The Orion Plague (35 page)

He had no idea how long he had been out for,
and he wondered why no white cells had come to eat him. Perhaps
they had tasted him and found they did not like him. Or perhaps
they misrecognized him as friendly, since he was wearing a
Meme-derived biosuit.

He tried to move, but could not.
Must be
my spine, or worse. Best to just lie here until I heal
. He
drifted off into a fog of pain.

Skull opened his eyes to see human figures
in armored suits standing over him.
They did it
, he thought.
They boarded the ship like pirates. Like Marines. Well done,
boys and girls
. He was filled with an elation that grew and
grew, until lightning throbbed through his bones and sang along his
nerves.

Suddenly he perceived himself lying on the
floor, as if from above. His body, encased in the bio-suit,
surrounded by armored figures, jerked and thrashed in seizure, and
in the moment before the tunnel of light swallowed him, he knew the
nano had gotten him in the end.

Fair exchange
, was his last living
thought.

***

Launching himself across the now
basketball-court-sized room, Stallers thrustered himself through
the slowly closing hole First Squad had taken. He set one blood
agent and one blister agent chem grenade against the edge of the
hole, where the clotting tackiness held them in place. Then he
pulled the pins and fired off his suit jets.

He heard the pops behind him but didn’t
bother to check on the effects. Victory lay ahead, not behind, and
though he was smart enough not to think the Guards company
commander should take point, he was Marine enough to know he had to
be where the fight was.

Besides, there was always the Final
Option.

He patted his belly self-consciously. Under
the grenade box rested a transverse-mounted detachable cylinder the
size of a small scuba tank. It was a 0.1 kiloton atomic device,
probably not big enough to vaporize the frigate, but certainly
enough to gut it.

And kill every Marine aboard. The equivalent
of one hundred metric tons of TNT, it was their insurance. Each
company commander and the Colonel carried one, to be used at his
own discretion. It was insurance that no matter what, their gamble
would pay off, if only even money. For the safety of Earth, it
would be a small price.

His external pickups brought him the sounds
of firing up ahead and he switched to First Squad’s freq. They
sounded cool and disciplined, and he was pleased to see them moving
with precise motions in the microgravity, bracing themselves before
each shot, firing with deliberation at nightmare creatures that
crawled and flapped to attack.

The fight was slow and surreal but not
particularly difficult, and Stallers wondered about the enemy
response. Sure, he figured the frigate and its alien crew had their
hands full, what with the pounding they took and the hundreds of
Marines dealing a thousand internal pinpricks, but he thought the
internal defense seemed mindless. These things were strong but
soft; purpose-built security creatures should have hard armor made
of ferrocrystal, and claws that could snip off limbs. They should
have projectile weapons powered by chemical reactions or compressed
gas or something along those lines, yet they had seen nothing more
than a horde of dangerous gummi-spiders that died in droves.

Moving to another chamber, Stallers heard
the point man cry out, “I got something new!”

“Show me,” Stallers said, pushing to the
fore. In the next room he saw the shape, huge, eight feet tall and
proportionally heavy, but lying inert on the floor. It had a
darkened faceplate and for a moment he could swear there were human
eyes behind it. Then it jerked and thrashed, as if in seizure.

The Marines backed up and raised their
weapons but Stallers barked, “Don’t fire! Keep the assault going.
I’ll handle this.”

His men moved on and he watched the thing –
the man in the suit, he thought, until it stopped, stilled, and
died. That it was dead was made clear when the suit split in
several places to reveal a shaven-headed man in commando
spidersilks. Rolling the inert body over with effortless strength,
Stallers observed that the man’s back had been pulped beyond even
nanites’ ability to repair. “Poor bugger,” he said out loud to
himself.
I know who this was – that commando that ran off with
the alien. Was he a prisoner, a traitor, or a hero?
Shaking his
head, he hurried to rejoin his men.

First Squad Leader waved him forward in the
next room where the men guarded a large hole in the wall. The Major
bounded to the opening and grabbed the edge before committing
himself. He looked up at a startlingly normal scene, at least by
comparison with the organic world of the rest of the ship. This
room had a flat floor, glowing lights and panels, concave
hemispherical displays and what must be consoles with knobby
control sticks and large round buttons.

Three large pools perhaps five meters in
diameter occupied half of the floor space, each one within long
reach of a bank of consoles. Each was mostly filled by puddles of
yellow-green goo. Immediately beyond the pools, an explosion had
blown apart an enormous section of the control consoles.

Puddles? Gravity? They have artificial
gravity!

Stallers stepped inside and immediately felt
a pull toward the floor of perhaps one third of a G.
I sure hope
they can’t increase it to ten or a hundred Gs. That would be some
defense mechanism, to simply smear us with our own weight.
But
that didn’t happen, and he charged forward with his Guard Marines
at his heels, to surround the figure and the things in the
pools.

“Hold your fire!” Stallers called. “This
looks like the control center. We don’t want to damage anything
unless we must. Cover those aliens with the flamethrower. Roast
them if they try anything.” His men ran to do his bidding.

“
Orion
, we have met the enemy and
they are ours.” The transmission from Colonel MacAdam set up a
round of wild spontaneous cheering throughout the ship. Work did
not stop, but it became less grim and desperate, more deliberate
and thoughtful, as the entire crew came to know that yes, they had
survived and succeeded, and all that was left to do was to limp
home.

On the bridge Absen slumped.
“Congratulations, Colonel. You may have just saved us all. Give my
regards to your Marines. Let us know what you need.”

“We’re fine here for a few hours, Captain,
but we’ll be happy to see
Orion
parking nearby. And sir…we
have three alien prisoners, and a dead man.”

“A dead man?” Absen shook his head in
confusion. “You mean a casualty?”

“No, sir, it’s not one of us. We found him
dying here on the ship.”

“Who is it?”

“Major Stallers thinks it’s that commando
that ran off with the alien woman. It looks like he blew up their
control center before he died.”

Absen thought about that for a moment.
Finally he responded, “Good thing he did, then. Keep a close eye on
the aliens, Colonel. Intel will want to debrief them.”
If they
can communicate.

“Yes, sir, we can handle it.”

“Excellent.
Orion
out.” He touched an
icon on his armrest control screen. “Infirmary, Captain Absen here.
Once you get a chance, send someone to the CCC, low priority.”
Clicking off, he carefully pushed himself out of his seat, swaying
in the low shifting gravity. “Bring the spin up to fifteen percent,
Mister Okuda, and match velocities with our prize. Carefully.”

“Aye aye, Skipper,” Okuda said jauntily.

“Thanks, little buddy,” responded Absen. He
saw puzzlement cross Okuda’s brow while others on the bridge
chuckled.
Guess they didn’t get Gilligan’s Island in the
Congo
.

Our prize
, he repeated to himself. An
old term for a ship captured in battle. But with their own drive so
badly damaged, how in the hell were they going to get it back to
Earth? They might have to wait for the Artemis, might have to drift
around here for two or three more months. He didn’t even know what
direction they were headed, but it was one in a thousand that it
was toward Earth.

Getting out of his seat as the gravity rose,
he made his way carefully down to Johnstone and popped open the
man’s helmet. His pulse was strong under Absen’s forefinger, and
peeling back an eyelid revealed normal pupils and the herky-jerky
motion of REM. That was as far as his medical training took him and
he was happy to see an Asian man with a caduceus on his collar
climb the ladder into the bridge. The captain pointed silently at
Johnstone and the doc shuffled over, holding onto handrails.

He opened his medkit and pulled out a
diagnoster, using it to scan the unconscious Comms tech. Two
minutes later he said in precise Queens English, “He’s fine, sir,
as far as I can tell. Just in some kind of intense fugue state, if
I was to guess. He’s got several cybernetic implants and some of
them run into his brain. If you want to bring him out of it I can
give him a stimulant and unhook him from the jack there, but I am
really just shooting in the dark. He’s an Eden carrier so it might
just be best to wait.”

“Thank you, Doctor, we’ll wait. I’m sure you
have other more pressing patients.”

“Quite so, I do sir. Good day,” he responded,
then hustled off.

“You heard the doc, leave him be. Ensign, I
guess you’re in charge of Comms. What’s your name?”

“Mirza, sir. Iranian Navy.”

“You’re Earth Space Navy now, Mirza.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing,
sir.”

“There isn’t, but I swear there will be soon.
I’m proud of you, Mirza, you and everyone on this bridge and on
this ship.”

The dark-haired young man blushed red and
turned back to his board, and there were smiles all around. “Might
want to tell the rest of the crew, sir,” Master Chief Timmons said
from behind Absen.

He’d forgotten the man was even there, silent
backup for his captain.
And I have to deal with deLille. Later.
Let her stew
. “Good idea, COB.” He punched for shipwide,
composed another inspiring speech, and recited it with
sincerity.

When that was done Mirza spoke up. “Sir,
there is a transmission coming in.”

“From Earth?”

“No, sir. I mean, yes sir, there’s a lot of
gabble from Earth but you said to ignore it all until you were
ready, and all our telemetry has been continuously sent back, so
they already know the outline of what happened.”

“Get to the point, Ensign.”

“Yes, sir, I mean, there’s a transmission
from nearby us. From there.” He pointed at a screen, the one that
showed the largest scale and thus the greatest area of space. On it
an icon flashed yellow.

“Conn, Sensors, bogey, one hundred sixty
thousand kilometers!” the Sensors officer said excitedly.

“Yes, Scoggins, I think Mister Mirza scooped
you. Are you slacking off?”

“Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.”

“I hope not. Now, what’s the
transmission?”

“It says…sir, it says, ‘
Orion
ahoy,
permission to come aboard – Raphaela.’”

Absen sat bolt upright. “The alien! The one
that flew off almost a year ago with the rogue commando...the dead
one we found.”

“Unless it’s a trick, sir,” Ford said darkly
from Weapons.

Absen frowned. “You keep thinking that way,
Ford, and I might not fire you when this is all over. Mirza, how do
we know it’s not a trick?”

“It’s coming through on video, sir. And
Sensors could take a look at the source.”

“Already on it. Here,” Scoggins said as she
threw up an image showing a rounded, winged shuttle. The scale bar
on the display made it out to be about fifty meters long.

“Okay, looks like the craft that landed on
Earth. Link the video.”

A moment later the main screen jerked and
fuzzed, then showed a view of a blindingly beautiful young woman,
the goddess they all remembered from the media frenzy of her
landing in South Africa almost a year ago. Beside her in a kind of
cradle-seat sat a tiny boy-child with clear blue eyes and a
gurgling smile.

With a frown Raphaela said, “Good to see you
all,” in rich contralto tones. She reached a hand over to caress
the boy. “Ezekiel Denham says hello too. Permission to come
aboard?”

Flabbergasted, the bridge fell silent, then
turned as one to their captain for a response. Absen shut his open
mouth and spoke when he was certain he wasn’t going to say
something stupid. “We’re a little busy right now, miss. We could
use a few hours to make repairs. Is it urgent?”

“Why don’t we rendezvous near the Meme scout
ship. I have a feeling I can be of great use to you. But first…”
her face turned worried. “Did you find Warrant Officer Denham on
the Meme ship?”

Absen nodded sadly. “We did, but
unfortunately he didn’t make it.”

The goddess’ eyes teared. “Thank you,
Captain. Please leave his body where you found it for me. I need to
see him
exactly
as he fell.”

“All right,” he said. “We’ll be waiting.
Orion
out.” The video cut off.

“I still don’t trust her,” muttered Ford.

“And neither do I, really,” said Absen.
“Mister Tobias, I want two Stewards with her at all times.”

“What about the baby, sir?” Tobias asked with
a slight twitch of his eyebrow.

“If you think he’s dangerous, give him a
minder too, maybe Repeth.” Absen said with a straight face. “What
do you think he is, some kind of mini-me?”

The bridge laughed, and someone called out,
“Or a mini-Meme!” But Tobias only smiled faintly. “Who knows, with
these aliens, sir.”

“Hm. Fine, keep an eye on the baby too.”

Tobias nodded gravely. Absen wondered how
much of that was serious and how much was the man’s dry humor.
Either way, he was right. With aliens who could absorb a human
being and become something else, you could just never tell.