St. Louis
The Red Rust was ferocious. It spread silently at first, and then, just like the Red Flu, it got louder and more dangerous everyday. Rachel looked up from her research and wished she could have gone to try and find the seeds, but the President insisted that she be insulated from the fighting. If she went for the seeds, that would only bring more attention to them. She was the foremost expert on what this disease was in every sense of the word.
They didn't need to be starting international incidents. They could, and would, denounce the crew of the Nathan James for going rogue if such an incident were to occur and become a problem back home. They knew the risk they took.
It wasn't just that the crew was her family. After all, she was an only child with a dead mother and now, an even deader father. Her father had insulated them from any family ties as he was a missionary and didn't need any grief over that fact. She had long resented him for that. But Tex was there too. He was off playing cowboy again, which she loved, but she wished she could be there with him.
"They haven't even gotten the seeds yet," He told her.
She rolled her eyes, "As good as Fletcher and Sasha are at this, my data is pointing to that seed," Rachel stopped in front of him. "Besides, I can start my work immediately if I'm on the Nathan James when they get the seeds in their hands." She told him.
The president stopped for a minute to think. It seemed like he might actually be swayed but then he shook his head. "No. Once we know we have the seeds, then you can go be cavalier with your husband in the middle of the ocean, but for now, I need you working on ways to save our people from the Red Rust in the moment. I can't have you gallivanting off for something that's not a sure thing. We've talked about that Rachel," He scolded her.
She groaned and stepped out of his way, so he could go into his office and talk to generals and such. She would go back to the lab to see if there was anything else they could drum up on the drawing board. It hadn't looked entirely optimistic when she had left, but maybe some of the students came up with something in the DNA of the rust that would give her a better chance. They were parsing it all the time. Something had to turn up that wasn't a seed that had been stolen from the world seed bank. It had been the only thing that seemed to neutralize the rust's effects, but they had to have some luck. Anything would be better than waiting around for the seeds to appear.
Well, technically they had. Tex had told her that they might find something worthy of her, talking in codes and riddles so that they wouldn't get in trouble. Who knew who was listening in on either side of the conversation. He would talk to her more if they took possession of it. But so far no more talking.
She looked at her watch and trodded off to the lab, where several students looked up and nodded briefly before getting back to their work. It was a good lab. She should be happy with being here. But over the last few years, the urge to be back in the field was an itch that hadn't stopped. And here was the perfect time. And she wasn't allowed in. She felt a hollowness in her heart. But there were reasons. There were always reasons.
The Nathan James
"It's beautiful, yes?" The man across the table said. The table was far enough away so as not to arouse any suspicion, but Tex had a front row seat to the deal about to go down. "Just like I promised. Go ahead. Test it."
Sasha seemed happy with the man, but he wasn't so sure. There was something about the way he said everything that came with a bit of overconfidence that Tex was sure was hiding something. But he was the best lead they had. And well, there wasn't a lot of time to waste on these things.
"There are 499 others like it, ready for delivery," The man said. He waxed on. "All over the planet, crops are sick. No one can grow food. The people starve to death." While he said this, Sasha's companion looked up as his machine beeped. That seemed to be a good sign. "And the one ancient african palm seed has the secret to feed the whole world locked inside its DNA," He kept going, laughing, "it's funny no?"
"I didn't know you were such a scientist Mahmoud," Sasha said.
Mahmoud, the man across the table, shrugged it off. "I am a thief. But I know business." He said with a confident streak that again, Tex gristled at. "And I know the seed's value. Everyone wants what Omar stole from the seed bank"
"And you work for Omar," Sasha countered.
Tex had to admit seeing her work, it was pro shit. She didn't let one thing slide. He could see how she had gotten along so well in parts of the planet that weren't so easy to figure out. She made sure she saw all the angles.
"Why'd you steal from him?" Sasha asked him.
Mahmoud simply shrugged it off. "I don't trust Omar. It's a tribal thing," He said casually. Then he looked at Fletcher, Sasha's companion, and smiled. "Besides, Mr. Fletcher here, has made me a better offer,"
Fletcher showed Sasha the data his instrument presented to him and Sasha smiled. It was the real deal. They could start feeding the world with these seeds. There wouldn't have to be a mass starvation event for hundreds of millions of people. They could feed people. The world would not be sick anymore.
"Okay, Mahmoud," Fletcher said, "We have a deal,"
Sasha pulled on her scarf as the words were said. It was go time. As soon as things were done here they could pull out back to the Nathan James and start the long awaited research to help the growing of food everywhere.
Everyone who could sound off without breaking cover did so, and those who didn't found ways to do so without their voices. That was him and Azima, a new crew member from the Naval operations of Kenya.
"Where are the rest of the seeds?" Fletcher asked.
Mahmoud smiled a smile that was misleading, "Somewhere dear to my heart," He said. "But first we negotiate,"
Sasha tutted Nos at Mahmoud, "We already negotiated."
"Omar's buyer is ready to grow food today,"
That gave her pause, "Who is Omar's buyer?" She asked. He begged off the question. But she wasn't giving up that easily.
Tex hid a smile. He was supposed to be waiting for Azima to come over, but she was in deep conversation about crops that hadn't been infected in this region yet. She was gathering intel and still had an ear to the conversation too.
"Mahmoud,"
"To hell with Omar," was Mahmoud's response to the whole thing. For someone who said that, he was awfully obsessed with the man too. "I'm thinking about Mahmoud. They will do what they did with the blue cure, yeah? Feed your own people first. America, UK?"
"What do you want, Mahmoud?" Sasha asked firmly.
Mahmoud was about to answer, when a gunshot rang out and hit Mahmoud square in the neck. He climbed out of his seat and went over to Sasha and Fletcher, securing Mahmoud in cover while the battle raged on in front of them.
They fired shots, some successful and some not, while Sasha used her scarf to try and staunch the bleeding coming from Mahmoud's neck wound. If they didn't get him out of here, everything would have been for nothing.
"...Commencing Emergency Exfil,"
They all knew what that meant. And it meant out, which he was all for. He and Sasha attended to Mahmoud, getting him upright, so they could carry him out of there, while the others cleared a path of combatants out of their way. As soon as the path was clear they started out.
"Vulture team, this is sunshine. I'm at your Exfil. On the ground in 30 seconds, let's go,"
They all moved quickly and without remorse through the field of bodies that was left behind in their wake and got onto the helicopter. He got out of the way, because Fletcher was trying to talk to Mahmoud, while he still had some consciousness left in him. He sat by his daughter and thought, it was something else.
They were trying to get as much from Mahmoud, because the prognosis on Mahmoud wasn't great. He could see that and he was shit at trauma care.
St Louis
No one had heard from Captain Chandler after the attack. He left, really without so much as a goodbye. Everyone had heard what had happened on the plane. That he and Tex were forced to figure out whether or not to let her live. But he couldn't do it. She had robbed him of so much. When his children were at risk, it turned out, nothing was easier for him than to make the same mistake she did.
And he had the luxury of running away from that problem since they weren't trying to save the world.
She groaned. She wished so badly that she could be on the ship, looking for the seeds. Not thinking about Captain Chandler. He had been a good friend. And when the world was going to shit, she wanted nothing more than his help trying to fix it. He would have been great at fixing it. But no sense in worrying about that now.
One of the many students in her lab, plopped some paperwork beside her. She tried to smile, but she thought it came out as more of a grimace, the way the student gave her a pity smile in return. She could feel the pity. There truly was nothing quite like this. Like trying to figure out the world's biggest problem while they had nothing to throw at it.
Other labs were solving the problems of what might come next. And there were other people, people that she knew about but didn't know, who were trying to find the best way to ration the resources they currently had. At least those teams were doing something.
She slid the paperwork in front of her, before putting her glasses on and skimming through it. It was a bunch of dud DNA. These were negative results. They were practically having to sequence the entire genome to try and find out exactly what was so harmful about it and why they couldn't formulate something from the cure, but this was no luck. Even notes on the cure hadn't been terribly helpful. Even the ones from China.
She looked away from the results and to a picture of Tex and Kathleen, and smiled. "I hope you're having better luck," She whispered.
"Dr. Scott?" Someone asked.
She looked up. "Mhm?"
"Your next meeting with the advisory team. They have the latest images and data," He told her.
"Right," She said, "The advisory team. Where we all get up to date on how fucked the world is, because I can't figure out this disease. Eluding me yet again," She grumbled under her breath. The kid didn't have anything to do with her frustration and she wasn't about to take it out on him. She looked up, "I'm coming." She said, before moving her seat back and leaving her lab. At least this was something to do.
And this would be the exact same data that the Nathan James was getting. She could feel like part of the mission.
The Nathan James
"Latest images from the states," Master Chief said as he pulled up a sorry looking picture of a corn field. It was dire. Red Rust on most of it, shown clearly. The other portion of corn probably had it too. And he cycled through several other pictures. It wasn't pretty. Everything covered in red. "Report says the red rust now covers 90 percent of the corn population. Rice and Wheat are almost at a hundred percent."
"I remember seeing people with the virus, blood coming out of their eyes and nose" Mike said as he looked at the pictures.
Tex nodded. "This looks damn similar to it,"
"I experienced that myself if you remember,"
"The Red Flu was originally a plant virus, Master Chief," Fletcher told the room. "She only jumped back to plants when humans developed immunity,"
Tex nodded. "Sounds about right. Rachel says there's a little more to it, but she also uses big words when she's talking about that stuff, and as much as I love it, I don't understand it," He blushed a little. Talking about Rachel, being open about her involvement, especially after the last incident the country had had, it was nice.
"The virus is moving faster than our models predicted," Sasha said, looking at the map that was rapidly turning red in front of them.
"Rachel says she's trying to find something in the Rust's genome, but so far, she's had no luck. Unfortunately, it's a complicated virus. Like always,"
Fletcher nodded. "Yes, and it turns out, that plant eating insects have proven to be a hyper-efficient for the red rust. Now it's affecting sugar cane and a majority of the earth's grasslands,"
"At this rate, we're looking at a complete breakdown of the earth's biosphere. Within a year there could be no way to sustain human life." Sasha told them.
It was one thing to know it. It was another thing to hear it. And he knew that somewhere in St. Louis, Rachel was receiving the same information with someone who would say the same or similar things as they had all just said, and it would kill her. Not literally. He wouldn't be on the damn boat if he thought something would literally kill her, but he knew she wouldn't take the news well. She had been working so hard. She was the one who found that the African Palm Seed might save them. And now she was doing anything to replicate nature out of thin air if they couldn't get it.
Master chief was there to deliver more bad news. "We don't have to wait a year. In the states, we're already at 200,000 dead. In South America, it's in the millions,"
"Why isn't this strain close to the primordial?" Tex asked.
Everyone looked at him, like they were impressed by his question, when they shouldn't have been. He spent a lot of time with a very pretty lady who was very smart in all the right ways. And the wrong ways.
Fletcher spoke up, "We're not sure, it still could be, but just like the Red Flu as it jumped from Egypt, to the Italian Cruise Ship strains, and then to Neils' strain, it seems to replicating so rapidly, and mutating so rapidly, and there wasn't a Neils to stop the innovation of the virus so to speak, so it's trickier than the human virus,"
"Mr. Fletcher, you tested this dinosaur palm seed, is it the real deal?"
"Elaeis Virilis" Mr. Fletcher said proudly, "That ancient African Palm Seed is the only plant alive today with proven immunity to the Rust. A fact that the innumerable Dr. Scott spent plenty of field research making sure of,"
He said, gesturing to Tex with a bit of a smile, who spoke up gladly, "But it doesn't germinate very easily, which is why the hunt for the Red October as it were," Tex was glad to be a part of the conversation, but he was only here because he was an inside source to Rachel. Fletcher being here and being so knowledgeable could have meant he was out of these meetings, but he was glad he wasn't.
"And Mahmoud's people have stolen all the living samples," Fletcher told the whole room. He spoken the unspoken. They had failed at getting the seeds. Something Sasha took personally and said so.
"And we still have the mystery of the buyer," Tex chimed in.
Slattery nodded. "We do. And this mystery buyer, the who hired Mahmoud's people to rip off the seed bank, he knows how to engineer the seed's immunity into our current crop?"
Fletcher made a face, "That's what Mahmoud claims but I highly doubt it. I mean that would mean that he had unfathomable resources. Dr. Scott could probably do it pretty fast, but then again, not immediately,"
Slattery wasn't having a great day. The mission had failed and the one person that could help the mission succeed was in a coma. And he was the only one with the answers. Ultimately, Slattery decided that they should stop in Rota, Spain and refuel and then they would head off again, hopefully with some more hope.
St. Louis
"I'm a doctor. I should be there," She said as she put some clothes in a bag and looked over. She softened when she saw Ravit sitting there in her chair, looking at her with a smirk.
"I agree," Ravit said in her scratchy voice. Ever since the oil rig explosion, her hearing went in and out and it was hard for Ravit to use her voice in a way that made sense. They usually communicated through sign, but sometimes Ravit would use her voice. It was usually to make a point, and this time the point seemed to be pure comfort.
Rachel stopped throwing her clothes and notes in her bag and looked behind Ravit, there was a soldier standing. Ravit pushed for him to move out of her way, so he could go in. Rachel stood up and looked at him. "Yes?" She asked.
"The president would like to see you ma'am." He said. "He understands that you have some concerns,"
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Some concerns," She said under her breath. "Man has an awful habit of downplaying things,"
She left the bag where it was, and went with the soldier and Ravit out of her room, and over to the White House, the famed Courthouse. The fact had been that this came after all of this information had been screened. She had to go to a shitty meeting to hear shitty things about how the world was going to shit. And now the president decided he would like to see her? She was going to give him a piece of her mind.
Rachel looked to Ravit and smiled, "Well, let's go over there and see what this meeting could possibly be about," She told her. Ravit was the only person that Rachel trusted implicitly, with the exception of Tex and Kathleen.
Being in St. Louis after so long in Texarkana, it was hard to really trust that things would go right again. They had gone right in one area, but then went to a whole hell hole the next. She just wished that Tex was here with them. Hell, Kathleen was flying and shooting a big gun, why the hell did she do that? Why the hell did they both think it was a good idea to take off like that?
"I'm sure the President has an explanation," Ravit whispered, hoarsely, as she took Rachel away from the bags, and out of the room where they followed the Soldier over to the courthouse and Rachel went in to meet the president.
Ravit, with her ever present gun, stood on the outside of the door, making sure that nothing bad happened within. She was one of the only people who wasn't security in the white house, who had never given such a thing up and lived to stand outside the president's door about it. As far as they were concerned, in all practicality, Ravit was Rachel's protection. Rachel had refused other security services, much to the chagrin of just about everybody.
"We have some news,"
"The Nathan James or Commander Chandler?" She asked.
The Nathan James
"More and more countries want those seeds," Tex said, "Rachel is positively worried that they'll end up in the wrong hands."
"Yeah, everyone is," Slattery told him, "But we have to carry on, like there's nothing we can't do. Sasha and Fletcher are trying to figure out who the buyer is," He said in a low whisper making sure to look around and see who was among them. There was no one.
It wasn't but thirty minutes later, that alarms started blaring and everyone started pouring out of doorways and into the hallway, "What's going on?" Tex shouted as he looked around. He saw Fletcher, Sasha, and Alisha in the hallway.
"There's been an attack on the base," Alisha told them.
Sasha and Fletcher looked at each other, and by the looks on their faces, they were thinking the same thing. It only took him a second longer. "Aw, fuck," He said, running after them, through the ship, out onto the gangway and to the hospital as fast as they could.
Mahmoud had been seen with them. Omar had come after him at the market. It wouldn't have been a great inconvenience for Omar to come looking for them too.
"...Seal all entries. Lockdown the medical wing,"
"We gotta go," He said to Sasha and Fletcher, who were being stealthy so as to avoid being shot at. Which had been good. But it wouldn't last forever. And they lost critical time that they could be getting to Mahmoud. Who knew if the guy would even wake up long enough to tell them anything? But they had to try.
They found the path with the least resistance and shot their way through. They were going to make it to the medical wing. He was sure of it. It wouldn't have been too hard. He saw all of his friends fighting these people and he thought, it was just like the virus. It wasn't just the virus that was killing, but they were in it too. It was unfortunate, but it was the reality of living in this new world. He hated it.
When they got in the door, they heard bullets flying already. That was not a good sign. They slowed back down to stealth mode and went as fast as they could like that. There was no use getting killed just for the hell of it too.
But by the time they got there, it was too late. Mahmoud was already dead. And Omar, he had fled the place, with whatever he needed. The doctor was dead. There were so many dead. Just for one person. He thought about how other people said the same thing about Rachel, that she carried so many dead people in her wake. Mahmoud was different because he was a thief and not a scientist. He was trying. In the end, none of that actually mattered.
He kicked the bed nearest Mahmoud's dead body and grunted. How could they go through all of this and it still be this god damn hard?
He left. He saw Kathleen and gave her a big hug. He looked around, "You did your best, kid," He said with a proud smile.
She shrugged. "We all did,"
He hooked up with Danny and smiled weakly, "At least we're still here?" He asked.
Danny chuckled. "We're still here." He said. "I thought you'd be with the investigation crew. Looking at Mahmoud?" He asked.
Tex frowned and looked at the ground. "Nah, I can't be in there. We got there too late. He was dead when we got there. And I just…failure in this job feels inevitable at this point," He told hisd friend.
"We just have to keep trying," Danny said as he patted his friend on the back. Tex knew he was right, but it wasn't the fun answer that it could have been if they weren't in such a tight spot. Trying was for when things weren't so dire.
He supposed they might never not be dire again though. "Lucky we got you with us," He told Danny.
"We're lucky to have you too."
Sasha came up behind them and smiled, "Looks like you two just shared a nice moment," She said to both of them.
Danny cleared his throat, "I'm just going to go now," And he did. Going to find other people, Tex wasn't quite sure who, to make sure that they were alright also.
"Do you have something you want to share?" Tex asked. "Because you just freaked Danny out, which is impressive, I gotta say, but not exactly the thing that I wanted right now," He told her with frankness.
She nodded. "We have a destination in mind," She said. They stood in silence looking over the horizon for a few minutes without any more information. Then she suddenly and quite abruptly walked away. And Tex walked after her. They walked in companionable silence before getting to the bridge where The Master Chief, Gator, and Slattery were all making plans on how to get there. Sasha simply smiled as they heard it.
Danny and Kara were also on the bridge, looking at Slattery. He looked to Danny who shook his head back. He was going to let his wife convince everyone. He had nothing to do with this plan.
Kara started. "Sir, you've lost your Cheng and we're down a TAO. No one knows the combat systems like I do. Our family is joining the remaining base personnel on the last plane to Norfolk," She laid out the facts. They were simple facts. And then she did something quite surprising, "Respectfully, request to join ship's company,"
Which is when Dany came in, "We understand the risks, sir, and the rules," He looked at his wife like she was the literal sun, in awe of her beauty and her strength.
"Please sir," Kara stated, "Let me serve,"
Slattery looked like he couldn't have been more proud. "Very Well," He said in his most professional voice, "Get to your post." And then he became more relaxed and knew what to do. "I want a report on all weapons and guidance systems by ten hundred,"
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," Kara said as she took a step back.
Tex couldn't hold it in any longer, "Well, looks like the band is starting to get back together," He said as he put an arm on both Kara and Danny's shoulders respectively. Slattery grinned a little, but he tried to hide it. They weren't technically colleagues of the same rank. They pulled him out of the bridge and walked him down to the officer's quarters before they both went off to do other things.