The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

“We all had to get involved in the war.” Benan stared at a corner of the stateroom. “Except Vic. She shouldn’t have. It’s changed her, too. Vic never would have—” His voice choked off, and Benan reddened, trembling, but didn’t move otherwise, avoiding looking at Geary.

Since there was nothing useful that Geary could think of to say, he waited patiently. I’m sorry I slept with your wife. We both thought you were dead. I’m sure that doesn’t make you feel any better. But you already know it put your wife through hell when she found out you might still be alive.

After a long pause, Benan spoke again. “I can tell you. Because if a fleet commander orders me to speak, I have to respond. If we are alone, with no witnesses.”

“Are you saying that some order bound you from saying anything before this?”

“It wasn’t an order, Admiral,” Benan spat. “Have you been told about Brass Prince? Have they told Black Jack about Brass Prince?”

“Brass Prince?” Geary mentally ran through the many classified project and plan names that he had seen since awakening from survival sleep. “I can’t recall hearing of that.”

“You would remember if you had.” Benan’s voice had sunk to a whisper. “A very secret project undertaken by the Alliance government. Do you know what we were working on, Admiral? Biowarfare,” Commander Benan said, his voice barely audible now. “Strategic biological warfare. You might have believed that’s the one rule the Syndics and the Alliance didn’t break during the war. But the Alliance conducted some research.”

“Strategic biological warfare?” Geary repeated, not believing what he was hearing.

“Yes. Things able to wipe out the populations of entire planets. Things that could sit dormant inside human bodies long enough to be transported to other star systems before they became virulent, then wipe out populations so quickly that no countermeasures could be successful.” Benan’s hands shook. “Purely for defensive purposes, of course. That’s what everyone said. If we had that capability, the Syndics wouldn’t dare use a similar capability against us for fear of retaliation in kind. That’s what we told ourselves. Maybe it was true.”

Geary realized that he had stopped breathing and slowly inhaled before speaking. “Does the Europa Rule still exist?”

“Of course it does. But we were told that things had changed. That we needed to take into account new realities. The Syndics would do anything. Strategic biowarfare didn’t seem beyond them.”

“But . . . the Europa Rule,” Geary said again, bewildered. “In my time, they showed vids of that in high school. To ensure everyone knew what happened. That colony moon in the Sol Star System wasn’t rendered uninhabitable for humans for all time by an attack. The pathogen was accidentally released by a so-called defense research facility on Europa. If it hadn’t been so virulent, caused death so quickly, it might have reached Earth itself before our ancestors realized what had happened.”

“I know that! We all knew that!” Commander Benan glowered at the deck, then spoke in a more controlled fashion. “They still show the videos in school. Images, as clear as the day they were taken by surveillance cameras whose operators were already dead or by uncrewed probes sent down from space. The people on Europa lifeless, bodies strewn everywhere within the habitats. Some lying there peacefully, and others revealing final moments of panic and pain. If you’ve seen them, I’m sure you remember them as clearly as I do.”

“I don’t know how anyone could forget them. And the afterimages?” Geary asked.

“Yes. Centuries later, hallways and rooms still empty of life, filled only with the slowly crumbling remnants of those who had lived there.” Benan shook his head. “We were told that we were working to prevent that by having the capability to do it. Is it odd, Admiral, what humans can convince themselves makes sense?”

“You were part of this?” Geary wondered if the revulsion he felt could be heard in his voice.

Benan bared his teeth in a grimace. “For a while. But one of my ancestors was aboard one of the warships enforcing the quarantine of Europa. His ship intercepted and destroyed a merchant ship packed with refugees.”

“That’s a hard memory to carry,” Geary said.

“Harder than you think, Admiral. My ancestor knew that his sister’s family was aboard that ship. They might have already been dead from the plague, but he never knew. And I . . . now I was working on the same sort of hell project.” Benan slammed his fist down. “But I regained my sanity! I told them I would not work on it anymore. I told them it was criminal and insane, that it must be shut down.”

“Did they?”