All My Sins Remembered (13 page)

“I have an idea of what Sarin is, but what I want to know is why this whole pirate façade?” Nathan wondered idly.  Raijan cleared his throat, waiting for a nod from Hawke before answering.

“Plausible deniability.  The
Guan Yu
, I suspect, is not a recognized military ship for the Rejai Empire.  They could claim it was a stolen prototype.  Then, using the
Guan Yu
, they could have hypothetically secured the
Choyo
.  They could not officially mine or otherwise produce the raw materials needed for Sarin, as this would easily be detected, but a marauding pirate would typically be lost in the crime reports, if done on the fringe, such as it was.”  Raijan offered.  Hawke blinked in surprise.  Riajan was right, of course.  Even though they had data from the
Choyo
, he doubted there would be anything directly linking it to the Rejai Empire.  Hawke shook his head in disbelief.  As vast as the universe was, humanity still found ways to bump into one another, and fight one another instead of just leaving each other alone.  He was tired of these games.

“Okay, so we have a handle on that.  Let’s continue.  Gordy?” Hawke prompted.  Gordy nodded, and brought up a map of the sector, consisting of about twenty planetary systems, which included Amazon and its moon, Gitmo.

“Okay.” Gordy began, continuing his briefing. “Our next task is to find out where they are trying to produce this nerve gas, so we followed the path of the Choyo’s log over the past month.”  Gordy hit a button shown on the holographic display, and a line animated, showing the path of the
Choyo
over the past month, and the time it spent at port.

“As you can see, there are three other places the Choyo stopped for longer than twenty-four solar hours.  We believe that one of these three places is where they are in the process of setting up a manufacturing facility, or have one already completed.”

“The first location is a small mining colony set up on a moon orbiting a gas giant.  It’s so remote it doesn’t even have a name.  It is simply known as ‘Mining Colony 5130’.  The second is a world named Peleus II, on the border the Gadari Republic shares with the Rejai Empire.  The third is…” Gordy’s voice trailed off with a puzzled expression on his face.  “Well, it’s nowhere.”  Nathan blinked, mirroring Gordy’s puzzled expression.

“Nowhere?  Where’s that?”  Nathan asked.  Hawke chuckled at how that sounded, but Gordy shook his head, exasperated.

“Well, it’s literally nowhere.  The nearest inhabited system is several jumps away.  There’s nothing there except for a nebula, a couple of gas giants, and an asteroid belt.” Gordy explained.  Hawke leaned back in his chair and rested his elbows the chair's arms as he pressed his fingertips together in thought, and then had an idea.

“Gordy, bring up the overlays for the Guan Yu’s attacks.” Hawke said.  Gordy nodded thoughtfully as he brought them up.  Hawke smiled faintly, and pointed at the border world and then the location in the middle of nowhere.

“I think we can rule out the mining colony, since the Guan Yu attacked a ship in that same system, so..” Hawke was interrupted as a console built into the table near where he sat beeped.  Looking at the console, the digital readout indicated that it was someone from the communications shack.  Reaching out and pressing a button, Hawke sat back in his seat.

“Yes?” Hawke said.

“Sir, I have a message earmarked Gadari Naval Intelligence.  It is a priority one communiqué.”   Hawke grimaced, and looked at Nathan, who had crossed arms and shook his head.  Looking around, he noticed that the reactions of his officers were a mixture of curious, bitter, and resigned.  Hawke closed his eyes tiredly a moment before replaying.

“I’ll be there shortly.” Hawke informed the officer.  Then, turning to the officers in the room he said, “I have a feeling our orders are about to change.  We’ll reconvene a little later.  Dismissed.”  The other officers nodded,
stood, and made their exits.

After the group had left, Hawke allowed himself to just relax for
about ten minutes, leaning back in his chair, as was his habit.  The events of the last few days were finally catching up to him, and he suddenly felt bone weary.  Yet, he knew he couldn’t let himself relax for long.  They had to get under way again.  With a sigh, he leaned back upright, and left the officer’s briefing room and made his way to the communications shack where his message awaited him.  As he walked in, he nodded to the officer in the room, who him over to a private terminal.

“It’s from Commander Spears.
  He sent a video file he wants you to see before you talk to him.  He’s waiting.  It’s a live connection.” The officer reported tensely as he worked his magic.  Suppressing a crude remark, Hawke waited a few moments while the man finished downloading and decrypting the message, then handed Hawke an extra pair of headsets plugged into his console.

“your eyes and ears only, sir.”
he explained.  Hawke looked annoyed, but slipped the headsets over his head while the communications officer stepped away from his console to give Hawke some privacy.  Hawke pressed the ‘play’ button on the touch screen and waited a second before the message began.  The first thing that Hawke saw was a small town, or settlement, of houses made from what looked like adobe, using some architecture you would expect from civilizations living in arid climates.  The picture quality wasn’t that great, having suffered some degradation from it being converted to a two dimensional image, and from transport.  The picture jerked and moved a little too quickly, signs that the video was a home video, most likely shot with a cheap holocorder available at most retail outlets.  As the picture jerked from viewing some buildings to looking down a narrow dirt street, Hawke swallowed hard, and caught himself wanting to look away.  The video displayed a marketplace full of bodies.  Most dressed in a style that reminded Hawke of ancient Arabian culture back on old earth.  Men, women, children were all lying where they had died with blue lips as they tried desperately to breathe.  Everywhere the camera turned, the villagers were lying dead.  In houses, on the road as if they were walking from one place to another, and at tables where they had gathered to eat.  They were all dead.  After several minutes of this, a man’s voice, presumably the cameraman, spoke.

“My name is Dareem.   I came this morning to the village to find this.  I beg your help.  They are all dead.  I want to know who did this.  My friends, my family…” Dareem’s voice broke as a sob threatened to rob him of his ability to speak, but then continued. “…my family.  All dead.  They must pay for what has happened here.” 
After a few moments more of Dareem panning all around to show all of the dead, the video file ended and the screen faded to black as the communications officer worked to connect Hawke with Commander Spears.  After a few moments, the screen once again came to life showing the head and shoulders of Commander Spears wearing his Navy uniform and a grim looking expression.  Hawke noted he seemed to be glancing through the progress report he had just sent before he had debriefed his Marines.

“Colonel, the video file I just sent was received earlier this morning by Navy Intelligence.  It is from a planet named Daroon.”  Commander Spears began without greeting.  “They are reporting that a mysterious, fast-acting plague has broken out
in a small area on the planet.  So far, this village and one other have been the only ones affected.  There were a few villages with minor symptoms farther south, but no deaths.”  Hawke considered the Commander’s words carefully before replying.

“I am not sure why you have called me in on this, Commander.  As you know, we already have a contract.”  Hawke replied evenly.  He glanced up from the screen in front
of him and caught sight of the communications officer, who was watching him carefully, as if to gauge his expression.  Locking onto his gaze for a moment, the officer suddenly looked away, as if embarrassed at having been caught staring.

“I am invoking Protocol Seven on this, Hawke.  I need you to get to Daroon and render whatever assistance you can, once you link up with
The Fury
.  I know your battleship has undergone retrofit to be able to house a larger medical bay and more comprehensive scientific and medical equipment for research.  Those capabilities will be ideal in helping the infected on Daroon.”  Commander Spears stated.  Hawke now looked decidedly angry.

“Are you crazy!? No one has invoked Protocol Seven in years!” Hawke roared
, throwing caution to the wind.  Protocol Seven was a clause on the PMC Accord that stated that any PMC contracted to a particular empire was obligated to respond to any call for aid, if directed by its client, at the total expense of the client in question.  Basically put, Commander Spears could invoke Protocol Seven to send them to a far off location to tend to someone with a scraped knee if he wanted to, at the Navy’s expense.  Typically, Protocol Seven was avoided, as PMC’s had a nasty habit of charging ‘specialist’ fees for them having to utilize scientific and medical personnel, as well as a fee to ‘expedite services rendered’ for each individual the PMC had to aid.  Protocol Seven missions tended to be quite expensive for the empire that invoked it, mainly because the PMC’s resented having to be used for humanitarian purposes when their sole function was planning and conducting combat missions and wars.

“Nevertheless, I am invoking it now.  Get to Daroon.  Investigate.  Find out what is going on out there, and report.”  Commander Spears ordered.  Then, not waiting for Hawke to respond, added “Commander Spears out.”  Then the screen went black.  With a curse, he pulled off his headset and tossed them on
the console.  For a moment Hawke stared at the console, ignoring the nosey communications officer who was hovering nearby, and then stormed out of the communications shack.  Making his way to the bridge, he tersely informed all personnel via ship wide intercom that a Protocol Seven had been invoked.  Several hours later, upon the arrival of
The Fury
, Hawke ordered the helmsman to plot a new course to Daroon.  It would take them about two days of travel, most of it in navigating at sub-light speeds, to get there.  While humankind had figured out how to travel at faster than light speeds using an assembly called a gate, which basically created a warp bubble and catapulted ships across vast distances, once a ship arrived at its destination, it still had to travel at sub-light speeds to its next destination, be it a planet, moon, or another jump gate.  As a result, most of the time spent in space travel was at sub light speeds.

It was during this time that Hawke, Nathan, Raijan, and the
remaining Marines on board took time to hold a brief memorial service for the Marines that had been killed in action.  They gathered in the ship’s cargo bay where a small makeshift dais had been built using some weapons crates.  There, standing on weapons crates, Hawke delivered the best eulogy he could for the Marines who had gone on overwatch.  Briefly, he thought it was strangely appropriate he did it while standing on a stack of crates containing weapons while speaking to a group of Marines.  Hoo-rah.

Daroon looked
mostly brown.  At least it did from orbit.  Nathan was distinctly unimpressed as he viewed the planet from the carbonsteel windows on
The Black Wave
’s bridge.  He hated arid planets.  In his experience there was no such thing as a ‘dry heat.’  He was convinced that it was just something people said to console themselves at having to endure such insane climates.

“
The Fury
reports they have achieved stable orbit.” Tasha reported from her communications console.  Typically, the communications officer manned their post on the bridge, though Tasha tended to vacillate between the officer’s console on the bridge and the officer’s console in the communications shack.  Nathan nodded absently, and waved her off, seeming lost in thought as he stared at the planet below.  After a moment, he looked at Tasha and nodded again, this time much more decisively.

“Let the Captain know we’ve arrived.” Nathan ordered.  Hawke had retired some time ago.  After checking on the repairs to the power armor, and visiting injured Marines in the med bay, he had made the time to catch up on some much needed sleep.   With a nod of acknowledgement, Tasha connected to the Captain’s quarters and spoke briefly into her headset.

“Captain will be here shortly.” Tasha reported, then paused as she looked curiously at something on her console.

“Sir, a message from the surface.  The Prime Minister of Daroon.”  Tasha reported.  Nathan raised an eyebrow in mild surprise.

“Huh…Interesting.  I was expecting the customs office or something.  Not the Prime Minister of Daroon.  Put it up on screen.”  Nathan ordered.  After a few moments, the screen mounted in the wall above the bridge windows flared to life, revealing a moderately aging, bald man seated on a simple wooden chair.  Behind him and on either side stood two well-built men who wore their military bearing like they would a comfortable shirt or pair of shoes, undoubtedly this man’s bodyguards.

“
As-salaam
, Prime Minister.  I am Commander Nathan Schultz.  To what do we owe this pleasure?” Nathan offered.  The Prime minister looked a little surprised at first, then smiled warmly.

“As-salaam, Commander.  I see you know a little of our ways.”  The Prime Minister replied.  Nathan smiled and shrugged.

“Respect for someone’s culture also shows respect for the individual to who belongs to it.” Nathan remarked.  “Is there something I can help you with Prime Minister...?”

“Sahir.” The Prime Minister supplied. “I have been expecting you, actually.  I have been informed to provide whatever assistance I can to aid you, however I must inform you that there has been no further reports of exposure to this strange outbreak.  I do not believe your assistance will be needed.”  Nathan stared at Prime Minister Sahir a moment or two as he considered his words.

“Be that as it may, sir, I must inform you that we are under contract to the Gadari Republic, and the Gadari Navy has invoked Protocol Seven.  Whether or not we render humanitarian aid, we must, at the very least, investigate the incident and attempt to render what aid we can in fulfillment of our contractual obligations.” Nathan informed him.  The Prime Minister’s face seemed to change a little,  a shadow of emotion at the edge of tranquility, soon gone.

“We have already investigated.  We can send along our findings for you to officially file, if you wish.”  The Prime Minister offered.
  From behind Nathan, he heard the sound of the door to the bridge opening and closing, and instinctively knew it was Hawke by the slight stiffening of the crew.  While Nathan had a more relaxed hand, Hawke’s command style was a bit more formal when on the bridge.  Nathan glanced over his shoulder to confirm his suspicions, and winced inwardly when he looked back at the screen to see that Sahir’s eyes had shifted to Hawke.

“Ah! Captain! I am honored.” The Prime Minister greeted, slightly bowing his head, though his expression hinted that his feelings were quite the contrary.  No doubt by now he felt as if Hawke’s late arrival was some kind of ploy for Hawke to be the last to enter the discussion.  In times long past, It was the belief of Sahir’s people that the last person to enter a room was showing himself the stronger.  Hawke’s late arrival to this discussion would have been perceived to have the same affect.

“As-salaam, Prime Minister Sahir.  Your hospitality and kindness are without bounds, as is your generosity.  Your willingness to assist us in this matter should not trouble such great a personage as yourself.  It is with regret that we have troubled you.  Please be assured that our efforts will respect your laws and customs, to the best of our ability, unless otherwise dictated by Republic law.” Hawke said as he placed himself squarely in front of the screen, effectively stepping in front of Nathan, who acquiesced and quietly stepped back and to the side.  Nathan had to quickly look down to resist laughing out loud.  Entering the room, and the discussion after everyone else had, as well as stepping in front of Nathan, while concurrently informing the Prime Minister that he was too great a person to deal with such a trifling matter had firmly placed Hawke in control of the situation.  Now all Sahir could do without losing face would be to gracefully allow them to do their work.  A fact with which Sahir was not at all happy with, as was apparent by his eagle’s gaze he levelled at Hawke.

“I see.” Sahir said.  It was clear he was stalling just a bit.  “Well then.  We will give you the coordinates of Misrati.  Inform us of your findings.  Do not bring any Mandarian food to the planet.  The microbes native to their foods will sicken and kill sheep and spread like wildfire.  Hawke nodded once in acknowledgement before the communication was cut off from Sahir’s end.  Nathan barked a laugh as he regarded Hawke, shaking his head.

“Impressive.   You’ve managed to not only deeply insult the Prime Minister of an entire planet, but also did it using his own customs and traditions. “ Nathan joked.  Hawke just shrugged.

“Inform
The Fury
we’ll need a squad of Marines in full power armor sent to that village..what was it called? Misrati?” Hawke ordered.  Nathan nodded, and pointed at the officer at the communications console, who went to work at communicating Hawke’s orders to
The Fury
.  “Raijan will be going planet side with them.” Hawke added.

“Nate, I want you to follow with the physicians, scientists, and their gear, accompanied by two more squads of Marines.” Hawke said.  Seeing that Hawke was all business, Nathan nodded and snapped a salute before leaving the bridge for the fighter bay where they had a couple of shuttles.  He would need to shuttle over to
The Fury
to join his team, and then shuttle down to the planet.

***

Nathan gripped a handhold that was bolted firmly to the wall of the shuttle, feeling the vibration of the shuttles engine through the boots of his power armor all the way up into his spine as the shuttle's nose roughly pulled up, and its rear pushed down as it halted its forward progress to perform a textbook combat landing on Daroon.  Even though there were no reports of combat, Marines always made combat landings.  It had been two hours since Hawk’s discussion with Prime Minister Sahir, and an hour since the advanced team of Marines had arrived.  Nathan was in one of two shuttles that had arrived in a cloud of dust to settle next to the one belonging to the advance squad of Marines.  The back wall of the shuttle dropped down, forming a ramp onto the rough desert floor.  The mechanical restraints keeping him in place against the shuttle's walls, popped free.  Stepping out in his power armor, Nathan’s footfalls stirred up puffs of dust as the full heat of the sun instantly made his armor into a mobile oven.  Looking around, he noted three of the advanced team watching their perimeter, taking cover behind what rocks they could while the squad leader stood by the open ramp of their shuttle with what looked to be a local.  The local was of average height, a little less than 2 meters tall, with a wiry build and well defined musculature in his arms.  The man’s face seemed frozen in an angry expression, and his eyes were afire.  Nathan could see the small village of Misrati a short distance to the west.  Mentally, he thanked the genius who thought of equipping Marine power armor with climate controls as he notched up his on board air conditioner nearly to maximum power.  He absolutely detested hot planets.  As he approached the waiting pair, Nathan opened a private channel to the squad leader and asked who the man was.

“His name is Dareem.  He lives to the west of Misrati.  He says he’s the one who made the video.” The squad leader reported.  By now everyone on board
The Fury
and
The Black Wave
had seen the video.  As he reached the pair, Nathan used his neural interface to open his helmet’s faceplate, which popped open with a hiss and then slid back to expose his face to the harsh Daroonian heat.

“
As-salaam
, Dareem.  My name is Commander Schultz. 
Kayf Haalak
, how are you?”  Nathan asked.  Dareem fixed Nathan with an angry stare for a few moments while the Commander waited for his response, and then spit into the sand, a sign of the deep contempt.

“There is no peace, and I am not well.” Dareem replied in nearly perfect
, though heavily accented English.  While most planets in the Republic spoke English as their primary language, and other languages as their secondary, Daroon was not among them, choosing instead to adopt a generalized Arabic language.  Nathan bowed his head as well as he could, to show that he shared the man’s sorrow.

“I grieve with you at such senseless loss.  What can you tell me of this plague?”  Nathan responded.  Dareem looked as if he were about to favor Nathan with another spit in the sand, but instead restrained himself, vehemently shaking his head.

“This was no plague.  It was murder.” Dareem announced.   “A plague does not normally kill in two hours, affect entire villages at the same time, and suddenly disappear shortly after that.”  Nathan blinked in surprise as he considered Dareem’s words, and shot a glance over to the squad leader that had found Dareem, who shrugged as if to say “I have no idea.”

“Are you saying the entire village died at the same time, and in just a matter of hours?”  Nathan asked?  Dareem nodded.
  Licking his dry tongue on cracked lips, he told his story.

“Five days ago, I
awoke alone in my house.  My wife and son had left nearly two hours before, maybe a little less.  After eating a small breakfast, I made my way to the village to meet up with them, and found everyone in the village dead.” Dareem explained.  His voice took on a hollow quality when going on to describe everything he had witnessed, and of finding his wife and son, also slain.  He made note of the fact that everyone seemed to have suffocated at roughly the same time.  None survived.  As Dareem told his story, they were joined by several of the physicians and scientists, who had taken out small recording devices to capture Dareem’s comments for later consideration.  After finishing his explanation, some of them asked Dareem a few more questions before heading off to set up equipment, take samples, and perform a battery of tests.

Commander Schultz stood next to Dareem a few moments, trying to consider all the angles of this new information, and quickly realized that somehow Gadari Naval Intelligence had once again misconstrued the truth, whether intentionally or not.   The simple fact was, this was sounding less like a plague and more like some kind of biological weapon.  Grabbing a canteen from a belt of large pouches strapped to the outside of his power armor, he tossed it to Dareem, who deftly caught it and drank from it sparingly, allowing the cool water to moisten his lips.

“Thank you.  I was afraid to drink from the town’s well in fear that the water had been contaminated.” Dareem explained.  Nathan nodded, and then opened a general coms channel to everyone.

“Test Misrati’s water supply as well.  In fact, do that first before someone forgets and drinks from it.” Nathan ordered.  Turning to Dareem he said, “Well, we’ll soon find out what is going on.”  Dareem seemed thankful, and settled down into a squat, seeming content to wait.

“When you find these murderers, I am going.” Dareem stated.  Nathan was about to object, but then considered everything Dareem had endured these past several days and
reconsidered.  The man had a right to at least face those responsible.

“I cannot guarantee your safety if there is combat.” Was all Nathan said.  Dareem gazed at Nathan for a moment, and then shrugged.  It was clear he did not care.

“I will come with you, and I will kill them all.” Was all Dareem said.  In his heart, Nathan wanted to cry for the man.  He couldn’t imagine what sorrow he must have felt.  It was clear the man was not warlike, and yet nothing less than blood would satisfy his anger.  Even so, the Commander knew it would do nothing to appease the man’s sorrow.  With a sigh, Nathan’s faceplate slid back down and sealed into place, trying his best to ignore the heat.  While the internal cooling system kept the heat from reaching lethal temperatures, it was beginning to get uncomfortable with his faceplate open.  As soon as his faceplate closed, Doctor Dennis Hirsch, the head scientist from the team of scientists that had accompanied him to the surface opened a private coms channel.

“Sir, I think I know what happened.” Doctor Hirsch said.  His voice sounded a bit nervous.

“Yeah? What?”  Nathan asked.

“Keep in mind that we’re still waiting for more complete test results.  This could be a false positive, or even worse, a background contamination that we-“ the scientist had begun to say.