9 Years, 5 Months, 21 Days After Eridani Landing
Bellona Colony
Megan leaned back into the wheelchair and looked down at Yern, “You ready for this?”
“I am still communicating with the others; your dwellings are acoustic enough to allow it.”
“If you don’t have consensus and we need a quick decision, is that yours to make?”
“Until Night arrives.”
Megan nodded and glanced back at the kid pushing her chair, “Hurry it up. It’s uncomfortable not having legs, I’d like to get this over with and start fixing everything.”
“Fix?” asked the kid.
“The Fort’s been damaged, I told the Tanuin I sent up to it to tear entire computer systems apart to redirect the shot from the main gun, and my husband commandeered the incomplete Russia and punched it through the largest airlock doors we have on that thing. Not to mention the damage that might be done to the ship. It’s going to set us back some, and it’s probably going to have hull scarring form the nuclear explosion.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, I know just how much damage and cleanup all of that is going to be.”
“The Tanuin are ready to assist, if your Council approves,” said Yern.
Megan looked down at him, “Yeah, that’s all assuming I don’t have everything pinned on me and I’m thrown into jail.”
Yern was silent for a moment, “Optimism?”
Megan snorted, “Optimism, yeah. I’ll try to hold on to that.”
Rolling into an elevator Megan closed her eyes and reached for her Link, the kid jumped and put a hand on her shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
Megan turned back to him, “I’m going to call someone.”
“We’re almost to the Council chambers.”
“Then we can wait outside for a minute if we have too.”
“Uh,”
Her earpiece gone and not replaced since the first time she surrendered in her apartment Megan held the device up in front of her.
“Ben, James, Night?” she asked.
The line crackled, “I’m here, made it away from the Russia. Where are you?” asked Ben his voice filtering through the communication channel oddly, sounding raspier than normal.
“On my way to the Council, the Tanuin strong-armed them into meeting with me.”
“The Tanuin?”
“They replicated the first contact with the colony, and swarmed. I would call it terrifying if it weren’t for all of the squeaking.”
“We’ll be landing in about five minutes.”
“You’re not on the Russia still?”
“No, Red and James picked me up in their shuttle. We’ve got Night as well. The Russia’s dead in the water though. She got scorched by the nuke, and we kind of broke her engines getting her far enough away from the Colony and the Fort. I didn’t get a good look at them, but I’m guessing we’ll just have to pull the engines slated for the China at this point.”
“Well that’s going to be fun. The superstructure though?”
“She’s solid, she took the nuke nearly point blank.”
“You alright?”
There was only a brief pause, something that Megan only just barely caught.
“I’m fine. We’ll meet you with the Council.”
The line went dead, and Megan stared at the Link for a moment.
“Motherfucker.”
“What?” asked the kid pushing the wheelchair and Yern who was crouched on the floor of the elevator. The two glanced at one another quickly before turning to look at Megan.
“I have no idea what it is but something’s gone wrong.”
“Uh, alright.” Said the kid.
The door to the elevator opened and pushing the wheelchair forwards he moved Megan towards the Council chambers.
Another smaller contingent of guards were outside the doors to the main government chambers, and quickly turned to look at Megan as the kid pushing her hesitated for a moment.
Reaching down Megan grabbed at the wheels and propelled herself forwards. Yern quickly grabbed onto the chair and his multiple bodies climbed up to sit on her shoulders, another of his heads on either side of her own and one body now in her lap.
“Stop!” said the man in front of the doors.
“I already did this downstairs, so either shoot me and the Tanuin or move.”
Megan continued forwards, none of the men raised their weapons and quickly moved to the side as she approached.
“You know someone could get the door for me?” said Megan as she paused in front of the wooden doors.
None of the men moved.
“Thanks.” Muttered Megan as she unlatched the door and pushed it inwards, only managing to move one of the two. Instead of bursting into the room, she carefully maneuvered herself inside negotiating the entrance.
The members of the Council, various advisors, and other officials all looked up as she entered. Most quickly turned back to their work though and ignored her. Megan looked around, various displays were showing where the Fort was, the orbital traffic, and other critical data.
The main display was showing what was presumably the aftermath of the nuclear detonation.
The image on the screen rewound and Megan glanced up curiously watching as it played back slowly, and then did a double take. The Russia was still clearly visible and almost nearly in the focus of the camera when the bomb detonated, an event with blinded the sensors for several moments in the intense light. It was difficult to judge distances in space, but it looked to be frighteningly close.
The ship had to have been still within only a few kilometers of the detonation point, and although the HSB class ships were designed to survive such explosions it was a far from an ideal circumstance. The usual defense would have been to disable and destroy the bomb or missile before it could reach the ship.
Shaking her head Megan looked at Yern, “Could you get their attention?”
“Yes.”
Rearing up Yern let out an ear splitting screech, everyone in the room jumped and Megan winced the sound far to close for comfort.
General Yan looked up from the main tactical display table that had been rolled into the room.
“Megan?”
“General, Councilors, I have something that needs to be said.”
Yan straightened up, and tapped at his ear. He opened his mouth about to say something when he quickly closed it and his eyes widened.
“Well, I guess you do.”
Councilor Daniels glanced at the man and then back at Megan.
“She was supposed to be arrested, why is she here?”
“Check your Link, it appears she has the support of the Tanuin. Who are currently massed at the security perimeter standing off with our own forces.”
“How many?” asked Daniels.
“All of them, all except those tending our young or who are too ill to travel,” said Yern.
Daniels blinked, “They’re breeding now?” he breathed.
“We are near extinction, why would we not?” asked Yern.
“We did not agree to let,”
General Yan held up a hand, “Councilor, this is something to discuss later. At the moment I want to know why the Tanuin are helping you.”
Megan tossed her Link onto the main display, it slid across it to bump against the edge. For a moment everyone was still, slowly Councilor Henson picked up the device and put it into the data slot.
“I have proof that a malicious hacker, or hackers have had near complete access to our Computer networks for at least as far back as the crash which crippled me, and have instigated many of the events which have plagued us recently. The Fort decompress, and now our current situation.”
The code and notes for the program appeared on the main display and the analysts in the room quickly scrambled to grab copies for examination.
“This was not brought to our attention because?” asked Cantor as he began to read portions of the code.
“Given the level of sophistication and the credentials the virus had access to I had reason to believe someone on the Council was responsible. Unable to trace the virus, I ordered the engineers and technicians under my command to reverse engineer the virus and spread it through the colony computer systems. When the hacker next used the virus we would be able to trace where it was activated.”
Councilor Henson frowned, “The command codes for someone on the Council could have been compromised. This virus having them if that is indeed true does not mean you shouldn’t have told the Council.”
“Informing you would have only made it public record. Whoever is controlling it has access to restricted information, and tipping my hand to its discovery would have only caused whoever was utilizing it to go underground to escape. By tracing it we should be able to determine who is behind this.”
General Yan frowned, “Still, this is a violation of protocol in the extreme. Why were the Tanuin privy to this information?” The General held up a hand, “Their discovery was after the first act by the virus if you are correct, meaning they could not have been privy to its use. Still, I don’t think it was wise to involve them.”
Megan frowned but nodded, “In any case we have been able to exam the virus code. It is distinctly human in construction. The Tanuin given access to our tools and programming languages structure their computer code very differently.”
Councilor Cantor smiled slightly, “We can identify programmers by species now?”
“We can. For example, the alien craft has programming from at least four distinct species in it, all of it combined by an overarching 5th alien programming language. That’s been stated in reports before now.”
“Continue,” said Yan.
“The person or persons behind this virus will be discovered shortly, and it seems they’ve managed to catch onto the fact that someone has piggybacked on their virus. So they decided to pin the blame on myself and my Husband.”
Councilor Daniels frowned and leaned over the main display, “Yet all of this information is coming from you, perhaps you are really behind this?”
“My engineering teams and the Tanuin will confirm everything I’ve told you.”
“Neither of those parties are particularly impartial. The Tanuin as a species seem to have been willing to back anything you and Ben do. Your own engineers are for all we know in on this.”
“Where did you get the information that I was involved with the Fort hack as well as the Russia’s malfunctioning nuke?”
“It was reported by the automated security systems,” said Cantor.
Megan rolled her eyes, “which I would know how to circumvent, considering my team built those protocols.”
General Yan smiled slightly, “A bad argument to make for your innocence. I do see your point though.”
The man walked around the main display and leaned against it crossing his arms.
“So then, the virus is tracing. How long until we know who has had control of it?”
“Yern?” asked Megan.
The Tanuin jumped off of the chair and scuttled over to one of the unoccupied terminals around the outside of the room, jumping onto the human seat first and then up onto the keyboard the Tanuin practically sat on top of the keys. A small old fashioned command line terminal appeared on the screen in front of it.
After a moment to navigate to the correct computer on the Colony network a small progress bar appeared.
“The human engineering teams of Megan and Ben have been working to combat the original virus and continue to spread the new tracing version, after the Fort and Russia were hacked and the nuclear device primed it began to erase itself form the computer networks as it has done after every other attack. They have been working to see where it does not do this.”
The progress bar was hovering near 80% and was slowly ticking upwards towards completion.
“I have to stress that this might fail, and if it does we will at the very least have to purge all but the oldest archives to insure that it is no longer present in our computers.”
Councilor Henson frowned his eyes on the progress bars, “that would be annoying.”
“Not to mention we would have to quarantine and manually examine almost anything of critical military value. Given how pervasive the virus is and the fact it has broken into systems like the Fort weapon control and Nuclear codes even our hash code comparisons might be compromised.”
“How long would that take?” asked General Yan.
“We have only a few programmers who could examine such classified code, and if my engineering teams are stripped of such access? At least three years.”
The General nodded and turned his gaze back to the progress bar.
The room was silent with only a few aides and analysts speaking in whispers as they went through the data that Megan had collected.
“Megan?” Ben’s voice issued out from her Link still on the table.
Councilor Daniels glanced down at it, “Captain.”
The Link was silent for a moment.
“Councilor, the shuttle I am on has landed and we are attempting to enter the government building. We are being barred and I am apparently under arrest for tampering with a nuclear device? Considering I just risked my ass and prevented such a device from going off inside the Fort, can I be let in?”
Once again Megan was off put by the odd timber of his voice, it sounded as if her were sick or had something stuck in his throat.
Councilor Daniels frowned and glanced over at Megan and the program that Yern was running.
“You’ll be stripped of weapons; we are still attempting to get to the bottom of this. For the moment I am willing to entertain the idea that you might be framed, considering past history and how much you have contributed to this Colony.”
“Thank you.”
The line went dead and Daniels quickly did something on his own Link.
“I feel I must mention that both Captains involved here were participating in the construction of the Ark and the acquisition of illegal antimatter before the alien attack. Their actions were ultimately humanities saving grace, but still very much illegal at the time,” said councilor Cantor.
Megan glanced over at the man and he raised his hands, “Not that I’m not glad, but it does give you a history of perhaps doing things that are,” he paused apparently searching for the correct word, “rash?”
Megan snorted, “You mean I don’t like listening to the idiots in government.”
General Yan put a hand to his head.
Councilor Henson kept his face straight, “Correct.”
“So far it’s worked out for the best, perhaps I will be proven correct this time as well?”
Councilor Daniels glanced at the other men next to him, the other leaders of what was rest of Humanity.
“Forgive me if I’m not as optimistic.”
The room once again went silent.
The progress bar slowly moved towards completion.
The doors to the council chamber’s opened again and everyone in the room turned.
James strode in first, behind him Ben with one of Night’s bodies on his shoulder, next to Ben was a younger solider that Megan didn’t recognize. Looking at the younger man for a moment Megan noticed the redness in his eyes and the grim look on his face. It was an all too familiar look.
Wincing she looked at Ben, and frowned. His skin, which like most on Bellona given the lack of sunlight appropriate for humans was already a pasty white, even so he looked unnaturally pale. His eyes were more bloodshot than she had ever seen before and he looked as if he was in some amount of pain.
“Councilors,” greeted Ben his voice raspy.
“Captain,” said General Yan nodding at him.
“The Fort is secure, and the Russia is severely damaged but salvageable.”
“Good to hear, although it would have been better to disarm the device,” said Daniels.
Ben frowned, “I’m aware of that Councilor. The device was secured in a way that made that impossible however. I had to eject an entire compartment from the Russia to remove it from the ship.”
“Secured?” asked Megan.
Ben turned to her, his expression flat, “Meaning it wasn’t just hacked to detonate. Someone secured it, either on the last engineering team or after the work day ended. Activation could have still been remote and I don’t know what triggered the detonation.”
Megan slowly nodded, “How close were you to the detonation?”
Ben was quite for a moment, “within ten kilometers. I’m not sure exactly.”
Megan’s eyes widened slightly, “The ship took that?”
“The hull did, but it was absent in some places. Secondary radiation damage is likely. It spiked at 14,000 rads.”
Several people in the room gasped, and Megan’s eyes went wide.
“14,000?” she asked voice low.
“Yep. I was the only one on the ship though.”
Megan slowly closed her eyes.
“I am unsure of the radiation dosage units used by humanity, this is a dangerous amount?” asked Yern from his console.
Night sitting on Ben’s shoulder turned to the other Taunin, “Lethal amounts of radiation, is what Engineer Ben was exposed to.”
“How long do you have?” asked Daniels after a moment.
Ben grimaced and looked at the man, “Short enough that I’m going to want the gun you had security take before the end of the day.”
“Are you sure you were exposed to that much?” asked General Yan.
Ben nodded, “I am. My suit registered that much, the external sensors of the ship I have no idea. I didn’t check them.”
The General nodded and turned back to look at the display.
Ben slowly walked over to Megan and put his hands on the handles of the wheelchair.
“Megan,”
She shook her head and reaching up took his hands off of the handles and put them on her shoulders.
Ben closed his mouth and went silent as well.
The computer finished and a rolling wall of text quickly went across the terminal in front of Yern. The Tanuin manipulating the data quickly scanned through it, “the originating terminal for the orders given to the virus are within this building, and the councilors offices.”
The Tanuin paused, reading through the rest of the data.
“The originating office is that of Councilor Daniels.”
The room was completely still for a half second before Councilor Cantor standing next to Daniels whipped around and slammed the other man into the main display.
“What the hell?” shouted Daniels.
“You sure Yern?” asked Megan.
“I’m sure that the controlling terminal is in his office, I cannot attest to him being the one inputting the commands.”
“I sure as hell did not!” shouted Daniels his voice only slightly muffled.
General Yan quietly walked around the table, and stooped down to look at Daniels, “You sure you want to maintain innocence? Confess now and we won’t have to execute you.”
Daniels snorted, “Maintain? I am innocent you bastard! The aliens are framing me, and now we’re all so willing to take the Captain’s at their word about being able to trace all of this? Ten minutes ago they were the prime suspects! They walk in and now they claim it’s me? How the hell is that not convenient?”
General Yan glanced back at the two, “Well I very much doubt that Ben would like to die from radiation sickness for one thing, and both of them despite their history of insubordination have never shown anything but a willingness to help Humanity. Destroying the Fort and the Russia are not conducive to those goals.”
“I’m telling you it was not me!” growled Daniels.
Councilor Cantor frowned, “You have never liked the aliens,”
“Neither have you!”
Cantor paused for a moment, “I have always maintained we need to be cautious.”
“Bullshit.”
Reaching down to his belt General Yan drew his gun and carefully keeping his hand on it set it down on the display in front of Daniels.
The politician froze for a moment and Cantor slackened his grip looking at the General.
“My mandate is to protect Humanity against all threats Councilor, we’re nearly extinct and if that nuclear weapon had gone off in the Fort, if that main gun had hit the Colony, all of the work we have been doing for the past decade would have been undone and we would have no doubt lost a significant portion of our population.”
The General turned the gun slightly.
Daniels twisted and breaking free from Cantor’s weakened grip stood.
“I did not do this.”
The two men continued to glare at one another.
Councilor Henson cleared his throat, “Perhaps we can have verification of both this virus, and the one which led to the Councilors office before we continue this? At the moment everything is circumstantial”
General Yan looked over at the other Councilor and then at Daniels.
“I suppose so.”
“Councilors,” squeaked Night.
“Yes?” asked Henson looking at the Tanuin.
“Alpha, the leader of the Tanuin was attacked while attempting to investigate this. His investigation led to this building, where he was injured and has been in what humans would call a catatonic state. Can it be agreed that the person who attacked him for investigating this virus might also be the one who controls it.”
Henson crossed his arms and looked at Night, “Alpha was technically trespassing and our security forces had every right to attack him. He was discovered here injured, but you neglected to tell us why he was in the building. Any evidence he had would be inadmissible.”
“This is not a fucking court!” said Ben.
Henson inclined his head, “No it is not, and considering the severity of the crimes committed, which could have very well doomed humanity to extinction,” Henson shrugged, “As you said this is not a court but it might very well end up in one.”
Ben coughed and smiled slightly as he wiped at his lips removing the blood.
“Alpha was planning on searching the offices of each councilor, I have done the same now.”
The members of the Council all stiffened at that, “You broke into our offices?” asked Daniels his face going red.
“You have not modified all air ducts and life support systems with security in this building yet, it is something that we will be happy to aide you with in the future.”
Several of Night’s bodies dropped out of the air vent over the door of the room, hitting the ground with dull thuds all but one quickly made their way to join the rest of Night.
“In one office, that of Councilor Daniels we found something which we do not understand.”
The single body holding a few sheaf’s of paper jumped up onto Megan’s lap and held them up.
Megan raised an eyebrow and carefully took the documents.
“It’s paper Night, what humans used before we had digital storage.”
Looking at the paper Megan frowned, “It’s in another language though, Russian I think.”
“Daniels, you want to tell us what’s on these papers?” asked Henson turning to look at the man.
Daniels shook his head and put his hands up, “I’ve never seen those before!”
“Let me see them,” said James striding over to Megan.
Megan held them up and James looked at the paper for a moment frowning, “Its instructions, for what I assume is the virus. Something about the controlling node, and responses?”
Megan nodded, “sounds about right.”
James glanced up at the Counselor’s, “How many of you speak Russian?”
“I am the only one who cannot,” said Cantor after a moment.
James nodded and looked at the other men.
“Anyone else want to claim these?” he asked holding the papers up.
“I. Did. Not. Do. This.”
General Yan looked at Daniels for another moment and nodded, “Alright. We’ll perform an investigation.”
Henson held up a hand, “General, I’m afraid I must disagree.”
“Oh?”
“All of this is circumstantial, nothing here could not have been faked or otherwise modified. We have only the words of engineers and paper documents. None of which is conclusive in any way.”
The younger man who had walked into the Council chamber with Ben and James stepped forwards, “Councilors, one of my friends is dead, and another might have been blinded for life. If you are simply going to sweep this under the rug and not investigate this, if you are simply going to blame the ones who brought it to your attention,” Tom pointed at Ben and Megan, “Then they died for nothing.”
General Yan looked at Tom for a moment, “They died to prevent what would have been perhaps the most devastating attack since the aliens decimated Earth, you can be proud of that. Their deaths do not mean we are going to just accuse a sitting councilor of the crime based on shaky evidence.”
Tom shook his head, “No!”
Stalking forwards Tom looked at each councilor in turn.
“One of you is responsible for their death,” Tom let his glare settle on Daniels.
“I want to know who it is.”
The Councilors remained still, no one moving.
“Ben, Megan?” asked Yern, breaking the tension in the room.
“Yes?” said Megan turning to look at him.
“The virus trace, I have identified the root node. Not simply where it was controlled from. It is on a computer system that is not registered to any building in the Colony or Fort, based on its ping and the systems it sends information through it is somewhere within or underneath this building. It will be drawing a significant amount of power.”
Megan’s eyes widened slightly and she turned to the Councilors, “Well, I know I didn’t build a large computer cluster here. Someone did though.”
“Do you think you can trace the physical wires? Through the conduits? Find where it is?” asked Ben.
“The wires Humanity uses for power are loud enough to follow, we will look,” said Yern.
Night and Yern let out a low warble and nothing else.
“Councilors!” A panicked cry came over the Links.
“Yes?” asked Daniels.
“The Tanuin, their dispersing in every direction! Half just scattered and the rest are crawling up into the ducts again!”
“When you said we? You meant everyone didn’t you?” asked Ben, before he once again coughed and put a hand up to his head swaying slightly.
“It will take us moments to find it.”
“Wait!” said Henson.
Everyone turned to him.
“Councilor?” asked Megan.
“There is a small research facility on the lower levels of this building, in the basement.”
“Do tell us what’s inside.”
Henson looked around at the room, “We have important things in the lab, items which should not be common knowledge.”
“Councilor, now is not the time,” growled Tom.
The man nodded, “I agree, only one of us had access to the lab however.”
General Yan glaring at the other man raised his gun slightly, “Henson.”
The Councilor turned to look at the General.
“You were the one who wanted a black lab, care to tell us what’s inside of it?”
Ben groaned and leaned down against Megan’s chair.
Night let out a small shriek, “They have Alpha’s missing body inside of it!”
The Tanuin quickly turned and stalked towards general Yan, who quickly raised his gun pointing it at one of his bodies.
“You found it?” asked Megan.
“We did, the power lines could not be hidden, although the rest of it is cleverly concealed behind several sound proof walls and isolation doors. It took us several moments to navigate the security that was in the air and wiring ducts as well.”
General Yan grimaced, “Alpha was found inside this building, a spy. We warned you that you could not trespass here and any infractions would be dealt with harshly.”
Night let out a low hiss, “You have not harmed only my race, but your own as well!”
Tom strode around the display towards the General, who quickly raised his gun at him.
Night leapt from the table, latching onto his hand and clamping down with several jaws.
“Motherf-,!” growled Yan as he tried to pry at the alien, Tom leapt forwards, matching Daniels and Henson who similarly moved to subdue the man.
A single shot rang out and Ben winced, after a moment the gun went clattering to the floor with a dull echo and Tom, along with the other councilors dragged the man up to his feet and slammed him into the display.
“Want to explain?” asked Daniels breathing hard, not used to the physical exertion.
The General glared at him and then at Night who had moved back up onto the display, where he spat depositing a chunk of flesh on it.
“No,”
Slowly rolling Megan forwards his own body shaking and relying on Megan’s chair to hold him up Ben moved towards him.
“Explain it anyway.”
General Yan glanced up at him and sniffed, “I’m planning to win the war against the aliens. All the actions I have taken are to further that goal.”
“The nuke, the fort? Our shuttle?” asked Ben leaning forwards his voice hoarse and blood running form his lips.
“I wasn’t actually planning to set that nuke off, you forced my hand on that commandeering the thing.”
The General shifted his gaze to look at Night, “And these aliens, they’re an element we cannot afford to bet on. You seem to think they’re fucking cute, squeaks? They’re fucking aliens, we can’t predict what might set them off, what might make them turn on us! For all we know they’re simply waiting for the right opportunity to betray us!”
His gaze shifted back to Ben and Megan, “You two are a wild element, your engineering crews run around ignoring half of the military regulations. You were useful, figuring out the alien tech and for your improvements to our ship design. Still you disobeyed both governments building the Ark, and don’t get me started on the Yamato, why the hell the Terran’s never split that crew up I have no idea the lot of you should have been court marshaled a dozen times over. I was right too, you broke every regulation and the chain of command tonight,” the General turned to glare at Ben, “Look what it got you, a dead kid and a lethal dose of radiation. Next time it might be all of Humanity!”
The General paused, “Well not for you Captain, I don’t think you can do anything so drastic in the few hours you have left.”
Ben narrowed his eyes at the man and taking a shaky step forwards grabbed the back of the General’s head and slammed it into the table.
The man endured the hit and looked up at him, “That all you got left?”
Tom reached over and violently slammed the General’s head into the table, fracturing the surface and presumably breaking the man’s nose as blood spurted across the surface.
Daniels looked at Tom for a moment and then down at the unconscious General.
“Technically not supposed to do that. Considering he tried to frame me though…”
Tom looked at the Councilor and shook his head, “anyone got handcuffs?”
Ben stumbled backwards, and Megan quickly rolled forwards, catching him and wincing as he fell on top of her.
Ben groaned and closed his eyes for a moment.
“How much pain are you in?” asked Megan.
“Enough that I want the syringe in my pocket.”
Reaching round Megan quickly extracted the thing, grimacing she popped the top off and moving it to his neck, the only place she would be able to inject it while he was in his suit, pressed it into his skin.
Ben groaned and relaxed slightly.
Megan looked up at the Councilors.
“We’re going back to our apartment,”
“We’re staying here.” Muttered Ben.
Megan looked at him and nodded, “Aright.”