Chapter 21
Subject: Agent Jim Crawford
Jim smiled as he reviewed the combat data from the ground. He destroyed the toothpick between his teeth, splitting it into a wet mass of flimsy splinters. Jim swapped it for a new one, then muttered to no one, “goddamn that was close.”
“Extremely close,” Wraith chimed in, uninvited. “Had I known the full combat strength of the Adversary’s ground element I would advised an entirely different plan.”
“It worked out just fine Wraith,” Jim said. “What’s the latest from the ground?”
“Estevez is actually waiting to brief you on that, and Nilson is very excited about something,” Wraith responded. Jim looked at the time, 0954 ship time. Just a few minutes before the mid-day round up.
“Yeah, alright,” Jim squinted his right eye and activated an optic overlay. A list jumped into his vision.
Situation on ground - Estevez
Missing Adversary ship - Anae or Nilson
Place to put colonists - Pruitt
Way to get samples off world - Mad Doctor
“Looky there! She’s first on the list. Alright, put her up on the screen,” Jim lay back in his chair and sipped a special cocktail from the Wraith’s sick bay. Booze was illegal aboard most government vessels, but stims weren’t. In fact, the Wraith had an extensive pharmacopeia, and the experimental blending of mood stabilizers, uppers, downers, focus drugs, euphorics, and every other combat stimulant was becoming one of Jim’s favorite pastimes. This one tasted like ginger and it made his fingertips buzz; Jim appraised it like a fine scotch.
Estevez appeared on the screen before him, a picture of military perfection. Jim smiled a greeting, and Estevez started on her prepared briefing, “Sir- uh, Jim. It’s now fifty hours local since commencing orbital firefighting and it looks like the backburn operation will be successful, however much of New Carthage was destroyed in the bioweapon attack. Several elements of critical infrastructure are fully destroyed, and we estimate in excess of forty thousand casualties.”
“That low?” Jim asked. The destruction was immense, and Jim had ordered an orbital strike inside the town that leveled an entire district and ignited a firestorm that still burned. Plus, thousands of bizarre monstrosities had swept through the city and overwhelmed every defense that was put up.
“It’s probably much higher but every ground based public safety system is offline, so we are guessing based on population density in destroyed areas. There’s some interesting data that I wanted to make you aware of.”
“Interesting! Okay, let’s hear it,” Jim said, taking a sip of his cocktail. The tip of his nose was buzzing now, but Jim felt sharp and focused.
“Well, we’ve cataloged eighteen unique variants of bioweapon ground troops present in the assault on New Carthage. Each variation seems to be a mix of human features and those found in local fauna, as though the bioweapon is building off of the traits found in the nearby environment,” Estevez paused to take a breath. “Also, we’ve seen changes in the variants over the course of the assault, which seems to indicate that they are not only communicating, but rapidly adapting. We’ve seen some adopt armored plating that is largely resistant to non-AP weaponry.”
“Do you think these thing have a hive mind, Estevez?” Jim asked, stroking his beard.
“They definitely seem to behave like a shared-mind organism, but we don’t have really any insight beyond what we can see from orbit. There’s one more significant thing that is disturbing.” A series of graphs populated the screen and Jim looked up at them, attempting to discern the meaning. They seemed to be atmospheric data.
“Oxygen concentration in the air has dropped nearly half a percent over the past week, and volatile organics have increased dramatically, with the highest concentrations nearest the nurseries. Combat suit data from the assault on their burrow showed an acutely toxic level of volatiles inside their burrow, and a lower level outside,” Estevez took a breath as though she was about to explain but Jim got it immediately.
“They’re fucking terraforming! That’s it! This isn’t a bioweapon so much as a tool for terraforming worlds!” Jim exclaimed, delighted in the discovery.
“Well, I wouldn’t have said it with that level of confidence, but that’s kind of what it looks like,” Estevez added, shrugging.
“Fantastic work, Estevez. Anything else? Anything you need?” Jim asked.
“I’d like drop monitoring probes to supplement the weather stations that were destroyed in the fire, but aside from that, it’s just crunching numbers. Wraith is extremely helpful with that.”
“Probes or whatever science bullshit you want are automatically approved, don’t even send in a request. Wraith, you hear that?”
“I’ve noted it, Jim,” Wraith responded.
“Of course you have you creepy bastard, you never stop listening and I love you for it. Catch you soon Estevez, keep up the good work,” Jim dropped the connection.
A terraforming, hive-mind, planet killing bioweapon that either has the technology for interdimensional travel or is native to a pocket dimension that lacks any known substantial matter. He’d be questioning his sanity if the context was any different, but here he was, looking at the evidence face on. Plain as day.
Newly discovered alien life could be capable of anything. Space is effectively unlimited, and mankind had found life to be abundant, with endless permutations and solutions. The creatures on the surface seemed to attack as one, all at once, as though each individual was an organ or part of a greater whole. Jim wondered if the elusive Adversary ship was a part of that greater whole as well.
“Wraith, I want you to consider the possibility that the bioweapon is being controlled and guided by the last remaining Adversary ship. You and Estevez see what you can think about that, and figure if we can use it to our advantage,” Jim said. He loved having an AI and smart people he could pawn this sort of vague workload off onto. He could dream up just about any mad idea and reliably expect his staff to make it reality.
“Interesting idea Jim. We will look into it. Are you ready for Admiral Nilson?” Wraith responded. Jim stood, stretched, sipped his drink, then sat back down and nodded yes. Nilson appeared on the display, looking excited.
“Admiral Nilson! What can I do for ya sir?” Jim said, effectuating his best salesman enthusiasm.
“Jim, good to see you. I’ve got an idea for helping to track down the Adversary ship but I wanted your blessing before I did it.” Nilson said.
“You’re the fleet commander, you can kind of do what you want and just let me know you’re going to do it,” Jim replied. It was true that Nilson was in charge of the fleet, but only because that authority had been delegated to him by Jim. Anything of any real importance would be Jim’s call. But, his experience with naval flag officers was that they operated better when they felt like they were the boss. And so it was.
“Yeah, I know, but this is going to expend a lot of your munitions and I don’t know if you have some top secret gizmo that can do it cheaper.” Nilson replied. Jim was intrigued, again.
“You tell me what you’re thinking, and I’ll tell you if I think you can do it better with a secret gizmo, alright?” Jim sipped his drink.
“Well, I don’t want to pull the stealth ships out of stealth and play our hand, but I also don’t want to send our ships out too far from the planet without knowing where that last enemy is. So, I’m proposing we remove the warhead out of twenty of the battlecruiser’s complement of long range interplanetary missiles, fill it with an auxiliary fuel tank instead, and outfit them with networking nodes and an active sensor suite. Send the missiles out as scouts. Have them go loud and search around the system. With an auxiliary fuel tank those things should be able to loop the system twice. Plus, that leaves us with four cruise missiles in case we needed to kill something big with them.” Nilson rested his hands at his sides and looked ahead eagerly.
Jim had actually done something like this before. He had scout missiles added to the stealth destroyer’s standard complement specifically for collecting data from around things that were too dangerous to get up close to with a warship. But, they weren’t the big interplanetary ones. The big ones opened up possibilities that Jim hadn’t considered. Could he pair FTL communications links and link each missile back to the Wraith? The fleet had a system they called ‘Panopticon’, which achieved FTL sensor coverage over an entire system, but it involved a small fleet of sensor frigates. Jim wondered if he could do the same with missiles.
“Nilson, hang on a minute I’m gonna put you on mute,” Jim paused the link and addressed Wraith, “can we put FTL comms links in those missiles?”
“No. It would require a custom missile housing and advanced manufacturing to fit the power source inside of the missile. I’ll work on a prototype for future missions.” Wraith responded, one step ahead of Jim. Jim sipped his drink and found it was mostly water from the melting ice. He set it down, frowned, and resumed the call.
“Sorry Nilson, I had to check on my gizmos. Yeah, it’s a great plan. Do it. I can’t make it any better with what I’ve got. When you find the bastard don’t kill it right away, I’m curious about taking a look at it first,” Jim said. Nilson was an outside the box thinker. He’d be high on Jim’s list of recommendations for the next experimental warship project.
“Thank you for the support Jim, I’m on it. Rear Admiral Nilson out,” Nilson dropped the call.
Jim stroked his beard and pulled up the to-do list again.
Place to put colonists - Pruitt
“Oh this is gonna be fun,” Jim said, giggling and rubbing his hands together. He’d been looking forward to this one. Pruitt was one of those guys that always got the job done, but never without bitching about it for a good long while first. Normally, the bitching annoyed Jim, but with Pruitt, his complaints were basically always entirely reasonable. Jim’s borderline impossible requests sent Pruitt into a tirade every time, and Jim actually started looking forward to it. This next one was a real doozy. Jim ordered Wraith to make the call and sat back, smiling.
Pruitt answered after a few minutes, wiping sweat off his brow as he answered, “oh great, it’s you. What do you have for me now?”
Jim’s smile widened. “Congratulations Pruitt, you’ve been promoted from Chief Engineer to Chief Figurer-Outer of where to put about sixty thousand colonists!”
“Uh, easy,” Pruitt said, “on the fucking colony. On the planet.”
“Nope! Planet’s fucked Pruitt, gotta get ‘em off it. And the best part is, they’re all an isolation hazard and there can be a grand total of ZERO contact allowed between any of them and any of us, or our ships.” Jim smiled and waited for the bitching to start.
“Are you fucking crazy?” Pruitt said, dropping a tool out of his hand to the floor. “Sixty THOUSAND? I could take maybe SIXTY. TOTAL.”
“Yeah well, good news is they’re dying pretty quick, so the number keeps getting smaller. I figure you find ways to pack more and more onto the station, while the number you have on the ground gets smaller, and eventually we find a happy medium,” Jim shrugged.
“God damn Jim, you know what you’re asking right? This station is a piece of shit and it was never finished. Even if it WAS finished, which it isn’t, it was only meant to hold something like five thousand people. Sure, there’s lots of empty space around here, but what there isn’t enough of is, oh I dunno. Food. Water. AIR! Sixty thousand people taking their daily shit is probably enough to blow up the current life support by it’s self.”
“Are you done, Pruitt?” Jim asked.
“You’re the worst boss I've ever had,” Pruitt said, defeated.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take responsibility for your success too,” Jim winked, and Pruitt let out an forced laugh. “Reach out to Estevez and Wraith for ideas and support. You can use any excess crew power on the Vengeance. That ship is operating well under what it was designed for on this one, and I’m sure there’s tons of technicians and shit just standing around wishing for backbreaking labor. Also, I will reassign fleet assets to you if needed. The e-war cruiser and the frigate are yours, obviously. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“A new job would be great,“ Pruitt gave a rude, overly dramatic salute and signed off.
Alright, last one of the bunch Jim thought. He was thoroughly enjoying being the middle man on this one. He got to sit back and direct the madness. Coordinate his minions. Watch as he gave order to the chaos. And best of all, no one to compromise with.
That being said, Jim was getting fairly nervous about his chances of getting the samples off the surface of the planet. He’d watched the security team get ripped to shreds. Even though they’d been successful at moving the high valued asset from one spot to another, they still had to get the damn things somewhere suitable enough for a shuttle to pick them up. His ideas kept running up against reality, and he eventually found that he had to define and refine the mission parameters so precisely, that he only really had two options.
Option one: send in one of his extremely valuable and not-really expendable Hazardous Environment Reconnaissance Teams, or HERTs as they called them. They were badasses. Post-human, weird, and downright supernatural as far as Jim could tell. Every SIU agent had a team of the freaky bastards. But, given the nature of the bioweapon, he’d have to quarantine his HERT hit-team until they could figure out a way to 100%, no doubt, decontaminate them. That could take a long time, and could fail. The risk was high, but it was his for-sure solution for recovery of the asset.
Option two, well. He had to consult the Mad Doctor on that one. “Wraith, put in a call to Doctor Susewind,” Jim ordered. Susewind was an eccentric by all accounts. A master of biological manipulation. His team was legendary among the few people allowed to know about his doings, and his status as an indentured criminal meant that he was entirely committed to ethically questionable off-the-books projects. Jim’s senior rank in the SIU gave him privilege to haul around the Mad Doctor and his bizarre and terrible creations.
Susewind answered; he was wearing a surgical outfit and appeared to have blood spattered across his upper chest. “Ahhhh Mister Jim! To what do I have the pleasure?” Susewind asked.
“Well, I have kind of a weird problem and I figured you were the man for the job,” Jim said. As he spoke, Susewind pulled his facemark off with bloody, gloved hands. “You see, I’ve got a high value asset on the surface that I need to get up here.”
“Yes, yes, the samples. I know all about that. I’ve already spoken to Doctor Carney,” Susewind said, pulling his bloodied gloves off. Susewind had barely thrown his gloves in the trash when he started putting shit into his mouth. What the fuck was that? Jim wondered, is he eating goddamn candy?
Jim’s stomach flipped. Not a lot got to him, but this sure did, “is now a bad time? You want to have lunch and get back to me?”
“No, its a fine time. And I’m quite alright, I have a snack right here,” Susewind smiled and held up a jar of small, multicolored round candies. Jim wished he had another drink.
“Alright you sick bastard. Here’s the deal. You know the security sergeant down there that damn near got ripped in two?” Jim said.
“Yes, of course. I check in on battlefield fatalities any time my equipment is used. The recon armor did a fantastic job of stabilizing the wearer. She’s alive, you know. That kind of trauma would have killed her outright had I not modified the trauma module on that armor model.” Susewind examined a candy before popping it into his mouth.
“You think she’s a good candidate for a sort of ad-hoc Pathfinder? Send down some chrome and make her a Chimera? Badass enough to get the samples to a heavy-lift shuttle?” Jim felt like the mad doctor would jump on the opportunity to try some weird shit, but he’d been surprised before.
“Uhm, yes. Well, I don’t see why not. The planned mission is short, right?” Susewind rolled a few of the candies around in his hand as he stared off into space, mulling over the idea.
“Yeah, few hours probably. Just gotta go from point A to point B.” Jim watched Susewind think for a moment before he offered up a carrot. “You can get weird with it if you want, test out your mad science.”
“Ah of course I can do it, but this is the type of situation that I wait years for, you understand? I have basically a blank check and freedom to do whatever I want, just so long as it meets the mission parameter of ‘retrieve the object’, yes? Subject stability is not an issue?” Susewind was testing his boundaries. Honestly, Jim didn’t care what he did, so long as the goddamn samples made it into space intact and he got to keep his HERT in reserve.
“Subject stability doesn’t matter, this is going to be a short duration mission. Few hours tops. We can test overclocking the new Pathfinder armor or whatever you have on your to-do list. You have full creative freedom to coordinate with the folks on the ground. I even had the good foresight to have them hunker down in a fully equipped cybernetics lab,” Jim said, winking. Susewind’s giggled. It made Jim’s skin crawl, and for a moment he felt uneasy about giving the man free reign. Maybe he oughta dial it back a bit, he thought.
“Look I know I’m saying do whatever it takes, but remember this is in pursuit of a goal. Don’t do something super fucking weird that’s going to get me in the hot seat for green lighting, alright you fucking lunatic?” Jim said.
“Watch me, Jim, this is how progress is made,” Susewind growled.
