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Chapter 1 Table of Contents Chapter 3

A Nater of Viral resistance - Chapter 2

Beka and the rest of the Maru's crew agreed to rendezvous with the revolutionaries just outside of the spaceport perimeter The resistance members left the Maru first and Beka and her crew members followed twenty minutes later. The Nietzschean guards at the perimeter gate ignored them, they were watching for people trying to get into the spaceport, not leaving it. Once at the rendezvous location, the three resistance members led them through a maze of alleys and back streets, a route that Beka was sure was designed to confuse them as to exactly where they were. Then, just when Beka realized she was totally lost, she and the others were handed sacks made of black cloth and told to put them over their heads.

"Don't you trust us?" she asked sarcastically.

"We trust you as much as we trust any outsiders," replied the younger man. "Which means we don't trust you to kill yourselves if this little jaunt fails and you get captured by the Ubers. What you don't know can't be tortured out of you, so put the hoods on."

Fortunately the distance Beka and the others had to travel was not great, and her guides seemed quite proficient at helping her travel while blindfolded. The Maru's captain suspected that this was not the first time the Earthers had done this sort of thing. After a short while Beka was led up a short of steps and from the change in acoustics she suspected that she was now inside a building.

"Ok, you can take the hoods off now," said the woman, who had been acting as Beka's guide.

"Gak,' said Beka as she reached up and pulled off the hood that she had been forced to wear. "Haven't you guys ever heard of doing the laundry?"

Beka placed the hood in her guide's outstretched hand, then wiped her hand on the side of her pants trying to get the greasy feel of the hood off her fingers, all the while hoping that her hair wasn't now supporting a population of indigenous parasites. She was in a large room, perhaps 10 by 15 meters, of what she guessed might have originally been a private dwelling. The windows had been boarded up, the room's lighting being provided by a single low wattage bulb hanging from a wire dangling from the ceiling. The walls were covered with cracked plaster and peeling wallpaper. From where she was standing, she could see a set of stairs heading to an upper level and a doorway leading out of the room. There was a musty odor in the air as if the building was slowly rotting. The room itself was large but sparsely furnished, the only furniture being a large table and a half dozen chairs all of which were old and well worn. On the table was a hand gun, an old fashioned portable computer, several devices that looked like electronic, and two devices that superficially resembled rifles. The devices had obvious shoulder stocks and trigger mechanisms but instead of a barrel they had grooved pieces of wood, at the end of each was some sort of metal crossbar with a wire attached to each end of the crossbar.

In addition to Beka and her crew members, there were their guides/captors and five other people, four men and a woman. It made the room quite crowded. Like the original three members of the resistance, the other five looked as though they didn't eat on a regular basis. One of the five, a scrawny looking young man, probably in his mid to late teens, with a mop of uncut blonde hair, was sitting at a chair by the table doing something with the computer.

Brenden made the introductions. "These are the crew of the ship that brought in the supplies. They've agreed to assist us destroy the vaccine"

Beka noticed that he didn't refer to them as friend o even allies. She also noticed that Brendan didn;'t introduce any of the other resistance members to her and her crew. From the somewhat differential manner that the others reacted to Brenden she suspected that he was the leader of this particular group of revolutionaries.

"Ready whenever you are, Brendan," said the young man at the computer..

"Thanks, cousin." He motioned for Beka and the others to come over to the computer. "The Ubers have quite a sophisticated surveillance system in their headquarters compound. The watch each other nearly as closely as they watch us. What they haven't realized is that our resident genius," he indicated the young man at the computer, "has managed to tap into their own surveillance system."

"I can't monitor them all the time," explained the young man. "Sooner or later they'd detect the intrusion. But even random monitoring can reveal a lot. We intercepted this a little over a week ago. Watch." He pushed a button on the computer's keyboard and an image formed on the built in monitor screen.

The image revealed what looked like a senior military officer's office. There were two Nietzscheans in the room. One was sitting behind a desk facing the surveillance camera while the other was standing before the desk his back to the camera.

".... certainly have a fine sense of irony," said the one sitting behind the desk. "The very vaccine that the kludges use to protect their brats from influenza will infect them with our virus. Then we blame the Than for bringing in contaminated medicine and order them off planet. After which we let the kludges know that we have a cure for the disease. Of course we don’t tell them until after they've been inoculated that the disease will reassert itself if the children aren't periodically re-vaccinated."

"Ingenious," said the other. "In one operation we remove the eyes the Insects have been keeping on us, and make the entire area’s population of children our hostages. What about the crew of the cargo ship bringing in the supplies? Will they become a problem?"

"Not in the least. They’re trash, even by kludge standards, scavengers living off the leavings of their betters. They probably would have delivered the cargo even if they had known about our plans."

"Still, it won’t hurt to remove them from play. A sudden disappearance might raise questions in light of the events that will occur here. So perhaps something more subtle is required, like blaming the contamination on their storage procedures. I recommend that...

The Earther called Brendan reached out and turned off the computer. "Now do you believe us?"

"How can we be sure that wasn't faked?' asked Bobby.

"Right," said Brendan sarcasm dripping from his voice. "The resistance movement is planning to endear themselves with the rest of the population by destroying needed medicines and ensuring the deaths of maybe thousands of children and elderly this winter. Has it occurred to you, that our children might be among the ones who die when the influenza virus makes itself known this winter? We're in a loose loose situation here, and the only thing we can do is try to. limit our losses."

Beka turned to look at her crew members. "Either of you know anything about influenza?" she asked.

"Actually, yes," replied Vexpeg. "When the Than gave us the medicinals I did a brief check to see exactly what diseases they were to be used against, and if any of them would be a threat to us. Influenza is a highly contagious virus. It's not particularly dangerous to healthy adults but is deadly to children and the elderly, especially those that are ill nourished or in poor health, which describes just about everyone native to this planet. Without the vaccinations the death rate from the disease will be about 35 percent of all who contract it. We should have nothing to fear from it, however. I suspect that they are telling us the truth about the contamination, Beka."

"Why haven't you told the Than about this?" asked Bobby.

"We did," said Brendan. "Unfortunately they refused to believe us. That's why we came to you."

"Ok, Brenden or whatever you said your name was," said Beka. "We're in. Frankly I don't care about your brats, but those Nietzscheans were setting us up to be the fall guys, and nobody does that to Beka Valentine. Nobody."

"If Beka says we're in, we're in" said Bobby. "But why do you need us in the first place?"

"Once we take out the guards, we're going to have ten, maybe fifteen minutes tops, to bypass the locks on the warehouse, find and destroy the vaccine, and then get out," answered Brandon. "None of us know what we're looking for by sight, so we need you to help us ID the vaccine, so we can get in, get the job done, and get out before the time limit."

The revolutionaries' leader made a gesture and Beka and the others were handed their hoods. They might have been with the Earthers, but they weren't part of them. Fortunately they were only required to wear them for for a short while. As soon as the hoods were removed Beka surveyed her surroundings, she recognized several individuals from the safe house including the kid who had operated the computer, but there were several new members as well. Two of the newcomers, a man and a woman, were carrying the rifle like objects Beka had seen on the table in the safe house.

When Beka and the others had bordered the Maru it had been near dusk , it was now full dark. Brendan increased the pace leading the group through the back streets and alleys of the city. Abruptly Brendan signaled for the for the group to halt. The two revolutionaries carrying the rifle like devices advanced slowly past the rest of the group, and disappeared down a side alley. A moment later Beka thought she heard a faint 'twanging' sound, followed by what sounded like the cry of some sort of animal "Who who"

"Ok ,lets do it," whispered their leader. "Cousin, the lock's yours. Move it people, we've only got a few minutes."

The group took off in the direction the first two members of the group had gone. Beka, prodded on by one of the Earthers, followed. They ran through the alleyway and emerged near what was obviously a warehouse. To Beka's consternation it wasn't the one her cargo had originally been offloaded into.

Seeing the look of surprise on Beka's face her guide explained. "The Hladgunnr arrived shortly after your cargo was unloaded. The Nietzschean port master decided that the Hladgunnr's cargo was to be put in the warehouse your stuff was in since it was more secure. Your cargo was moved here."

By this time they were at the doorway to the warehouse. Lying in front of the doorway were the bodies of two human males; both of them had what appeared to be some sort of finned stick sticking out of their chests."

"Traitors," explained Brendan who was watching his cousin work on the lock to the warehouse door. The young man had a carry all bag lying at his feet and was removing equipment form it. "They were working for the Ubers."

"We're in cuz." said the blond haired young man a moment later looking up from the lock, a satisfied smile on his face.

"Good job," replied Brendan. "Captain, it's your show. Which box has the vaccine?"

Beka stepped into the warehouse and looked around. The first words out of her mouth were, "Oh crap."

"Is there a problem, Captain?" asked Brendan.

"Yeah. My cargo isn't here."

Chapter 1 Table of Contents Chapter 3