Syn-En: Plague World: The Founders War Begins Read online

  Nell hugged her back. “I’d die for him.”

  “Dying is easy. Live for him.” Smoothing her black hair, Shang’hai stepped back into her place. “Live for us all.”

  “Of course.” Nell followed Bei up the ramp. It started to raise as soon as she reached the crew compartment.

  Doc Cabo and Paladin Apollie sat on the long bench along one side.

  Nell sat on the bench opposite them.

  Instead of traveling up the metal ladder at the front of the rectangular compartment, Bei sat down next to her. “Who’s at the helm?”

  Doc Cabo looked up from the handheld. “Brooklyn and Queens. I think two of my best medics wish to become pilots.”

  “You’ll always have me.” Nell tapped her brain box. “In my day, students had to spend eight, even ten years in college and beyond, to learn what I downloaded in five minutes.”

  Of course, they didn’t have to allow a computer chip to take control of their body to use it. She shivered. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but she’d done it before to save a life. She would do it again. Especially if Bei’s life was at stake.

  “I’m more concerned about you being the patient this time around, not the doctor.” Doc flipped open the flap on his left forearm. A white gel pack filled the compartment. He tugged out a needle and rose. “Let’s seal you up, Admiral.”

  Shifting on the seat just as the shuttle rose, Bei presented his back to Doc. “Are our two biologics stowed safely away?”

  “Yes.” Doc swiped the tip of the needle along the cerebral interface. “Completely isolated. I did give them access to Nell’s store of computer games and learning modules to prevent them from succumbing to cabin fever.”

  The hair on Nell’s arm stood up. The ship had just passed through the energy barrier. Her stomach fluttered up her throat as they moved away from the ship’s artificial gravity and relied solely on the shuttle’s.

  Downy feathers floated around Apollie’s pale face. “I did find something interesting in the Skaperian archives. It seems that the fermites inside Nell will fluoresce once the Surlat strain hits her system.”

  “You mean I”m going to glow in the dark?” Nell touched her tiara. She should have asked for a bigger crown.

  Apollie frowned. “It is possible, if the virus hits critical mass during evening hours.”

  Sarcasm was lost on aliens, or maybe they didn’t have a funny bone.

  Taking the needle from Doc’s hand, Bei motioned for Nell to turn her back to him. “Does this fluorescence indicate she is fighting the infection, or just that she is infected?”

  Twisting on the cushion, Nell lifted her hair out of the way. Cold goo tickled down her neck. Jeez, why didn’t doctors think to warm the stuff up?

  “Fluorescence could mean both. Usually recovery is within twelve hours after this symptom appears.” Apollie flashed a screen at her.

  Nell rubbed the base of her skull. She didn’t understand wingdings, nor did she want to waste the last hours of her life teasing out the meaning. “So I guess we pray I light up like a beacon, instead of hang there like a burnt out bulb.”

  The shuttle shook as it entered the planet’s atmosphere.

  Stuffing the cable into his arm, Doc staggered back to his bench.

  Bei braced his hands on the overhead compartments and lurched toward the ladder. “Looks like you won’t be losing your favorite medics to pilot school.”

  “Admiral.” Queens’s deep baritone crackled over the com. “We’re getting interference from the atmosphere.”

  “Altitude dropping. Forward impulse engine off-line.” Stress broke Brooklyn’s whiskey smooth notes.

  The lights flickered.

  Nell floated off her seat. Her blond hair drifted in front of her face. NDA streamed off her, lashing her to the bench.

  Darkness swallowed the compartment, then emergency lights bathed them in bloody hues.

  Bei shot up the ladder. His boots disappeared through the hatch just as a deathly quiet displaced the thrum of the engines.

  An invisible hand yanked Doc from his seat and slammed his head into the overhead compartment.

  Apollie threw herself against the bench and held on. A thud and cry rang out from the upper deck.

  Nell’s stomach flopped into her mouth. The straps dug into her shoulders. Something told her she wasn’t going to like how this trip ended. She clung to her straps as her feet struggled to find purchase. No, please, no.

  “Shit.” Queens shouted. “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. This is Starflight 1. Cascade failures in all systems. We are going down. I repeat. Starflight 1 is going down.”

  Chapter 6

  Bei activated the magnetic generators in his prostheses. He hung upside down on the stairs to the bridge for a moment before the shuttle flipped upright. Bracing his arms against the walls, he mitigated the spin. He could accept that he would die on the planet, but it wouldn’t be in a damn shuttle crash. Wading through the sludge-like pull of artificial gravity, he reached the cramped, oval bridge. “Report.”

  Queens sat in the copilot’s seat. His olive-toned fingers dug furrows in the dark helm. Instead of the sleek console of the other Syn-En ships, this con had been retrofitted with archaic looking manual controls. The harness strained to hold him in his seat. “Every fucking system is off-line. We’ve gone dark.”

  Beside him, Brooklyn clutched the control wheel. It remained embedded in the con. “Manual controls not responding.”

  White clouds smeared the forward oblong portholes.

  Bei’s fingers swept over the back of his neck. Smooth skin sealed his cerebral interface. Shit. He’d removed his fiber optics to lower his chance of infection. Dropping to his knees, he lifted the nail on his index finger and jacked the digit into the emergency port. Static crackled inside his skull. His avatar shimmered into being and gathered the static into a dirty snowball. “How far are we from the surface?”

  A cry sounded from the crew quarters. The sound of vomiting reached him from the cargo hold.

  Queens’s black eyebrows met over his straight nose. “Three minutes. Tops.”

  Brooklyn stomped on the pedals fused to the deck. “As soon as we punched through the atmosphere, systems registered interference.”

  “Any pattern to the interference?” Bei’s avatar crushed the static into a gray pin-sized dot. Pixelated hands stretched it until he could reach through to the network of wires controlling his ship.

  “Negative.” With one hand, Queens gripped the manual throttles. “We registered low energy levels on the surface but nothing to indicate a weapon or a weapon’s discharge.”

  Grabbing hold of the simulated wires, Bei squeezed them until they formed the emergency ‘oh, shit’ button. “Manual controls coming on line in three…two…one…”

  The helm lit up, spitting loose the wheel and popping up the pedals. The needles on the gauges flickered to life.

  Brooklyn cranked the wheel in the direction of the spin. “Con responding to manual steering. Engines off-line.”

  The bridge darkened as Bei slipped into the control systems to run a quick and dirty diagnostic.

  Queens flicked the toggle switch near the throttle. “Activating solid fuel burners.”

  The shuttle trembled as the engines kicked in.

  Queens manipulated the levers and pedals until the ship stabilized. “Now, we just have to look for a place to land.”

  Brooklyn snorted and raked his hand through dark, curly hair. “We’ll be six feet in the ground before this shit clears.” He gestured to the white fog pressing against the portholes.

  “Use the sonar to find a solid surface and set us down.” Bei tapped into the information relays, looking for evidence of an attack. No residual energy, no surge imprint, no evidence of system infiltration. It was as if someone threw a switch and turned everything off. What was going on? Systems don’t just fail. Someone had stuck their fingers in his pie and fubared everything up.

  “Sonar.” Queens shook his
head. “What century is this again?”

  “The one where archaic tech saves our asses.” Brooklyn slid back a door revealing a compartment in the helm. He flicked a few switches. The gumdrop lights on the helm turned from red to green. Rapid beeping filled the air. Swearing, he pulled back on the wheel, and the shuttle nosed upward. “Your three minutes was a little too generous.”

  Bei ordered the systems to reset. Nothing responded. There was definitely an intelligence behind this attack.

  Queens shot Brooklyn a dirty look. “Find a LZ to set this hunk of tin down, doofus. We’re almost out of fuel.”

  “Shut up, dorkwad. I need to concentrate.” Brooklyn leaned over the radar and sonar readings. “Ten klicks out is a flat surface. I’m gonna set her down there.”

  Doofus and dorkwad. Those two had obviously been spending their downtime watching ancient video clips. Bei ordered the reset one last time. Nothing. Damn. Recalling his avatar, he exited the system and sealed his nail shut. He’d have to reroute the power the old-fashioned way. He pulled the access panel of the avionics components.

  “You better not land on a body of water.” Queens adjusted the fuel feed as the shuttle banked. “Ol’ featherhead can’t swim.”

  “You don’t know that.” Brooklyn straightened out the shuttle. “Elvis swims all the time in the tub.”

  Queens peered into the fog. “Yeah, well, Paladin Apollie’s attitude is so big it’ll serve as an anchor. We gotta be fifty meters above ground, yet, I still see nothing.”

  Unsnapping the power line from the main trunk, Bei shunted a small charge through the cable. The helm burped then fell dark. He reached for the main line. His arm tingled. The hair on his head stood on end, and his internal systems flashed yellow. He grasped the emergency ground and everything subsided. He didn’t like this. Not one bit. As soon as the Combat Information Center came online, he’d search for a matching weapon signature.

  He’d bet his upgrades, the Scraptors had set this trap as a test of the Syn-Ens’ abilities.

  The engines hummed then whistled.

  Brooklyn spun the shuttle in a small circle. “Venting atmosphere to see if I can clear some of this soup.”

  Air whooshed through the conduits. Fog still clung to the front portholes.

  Bei expected as much. He reconnected the power lines. “Set her down, Brooklyn.”

  “Aye, Admiral, setting her down.” The Starflight settled into stillness.

  Queens slowed the feed of solid fuel. “Ground seems to be holding the Starflight’s weight. Powering down stabilizers.”

  Quiet mushroomed in the cockpit.

  “Nicely done, you two.” Bei waited a minute. Then two. Nothing. Damn, the systems didn’t reboot on their own. He turned off his magnetic field. “I want full diagnostics of the engine.”

  Brooklyn unsnapped his safety harness and leapt out of his seat. “Aye, Admiral. A full diagnostic coming right up.”

  Queens followed hard on the other man’s heels. “Dammit, dorkwad, we’re medics.”

  Raising his index finger, Brooklyn interrupted his friend and took the stairs down to the landing two at a time. “Ah, but we were damn fine mechanics first.”

  “True. True.” Queens leapt to the opening near the ladder leading to the engine room below. “We’re Scotty and Bones rolled into one.”

  Brooklyn hooked his hands and feet around the ladder rails and slid out of sight. “Speak for yourself. I’m Scotty, Bones and Spock in one sweet cyborg package.”

  “Kirk would have booted you too hams off the Enterprise before your first away mission.” Nell’s voice cracked. “He wouldn’t have wanted the competition.”

  Bei raised his head and jogged down the stairs.

  “You look a little pale, Nell Stafford.” Brooklyn cleared his throat.

  “Aside from revisiting those Sweetarts I enjoyed in the Third grade, I’m fine.” She forced a laugh. “I’ve had rougher rides at Disneyland.”

  Pulling his arms close to his body, Bei ignored the ladder and jumped through the opening. He landed with a thud. The deck bowed beneath his weight. Emergency lights illuminated the aisles.

  Brooklyn and Queens spun about. Their muscles clenched in preparation of an assault.

  Queens lowered his hands first. “I don’t understand. Isn’t Disneyland an amusement park? Why would people think nearly smashing into a planet was fun?”

  Brooklyn rolled his brown eyes and shoved his friend toward the door to the engine room. “You are such a dorkwad.”

  Bei strode down the aisle toward his wife. “Nell?”

  “I’m okay.” She clung to an open overhead bin, steadying herself. “Shaken, not stirred, like a James Bond martini, but still fine.”

  Paladin Apollie shone a flashlight into Doc’s face. “He isn’t healing.”

  A gash on Doc’s forehead peeled his NDA from his titanium plated skull. Skin curled back over his black hair. “I’ll be fine. Just let me up. I need to check to see if we’ve maintained integrity.”

  Integrity. Bei stiffened. His chief medical officer obviously feared the Surlat strain had breeched the hull. “Let him up, Nell.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’m just gonna fix him. Can’t have him looking like the Terminator when he checks on Karl and Erin. They might get a little freaked.” His wife ran her finger along his cut.

  The Doc’s NDA began to zip up, sealing the gash.

  She smiled. “There. Easy peasy. Now, you can…”

  Her finger started to glow. Fluorescence spread to her hand and up her arm. She shook her limb, trying to dislodge it. A heartbeat later, a sickly yellow color bathed the bay. Her eyes met Bei’s.

  He tasted her fear.

  “Well, this just sucks.”

  Apollie retreated to the far corner of her bench and covered her mouth. “Nell Stafford is infected. We’re all infected.”

  Chapter 7

  “Okay, nobody panic.” Nell held up both of her arms, palms facing out, in the universally acknowledged stop gesture. The glow under her skin meant only one thing. She was infected. She might even die. Her stomach cramped. “And by nobody, I mean me.”

  Her throat felt raw. Heat licked her nerve endings. Did screaming count as panicking?

  Bei slid his palm up hers then folded his fingers between hers. “Just breathe, Nell. Breathe.”

  The glow spread to his hand, then his wrist. She jerked on her hand. “Let go, Bei. Let go.”

  He shook his head. “Whatever happens to you, happens to me. We’re in this together.”

  Tears pricked her eyes. How could he say things like that? “You’re such an idiot.”

  She walked into his embrace and wrapped her free arm around his waist. He was so strong, so solid. She was mush compared to him. Infected, contagious mush. She should let go of him, but couldn’t bring herself to. He was right. During the original outbreak on Earth, being in the same room with an infected person provided a lethal exposure.

  Drawing her close, Bei rested his chin on the top of her head. “Paladin Apollie, perhaps you’d care to explain what just happened.”

  Nell glanced over her shoulder.

  Tucked in a corner of the cargo bay, the Skaperian hugged her legs close to her body. A pale hand covered her mouth and flattened nose. “I told you. The glow indicates infection.”

  A growl rumbled through Bei’s chest.

  Her husband growling was never a good sign. He was seriously pissed, and it wasn’t because of the super bug. That had been expected. Nell turned in his embrace to face the Paladin. Her skin changed from a snot green to a jaundice yellow.

  The color matched the fluorescing mittens on Bei’s hands. “I was able to check the Starflight’s maintenance logs as we departed. You double-checked the manual controls of this shuttle. Why?”

  On the bench next to Apollie, Doc Cabo removed the gel-pack of cerebral interfacing caulking from his forearm compartment. “You can drop your hand. If Nell’s infected then our failsafe’s have bee
n overwhelmed.”

  Apollie carefully lowered her hand from her mouth. The beads of her braids clacked together. “It is a horrible way to die.”

  “I know.” Nell shuddered. Her memory resurrected images of black pustules, melted eyes, and gouge marks on sallow skin. Victims had burst upon death, spewing putrid goo and spraying the infection. Earth had turned into a living horror movie overnight. “I was there.”

  Static electricity crackled along Bei’s arms. “My shuttle, Paladin.”

  Apollie’s red eyes flashed and her lips thinned. “Didn’t you ever wonder why a race as advanced as the Skaperians used knobs and levels, wheels and pedals on our ships?”

  “You have a fear of technology.” Bei cocked his head. “Many races do.”

  Humans on Earth for one. Nell squeezed his hand. And they hadn’t even seen the Terminator movies.

  Banging sounded from the engine room to the left of the crew compartment. Brooklyn and Queens exchanged insults as they searched for the source of the power failure.

  Shaking her head, Apollie unfolded from the bench seat. The motion was fluid despite the fact that Skaperians had backward knee and elbow joints. “We had technology more advanced than yours.” A wave of her hand encompassed the shuttle. “But it turned against us. Shut down when we needed it. Provided false information. Sometimes it even killed us.”

  Nell kept her husband’s hands clasped in front of her belly. Once upon a time, the Skaperians had programmed Bei’s brain box to kill her, to obey their will above his own. “So our shuttle was attacked by ghosts in the machine.”

  Bei’s hold tightened. “I found no such weapon in the shared database.”

  Apollie gathered her cornrow braids in a single ponytail. “That’s because we don’t know if it is a weapon, or just… just…” She clamped her lips together.

  “Just?” Bei prodded her.

  “Just a side-effect of travel in Erwarian space.” Red spotted her high cheekbones.

  “I have a feeling this is going to take a while.” Nell patted her husband’s hand before shimmying out of his hold. “I’m going to sit.”

  Doc pointed to the seat across from him. “I’ll check for antibodies. Given your glow, I think it’s safe to say your immune system is responding.”