The Demon Plagues (8 page)

“Shit,” muttered Muzik, staring down at
Lieutenant Harres bleeding all over the spotless deck. He awkwardly
stuck an IV in the man’s arm, getting it into the vein on the third
try, and started a food solution drip, standard treatment for
wounded Edens. The liquid carried vital nutrients directly into the
bloodstream, giving the Plague healing something to work with.

He grabbed his tranquilizer gun and PW5
pistol and roamed the area around the ship’s nuclear reactor and
power plant, doping everyone he could find. There wasn’t much else
he could do, unless he wanted to attempt to control the power
installation himself. He barely knew enough to shut it down safely;
no way he could do Harres’ job, which was supposed to include
exerting some control over ship’s electrical systems, controlling
the power feeds to the helm, the ballistic missiles, the torpedoes,
communications – anything that might be used against them.

Muzik took off his tunic, balled it up and
slid it gently under Harres’ ear as he lay sideways on the deck.
There was a sickening depression, a dent in the back of his head,
deformed by swelling and the pulsing of blood. He keyed his
microphone.

“Muzik here. Harres is down and alive, but
I’m not sure for how long. If the Doc is handy, send him down to
the power plant, deck three. We still need to sweep the ship for
more crew and dope them.”

Back by the air processor Jill grabbed Doc in
response, steering him down ladders and along passageways until
they found the Major and Harres.

The Corpsman immediately dropped to his
knees, rolling out his medkit and muttering. He palpated the tall
man’s skull, then said, “I’m going to have to trepan. Craniotomy.
His skull is healing in a position pressing on the brain. Let’s get
him to the infirmary. Infirmary! Now!”

Suddenly Fitzhugh became a figure of
authority instead of an absentminded technician. Jill and Muzik
immediately lifted Harres up to carry him to the medical space. It
was tiny, with just one bedlike platform bunk that pulled down from
the bulkhead, but at least it had a mattress and there was a
concentration of medical supplies in nearby drawers and
cabinets.

Doc had them place Harres face down, his long
legs hanging off the end of the bunk. He pushed pads under the
wounded man's noggin and ordered Muzik, “Hold his head, please,
very still. This should be routine but it won’t be pleasant. I’m
going to cut through his skull and pull this piece back, then
replace it in a position that does not press on the brain. He
should be awake in an hour or two and all healed in a day.”

Muzik reported this over the tactical radio,
trying not to look at the Doc working for fear of losing his last
meal.
Funny that violence doesn’t bother me but surgery turns my
stomach
.

Then everyone heard Kelley’s voice come over
the net.

“Fire in the hole.”

***

Spooky moved quickly and silently down the
passageway. He felt very uncomfortable and exposed by the complete
lack of maneuvering room, the close confines of the underwater
steel tube they inhabited. He had stepped over several unconscious
crewmen. Behind him he heard the hiss of the others pumping
tranquilizer into each of them.

He’d had no choice but to shoot a couple
more, and the noise might have alerted anyone still conscious.
There was nothing for it but to push onward, hoping the control
room was not sealed off and forted up.

Following behind, Bitzer carried the trank
gun in one hand, a PW5 Needleshock pistol in the other. Then came
Kelley with his PW10, and Alkina brought up the rear, pistol in
hand.

Spooky heard the popgun sound of a PW5 behind
him. It fired a cartridge smaller than a .22; most of the noise
came from the needle passing Mach one as it left the barrel. He
looked back, saw Alkina pointing her weapon through a hatchway to
the right. He didn’t stop.

Not until the closed watertight door. The
team pressed up against the bulkhead around the rim. Kelley tried
the dogs, the locking handles and the wheel. No luck. It was
secured from the inside. Several inches of thick steel, it was
designed to keep out the pressures of the deep in case of
compartment failure, and now it was keeping the team out.

The Colonel slid a flexible tube out of his
cargo pocket, put on his VR glasses, and carefully raised the end
of the optical probe over the lip of the hatch’s small vision port.
The tiny camera transmitted the view to his glasses, and he saw
figures moving inside the darkened control center. He thought he
detected a certain tension in their stances that indicated they
knew something was wrong, but the screen was so tiny and the
resolution was inadequate in the variable light. All he knew for
sure was that the hatch was closed tight. “Kelley, how do we get it
open?” The thick barrier prevented anyone from hearing their low
conversation.

The PA system came to life abruptly. “Now
here this, all sections report status immediately.”

Kelley waited for the announcement to end,
then replied, “You can’t, if they don’t open it. It’s deliberately
manual. There’s no override.”

“How about cutting through the floor or
ceiling?”

“Their ceiling is the sail – the conning
tower – the only way to get through there is externally. From
below…sure, with time. But it would be obvious what we were
doing.”

“I don’t believe they have any weapons –
perhaps a pistol – so it hardly matters if they know. What else can
they do?” Colonel Nguyen’s eyes were intense, inquiring.

“Fire off the missiles or torpedoes? Drive
the boat into the ocean floor…maybe sink it? Come up to radio depth
and send a message? We can’t let them think of something. And in
less than an hour the un-tranked crewmen will be waking up, and
they’ll be confused and unhappy.”

“Then you have to blow it.”

“It’s going to be ugly. Maybe deadly.”

Everyone winced except Alkina, who just
looked down at the deck, as if avoiding the thought.

“Just do your best not to kill anyone.”

Kelley quickly began laying out charges,
tools, detonator, wires, blasting caps in their no-static covers.
Everyone else moved back and stationed themselves to cover all the
entrances.

Spooky opened up a pouch and took out two
grenades: one flash-bang, one sleep gas. Both of them – in fact,
almost all FC weapons – had the latest Eden Plague incorporated in
them, in hopes of exposing whomever they were used on. Every
infected enemy was a loss for them and a gain for the Free
Communities.

He shook his head and thought to himself how
foolish the Big Three were – desperate to hold on to their
superpower status, but all they could do was fight a bloody
rearguard action; watch their people trickle away and their
economies stagger along with no growth as the Free Communities and
the Neutral States rapidly rebuilt.

“Ready.” It had only taken him seven minutes.
Now the hatch was ringed with an array of shaped charges designed
to cut through the closing bars of the hatch and blow it off its
hinges, all without killing those inside.

He hoped.

Spooky gave it about fifty-fifty to work.
“Wait,” he said, going to check at the hatch port. This time he
raised his head to look with the naked eye, not concerned with the
slight chance he would be noticed.

He could see three men. None of them were
nearby. Now was as good a time as any. He scuttled back to cover
with the rest then gave Kelley the signal to go.

Kelley called the traditional phrase for
‘triggering an explosion now’ over the radio net. “Fire in the
hole.”

The noise of the shaped charges was deafening
in the close confines of the submarine, even with their
sound-cancelling electronic earbuds. The vibration and concussive
shock transmitted not only though the air but through the metal and
the very bodies of the team. If they had not been bolstered by the
Plague, they might have been incapacitated.

The watertight door flew off its hinges into
the control room, its dogging-points cut by the superheated
explosives. The temperature of both rooms climbed ten degrees from
the blast.

Spooky tossed the sleep gas grenade in and
then the flash-bang. As soon as it exploded he moved in,
immediately angling rightwards to get out of the death funnel of
the doorway. He circled the foggy room, ensuring he breathed in
through the nose in the dense soporific gas.

Kelley came through next and circled left. A
shot rang out from the fog, then two more, the hard cracks of a
Navy service weapon. Fortunately that was all they were likely to
have; a submerged boat was the last place anyone would expect to
have a firefight.

Unfortunately one of the bullets ricocheted
off something solid and struck Kelley in the upper jaw, shattering
several teeth and knocking him unconscious. He dropped like a
marionette with its strings cut.

Spooky crouched and loosed one burst from his
P90 in the direction of the shots, then another. He heard a thud
and a groan; as he duckwalked along the perimeter of the control
room he came upon the shooter, a Master Chief wearing a protective
mask, holding a military standard 9mm pistol. The filters had
shielded him from the sleep gas; the colonel pulled the mask off
and shot him with a trank.

“Open all the doors! Get this place aired
out,” Nguyen called, then spotted Kelley and his shattered face.
“Doc, we’re going to need you up here as soon as you can.”

“Just as soon as I stick Harres’ skull back
on, okay sir?” Doc muttered something about “a little too much fun
here,” then fell silent.

As soon as the control room cleared, they
tranked the other two men lying there – the ship’s captain and the
executive officer. Alkina reached down to feel around underneath
the captain’s tunic, coming up with nothing but dog tags on a
chain. “No key.”

“They didn’t have time to get them out of the
safes. Bitzer –” Spooky glanced around, seeing the sub driver
already sitting at the helm – “good, what’s the status?”

“Depth is five hundred five feet, sir.
Inertial navigation is green and we can head for Fiji as soon as we
dump the mini.”

“Just get us moving away from here, slow and
quiet, before that other submersible shows up.” Spooky switched on
his UWB mike. “Whoever is not otherwise engaged please come up to
the control room and help carry Kelley down to the infirmary.”

“Roger, on my way.” Repeth slung her weapon,
running up the ladder and along the passageway to the control
room.

“You two ladies take Kelley down, please,”
Spooky ordered politely.

Alkina’s nostrils flared for a moment, then
she smiled slightly and shrugged. She reached for Kelley’s legs,
leaving the heavier upper body to the Marine. “One, two, three,
up.”

The two women carried Kelley’s dead weight
awkwardly down to the infirmary. Repeth had to perform a fireman’s
carry to get him down the ladder, a difficult and time-consuming
operation. When they finally got Kelley to the medical space, they
saw Major Muzik and Doc standing over Harres, looking pleased.

Doc said, “Excellent job, if I do say so
myself. Damn, what have we here? Put him on the deck, I don’t want
to move Harres yet. Ugh, looks like the bullet entered his cheek
here, took out some teeth and bone, then exited the other side.
Flesh wounds healing nicely…hand me that locking forceps. No, the
locking
forceps. Yes, that one. Got to get this broken tooth
out, it’s knocked all sideways…scalpel please. Thank you…” He
deftly pulled and cut, swabbed and packed.

Alkina looked expectantly at Muzik and
Repeth. “The gas will be wearing off soon. Shouldn’t you two clear
the rest of the boat? I am sure there are several spaces that
haven’t been checked, and everyone should be tranked.” At their
hesitation, she smiled faintly, an odd unnatural thing. “It’s all
right, I’ll assist here if he needs anything.”

“Right. Good idea. Let’s go, Sergeant.” Muzik
led off.

“That’s Gunnery Sergeant, sir.” Repeth opened
doors and hatches, clearing tiny spaces one by one.

“Sorry, you know I was Army.” He found a
groggy sailor, tranked him

“Can’t all be the best, sir.”

He snorted. “You got that right. How were
your last hand-to-hand scores? Or your bench?”

“I don’t remember, sir; how was your run
time? Or your range qual?”

“Ouch, okay, I yield.” He grinned at her, but
she didn’t smile back.
Touchy
…

“Hey, here’s the galley. That’s the chow hall
to you Army types. Something’s cooking.” They moved into the food
preparation area and turned off the electric cooking appliances,
sampling the simmering food as they did it. Some kind of beef stew.
Jill futilely wished it was Rick along with her instead of Muzik,
if only so she wouldn't have to keep looking at the Major's
annoyingly handsome and cheerful face.

Chairman Markis asked, “Millie, could you
put this away, and bring Rick up with you?” ‘This’ was an
old-fashioned laptop without any capability to transmit or transfer
data. It was inconvenient, but very secure.

Cassandra Johnstone waited until her daughter
had left with the laptop before speaking. “Bringing me here is bad
tradecraft, DJ.”

“I know, but I wanted to talk to all three of
you personally before I went ahead with the proposal.”

“You already know what I think.”

“You think I shouldn’t risk it; but there has
to be some attempt to re-open normal relations with the Big Three,
especially with the North Americans. The EP started in North
America in the popular mind, even if it was a Soviet creation. The
United Governments of North America is still the largest
superpower.”

“These dinosaurs will eventually collapse
under their own weight, just like the first Soviets.”