“So everything is on the up and up?”

  I was having my usual evening graptak with Jophixa, though she’d recently informed me that it wasn’t an obligation any more, it had been enjoyable as an end to my duty shift. It was a way to go over any ideas I had, as well as just maintain the friendship we’d developed. And seriously, who would pass up having good graptak and conversation? I might have lived like a hermit for most of the ten years before Barstol turned up again, but I was very much enjoying not being so isolated.

  We were going over the details of the Sagittarius missiles.

  “Seems that way,” I told her after nibbling at a shortbread cookie I’d brought along to share. “I could find no trace of the usual fissionable materials, nor what they would need to shield such a thing from our scanners. There’s just the sensor trace of these exotic matter they’ve labelled Blumintum in the documentation.

  “I was concerned at first that the weapon could be scaled up into a full blown weapon of mass destruction, but it seems there are two factors preventing it, at least for right now.“

  “What are those?” Jo asked, sampling her own cookie, her sharp, shark-like teeth making it look like she was nibbling on bone.

  “First is that the element gets drastically more unstable the more of it you have together. And the more unstable, the harder it is, or course, to package up into some sort of weapon you can actually move. The amount that is in one of those missiles on the Cutlass is, according to the documentation, only about 100mol worth of the damned stuff!”

  She scowled, “You’re telling me that the damage that weapon caused to the ktonshi, did so with that tiny amount of material?”

  “Startling to think about right?” I shook my head, “Imagine if they could get a kilogram of the stuff to be stable enough? Screw nukes, the damage from that would likely do damage on a system wide scale, maybe more, since detonation causes microscopic black holes.”

  “Okay, so it’s not stable in anything approaching concerning amounts, at least for now? That’s reassuring for the time being.” She was still scowling deeply, “What was the second thing?”

  “This Blumintum is a natural, and so far unable to be synthesized material. Also quite, excuse my french, fucking rare. I’m an engineer, not an atomic physicist, but I could see the complexity of the element just by looking at it. I had Stacy parse it through that enormous brain of hers.”

  Awww, you say the sweetest things.

  “And?”

  “She reported that as far as she can figure out the conditions needed for this stuff to form and not immediately go unstable and blow itself into more mundane material would mean that the approximately four hundred moles of material the Cutlass was carrying when it first rendezvoused with us was likely seventy percent of all of the Blumintum in this quadrant of the galaxy. I’m literally surprised they even spent the money to develop a weapons platform for this stuff, let alone let Major Kintzel fly off into the void with their entire supply of it.”

  “And the likely celestial events that create this stuff aren’t all that common either,” Stacy put in, breaking the standing rule that she wasn’t supposed to involve herself in these conversations unless called on. I didn’t think Jophixa was going to be upset about it this time, however. “So getting more is not going to be easy for them. Next to impossible really.”

  “So, if all these data are accurate,” I said in summary, “We really don’t have anything to worry about with this stuff. Unless someone finds a way to synthesize the stuff, which Stacy says would not only be expensive, but horribly unlikely, these missiles seem like a ‘last resort’ type thing.”

  Her shoulders relaxed a bit, and she finished off the last of her shortbread in one bite. “Well that’s a bit of a relief,” she said after swallowing, “though having something with that amount of effectiveness, I have to admit, would be handy. We fought them for decades, and our best weapons sometimes took concentrated fire to take one of their ships down. Once those things’ carapace harden, they take one hell of a beating. That’s why we’re sitting here watching the colony.”

  “I’d wondered about that. Hoping if one of those ships emerge, we can take it out before it has a chance to harden off?”

  She nodded. “I hate the fact we’re abandoning Miles’ friends, but you know from our history records that if they’ve been exposed…”

  I simply nodded. I’m glad I wasn’t going to have to be the one to inform the kid. The chances that I’d muck it up and make matters worse were high, and he didn’t need that. “The report to Admiral LeBeau is likely going to be a while getting to her, I’m sure.” I said, changing the subject. “Even relaying it through our ansible relays to get the signal further into Commonwealth space, HyperComm delays will take at least a couple days before we get a response. We might want to consider supplying her with an ansible unit.”

  I’d been hesitant to bring up the idea of giving Fleet Command access to the technology, simply because of the giobhioni’s precarious situation. Earth’s military history was no stranger to double crosses, and I didn’t want to see my new friends on the receiving end of one. But with this latest evidence of the ktonshi within Commonwealth space, rapid communication was, I thought, going to become more and more important.

  It turned out Jo agreed with me.

  “You aren’t wrong there,” she said with a sigh, “the issue is going to be getting one to her in a decent amount of time. We don’t even know where she is, by the Void!”

  “Sounds like something to get Stacy working on.” I smiled, “And I’m delving into that database the keeper gave me. Maybe there will be something in there that’ll help in some way.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Pardon my interruption again, but I’ll get right on top of locating the admiral for you Commander!” Stacy put in cheerfully, “And make sure to get another ansible pair set up. We may need to start keeping watch for some materials for the minifac if we’re going to make too many of these though! We have enough for a few more, but there’s a reason I got the station sending out hyperspace relays for us.”

  “Make sure to put that on our scan flags then.” Jophixa told her, “And while you’re at it, make sure to-”

  An urgent sounding series of beeps came from the surface of Jo’s desk, followed by Tratsa’s voice, interrupting whatever she’d been about to say. “Commander, please report to medbay. I have completed my examination of our guest, and you are going to want this information.”

  “On my way.”

  Tratsa was scowling at her holoterminal, numbers scrolling across it as she irritably flicked her finger at it. In all the time I’d known her, I didn’t think I’d ever seen her that tense and annoyed looking. Oh, she could have the same acerbic attitude that many military doctors did when it came down to it, but it was always a bit of a facade. A sort of professional shielding they put up in order to deal with the fact they were treating people whose job was to go out and face death regularly. I knew for a fact she was a soft and caring person underneath.

  But she looked about ready to chew through the hull.

  “From the way you look ready to tear the throat out of a hacksnat with only your own teeth,” Jophixa commented, “I take it there is some very not good news coming our way.”

  The giobhioni doctor took a long deep breath before she answered. “I ran all the tests four times to be sure.” she said finally, “and then I ran diagnostics on all the equipment and ran the tests again, just to be sure. But they all came back the same; Young Miles has been exposed to the contagion. He did not escape them.”

  The curses that came out of Jophixa’s mouth were the worst I’d ever heard, so bad that my knowledge of their language didn’t even cover them, and Stacy flat out refused to translate when I asked her later. Right at that moment, however, I’d collapsed into a nearby chair, thankfully a human sized one, and hung my head.

  “And the twins?”

  With another flick of her wrist, the holoterminal shifted displaying two different charts side by side. “I ran theirs twice just to be sure. They’re blessedly clean. I’m going to keep an eye on them for a few days, however, just in case.” She took a double handful of her silvery-white hair, and set her elbows on the desk. “I was so sure he must have avoided exposure somehow! From the way he described the others down there, and the timeline of when communications went dark, he should be showing visible signs of infection. Filament excretions, fever, at the very least. Every species we know of that’s been exposed developed those symptoms by now.”

  “Could it be some weird quirk of our genetics?” I asked quietly, “We’ve had several species tell us there are parts of our physiology that are just confusing as fuck…”

  She shook her head, “I’ve analysed samples from both you and Jesse quite thoroughly, and thanks to Stacy getting us patched into the StellarNet, I’ve been going over all the Terran medical texts. There is nothing I can see in the human genome that should explain this. Virtual models confirm it, that boy down there is simply breaking the established progression rules.”

  I found myself frowning, scratching thoughtfully at my beard, a thought tickling at the edges of my mind. “Tratsa…” I said slowly, trying to figure out a way to ask the question that was forming in my head.

  The two giobhioni women turned a questioning look at me, hearing the hesitation in my voice. “Thomas,” Tratsa said with a curt wave of her hand, “I know that look, don’t beat around the tree, just ask the question.”

  “It’s ‘beat about the bush’ hun,” I said with a small smile, then gave a sigh, “you said you ran virtual models on human exposures to the contagion, right?”

  She nodded, holding back a bit of irritation at the question, “I’m certainly not going to ask for a volunteer to do an infection study.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t” I told her, “I wasn’t trying to imply you should or would. But, did you run a simulation with Miles’ full medical workup? He said he had his medical files on that wrist drive of his.”

  Her large blue eyes did a slow blink before her ears drooped flat against her head. “I can't believe I didn't think to do that during all the…” she spun on her chair and rapidly brought Miles’ medical records up, and fed them into an infection simulator. “It will take a few minutes to run..”

  “Tsaki Tratsa,” Stacy Cut in, “I hope you won't be offended, but I fed the simulation through my mainframe, I thought maybe you'd want the results as quickly as possible.”

  “Offense?” she let out a short laugh, “Stacy dear, I'd kiss you if you had lips! I forgot I could utilize your computing power from here!”

  “Just give that kiss to Mr. Honeylips over there and we will call it even.” Stacy replied with a teasing chuckle, then got serious, “Sorry Commander. I'm feeding the results back to your holoterminal Tratsa. Medical staff on the station are also reviewing it with a fair amount of interest.”

  The holoterminal displayed a three dimensional image of Miles, standing with his arms out to the side as if posing for da Vinci’s Vitruvian man. Text beside the image flashed to alert the simulated introduction of the contagion, and we all sat and watched as an infection began to work its way through the boy’s body. The readouts continued to flash as the infection continued its progress from the lungs and skin into the blood and muscles. I was no doctor, but I could see that the results weren't looking good.

  But then the infection tried to permeate into the kids neurological system.

  At first, things continued to progress, as fine motor control areas began to show they'd been taken over. But then, suddenly, his whole brain lit up like a ship's reactor going critical! Tratsa let out a curse and leaned into watch the display more closely as it threw out more and more vivid bold text. The only words I managed to catch were “subject seizing, severity level 5.”

  After that, the endocrine system went into hyperdrive, and the readouts showed Miles’ pulse, blood pressure and body temperature spiked to damn near fatal levels. Tratsa let out more curses as Jo and I just stood there and watched the simulation run. The good doctor's delicate fingers were flashing over her controls interface, rapidly taking notes as her eyes continued glaring at the hologram in front of her.

  Then, with a sudden flash of angry readouts, the simulation of Miles West in front of us ceased to be in the land of the living. His entire body just shut off like a switch, deader than the worst hunk of scrap I'd ever been sent to haul into port.

  We all just collapsed in shock. Jophixa leaning into me suddenly was the only thing keeping her from hitting the floor.

  Tratsa smashed her fist down on her desk again as the shock gave way to frustrated anger. “what the…”

  “wait! It's not over!” Stacy said urgently, interrupting and calling our eyes back to the hologram-

  Just as once again his brain lit up like a star going nova, and his heart began beating again. Within moments, all his vitals began making their way back into the normal range and holding there. Readings could still pick up signs of the contagion, but they were progressing through the body's natural filtration and disposal systems: kidneys, bowels, bladder, etc.

  The final report from the simulation showed no sign of exposure within a week of infection.

  “So…” Stacy said into the stunned silence, “Anyone want to take a guess at the sheer chaos going on in the medical labs on the station right now?”

  The Salvager’s Plague

  https://ko-fi.com/theacornscribe