Plague Wars 06: Comes the Destroyer (50 page)

“Probably for the best.” Now Absen came out from behind the desk, but only to open the door for her. “Goodbye, Colonel Denham.” His words came out flat and final.

“Goodbye to you, Admiral Absen. Thank you for your efforts against the Meme.”

“Likewise.”

The
thunk
of the shutting door had a ring of finality.

Only after boarding her shuttle and separating from
Orion
could she think calmly, as she stared out into speckled space. She put this fresh wound aside, overshadowed as it was by the enormity of her husband’s loss.
The loss of their children’s father, too. Damn you, Skull, to leave them alone. Couldn’t you have found another way?

The stars upon the black glared at her unwavering, and did not answer.

At least I have them. Like any warrior’s wife, standing at graveside saluting a flag, I have to look my children in the face and explain why he did it, and why we should all go on. I have to explain why he sacrificed himself and why we should sacrifice ourselves for a human race that barely acknowledges our membership in it. How without our help and technology, of Meme heritage and of mad scientist children, they would all be enslaved.

It seems the more the gods do for them, the more people grow to hate and fear them.

Her mouth turned up in a reluctant smile.
Perhaps that’s a good reason not to play god.

Admiral Absen lowered himself slowly into his chair, feeling very old. The rejuvenated body of his did not fool him one bit. Decades of stress and war had aged him inside, where it counted. The one bright spot in his life lately had been this mad dream of his, that the most desirable woman in the solar system might be interested in him, and he’d just thrown all that away.

His wounds, the ones he thought had healed, had opened up again. Kathleen had been his first love, childhood sweethearts ending up in a fairy-tale marriage, with three wonderful children. When nuclear hell had stolen them, he thought perhaps he could recover, eventually, especially when that little seed of feeling inside himself had been briefly watered by Raphaela’s attentions.

He was wrong. Her flirtation had turned out to be a cruel, adulterous and dishonorable joke from a woman who knew full well she was still married.

Raphaela had used him. She’d incorrectly thought, he felt certain, that he needed some kind of managing, massaging, some kind of
handling
, to make sure he did his job.

What an insult
. Perhaps a Blend really was a completely different entity, a deviant species, not human at all. Certainly the one that Huen had captured had been a traitor, an agent. While he didn’t think Raphaela was one, he now knew that she was as conniving as any Machiavelli, Richelieu or Borgia.

He took a deep breath, and prepared himself for a long hard career leading EarthFleet, defending humanity against the Meme…and keeping a close eye on
her
.

“Welcome back, First Sergeant Repeth,” the fuzzy figure said in a voice sounding like it echoed down a tin tube. “You’ll be all right eventually, but for now, we’ve shut down your cybernetics for your own safety and ours.”

A face pushed close to hers, resolving itself into a mask and medical eye protection. Why they bothered anymore with Eden Plague and nano to cure everything she didn’t know. Rules were rules, she imagined.

“Just relax. Actually, you won’t be able to help it,” the doctor said cheerfully, “as we’re pumping you full of happy juice.”

Time seemed to drift for a while, with hours passing in a fog before clarifying again. Eventually she could see another figure sitting by the hospital bed, but her vision was still too fuzzy to see the face. “Who?” she rasped.

Sergeant Dasko leaned forward. “Just me, Top. How you doin’?”

“I’ll live. I guess we will too, huh?”

“For now. We’re all just sealed in down here, and the civil defense chief doesn’t want to make any moves until we have to. Until we’re sure they’re gone.”

“How long?” she croaked.

“Two days, about.”

“Miller?”

“She’s like you. Next room over. You guys really cut it close, you know that?”

“Cut what close? The bugs got the techs. Killed them. We saw it on video.”

Dasko shrugged. “They must have set the fusion bomb timer after all. Lucky you guys hustled, Top. Would have been tragically ironic if you’d have died in the blast, just sitting there jawing.”

“Ten-dollar words, there, Sergeant. Guess you’re not a dumb grunt after all.” Repeth reached for Dasko’s hand. “Thanks, Jorgen. For everything. You and your people did a hell of a job.”

Dasko gripped hers. “Yeah. I guess we found out why we were buying time. Never thought I’d say it about a couple of zoomie bomb techs, but…damn.”

Repeth leaned her head back, thinking on the military people she’d known over her lifetime. “It’s not the color of your uniform that makes you a hero, Dasko. It’s what’s in here.” She slapped her free palm against her heart. “Ow.”

Dasko cough-laughed once, sadly. “Yeah. I know that.”

“So…two days. Earth might be a smoking hole. Our families might be all dead.”

“Pretty sure not.”

“Why not?” Repeth asked.

“Engineers are boring through the rock, making a shaft well away from the base. They ran an ultra-long-wave antenna up and say they have picked up some comms. Nothing definitive, but…”

“That’s good news.”
Assuming it’s not just from whatever’s left after Earth was scoured clean of life.

“Sure is.” Dasko squeezed her hand once more, then let go. “I’m going to check on Captain Miller.”

“Can you send in a doctor?” Repeth asked as he stood.

“Sure.”

A moment later one of the medical staff came in. “Yes?”

“Hi, Doc. Any chance Captain Miller and I can share a room?”

The woman smiled and nodded. “I think that can be arranged.”

“And bring me a tablet please. I’d like to compose a letter to my husband.”

Vincent Markis stepped off the executive jet at the Carletonville airfield to see a group of at least a hundred people, complete with banners, waiting for him at the bottom of the steps. He was glad he’d had the downtime on the long trip from Australia, where the shuttle full of returning Aardvark pilots had landed, to rest and prepare for this moment. He was also glad, though feeling a bit guilty, that the Chairman’s – his father’s – official airplane had been there to carry him home.

Still, it had been four years since he left home. Add the detox to rebalance the brain chemistry of all of the VR-addicted pilots… The special treatment, not to mention the full lieutenant’s bars on his shoulders, he had to admit he had earned.

Elise, his mother, had taken pride of place, tears of joy streaming down her face as she hugged him as if she would never let go. Then his father Daniel, his brother Zeke and his sister Elizabeth and Uncle Larry and Aunt Shawna and soon he lost track as many of the people he had grown up with right here on the South African research base mobbed him.

The last to do so made an impression, a body firm and curvy in all the right places with a sweet flowery aroma that made him remember he’d been celibate ever since Stevie died. “Dannie?”

The young woman squeezed him one more time before stepping back, still holding onto his hands. “All grown up,” she said, twisting left and then right as if showing off the spring outfit she wore.

“You sure are. You’re…”

“Twenty. I graduate next year. Biogenetics.” Her smile cracked the ice in his heart and his good day suddenly got even better.

“Come on, kids, you can catch up at the barbecue.” Daniel Markis’ boyish smile belied the command beneath his words as he waved the throng toward the gaggle of vans, SUVs and an official bus. “Today,” he said, raising his voice, “my son has returned, and I’m ordering him to have fun – and all the rest of you miscreants too. So…
let’s
have a party!
”

Repeth felt the living coffin, another product of adapted enemy biotech, loosen on her lower body, and she winced when the catheter probes withdrew. Naked, she was birthed anew. She welcomed the sound and fury to come; after nearly sixty years of Marine service – plus the forty in stasis – she still looked forward eagerly to righteous battle. Neither guilt nor moral ambiguity troubled her thoughts of killing aliens hell-bent on genocide.

Sixty years. She’d never expected to serve for that long, but the Eden Plague virus conferred immortality and rapid healing, so such spans were now commonplace. She could have easily been an officer by now, but she’d always hated the idea of separation from the rank and file. Offered her choice of warrant or commission many times, she had always refused, preferring to stay where she was most comfortable – top enlisted Marine in a front-line combat unit.

Looking around, she marveled at the rows upon rows of the biotech cocoons that had kept everyone alive, healthy but in stasis for the last four decades. Lines of them extended in a vast adult nursery, incubators of military personnel. She could see at least a thousand of the things from where she stood, in various stages of processing, BioMed personnel bustling among them, and she knew there were many thousands more spread throughout
Conquest
and the ships attached to her.

Stumbling for the female showers in the deliberately heavy gravity that matched the target planet the astronomers had named Afrana – she was grateful for the protocol that decanted key leaders in order of rank. Brigadier Stallers and the rest of the Marine brigade’s officers should have been awakened ahead of her.

Under hot water she soaped and sluiced, scrubbing remnants of bio-gel out of her ears, and then gingerly tested her cybernetics. As far as she could tell, her laminated bones and polymer-enhanced musculature had come through without degrading.

Holding up her hands, she extended her claws in sequence to their full two centimeters, starting with the thumbs. The pain of the ferrocrystal knives slicing through her skin from beneath was familiar, comforting.

Like the anachronistic bayonet, she seldom used the cutting blades in combat, but they’d come in handy for covert missions, back before Earth had been unified.

Thoughts of Earth threw her mind back to her last view of that fragile blue marble hanging in space, and all the hopes and dreams of its inhabitants. Leaving behind everyone there was hard, and once again she crammed down the gentler part of her humanity, coating her soul in armor not so different from what she wore in combat. Only one man was allowed past that façade: her husband, Commander Rick Johnstone.

Having him along kept her human, but the time for softness was past.
Conquest
and the ships attached to her had one simple mission: kill any Meme craft in the Gliese 370 system, destroy all resistance from the aliens nicknamed “Hippos” on the planet Afrana, and then colonize.

She thought then about the briefings on the Hippos, what little they knew. So called because they were huge and gray and thick, they were reported to have technology similar to Earth’s, or possibly better.

It’s gonna be a hard fight.

Repeth touched her palm to the locker she had closed forty years ago and it hissed open, revealing her carefully-packed kit. Looking in the mirror set inside, she saw a severe, strong-jawed face, intense brown eyes, and skin tinged with the blood of at least one Hispanic ancestor.

A warrior’s face.

Once dressed in crisp utilities she felt like a Marine again. With her starched eight-point cap settled carefully on her head – an affectation from her wet-navy days – she went in search of coffee, information and her commander, in that order, probably all in the consolidated wardroom, where officers and senior NCOs ate.

Drawing a steaming cup of “lifer-juice,” the muddy coffee dispensed by the industrial-sized brewer, she nodded at Brigadier Stallers sitting with his battalion commanders. One of those was her own, infantry Major Joseph “Bull” ben Tauros, originally of the Israeli Defense Forces before volunteering for EarthFleet Marines. A hulking brute of a man, he was the only one that seemed completely normal without hair; the cue ball was his usual look.

Bull caught her eye and lifted his cup. She raised hers back in greeting, but doubted his held coffee. He stood up, nodding to the brigadier, then waved Repeth over to a table nearby, growling at a lone Navy ensign. The young man hastily grabbed his powdered eggs and found another place to be.

“Good decade, Smaj,” Bull greeted her as they sat down.

She accepted the familiar corruption of “Sergeant Major” with good graces, knowing such nicknames built trust and camaraderie. “Good freakin’
four
decades, Bull,” she replied, “but it feels like I only slept for a week.” Repeth sat down across from him and reached over to tilt his cup toward her with one short-nailed finger. “Ugh. Can’t believe you’re still drinking that dreck. I should space it.”

Bull pulled the protein shake back protectively. “Don’t you dare. I used all my personal allowance on this stuff. Can’t stay big on Navy food.”

“Who cares if you stay big? Your cybernetics provide most of your actual strength. Besides, it gives you gas like a sick hound.”