Just to be contrary I am going to literally knock myself down board to comment on this. Like the story thus far Dubble_g very creative and evocative can't wait to see how it develops
In case there's any doubt, my comment was meant in the spirit of gentle joshing. Actually, I try to be sensitive to this kind of thing: I usually post once a day, at around the same time, so there's no appearance of trying to knock anybody down the board.
I do appreciate a kind comment from another writer here, though. Thanks very much!
I tend to avoid reading other people's stories, to be honest, as I don't want to end up copying others even subconsciously. Plus, although word of encouragement is probably welcome, I know, I'm always convinced I'll come across as terrible insincere. I've nothing in the pipeline at the moment though, so may change that policy...
***
“You did weaponize it.”
They were back in the cafeteria, Lukas and Athena. Same table. Same everything, except for the brown stain on the floor. It was a quiet, peaceful scene. A man and a woman, sitting by the window. Pristine, glittering snow and majestic mountains outside.
There was nothing quiet or peaceful about it.
“Against the Clans, Lukas.”
There had been another earthquake while they sat, a little one, an aftershock of the one that had send Cadmus and his
Locust tumbling down the mountain. Lukas had barely registered it.
“That’s why they need Spheroids to help run the facility, because we’re immune to the virus they’ve created.” Lukas stared dully out the window for a time. How long he’d been staring, he didn’t know. Not seeing his reflection or the snow outside, but the pathetic, curled-up ball that had once been his enemy. “You did weaponize it.”
“Don’t be petulant. You should be overjoyed. We have developed an airborne, invisible, 100% lethal weapon against your enemies.”
“Against their own people. Unity. Their own people. Why?”
“The usual. Power. Politics. Some things do not change, even after a thousand years, even among aliens.” Athena picked up her tea, blew on it and took a drink. It amazed him that you could be so detached, walk away from a man whose insides were tearing themselves apart, and then go have a nice, hot cup of tea. “Look, both the Clans and Inner Sphere have tried handing control of government to our respective warrior classes, either genetic or the militarized aristocracy, and look what it has gotten us. Centuries of bloodshed, with no end in sight. Putting warriors in control of your government ensures your first, last and only recourse to any and every disagreement is war. Perhaps, it is time for someone else to try.”
“A coup, against the warrior caste.” The transports had finished burning outside, leaving just charcoal lumps of steel and melted rubber. Cadmus’s
Locust still stood there, battered and forlorn. “What happens now?”
“We have stabilized him, made it look like a local fever. I have contacted the garrison, and they are on their way to collect him. The viral suppressant will wear off in a day or so, and he will become contagious again.”
“And then what?”
“And then they die, of course. Every warrior on the planet. We will watch the spread carefully. A lot of valuable data to be gained, at least until the planet is quarantined. Our first large-scale test! Oh, do not look at me like that. What did you expect? Lukas, these are your enemies. You would have shot them dead if you met them on the battlefield.”
“But this…”
“Ah, the ancient prejudices. Not ‘honorable’, is that it? Pistols at dawn,
mano a mano, is that what you want? Even when that would hand your enemy every advantage. Do you think it matters to the dead how they died? I have never heard a body ask how it got so cold.” She set down her tea. “Self-serving rules: No nuclear weapons, they kill people too quickly. No chemical or biological weapons, they kill them too slow. Oh, but it just so happens the weapons which the warrior class controls and has a monopoly on happen to kill people in just the right number at just the right speed. How lucky that worked out so perfectly. All entirely humanitarian, of course, and banning other weapons is surely not based on trying to stop anybody else for acquiring weapons that would make MechWarriors obsolete. Unity. You are like medieval knights, trying to ban the longbow.”
“I thought it was more about the potential of these weapons to escape anyone’s control and murder millions of innocents, rather than those who’d signed up to fight, knowing the risks.”
“You are tired,” Athena smiled sympathetically. “It has been a trying day. You need to take a rest and recover your strength.” A chime rang through the building, a digitized reproduction of an ancient bing-bong bell tune, from pre-exodus Terra. “End of shift. Come on, I will show you to your quarters.”
She stood, and extended her hand to Lukas. He looked at it for a moment, took a deep breath, and took it. Let her pull him to his feet. And suddenly became aware of how close he was standing to her. “Athena, I.” He placed his hands on her hips. “I, well. You remember the time I hit you with that ice ball? I—” He leaned closer his eyes on hers.
“Yes, Lucky?”
“I just wanted to say—” One hand traveled around to the small of Athena’s back.
A faint smile twitched across her face. “Go on.”
“—I’m not sorry.” His hand found the stunner in the back of her waistband. Tore it free while the other hand on her hip pushed her back a staggering step. Her mouth was still a rounded O of shock when he brought the stunner up and pressed the firing stud.
It was like watching a boxer get hit with a knockout punch. Athena’s face when animal-slack, eyes tracking aimlessly, sightlessly, then her body let go and she dropped straight for the floor, her forehead catching the edge of the table with a crack and bouncing away, leaving a faint smear of blood.
Lukas knelt, felt her pulse, turned her on her side so she wouldn’t choke. Stuffed the stunner into a coat pocket and strode quickly from the room.
The Clans were coming to recover their ‘sick’ MechWarrior. Who would expose them all to the virus. Maybe it would end there, maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe the virus wouldn't spread, maybe it would be less effective than they thought. Maybe the Hindenburg was as safe as houses, maybe the Titanic was unsinkable, maybe people were never as smart as they liked to think. He wouldn’t take the risk. The Clans had to be warned, made to stay away. And he had an idea how.
He walked briskly down the corridors, doing his best to look like he knew where he was going. The other staff ignored him, just as they’d ignored him before. An advantage to Clan snobbishness—it was beneath them to notice you. He just needed to find an exit. Down a flight of stairs. Exit must be somewhere to the left. Turn, turn. Brush past another Spheroid, pushing a trolley laden with blasted bits of transport.
Lukas was almost past when a hand grabbed his elbow.
“Hey, aren’t you the guy—” the Spheroid asked, “Who errrr---gh…”
Lukas whirled, fired the stunner at point blank range. The Spheroid jerked his head back instinctively, smacking the back of his skull into the wall, rebounding forward so the muzzle of the stunner was almost touching his forehead when it fired. The man’s muscles spasmed and twitched, and he slumped against the wall before falling over sideways.
Just as two more people came around the far corner. “Hey!” One of them shouted.
Lukas fired, but the stunner was a close-range weapon, and a focused cone of sound didn’t do much more than give you a headache beyond knife-fighting range. The two figures scrambled back around the corner.
“Lucky, always so lucky,” Lukas swore at himself. Ripped off the lab coat, and started to run. Left. Dead end. Back, go straight. Left, down a corridor. An alarm sounded, high and shrill. A puzzled face appeared in a doorway as Lukas pounded past.
“Hey, what’s the—hey!”
Lukas slammed the door shut with one hand, and kept running.
There, the exit. Double doors, opening outwards. Lukas set his shoulder, and plowed straight through them, flinging them open, bursting out into the frigid air outside. A blast of icy wind caught him almost immediately, sent him staggering two steps sideways.
Half a dozen winter-bundled figures were just outside the doorway. Most with goggles and scarves, but the closest one’s face was clearly visible: Director Brandt. The man turned as Lukas burst through the doors frowned, then anger replaced confusion. “Stop him!” he shouted to the others. “STOP HIM!”
Hands reached out for Lukas. He ducked under one pair, swept the legs out from another man. Awkward and weighed down by their winter gear, the scientists couldn’t stop Lukas from slipping past, as he bolted across the asphalt. Towards the waiting specter of the
Locust.
He’d make it, Lukas thought. The ladder up to the BattleMech’s cockpit still dangled free, twisting and turning in the mountain wind. He’d make it.
A spray of laser beams zipped by him, scorching the ground and sending up bursts of vaporized snow like exclamation marks. He looked back. Brandt had Cadmus’s laser pistol, and was down on one knee, pistol braced in both hands. Brandt fired again, too high this time, and Lukas felt the heat across his scalp as the beams missed by millimeters.
He might not make it.
Lukas leaped, grabbed for the wildly swinging ladder, got one hand on it, then the other. Metal brutally cold beneath his skin, the numbness shooting up his arm to his elbow. He clenched his teeth, hauled himself upwards. The wind working in his favor now, pushing and pulling him almost at random, the ladder arcing like a pendulum and throwing off Brandt’s aim. Laser beams sparked off the nearest leg of the
Locust. Lukas kept climbing. Faster, had to climb faster.
Looked down. Brandt was running forward now, closing the range. Once he was directly under the ladder, it would be child’s play to shoot him down, Lukas realized. Had to climb faster. Fingers and hands gone totally numb now, could barely feel the slap of the metal with each rung. His left foot slipped, and he dangled for a precious second, before he hooked it and hauled himself up, up and up.
The heat in his leg was almost welcome, before the blaze of pain followed. Lukas looked down, and saw his pant leg smoking, and a bloody hole burned through the left calf. Brandt almost directly beneath him now, pistol braced in two hands. Lukas looked up. He was almost there. Almost. Haul, haul, left leg dragging behind him like a dead weight. Almost there, the top of the BattleMech almost in reach. Got one arm over the top of the torso. More sparks as beams deflected off the BattleMech’s armor. Haul.
And he was on top of the ’Mech, shielded from Brandt’s laser fire.