Scum of the Universe (Fire and Rust Book 7) Read online

  Scum of the Universe

  Fire and Rust Book 7

  Anthony James

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  End

  © 2020 Anthony James

  All rights reserved

  The right of Anthony James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

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  Chapter One

  The New Texas ULAF-1 military base was buzzing with a fear-edged excitement which filled the air with the kind of palpable energy no amount of caffeine could generate. Outside, it was dry and hot, whilst the interior of every building was five degrees overchilled. Despite – or perhaps because of – the cold, personnel seemed to perform every action faster than normal, as if they were on a video feed speeded up by twenty percent.

  Fleet Admiral Randell Douglas Stone couldn’t fail to notice the febrile atmosphere. In fact, he found it difficult to resist succumbing to the same agitation as everyone else. The constant, nagging pains reined him in whenever his pace increased too much and whenever he talked too rapidly it made him cough, the pain of which reminded him that his body was in the process of rejecting his replacement lungs.

  Worse than that – Stone had three new cancers and his medical officers had given their opinion that his deterioration was irreversible. He was going to die. Maybe not this year, but at some time within the next twenty-four months, the ULAF would be looking for a new Fleet Admiral.

  “Nearly there, sir,” said Dr Lea Austin, his constant companion for the past few weeks. She looked tired and each step produced a rattle from the twenty or more pill containers she carried with her.

  “Next left and third door on the right,” added Captain Bruce Dyer. He was a member of Stone’s personal team - an intel officer with level of insight which occasionally bordered on the supernatural.

  The research section was larger than Stone remembered it and he was beginning to wish he’d asked for the relevant personnel to come to his office. Stubbornness insisted that his legs worked fine and that he shouldn’t display his physical weakness so openly. For the millionth time, Stone cursed the Raggers and the contaminant-ridden air on Qali-5 which had reduced him to this shadow of his former self.

  Stone turned left and entered another stark corridor with tiled floor and painted walls. The third door on the right was visible a long way distant and he strode for it, putting on his show of strength. He doubted his team was fooled but it didn’t really matter – Stone knew his continued efforts made it clear that mentally he was in the right place. He stopped in front of double-doors and read the single word stamped onto a metal plate above the adjacent access panel.

  Genetics.

  “Let’s see what they have to say,” Stone muttered.

  The access panel responded to his touch – Stone could travel wherever he pleased in every ULAF facility – and the doors slid open. A bright light spilled out and Stone narrowed his eyes. When his sight adjusted, he led his team into the room beyond.

  This genetics research area – one of many - was a large space, painted in grey and with its ceiling supported by numerous alloy pillars which impeded some of the view. Stone’s eyes scanned the room quickly. He noted that every piece of equipment was the best that the Unity League’s money could buy. When extinction was not just a remote possibility but a real chance, then it didn’t seem like a good idea to squeeze every penny. Dozens of personnel, some of them Fangrin, sat in front of screens or talked quietly in groups. Hardly anyone looked up, so engrossed were they in their work.

  Amongst the consoles, the huge body scanners and the pieces of equipment he didn’t recognize, Stone spotted a complex biological analyzer that had been provided by the Fangrin. Its presence was a reassuring sight – humanity’s former enemies were proving to be the most reliable of allies.

  A woman with her dark hair tied up and wearing a smart grey uniform approached. Stone recognized her from the file image, though he hadn’t met her face-to-face.

  “Sir, I’m Research Lead Sheri Fields.”

  “Pleased to meet you RL Fields. Your message said you had important developments to advise me about.”

  “Yes, sir, that we do. Please come this way.”

  RL Fields led Stone and his team of personnel across the floor towards the far corner.

  “He’s over here,” she said. “We’re just about finished up with the testing. To tell you the truth, I think he’ll try to escape if we keep him here much longer.”

  Stone grunted in amusement. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  Fields stopped in front of another bespoke piece of tech – it was a cylinder from which many wires dangled. Two thick cables ran across the floor – in complete violation of health and safety guidelines - where they joined with a pair of massive cruncher bots. The bots were floating black cubes packed with thousands of the latest processing cores. They were parked against the wall nearby, their utilization gauges visibly nailed on one hundred percent.

  A man sat in a chair. He was a regular-looking kind of guy – medium height, brown hair and eyes that had seen pretty much everything the universe could conjure up. The man stood as Stone came closer and he looked uncomfortable at the scrutiny.

  “Private Kemp,” said Stone. “Have the good people in genetics been looking after you?”

  “Yes, sir, they’ve been kind. How long until I can leave?”

  “RL Fields?” asked Stone.

  “He wants to go back to frontline duties, sir,” said Fields accusingly.

  “You told me that when you were done, you’d have such an accurate map of Private Kemp’s genetic makeup that even if he tripped over one of those trailing cables on your floor there and broke his neck, the Unity League would be able to replicate his immunity to the Sekar life drain.”

  “Yes, sir, I did tell you that.” Fields looked guiltily at the cables which hadn’t been mentioned in her reassurances. “It’s just that Private Kemp is unique – as far as we know. I don’t believe it would be wise to put a gun in his hand and send him off to war again.”

  “What do you think about that,
Private?” asked Stone.

  “Well, sir, I’ve only been hit once by the Sekar. I might be immune, or I might have got lucky. It would be a shame for all this testing to happen and then have it turn out that I’m not immune after all. What if these clever folks here come up with a vaccine, inject it into lots of other folks and then find out it doesn’t work? I reckon the frontline is the best place for me. I’ll even volunteer for some extra testing if it’ll get me out of here and back with my squad.”

  “I’ll have to think about it, Private.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  RL Fields waved to one of the other genetics researchers. A man approached.

  “Private Kemp is due a break from testing, Mike. Can you take him to the canteen?”

  “Will do. Come on Elvis, it’s time for chow.”

  “The food’s the only thing this place has going for it.”

  Stone watched for a few seconds as the two men headed towards one of the exits. When he turned his attention once more to RL Fields, she was studying a screen on a console next to Kemp’s former chair.

  “Well? Can we send Private Kemp back to his normal duties?”

  With a tight-lipped smile, Fields straightened. “We’ve done everything to map his genetics using the technology we have available to us.”

  “Technology which is the best available.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any chance you missed something?”

  Fields could see she was being led along the path. “No, sir.”

  Stone nodded but said nothing more about Private Kemp’s release from the genetics lab. “What has your research uncovered?”

  Fields took a deep breath. “We found an anomaly.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I won’t burden you with the science, sir, but every cell in Private Kemp’s body is different to anything I’ve seen before in a human.”

  “I thought we were all different, RL Fields?”

  “Different but the same, sir,” she replied. “Private Kemp is something else. From the dead bodies we’ve studied, we know that the Sekar cause a vastly accelerated atrophy in the cells of their victims.”

  “Like aging?” asked Captain Dyer.

  “Not quite,” said Fields giving a pained look which suggested her team wasn’t decided on how to classify the effect. “Our best guess is that the Sekar contain an energy type that we’re unfamiliar with, which makes human cells wither and die at a rate which is perhaps a million or more times greater than usual.”

  “But not Private Kemp’s cells?” prompted Stone.

  Fields tried to run her hands through her hair and belatedly discovered it was tied back. She settled for smoothing her short ponytail. “Private Kemp’s cells are aging in the same way as everyone else’s. However, they’re exceptionally resistant to every known disease. Apparently, he’s never suffered a day’s illness in his life.”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  “Oh, I believe him, Fleet Admiral. We’ve tested his cells with far more than just disease – we’ve thrown all kinds of crap at them. Those cruncher bots here have been testing permutations of every known substance and energy type to find out how they interact with the anomalous cells.”

  “As you just said - the Sekar energy type is unknown,” said Stone. “How can you simulate the effects of that?”

  “We can’t,” said Fields. “However, we can make tentative assumptions based on the overall behavior of a cell and its genes. Given the reliable witness reports of Private Kemp’s survival against the Sekar attack, we can strengthen those assumptions into something we can work with.”

  Stone’s chest tickled and he coughed before he could stop himself. The pain was there again and he winced. “These are good results, RL Fields - they give me hope. What are the next steps?”

  “In normal circumstances, we’d run several years of tests.” Fields raised a hand to forestall objections. “Given how these circumstances are nothing like normal, we can – with the right clearance – move past the baby steps and straight into the business end of testing.”

  “Human testing?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How does that happen?”

  “A straightforward injection of nanoparticles, sir.”

  A thought wormed its way into Stone’s head. “Do you have samples of those nanoparticles?”

  “Only a limited supply. The presence of the anomaly makes replication difficult.”

  “Do the nanoparticles require further refinement?”

  “No, sir. The actual science is old so we know how it works – the only issue is making a significant quantity of the nanoparticles.”

  “What about side effects?”

  “Those would generally become apparent during testing, sir.”

  “If I were to round up some volunteers, would you have enough samples?”

  Fields looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t say we should go right in for the human tests, sir. My team and I agreed that we’d grow a few thousand tissue samples to see how they react to the replacement genes.”

  The seat which Private Kemp had vacated looked inviting and Stone resisted the temptation to drop into it. “So we have issues of supply and issues of testing. What about delivery? If these nanoparticles allow us to live through a Sekar attack, how will we get them to the population? Injecting a few hundred billion people isn’t feasible – not in a short timescale.”

  “Can we do an atmospheric dispersal?” asked Lieutenant Polly Pittman, another member of Stone’s team. “Make people immune by saturating the air with these nanoparticles?”

  “No,” said Fields. “The nanoparticles must be injected directly into the recipient.”

  “We could be looking at months to implement such a wide-scale project,” said Dyer.

  “It’s worse than that,” said Fields.

  “How come?”

  “We can replicate the nanoparticles here in the lab using this specialist kit you see all around us. Like I said earlier, it’s a slow process.”

  “The funding for this is effectively bottomless, RL Fields,” said Stone.

  “Yes, sir. Money helps, but we’ll need whole factories fitted with new production lines. As far as I’m aware neither we nor the Fangrin have many places that can build the necessary equipment. Everything needs to be scaled up.”

  Stone gave up and dropped into the chair. “Tell me the bad news.”

  “I’ve had Logistics produce me a preliminary report, sir, which I’ll send you a copy of. The conclusion is that we require several years.”

  “How many years?”

  “In two years, we should have one tenth of one percent of the human and Fangrin populations injected with nanoparticles. That assumes no showstoppers in the testing process. In three years, we should have ten percent of the human and Fangrin populations injected. By five years – if funding and the political will remains in place – the figure will approach ninety percent. All of this with a big margin of error.”

  It was good tainted by bad and Stone grimaced. The Sekar hadn’t shown up in the four months since Captain Griffin returned from Dominion with the Hantisar fleet and news about Private Kemp. Still, years was far too long. Life on planet Rundine was wiped out in days and just thinking about the Sekar turning up on another populated world was enough to fill Stone with fury.

  “Why is everything tomorrow instead of today?” he roared, thumping his fist on the arm of the chair.

  Nobody answered and Fields looked shocked at the outburst.

  Stone forced himself to calmness. “Forgive me RL Fields – that was aimed at the universe in general, rather than anyone in particular.”

  She nodded in response. “I’ll do everything I can to make this happen, sir.”

  “I can see from the organization in this room that your research department is well-run. I’ll make sure you get full and immediate support from every other section of the ULAF. If you need to speak with me urgently, please contact Captain Dyer
here at once. He can reach me at any time of day or night.”

  Stone gave a half-smile.

  “And now to play my own part, RL Fields. I want you to inject me with those nanoparticles. If medical science can’t flush Ragger contaminants from my body, maybe I should see what Private Kemp’s natural immunities can do.”

  “Sir, you can’t…”

  “I can and I will. Please make it happen.”

  The other members of his staff protested for a while and in the end, Stone ordered them to silence. The only person who didn’t say a word was Dr Austin and her acceptance, more than anything, told him he was out of other chances.

  After ten or fifteen minutes of flustered activity, RL Fields returned with an injector cylinder, which she handed to Dr Austin. Fleet Admiral Stone rolled up his sleeve and offered his arm.

  Chapter Two

  Stone returned to his office. His team dispersed, leaving Dr Austin as his only company. Once they were alone, Stone half-expected her to admonish him for his behavior. She did not.

  “How are you feeling, sir?”

  “No different to how I did when I woke up this morning.”

  “Like crap.”

  “Exactly that.” He hesitated. Stone was used to covering up his frailties, but with Dr Austin it was easier to act human. “If those nanoparticles are going to work – improve my health I mean – how long might they take?”

  Austin shrugged. “Hours? Days? It depends on the subject and on the nanoparticles.”