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  Chapter 11 Virus

  Jasper had watched dispassionately through the dry ice and bits of sparking cable littered around the deck as the orbital batteries pounded New Hope relentlessly. While Alice made the finishing touches to the bridge, ensuring that everyone was in position and ready to act when the propagandist switched to them. Wilkes had counted them in silently from five to zero with his fingers.

  He’d leapt to his feet and delivered his lines with aplomb. It was a shame that Alice had miscalculated the charge for the exploding terminal, but the crew member concerned would make a full recovery with minimal facial scaring. Thankfully he was only an unexceptional member of the engineer team, not important enough or well paid enough to qualify for facial reconstruction, so it would be a simple matter to reallocate him back to the engine rooms. The assignment had been made on the basis that there was only so much facial scaring you could have on the bridge. To many scars amongst the bridge crew lessened the impact of your own. Still one had to be thankful for small mercies and treating his injuries hadn't hindered cleaning up the bridge and getting back to normal.

  The initial reports had been encouraging. People anxious to avoid their impoverished settlements being next we're gladly turning in anyone and everyone they suspected of being sympathetic to the rebellion to local security forces. None of them appeared to have any direct contact with Ford as he now knew him or clues as to his actual whereabouts. Still it was early days yet and even if nobody disclosed where he was he knew where he wasn't. He made a mental note to level those treacherous places first for failing to deliver any information of value to him. It was only a matter of time, the more desperate he got the more risks he would take, and then they would have him.

  His musing was rudely interrupted as the station suddenly lurched and shuddered, plunging the bridge into complete and utter darkness. He watched with his cybernetic eye's thermal overlay as the crew blundered around the bridge trying to make sense of the situation. He could feel from the stillness of space outside that the orbital batteries had fallen silent. Finally the emergency lights kicked in bathing them in a sickly orange glow that made them look as if they'd just returned from one of the Sun World pleasure planets.

  “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  The same miserable lieutenant who had been the relentless bearer of bad news during the attack on the refinery was back for another shift at the comm. “Reports are patchy sir, but we appear to have a planet wide systems failure. There's a mass breakout under way at Paradise Prison and the miners at Yaddle Mountain are revolting.”

  “To hell with the planet I want to know what's happening to my ship and the defence grid.”

  Alice had taken over an engineering terminal behind him. “Everything apart from emergency lighting and life support are off line and our orbits decaying. They all crashed at exactly the same time. We need to do a full systems wide purge and reboot. Engineering confirms they should have the engines back on line before we hit the atmosphere.”

  He could see the filaments radiating out from Wilkes implant glowing as he tried to make sense of the incoming transmissions. “It’s confirmed all computerised systems are down even the bio-filters on a lot of our weapons. ” he paused to take in more information. “Fighting is hand-to-hand planet side. We’ve lost control of the Yaddle Mountain Mines and lost contact with the prison at Paradise. Reports of sporadic fighting elsewhere in the other settlements and installations across the planet.”

  “It would appear that some time ago one of the rebels at the spaceport implanted a dormant virus in your systems.” Jackson had been so quiet since they returned they'd forgotten he was on the ship with them. “One designed to lay dormant, passed along data networks in an innocent enough subroutine, until an activation code is transmitted. It seems someone initiated a planet wide broadcast.”

  “That's crazy, the rebels don't have the power, they’re incapable of transmitting such a signal.” Said Wilkes.

  Alice switched to one of the sensor stations. “I'm trying to recover the sensor logs now I'll see what I can find.”

  “Nevertheless.” Jackson was cold and nonchalant. “Those are the facts.”

  “You seem to know more than you’re letting on.” snarled Jasper.

  Jackson smiled. “We first detected the virus, soon after it was released into the wild so to speak. It was quickly isolated and dealt with when we detected it in some equipment delivered on a routine supply run. In fact we've developed an enhanced version, which I believe you will find very useful in the future.”

  “And it never occurred to you to warn us?”

  “Who was there to warn? We had no idea it was so widespread, or of your inability to deal with it, besides warning you could have compromised our security. I'd be more concerned with how they managed to activate it.” Jackson was so cold and dispassionate they could feel the temperature drop as he spoke, or perhaps it was just the coldness of the empty vacuum space seeping through the vessels lifeless hull. “There is one more thing someone called Iverson left a message embedded in the virus for you, 'our very existence is an act of rebellion against the unjust.'”

  “Whatever.” snorted Jasper. “In any case Iverson doesn't exist anymore I personally made sure of that. Jackson I need to see you in my quarters now.”

  He gestured to the two security men standing by the heavy steel blast doors to begin cranking them open manually. It was a slow, arduous and unrewarding task.

  Alice gave them something to ponder while they waited. “I've managed to recover a partial sensor log, but it doesn't make sense, the epicentre of the activation signal was the centre of the planet.”

  Jasper nodded as he and Jackson squeezed through the narrow opening. “Wilkes you have the bridge.”

  The two guards breathed a heavy sigh of relief as they slipped through the doors and stopped cranking them.

  Thankfully overriding the door controls to Jaspers personal quarters on the command deck was a simple affair in comparison to the blast doors on the bridge. Jasper pulled the emergency access panel down grabbed the red handle and pulled and twisted it clockwise to manually activate the door hydraulics. A similar handle inside his quarters enabled him to close it again by twisting it anti-clockwise.

  It was a functional, utilitarian room, with few personal accoutrements. A large bunk jutted out from the wall opposite the door and a terminal sat on the nightstand beside it, the rotating view screen which doubled as an alarm clock when not in use for anything else lit up the room with the eerie glow of white noise. The left wall was taken up by a dresser above which was a large mirror. It was flanked by a recessed wardrobe on one side and the entrance to his private shower cubicle and toilet on the other. Like all the senior officers on Malstrom vessels he enjoyed the luxury of a private shower with real water. The right hand side of the room was bare apart from a large antique desk and sumptuously padded, equally antique, leather swivel chair. They were the only personal luxuries he allowed himself. He'd even had the carpet and wall furnishings, another senior staff perk, removed leaving the room with a cold, grey, clinical feel to it. Almost as cold and clinical as the man himself.

  He flopped into the swivel chair, turned to face Jackson, and tapped the side of his cybernetic eye. “I think it’s time to find out what this is really capable of now don't you? Take the inhibitors off, all of them.”

  For a moment Jackson looked startled. “No one’s took it to that level before and survived.”

  “Well you know what they say, there's first time for everything and if you haven't notice we're a little light on options at the moment.” Jasper snapped impatiently. “Think of me as a new guinea pig to experiment on if that eases your conscience, although I doubt you have one.”

  He stared at him intently examining the subtle hues of the aura that ebbed and flowed around him, he was a hard man to read.

  Jackson smiled “Very well, we'll unlock it one level at time and see how far you can take it. That way
I won't have to go rooting around inside your crispy fired skull and find another guinea pig to implant it in.”

  “Works for me, now do it.” he commanded.

  Jackson placed his spray injector against Jaspers neck as he lent his head back in the chair and released the first level of blocks. His body went rigid for a moment and he clenched his hands gripping the smooth oak of the armrests as if his life depended on it. The feeling passed and he relaxed his grip and felt nothing. He turned to Jackson and was about to vent his spleen at his failure to release the locks when it hit him. The biometrics that translated into an aura that betrayed the individual’s state of mind was only the merest hint of what he was capable of. He could see inside his body, Jackson's body, even the guards in the corridor outside. He could monitor and manipulate there vital signs and organs, cure or implant a disease. Hell, he could even plant an idea in their brains. He toyed with the idea of doing something to Jackson.

  Jackson shook his head. “Don't even think about it Jasper. I have various fail safes in place to protect me that would have the most unpleasant side effects for you. Try and raise my heart rate and you'll see what I mean.”

  Jasper obliged and found his heart racing till he thought it would explode quickly he withdrew from Jackson’s consciousness, flushed and gasping.

  “Amplified bio-feedback, anything anyone does to me is magnified and turned against them.”

  Jasper turned his attention back to the guards and instigated a fist fight by placing the idea that one of them was having an affair with the others partner in their minds.

  “Okay.” he said pulling himself back. “Let's take it up a notch.”

  He arched his back and screamed as the next level of blocks came down and fought to regain control as his senses were overwhelmed. He pushed Jackson away as he brought the injector up to his neck and panting rapidly refocused himself on the room, before seeing how far his vision extended this time. It was like the first sensation when he'd awoken after the upgrade. Locally he could deconstruct everything around him to the sub-atomic level, peeling back the layers to reveal the hidden mysteries within. He practised manipulating the transition between one level and the next. After a few minutes he found he could flip between them at will, it was a strangely exhilarating experience. He flipped back to the world around him and reconfigured the thoughts and emotions of the guards outside the door. Instead of brawling over imagined affairs they now made up and pledged their undying love for each other.

  “Try explaining that to your girlfriends.” he chuckled to himself.

  Then instead of directing his vision inwards he directed it outwards to see how far it extended. He could see what was happening on the bridge. Wilkes was monitoring the situation, collating reports issuing orders and wondering what the hell he was doing with Jackson when he should be taking command of the crisis. Alice was busy sifting the sensor logs trying to piece together what had happened and locate the exact source of the transmission. He was also aware that at the back of her mind she was considering sleeping with him and debated if this desire was driven by the hunger for personal gain or purely for pleasure. He toyed with the idea of implanting something in her mind, but decided against it, the conquest would be all the sweeter for it when it came. He stretched his vision beyond the bridge through bulkheads and into every quarter of the massive vessel. He was aware of the scared crewman working frantically with his colleges to bring the four reactors that maintained their orbit back on line and wondering why he been exiled from the bridge for someone else’s mistake. He delved deeper into the crewman’s mind and found what he was looking for, took it, manipulated it, and moulded it into something useful, something he could use.

  “Well let’s see what the new and improved Raynes makes of that.” he smiled and tried to extend his reach beyond the ship to the planet below and failed. He turned to Jackson. “Hit me again.”

  Jackson looked him squarely in the eye. “You’re already at the limits of known science, no one’s taken it further than this and survived. Even I and my team don't fully understand what this alien wetware is capable of.”

  “It’s a risk I'm prepared take, besides I trust you not let anything happen to me, at least not yet. After all we both know one way or another that Malstrom is finished and I'm your best ticket out of here.”

  Jackson nodded and removed the last of the blocks.

  There was a strange stillness around him, no pain, no sensory overload, nothing. At first he thought Jackson had after all betrayed him. Then he realised he was no longer a man but a god, an all seeing, all powerful god. Yet this was just a fraction of the knowledge and power that Malstrom sought, hidden away somewhere on the planet beneath them. He had no idea how far his reach extended, but with all the blocks gone his senses were no longer assaulted by millions of minor details. Instead it was simply a matter of focusing on those that mattered and pulling them from the data streams that ebbed and flowed around him. Jackson and the others were just infinitesimal points of light in his universe. He located himself and pulled himself back up through the layers of consciousness until he found himself sitting back in the chair.

  Jackson was monitoring his vital signs. “How are you feeling?”

  “Feeling?” he turned his vision inwards and then back out again. “Like a god.”

  “Well you’re the first guinea pig, I mean test subject, to come back from that level of wetware integration, if that qualifies you as a god.” Jackson said matter-of-factly. “What can you see?”

  “Everything I choose to.”

  He reached out into hyperspace and located Malstrom's primary battle fleet. The first and second combat groups combined, on course to Anobar, exactly as Henderson had promised. Two command carriers, four battleships, eight destroyers, sixteen cruisers, over a thousand fighters, hundreds of drop-ships and hundreds of thousands of heavily armed troops surrounding their most precious of assets the Fury. At one and half times the mass of a battleship, it was a totally self-contained, self-sufficient military outpost in its own right and soon it would be his. He examined in detail the Armageddon Array. Which had been withdrawn into a large bulbous housing on the underside of the Fury's bow to protect it while travelling through hyperspace. He noted with approval as he inspected her logs that Wilkes had already transmitted and implemented the new crew rosters. All he had to do was assume command and put his senior officers and bridge crew in place when it arrived. He pulled himself back to his cabin.

  “A fine ship Fury I can't wait to take the helm, now let’s see if we can locate that damn ark of the ancients Henderson was babbling about.” he said turning his attention to the planet.

  He focused on the floor and swooped down through the decks, out through the hull into the atmosphere and the planet beneath. He could feel a strange power radiating out from the surface. If Alice was right the answer lay somewhere beneath the rich flora and fauna of the planet. He focused his thoughts and zoomed into the dark, dank, soil and solid rock beneath it, except it wasn't solid. The entire planet seem to play host to a vast network of caverns and passages, hidden from conventional scanners. You could literally stand on top of them and never know they were there. The ancient complex, old before his ancestors had first come down from the trees, was dusty and deserted, but otherwise surprisingly well maintained, as if it could burst back into life at a moment’s notice. Although no ghosts walked these halls he could sense a power equal to or perhaps greater than his own as he probed deeper and deeper into the complex. He was detecting life signs, human life signs and power signatures far deeper than any miner had ever gone. It was Ford and his gang. He zeroed in on their location and began playing with their minds, seeking to turn them against one another. Suddenly he was dimly aware of another presence, far older and stronger than any of them and his senses shattered in a kaleidoscope of colours and sensations. Pain ripped through every nerve in his body till he though his head would explode. Then he found himself exhausted and sweating back in the a
ntique swivel chair.

  He turned to Jackson. “Ford is going after the ark and he's close, very close, unless we can find a way to stop him.”