Chapter 436

Vuxten had been having a good dream about having a breakfast with his wife, his broodcarriers, his podlings, when everything suddenly jerked. Before he was aware of much more than alarms going off he felt himself physically slammed into his bunk, pressed down with a nearly intolerable weight. At the same time he felt like he was being stretched, pulled, and pushed in all directions.

There was a feeling of a sudden impact after a long drop and the suggestion of a loud thud. He managed to roll over, fell from his bunk, and landed on the floor.

The first thing he was solidly aware of was the datalink channel was full of confusion, Telkans wondering what was happening.

And that there were screams over the open channel.

Vuxten rolled over on his back, staring the ceiling. His bed had automatically folded up when he'd landed on the floor, his small private room barely enough to move around in. He quickly went through the common channel, using his authorization as an officer to tag the ones screaming and cut them out of the channel. Then he switched to the command channel.

"All squad leaders, get count and status of squads," he snapped. "Everyone, clear the channels except for official usage."

He switched over to the command channel. It was babbling voices, along with screaming. He tried for several minutes to get someone to answer, but the channel was too confused.

The command channel and the standard channels on the datalinks all clinked.

"Channel Restricted" appeared in his vision, listing all the command channels, all the discussion channels, and the open channels. "Hold position" and "Wait for Orders" floated up.

Vuxten got up, pulling on his adaptive camouflage uniform, then his boots.

--status-- 471 sent.

"I'm all right. What's going on?" Vuxten asked, sealing his boots and standing up.

--bad things-- 471 answered. --can see three dead humans maybe more four are fighting--

"Are you safe?" Vuxten asked.

--roger roger hiding-- 471 said.

Before Vuxten could answer, he heard his datalink click.

"Lieutenant Vuxten, this is Commodore Gangwarak, do you read?" an authoritative voice asked.

"I'm here, ma'am," Vuxten answered.

"Get accountability of your division. Telkan only via datalink. Do a physical check on all Terran Descent Humanity officers and NCO's," the commodore said. "Take Telkan with first aid training with you."

"What's going on?" Vuxten asked.

"We're not sure. We did an emergency drop from hyperspace. Most of the Terran crew members are down," she said. "We're having the fleet deploy a hypercom relay."

"All right, on my way," Vuxten said.

The Commodore didn't bother with any pleasantries, just left the channel.

Vuxten started going through the lists. Four thousand Telkan were a lot, but he delegated out authority, breaking it up into ten to report to him once ten had reported to them on the status of ten others, quickly moving through the ranks.

Vuxten went to the Terran section, which had higher gravity and a slightly thinner atmosphere. When he opened the door he stared for a long moment.

He could see a half dozen humans down on the corridor floor, unmoving, with blood around their heads. Two were against the wall, having obviously attacked one another.

Vuxten moved over to Sergeant Addox's door and opened it.

Addox was laying on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. The Terran had bled from the eyes and ears and nose. His face was a brownish gray.

Vuxten tabbed the NCO as a casualty and moved on.

As each Telkan squad reported in, he ordered the highest ranking to check on their squad leaders and officers for their platoon and company. The whole time he moved from room to room.

Most of the humans had barely had time to get out of bed. A few had attacked one another, but none of them were moving.

The Telkan of First Telkan Marine Division kept reporting the same thing.

Those humans who weren't dead were comatose.

Vuxten accessed his datalink, getting where are a particular Terran was, and hurried to that section of the ship. It was out of the way, down by the cargo bays, and took him a little bit to reach.

It was easy to forget how massive Terran troop ships actually were.

When he reached the berth he reached out and touched the door, using his officer ID to override the door lock.

The door opened up and Vuxten stood in the doorway, staring.

Casey was sitting on his bunk, dressed in his adaptive camouflage pants, and boots, an eye patch on. He was staring at the floor.

A Terran was on the floor, covered with a blanket.

Casey looked up at Vuxten. "The medical channels are jammed."

Vuxten nodded. "It's all over the ship. All over the fleet."

"Just Terrans?" Casey asked. He looked down at his hands where he was holding a small bottle of pink nail enamel.

"Just Terrans," Vuxten said.

"She had a seizure. Before I could do anything, get through the chaos on the medical emergency channel, she was gone," Casey said. He looked up at Vuxten. "I've known her over a hundred years."

Vuxten just nodded, moving over and sitting in the chair. The room was a little bigger, mostly because it was down by the cargo areas.

"At least it was quick. I've seen a lot of people die and I don't think she suffered," Casey said. He shook his head. "Dammit, Peel."

Vuxten had spent time with the small Terran female. She had been funny, quick witted, and laughed a lot. Vuxten had gone to dinner with Casey and Peel and had liked her.

"The whole fleet is in an uproar," Vuxten said gently. "If you can function, they probably need your help."

Casey straightened up, staring at Vuxten. Vuxten's eyes were caught by the glittering decoration on a thin chain around Casey's neck. Vuxten looked into Casey's single eye.

"You're right," he said. He looked back down at her. "It looked like a massive cerebral hemorrhage," he stood up and moved to his locker, opening it up. "If it's affected the majority of the Fleet, but didn't affect me, that needs to be looked at. I'm not that special."

Vuxten watched as Casey put on his undershirt then his top, buttoning it up and then pulling at the bottom in what looked to Vuxten some kind of habit. Casey grabbed his hat and turned to Vuxten. He looked down at the blanket covered body and then Vuxten again.

"Part of me doesn't want to leave her alone, you know?" he said. "We're not engaged in combat, I'm just an Ordnance tech, they don't need me."

"It's all hands on deck, Sergeant," Vuxten said.

Casey nodded slowly then crouched down. He made an odd gesture over the body, kissed his fingers, and touched roughly where Vuxten figured where her head would be.

"Requiem æternam dona eis. Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescatant in pace. Amen. " Casey said, then stood up. Vuxten's implant either could not or would not translate it for him. He looked down at Vuxten. "Lead the way, sir."

Vuxten just nodded, heading back for the Terran berths.

The next few hours passed in a rushing blur. Covering the dead with a blanket or sheet, Casey making the motions and repeating the same phrase each time. Any breathing Terran was made comfortable and the medical alert keyed by Vuxten or Casey or one of the Telkan that would help for a period of time before moving to another group or leaving another group to help Vuxten.

Vuxten noticed that some of his men were glancing at Casey as if they expected him to suddenly go crazy.

Vuxten understood. Several times they'd opened a berth to find someone who screamed and launched themselves at the group in the hallway. He had to admit, if it wasn't for Casey, more than likely a few of his men would have been wounded by the frenzied humans.

As it was, they all slightly drew back when Casey would engage the enraged human.

At one point Vuxten had gone to the shipboard security armory, requesting the bridge to unlock it, and gotten stunners.

All that had done was seemed to anger the Terrans further.

The search was done methodically. Within twenty minutes DCC was organizing and coordinating SAR teams.

Vuxten saw Leebawian commandos, Treana'ad troops, Rigellian females, Saurian Compact troops, and Mantid troops moving around.

Casey was the only human that seemed unaffected, and after a while he was getting odd looks from everyone else.

Vuxten watched him bend down and check for vitals even after the unmoving Terran had been scanned.

I don't have cybernetics, Vuxten heard the big Terran's voice in his head. Just what the Army requires. No cloned tissue either.

"Sergeant Casey," Vuxten said as the Terran stood up.

"Sir?" Casey asked, turning and grabbing a blanket off the bunk.

Vuxten waited until Casey had covered the dead Terran up before speaking.

"We need to go down the medical. See why you aren't affected if you have been but aren't showing effects," Vuxten said.

Casey just nodded. "If you say so, sir. I'm not that special."

Vuxten just shrugged. "Operator."

"Yes, Lieutenant Vuxten?" the ship's eVI answered.

"Sergeant Casey appears unaffected by the event. Which medical bay should he report to?" Vuxten asked.

"One moment, Lieutenant," the eVI said.

"Do you think it's related to my lack of 'ware?" Casey asked.

Vuxten looked over and saw that the big man was staring at the bottle of pink nail enamel again. "What do you think?"

"I can't, sir," Casey said. He rolled the bottle in his fingers. "I did her toenails last night, Vux. She was drinking wine and eating chocolates and laughing while I gave her a pedicure."

Vuxten nodded slowly. He could feel the tension rolling off the big Terran. Feel the anger, the deep grief. Almost taste what the Terran was feeling.

"I need you to think, Sergeant. Get it together," Vuxten said.

Casey sighed and put the enamel back in his pocket. "You know, there's power armor on this ship. There's a Class-XII Nanoforge on this ship."

"All right. How is that relevant?" Vuxten asked.

Casey shrugged. "A Class-XII, I can fab up one of Jemila's sisters. Wrap myself in a Novastar," Casey said. He sighed. "Then maybe it won't hurt so bad."

"You might provide a key to what's happening, how we can stop it," Vuxten said. "I know it hurts, Case, I do. I get it."

Casey laughed, a bitter, self-mocking thing. "Throwing myself a pity party with Telkan in attendance is pretty silly, isn't it?" he shook his head. "You guys took it on the chin, twice in two years, and didn't whine about it."

"Lieutenant Vuxten?" the eVI said.

"Go ahead, Operator," Vuxten said, keeping one eye on Casey.

"Medical Bay Nineteen. I will provide directions," the eVI said.

"Thank you," Vuxten said. A blue line appeared in his vision. He looked at Casey. "Follow me."

Vuxten led Casey to the medical bay, which took them down two levels and halfway 'up' the ship. Twice they had to stand to the side as parties carrying grav-stretchers rushed by.

When they entered Vuxten saw that there were dozens of russet and gold mantids hard at work. A russet mantid that Vuxten's implant tagged as Patience in Treatment moved forward.

"How are you feeling?" she asked Casey.

Vuxten moved over to the side.

"I feel fine. In control," Casey said.

"We're going to want to do some scans of you, Sergeant. We'd like to figure out why you aren't being affected when everyone else is," Patience said.

"If it'll help," Casey said. Vuxten noticed he had the small bottle in his hand again.

"If you'll follow me, we'll start doing diagnostic scans right away," the doctor said.

"I'll wait right here, Casey," Vuxten said.

"Thank you, sir," Casey said. He sighed and put the bottle back in his pocket. "Let's get it done."

Vuxten watched as Casey was led over to a medical table and laid down. He watched as they strapped the human down, put up a steri-field and a psychic inhibitor field, and started doing scans.

After almost a half hour a large Treana'ad moved up next to him. Vuxten's implant tagged him as Commodor K'Nat.

"No effects. Not even cyberware rejection on his armor control plug," Commodore K'Nat rasped out.

"How is he otherwise?" Vuxten asked.

"Diagnostic neural imaging shows he's suffering a depressive episode. It's probably from his Long Term Complex Operator Identification Disorder," K'Nat said.

"His lover died in his arms," Vuxten said. "They'd been together about a century."

K'Nat made an annotation on the dataslate he was holding. "That might have something to do with the depressive episode. COID makes him more prone to it."

"How bad is it across the fleet?" Vuxten asked.

"Bad. It looks like the majority of 7th Army is down," K'Nat said. "There's less than twenty Terrans still in good enough shape to be labeled as ambulatory."

"Did the crash translation out of hyperspace do it?" Vuxten asked.

K'Nat shook his head. "No. We did an emergency drop to realspace because we didn't know if we were getting some kind of weird hyperspace resonance. The shock probably didn't help those that were dying, but we had to drop."

"None of my Telkan troops are suffering from it," Vuxten offered.

"Just the Terrans," K'Nat said. He looked down at Vuxten. "Get something to eat. You're highest ranking of the Telkan, the Admiral is going to want you present at a meeting in about an hour."

Vuxten just watched Casey. "I'll stay here, sir. I told him I would, and I think we're friends."

"Good man," K'Nat said. He turned around and headed toward the door. "One hour."

-----------------

Vuxten sat in back as all of the high ranking officers showed up. Finding out he was now the highest ranking officer of First Telkan Marine Division had been sobering. He'd set the 2nd Lieutenants to putting everyone through unarmored close quarters combat drills and non-combat equipment inspections to keep them busy.

When he had left the operating room, Casey was still undergoing scans. Something about his genetics had attracted a lot of the doctors, including some russet and green mantid specialists.

The ready room slowly filled up.

It looked weird to Vuxten without any Terrans.

Finally the Rigellian Saurian Compact reptillian, a male Delvsta, tapped the table with his knuckles.

"All right," he said, his voice coarse and atonal. "We just got a check-in from Space Force Command," he leaned back slightly in his chair. "This is happening all over human space. It looks like had it happen worse and faster due to the fact we were in hyperspace. It wasn't the crash translation, but the fact we were actively engaged in hyperspace travel."

That got nods.

"Right now it looks like virtually 99% of the Terran troops are down. The majority of them are dead. It looks like cerebral hemorrhages across the board," he said. He glanced at the table, where Vuxten could see the glimmer of data. "Before you ask, something went sideways on the clone banks."

"How so, Admiral?" a Treana'ad asked, puffing smoke out around his feet.

"Something triggered security charges. At first we thought it was some kind of sabotage, but we've confirmed it with Space Force Command, the signal to blow the clone banks is across Terran Space and came directly from ConfedMilInt," Admiral Shtuklar said. "To top it off, the SUDS is under some kind of lockout."

"So, not only are the Terrans all dead, but we can't bring them back," a Leebaw said. He tapped his fingers on the table, the webbing between them gleaming in the light. "Any idea for how long?"

Admiral Shtuklar shook his head. "No. Worse, we've got an immediate request for reinforcements," he sighed. "Space Force Command has ordered us in. We go in with full Temporal Warfare Interdiction Systems online and at max-power. The enemy has no space assets, instead they are appearing on the ground somehow and Terran Confederate Army forces have already sustained heavy casualties."

"I have an odd question," a black mantid that Vuxten's implant identified as Colonel Mixx said.

"Go ahead," Admiral Shtuklar waved.

"Do we have contact with any of the Idiot fleets?" he asked. "I know the Sisters of Wrath were with us. Did they drop when we dropped?"

Admiral Shtuklar nodded. "They came out a Hellspace portal right after we dropped. So far they've just sat out there silently."

"See if you can raise them. See if they are suffering the same issues," Colonel Mixx suggested.

Admiral Shtuklar nodded. "Good point. Those old Imperium relics are tough as nails," he looked around. "Anything else?"

Everyone shook their head.

"Anything from our esteemed Telkan allies?" he asked.

Everyone turned and looked at Vuxten.

"No, sir," Vuxten said. "We're unaffected."

"I heard you got your men into search parties looking for survivors and anyone who could still benefit from medical assistance," the Admiral said.

Vuxten nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Good initiative. You undoubtedly saved lives, Marine," the Admiral said. He glanced down, gave his species equivalent of a frown, then looked back up. "Anyone here familiar with a Sergeant Casey, V Corps?"

A couple hands went up, including Vuxten.

"I am. Guy's a psychopath," a Rigellian said. "I served under him as a private. Man's a complete lunatic."

"How so?" the Admiral asked.

"He's SUDSless. No cyberware. Some kind of religious exception," the Rigellian said.

"Hmm," the Admiral tapped the table in front of him a few times. "Well, psychopath or not, he's completely unaffected. Not even microstrokes," he ran his finger down the table, which Vuxten knew was a way to scroll data. "Fifth Reformation?"

"Religious group. Old, xenophobic, hard core religious extremist fundamentalists," a gold mantid said. "They founded a colony during the Terran/Mantid War. Slowship."

The Admiral made a non-committal noise. "Be that as it may, he's got no problems," the Admiral pointed at the gold mantid. "I want you to look into any reason that he might not be affected."

The gold mantid nodded.

"Barring anything else catastrophic, we'll be reentering hyperspace in three hours," the Admiral said. "When we arrive, we'll interlock with the remainder of our forces. It will likely be drop-pod in, so prepare your people. Dismissed."

Everyone got up, but Vuxten waited a few minutes till it was largely cleared out. He moved over to the Admiral and gently cleared his throat.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" the Admiral asked without looking up from the data he was looking over.

"Sir, I know Casey. He's not a psychopath. At least, not a dangerous one," Vuxten said.

"You fought next to the Imperium of Rage, did you not?" the Admiral said. "Fought next to Daxin the Liberator, correct?"

"Yes, sir," Vuxten said.

"Your tolerance for psychopathy might be a bit higher than everyone elses," the Admiral said without looking up. "Do you trust him?"

"Yes, sir," Vuxten said.

"Fine. You'll need a senior NCO you can trust when you pod dirtside. I'll attach him to First Telkan," the Admiral said.

"Sir, we're Marines, he's Ordnance," Vuxten said.

The Admiral tilted the view of the data he was looking at.

"Not any more," the Admiral said.

As Vuxten watched the Admiral shifted two icons.

Casey's Primary Military Occupational Specialty shifted to "Combat Power Armor Operator".

Vuxten looked at the Admiral for a long moment, carefully keeping his emotions back.

"Yes, sir," he said.

"You're dismissed, Lieutenant. I'm having Sergeant Casey released from medical hold. You might want to let your new Divisional Senior NCO know his new status," the Admiral said. "We'll be making orbit in eighteen hours."

"Yes, sir," Vuxten said.

As he headed down the hallway, back toward Medical Bay Nineteen, Vuxten had that feeling again.

The same one he'd gotten on Telkan.

I hope I'm wrong.