by Ken Lozito
“Stop sweet-talking me and just do it already, Captain,” Sean said through clenched teeth.
“You must have spoken to my wife. She likes to take charge, too,” Captain Diaz said. He ripped open a sealed canister and shoved it into the medi-gun. “Alright, on three.”
Sean didn’t hear the rest because Diaz squeezed the trigger and medi-paste flooded the wound. Nanorobotic-filled paste swarmed over the wounded area and Sean’s vision swam. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain and then his shoulder became numb, but he was still gasping as he opened his eyes. He took several deep breaths and looked up at Diaz, who grinned down at him.
Sean climbed to his feet and looked at his shoulder. There was a thick, flexible mesh that looked like an extra layer of skin. He rolled his shoulder and felt a dull ache, but he knew better than to overdo it; his shoulder needed time to heal. At least the pain had lessened.
He looked at Diaz. “I thought you said you’d go on three?”
Captain Diaz smiled, showing a healthy set of pearly whites. “That’s just so you’d relax before I got you.”
“Thanks,” Sean said dryly.
The cool night air came in through the open hatchway in the back of the Hellcat. Sierra was a sea of blazing fires. He could still hear the firing of CDF weapons from inside the city, but it was sporadic and spread out.
“There are men back there,” Sean said.
“We can’t get to them,” Captain Diaz replied.
Sean pressed his lips together and clenched his teeth. The Vemus had taken the city. While they could chance a flyover high above the city, they couldn’t risk going down there to extract the CDF soldiers they’d left behind. Sean walked toward the hatchway and watched. He’d gotten the Vemus to do exactly what he wanted, so why did he feel like they’d just lost the battle? The Hellcat raced past the edge of the city and over the dark forests beyond.
Captain Diaz came to his side. “All Hellcats still flying have cleared the city, sir.”
Sean drew in a breath and held it, allowing his eyes to take in this last sight of the home they’d built. Buildings were burning, and many soldiers had died in defense of the city as part of their ruse to draw the Vemus in.
Sean used his neural implants to take control of the Hellcat’s communications system. He sent out a warning signal to the other Hellcats, then counted to ten and sent the detonation signal for the Saber failsafe. Sean watched as a bright flash lit up Sierra as if a molten sun had just ignited in the middle of the city. He looked away from the bright light, but he couldn’t block out the intense sound of the thermal nuclear explosion, which had enough force to level the city and the area surrounding it. One moment Sierra was there and the next it was gone, wiped clean off the face of New Earth. Sean wondered if they would later find a crater where the city had been or if it would just be scorched earth. He forced his gaze ahead, not wanting to look back at where Sierra had been.
The Hellcat was far enough away that they hadn’t felt the kinetic forces from the explosion, and they experienced an uneventful twenty-minute flight to the away zone. The Hellcats and ground vehicles that had left earlier had made it to the coordinates. They were far away from the secret civilian bunkers they’d built, which Sean couldn’t really think about at the moment.
Diaz came over and sat next to him. “You made the right call,” he said.
Sean lifted his gaze and looked at him. “Would he have made the same call?” he asked.
Diaz nodded without even a hint of hesitation. “Connor would have done the same thing.”
Sean sighed. “I guess that’s something. The question remains: what happens when more soldiers from the Vemus Alpha come down here?”
Captain Diaz swallowed hard. “I’m sure Colonel Hayes and the rest of our forces at Lunar Base are going to take care of that.”
Sean wished he had Diaz’s confidence, but he didn’t say that aloud. No need to spread disharmony in the face of losing their home.
The Hellcat landed and Sean walked down the ramp. The night air was fresh and cool, not at all like the acrid smoke they’d been breathing in Sierra. He glanced up at the deceptively peaceful night sky.
Lieutenant Compton walked over to him. “Major, they need you at one of the tents.”
Sean shook his head. “Can’t I get a moment, just one moment to get my bearings? Is that too much to ask!”
Lieutenant Compton looked over at Captain Diaz for a moment.
“Sir, it’s your father. He’s been hurt.”
The exhaustion pressing in on Sean suddenly vanished. “Where is he?”
“Medical tent seven. This way,” Lieutenant Compton said.
Sean followed the big lieutenant as they ran toward the CDF encampment. Tent seven was only a short distance from the landing zone. He ran inside the tent and saw his mother standing, grim-faced, beside a bed. Confusion and then surprise chased each other across Sean’s face. His mother was supposed to be at Sanctuary. How’d she even gotten here? But as soon as the question formed in his mind, he realized his mother had probably bullied her way back. She looked up at his arrival, her eyes brimming with tears. Sean looked down and saw that his father was gravely wounded.
His mother wiped her eyes and walked over to him. “He doesn’t have much time,” she said.
Sean’s mouth hung open. “What happened? Isn’t there anything you can do?”
His father stirred at the sound of Sean’s voice and opened his one good eye. The other was swollen shut. Sean could see that his father’s torso was bloody and bruised beneath the white sheet. He lifted the sheet up and gasped.
“Sean,” his father said.
Sean looked at his father and sorrow closed up his throat. “I sent you away from the combat zone. To make sure you were safe . . .”
The painfully grim lines of his father’s mouth lifted. “I had to help, son,” his father said softly.
The skin around Sean’s eyes became tight and his vision started to blur. “You should have . . .”
“What? Gone to safety while other people died? That’s not what you would have done.”
Sean noted the stubborn gleam in his father’s one good eye and recognized a similar view when he looked at himself in the mirror. He leaned closer to the bed. “Thank you.”
His father’s lips lifted for a moment and then his body arched in pain. He grabbed Sean and pulled him closer. “Survive,” his father said in a harsh whisper, and then he collapsed to the bed, his body going limp. He heard his mother cry out and then slam her fist on his father’s chest. She began administering chest compressions while calling out for medicine. None of the medics moved and Sean glanced at all the blood on the floor. There was no coming back from such a huge loss.
Sean reached for his mother and she snarled at him.
“He’s. Not. Gone,” she said, emphasizing each word with a compression.
Sean watched as his mother pounded on his father’s chest. “He is gone. You need to stop.”
Sean gently grabbed his mother’s arms as they kept pressing on his father’s chest. He brought his other arm around her shoulders, but she just wouldn’t stop. “Please, Mom, you need to stop. He’s gone.”
Sean tried to pull his mother away but she drove her elbow into his stomach. He took hold of her firmly and pulled her back while she cried out, reaching toward his father. Sean held her as she sagged into his arms, weeping. He felt his own tears streaking down his face as everything he’d walled up inside burst forth. He clung to his mother and tried to be strong. It was what she needed. The people around them stepped back, giving them room. Theirs wasn’t the only grief being felt that night, but Sean couldn’t think of anyone else as his mother sobbed in his arms.
29
There was a heavy silence across the Command Center on Phoenix Station. Connor had just gotten an update from Lunar Base that Sierra had been destroyed.
“A nuclear explosion,” Major Elder said. “We destroyed our own city.”
&nb
sp; Connor frowned as he reread the report.
“Major Quinn wouldn’t have done this without careful consideration,” Captain Randle said.
“He’s right,” Connor said.
“But, General, why would Major Quinn destroy not only Sierra but Delphi and New Haven?” Major Elder asked.
CDF soldiers in the Command Center craned their necks so they could hear Connor’s response.
“We obviously don’t have all the information, but my guess is that Major Quinn made a strategic decision,” Connor said. “They couldn’t hold the city, so he did exactly what I would have done—lure the enemy inside and then blow them to kingdom come.”
“But General, there are people here who have families there,” Major Elder said.
“The cities had already been evacuated and the most recent reports indicate that most civilians are safe at either the secret bunkers or Sanctuary. Look, I know it’s tough being in the dark about what’s going on back home. I get it. But we still have a job to do. We’re still fighting for those same people,” Connor said.
Slowly, the Command Center returned to its normal buzz of activity. He knew the war was far from over. With a ship that size, many more Vemus fighters were bound to begin the next stage of the invasion. The question remained: could the Vemus detect the bunkers they’d built, or Sanctuary?
“General Gates,” Lieutenant Daniels said, “Dr. Kim has an update for you and requests that you join him in his lab.”
Connor thanked her and gave a slightly annoyed glance at the main holoscreen, which was still broken.
“Captain Thorne, you have the con,” Connor said.
“Yes, General,” his tactical officer replied.
Connor left the Command Center and had Captain Randle send a comlink to Captain Walker to meet them at the lab. Major Elder followed them. Connor kept thinking about Sierra, trying to imagine just how bad the fighting must have been. The report he’d read indicated that the Vemus’s fighting abilities had increased throughout the course of the engagement. Connor was familiar with soldiers becoming more adept at their jobs, but this was something different. If the war continued for a lengthy period of time, the Vemus would continue to become even more dangerous. Was this what had happened to the NA Alliance military? They needed to end this war quickly if they were going to have any hope of survival.
Connor walked into the Research and Development Lab. Captain Walker was already there and snapped to attention.
“At ease, Captain,” Connor said and looked at Dr. Kim. “I’ve given you more than thirty minutes. Tell me you have some good news.”
Dr. Kim nodded and then gestured one of his assistant researchers toward a clear container on the lab table. Connor glanced inside and saw a small puddle of dark liquid.
“What’s in there?” Connor asked.
“It’s them,” Dr. Kim said. “Or at least it would be if it were to come into contact with humans. Watch.”
Dr. Kim accessed one of the transference chambers and put a tiny ball of pinkish skin inside. The ball seemed to quiver. Dr. Kim closed the chamber door, pressed a button, and the ball of skin was deposited inside the chamber. The dark substance that was allegedly a Vemus had no reaction to it.
“That is a living tissue sample created from the DNA of a mouse. Observe how the Vemus sample has no reaction to it,” Dr. Kim said.
Connor glanced back at the container. “We already knew the virus was modified to target humans.”
Dr. Kim nodded and loaded another flesh-colored ball of skin into the transference chamber. “This was created from human DNA. Though it looks similar to the last sample, I assure you it’s quite different,” he said and then deposited the second sample into the container.
The dark liquid reacted almost instantly and began to move across the container toward the human tissue sample. It covered it completely. Connor glanced at Dr. Kim and then back inside the container. The Vemus sample was absorbing the human tissue sample and then it just stopped. The dark liquid sank back to the surface, becoming a pasty gray substance. The human tissue sample looked as if it had been only partially consumed.
Connor’s mouth hung open in surprise. He leaned closer to the container, looking for some indication that the Vemus sample would begin to reform, but it didn’t. He looked at Dr. Kim, who was smiling proudly.
“Please tell me this is something we can use,” Connor said.
“Oh yes, General. We can kill them now,” Dr. Kim said with an excited gleam in his eyes.
Connor swallowed. “You need to explain to me exactly what just happened. How this works. Everything.”
“Earth scientists had been trying to stop the Vemus for years before they lost everything. You’ve had these samples for barely an hour,” Major Elder said.
Dr. Kim waved them over to the wallscreen. “We’ve been collecting samples of microscopic organisms from New Earth since we arrived, cataloging them and their properties. What we found was a native virus that breaks down the proteins in other viruses—the very same proteins the Vemus uses to keep itself together. In essence, it sterilizes the virus and starves the parasitic organism. We break the symbiotic chain. We know the Vemus are highly adaptive and that the virus is capable of absorbing the DNA of an infected host. This is then transferred to the parasite that then takes over the host. It introduces new DNA to the host with a set of instructions that causes genes to express at a geometric rate. It’s quite literally like being reborn. Think along the lines of a human embryo in its early stages of development.”
“And this is possible because we modified the virus?” Connor asked.
Dr. Kim’s eyebrows rose. “That’s the really interesting part. We already knew the virus the Vemus uses had been modified and we were told it was modified to avoid humans, that it was their plan since they couldn’t cure it. This was to buy the people of Earth time to come up with a more permanent solution,” Dr. Kim said.
Connor narrowed his gaze suspiciously. “Are you implying that someone deliberately modified the virus so it would target humans exclusively?”
“Once they modified the virus, by its very nature it would take in new DNA to improve itself . . .” Dr. Kim shook his head. “My point is that once they modified the virus, it became a synthetic organism that was designed to behave in a very specific way.”
“You mean a weapon. The Vemus are a biological weapon!” Connor said, hardly daring to breathe.
“Precisely,” Dr. Kim confirmed.
Connor leaned back and tried to get a handle on his racing thoughts. He clenched and unclenched his fists while he paced.
“But who would do such a thing?” Major Elder asked.
Dr. Kim shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who actually did this. It could have been anyone—government agencies, terrorist organizations, corporate research conglomerates, or some rogue agency. Take your pick, but the evidence is there. The most catastrophic event of our time is of our own making.”
Connor couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it, but it all made sense. “Someone back home seized an opportunity to become more powerful and it backfired on them.”
“My guess is that it simply got out of control,” Dr. Kim said.
“I don’t understand. How could it have gotten out of control? They modified the virus,” Major Elder said.
“They must have had some way to protect themselves or thought they had a way to stop it, making themselves into heroes in the process,” Connor said.
“They could have done that anyway without obliterating the population,” Major Elder said and shook his head.
“Think about it. They found a way to remove any obstacle in their path, except they underestimated what they’d done. They tried to play God and the whole thing blew up in their faces. This whole thing makes me sick,” Connor said in disgust.
They were silent for a few moments while they all digested what Dr. Kim had told them. Connor rested his hands on his hips and shook his head. One of t
he primary objectives of the Ghosts had been to stop things like this. Human ingenuity, which had spawned their most amazing creations, also came with the threat that the worst part of humanity could also rear its ugly head as well. If so, in a celestial blink of the eye, they would all be gone—just another intelligent, advanced race snuffed out of existence because of someone’s blind ambition.
Connor looked at Dr. Kim. “You said we can kill them. How?”
“We can synthesize the virus. I’ve already spoken to Dr. Morgan. She’s a nano-robotics engineer and she believes we can combine the two,” Dr. Kim said.
“What good is that?” Connor asked.
“It will make our virus kill the Vemus faster. We can also do our own bit of manipulation to make it seek out the synthetic virus from Earth,” Dr. Kim said.
“There has to be more to it than that. You said the Vemus operate like a hive. We’ve seen them function as if there was a centralized intelligence commanding them. Could you make enough of that stuff to take it out?” Connor asked.
“Most certainly, General,” Dr. Kim said.
“How long will it take to make it?” Connor asked.
“We can have a batch ready in about seven or eight hours. Subsequent batches will be much faster as we perfect the process,” Dr. Kim said.
Connor frowned as he calculated the time.
“What’s the matter, General? I thought you’d have been pleased,” Dr. Kim asked.
“We need it a lot faster than that,” Connor said and opened a comlink alert message from the Command Center.
“We’ll do the best we can,” Dr. Kim said.
“You need to. The best way to stop the Vemus is to get aboard the Alpha ship, find wherever the hell this centralized brain is, and kill it at the source using whatever you come up with. You’ve got less than three hours to do it,” Connor said.
Dr. Kim’s brows drew up in a worried frown. “Why so little time?”
“Because we just got another update from Lunar Base. Colonel Hayes believes they’re preparing for another attack on New Earth. Our best speed in the combat shuttles we have to reach the enemy ship is two hours. You’ve got one hour to prepare. We can bring whatever equipment you need with us,” Connor said.
