The warning sounded from every annunciator on Devastator's bridge:
"By Order of the Fleet of the One, this system is under interdict. Withdraw or be destroyed. Repeat: This system is under interdict…"
"Get us out of here, please," pleaded Yarin. He turned to Guan-Sharick. "You seem to be in charge-do something."
A planet appeared on the main screen, a world of blue seas and brown continents, wreathed in clouds. It wasn't the planet, though, that held everyone's attention, but the energy web surrounding it, a yellow latticework of fusion beams stretching between the orbital forts that surrounded the planet.
"What would you have me do, Yarin?" said the blonde. "Argue with million-year-old automatic defenses? If we pass between those energy lines, the ship will be vaporized. If we stay here, those forts will open fire." A close scan of a fort replaced the planet on the screen. Black, unlit, it sat behind the faint blue shimmer of its shield, bristling with weapons batteries, an ancient killer that had destroyed everything ever sent against it. "Yarin!"
The group on the command tier turned in time to see Ulka crumple to the deck, hand clutching his throat.
"Don't touch him!" Guan-Sharick disappeared from the command tier and was kneeling beside the prone Qalian. The red-bearded miner was thrashing, tongue protruding, eyes bulging as he tried to get air to his lungs. A final convulsion tore a death rattle from the giant's throat-he twitched once and lay still.
"Stay away!" ordered the transmute as Yarin's friends stepped forward. She pointed to the dead man's tongue, black and covered with sores. "Plague. Yarin," she said, taking a syringe from her belt pouch. "Tell them to go to their quarters and stay there, each one away from the other." Inserting the syringe into Ulka's jugular, she carefully extracted a blood sample.
Grim-faced, Yarin started to translate. He got as far as "Plague" when the Qalians turned and bolted from the bridge.
"Where the hell are they going?" said John, pointing after the running Qalians.
"To their ships," said Yarin.
"They'll spread that virus everywhere," said K'Raoda, turning for the main gunnery console. "They have to be stopped."
"Don't bother, Commander." Guan-Sharick stood. Taking a med analyzer from her pouch, she placed it on top of a console and injected the blood sample into the specimen aperture. After a moment, the results came up on the unit's screen. "It's too late."
"What do you mean?" asked Yarin. With the others, he stood well away from the dead man.
The transmute held up the medanalyzer. "This is generic plague bacillus-the same one the Fleet of the One used on the Trel, a million years ago. It's mutated now and is attacking humans-with, I think, one intermediate step." She looked at Yarin. "You didn't drive the AIs from their home, did you, Yarin? They're fleeing-fleeing this microscopic killer. Your men contracted it when they stormed the AI rearguard, didn't they?''
His face very pale, Yarin sank into a chair, nodding. "They were dying-dying by the millions-no problem at all, wiping out their remnants. Then our people started dying -none of mine, though. We captured some of their medics-they said what you did, that it was a generic bacillus, lab-bred to adapt to and destroy any lifeform- silicon, carbon, whatever."
"You didn't believe them, of course?" said the transmute, setting the analyzer back down.
Yarin shook his head. "No," he said quietly.
Outside, unnoticed, a score of trim little fighters flashed up over the bridge and through the shield.
"It took a million years to attack the AIs," said Zahava.
"No," said Guan-Sharick. "It probably lay dormant somewhere, until someone, AI or human, came into contact with it."
'Then the Fleet of the One is a plague fleet," said K'Raoda.
The blonde nodded. "And whether they win or not, that plague fleet will spread this invisible killer throughout your galaxy. It was bred for survival-it can survive anything from hard vacuum up to fusion fire. The entire Fleet of the One can be destroyed, but if only a single piece of wreckage with this virus on it lands on some planet, anywhere, it'll spawn and await its newest victims."
"Surely there's an antidote," said John.
"Yes." The blonde turned and pointed toward the main screen. "Down there's the antidote. All we have to do is live long enough to reach there-we have about eight hours, one watch-until the bacillus kills us."
As she finished speaking, the orbital forts opened fire.