What's next?

He who discovers his own self, discovers God

Being unfrozen, was a lot like dying, only in reverse. Instead of memories and feelings becoming more distant, they exploded into your front cortex, flashes of light and intensity as vivid as the day you lived them. As always, worst goes first.

2829 - Procyon

He was back home. The snowy tundra of Procyon. It was late spring, within a week the snowmelt would be cutting fresh furrows into the dark, rich earth. Farmers would plant their crops, the mines would close for the whole day and the spring festival would begin. Tadhana loved the spring festival, her big dark eyes had sparkled with delight last year, when she'd agreed to marry him. She made him promise not to make her a war widow. Then led him off to a quiet spot to make a man out of him.

He'd had to take a cab home, wanting to surprise everyone. With any luck they'd all be together for Sunday dinner, his mother, apron permanently stained with grease and hair faintly dusted with flour, brother's and sisters telling stories about what they'd been up to all week, even his father, tired as only a career miner could be, would be laughing uproariously by now. Hopefully Tadhanna would be there too. She'd been spending a lot of time there, making things ready for the baby.

The lights were on, but the whole house was oddly silent. A deep sense of dread had washed over him. His house had never been silent. The front door was gone. Torn off its hinges. Alliance sympathizers? Procyon had been plagued with civil unrest, even riots since they declared for the Confederation. A vocal minority had made their opposition known. But nothing like this. He could smell blood he realized. He was frozen at the threshold of his parent's home. So long as he stayed outside, everyone he loved in the galaxy would still be alive, no one could blame him for that. He knew he wasn't a coward; he'd charged hovertanks at Valorum 4. Held the line at on Planet P. Been in the vanguard at Tannhäuser Gate. But it took a special kind of courage to walk into your home and look at the dead faces of your family. He was still trying to summon it when he heard Tadhanna call his name from inside.

There was blood everywhere. His father, with those huge miner's hands and gnarly toughness was in the hall, body broken in half. His mother had been gutted just outside the kitchen. The dining room was covered in blood and body parts, brothers and sisters so thoroughly torn apart he couldn't even recognize them anymore. Tadhanna was bleeding on the floor, hands curled protectively over her swollen stomach, her face was a mess. Those huge dark eyes, the eyes that made him fall in love with her were gone. Someone had torn them out.

"Nathaniel?" She whispered. One small hand reached up for him. He was paralyzed with agony, too broken by the sight of her to even move. Tadhanna found his hand, and despite everything, she smiled. "I knew you'd come. I knew it."

He sat down beside her, never releasing from her **** grip. The pool of blood they were sitting in was from her. She was dying. Neither one of them said it, but they both knew it was inevitable.

"Tell me about the spring festival, my love. Did you see the lights this year?"

"They were beautiful, Tadhanna." He croaked, tears spilling down his cheeks silently. "The intersection of Main and Miller was so bright I thought it was day time."

"And the food. Your mother is making crispy pata."

"That's my favorite." He said, voice cracking.

"I know, my love. That's why she's making it." Tadhanna's voice was weaker now, the words stumbling out slowly. "She didn't believe me when I said you'd be here, this year. But I knew I'd see you again. Thank you for keeping your promise."

Her gentle words broke him. "Please don't leave me Tadhanna. Please. Please, don't go." He choked out. "Please don't leave me alone."

"Don't cry." _Tadhanna tried to kiss his knuckles, but her strength gave out half way. He gently brought his hand to her lips and accepted the tender kiss. "The dead are never really lost to us, until they are forgotten._"

Tadhanna was silent after that, murmuring and twitching, as her flesh cooled in his hands. Before she died, her mouth opened one last time, her voice so quiet he had to press his ear right up against her to catch the words.

_"Remember me._"

2838 - Vir

He was in the tunnels again. He'd spent his entire childhood hating his father's profession, even thrown himself into the meat grinder war between the Alliance and the Confederation in order to escape it and here he was, creeping underground like a rat.

He'd sent the rest of his squadron back. They only slowed him down. Their bodies were either unwitting food or unwilling replenishment for the Typhons. It had been almost a decade since terrible night on Procyon, a dozen worlds past and lifetime supply of horrors witnessed. More families than he could count with stories just like his now.

Give the military brass credit, they only sent a few hundred squads into nests to die, over and over again, before they figured out it wasn't very effective. New SOP was to quarantine and bomb. Alliance ships and Confederate turning their own worlds to glass, their citizens to ashes in order to stop the spread. That's all it did. It was working, the Typhon Plague had slowed the past few years. Despite the hysteria, this wasn't going to wipe out their species, merely cull it. After what they'd done to the other races of the galaxy in the name of Human supremacy, it was almost poetic.

Vir was different. Some bigshot with a kidnapped family had demanded a rescue mission. Mr. Bigshot clearly hadn't seen what happened to those women who got infected, or he wouldn't want his wife and daughter back. The copper stink became almost overpowering. He had been following it for hours, now it was all around him. And seconds later, he was standing on an outcropping overlooking the hive.

Dozens of women, filthy and clad in rags, lazily weaved their way before him. Some toiled away in a makeshift kitchen, turning stolen foodstuffs into bland soup that they shoveled out dutifully. Others worked with mining equipment expanding the hive. Perhaps most horrific, but far from novel, a pair of women pushed a screaming man into a pit of Rabies Babies. That was their nursery. Every woman was in some stage of pregnancy. He knew from experience that many of them would be put into the nursery shortly after giving birth, devoured by their own children.

He hefted the small yield nuclear weapon he brought. He could just drop it here and say they were already dead when he found them. No one would know. An image of Tadhanna and his sister popped into his mind. No one would remember them either. Stowing the nuke he picked his way down the the cliffside. He needed to find the Typhon. A hive this size, it would have to be a Scaleskin, a full grown Typhon, not as dangerous as a Pure-blood, but more than a match for any human. Unless that human had spent his entire adult life learning how to hunt them. He picked his way down the cliff side, mentally preparing as he went.

By the time he reached the ground below, his emotions were safely hidden behind a wall of murderous intent, and his perceptions cleared. He would not think, there was no time to think. He would act, and he would react. That was the only way to keep pace with a Typhon. He checked his kit. His blade was the sharpened femur he'd taken from his first kill and honed into a long knife. A monofilament wire he'd stripped off a crashed space elevator made for a fine garrote. He even brought a laspistol, harder for them to dodge, and if you didn't burn their flesh, it just regenerated instantly. Lastly, reached into his belt and sprinkled a tiny vial of Typhon pheromones over his body. It was fullproof, the Typhon would recognize a foreign scent, but it would still slow them down. Make them look in the wrong place. Speaking over, he scanned the ceiling one last time- they liked to drop onto their prey from above. He was clear.

He tracked the big bastard through his massive footfalls. Feet were good. Feet meant it wasn't a Pure-blood. It was moving through the crowd of its adoring harem, gently touching swollen stomachs and or giving wordless commands. Occasionally stopping to bite any females who looked especially agitated. Their languorous forms were the envy of every woman around them, but they were safe. The Typhon would have already culled anyone who proved too violent.

He considered trying to kill it when it passed by him, but thought better of it. The entire hive was linked to this monster. It's presence was the only thing keeping the peace. Besides, he wasn't here for a vendetta, he was here for rescue.

There were holding pens near the back. If the women were still alive, still able to be saved, they would be there. As he made his way deeper into hell, he marveled at the plastic, caricatures of happiness plastered to every woman's face. Were they screaming on the inside? Had his sister ended up in a place like this? Working herself to ****, a breeder and a **** until her body gave out or her new god grew tired of her? Had anyone held her hand when she died, or was she simply torn apart and eaten alive? The questions had haunted him, driven him to be the greatest Typhon killer in Confederation space, but if now they would get him killed. He **** the introspection and regret back down. Finish the mission.

The mother was walking dead. He recognized the signs of a Rabies Babies gestator. She didn't speak, didn't talk, just starred at the wall, one hand on her full belly, waiting for her end to come. He left her there, outside the pens. It wasn't a bad sign overall. If the daughter wasn't with her, there was a decent chance she was still alive inside the pens. He'd figure out how to get her out. It would be good to save a life for once, instead of ending them.

The daughter was in the pens, but she wasn't caged, she was guarding them. One hand holding a laspistol, another gently cradling her barely visible baby bump. He fought back the urge to vomit. It was time to go. He'd plant the nuke by the entrance and-

Something was wrong. He **** himself not to freeze, not to alter a single muscle or tense in any way. Instead he slowly picked his way pack outside, as if he couldn't feel the Typhon's eyes on him. Its' hateful gaze seemed to BURN into his flesh. He paused in a narrow passage, fiddling with his gear for a moment before placing a hand on each side of the wall above him, as if to stretch. Fully extended, he froze, pretending to notice his hunter for the first time. He slowly looked up. Ten meters above him, the evil black form of the Scaleskin clung to the ceiling. And then it launched itself down at him. He reacted. Dropping flat to the floor. Too late, the Scaleskin realized it had fallen into his trap, it tried to twist itself free, but with nothing to touch its contortions merely changed its angle, not its trajectory.

The monofilament wire cut it in half. Legs tumbling one way, body the other. It wasn't dead of course. It was to evil to die from something as simply as a bisection. But he preferred it that way. His laspistol whined as he burned two chunks out of one of its arms, before he beheaded it with a single sweep of his Typhon bone blade. The hive was silent for an instant, minds returning to their own control. But it wouldn't be long before the **** started.

He was setting the timer on the pocket nuke, when the mother wandered over to find him standing above the body. Her daughter trotted up just behind. The laspistol dropped from her nerveless hands as she stared down in horror at her dead master. The peace didn't last long. The mother backhanded her own child so hard blood sprayed. Then she grabbed the girl by her hair and dragged her head back, other hand raised high to kill her with a chop to the throat.

He put her the mother down with a shot to the head. The daughter didn't thank him. She didn't even speak, instead she just put one gentle, loving hand on her stomach, before turning her eyes to him. The unspoken question hung in the air. Without the bite, the venom from her master, she'd be a gestator like her mother in a few days. A clean **** was all him could offer.

"I'm sorry." He whispered. And he was, because in her dark eyes he saw Tadhanna. What would she think of him now? Of the terrible efficiency with which he treated human life?

"Run." The daughter whispered, before she walked back to the pens. He wanted to go after her. Wanted to hold her hand while he took away her pain. But that wasn't who he was anymore. He could already hear the Rabies Babies escaping the nursery, feeding on any flesh they could get their hands on. Lurking adolescents would probably be pushing in from the outside, ready to steal the hive and its treasures for themselves. Even without the nuke, it would be a massacre, but at least this way, some of them would die quickly.

He banished the accusing eyes of Tadhanna from his mind and ran.

2841 - New Tel Aviv

"Good morning, Aspirant. Getting an early start, I see."

The voice called him out of the drunken stupor he'd been working on since he woke up. He looked around. He was in a bar. That was normal. Normal was good. Normal was safe.

"Kills the nightmares." He replied, glancing over at the newcomer. Woman. Middle age. Military by the voice. Civilian by the dress. Probably a Spook. Just what he needed on a Tuesday morning while he was trying to get things done. "It's not Aspirant anymore, either. I resigned my commission with the Marine Nationale. You can leave now."

She sat down instead. Studied him through squinted lids, measuring his worth, woe to anyone who found themselves lacking in this woman's gaze. This was the kind of officer giving him the kind of look that would have made him piss his pants a decade ago. Now she was just the bitch who was about to ruin his day.

"Harkness." She finally offered. Reaching out a hand.

"Retired." He wished he could stop seeing two of her. One disapproving scowl was bad enough.

"I've read your file. One hundred and eight confirmed Typhon encounters. A thirty percent mission success rate. Forty five individual kills. Prefers to work alone." Harness recited. "You know most of our officers tried to abandon the service BEFORE the Armistice was declared. You're the only one I know of who asked to end his service right after. Do you miss killing Typhons, Aspirant?"

"Fuck you." He replied. Staggering to his feet he saw her out of the corner of his eye. Those big dark eyes. The booze made the dreams bearable, it made the lifetime of horrors he'd witnessed and inflicted feel distant. So why couldn't it banish HER? Tadhanna's disapproving eyes followed him from table to bar, where he found himself a fresh bottle.

"You think you got them all?" Harkness said to no one in particular. The bar was empty except for the two of them. "Officially, the war is over, the Typhon Plague is defeated and peace is the order of the day."

He couldn't help it. He laughed. Peace. He had forgotten what that felt like.

Harkness seemed to share his sentiment. "There won't be any more world burnings. No more official missions. Nothing on the books. Everyone is content. Eager to pretend." She dropped a sheaf of old fashioned paper onto the table. "Would you like to see what's been giving me nightmares, Aspirant?"

"No." He answered. He had enough of those already. But Tadhanna leaned over the stack, studying the pages. She gave him a frightened look after. He dragged himself back to the table. "What is this?"

But he could see for himself. Pictures of experiments. Typhon corpses being dissected. Vats of deformed flash clones. Classified Alliance documents containing years of research. Reverse engineering, maybe.

"They were trying to recreate them." Harkness mused.

"I thought the Alliance was the one who made them in the first place?" He whispered. He held a picture of a live Rabies Baby in his hand. It was in captivity. They hadn't captured. They'd bred it, in some innocent woman's body.

"That was the official line before the Armistice. Now both side claim it was a rogue faction, possibly the Tomians." Harkness' tone didn't suggest a lot of love or loyalty for the Confederation. His estimation of her rose several notches. "We'd be lucky if that were the truth. But the scary fact remains, we don't know where the Typhons come from."

"So what?" He demanded. "You want me to lead a strike ****, blow up the facility. Maybe some assassinations? Start a new war for you?"

"No." Harkness said quietly. "I assume you didn't read every page of the Armistice agreement, most people stopped at the territory and reparations pages. Article 5, subsection 19 states that-

"I actually did read it." He interrupted her. "No cloning, genetic engineering or bio-replication. Seems like they already broke your truce."

"The Secrétaire Général does not care about a few rich infants getting gene spliced to look pretty." Harkness' eyes were burning now. She had fought in the dirt with the rest of them during the war, he'd bet anything on it. "What we are concerned about is keeping the peace and keeping the Typhons extinct. The Alliance has been compliant with the terms we care about for over a year now. But they aren't the only ones with resources. And once the fear passes, anyone with a bit of ambition will sense opportunity."

"For **** machines?" He rolled his eyes.

"Try biological improvement on a scale we've never seen before. People living a thousand years in their prime. Women who could bench press cars. Maybe even curing ****, itself." Harkness shot him another hard look. "Do you think there might be a market for that?"

He swallowed and raised his estimation of her another notch. "Why me?"

"The first time the Typhons rose up, it was when we were so weak from killing each other, we were ****. We were on the knife edge of extinction. It was only the combined **** of our entire species that threw them back." Harkness pulled the bottle out of his hand. "You may be one of the few men in the entire galaxy who can kill them one on one. Not just successfully, but quietly. When the time comes, someone will have to put these experiments down. Clean up messes. Someone skilled, but more importantly deniable. Because above all else we MUST keep the peace."

"You think there are more out there. Waiting." He whispered.

Harkness shoved another paper in his face. Typhon population numbers, based on statistical growth patterns and sighting distribution. There were thousands. Millions, maybe. They could be on any world, hiding beneath the feet of oblivious people.

"Hibernating." Harkness corrected. "They hibernate for centuries, perhaps even millennia at a time."

Tadhanna's eyes pleaded with him. And for once he didn't look away. "You didn't come here for a soldier." It wasn't a question.

Harkness nodded. "I want someone who can leave everything behind. You're never live a normal life. You'll be like them. Hibernating, staying fresh until we need you. IF you agree, you'll go to sleep tomorrow, I might not even be there when you wake up."

He dragged his eyes away from his lost love. Away from the bottles he'd been wasting the past year on. What she was promising him, it was a refuge from nightmares, and a purpose to his existence, maybe the purpose he had been meant for all along. "I'll do it."

"Welcome aboard, Quarterback." Harkness handed him a sophisticated looking pad. As soon as his hands touched it, the holographic projector lit up. A pale green homunculus sprung up.

"Greetings, Quarterback. I am Victory class Automated Intelligence system, designation THX-1138. I will be your companion and logistics officer for the duration of your assignment. I am very pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Likewise, Vic." Quarterback answered.

2852 - CNS Kalais

"Good morning, Quarterback. There's been an article 5 violation."

Quarterback shrugged off the memories and rolled to his feet. "Vic. How long?"

"It has been eleven years, twelve days, sixteen hours and thirty seven minutes since you entered Cryosleep."

Twelve years. That's how long it took for greed to override their humanity. It was a humbling thought. 'You're never alone, my love. Not if someone loves you.' Tadhanna's final words rang false now. He felt alone.

"You aren't Harkness." Quarterback accused the unseen voice.

"I am Contre-Amiral Jintao van der Byl. Please refer to me as 'Control', during our interactions." The voice was calm, collected. Career military, as if there could be anything else on this assignment. "The wall display has your current mission brief."

'Project Adonis' scrolled across the screen, along with an assortment of images, and background information. The word, hybridization came up a lot.

"They've found a way to weaponize it?" Quarterback asked.

"We believe they are on the cusp of a pharmacological breakthrough. Their chief scientist, Dr. Thaddeus Murphy is pioneer on the fields of genetic sequencing, endocrinology and neuro-synthesis."

"Translate that for me, Vic."

"The doctor is making **** out of Typhon DNA and hormones for human enhancement." The AI was reviewing the data as well, although he was processing and collating exponentially faster.

"God damn Harkness was right." Quarterback murmured. He wondered what became of her. In this line of work there was a saying. 'Once you go black, there's no going back'.

"QB, if you will direct your attention to your left, your weapons and provisions are available." Vic informed him.

"QB?" Quarterback asked?

"A popular abbreviation of your designation."

"I get that, why the nickname?"

There was a pause.

"You gave one to me." Vic replied.

Quarterback supposed that was fair. He didn't have much experience with AIs, maybe they were all this quirky.

Some of the gear laid out for him was familiar, monofilament and his Typhon knife were there; but an assortment of cutting edge weapons were displayed around them. Pulse rifles, electroblades, EMP grenades, even a crate of nanotech rounds designed eat their targets alive. Those had been rare when he'd gone to sleep, from the way they were casually displayed here, it seemed that had changed. Behind the table, was a suit of armor unlike any he'd seen before. Barely thicker than cloth, it was surprisingly heavy in his hands. He wondered what it was made out of. Picking up the electroblade, he swung it as hard as he could at the stomach area. The blade shattered on impact, his hand numb from the jolt. Incredible.

"The entire suit is made of nanites. It amplifies the user's strength and agilty, without compromising maneuverability. As you may have noticed, the protection level is unparalleled." Vic reported dryly. "We were able to able to acquire the X1 prototype at considerable cost, do try and take care of it."

"So where are we headed, Vic?"

"An Alliance world called Thiidian." The AI answered. "The orders are reconnaissance. We won't have to kill anyone."

"For now, Vic. For now."

2855 - Belladonia

Laying flat on his belly on a distant rooftop, Quarterback studied the man through his sniper scope. Dr. Murphy was quite average looking for a mad scientist. A couple of weird personality quirks aside. He could be someone's goofy uncle. If that uncle was a monster.

"Control, I have a clean shot on Clover. Requesting green light."

He had been awake for weeks this time. Long enough for the nightmares to catch up with him. It made his trigger finger itchy, especially itchy. Mostly around scumbags who were too concerned with 'scientific progress' to worry about little things like the apocalypse. He flipped the safety off, finger still on the guard though.

"Don't kill him." Vic reminded him.

"He's right there." Quarterback argued.

"If you kill him, the contact will abort. We'll never know who in the Alliance is feeding him information and resources." Vic whispered, but he wasn't even popping out of the pad. There was nothing that little green man could do to stop Quarterback from killing one of the most evil men in the galaxy.

"You're going to get yourself killed." Vic added.

"Worth it." Quarterback replied. This man who was caused more suffering each and every day. Murphy didn't just end lives, he ruined them. Twisting and polluting everything he touched.

His finger slipped down just over the trigger. One little pull and the galaxy becomes a better place. It wouldn't be redemption, but at least it was a chance to pay evil unto evil.

"Tadhana wouldn't want this." Vic told him gently.

Quarterback had told Vic everything over the years. He really was the only one who understood. The only one traveling through time, asleep for years, then awake for days, the world passing him by. He'd even told him about her. Shaking with rage and regret, Quarterback eased off the trigger just before Control's voice came back over Wave-comm.

"Red light for all targets. Observation only, Quarterback." Control had a four minute time lag.

A black hovercar slowed in front of the doctor before it turned around the corner and stopped. Murphy hopped inside.

"Penetrator ready." Vic whispered. "Distance...1.6 kilometers."

"Elevation?"

"Negative 30 degrees. Negligible wind." Vic answered. "Would you prefer I take control of the suit and make the shot myself?"

"You can do that?"

No answer. That was a yes.

"Firing." Quarterback squeezed the trigger.

The hollow shell streaked across the sky to shatter quietly against the roof of the hovercar. The nanite gel inside sealed against the roof, recording the sounds and broadcasting them onward.

"Contact. Transmission underway." Vic reported. "It's the fifth by the way."

His son's birthday. They hadn't agreed on a name. Tadhana wanted to call him Angelo after her father. Quarterback preferred a name that wouldn't put him on every schoolyard bullies radar by default.

"He'd be twenty six today." Quarterback noted. Almost as old as his father. Strange to think about. Of course neither one of them was the age they were meant to be. Quarterback had been 'dead' for years and his little boy wasn't anything. Certainly not at home celebrating twenty six years of life. Just buried with his mother under a simple cross. Procyon was graveyard now. Not a home. You couldn't have a birthday if you never got the chance to be born.

"You want to listen in?" Vic asked.

"Against protocol?" Quarterback asked. "What's gotten in to you?"

"My primary duty is to take care of you, I detect an elevated heart rate and and perspiration. You are upset. I believe additional stimuli will distract you from your dead child." Vic was blunt as a rock, but it felt good to have someone watching over him like a mother hen.

"Yeah. Give me the feed." Quarterback replied.

-next shipment will arrive on time. I promise, doc." The contact.

"I will not pay for damaged goods." Murphy.

"There's not a lot of undamaged children in the galaxy. Especially ones without parents. You want more supply, start another war." The contact.

"Your stockpile issues are just that. Yours. If you cannot meet the demand I require, I will simply look for another source." Murphy.

Quarterback's blood turned to ice. "Fucking war orphans. He's selling them war orphans."

"It would appear they believe children may hold the key to their research." Vic agreed.

"Don't give me that robot bullshit, Vic. This is wrong." Quarterback insisted. And without even waiting for a reply he backed up and leaped the next roof over. Less than four minutes until Control saw what they were up to and ordered them to stop. They had to hurry. Another roof gone, the car was a distant speck.

"By the time you reach them the children will have long since been transferred." Vic's unnaturally cool voice whispered in his ear. "Losing this contact will not save anyone, but our operation will suffer greatly. More lives will be lost in the end."

"Damn you, Vic." Quarterback wanted to fight or run or lose himself in the drink again. Anything else but simply lie there and take it. But he had to, because he knew Vic was right, and the job wasn't done.

2861 - Cintar

Adonis had gone quiet. Taken off world and hidden deep in the black. But there was still work to do. Messes to clean up. Cintar was a distant frontier world. Beautiful. Warm, with hundreds of shallow freshwater seas and long summers that grew bushes so fat, they collapsed under the weight of their own berries. The cottage he stood outside was little more than a shack, still it was home to a family of six. Parents, three daughters and a son; part of the local Mennonite community.

A local archeological dig had uncovered a mysterious underground warren, then went silent. It wasn't a large infestation. Not even a Scaleskin. Just a pair of adolescents that had woken up from a nap. It was unusual to see them work together at that age. They'd used the local luddite aversion to technology to spread silently through the community. No one was ****, instead, sheltered young girls who had been taught to be afraid of their own feelings and desires were gently introduced to a world of pleasure and sin. Quarterback had never seen anything like it before. He knew they were smart. Dangerous. But he didn't understand them. No one really did.

A few infected girls and women had been put down in the middle of their impromptu orgy with one of their 'lovers'. He'd used the other Typhon to lay a trap. Capturing it, cutting it apart and letting it draw in the remaining four women- mostly older wives and widows, monster had a type - in its agony. A few quick scans had led him here. To this sad little home.

The father stood bravely in front of his children, **** to shield them from the **** the Quarterback exuded. His family cowered behind him. They'd heard of the deaths. And stranger in the midst of a small tight knit community was a far more visible fear than monsters from twenty years ago. To them, he was the monster.

"You're sure this is the one?" Quarterback asked Vic.

"Positive. An individual scan will likely determine who is infected and who isn't." The eldest daughter starred at him at him hatefully.

"Yeah, I don't think they're feeling cooperative." Quarterback addressed the family. "There's been an outbreak of disease in this settlement. I am a representative of-

"You go on now, English!" The father roared. "Leave our land. Your hands do the devil's work!"

"Mennonite culture forbids the use of ****." Vic informed him. "You could simply grab each woman and scan them manually."

"Yeah, Vic. I could." Except no he couldn't. Because all he could see was the family he'd lost on Procyon. Was this how they'd looked right before the end? His father and mother putting their own bodies between the children and an unstoppable **** determined to do them harm.

These people didn't understand. This far from civilization they may never have even heard the word Typhon. Let alone, understand the danger of leaving even one alive. One or more of these women was going to die, no matter what he did here today. But if he could just figure out which one, he could save- no. He wasn't the kind of person who saved. He could spare the rest. That would have to be good enough.

The eldest daughter had eyes full of hate. The middle girl barely looked old enough to be called a woman, she wouldn't meet his gaze. He just prayed it wasn't the youngest. She was already terrified, her face streaked with tears of fright. The mother would be a problem. Non-**** or not, there was no way to take a child from its mother without bloodshed.

"Control would like to remind us that we cannot tolerate a further outbreak. This is the maximum infection limit we can allow, before harsher steps must be taken." Harsher steps. A nuke, most likely. Maybe an asteroid strike if they had one handy. How many people lived on this rock. Less than ten million?

'H_ow many lives is one soul worth?'_ And was he trying to save the girl's, or his own?

"The infected woman is going to die, regardless of our actions today. If we act now-"

"Shut the fuck up, Vic." Quarterback hissed. "I'm thinking."

The eldest was reminded him of his sister. Fiery, proud. Whereas the middle girl was pure Tadhana, shy, kind, gentle even in a tragic sort of way. It was her, he realized. Of fucking course, it was her. But he had to be sure. Quarterback stepped closer then he reached into his pouch and drew out a vial of Typhon pheromones. He crushed it in his fist and flung the coppery smelling shards and juice at their feet. Everyone looked confused for a moment, tentatively sniffing the air, all except for the middle girl, who shuddered and clamped a hand on her neck; where she was hiding the Typhon bite beneath her clothes. Quarterback blew her head off before she could even realize her mistake.

The other's were too stunned to react at first, which was good, it gave him time to grab hold of the body and start hauling it away. He made it two steps before the eldest daughter grabbed her dead younger sister's leg pulled with all her might. Eyes blazing at him, nearly in tears with rage and grief. Her parents had just dropped to their knees, cradling their two youngest children, shielding them from the senseless **** this stranger had brought to their family.

Quarterback let go, the eldest girl fell on her ass, and he punched her in the face hard enough to keep her there. The father scrambled to get in between them. He was a braver man that Quarterback by far. It was one thing to fight to protect someone, it was something very different to die pointlessly to buy them a few more seconds of life.

Quarterback didn't look at any of them as he dragged the body back to his transport, parked in the field just beside their home. He burned the middle daughter's body at the ramp to his ship. Maybe they could bury the bones.

"Quarterback, I calculate a 15.6% chance of a secondary infection in this family. Failing a thorough test procedure, anything above 5.4% requires a cleansweep protocol." Vic informed him while they watched the body burn.

"You made a mistake with the calculations. You'll mark the percentage as under 5% in your log, Vic." Quarterback's tone didn't allow for any argument.

"Correcting it now, QB." Vic affirmed.

Quarterback ignored a dozen wave-comms from the Kalais on their way back to orbit. Amiral van der Byl was waiting for him in the landing bay.

"Quarterback, I understand you may feel conflicted about your duties here. But that doesn't justify ignoring protocol." Control's tone was anything but understanding. "What if one of them is infected? There could be another outbreak."

"If there is you know who to call." Quarterback shouldered his way past. "If you'll excuse me, I'm ready to be a popsicle again."

2864 - CNS Kalais