Roslyn grimaced. Despite Daalman’s assurances, she couldn’t shake the feeling this was her fault.
“Let’s hope the autopsies show something we can use to protect people,” she told him. “Anything. This is a nightmare.”
“I wish it was a nightmare,” Killough said. “I’m a lucid dreamer, Commander. I can fight my fucking nightmares. I can’t fight this, and I won’t wake up from this.”
The room was silent, and Roslyn glanced back at her data search.
“It’s going to be an hour or so before we even have our first-wave search results,” she told Killough. “I suggest you try that sleep business. See if you do wake up.”
He snorted.
“Fair. What about you, Lieutenant Commander?”
“I need to keep going,” she told him. “My nightmares are bad enough most days. I’m not looking forward to these additions.”
“A word of advice?” Killough offered. “Go rest yourself. Taking a few more hours to look at the data isn’t going to change anything, and even nightmare-ridden sleep is better than working yourself to death.
“And once you’ve done that, talk to the damn ship’s doctor. I’m assuming she knows how to handle trauma.”
Roslyn already had regular sessions with Dr. Breda. The RMN was very specific in their doctors’ training.
“She does.” Roslyn sighed. “You’re probably right. I just want my damn answers.”
“Even this data search just kicks off a wave of analysis which just tells us where to point Huntress’s sensors,” Killough pointed out reasonably. “None of this is going to be fast, Chambers.
“We’ll be better at the analysis if we’re both fresh. Go rest.”
21
Roslyn’s sleep was as bad as she’d feared, but she did sleep. New nightmares of Guardia officers full of bullet holes trying to tear her apart joined her old nightmares of cells aboard Republic warships and space stations.
When she woke from a dream where a bullet-filled Guardia officer tried to sexually assault her in one of her old cells, she decided enough was enough. She’d never actually been sexually assaulted while a Republic prisoner—it was a low bar to clear but one the Republic covert-ops team that had captured her had managed.
Checking her wrist-comp, she saw that she had managed to sleep for five hours. Her data search had finished three and a half hours earlier—and she had a video message waiting for her from Dr. Breda.
She hit Play on the message as she donned a fresh uniform. She’d presumably be back in her own quarters that night, which would help with some of the stress level.
“Lieutenant Commander Chambers, I figured you’d want to see the summaries of the autopsies the locals have been carrying out,” Dr. Breda told her. “As I’m recording this, they’ve completed just over two hundred and seventy individual autopsies of affected individuals, and there are definitely some visible signs of what happened.
“The reports they sent up are attached, but I wanted to give you my own take on it all as well,” she concluded. “The major thing to realize is that we are looking at something with a clear and significant effect on the brain stem and nervous system.
“As with the bioscans, there is limited sign of any cause of the damage by the time of the autopsy,” Breda warned. “But the dead don’t heal. We can see patterns of damage and…integration, for lack of a better term.
“Whatever affected these people was directly linking into their nervous system in a way that’s rarely seen with viruses or bacteria. That kind of intrusion is more usually linked to a larger-scale parasite—but it has been incorporated in artificial viruses.”
Breda’s face was perfectly professional, but something in her voice and eyes told Roslyn she was worried by what she was seeing.
“We are continuing to see the presence of silver carbonate as you flagged in the bloodwork of our own patient,” she told Roslyn. “Both in the dead and the living prisoners.
“Most disturbing of all, though, is that several autopsies show clear signs of postmortem damage,” Breda said quietly. “I do not believe that either the locals or our Marines were intentionally shooting corpses, which means in some cases it at least appeared that an affected individual was still threatening the containment teams while already dead.
“Given the pattern I’m seeing, it is possible that the nervous-system integration allowed an affected individual’s body to continue moving after blood flow and brain function had ceased,” she concluded. “I do not believe, given the degree to which even blood samples are clear of the infection, that situation would last very long…but it is a possibility in the short term.
“That could be why Nix and SmartDarts have no effect,” Breda concluded. “Potentially, the brain is being disabled…and the virus is puppeting the victim.”
The doctor paused.
“Unfortunately, our own prisoner will not be able to answer questions,” she said quietly. “Despite our best efforts, her body is shutting down. We are doing everything we can, but keeping her unconscious and in a state of partial hibernation is the only thing buying her time.
“If she can be saved, Commander, we will save her. But this kind of coma is hard to predict or counteract. If I had an intact sample of the damn virus, I would be able to identify just what it did to her body and be certain I could save her—and, in saving her, save the hundreds the locals have in the same state.
“As it is…” Breda shook her head. “I know you’re doing something classified that I suspect is related to this mess. I hope it’s finding the bastards who did it. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.
“There’s a comatose sixteen-year-old girl dying in quarantine in my medbay, and she’s just one example of this mess. Someone has to pay.”
Roslyn grimaced as the recording stopped. There wasn’t much she could say to that—and she agreed completely with the doctor’s sentiment.
22
Ulla Lafrenz’s fingers had woven through every corner of Nueva Portugal.
The data analysis that Roslyn had left
