The Demon Plagues (7 page)

“Uh…I hope so. But she’s so…so…” He waved his
hands, losing words.

“Intense? Maybe that’s why she likes you.
Opposites attract.”

“But what if she doesn’t come back!” Markis
could hear the anguish in Rick’s voice, the fear of losing the
shining jewel of his life, his pearl of great price, before she had
even been truly his. The chemistry of infatuation was completely
natural; it was one mental illness no plague could cure.

“There’s always that risk.” Markis put his
hand back on Rick’s shoulder, fatherly. “Have faith. They are the
best we have, and the people they are going up against won’t know
what hit them.”

He hoped it was true.

For twenty hours the special ops team dozed
while the fast transport pounded along on its enormous hydrofoils
at nearly sixty knots, heading for New Zealand. When their GPS told
them they were near the rendezvous, Colonel Nguyen initiated the
first stage.

Tension brought the stink of unwashed bodies
to a new level, subtle smells the passive air scrubbers couldn’t
filter out.
Just like a parachute drop
, Repeth thought.
All you want to do is get the hell out of the vehicle and into
the open air.

She unsealed the hatch at the Colonel’s
signal, and then threw the lever that initiated the machinery that
broke open the cargo container. The sides of the big box,
forty-eight feet by ten feet six inches by ten-six, split open
along the seams. Three of the four sides fell only a few inches to
rest with slight clangs against the sides of nearby containers; one
long side fell all the way to the deck with a loud metallic thump.
This set the clock ticking; the noise couldn’t be hidden.

Whirring servos pushed the top of the
container sideways in the direction of the opened side. That flat
metal piece soon joined its twin on the deck with an even louder
sound reminiscent of thunder.

As soon as it was clear Repeth rolled out of
the hatch to take up a position on top of the submersible, the
muzzle of her weapon sweeping the open space. The rest of the team
followed her, scanning the cargo hold for freighter crew.

The lights were low, bare emergency glows to
comply with regulations. So much the better; the invaders’ vision
was well-adjusted to darkness. No one was in sight, and they fanned
out, four teams of two forming in front of the personnel doors to
the hold. At Spooky’s mark they opened the doors and began to hunt
down the crew with brisk efficiency.

Ten minutes later the six-member complement
of the highly automated fast transport lay in a crew cabin,
tranquilized and newly Plagued.

Standard procedure was to infect everyone
they encountered on these operations. It not only saved lives in
the long run, it drastically reduced the chance of some hero trying
to retake the ship. Edens were never suicidal, and had to be
motivated by a higher purpose to be belligerent. In this case it
should be all over by the time they woke up.

Bitzer took the helm of the ship, slowing it
down to its most stable speed for the exhumation of the mini-sub.
They stripped off the shielding from the submersible and dumped
that over the side. Then, opening the top cargo hatch, they brought
the vehicle up on deck using the ship’s crane. There they checked
it over one last time, topped off its electrical charge with the
ship’s power feed, then prepared to put it over the side. They also
turned off the
Stetson’s
identification transponder that
reported the ship’s position by satellite, and brought the ship to
idle in the open ocean. The sun stood low in the eastern sky.

Just over the horizon, if their intelligence
was correct, the submarine tender UGS
Frank Cable
should be
preparing its own rescue submersible, a remote-controlled behemoth
much larger than the team's little sub. Called a Submarine Rescue
Diving Recompression System, it was scheduled to exercise its
capability with the UGS
Nebraska
, an Ohio-class ballistic
missile submarine, or ‘boomer.’

Passive radar emissions from the
Cable
over the horizon, and some quick calculations of signal strength,
confirmed the presence of the naval ship.
Stetson
stayed far
enough away not to be seen on radar, and there was no reason for
the
Cable
to be looking for them.

FC Intelligence had said this was to be a
comms-out exercise, simulating a damaged submarine resting on the
sea floor, needing crew rescue. The
Cable’s
unmanned
pressurized rescue module would be lowered into the water, and then
remotely piloted via an armored cable reeled out by the enormous
system above. Two thousand feet of wire wound on the cylinder,
enough to reach most potential crashes.

As soon as they confirmed the presence of the
UGS ship, the team boarded the mini-sub, setting the computerized
and automated controls of the crane to put them over the side into
the water. The
Stetson
, acting on a programmed command,
would resume its journey toward New Zealand. Its crew would wake up
in a few hours and regain control of their ship.

The hatch of the little submarine slammed
with chill finality. It was do or die now; there was no going
back.

They descended rapidly toward the massive
nuclear submarine waiting silently below. The team yawned and
swallowed as the internal systems adjusted to the hull pressure.
Minutes ticked off and the depth gauge showed five hundred feet
before Bitzer flicked the switch that enabled the low-powered but
highly-accurate computer-processed sonar system.

A picture appeared on the color screen in
front of him, a torpedo shape more than five hundred feet long
showing off to one side. He steered the mini-sub quickly in the
direction of the gigantic
Nebraska
. Inside it they would
have heard the sound of the submersible’s electrical engines, their
propulsion screws, and now the high-pitched ping of the sonar, and
mistaken them for the Cable's remote rescue sub.

With a deft touch Bitzer brought their
mini-sub over the top of its larger cousin, using the
ultra-accurate processed image mode of the sonar, then the lighted
video camera underneath, to drop their docking mechanism and
flexible transfer skirt over the
Nebraska’s
deck hatch. This
arrangement, just like the real pressurized rescue module, used the
force of the ocean to seal the two vehicles together like a rubber
stopper in a bathtub drain.

The team gathered around the floor hatch that
led directly to the
Nebraska’s
forward hatch. “Switch on
comms.” They were using UWB, ultra-wideband secure tactical radio
headsets; even in the restrictive environment of a submarine, as
long as there was the tiniest opening in a bulkhead not blocked by
metal – such as where cabling or fiber optics penetrated – signals
would find their way through the maze of the sub’s interior.

“Comms set and synching, three, two, one,
mark. Noseplugs.”

Everyone fit filter plugs into their nostrils
and began breathing in through their noses, out through their
mouths.

“Prep the gas.”

Doc turned a wheel on a steel tank. A faint
hissing began as a valve released a colorless, odorless, tasteless
soporific gas into the interior of their own submersible. Between
their Plague and the filters, the team would be able to operate in
the stuff for a while. If not, stims would keep them awake until it
wore off.

Spooky stared at the hatchway of the sub
below for a full minute. “It’s opening,” he finally observed. The
hatch below swung back and he shone a powerful flashlight downward
to blind the crewmen below.

An annoyed voice came from below. “Hey, they
didn't say anyone would be coming down. Can you get that light out
of my eyes?" His voice trailed off as the heavy gas drifted
silently downward into the larger submarine. Two thuds came in
quick succession.

“Go.” Spooky led the team, dropping like a
gymnast down through the tube, barely touching the rim to break his
fall. Muzik handed down another heavy metal pressure tank and the
Colonel manhandled the container of compressed sleep gas down onto
the deck next to a ventilation intake. He opened the stopcock,
beginning its hissing release into the rest of the sub. The others
followed rapidly, exactly as rehearsed.

Two crewmen sprawled awkwardly near one of
the open pressure doors, empty cardboard boxes dumped on the deck.
It looked like they had planned to receive some fresh food from the
real rescue module. Doc put a portable tranquilizer gun against
each of their necks and pulled the trigger. Compressed air shot
Eden Plague and sleep drugs into their bloodstreams. In eight hours
they would wake up new men.

“Let’s go, we’re on the clock.” They split
up, each team with a separate mission.

Jill darted through her chosen hatch, Doc
Fitzhugh right behind her. They passed two more unconscious
crewmen, and Doc doped them too. Down two narrow ladders and past a
dozen more crew members in various states of unconsciousness. One
had tumbled through a floor hatch and broken his neck. Jill grabbed
her companion’s webbing, hauling him away from the fallen man
despite his hoarse whispered protests.

“No time for heroic measures, Doc.”

“If I could EP him, then do CPR for long
enough, he could live!”

“Sorry, this is too important and you know
it. No time. Just dope him, maybe he’ll get lucky.”

Doc shot the fallen man with his trank gun
and Jill dragged her comrade forcibly down the corridor.

Thirty seconds later they ran up against a
closed pressure door. Jill put her eye to the tiny vision port and
swore under her breath. “I see two guys up and around. The gas
hasn’t got here yet. They don’t look concerned but that could end
any moment. Help me get this thing open.”

She twisted the dogging handles and they both
seized the lockdown ring. Like the perfectly-maintained machine it
was, the wheel spun on its axis several turns until it slammed to a
stop. Jill was already pushing the heavy door open.

Aiming low, she fired a short burst at each
of their feet from her PW10, a FreeCom submachine gun specially
designed for the Needleshock ammo. Sounds like ripping paper
accompanied the groups of ten or a dozen needles that stitched
across their calves. Some bounced off the deck and ricocheted
around the room, discharging their capacitors as they struck
anything conductive. One fragment stung her cheek. The two crewmen
convulsed as they fell, out cold.

“Damn, I told them we should have developed a
lower-velocity round for these soft missions. Put on your ballistic
glasses. We can’t afford to lose eyes, even for a little
while.”

“Right.” Doc popped a dose in each of the
fallen, then began rooting around in his waist pack. “Not something
I thought I’d need right away…ah, here it is.” They slipped on the
clear eye protectors.

“Come on, come on, where’s the air system? Is
that it?” This comment was just to get Doc moving on his next task;
he tended to start woolgathering if he was allowed to think too
much. Jill slapped the tall metallic cylinder for emphasis and then
moved to the other hatch to peer out the thick glass vision
port.

“Whah…”

Jill turned around to see Fitzhugh swaying on
his feet. “Dammit, Doc, in through the
nose
, out through the
mouth
. Here…” She grabbed his aid bag and located a stim.
Removing the cap she slammed the big exposed needle into Doc’s
thigh, pouring a maximum dose into his system to counter the
gas.

“Ow, okay, I’m good now, I’m good.” He took
the needle back from her, replacing the cap and sliding it back
into his aid bag. “Damn, my heart’s beating like a jackhammer.”

“Doc, shut up, pay attention and do your job.
Get that stuff into the air system.” How she wished they had been
able to find a special operations medic of some kind, but Doc had a
ridiculously long list of technical skills, and that overrode
purely operational concerns, given the eight-person limitation.

“Right.” He popped the enormous housing,
feeling the air rushing past now that the seals weren’t dogged
down. Opening a lockblade, he cut a hole in the material of the
man-sized cylindrical filter. It took him several minutes, as the
material was over a foot thick. When he finally broke through, the
suction almost took the knife out of his hand.

Jill was ready with the tank. A pressurized
plastic canister the size of a small fire extinguisher, instead of
carbon dioxide it held Eden Plague suspended in a tranquilizer that
would aerosolize and spread throughout the sub. Doc stuck the
nozzle into the hole, opened the stopcock to start the fine spray,
and let the suction pull it into place like a cork in a bottle.

Jill keyed her UWB mike. “EP-sleepy deployed,
no problems.”

Clicks of acknowledgment echoed in her
earpiece.

***

Muzik and Harres departed the cargo hold
toward the stern, immediately descending two ladders. As they
reached the third and lowest deck, Murphy showed up in the form of
the powerful arm and heavy wrench of Machinist’s Mate Second Class
Harold Showalter. The tool slammed into the back of Harres’ head
with a sickening crunch.

Muzik immediately turned his weapon toward
the sailor but had to flick it sideways to avoid another sweeping
blow of the wrench. He let the gun go in favor of closing to
grapple. Stepping inside the next swing, he grasped the attacker’s
arm and thrust his hip to contact. Muzik then bent over, his
powerful core muscles levering the sailor across his own back and
hip and into the air. The man’s feet bounced off the low overhead
and then onto the deck as the major body-slammed him.

Stunned and gasping, Showalter feebly tried
to crawl away, finally collapsing into unconsciousness when the
trank gun hissed against his neck.