Haywire, page 27
“It has an explosive charge in it,” she said as she brought the canister up to eye level and peered into it. “A grenade. Nice.”
“Apparently it is called Zeus,” Hofstadter said as he read from the tablet he’d brought out. “Groesbeck began work on the Titan nanites and their anti-agent at the same time. His Titan research was done on Callisto, while for safety concerns the anti-agent was developed here via remote processes. His notes indicate he was successful in developing the anti-agent, but he was hesitant to divulge that information to the military powers that be, afraid they would use it as a way of bending the Titans to their will once the Hezrin were dealt with. As a sword of Damocles, if you will. The time stamp on this entry indicates he was killed only a week after the canister was manufactured.”
Artemis sighed and leaned against a counter next to her. It groaned and bent under her weight. “Dammit. So thi-i-is is it? We can’t make more?”
“Possibly,” Hofstadter replied, pointing at an entry on the tablet. “The discovery process was the hard part, as is always the case. Manufacturing it should be rather straightforward. So long as the requisite materials are still viable, there’s no reason we couldn’t– “
Artemis held up a gauntleted hand. “Yeah, alright, good. Why don’t you go-o-o back and check on all that. If we can make more, then I want more. I want ev-everything you can give me. Alright? What we have here just isn’t going to be enough.”
“Enough for what?” Hofstadter asked. His eyes hardened, and his mouth set in a frown. “I’ve avoided questions long enough. What is all this abo–”
Shawn deflected the doctor by stepping next to him and patting his shoulder. “It’s about saving the human race, Doc. Those little ticks you’ve been noticing from Artemis? Well, more Titans are coming, and they make her stuttering seem like nothing. The best thing you can do is start those machines back up and give us the weapons we need to stop them.”
“Yes,” Artemis said, “because we wo-wo-won’t get a second chance at this.”
“And while you do that,” Shawn said, “I’m going to contact my dad and see how mom’s doing. Then I’ll let Agent Delgado know what we’ve found. After that we can figure out just what to do next.”
The look on Artemis’s face said she’d started formulating a plan long before a word had passed his lips. He hoped it would be a good one.
“Captain, we’ve established an outer Mars orbit,” the Culper’s helmsman said, “and our false IFF is broadcasting. To anyone who cares to look, we’re a merc ship waiting for work.”
Townsend nodded but kept his eyes locked straight ahead. All of his attention was focused on the pale red planet before him. Hidden somewhere on its surface was the source of all his troubles, and he ached to find it and scratch it out of existence.
“Captain Townsend to Major Hill,” he said, pressing his ear comm. “Major Hill, report in.”
Several seconds later a voice said, “Hill here, Captain.”
“Major, are you’re people ready to drop when I give the word?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And are they ready to do what they couldn’t before?”
“Absolutely, Sir. I don’t have as many people as I did before, but now we’ll have the room and freedom to break out the big guns. Either we come back with our prize, or we don’t come back at all.”
“I was thinking the same thing, Major.” A dark chuckle rumbled in Townsend’s throat. “Be ready. Townsend out.” As soon as he closed his channel, the captain tilted his head toward Petty Officer Sanchez. “Comms, anything from Mars?”
“No, Sir, so far…” The radio operator stopped and looked at his display with rapt attention, then said, “Sir, we have an incoming encrypted transmission from Bellona. Its codes check out.”
Townsend’s stomach filled with equal amounts of dread and aggression. “Put it through.”
The overhead speakers crackled to life. “Wendigo to Culper, come in Culper.”
“Culper here,” Townsend replied. “Report.”
“Sir, I’m at the southern docking area of Bellona. Agent Delgado and seven others have just passed through security and are on their way into the city. They didn’t trip any alarms, so I can only assume they’re unarmed. It’s possible they have a cache of weapons here though.”
“And are the Titans among them, Wendigo? They’re probably well covered, but from all accounts you can’t mistake their size.”
“Negative. Everyone I see looks normal.”
The captain grunted. He hadn’t expected they would split up. Still, a target in the hand was worth two in the bush. “Okay. Continue to surveil the targets and report back as the situation changes. I’m sending our people down now. Culper out.”
As the static faded away, the captain again activated his ear comm. “Major, Agent Delgado and his team have been spotted entering Bellona, so you are cleared to launch. The Titans aren’t with them, but hopefully they aren’t far. When the opportunity arises, take them all out. Scorch the earth.”
“Consider it burnt, Sir.”
Less than a minute later a shuttle launched from the Culper’s starboard shuttlebay, and with it went all of the captain’s bloody hopes.
When Puerto de la Sombra exploded, none were left to mourn it, and the agents of its destruction already had their sights set on their next target. The dreadnaught’s engines throbbed like a dying star, surging it through space to the nearest conduit. On the other side of the wormhole was a civilian space station, with Uranus in the distance. The station was blown out of the sky before the people aboard it even knew they were under attack.
An Alliance naval base in orbit around Titania, Uranus’s largest moon, scrambled their forces, but the small carrier group and two dozen fighters never had a chance. The dreadnaught’s cannons were too numerous and unyielding. When a score of Titans launched themselves into the base, the screams that followed were terrible, yet mercifully brief.
The fires over Titania still glowed as the dreadnaught passed through another conduit and appeared next to Splendor, a commercial spaceport halfway between Mercury and Venus. Splendor was nearly as large as the Minerva Terminus, with twenty-five ships docked against its various arms. Within moments the death toll was in the thousands. The dreadnaught fired continually, blasting apart everything that came within reach, and it only became more horrifying when Titans tore into the station and laid waste to those not fast enough to escape the slaughter.
A dark laugh filled the bridge of the alien ship when it steered toward the conduit that would lead them finally to their quarry. Thanatos stood at the front of the cavernous bridge, his fists clenched and his eyes burning like volcanic caldrons. The spikes that rippled across his back brought a smile to his grim lips.
“I’m-m-m coming for you, my little northern star,” he said. “You’re the only person who can stand in my way, and when I find you, you above al-l-l-ll others will suffer.”
More laughter peeled through the bridge, and then other voices joined his, all of them ravenous for blood, fire, and pain.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As Alex stepped off the elevator, the first thing that hit him was the stench of old sweat, rotted meat, and air recycled to the point it tasted like aluminum foil in his mouth. It was terrible, but he should have expected it. Nethers weren’t pleasant places to be.
Getting his SWAT team through it was another matter entirely. Every eye was drawn to them, not that he could blame the nether’s residents. A group of armed people in black uniforms wasn’t something they saw every day. On the plus side, no one tried to accost them or get in their way either, so they made good time getting to the Groesbeck site. When they crossed the dilapidated house’s threshold they found Shawn stacking canisters and tying them together with nylon ropes.
“You’ve been busy,” Alex said.
Shawn pulled a knot tight and smiled. The expression covered his face like a cheap suit. “Artemis is in the basement. We’ve made all the Zeus we can, so she’s finishing up the last of the containers.”
“Good. She figure out a plan yet?”
“I think she has something in mind. You?”
Alex wasn’t sure how to respond to that, how much he should divulge out in the open, so he erred on the side of caution. “A few thoughts have rolled through my mind. We’ll see how they pan out. On a completely unrelated note, your father sends his love.”
“I know.” Shawn dropped to his haunches and looked down at his armored shoulders and arms. “How much did you… Does he know? About me, I mean?”
Alex shook his head. “Not so far as I know. It wasn’t my place to tell him. When he saw your mother she took up most of his attention. He just wanted to know if you were okay, and I figured a ‘Yes’ wasn’t a total lie. It’ll serve for now. Alicia will know how to handle it.”
Standing back up, Shawn said, “Thank you for taking care of her,” then turned to Agent Roe. “You too. She’d probably be dead right now if it wasn’t for you. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
“Tell you what,” Roe said, a small grin struggling to warm her face, “stop those Titans that are coming, and I’ll consider us even.”
A loud grunt and clang of metal caused everyone to turn toward the back wall. Through a doorway stepped Artemis, a bundled collection of canisters in her hands. Behind her came a man Alex hadn’t met yet in person, but whom he’d heard all about. Doctor Hofstadter had two canisters in his arms, and he wheezed as he struggled through the door. Alex stepped forward to help him. As they entered his arms, he gasped. If they weren’t twenty kilos each they were within a gram of it.
Hutchins laughed. “Need some help?”
“No,” Alex replied with a grunt. “I got it.” He lowered his legs until the canisters touched the ground with a weighty clink.
“Is that it?” Shawn asked.
Artemis and Hofstadter nodded in unison.
It was an impressive collection, but Alex had no idea if it was enough. “Do you think this will do the job?”
Artemis started to nod, but then she shrugged her shoulders. “I think so. Dr. Groesbeck’s notes said it’d only takes a small amount of Zeus to break down a Titan’s nanites since they self-replicate using the very nanites they destroy, but I never leave Murphy’s Law out of the equation. For all we know the Hezrin virus could have changed our nanites to the point where Zeus won’t have any effect at all. We won’t know until we use it.”
“Speaking of which,” Hutchins said, “what’s the plan? How do we get all this to Thanatos and his people? Do we just… shoot it at them?”
Artemis lowered her bundled canisters, and the floor shook when the load touched down. “We-e-e have to get them somewhere as remote and unpo-o-opulated as possible if we want to have any hope of containing them. I think our best bet is Hygeia. That whole area was pr-r-retty well evacuated thanks to the marines and pirates, and I’m guessing it’s still fairly em-mpty. Once we get them there, we lure them into the mining station and shoot Zeus through its environmental system. That should... that should put an end to things.”
“Do you…” Shawn began to ask before his lips stopped working. The boy was armored head to toe and could tear through vacuum steel like it was made of rice paper, but he looked scared, unprepared. After a moment he said, “Do you think Zeus will just unmake their nanites, or will it... you know, kill them?”
“Even Dr. Groesbeck was unsure on that point,” Hofstadter replied. “Zeus targets only Titan nanites, so in theory it would leave all human tissue unharmed, but there are a great number of physiological changes that the nanites create within the body, and we don’t know how they would react to sudden nanite removal. They could continue on, or… or it could all collapse. We just do not know. I’m sorry.”
The doctor’s words didn’t seem to alleviate Shawn’s troubles, but the boy nodded and squared his shoulders as best he could. Alex admired that. Not many people would be able to do the same. He was a stronger person than Alex had anticipated him to be.
“So how do we get Thanatos to come to Hygeia?” Alex asked, hoping to draw the conversation to something they could move forward on. “I know he’s crazy, but is he crazy enough to be led into a trap?”
“They’re driven to k-k-kill,” Artemis said, her armored hands twitching until she slapped them against her sides. “The stronger their opposition is, the mo-more they’ll want to destroy them. All we have to do is give them a target they c-c-can’t refuse.”
“And what’s that?” Alex asked, though he already knew the answer. When he looked over at Shawn, the hangdog expression he wore said he knew it too.
“Me.”
Artemis nodded. “Yes, you. More than that, though, it’s wha-a-at you represent. You’re a new generation of Titan, something no-no one’s seen in a century. When Thanatos arrives, we’ll show you to him and tell him you’re just the f-f-first of a new army being readied on Hygeia. There’s no way he’ll be able to re-e-esist that bait.”
“How can you be so certain of that?” Hofstadter asked.
Artemis flicked her eyes at Shawn, and in her gaze was something Alex couldn’t quite put a finger on. There was sadness, yes, and he thought maybe even a little guilt, but something else lingered in her eyes, and it took him a few seconds to realize what it was – affection. That surprised him, but he couldn’t tell just how far that feeling went. A moment later she shook her head, and the lines on her face deepened.
“Because every time I l-l-look at Shawn, part of me wants to rip his throat out and tear his armor to pie-e-eces,” she said.
Awkward silence fell on the house, but Alex knew they had to move on if they wanted any hope of carrying out the Titan’s plan. He coughed into his fist to break the stillness, then said, “If this is everything, then we should go. How are we carrying–”
Shawn grabbed the canisters he’d just tied together, about ten from the look of it, and hoisted them onto his back without any trouble. Alex’s knees ached at seeing that much load being carried on one back. Artemis grabbed her two bundles and swung her arms up to do the same, but she barely moved a muscle before her body convulsed and she dropped to the floor. Her eyes rolled back into her head as her neck and back arched. Her armor jittered and spiked, and a mewling sound escaped her lips in a long keen. No one knew what to do, so they stood back and waited. If she lost control of herself and succumbed to the virus, no amount of running or hiding would matter.
After a minute her armor hardened and her lips closed. She didn’t immediately stand back up, but when she opened her eyes, they looked clear.
“It’s getting worse,” she said, stating the obvious. “I-I-I can’t hold out much longer.”
Alex stepped forward and started undoing the ties on one of her bundles. “Then let us help so we can get out of here.”
Artemis didn’t thank him out loud, but the look she gave him was a grateful one. Once on her feet she managed to take a bundle and hoist it over her shoulder while the SWAT team broke the other one down and distributed them out. Hofstadter packed a tablet into a case and locked his fingers around the handle.
“Everyone ready?” Alex asked. When the group nodded, he nodded back and moved to the door. The way ahead wasn’t long, but every second counted. A clock was ticking inside the Titan, and its steady beat grew louder and louder in his head.
General Harper was zipping up his pants when the comm wrapped around his right ear chirped, the bright sound echoing sharply off the tiled walls and floor.
“Harper, go,” he said as he turned to a wash basin, leaned over, and put his hand under a soap dispenser.
“General, we’ve got problems,” Major Fuqua said.
Water poured from a faucet, and Harper rubbed his hands together under it, washing them just like his mother had taught him – thoroughly. “Tell me something I don’t already know, Fookie.”
“Titania Naval Base has been destroyed.”
Harper’s hands went limp, and the water shut off automatically as he stood up straight. “Come again?”
Fookie grunted, and his breathing was harsh, like he was walking somewhere quickly. “I said Titania Naval Base has been destroyed. It’s nothing but debris, as is every ship and sailor stationed there.”
The general opened his mouth, but nothing came out of it. For the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to say.
“We also got a distress call from Splendor, but it was cut short, and we haven’t been able to raise them since. A recon ship is burning its way there now.”
Harper picked up a small towel from the basket next to the sink and dried his hands with it. “Do we know who’s responsible for this?”
“Titania sent a flashcast to FLEETCOM before they were destroyed, and from the data we’ve got it looks like they were attacked by a Hezrin dreadnaught.”
Harper’s hands jerked and dropped the towel as he recalled his studies at the Alliance Naval Academy. Hezrin ships had been monstrous, all of them capable of terrible destruction, but none had been more feared than their dreadnaughts. Several kilometers long and bristling with enough cannons to decimate entire colonies all by themselves, they were beasts no human ship had ever taken on successfully. Not even carrier strike groups had posed a threat to them. Only nuclear warheads had been powerful enough to take them out, and even then it had required more than one.
Having a dreadnaught return now was bad news on its own, but what made it even worse was that no Alliance or Union warship carried nukes any longer. In the decades following the war, the still smoldering scars of what humanity had done to itself compelled them to shit-can their greatest weapons. “Never again,” the public had cried when the Hezrin threat was a distant memory. “Never again will those fires burn.” And, like a parent wanting to comfort their stupid children, the governments patted their citizens on the head and capitulated.
