Viruses

The sound of gunfire receded and the blare of klaxons returned to fill the void. The klaxons sounded louder than before, but Rachel realised that she must now be hearing them at their true volume as her ears adjusted to the absence of gunfire.

'This is not good,' Markov said, shaking his head.

Rachel kept her impact pistol aimed at Lance's body. She wasn't sure what to think. How could he have changed into that inhuman creature?

'Did you see him?' one of the troopers said. 'He should have been dead but he was still fighting.'

Murmurs spread among the gathered soldiers.

'He's dead now,' Markov said. 'Don't concern yourselves. Nobody can survive that many bullets.'

Lance's severed arm contradicted him by twitching on the floor beside his ruined body. It trembled before writhing around like a giant worm.

Some of the troopers backed away from it, muttering among themselves.

'Get rid of that,' Markov said to no one in particular. 'Don't destroy it. We need to work out what happened to him. Send it to the labs, and don't leave it unattended. I want an armed guard watching it until we have some idea what happened here.' He jumped over the arm and ran into the Satellite Control Room.

Rachel followed him with her impact pistol still in her hand. The room was empty except for Jake's frozen body lying on the floor near the doorway. His opaque eyes stared up at the ceiling, seeing nothing. Rachel fought back the tears. Jake had always tried to help her. He had supported her from the beginning, regardless of the mistakes that she made in her career. Now he was dead, killed by whatever strange creature Lance had become. It could have happened to any of them. She wished she had been there to help him. It had taken her too long to realise that it was Lance who had tried to kill her with the nanopatch. If she had tracked him down sooner, maybe Jake would still be alive.

Rachel glanced around the room. She couldn't see the trooper that had been cowering in the corner earlier. She guessed he must have fled sometime during the firefight outside.

Markov ran towards Alice's console, where Lance had been entering unknown commands. The klaxons were so loud that they made Rachel's head hurt, and the room was still filled with a dreadful orange light. Through the tall glass wall of the Satellite Control Room, she could see Tower Four's shield covered in vivid orange storms. Blue and white lightning flashed across the shield's surface, and the surrounding heat distorted the building's image until it looked like a reflection seen through the rippling surface of a pond. Rachel could feel the residual heat penetrating through the reinforced, triple insulated glass wall in front of her. How hot must it be inside the other tower? She realised now why Markov was in such a rush to get to Alice's console.

But where was Alice? Rachel had forgotten about her while everything else was going on. There was blood on the floor where she had been lying a few minutes earlier, but Alice wasn't there. Rachel tried to remember if she had seen her outside in the corridor. She didn't think she had been there.

Markov darted around the corner of the table, grunting as he struggled with his injured arm. Before he could reach the console, Alice appeared from under the table and climbed back into her chair.

'Alice,' Rachel said. 'You're hurt.'

Alice didn't respond. Her green eyes had lost their sparkle, and her face was bruised down one side. She had blood in her hair as she reached over to her console and started typing on the illuminated keypad in front of her.

Markov hesitated, his hand hovering over the lightning shard at his belt.

'I've deactivated the attack sequence,' Alice said in a slurred voice.

Markov looked at her as though he couldn't decide whether to thank her or beat her with his fists.

'She's okay,' Rachel said. 'She's not like Lance. She feels... normal.'

Markov glanced at Rachel with a frown and nodded.

The orange light faded away. Tower Four reverted to its normal colour, a black tower standing proud like the others. The plasma dispersed, leaving an afterglow in Rachel's eyes. The sky had faded to a more peaceful shade of light blue too.

Markov lowered his shoulders, letting out a long, slow breath. 'Turn off the Klaxons,' he said.

Alice tapped at the keypad again and silence finally returned to the room, but Rachel could still hear the subdued klaxons of the other towers around them. Alice continued typing and the other klaxons fell silent one by one.

Rachel stared through the outer glass wall of the Satellite Control Room. Tower Four flickered with bursts of residual energy as its shields struggled to offload the excess heat that had built up during the prolonged satellite strike. Multicoloured patches swirled across the surface of its shields. Rachel blinked until her eyes watered and the swirling colours began to subside.

'Is there anything we can do to help the shields?' she said.

Alice shook her head. 'The Heart is already compensating for the attack. The towers are working together to dissipate the excess heat. We don't need to do anything.'

After a few seconds, Tower Four looked normal again. Clear sunlight shone from a hazy blue sky. Rachel was amazed by how well the towers had handled the attack. She remembered seeing Tower Four in ruins when she had stood in Wolfhammer Hall. There had been nothing but clear sky above her head. Her mind raced to understand how it could still be whole and standing in front of her. It hadn't been destroyed. Had her vision been wrong? Maybe it hadn't been a vision at all? She didn't know what to think.

Alice sat motionless, gazing out through the glass wall. She looked so sad and lost.

Markov glared at her and then hurried over to Jake's console at the opposite end of the desk. 'Damn, how do you use this thing? Okay, I found it. I'm shutting down the solar arrays.'

Alice nodded with blurry eyes. She slumped forwards onto her elbows, but she still managed to type on the projected keypad in front of her. Her fingers stumbled over the hole in the table and she looked as though she was only just holding onto consciousness.

Rachel stepped past Jake's body and tried not to look at it again. She didn't want to remember him like that. He was a kind man, full of warmth. He had always cared for others. His frozen body felt like an insult to his memory. He had stopped taking part in combat operations to live a slower paced life in the Satellite Control Room. It should have been safer than patrolling the streets. Now he was dead, like so many of her friends. Was no place safe anymore?

Rachel held onto the hurt inside her. She pushed it down into the core of her soul. One day she would have to face all her memories - but not today. She holstered her impact pistol and joined Alice, slipping one arm around her shoulder. What must she be going through? Her and Jake had been closer than most of the crew, despite their good-natured banter.

'It's going to be okay,' Rachel said. She just wished that she believed it was so.

'I should have helped him,' Alice said, glancing down at the floor. Her voice was slurred and her eyes were now unfocused. Rachel noticed that Alice's hands were shaking as she tried to type. She continued entering commands into her console, but she had to backtrack repeatedly to correct her increasing number of mistakes.

'There's nothing you could have done,' Rachel said, squeezing Alice's shoulder. 'Leave that now. Someone else can take care of this. You already shut down the attack. You've done enough. You saved Tower Four.'

Rachel reached up to her jacket collar and opened a comms link to the medical labs. 'We need medical droids in the Satellite Control Room,' she said. 'Combat injuries. Multiple casualties.'

'Okay, Commander,' a voice came back through the comms link. Rachel didn't recognise the voice. It didn't sound like Beth Pain.

'General,' Alice said, looking at him over the top of the row of consoles in front of her. Her blonde hair had come loose from her ponytail and hung down on one side. The ends were stained with blood from her neck. 'The syst...' she said, struggling to articulate the words. 'The systems are infested with some kind of virus.' She took a short breath and rubbed one hand across her forehead, squinting as blood ran down from a cut on top of her head.

'You need to get that looked at,' Rachel said.

Markov looked up with a deep furrow on his brow. He didn't look happy at all. 'What bloody virus?' he said.

Alice stared back at him with a dazed expression. 'Lance has corrupted the control systems. He installed several viruses. It looks like one of them is trying to take control of another satellite platform. He was trying to attack the White Spear as well. I've blocked it for now, but we should shut down all the satellite systems until the viruses can be properly purged.'

'Do it,' Markov said in a harsh tone.

Alice nodded, tears filling her eyes as she tapped more commands into her console.

Markov shouted out into the corridor, 'Commander Vanmarek, I want you to stay with Penning until all the systems are shut down. When it's done, lock out the consoles and secure this room.'

Vanmarek had been standing near the doorway. He stepped into the room, sliding his impact pistol back into its holster. 'You want this place locked down?' he said

Markov nodded and headed for the door.

'What happened to your arm?' Vanmarek said.

Markov glanced down at his torn, blood-soaked shoulder. 'That thing outside happened to it,' he said.

'You should get it looked at,' Rachel said. 'Those hooks might contain toxins.'

Markov frowned. 'What makes you say that?'

'I don't know, but I'm sure it was Lance that set the nanopatch outside my quarters. If he can do that, and he can mutate into that thing, who knows what else he can do.'

'I don't feel poisoned,' Markov said.

Rachel watched him with concern. 'Some toxins are slow acting. You might not feel the effects straight away. What if you've been infected with something that will make you into one of those creatures?

'Nonsense,' Markov said. 'What bloody nonsense.'

'It's probably worth getting it checked out anyway,' Vanmarek said. 'Just to make sure. Rachel's right. We're living in strange times. We don't really know what we're dealing with.'

Rachel nodded to Vanmarek. Sometimes she felt like she needed all the help she could get. It was difficult talking to Markov. She didn't feel like he understood how important this was.

'Fine,' Markov said with a resigned expression. 'I'll get it checked out. Now will you two stop fretting and worrying like my old aunt?'

Vanmarek offered a shrug. Rachel tried to smile, but she got the feeling that her expression hadn't changed at all. Vanmarek was still looking at her. She had seen that look in his eyes before. Jake had once said that Vanmarek had feelings for her. At the time she had thought he was teasing her, but now she wondered whether he might not have been joking after all.

Vanmarek averted his eyes and fiddled with his console. 'Rachel, What makes you think that it was Lance who deployed the nanopatch outside your door?'

Rachel took a deep breath to gather her thoughts. She had seen Lance's cufflinks, but it wasn't the cufflinks that had convinced her. She had felt the wrongness inside him.

'I don't know,' she said. 'I just got the same feeling here, the feeling that I had when the nanopatch was deployed. There was a wrongness inside him. I couldn't feel it before, but I sensed it when he started to change. It was him. I'm sure of it.'

'I didn't feel anything,' Vanmarek said, 'but that arm out there doesn't look right at all. There's something very wrong with him for sure.'

Markov stared at Rachel for longer than she felt comfortable with. 'I didn't feel anything either,' he said, finally. 'Something tells me that Rachel has more insight into these things than we do.'

Vanmarek raised an eyebrow.

Rachel wondered what he meant but she was too scared to ask. Don't ask questions unless you are in the mood for answers. That's what her mother had once told her. Rachel had learnt the value of that advice more than once. She decided to keep her mouth shut.

Vanmarek was looking down at Jake with sadness in his eyes.

Markov turned to face Alice. Her head was sagging even further towards the table. 'When the systems are secure, get some medical attention,' he said. 'I want you in my office first thing in the morning. You better have a bloody good explanation for all this.'

Rachel opened her mouth to protest, but Alice just nodded with bloodshot eyes.

'I'm sure this wasn't Alice's fault,' Rachel said.

Markov didn't respond. He walked towards the door, holding his arm.

Rachel looked to Vanmarek for an explanation, but he could only offer a shrug.

'None of this looks good on General Markov,' he said. 'Lord Hades isn't going to be pleased that an officer of Central Command has attacked one of our own towers. He won't be thrilled that the satellite control systems are infected with unknown viruses either. I wouldn't want to be the one who had to explain all this to him. I guess everyone's going to be on edge for a while.'

Alice gazed down at the table in front of her, wiping a stray tear from the corner of her eye.

'Don't worry, Alice,' Vanmarek said. 'I'm sure he'll be in a better mood in the morning. He's a lot more fun than me before breakfast. I get real grouchy if I haven't had my coffee.'

Alice offered a weak smile but the life had drained out of her face. 'I teased him too hard today,' she said.

'It's okay,' Rachel said. 'Jake loved you like we all do. He enjoyed the teasing even when he complained.'

She couldn't help seeing Jake's dead body in her head, even though her eyes avoided looking at the floor. Why did it have to be him? It reminded her of how she had found her father's body in the basement of the Mekinet News building. The memory still stung.

There was a clattering in the corridor outside. Someone shouted that the medical droids had arrived. Rachel turned and saw them climbing onto Jake's face. She couldn't hold back the tears any longer. The droid poked tubes into Jake's frozen mouth, forcing his jaw open as it carried out a series of tests. A couple of seconds later it gave up and scurried across to Alice.

Vanmarek looked for a moment as though he was going to console her, but Rachel shooed him away. She turned and held Alice by the hand as the droid used an infuser on the side of her neck. The droid stood on the table as it turned its attention to a cut on the top of her head.

Rachel heard footsteps. When she turned, she saw Vanmarek walking away.