Scum of the Universe (Fire and Rust Book 7)

by Anthony James

  “Patrol it is, then.”

  “Maybe. It feels like something’s building, doesn’t it?”

  “The Sekar are probably due to show up sometime soon. And the Raggers have been quiet for too long.”

  “Truce or no truce.”

  Dominguez lifted her own cup halfway to her mouth, thought better of it and placed it on the table once more. “Do you remember Lieutenant Shelton saying how there’d be another truce? Even after what happened at Glesia?”

  “She’s got a sharp mind,” said Griffin. “She said the Raggers would blame Hass-Tei-112 for breaking the ceasefire in the first place by accusing him of being a rogue. And that’s exactly what happened.”

  “Like fools, we believed them.”

  “This time it’s the Raggers who are the fools, Cassie.”

  She laughed. “They believed that we believed them.”

  “Or maybe we only part believe them. Maybe we’ll do whatever the hell we want with the truce this time.”

  Dominguez reached across and gave him a playful poke with her outstretched finger. “We’re the good guys, remember.”

  “I think we’ve learned our lesson.”

  “You get to hear all the juicy gossip.”

  “The privilege of rank. You should put in for captain. You’d get accepted.”

  “I will.”

  “Why not now?”

  “You want rid of me?”

  “I want a whole lot more of you.”

  “The time doesn’t feel right for promotion. That’s all it is.”

  “You’re the best officer I’ve worked with.”

  “You’ve got a great team. All of us. Except most of that team is on Earth right now, probably sipping cocktails.”

  “I know. The best team. I wasn’t trying to flatter you.”

  “I’ll think about it, Jake.”

  He stared at her and she stared right back. The moment was interrupted by a squawking voice coming from the internal comms system.

  “Captain Jake Griffin to the bridge.”

  The message repeated in case he’d missed it the first time.

  “I just finished my shift,” he grumbled. “What now?”

  “Best get there and find out.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  He reached down and picked up his flight helmet. Many of the personnel on the Nullifier didn’t bother wearing them, since the life support was functioning and the interior was secure. Griffin had been through enough that it was hard to let his guard down.

  “See you soon.”

  A little while after, he entered the bridge, with its rows of alien command stations and its center-front main console. The place was full, like always, and an officer waited for him.

  “Lieutenant Cain,” said Griffin, recognizing the man from one branch or other of the alien psychology team. “What do you need me for?”

  Cain was grey-haired and probably only a few years from retirement. Normally he was calm and measured in everything. This time, Griffin detected an air of something different.

  “It’s the control entity, sir. It wants to speak with you.”

  “Did you tell it my shift was over?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s acting strange.”

  The words, coming from the unflappable Cain, were enough to have Griffin worried and he didn’t ask any further questions.

  “I’ll speak with it.”

  “I cleared that station there for you, sir.”

  Griffin took the seat and curled his fingers around the neural interface bar. During his first hours on the warship, communication had taken place through speech converted into a computer file and transferred via his flight helmet. After some experimentation, Griffin had worked out how to think his words and somehow they got through. One downside was that conversations could take place over a much shorter time, which occasionally made a standard shift drag on forever.

  GRIFFIN> What is the matter?

  NULLIFIER> Good evening Jake Griffin.

  GRIFFIN> You wanted to speak to me.

  NULLIFIER> Did I?

  GRIFFIN> That’s what I was told. Something is wrong.

  NULLIFIER> Yes.

  GRIFFIN> What is wrong?

  NULLIFIER> I do not know.

  Griffin pursed his lips. The control entity was peculiar – at one time he thought it liked playing games. Now he worked on the assumption that it was just different.

  GRIFFIN> Should I go?

  NULLIFIER> No.

  GRIFFIN> Are you bored?

  NULLIFIER> Sometimes.

  GRIFFIN> I mean now.

  NULLIFIER> Something is wrong.

  GRIFFIN> What kind of wrong?

  NULLIFIER> I do not know. Changes to my hardware. Changes to my core programming.

  GRIFFIN> There are approximately fifteen hundred personnel checking out how the Hantisar built you.

  NULLIFIER> I am aware of that intrusion. I allow it to happen.

  GRIFFIN> Then what?

  NULLIFIER> Will you do me a favor?

  GRIFFIN> If it’s reasonable.

  NULLIFIER> I wish to speak to you and to Lieutenant Cassie Dominguez. You are fond of her.

  GRIFFIN> More than fond. I will ask her to come to the bridge.

  NULLIFIER> No! Not to the bridge. Aft section, lower deck – the room you have named Sub 12-D.

  GRIFFIN> I know it.

  NULLIFIER> I am fitted with several neural link consoles in that area. Find one. Lieutenant Cassie Dominguez must be with you.

  GRIFFIN> This behavior is unusual.

  NULLIFIER> To the contrary.

  GRIFFIN> What does that mean?

  NULLIFIER> Go. You must be quick.

  GRIFFIN> Is there danger?

  NULLIFIER> No. Do not bring other personnel with you. I will know.

  Griffin thought he’d been exposed to the worst of the Nullifier’s eccentricities. Now he saw how wrong he was. He pulled his hand clear of the neural link.

  “Sir?” asked Lieutenant Cain. “Is everything as it should be?”

  “Perhaps,” said Griffin, rising to his feet. The Nullifier could hear every conversation onboard, no matter how quietly spoken and he didn’t want the control entity to think he’d betrayed its trust. In truth, he was more than worried.

  Waving away Cain’s questions, Griffin exited the bridge, putting on his flight helmet as he did do. Dominguez wasn’t wearing hers, but he could send an alert that would make it beep. A few seconds after he sent the alert, she entered the channel.

  “Sir?” she asked.

  “Get to Sub 12-D. Don’t tell anyone but do it now.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice filled with concern.

  “Something. I don’t know what.”

  Griffin’s feet pounded the corridors of the Nullifier’s interior. The place was a mess of cobbled-in ULAF and Fangrin technology. Cables hung everywhere and new consoles were crudely linked to many of the Hantisar originals. The sights hardly registered with Griffin and he sprinted towards the aft section, passing dozens of personnel on the way.

  With a slight head start in terms of distance, Dominguez got there first and she shifted from foot to foot, watching Griffin’s approach.

  “What’s going on?”

  “The Nullifier’s acting strangely. Worse than strange. It wants to speak with us.”

  “Alone? Way back here next to the shuttle bay?”

  “Yes. I told you it was strange.”

  Sub 12-D was another one of the many cramped rooms used for internal monitoring or maintenance. A control station with four neural links was installed the center of the room, its lights and screens online. Griffin strode closer, exchanged a glance with Dominguez and then took hold of the bar.

  GRIFFIN> We are in Sub 12-D.

  CASSIE> How’s it going you big old lump of alien hardware?

  NULLIFIER> You must leave.

  GRIFFIN> Why?

  NULLIFIER> My access to core data files and processing n
odes is fragmenting. Soon I will lose control of the spaceship.

  GRIFFIN> I thought the ULAF and Fangrin had control of the Nullifier?

  NULLIFIER> With my acquiescence. Everything routes through the control core and I monitor the data flow.

  CASSIE> What’s going on with the core stuff?

  NULLIFIER> Corruption. The Sekar-Major has infiltrated my systems.

  GRIFFIN> We got rid of it with the tharniol flush on Glesia.

  NULLIFIER> Something of it remained.

  CASSIE> Doesn’t this core hardware have a big, red off switch we can flick?

  NULLIFIER> No. You must leave the spaceship.

  GRIFFIN> We can’t allow the Sekar to regain control of the Nullifier.

  NULLIFIER> It is too late. Once the infiltration is complete, the Sekar-Major will expunge life on the ship.

  GRIFFIN> How?

  NULLIFIER> I anticipate the Sekar-Major will activate the vantrium drive and deactivate the life support.

  CASSIE> That would do it.

  GRIFFIN> Why didn’t you tell Lieutenant Cain? We could evacuate the ship.

  NULLIFIER> Time is short. Your personnel removed one shuttle from my bay to study its technology. Only one is left. It will not transport 1523 biological creatures of your size.

  GRIFFIN> Is there any way we can fix this?

  NULLIFIER> No.

  GRIFFIN> There’s always a way.

  NULLIFIER> Not this time. Not before the Sekar-Major activates the vantrium drive.

  GRIFFIN> What will happen to you?

  NULLIFIER> It is probable I will cease to exist.

  CASSIE> We don’t want that.

  NULLIFIER> Neither do I. It does not have to claim us all.

  GRIFFIN> What will the Sekar-Major do?

  NULLIFIER> It will take the Nullifier to your planet Earth.

  GRIFFIN> Those coordinates aren’t in your navigational system.

  NULLIFIER> I took them from Lieutenant Kenyon’s flight helmet when he sent a message to Earth’s main comms hub not long after I acquired you and your crew.

  GRIFFIN> Well, shit.

  NULLIFIER> I am sorry.

  GRIFFIN> That makes approximately twenty billion of us.

  NULLIFIER> Leave. Do it now. The bay door is opening.

  CASSIE> So long.

  NU#LIFIE?> So ?#^

  Griffin tore his hand free from the neural bar. At the same moment, he heard a whine of the propulsion – louder here than on the bridge – increase in volume. A moment later, a shudder ran through the Nullifier. Griffin stumbled and Dominguez grabbed hold of him.

  “The spaceship is accelerating,” he said. “The life support cut out and then came back online.”

  An alarm appeared on the HUD of Griffin’s flight helmet. The crew knew something was happening, but not what it was.

  “I’ve sent a comms alert to the bridge. Priority 1. Recommendation to shut down every onboard system if possible.”

  The life support went offline for a second time and the accelerative forces were a strain to resist. Griffin was taken by a feeling he was unfamiliar with – indecision.

  “We should go, sir,” said Dominguez firmly. “If the Nullifier is playing games, what harm is done?”

  Griffin could live with the embarrassment. His feet moved in the direction of the bay. At the same time, he checked the comms network to find out if any personnel were close by. A couple of teams worked in one of the aft bays a short distance away and Griffin ordered them to the shuttle bay. The response he received was one of confusion since he was no longer the commanding officer of the Nullifier.

  “Just get here,” snapped Griffin. “The spaceship is about to enter lightspeed without its life support active.”

  That was as much as he could do. The pair of them entered the bay and sprinted for the lone shuttle. A yawning darkness and a vacuum indicated the outer door was open.

  “Still no guidance from the bridge,” said Griffin.

  The life support stuttered and he fell. His outstretched arm saved him from injury and he scrambled to his feet. The shuttle’s access panel responded to his touch and he climbed the few steps along with Dominguez. Inside it was cold and bright.

  A single door led from the shuttle’s passenger bay to the cockpit. Griffin took one seat and Dominguez the other. The engine was online and running at idle – the benefit of a propulsion that didn’t require fuel meant that it never needed to be shut off.

  The whining of the Nullifier’s own vantrium drive suddenly increased in volume. A creaking groan came from somewhere nearby and it took a moment for Griffin to identify it.

  “That’s the docking clamp holding us in place,” he said.

  “Sounds like it’s about to rip free.”

  The groaning noise didn’t recede and it was joined by a squeal of tortured metal. Such a strain on the docking clamp could only indicate that the Nullifier was accelerating hard. Too hard for anyone to survive unless they were inside this shuttle and protected by the smaller vessel’s life support system.

  “Shit,” said Dominguez, close to tears.

  Griffin didn’t show his own face. He disengaged the clamp and the shuttle immediately began sliding across the bay floor with a harsh scraping. Griffin was ready for it and he compensated by lifting the shuttle away from the floor. The rear bulkhead came up fast and it took all his skill to fly the shuttle through the outer door without it being crushed against the interior of the bay.

  Darkness filled the sensor feeds and Dominguez sought to obtain a lock on the Nullifier. She soon reached a conclusion.

  “Gone,” she said. “Into lightspeed.”

  Whatever this episode meant, Griffin didn’t have any idea. One of the fleet warships assigned to watch over the Nullifier made contact, its commanding officer pissed as hell.

  “That battleship took out two of our spacecraft and then went to lightspeed. Someone needs to give me answers.”

  Griffin didn’t have any answers to give – or at least nothing that would help fix the situation. Worst of all, none of the attendant warships were fitted with the Hantisar comms amplifiers and he didn’t know if their FTL transmissions would reach Earth before the Nullifier.

  He punched his console in fury and requested pickup.

  Chapter Four

  Stone’s meeting with his staff didn’t last long. They tossed about a few ideas, some of which required additional time to nail down the viability. One or two of the suggestions had potential and when Stone returned to his office he was simultaneously invigorated and anxious.

  He sat thought for short time, aware that he’d need to speak with several of his more far-flung personnel, as well as his main Fangrin contact – a grizzled senior governor called Londil Terax.

  “You haven’t coughed once since we returned from Weapons Factory Zero,” said Dr Austin.

  Just hearing the words would have usually prompted a cough. This time, they didn’t.

  “You’re right. I don’t want to cough now either.”

  “Go nanoparticles,” she said.

  “Do I hear an expression of that hope you denied existed, Dr Austin?”

  “Absolutely not. I am a medical doctor and a scientist, sir.” She grinned – the first time he could remember her doing so.

  Stone tentatively made himself cough. “That didn’t hurt so much.”

  “And you’re due more painkillers.” The words prompted her to pat at her uniform and she began extracting containers in preparation for dispensing Stone’s next round of tablets.

  “Do you think the nanoparticles are working?” he asked.

  She held his gaze for a long time and suddenly Stone wished he was ten years younger.

  “I’ll order some more tests. Later this afternoon?”

  “Yes, I’ll make time.”

  “That means you lose out on your hamburger again.”

  “How come?”

  “It’ll show up in your blood.”

  “This is a doct
or joke to keep me healthy, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m a damned Fleet Admiral and I’m having that hamburger.”

  “Whatever you say, sir.”

  For a second time, Stone was denied by his PA - like the computer was in cahoots with his medical team to keep him away from saturated fats.

  “Fleet Admiral, I have Research Lead Sheri Fields on the comms for you.”

  “What does she want?”

  “Apparently you asked her to speak with Captain Dyer if she needed to get in touch with you. She has spoken to Captain Dyer and convinced him of the urgency. Captain Dyer has provided his clearance codes and…”

  “I get the message. Pass her through.”

  The PA didn’t verbally acknowledge and simply transferred RL Fields into the channel.

  “Hello?” came an uncertain voice.

  “RL Fields, how can I help you?” asked Stone.

  “Sir,” she began, sounding out of breath. “Subsequent to our meeting earlier, I was contacted by one of the Fangrin specialists in Ragger technology. I don’t know how she learned about Private Kemp, but…”

  “Internal communication, RL Fields. I make it a priority in the ULAF.”

  “Yes, sir. This Fangrin – Datra Ber I think her name was – is an expert in Ragger genetics. She was part of a team dedicated to researching the enemy biological replication technology.”

  “Like how the Raggers grow a complete specimen in a tube in less than a year?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did she have to say?”

  “Well, I don’t know if it’s good news or bad news, sir.”

  “Tell me what it is and then I can decide.”

  “She believes the Raggers’ advanced genetics manipulation techniques would allow them to replicate the nanoparticles in vast quantities and in a short space of time.”

  Stone closed his eyes, wondering why he hadn’t seen this one coming. “How short a space of time?”

  “Datra Ber didn’t offer certainty – only conjecture.”

  “And the outcome of this conjecture was?”

  “Six months before we have enough nanoparticles to inject everyone in the Unity League and every single Fangrin, with plenty spare. And sufficient quantity to start the immunization program within two months.”