Aneka Jansen 3: Steel Heart (7 page)

There was a slight pause and then the two at the sides moved in towards the doors. Aneka waited until they had moved to within five metres and then moved. Her left hand rose, palm spread, and the air rippled slightly as a force shield extended out to cover the door. The man on the right stopped in his tracks, trying to get his carbine up as he saw the pistol in her right hand swinging towards him. He never made it. There was a sound like ripping cloth as the pistol unloaded twenty slim, hyper-dense darts at a respectable percentage of the speed of light into his chest. Each dart was flash vaporised into a jet of plasma as it struck his armour and seared through into his body.

Not waiting for the body to fall, Aneka dropped onto the floor of the cab, swung her weapon around, and fired a burst at the woman on the left. Plasma jets burst against her stomach, her rising carbine, and then her chest and throat. Neither of them was getting up, but she had three more to deal with.

The windscreen exploded as a polychromatic laser beam hit the Polyglass, the tinting letting it absorb more of the light than usual. Aiming over the seat using the camera-sight, she fired off a burst into the leader’s helmet and was rewarded by a sharply cut off scream as her arc of fire intersected his visor.

Laser beams carved into the rear of the taxi. Polyglass exploded over Aneka and she grimaced. Two more and they did not seem to be giving up. Annoying. Where was their self-preservation instinct? Deploying her shield again and ignoring the crunch of glass under her bare knees, she moved out far enough to see one of the two gunmen and opened fire. His laser lanced out, a white beam which sparked as the air around it ionised, striking the invisible barrier Aneka was projecting where it flared and died. Then Aneka’s slugs bit into his chest and stomach, and there was no more shooting.

‘You want to drop that thing and come quietly?’ Aneka yelled, keeping the taxi between her and the last man.

Her reply was a loud crack as the laser ripped the air open. She heard structural bioplastic sizzle as the beam hit the cab. The thing was not going to give her much cover. She moved, stretching to aim her pistol around the back end of the dying vehicle, and saw the gunman’s back as he ran towards the fence at the corner of the compound. Aneka engaged the safety on her pistol.

‘Do we have network coverage?’

‘Of course,’ Al replied. ‘You’re going to let him go?’

‘He no longer represents a threat. Get a call through to Peters. I want Federal Security here, not the local Peacekeepers.’

‘A wise choice.’

Aneka was not entirely sure whether he was referring to the escaping gunman or calling the cops. Maybe both.

~~~

‘We found a bunch of flyers for the Knights of the Void as well as a data chip with a video claiming the Knights had taken you,’ Peters said. To his credit he was not looking convinced.

‘I’ve encountered the Knights before,’ Aneka said, her gaze on the body of the team’s leader, ‘they were disorganised, carrying random weapons. They lost their primary source of funds when Humanity First was beheaded, I kind of doubt they’ve got
better.
’

‘Unfortunately, I don’t think we can chalk this down to simple terrorism, no.’

‘Any identification?’

‘Oh yes, about four each. All fake. Professional-quality stuff too, another thing which suggests mercenary or criminal rather than fanatic.’

‘Huh. Are we finished here? Can I get a lift to the airport?’

Peters laughed. ‘We can do better than that. Due to this little incident you’re under the direct protection of the Federal Security Agency until we can hand you over to the Navy. We have an armed vertol ready to take you right to the spaceport.’ He gave a shrug. ‘Also, you missed your flight.’

Aneka looked around at the teams starting to put bodies into Plastex bags. ‘Are you sure you’re protecting me, or the local population?’

Peters started towards the rear of the compound and the vertol aircraft he had arrived on. ‘That’s kind of a tough call,’ he said.

Hayward Alpha Research Facility, 10.12.525 FSC.

‘What am I looking at, exactly?’ Nayland asked. His screen was showing blood plasma, erythrocytes, leukocytes, and thrombocytes; those he could recognise since he did actually have degrees in biology and xenobiology. The problem was the small, dark particles floating in there, apparently entirely inert. Comparing them to the erythrocytes, they looked to be less than a micrometre across and they were just floating there.

‘Those are inorganic, nanoscale robots,’ Corazon told him. ‘The things are through her entire system, inactive.’

‘Inactive?’

‘Unless we introduce a foreign agent.’ The image on the screen shifted suddenly and something else appeared in the mix of blood components.

‘Is that the influenza strain we made for Ybian?’

On the screen, the tiny black spheres shifted shape, blurring as impellers drove them towards the viral particles. ‘Yes, it is. One of the most virulent strains we’ve managed to engineer.’ A second later the virus was dissolving into proteins as the nanomachines tore them apart, and then they began destroying the proteins. ‘And these things destroy them in a matter of seconds.’

‘Perfect,’ Nayland crowed. ‘The ultimate viral weapon, and the ultimate defence against viral weapons, all in one attractive, redheaded package.’

‘She’ll complete her work today, tomorrow at the latest.’

Nayland hand-waved that away. ‘Miss Narrows is going to come down with a fever in a day or so. Quite a bad one, inducing delirium. She’s already been taking the drugs in her food. She’ll remember nothing and we’ll have free rein to examine her little friends while she’s out.’

Corazon smiled. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

11.12.525 FSC.

‘As you can see,’ the voiceover said, ‘Subject Thirty-nine remains in the same crystalline state she has been in for the last seventy-two hours.’

Ella could not see that, exactly, but she could see the cocoon of glassy material which had grown around the body. The material was not exactly opaque, but the body within was more or less invisible, little more than a shadow. She had seen Subject Thirty-nine prior to her entombment; she had been a fit, attractive young woman who had started out banging on the window of her isolation chamber before sinking into a coma.

‘Scanning has shown continued biological activity within the cocoon,’ the voice continued. Ella had come to hate that voice. It was always the same one, a man, and he seemed far too excited by his work. ‘We believe that we have finally got a strain which functions correctly. Strain M-Nine-Sixty is going to be our greatest triumph yet.’

‘Bastard,’ Ella muttered, typing out the transcript. She had been feeling off all afternoon. The lab felt even warmer than usual and she was developing a headache. Turning to the list of material, she realised the next one was the last one. Relieved, she cued it up and started it playing.

The image showed a man’s face far too close to the camera. He was older than she had expected from his voice because when he started speaking she realised that this was the bastard she had been listening to for so many hours. His hair was greying at the temples, his skin sallow, and he looked scared.

‘Strain M-Nine-Sixty has…’ He glanced quickly to the side as though he had heard something. ‘It’s been more successful than we thought. It kills anyone exposed to it. We can’t stop them. They just keep…’ He looked away again and when he looked back his face had changed entirely. The fear was gone, replaced by an unnatural calm. ‘They’ve found me. I did this. I deserve this. God, I hope no one ever sees this recording.’ Something flashed in from the left of the screen and the face vanished, and then the image turned to snow before cutting out entirely.

Ella frowned, reaching out to the controls and rewinding the video. Even in slow motion the thing that had attacked the researcher was nothing much more than a blur. She backed it up again and went through it frame by frame, stopping at a point just as the man’s head was leaving the picture on the right. Was that a head? It looked like hair. What was it he had said?
It kills anyone exposed to it. We can’t stop them.
It did not make sense.

Re-cuing the video she started it again to get the transcript down. ‘Strain M-Nine-Sixty has… It’s been more successful than we thought.’ Ella typed that in and then stopped as the image blurred.

‘What…?’ she said, her voice sounding thick in her ears. The video played on as Ella keeled over, falling unconscious on the floor of the lab.

~~~

‘Get her on intravenous nutrients and fluids,’ Nayland said as he followed the cart carrying Ella deeper into the labs. ‘We need to make sure she looks healthy enough when she leaves. Don’t forget to set the dosage of the memory inhibitors and sedatives.’

‘It’s all prepared,’ Corazon told him. ‘I don’t think she completed the final transcript.’

‘Possibly, but I saw what she did get down. We do have that strain of virus, don’t we?’

‘I’ll check the records, but I seem to remember seeing vials labelled with that number.’

‘Good. I want it located in storage and prepared for analysis by tomorrow.’

‘If it’s as good as they thought, we’ll need some test subjects.’

Nayland nodded. ‘I’ll contact our usual supplier. It may take a few weeks, but we’ll get them.’

‘It’s easier in the stations outside the Rim, closer to the source.’

Nayland laughed. ‘I know you’re impatient, Lisa, but science takes time.’

‘Yeah,’ Corazon said, ‘unfortunately.’

FNf Delta Brigantia, 14.12.525 FSC.

Aneka slipped into the gunnery chair on the flight deck with a grin. Technically any of the three operations positions could perform any role, but the one she was seated in was generally used by the gunnery officer and the displays were set up for that purpose.

Prentice, seated in the pilot’s chair, glanced over at her. ‘You look like a woman on a mission.’

‘We’re heading back to New Earth,’ Aneka replied.

‘Uh-huh. Course is set, we went into warp…’

‘About an hour ago. I heard the drives kick in. I figured now that we’re up to spec, more or less, we could pick up the lessons again.’

‘What does Anderson say?’

‘She said it was okay if you were okay with it.’

Prentice chuckled, leaned forward, and tapped some keys on her console. The displays in front of Aneka reconfigured themselves into a copy of the ones in front of Prentice. ‘Okay, what’s our current speed?’

Aneka’s eyes flicked over the screens. ‘Point-four-nine light years per hour.’

‘Okay, so you remember the basics.’

‘Side effect of being basically a supercomputer. I remember everything.’

‘Huh.’ The pilot’s fingers flicked over her controls. ‘All right, switching over to simulation. I want you to drop us out of warp and then give me a two-G acceleration for nineteen seconds followed by a course correction of two degrees upward pitch, five degrees right yaw.’

Aneka made a point of checking that a flashing ‘Simulation’ indicator was blinking away on one of her displays before reaching out and taking hold of the joysticks on the arms of her chair. ‘Leaving warp in five,’ she said.

~~~

‘How are the pilot lessons going?’ Anderson asked. ‘Prentice seems to be enjoying them.’

Aneka smiled. ‘Yeah, I think she’s got kind of a sadistic streak. I’m enjoying it and I think I’m learning something. At least the basics. I doubt I could get a pilot’s licence…’

‘Don’t count on it. Our best pilot thinks she’ll have you up to qualification grade for the Navy by the time we get home.’ The captain shrugged. ‘Yeah, you’d need to do a load of procedural training, but I hear you’re good at that kind of thing.’

‘I’ll be happy if I can fly one of these things in an emergency. I’m all about being able to handle emergencies.’

Anderson laughed. ‘I got the report through about those supposed Knights of the Void on Sapphira. You handled that pretty well. Five dead.’

‘Four, I let one of them go.’

‘I was counting the taxi.’

‘I didn’t kill the taxi.’

‘The taxi was pretty dead when you were finished.’

‘Well… yeah… but I didn’t kill the taxi.’

‘Touchy subject?’

‘No,’ Aneka said, waving away the argument, ‘of course not.’ After a second she added, ‘But I didn’t kill the taxi.’

Anderson nodded. ‘Touchy subject.’

Hayward Beta Research Facility, 15.12.525 FSC.

Lisa Corazon watched the glickle as it gnawed on a large lump of Plastex. The things had to be kept in wire cages because they chewed their way out of the adanymax ones used for more or less everything else. The frown on Corazon’s face spoke volumes and the reason for it was that the glickle was still chewing on its brick.

‘It should be dead,’ she commented.

The lab technician sitting beside her looked in at the glickle. ‘Yes, ma’am. This bug was engineered, right? Maybe they engineered it to work on a specific genome. Glickles aren’t even vaguely related to anything from Old Earth. Neither are the other things we’ve tried it on.’

Corazon nodded. As far as their records showed, M960 had never been used on anything other than Humans. They had tried it on some Human tissue and it was viable, replicating correctly, but seemingly unable to work to full effect. Maybe it needed some specific organ, or would only work properly on a full body. Perhaps a certain mass of material was required. Whatever, she needed a Human subject and it was going to be weeks before Nayland could supply one.

‘I guess we’re on hold until we get some new bodies in,’ the technician said, his tone cheerful. ‘Gives us a chance to nail down the genome. We still haven’t managed to lock it down yet. Seems like it mutates at an abnormally high rate.’

‘Get the sequences rerun. Cool the samples down to a hundred kelvin, maybe that’ll stop it.’ She looked down at the technician as he started to type commands on his console. She needed some Human subjects…

Hayward Alpha Research Facility, 17.12.525 FSC.

‘How many affected?’ Nayland was looking annoyed, very annoyed.