just the outward appearances. Each of the doctors and techs was pouring over readings, making adjustments, and running tests.

  “Anything?” she asked Gene, who looked up from a scanning microscope.

  “We think we’ve identified the marker that’s accelerating the mutation rate. If we can turn that off, then we can adjust the anti-viral to handle this strain.”

  Most of that went over Esther’s head, but she understood the gist of it. If they could keep the virus from mutating so quickly and so severely, then the anti-viral could keep up with it.

  “When will you know?”

  “If we’re right? Twelve hours, I’d guess,” he said, then asked, “How’re things out there?”

  “Still the same. Lots of shouting. They kept a patient from coming in an hour ago.”

  “Idiots,” he said.
“Veta can at least slow down the progression, and if we’re right, in twelve hours, we can start on a cure.”

  “How’s the UAM doc?” she asked, nodding towards the woman who was in an intense-looking conversation with Bing.

  “Dr. Glory to Him? She knows her shit, that’s for sure. I’m glad we have her on board. She was the one who steered us to where we needed to search from the marker.”

  “OK, that’s good. Anything to help, I guess. Well, I’d better get back out there and leave you guys to crack this nut—and the sooner, the better.”

  “That’s what we’re trying to do. You just keep them on the outside of the fence. I’ve been on projects where things can get ugly really quick.”

  Esther took one last look around the lab. There was more brainpower in there, the best and the brightest from the Federation, and with Dr. Glory to Him, from the Brotherhood as well, all working to defeat the virus, all working to save lives. Esther may not be a doctor, she may not even be a lab tech, but she was a Marine and she’d do whatever it takes to make sure they would not be interrupted in their search for the cure.

  Chapter 40

  “Another one just died,” Esther told Jim as he walked up, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “How many is that now?” he asked, turning to check the space between Ward 2 and the incinerator.

  “Thirteen, and we’re not bringing the bodies out right now. It gets the crowd going.”

  “Looks like twice as many as when I left,” he noted.

  After almost two full days of being awake, Esther had sent Jim to the lounge to catch some sleep. The Marines could brainwash, something that Esther had done in her recon training, which could keep a body going for up to a week, but it was something no one ever wanted to do. She was almost happy the team didn’t have that available to them, but that meant they had to get natural sleep in order to function. Stimsticks could help in the short term, but not for any significant length of time.