Chapter 2: Biological warfare
That brought stunned silence to the table, followed by a considerable babble. The general slammed his hands down.
"Defend your conclusion, Lieutenant," he said.
"The data supports no other conclusion, sir. I ran every test on the image I could, given the type of camera and the quality. The substance vented was small solid particles, I'd guess less than one millimetre in diameter. A powder, sir, not a gas. It was vented out a hatch that is too small for a Kanga, and serves no purpose I can see in terms of ship structure. But the real kicker for me was the infra-red. The venting was colder than the surrounding air - less than ten degrees centigrade. Everything I can think of Kangas might vent would be hotter than that. Besides, if we're storing biological weapons, we usually freeze or refrigerate them so they don't breed until we want them to."
"Holy shit," one of the officers said.
"Exactly how old is this, Leonovna?"
"The information - less than two hours, sir. The film was taken," she glanced at her watch, "Nearly six days ago now, sir."
"So if there is a biological weapon…"
She hit another key. "This is the original dispersion, sir. I did my best to track it using the meteorological records. This is a day later." The red cloud lay over more than half the human settlements. "Two days." Worse. "Three." Worse still. "Four." More than half the planet. Six tiny mining settlements in the southern hemisphere were still untainted. "Five." One settlement left untainted. "And as of about an hour ago." The entire planet, save for a few spots at the polar caps, was red.
"How solid is this projection?" Liu asked quickly.
"It's guess-work, sir. It's an old program, used to track airborne pollution. Stuff produced on the ground. I'm not a meteorologist. But if you give my figures to one, you'll get something you can take to the bank. It won't be certain, because I had to make too many guesses about the variables involved for the powder. Incidentally, sir, that was one of the better scenarios from our point of view. Nearly half of them came out as every human settlement being affected before 0400 yesterday morning."
Looks were swapped. "Lieutenant, in your opinion, is it possible to produce a biological weapon that would wipe out every human being on the planet?"
"Yes, sir, but they wouldn't need to. They'd only need to come up with one that would kill, say, nine in ten and would never die out. We'd have to abandon the planet, and they could use it again. We know they took live prisoners during the First Battle of Midgard; they would have had them to experiment on." A brief expression of distaste, the first flicker of emotion she'd shown, passed across her features and was gone. "Less than two minutes before I came in here I pulled the latest satellite photos from across the cruiser's flight path. I found something very worrying, and I don't think it's coincidence." She flicked a finger again.
"That swathe is almost directly under the path of the dust released from the cruiser, allowing for the wind on that day. That swathe of brown colour is dying plants. Not Midgardian plants, they're fine so far as I can see on brief inspection, but that entire stretch of hills had been seeded with Terran plant life, preparatory to giving veterans land grants to farm the area. Those plants are wilting and dying right now." Now she had everyone's attention. "If they wanted to wipe us all out and leave the planet suitable for them, they only need to create something that attacks DNA. Both the Kangas and the native life forms use different genetic material and amino acids. And this powder is everywhere. Whatever it carried, it's going to hit us in a few days at best."
Appalled looks were exchanged. "And your commander didn't think this was important?" Atarisi said incredulously.
"I hadn't finished correlating the weather reports, I was still analysing the infrared and I hadn't pulled the surveillance photos at the time, sir. Commander Arx is… somewhat conservative in some ways."
"That's a mild term for the man," Captain Santiago growled. General Dafflemeier closed his eyes. "Alright. Santiago, dump the internal stuff on your XO, put together a team, and have her on it. Anything you need, you can have until we confirm or deny this threat."
"Right, sir. I'll put in a top-priority alert to all the medical facilities for starters."
"And crop watchers, farmers, there's hotlines for plant diseases," Leonovna said. "My parents are farmers. I know. And vets. I'll pull a few analysts off ship designs and put them onto surveillance."
"I'll grab a meteorologist with the right clearance," Santiago said. "Sir, if she's right, we'll need to put out a quarantine the instant we've confirmed it if not before."
"Well, no ships in this system are due to leave, but three left yesterday for Earth. Cargo ships and freighters."
"I'll check what contact they had with the surface," Jenobi said. "As of five minutes ago. With your permission, sir?"
"Go," General Dafflemeier said. "All of you. No, Leonovna, stay a moment."
That brought stunned silence to the table, followed by a considerable babble. The general slammed his hands down.
"Defend your conclusion, Lieutenant," he said.
"The data supports no other conclusion, sir. I ran every test on the image I could, given the type of camera and the quality. The substance vented was small solid particles, I'd guess less than one millimetre in diameter. A powder, sir, not a gas. It was vented out a hatch that is too small for a Kanga, and serves no purpose I can see in terms of ship structure. But the real kicker for me was the infra-red. The venting was colder than the surrounding air - less than ten degrees centigrade. Everything I can think of Kangas might vent would be hotter than that. Besides, if we're storing biological weapons, we usually freeze or refrigerate them so they don't breed until we want them to."
"Holy shit," one of the officers said.
"Exactly how old is this, Leonovna?"
"The information - less than two hours, sir. The film was taken," she glanced at her watch, "Nearly six days ago now, sir."
"So if there is a biological weapon…"
She hit another key. "This is the original dispersion, sir. I did my best to track it using the meteorological records. This is a day later." The red cloud lay over more than half the human settlements. "Two days." Worse. "Three." Worse still. "Four." More than half the planet. Six tiny mining settlements in the southern hemisphere were still untainted. "Five." One settlement left untainted. "And as of about an hour ago." The entire planet, save for a few spots at the polar caps, was red.
"How solid is this projection?" Liu asked quickly.
"It's guess-work, sir. It's an old program, used to track airborne pollution. Stuff produced on the ground. I'm not a meteorologist. But if you give my figures to one, you'll get something you can take to the bank. It won't be certain, because I had to make too many guesses about the variables involved for the powder. Incidentally, sir, that was one of the better scenarios from our point of view. Nearly half of them came out as every human settlement being affected before 0400 yesterday morning."
Looks were swapped. "Lieutenant, in your opinion, is it possible to produce a biological weapon that would wipe out every human being on the planet?"
"Yes, sir, but they wouldn't need to. They'd only need to come up with one that would kill, say, nine in ten and would never die out. We'd have to abandon the planet, and they could use it again. We know they took live prisoners during the First Battle of Midgard; they would have had them to experiment on." A brief expression of distaste, the first flicker of emotion she'd shown, passed across her features and was gone. "Less than two minutes before I came in here I pulled the latest satellite photos from across the cruiser's flight path. I found something very worrying, and I don't think it's coincidence." She flicked a finger again.
"That swathe is almost directly under the path of the dust released from the cruiser, allowing for the wind on that day. That swathe of brown colour is dying plants. Not Midgardian plants, they're fine so far as I can see on brief inspection, but that entire stretch of hills had been seeded with Terran plant life, preparatory to giving veterans land grants to farm the area. Those plants are wilting and dying right now." Now she had everyone's attention. "If they wanted to wipe us all out and leave the planet suitable for them, they only need to create something that attacks DNA. Both the Kangas and the native life forms use different genetic material and amino acids. And this powder is everywhere. Whatever it carried, it's going to hit us in a few days at best."
Appalled looks were exchanged. "And your commander didn't think this was important?" Atarisi said incredulously.
"I hadn't finished correlating the weather reports, I was still analysing the infrared and I hadn't pulled the surveillance photos at the time, sir. Commander Arx is… somewhat conservative in some ways."
"That's a mild term for the man," Captain Santiago growled. General Dafflemeier closed his eyes. "Alright. Santiago, dump the internal stuff on your XO, put together a team, and have her on it. Anything you need, you can have until we confirm or deny this threat."
"Right, sir. I'll put in a top-priority alert to all the medical facilities for starters."
"And crop watchers, farmers, there's hotlines for plant diseases," Leonovna said. "My parents are farmers. I know. And vets. I'll pull a few analysts off ship designs and put them onto surveillance."
"I'll grab a meteorologist with the right clearance," Santiago said. "Sir, if she's right, we'll need to put out a quarantine the instant we've confirmed it if not before."
"Well, no ships in this system are due to leave, but three left yesterday for Earth. Cargo ships and freighters."
"I'll check what contact they had with the surface," Jenobi said. "As of five minutes ago. With your permission, sir?"
"Go," General Dafflemeier said. "All of you. No, Leonovna, stay a moment."