by Ken Lozito
“That sounds good, but I’m sensing some uncertainty,” Connor replied.
“We’re dealing with combat shuttle comms. With the Vemus cruisers around we can’t even establish a connection to the shuttle long enough to dump the data,” Colonel Hayes said.
Connor nodded. “I’m beginning to understand. Who’s in command of the shuttle?”
“Captain Jon Walker. He’s a good man, but he’s just lost his brother, who was part of the salvage mission. It was his brother, Brian, who made the discovery about the Vemus,” Colonel Hayes said.
“Send orders to Captain Walker to bring his shuttle to me,” Connor said.
“I was afraid you’d say that, sir, and I’d be remiss in my duty if I didn’t warn you about the degree of risk involved. The mission report provided by Captain Walker indicates that the salvage team had become compromised by the surviving Vemus soldiers aboard the wreckage, so we can’t be sure that Dr. Walker’s claims about his Vemus discovery are really what we hope they are,” Colonel Hayes said.
Connor leaned back in his chair and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “We don’t have a choice. Order Captain Walker to come here and we’ll see what we’ve got. We can’t afford to leave any stone unturned.”
“Understood, General,” Colonel Hayes said.
They had to close the comlink after that because their time had run out and the risk of a Vemus cruiser discovering the signal would put both Lunar Base and the remains of Phoenix Station at risk. They agreed to reconnect again in a few hours’ time.
“At least we haven’t lost Lunar Base,” Captain Randle said.
Connor looked at Captain Randle. “We’re still in this fight,” he said. “Ops, inform the hangar bay that we have a combat shuttle on its way to us.”
“Yes, General,” Lieutenant Rawn said.
Connor looked at Captain Thorne. “Do we have any weapons capability?”
“No, sir. We thought we might have had a few rail-guns and perhaps some point defenses, but those systems are too far gone. Essentially, we’re a lifeboat at this time,” Captain Thorne said.
Connor gritted his teeth for a moment. He supposed it would have been too much to hope for that they had any serious weapons capability. “Understood. Captain, I want you to continue compiling a list of our assets. I need an inventory of everything we’ve got.”
“Yes, General,” Captain Thorne said and went back to work at his terminal.
“Ops, when will PRADIS be back up and running?” Connor asked.
“The scanning array is up. We’re running passive scans now and processing the updates we’ve received from Lunar Base. I can give you a snapshot of the Vemus location within the last two hours, but that’s it for now, sir,” Lieutenant Rawn said.
The system was taking its sweet time coming back online. He guessed the PRADIS designers hadn’t thought of the impact of being cut off from the primary computing core. There were a lot of things they hadn’t thought of, so he’d have to be patient. Connor gestured for Captain Randle to follow him. “It shouldn’t take the combat shuttle long to get here. I want to meet them when they land.”
They headed to the lower decks, and Connor ordered a team of CDF soldiers to meet them in the hangar. Later, Connor watched as a CDF combat shuttle entered the hangar bay. There were gouges on the hull and damaged plating. The hatch on the side of the shuttle opened and a battered crew stepped out. Once they reached the floor, they stood at attention and saluted Connor.
“Welcome aboard Phoenix Station—what’s left of it, that is,” Connor said.
“Thank you, General,” Captain Walker said. “I don’t think we could stand being on that shuttle much longer.”
A team of medics came forward to check the shuttle crew.
“We followed decontamination protocols, and the samples that were gathered are in the biological containment unit right here, sir,” Captain Walker said and gestured to the metallic case in his hand.
“Captain, I understand you’ve lost your brother. He was on the salvage team?” Connor said.
“Yes, he was, General,” Captain Walker said.
“What did he find?” Connor asked.
“We tried to do our own analysis of the data, but we didn’t understand it,” Captain Walker said.
Connor gestured for one of his soldiers to take possession of the case. “Let’s get you and your team cleaned up. Then we can talk.”
“I appreciate that, sir, but my brother died for this data. I need to know if . . . I just need to know, sir,” Captain Walker said.
Connor regarded Captain Walker for a moment. He clutched the case in a white-knuckled grip.
“Alright. We have a few working labs. Let’s head over to them and let those scientists analyze what you’ve got. In the meantime, the rest of your team will be debriefed and cleaned up,” Connor said.
Captain Walker nodded, relieved.
Connor led them out, the CDF soldiers walking behind them. “Not what you were expecting, were they,” he said.
Captain Walker frowned.
“The Vemus. Colonel Hayes reported that you encountered Vemus soldiers,” Connor said.
Captain Walker’s expression hardened. “No, they weren’t, sir. I have trouble believing they were once people.”
Connor nodded, remembering his own encounter with them. “They might have been people once but not anymore.”
They headed toward the biological lab where Dr. Young Kim waited for them.
“I hadn’t expected you to return so soon, General,” Dr. Kim said.
“Circumstances have changed. Captain Walker here has brought live tissue samples taken from Vemus soldiers. There has already been a preliminary analysis done by Dr. Brian Walker,” Connor said.
Dr. Kim’s eyes darted toward Captain Walker and then he glanced at the other soldiers. “Where is Dr. Walker?”
“He didn’t make it,” Captain Walker replied.
Dr. Kim’s gaze softened. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“I have his data. He died for it,” Captain Walker said.
“Yes, of course. I’ll take very good care of it. Please upload over here,” Dr. Kim said and gestured toward the nearest terminal at the end of a long table.
Dr. Kim walked over to the terminal, completely ignoring the case with the Vemus samples. They waited a few minutes while he studied the information. Connor glanced around the lab. There were all sorts of instruments and containers marked as cold storage.
Dr. Kim looked up from his terminal. “This is remarkable.”
“We’re glad you approve, but we need to know if there’s something in there we can use against the Vemus,” Connor said.
“Brian said he’d found the key to destroying the Vemus for good,” Captain Walker said.
Dr. Kim bit his lower lip and glanced down at the screen. His eyes slid into a look of calculation, as if he were weighing the possibilities, and then he snorted. “I can see why he thought that.”
Connor’s brows pulled together. “Do you agree with his findings?”
Dr. Kim frowned. “What Dr. Walker discovered was that the Vemus behave like a hive. There’s a strict hierarchy,” he said and looked at Connor. “I recall your reports on the Vemus included an opinion that they weren’t very imaginative.”
“That’s right. They only seem to react to the immediate threat,” Connor replied.
“How can they be a hive? That doesn’t make any sense,” Captain Walker said.
Dr. Kim shrugged. “Actually, a hive hierarchy is one of the dominant groupings of life. We’ve seen it on an insect level but also among microorganisms. So it’s not much of a stretch of the imagination that the Vemus have this hierarchy as well.”
“There’s a lot that doesn’t add up here. Hives don’t work this way. They don’t cross interstellar space to hunt humans,” Connor said.
“No, they don’t,” Dr. Kim said. “What we’re seeing is a parasitic organism that’s in symbiosis with a very specifi
c virus. One cannot survive without the other.”
“If there’s a hive, then there’s a queen. Will the hive die if we kill the queen?” Connor asked.
Dr. Kim shook his head. “I may have oversimplified what the Vemus are. They’re hive-like. I need some time to look at Dr. Walker’s data and the samples he’s collected.”
“We’re a little short on time. How much do you think you need?” Connor asked.
“This is where you expect me to give you a completely unreasonable timeframe because I’m a scientist who can’t see beyond what’s directly in front of him. But I assure you, General, I’m well aware of the stakes. Give me a half hour to look things over carefully and then I’ll have more answers for you, or at the very least a reasonable estimate,” Dr. Kim said.
Connor swallowed hard. “Thirty minutes,” he said and left the lab.
Connor walked back into the corridor, his mind replaying what Dr. Kim had said. He really could have used Wil Reisman’s help with all this or even Noah’s—both were good at finding the devil in the details. He glanced behind him and saw Captain Randle and Captain Walker following him. They were good men, but they weren’t Sean. He was surprised by just how much he’d come to rely on Sean Quinn’s counsel. He didn’t regret sending Sean back to New Earth, but he did wish he was still here with them. Connor closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He thought about Lenora and felt his chest tighten. She certainly had never pulled any punches when dealing with him. He wondered what she’d do if she were here.
Connor stopped walking and leaned up against the wall. “What do you think about what Dr. Kim said?”
“Honestly, sir, this is beyond my expertise. I don’t know what to think,” Captain Randle said.
“What about you, Walker?” Connor said.
“Brian wouldn’t have made the claim that the data he’d found was important unless he really thought it was. He knew he was never getting out of that ship. He’d been infected, along with the entire salvage team. He even stopped the other team members from trying to escape. So if you’re asking me whether I believe what my brother said is true, then I do, sir,” Captain Walker said.
“The hive theory makes sense, but I’m not sure if that’s because I want it to make sense. We know the Vemus were using some type of command/control signal for the fleet. We blocked that signal and it severely limited their fighting capability. So there’s evidence to support that we’re at least dealing with a centralized intelligence,” Connor said.
“Sir, how do we go from a disease that spreads among mammals and then, when we try to fix it, it targets humans exclusively? That’s what was in the data from the Indianapolis. I can understand how the virus spreads, but for it to become some type of collective intelligence, I’m not sure how we can defeat that other than by taking the damn thing out,” Captain Randle said.
Connor sighed. “I think you’re right. We just need Dr. Kim to confirm it, and hopefully those samples will give us something we can use against them.”
Captain Randle frowned. “What’s to stop this thing from spreading to creatures from New Earth?”
“There’s no way to know for sure. The experts won’t say. They’ll only say something about life developing on different evolutionary paths. Plus, we know that Earth scientists modified the virus, which made it into something outside of nature,” Connor said.
Captain Walker nodded. “I remember my brother mentioning that. But we can’t afford to let any of them escape.”
“You’ll get no arguments from me on that. Let’s give Dr. Kim some time and hope he’ll give us some good news. In the meantime, we need to come up with a plan to take out that Vemus Alpha,” Connor said.
“General, this station doesn’t have any weapons capabilities,” Captain Randle said.
Captain Walker arched a brow in surprise.
Connor leveled his gaze at them. “Yes, it does.”
“We have no missiles or heavy weapons, sir,” Captain Randle said.
“You’re right, we don’t, but I was thinking of something much more dangerous,” Connor replied.
Captain Randle frowned in confusion.
“Never underestimate the power of what a soldier can accomplish with the use of only his rifle. There are a few hundred of us left here, and we have the element of surprise,” Connor said.
28
Sierra was a war zone and Sean was at the epicenter. Vemus soldiers roamed the streets of the outer city, hunting for them. Sean was in the upper levels of a high-rise building, and the high-pitched whistles and clicks of the Vemus soldiers drew closer as a horde of them closed in on Sean and his team. The combined CDF and Field Ops forces had held the line for as long as they could before retreating. Civilian militia helped with the wounded, running them back to temporary safe zones so they could be transported away from the city.
Sean looked through the scope of his M-Viper rifle and watched a group of Vemus soldiers surround a fallen CDF soldier who was in a twisted heap, covered with a thick black liquid. The soldier squirmed, and for a moment, his face was free of the viscous liquid. He struggled to move his arms but the Vemus pinned him down to the ground. The soldier screamed. Something dark slithered along his body and went into his mouth. The soldier’s eyes widened as he tried to cry out. Sean lined up his shot and squeezed the trigger. A lone shot of mercy rang out amidst the gunfire that raged throughout Sierra. The writhing CDF soldier jerked back and then was still. Sean moved away from the window. He’d lost count of how many shots he’d taken like that. Mercy killings. He preferred to think he was easing their pain, but it only slowed the Vemus down. They didn’t abandon anyone on the battlefield regardless of whether they were living or not. All seemed to have equal value.
There was a muffled bang from several floors beneath them.
“We can’t stay here. They’re through the barricade downstairs,” Lieutenant Compton said. “There’s a Hellcat waiting for us on the roof, Major.”
Sean followed Lieutenant Compton up the stairs. The Vemus had ignored the buildings unless they knew CDF were inside. He’d ordered CDF soldiers to remain behind beyond the line of battle to hamper the Vemus soldiers as they pushed forward. They’d conceal their locations and then strike the enemy from behind before escaping to the next building using temporary walkways.
The Vemus seemed conditioned to engage only with something directly in their path, and Sean exploited this weakness for as long as it was effective, but they eventually caught on. The Vemus always did, and in this case it didn’t take them long to learn that they had to start clearing the buildings before moving forward. The longer the Vemus engaged the Colonial Defense Force, the more intelligent they became in the execution of their tactics.
Sean ran up the stairwell and heard a Hellcat troop carrier flying overhead. They didn’t stop in any one place for very long. He’d tasked the Hellcats with transporting soldiers, removing them from hot zones but keeping them in the fight for as long as they were able. The Hellcats were armed with an M-180 gauss cannon capable of firing thirty-millimeter projectiles in rapid succession. When engaged, the M-180 was capable of mowing down whatever enemy force was in its path. The problem was the damn Vemus energy weapons, which were capable of bringing down even the Hellcats. But the Hellcats could provide air support for a limited time and sometimes that made all the difference for the mobile infantry units on the ground. No sooner would a CDF squad get picked up than they were deposited at another location within the city. The CDF still fought, even knowing they had no hope of pushing the enemy out of the city. Instead, they fought to kill as many Vemus soldiers as they could while drawing them farther into the city.
Sean and the others exited the stairwell and followed Lieutenant Compton onto the waiting Hellcat. As soon as he was aboard and the Hellcat pilot was flying away, a CDF soldier raised a rocket launcher to his shoulder and fired it at the building. There was a brief lull in the area before the interior of the building exploded, killing all the Vemus soldi
ers inside.
In an instant, the hard work of the colonists was ripped to pieces. Sean had stopped telling himself they’d rebuild it all someday. It didn’t help. After destroying several buildings, it didn’t feel as if there would ever be anything here but death and destruction. A deep-seated fury took hold of him each time a part of Sierra was demolished. They’d killed so many Vemus soldiers, but it was never enough. The brief euphoria at gouging the enemy’s numbers was always short-lived. In the beginning, he’d relished the feeling. Striking the enemy down had sparked a deep satisfaction, knowing he’d hurt the things that were there to kill them. Then, bitterness set in at the reality of what they were facing. What good was a victory when they had to destroy their home in order to survive? But still, he would fight. He clutched his rifle—just as all the CDF soldiers had—and kept throwing himself into the fray. Survival required a sacrifice paid for in blood, and the colony as a whole was paying a terrible price.
Sean glanced over to the side and watched as another Hellcat flew toward a rooftop to extract soldiers waiting for a pickup. As the Hellcat approached the rooftop, a large group of Vemus soldiers stormed onto the rooftop of a neighboring building and threw themselves at the ship. The pilot tried to steer the ship away, but some of the Vemus fighters made it on board. Sean raised his weapon and called for help. He aimed and glimpsed the soldiers inside the Hellcat, trying to fight the Vemus soldiers. Deadly blue bolts flashed inside the aircraft. The Vemus had long abandoned the less effective white stunner bolts. The blue bolts could penetrate armor and combat suits alike. Sean was about to fire his weapon when the Hellcat slammed into the neighboring building and crashed onto the street below. Sean ordered the pilot to bring them around so they could search for survivors, but before they could move into position there was an orange flash and the Hellcat exploded. As the Vemus began to turn deadly weapons toward their aircraft, the pilot quickly flew them away.
Sean clenched his teeth and glared at the building swarming with Vemus soldiers. “Sergeant Mitchell, take out that building.”
