The Black Garden: Chapter 26

We're back! C2E2 and Kansas City Comicon wiped me out. But now we're on the home stretch for this novel as I write Archemi 7. Hope you enjoy the chapter: it's a long one.

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"We have a lot to cover in this brief, so dial in and listen closely." Lilia looked over our combined ranks, tired but alert. "You are all about to receive your organizationally-mandated info-dump from SEER. We have to move locations, then we’ll get twelve hours for tactical modelling, VR practice, and rest. No, it's not optimal, but it's what we have."

Most of us were seated. Blackie leaned against the edge of the wooden breakfast counter that divided the cooking and living areas. Ratty squatted on her heels at the front of the rank. I was perched on Gaius’s knee, taking quiet comfort in the heavy arm looped around my waist. The Axuma mostly sat on the floor or rested within the cradling mass of their Khem symbiotes, while Hura stood apart at the back of the room.

"The big picture view is as follows: The Fleet took rapid action off-world and seized two Nu-suht ships claiming to be Free Trader Alliance craft," Lilia said. "The Alliance is a real organization: a small, but established independent Nu-suht faction opposed to the Directorate. The Directorate consider them to be terrorists.”

“We contacted leaders of Alliance cells affiliated with the Confluence to see if we could identify any known actors here on Ideni. Their opinion is that the 'cell' that has been dealing with New Warder is a Directorate creation. This fake cell has been spying on both us and the real Alliance, while also slowly and patiently installing Directorate ordnance, weapons, and personnel in and around New Warder. They have almost certainly done this with the consent and collaboration of Rion Vornn and the New Warder government.”

“Now, while all this has been going on, Fleet intelligence also concludes that the Directorate, for as-yet unknown reasons, is targeting humans within the Confluence. There have now been three attempts to entrap human angelhosts on Earth instances. Zealot-" Lilia nodded to me "-was lucky number one. DWO-2 and DWO-3 also encountered common Avon-class demons deploying unusual tactics. On both occasions, attempts were made to infect them with our little friends, which we are now calling 'Khab Worms'. Because of our experience and information, the other angelhost strikers were able to avoid infestation and DWO-3's striker was able to capture an intact parasite. His worm was a match to yours, Zealot. So while unpleasant, the strategy is a net-failure for the Abyssal vectors who appear to be operating within the Directorate. We gained valuable intelligence for the Fleet as a result."

Me and the other Roaches let out a small cheer.

"SEER estimates an almost complete genetic and functional match between the Khab Worms found here and those previously encountered on Earth,” she continued. “These parasites serve three primary functions. First, they act as surveillance and influence tools—embedding themselves in hosts to monitor thoughts and implant subtle suggestions. Second, they act as delivery systems for a highly virulent strain of the Rage, one of the most catastrophic extinction-level agents seen on Earth-type worlds. Third, they are mutagenic: under remote command, they can open a micro-breach inside the host, triggering a transformation into a new kind of Abyssal entity.”

Lilia paused, calling up a holographic model of one of the six-limbed horrors from the outpost. It rotated, then split apart into labeled components: internal organs, parasitic structures, and a pulsing core.

“We will classify these transformed beings as Avon-class Ravagers,' Lilia said. "You will get a download with a full list of known facts, but a couple of notables. Firstly, they are the first demonic soldier-type to exclusively spawn from human corpses. We believe that the Khab Worms are intended to give a living human a dose of the Rage, and once the disease has run its course, the remains are repurposed to create Ravagers. Secondly, Ravagers are 'grey goo' entities: they are comprised mostly of Abyssalized nanites. They can quickly regenerate, reattach limbs, and their decentralized anatomy means they can also engage Khememmu and other 'sin-eaters' or Abyssal super-predators in combat at the cellular level, which massively slows down the rate at which they can be neutralized."

“We must account for this in future combat scenarios." Pred-5 Actual chimed in at that point, her inner eyelids flicking rapidly across the milky surface of her eyes. "Our Nexus has ordered Khemmemu agents to consume any being infected with the Rage, as well as all corpses suspected of infection. The optics of this may be problematic. However, Ravagers are at their weakest when still in worm form. The alternative is much worse."

Ratty visibly grimaced at the Matriarch’s order, glancing down at the floor. The trio of Khem rumbled in agreement. They weren't fazed by the order. They were immune to the Rage, and to a Khem, biomass was biomass.

Lilia gave a nod to the Matriarch, then looked back to us. "The Fleet is currently landing people and bussing in specialized personnel in via branchship. We are immediately going on the offensive. Our specialists will be hunting the source of the Khab Worms: suppliers, manufacturers, and potential black-market routes. The genuine Free Trader Alliance has pledged to assist. R&D is working on reverse-engineering the worms. Our corps and Fleet Special Projects have formed an operational Nexus to command the mission. They've determined several key strategic considerations. Zealot also reported that Vornn's company is pushing free genomic enhancements and vaccine initiatives in New Warder. The Nexus is concerned that this is actually mass vectorization program which is infecting citizens of New Warder with Khab Worms."

A ripple of discontent passed through the group. One of the Axuma hissed, rattling her dorsal spines. The two large Khem slithered restlessly, though Hura remained as inscrutable as ever.

Lilia gave a grim little nod of agreement. "We are working on the assumption that Vornn is sourcing these 'genomic medicines' from the Directorate, and the Directorate is planning to use them to unleash these Rage-spreading Ravagers on New Warder and by extension the rest of Ideni. What we don't know is if Vornn and his governors are complicit. We know they are complicit in the establishment of operational centers, but it is entirely possible Vornn doesn't know about this aspect of the Directorate's strategy. He or other New Warderen leaders may be infected, and could be responding to remote suggestions implanted by the worm's controllers."

Blackie made a face. He knew what Lilia was about to say as well as the rest of us did.

"This means that part of OUR mission will be to assess the extent of that complicity, and rule accordingly." Lilia gave Blackie a pointed glance. "That may or may not involve summary execution, Thomas."

“Lay off, will you?” He rolled his eyes.

She clicked her tongue and looked at me. "Zealot: do you think that scenario is feasible?"

"Absolutely," I replied. "The actual worms are big, but the eggs are the size of large cells. Easy enough to slip those into some bacteriostatic water and put one into a vein. They can pass through blood vessels and adhere anywhere in the body. Mine were in my gut, but from what I saw, they're pretty robust."

"What can be done for those people?"

I grimaced. "Not a whole lot, unless we can somehow take over control of the worms. If the current Rage vaccine works on the variant the worms are carrying, we could mass-vaccinate everyone against one threat. But if the worms are externally activated, then the operators of that activation process have every infected person by the balls. They could kill ‘em and turn them into Ravagers. Surgical removal is the only surefire option. I had to dig around in my own gut to extract mine, and for someone who's not immune to the Rage, that's really risky."

"What makes a human immune?" The male Axuma asked.

"Being a cancer survivor or an astronaut," I said with a sigh. "Specifically, you need to have received extensive radiation therapy for cancer and survived. People like me who survived bone cancers were consistently the most resistant. We don't know why. It seems to be partially metaphysical. In my Earth, we noticed that other people who spent a lot of time around radiation also had partial immunity. Radiologists, airline pilots, uranium miners, astronauts, nuclear submarine crews. But only people who'd received direct radiation therapy for serious cancers or direct exposure to lots of radiation had total resistance."

"How curious," the Axuma replied.

Just thinking about it made the phantom nerves in my lower legs twinge. I shrugged.

“Right. To pivot back to the current situation, and our role in it. We are abandoning all pretense of covert infiltration of New Warder," Lilia continued. "As of this morning, New Wardern authorities declared a lockdown on the city and a manhunt for Zealot, now accused of assassinating Mert Wigge, a government official, and kidnapping a police detective. They are also accusing the Confluence of violating their sovereignty and are refusing diplomatic contact from the Fleet. Vornn is telling his citizens that they are at war in various broadcasts, but hasn’t formally declared war on us or any surrounding settlements.”

Across the room, Blackie snorted in open disbelief. “Vornn can suck a fat kiloton of tungsten hitting his headquarters outta the fuckin’ sky, then. Fuckin’ cunt.”

One of the Maidens broke into a peal of hissing laughter, only to fall silent when her Matriarch rattled warningly.

Lilia eyed them both. “Yes, as far as we know, New Warder is completely outclassed. But they have already fielded portable breaches. There could be half a dozen Nu-suht warships concealed around this planet, ready to tear open a new hole into the Abyss, and given that they have been outpacing our ability to collect intelligence since this started, we must assume the Directorate feels capable of backing up their sudden aggression. Any other contributions, Specialist Black?”

Blackie knew he was in trouble now. He crossed his arms and cleared his throat. “Negative.”

Lilia stared him down in stony silence until he was suitably cowed. “COMMs reports that all flights in and out of the city have been canceled, and the city militia has mobilized to shut down all roads in and out of the peninsula. We now have enough information to go on the offensive.”

She called up an image of Kudonia, with all the nearest free settlements marked. “New Halifax, Novatek Collective, Solace, and Vinh Lac have already been informed, and vaccines are being synthesized in all major settlements as a priority. New Horizon and Punawahu are both activating their community defense forces, but Punawahu has negotiated to send a charter with a conflict resolution team to New Warder to see if they can find a diplomatic resolution with the local government. So, that is the situation. Now, we move to our mission."

The Matriarch waved her hand, and the screen changed to a map of New Warder and the surrounding rainforest and mountains. The terrain around the city state was, in a word, ‘forbidding’. The mountain ranges were tall and sharp, the blue-leafed valleys steep and narrow.

“We now know there is some kind of underground infrastructure being built under and around New Warder. But from orbital, the forest looks normal.” Lilia held up a hand, zooming in on an overhead view of the forest. “These images were taken of Site 21 just before our raid. Here it is in color. As you can see, it appears to be virgin rainforest. Now, here’s the InSAR.”

InSAR stood for ‘Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar’. It could usually pierce foliage and even the ground itself, revealing tunnels or other underground structures. But as the images appeared, they showed... nothing. The open, swept-out clearing with its buildings and small collection of cars and tunnels was still completely absent from the scan.

“And here are the images taken after we raided. Even after we cut power to the holomask generators, concealment of the site persisted. The only form of orbital scan that showed ANYTHING unusual was gravimetry.” Lilia flipped through different kinds of long-distance imaging to show what appeared to be normal rainforest - until the last one. It was black and white, seemingly quite abstract, and marked with dozens of little black crosses that signified anomalies in the local gravity. The rivers of X’s roughly mapped the tunnel system beneath the base.

“As you can see here, whatever kind of mask is being projected to cover this place can’t quite account for gravity. We have reached two conclusions. Firstly, Vornn and-or the Directorate has installed some form of centralized ReMa-based concealment in addition to the local holomask we disabled, and they are using it to deploy active camouflage over multiple locations. Secondly, this combined masking strategy is specifically intended to thwart the visual scans that are standard practice for Ideni’s orbital monitoring programs - SAR, LIDAR, hyperspectral - but doesn’t or cannot account for gravitational, magnetic or seismic methods. Ground-penetrating radar is also effective.”

Other than the gravitational scan, those were all methods that worked a lot better closer to the planet’s surface, rather than from orbit. I frowned as I listened.

“Our task is to begin mapping the remaining enemy sites for the Fleet,” Lilia said crisply. “We’ll use gravitational scan data to identify likely locations of other combatant cells outside New Warder and assemble a broader tactical picture. Since the enemy is now aware of our presence, our immediate priority is to relocate and establish decoy operational sites deeper in the wilderness, along with securing network concealment and support infrastructure.

"You’ve been assigned to teams based on your specialties. Team One—our I.T. unit—will deploy the next real operational site and provide ongoing network and remote support to the other teams. Team Two will create fake forward bases by generating digital signatures and simulating activity across multiple locations. Team Three is tasked with probing the vacuum tube transport network using survey drones.

"The base we just raided triggered a response: a Nu-suht platoon is now actively searching for us. That makes timing critical. Anyone we can’t divert from the site will need to be neutralized.”

My ATLAs HUD chirruped with a priority alert. Unsurprisingly, I was in Team 3. More surprisingly, Team 3 was only me and Hura. We were also being assigned various drones to help round out our numbers.

"All teams will decide their squad lead and CoC, review their objectives, run any simulations, then pack up in preparation to march. Team 1, we start relocation in sixty minutes. Teams 2 and 3, you need to hold the fort for six hours," Lilia said, looking between each of us. "Please review your detailed orders and make sure you understand the mission plan. Any questions can be fielded to me and-or Luna via network. Execute."

We saluted casually from our various positions around the room, then wordlessly began gathering into our teams. Blackie and Ratty stopped by Gaius and I to clap their hands into ours and grip. They were both in Team 2 with the maidens and their Khem. Lilia was in Team 1, of course, with Gaius, the Matriarch, and the Axuma male. Hura stiffly moved toward me.

"We cool?" I asked him, once he closed in.

"We are both reconnaissance specialists. For the sake of the mission, we will function." he rumbled. "However, the leadership is a forgone conclusion. I will lead."

I raised an eyebrow. Fleet leadership wasn’t chosen at random—it was democratic, yes, but partially automated. As our sub-units formed, our ATLAS systems uploaded each team member’s service history directly into our working memory. There was no need to read a dossier. You were just suddenly and profoundly knowledgeable about the other people in your group.

And Hura’s record? It was objectively more impressive than mine. He had taken out thousands of demons. Not hundreds. Thousands. He was close to two thousand confirmed kills. Before Dead World Operations had been conceived, he had been one of the major Taga Avaya recon operators, fighting on worlds so corrupted they barely resembled planets. Much as the overachiever in me wanted to argue, our ConsenSys node agreed with Hura. He was the right choice for team lead.

"Damn. You must be a fucking legend inside the Taga.” I sucked a tooth, digesting the Khem’s mile-long service history. "You were on Tuonela around the same time we were."

"A necessary campaign on a savage world," he replied. "We observe you survived both Tuonela and Karkinos. An accomplishment, for a human. You have earned some fractional esteem."

I sighed. "Look: I’m happy to let you lead, but this attitude of yours? It's pissing me off. Whatever your problem is, get it out of your system now, and let’s sort it out."

Hura regarded me stonily for several long seconds.

"Firstly, we do not like human doctors," he said. "Those who experiment on other species for the sake of sating their curiosity. You were a human xenobiologist with Environmental Services. We also do not respect those without strong ethical character. You were removed from service due to sexual misconduct toward your crewmates. You then avoided your kalimen'ka obligation and used Confluence resources to fund a degenerate existence, which culminated in you requiring rescue by the society you rejected. Your service to CEIDR has redeemed you somewhat. But our experience of humankind is that character, once established in a human, is a permanent trait."

I whistled softly through my teeth. "Wow. Okay. Where do I even start? So first off, I've never 'experimented' on ANYONE, and if you actually knew anything about me and what I've been through as an intersex person, you'd understand exactly how ridiculous you sound. Ridiculous, and hurtful for reasons you can't even fucking imagine. Say what you like about anything else, but don't you ever fucking DARE try and accuse me of unethical medical practice ever again."

There was a tell-tale hum that preceded Hura's voice when he went to speak. I cut him off.

"No, you shut the fuck up and fucking listen to me, you arrogant sack of silly putty," I snapped. "Yes, I deserved to get booted from E.S. for what happened between me and Lieutenant Sterling. We both sucked as people. He was a pushy, manipulative alcoholic philanderer. I was a workaholic codependent with no boundaries because I was traumatized by, you know, the end of my fucking world. And I didn't shirk my kali'menka. I took a cumulative leave of service, because I hadn't taken any of my prior leave periods. Oh, and when you and I first met? I had just saved the lives of ten people aboard that station. The Fleet still considers it part of my merit of service, which you objectively know now given you just had my record uploaded."

"We-"

"Shut it. A human's 'character' is NOT a permanent fixture.” I felt the heat rise to my face, taking a step in toward Hura as he leaned back. “We have some base primate instincts your species don't have to deal with, but we objectively have better neuroplasticity than the Palae. Human world-orphans have integrated into the Confluence with a significantly higher rate of success than any other species besides the Scarabs, and by percentage, we’re exponentially more successful than Axuma or even Nu-suht. So deal with your fucking bias. Do that, and I'll happily submit to you as mission lead. If you can't, then no matter how much I respect your history of service, I'm talking to my Actual and will join one of the other teams. You have enough experience to handle the tunnel infil solo if you have to."

Hura's eyes narrowed.

"So there you go. We’ve said our pieces." I narrowed mine back. "Have a think about it and get back to me. I'm going to go and ride the midnight meat train with Gaius and then sleep."

"We will take it under consideration." Hura didn't shrink back, but he also didn't loom. He did still sound like someone with a bad smell under their nose.

"What was that about Gaius and the meat train?" Gaius looked over his shoulder, batting his eyelashes.

"You, me and a bunk." I glared up at Hura, which was less effective than it could have been considering the top of my head came to the base of his pecs, and turned to Gaius.

"Ain't gonna argue that. Meet you there." Gaius shrugged, grinned, and ambled off toward the rack room.

I gave Hura one last steely needle-narrow glare, then turned on my heel and huffed off to join him.