Contagion Read online

  Contagion

  Ark Ship: Book Two

  David Ryker

  Sean McLachlan

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  About the Author

  1

  Never get into a bar fight with an alien.

  There are a number of reasons for this, the main one being that if you come from a race that only recently discovered it’s not alone in the universe, you have no idea how to deal with your average alien in a fistfight.

  You also don’t know the rules, or even if there are any rules.

  You should also not get into a bar fight with an alien when you: (A) are on a peace mission to that very same species, (B) both of you are guests of a group of other species with the promise of not starting any trouble, and (C) the species you’re fighting stands a head taller than you and weighs at least twice as much.

  Oh, and you should never start a bar fight with any species, including your own, when you’re taking a lady out on a date.

  But I’ve never had a whole lot of common sense.

  It started like this.

  The Ark Ship Nansen was docked at a space station run by an organization of merchants from several different planets. While Earth was too far away for these merchants to develop a trade route, and our own planet’s civilization had collapsed and its resources exhausted, the merchants had taken an interest in us. Amazing. Just two months after we had discovered we weren’t alone in the universe, we were the guests of a consortium of nearly a dozen alien races.

  We’d earned it. We had found a cure to a parasite sent by an unseen alien species called the Centaurians as a forefront to an invasion, thus saving the entire local area of the Orion Arm. We had also proven our worth by beating a technologically superior race—the Dri’kai—on several different occasions.

  That had been a misunderstanding, and now the merchants wanted to make peace between the Dri’kai and this strange new species called humans because the threat from the Centaurians remained – and because war was bad for business.

  Yeah, they actually said that. “War is bad for business.” Too bad the politicians back home hadn’t thought that way. Then maybe our colony ship wouldn’t contain the last group of humans not living like cavemen on a toxic and radioactive garbage planet.

  But back to the bar fight.

  It wasn’t your typical bar fight—I’d been in so many of those they had almost become routine—and this was not your typical bar.

  Because this was a multispecies station, the bar had to accommodate everybody. The atmosphere was a nitrogen-heavy mixture suitable to the Vrimjlens, a race of short bipeds who looked a bit like anteaters. They had more individuals on board than anyone else and so they got their atmosphere pumped through the vents. The rest of us wore respirators. If the population shifted, a different mixture would be pumped through the air circulation system and the Vrimjlens would have to put on respirators.

  The furniture was varied as well: heavy steel chairs for the cumbersome Dri’kai, who looked like professional wrestlers with a seriously bad case of acne; more normal chairs for the humans; perches for the Skreets, a type of reptilian bird with opposable thumbs; no furniture at all for the tentacled pillars called the Subines; and various other weird contraptions for the stranger species. The Vlerns, a type of sand-dwelling slug about as big as two hands placed side by side, got off the worst. They were sensitive to nitrogen and so hung out inside large glassteel cases filled with their own murky atmosphere, lying half buried in the sand at the bottom.

  Since no one could agree on decor, the interior was sparse, with plain steel walls and floor. A soft blue light illuminated the interior, and large glassteel windows gave us a view of the various ships docked along the station’s rim. There were a lot of those, of all shapes and sizes. My assistant, Major Li Qiang, was back on the Nansen, busily analyzing them with every type of scanning equipment we had. Everyone was acting friendly, but it never hurt to find out as much as you could about new friends.

  Drinking and eating was a bit tricky. You ordered your drink from a menu in your language, and then a chemical replicator behind the scenes cooked up whatever you desired and delivered it via a miniature drone to your table or perch or sandbox. The drink came in an enclosed steel cylinder. You then hooked a feeder tube to your respirator.

  “Sorry for the ambiance,” I said to my date, my voice coming out muffled through my respirator.

  “Not at all!” said my date. “I think it’s fascinating.”

  She would. Valeria Sanchez was the chief science officer for the ark ship Nansen. Valeria had such an inexhaustible supply of curiosity that if the Nansen was being sucked into a black hole, she’d be taking gravitational measurements and working on a scientific paper about her observations until she got crushed into the singularity.

  “The beer isn’t very good, though,” she said, taking another slurp through her straw. “Not enough carbonation.”

  Valeria was beautiful even with the respirator on. She had a fine figure, long black hair that tumbled over her shoulders, and bright brown eyes that took in every detail around her. Her face was nice too, although at the moment I had to rely on memory for that.

  Valeria took another gulp of beer. She might have complained that it was flat, but that wasn’t slowing her down any.

  I’ve always had a thing for Mexican women, especially ones who knew how to drink.

  I clanked my metal cylinder against hers. “You’re right. This isn’t the best beer. But hey, never pass up a free drink, right?”

  Actually it wasn’t free. The merchants were charging some sort of interplanetary agency for all our expenses. I still hadn’t figured out all the politics in this part of the galaxy. Hell, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as galactic politics until a few weeks ago.

  Valeria looked past me. “Uh-oh.”

  I turned. A Dri’kai was coming our way.

  Now the Dri’kai weren’t supposed to be our enemies anymore, but you couldn’t exactly call them friends. When we came out of warp in the wrong part of the galaxy, thanks to a group of terrorists messing up our central computer and killing a large portion of our crew, we happened upon a jungle world called Sigma Aurigae. It was inhabited by a primitive people who looked remarkably like human beings and who lived in an environmental paradise. Coming from a megalopolis with fouler air than what was on this space station, that struck a chord with me.

  Then the Dri’kai showed up and started nuking the planet from orbit.

  We decided to intervene and kicked their asses. They sent more ships after us and we kicked their asses a couple of more times.

  Then it turned out the Aurigans were infected with a parasite that had turned them into killers. The parasite was created in a lab by a mysterious race from the Centaurian Arm as a way to soften up the area for invasion. The Dri’kai were only defen
ding themselves.

  Only defending themselves by wiping out an innocent species. Not too cool. But I could see their side of it. They were a warrior species and were pissed at having hundreds of their people die at the hands of a supposedly inferior race. The Aurigans, I mean.

  The Dri’kai storming up to me obviously shared that sentiment. About the humans.

  It looked like every other Dri’kai I had ever seen, meaning it was about two meters tall and weighed a good 120 kilos, all of it muscle and attitude. The thick legs, pot-bellied body, and broad shoulders were encased in steel armor, with a line of spikes running along the shoulders and upper arms, and extra long spikes on its elbows and knees.

  Its head was a lump of brown flesh with strange knobs or warts all over the hairless skin. The neck was thicker than the head, making the whole thing look like a bullet dipped in cow droppings. A bony ridge ran from front to back. There was no hair anywhere. Sickly yellow eyes with slitted pupils glared at us from above the respirator, which thankfully hid the ugly mouth and fangs.

  “Easy now,” I said through my translator as I stood. “We’re here to work things out between our peoples.”

  The translator, a little box attached to the shoulder strap of my black security jumpsuit, was an alien invention. We had bought a bunch of them. Came in handy.

  “We will work things out, human,” it replied, the translator making its harsh, grating voice sound even worse in English. “We will work things out the way warriors should.”

  Oh, crap.

  I got into a defensive stance, my mind racing for something to say to get me out of this. I didn’t think I could take this guy (girl?) and my weak heart probably wasn’t up for it even if the rest of me was.

  Then the Dri’kai did something I did not expect.

  It started to strip.

  It tugged at a buckle and the armor from the left leg fell to the metal floor with a loud clang. Then it did the same with the right leg. As it got the piece for its right forearm off, I managed to find some words.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking off my armor.”

  “I can see that. Why?”

  “So we can fight, fool.”

  I blinked. That didn’t make any sense. As far as we had seen, the Dri’kai wore their armor all the time. Why take it off just before a fight?

  I glanced at Valeria, who shrugged, then said, “Um, do you mean to say you’re taking off your armor to make it a fair fight?”

  “Of course,” the Dri’kai grumbled. At least the translator made it sound like a grumble in English. In its own language, everything it said sounded like grumbling.

  “We are on a peace mission,” Valeria said. “Mitch doesn’t want to fight you.”

  “Quiet, female! How dare you insult this warrior!” it bawled. Valeria jumped back. I edged between it and her. “General Mitch Ayers is the greatest warrior of your species. He is famed throughout the Dri’kai fleet, and you would do him the dishonor of saying he is a coward?”

  So I was a general now, was I? I’d rather not have the promotion, and not have the fight.

  “That’s not what she meant,” I said. “She, um, meant she didn’t understand how hand-to-hand combat is done in this part of the galaxy and doesn’t want it to upset our negotiations.”

  The Dri’kai stopped taking its armor off for a second, cocking its head in a surprisingly human gesture.

  “Negotiations? This is the negotiation.”

  “What do you—”

  “Enough talk.”

  “But—”

  “I’m ready,” it said, tossing its breastplate aside with a clank that echoed through the now-silent bar. The Dri’kai now only wore a form-fitting gray jumpsuit and its respirator.

  I glanced around. The bar had cleared. Well, not exactly cleared. Everyone was still there, they had just moved back to the walls and were watching the show that was about to start. Someone had been kind enough to wheel the Vlerns’ tank to the side. Two pairs of eyestalks popped up from the sand and fixed on us.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the Dri’kai.

  “R’kk’kar.”

  “I can’t pronounce that. Can I call you Roger?”

  “You can bleed!” R’kk’kar bellowed, and charged at me.

  If there was one thing I had learned fighting the Dri’kai, it was that they favored a strong, direct attack. They had strength but no subtlety. A clever fighter could trick them and get under their guard. A clever fighter wouldn’t be frightened by their strength and speed and would be able to take them down with a few deft moves.

  It turned out I wasn’t a clever fighter.

  I waited until the last moment and then ducked to the right, thinking of kicking his knee and sending him hurtling into the metal table at my back. Then I’d kick him again, preferably in the back of his tree stump of a neck, and dive in with several hard punches.

  Instead, the Dri’kai cut me off before I was halfway through my whole “ducking to the right” thing, clotheslined me, picked me up, and tossed me onto the table.

  I landed flat on my back, the air shooting from my lungs in one great gust.

  Then the Dri’kai started to get rough.

  2

  The first punch got me in the stomach, making me double up so much I almost head-butted my knees.

  The next punch was a fist the size of my head coming straight for my face.

  My instinct turned out to be stronger than my excruciating pain and I managed to roll out of the way. R’kk’kar’s fist slammed into the metal table and actually bounced me off of it.

  The Dri’kai stomped around the table to get to me. Valeria ran out of reach.

  So did I. To be precise, I rolled under the table to the other side.

  The Dri’kai stopped. “Are you retreating?”

  It sounded offended.

  I stood, none too steadily.

  “No. A simple tactical withdrawal.”

  R’kk’kar touched his translation box, which hung from a string around his neck. “Your words did not translate.”

  No words for that in Dri’kai? That might be useful to know.

  “Look. We blew up your ships because we didn’t understand why you were nuking those primitives. It was all a misunderstanding.”

  “I am not angry at you for that. That’s why we’re fighting.”

  Huh?

  I didn’t have time to unravel that, because he vaulted over the table and came at me.

  Damn, for such a giant lump of flesh, this thing could really move.

  I was ready this time, and managed to do the dodge-and-kick-the-knee move I had planned all along.

  The dodging worked all right, saving me from a right cross that would have probably taken off my head, but the kick didn’t work out all that well.

  I connected, but all R’kk’kar did was let out a grunt and rush at me a second time.

  I drove a fist into his paunch, with the same results as the kick.

  Then he smacked me on the side of the skull.

  It was a glancing blow. I’d seen it at the last second and almost managed to dodge. Almost. Still, I staggered back. R’kk’kar charged.

  This time I decided on a more direct approach. I ran away, leapt on a table, spun, and made a flying kick for his face.

  It worked beautifully. My foot landed right between its eyes. R’kk’kar’s head snapped back and it fell over like one of those redwoods you see in the old movies. The alien’s head made a satisfying crack against the steel floor.

  You can imagine how I felt when he started to get up.

  Actually I felt worse than you can imagine. Not only did I feel despair, fear, and a growing conviction that I was going to get my ass thoroughly kicked, but my heart was fluttering and skipping beats.

  I have a heart condition, you see. When a gang of terrorists tried to take over the Nansen just as I was coming out of stasis, I took a stim so I could neutralize the threat. You’re not supposed to take a stim
when your heart has been in hibernation for half a century. Bad for the old ticker. Now I was a 38-year-old man with a 70-year-old heart.

  So if R’kk’kar didn’t kill me, a heart attack very well might.

  I needed to end this quickly. I got back on the table and leapt off a second time, bringing both feet down on its belly.

  The alien let out a loud oof and its respirator slipped off, revealing a slack, rubbery mouth full of fangs.

  In any other situation I would have snatched the respirator away and let the alien suffocate in an atmosphere it couldn’t breathe any more than I could.

  But if I killed this guy (girl? I still wasn’t sure), then that would probably start a shooting war with the Dri’kai, something we had barely survived the last time.

  So I gave R’kk’kar a good hard kick in what I took to be its ribs and let my opponent get the respirator back on.

  R’kk’kar struggled to its feet.

  And immediately belted me one.

  Amazing something that big could be so fast. I didn’t even know R’kk’kar was throwing a punch until I was airborne.

  I landed on something soft. I blinked—or more accurately winked since one of my eyes was already swelling shut—and saw I had landed on at least three different alien species. A combination of paws and tentacles put me upright.

  Just in time for another swing from my good friend R’kk’kar, or however you’re supposed to spell it.

  I blocked it, nearly fracturing my forearm, and replied with a left hook that nearly broke my knuckles. Dri’kai heads are hard, and you should only ever kick them.

  R’kk’kar changed its tactics and tried to get me in a bear hug. I replied with a one-two punch to the gut and a kick to the knee.