Syn-En: Plague World: The Founders War Begins (22 page)

The beads at the ends of Apollie’s braids clacked together as she jumped like a cricket to get the strawberries higher up. “We have no evidence that the fermites harmed the host.”

Bei tapped the screen of her etablet, transferring enhanced visuals of Nell’s skin and the geysers of fermites. The atomic pests had fed on his wife’s energy like it was their personal smorgasbord. “You haven’t seen this level of infection before.”

“Not infection, per se. I believe the harm is a side effect.” Doc powered on his medical analyzer. “But given that the fermites are in the air, the food, and the intestinal track of the natives, the atomic pests might be too much of a good thing.”

Apollie bit a strawberry in half. “I think the fermites taste delicious.”

Doc’s lips twitched. “Careful, feather-face. Too many of those things and Gaug may not give you the daughters you want.”

At the mention of her intended, Apollie rolled the half-eaten fruit around in her long fingers. Furrows plowed her pale forehead and her lips pursed. “Maybe if I eat enough, I can take some fermites back, and they can undo the damage done to him.”

She popped the rest into her mouth and chewed.

Love made every species take dangerous risks. Bei glanced toward his wife’s room. Increasing his auditory sensors, he detected the rustle of sheets, Nell’s hitched breath, and a soft whimper. Today’s events were taking its toll. She would not be alone when she awoke. But he had work to do.

“You should go to her.” Doc removed a sphere from the bottom of the case. He rolled the silver ball down his arm, bounced it off his bicep, then caught it again.

“You packed a probe in your medical kit?” Bei raised a hand to receive the sphere.

“Nope.” Smiling, Doc lobbed the sphere at Bei. “I packed two. Just because you’re lounging about in bed, doesn’t mean you can’t be working.”

Depressing the buttons on the sides of the sphere, Bei synced the signal to the CIC. Green lights blinked, sensors came on-line, and the probe whirled. Very slowly, it rose in the air. “Start scanning at the lowest level and work your way back to Doc.”

The sphere glided across the room.

Doc juggled the spare probe in his hand. “Want a pair of them on the hunt?”

“Just one will do.” Bei didn’t trust the fermites. The atomic pests might sabotage their tech.

The probe whistled near the white-bearded biologic. Rayem ducked. A nervous chuckle slipped through his withered lips. Shuffling forward, he placed the basket of fruit between his body and them. “The ceremony is over. Shall I retrieve the rest of your party?”

Doc frowned. “How do you know the ceremony is over?”

Rayem scooted the basket onto the top of the nearest table. “All who listen can hear the Meek.”

“I don’t hear anything.” Doc cocked his head. “And I have pretty good hearing.”

Bei amplified his own audio sensors. He picked up nothing outside of the compound.

Nell thrashed in their bed. His name slipped past her lips. He caressed her mind. A black inkiness sucked at him. Was this her dream about the pillar? He whispered into her dream.
I’m coming, love. I’m coming.

Apollie picked black seeds out her teeth. “I heard Nell’s cry.”

Rayem sidled out of the dining area. “You have not been to the pillar. The Meek have not judged if you are fit to commune with them.”

Apollie removed her utility belt and laid it next to Doc’s assortment of medical supplies. “So, you’re saying that once we commune with the great pillar in the sky, we’ll be able to hear your thoughts?”

Rayem stiffened. “The Meek do not like to be mocked any more than they like violence.”

Apollie snorted.

Bei raised his hand, asking for her silence. “Thank you, Rayem. Please bring Karl and Erin here. If we carry some disease that might harm your people, we must work quickly to stop it.”

Rayem’s wispy beard twitched. “You are a good match for the new oracle.”

Bare feet slapped the tile as he shambled away.

Bei listened to his light treads up the stairs, the nimble gait down the hallway, and the gazelle leap through the waterfall.

Doc shook his head. “Sometimes I think he is as brittle as an old twig, other times he seems no older than any of us.”

Licking her lips, Apollie wove a path through the tables and chairs then stopped in front of the basket of fruit. “I think the fermites send signals that link directly into their brains. They gave them our language from your ship’s Combat Information Center.”

“We detected no signals.” Bei checked all known frequencies. Nothing.

Admiral, this is
Starflight 2.
The biologics’ funeral is over. What are your orders?

Bei green-lighted the search for the dirtside Scraptors.

“You can’t detect the Amarook’s either.” Apollie wiggled her fingers over the collection of berries. Burgundy juice dribbled through the basket’s weave. “Yet, you know Elvis is in Nell Stafford’s head.”

Bei clenched his jaw. He didn’t like things he couldn’t detect.

Doc cleared his throat. “Or the fermites could be relaying messages through contact, like microbes exchange information. Until the pillar gives us the proper password, we could be ignoring the bits of foreign code because we can’t translate it and it exists outside of our systems.”

Bei liked that idea only slightly better. “We’ll visit the pillar on our way to hunt the Scraptors.”

“Thanks to my guinea pigs, Karl and Erin, I should have a working vaccine by the morning.” Doc sealed the case and set it under the table.

“Make sure you get your required two hours of sleep. I want you fresh in case we encounter the enemy.” Bei headed for his wife.

“In case we encounter the Scraptors?” Tucking the basket under her arm, Apollie strode back to Doc’s side, sat on the nearest stool, and studied her etablet. “I thought we were going to seek and destroy the Bug-uglies.”

Parting the green vines, Bei glanced over his shoulder at the Skaperian. “We’re going to seek and find the information they are after then copy it.”

Her jaw thrust forward. “Why not just kill them, like they killed your people?”

Bei rolled the tension from his shoulders. Why did he have to explain the obvious to another trained warrior? “Because we can save more Humans, Amarooks, and Skaperians by letting the Scraptors think they reclaimed their intelligence under our noses.”

Reaching inside the trays on the table, Doc sorted his supplies into two piles. “So we can study their weapons strengths and weaknesses, and find out how to defeat the tech before the Founders even build it. Imagine how tight the Scraptor’s waste flaps will seal in our first battle.”

Apollie smiled. “Victory will be almost as sweet as these raspberries.”

Dropping the greenery, Bei ghosted into his room. Fermites bumped up the lights enough for him to see.

Nell swept her arm across his side of the bed. “Bei?”

“Here.” He paused.

Her eyes opened to slits. Fermites diluted the dark blue to silver pools. “I had a bad dream.”

“What did you dream?”

She rubbed her eyes and yawned. “I—I don’t remember. There were things. Lots of things and... You were there but the rest wasn’t good.”

“Nightmares usually aren’t.” After she returned to sleeping, he’d tap into her cerebral interface and see if a copy had been recorded in the CIC. No point in worrying her.

Flopping her hand to the side, she stared at him. Her eyes darkened to their usual sapphire color. She patted the mattress. “You could make it better.”

“Oh?” He placed his palm on his flat stomach and inched it lower.

She threw a pillow at him. “This isn’t a negotiation. Get naked and get into bed. I don’t want to think anymore. I just want you and me, like it was before.”

“Better than before.” He knew all her favorite spots and discovered more to revisit. He whipped his tunic over his head and chucked it on the floor. He reached for his waistband.

“Your upgrades are the best ever built.” She leaned forward. Her uniform drained off her shoulders and reformed on the ground.

Bei shucked his boots and his trousers. “I thought you wanted me to undress you?”

“I did, but you were taking too long.”

“So you lied?”

Her gaze traveled up and down his body. “What are you going to do about it?”

His blood thundered in his veins. He loved a challenge. “You’re about to find out.”

He activated the camouflage in his armor and blended into the wall.

She raised the blanket to her chin. “Who’s cheating now?”

The lights faded to dark. Bei eased open his arm compartment. Removing two wafers, he tossed them to the other side of the bed. They pinged softly on the floor.

“I heard that.” The blankets rustled. The mattress dipped. Nell had rolled over.

Perfect. Bei leapt onto the bed. His knees and hands dug divots around his wife, pinning her in place.

She squealed and slapped her hands against his bare chest. They shifted lower and lower. Warm breath fogged the air around them. Her musky scent filled his senses.

He palmed her wrists in one hand and pinned them above her head. “Now, you’ll see what I’m gonna do about it.”

“I know what you’re gonna do.” She arched up. The blanket disappeared, leaving naked skin against naked skin. Warm lips pressed his jaw. Her tongue traced the curve of the bone. “You’re going to make me forget everything but you and me. Me and you. Us.”

And he did.

Light burned the back of Nell’s eye sockets. She raised her hand but the problem intensified. Ugh, such was the problem being married to a man who only needed two hours of sleep a day. He turned on the lights way too early. Tingles raced up her toes. Bei. His heat spooned her back. He was still here. She was here.

No urgent message came across the com.

No one knocked on their cabin door.

Elvis didn’t scratch to be let in or send her telegraphic messages of severed heads while prodding her hunger.

For a little while longer, she had her husband to herself.

She wiggled her hips.

A heartbeat passed. Then another. No hand caressed her bare hip. No lips kissed her neck. No erection pressed her bottom.

What in the world?

She rolled over.

Bei stared at the ceiling. His NDA skin peeled back in thick strips like the rind of an overripe banana. Black pustules gnawed at the silver coating his jaw bone. Heat radiated off his rotting body.

This couldn’t be happening. The Syn-En had been inoculated. The Surlat strain didn’t exist on the planet. He couldn’t be sick.

“Wake up. Wake up.” Nell smacked her cheek. Pain sent her eyes ping-ponging around her skull.

She was dreaming inside a dream.

She raised her hand to smack herself again then stopped. Her stomach cramped. The room buzzed as blood fled her brain. Bone white light radiated from her pores.

She was infected.

She stuffed her fingers in her mouth to dam up the building scream.

Oh, God. She wasn’t dreaming. Her husband had the Plague.

Bei was going to die.

Thorns and stinging nettles multiplied under Groat’s skin. Damn new armor. Groping in the darkness, he reached for his oil. His fingers encountered soft flesh. Goo clung to the digits of his humanoid hands. His eye stalks stiffened and his nictitating lenses pulled back.

A rectangle of light stretched into the dark tunnel.

Groat’s vision shifted to account for the low illumination. The room shimmered, black and white shifted into shades of pus green. He checked his armor. One pinscher claw dropped to the floor. Viscous liquid puddled near the severed end. The scent of putrefaction assaulted his olfactory openings.

“Curse upon the Municians!” He’d been sold defective armor. Groat leapt to his feet. His sword appendages thudded to the dusty floor. He kicked at them. His boot sloughed off, splatted in a puddle of clear liquid.

Ice shot down his spine.

Black pustules sprouted like mushrooms between the slits in his pink flesh.

He had the Plague. Vomit roared up Groat’s throat. This couldn’t be. Holding up his humanoid hand he watched his armor slide off like infected toenails.

“We’re dying.” Tridit stumbled inside the bunker. Sunlight glided over the oiled pockets of his shriveled body. Armor lay like broken shells around him. Collapsing in a heap on the floor, he slapped pieces back on his withered flesh in wet slurps. “Those Humans we killed must have been infected.”

“We should have slaughtered the rest.” Groat stroked the smooth armor of his remaining pinscher.

Tridit leaned against the wall, an oozing plank of decay. “So much for the Founders’ vaccine.”

Groat shambled toward his friend. Armor flaked off with each step. At least, their bodies would be incinerated in the planet’s cleansing. No one would see them weak and vulnerable. “The Founders will still make a profit. Desperate species will pay anything to survive, and the legal teams will tie up any suits with scientific stonewalling. In the end, all sentients in the universe will believe if they had taken the cure long enough, or before the virus mutated, or any of the Founders’ political spin, they would have been cured.”

He’d seen it before, read about it in the tactical history guides. He ran his hands over his scalp. Buboes formed knobs between the cracks in his armor.

Tridit broke the vacuum seal of his helmet. The face plate bounced down his shrunken chest and spun on the concrete floor. Bone showed white in the dissolving flesh. “What would you have done as Commander of the Fleet?”

“Drive the Humans back into their cages. Kept Beijing York’s head as a trophy on the wall of my bridge.” Groat worked his fingers between the seams of his armor. His goals seemed insignificant, the same as all the great leaders before him. “I would have forced the Founders to accept Scraptors as equal. To let us practice our art, to expand our education beyond military agendas, and listen to our ideas on improving the home worlds.”