Ensign Roy Bancroft - See No Evil
Carter Schimpff
(( Makeshift Command Operations Building – Kobyar Capital, Galaris IV ))
Roy’s senses were hit all at once – heat, movement, tension, and the faint tang of ozone. It felt more like a triage tent than the nerve center of a planetary government. Every Kobyar in the room moved with purpose, but there was a frazzled, edge-of-collapse quality to it – the kind of pace that came after a catastrophe, not before it.
He glanced toward the wide observation window and the ruined silhouette of what had clearly been a very grand building. He didn’t need a tactical briefing to know what had happened there – that was almost certainly where the orders used to come from. Now it was nothing but glass, ash, and memories.
The room buzzed with urgency, and Roy could feel the stakes tighten around his chest like a blood pressure cuff. This wasn’t a simple away mission – this was the edge of the blade.
MacKenzie: Major, can you access the latest information on where Vef-Lai’s forces are and what kind of control they might have?
Oolwi/Kexxin/Richards/Imril: Response
Roy watched as Oolwi pulled up the planetary map. Orange for Kobyar, blue for Grunden. A soft, diplomatic green between them – laughable, really, given how soaked in red that zone was becoming. The crimson dots marking Vef-Lai’s insurgents didn’t care about borders or neutral zones. They scattered across both territories like a rash.
He stared at the red, then at the green, then at nothing in particular.
Bancroft: oO What color do you use for a war that doesn’t care who it kills? Oo
MacKenzie: This doesn’t appear to be limited to either the Kobyar or the Grunden. If I’m reading this right, Vef-Lai’s soldiers represent both races…
Oolwi: Vai-Lef’s faction may seek to wage war on the stars. Abducting Nesin and Griil may have been aimed at ensuring a means of crafting a fleet of warp-capable ships.
Kexxin: Response
MacKenzie turned to the assembled away team.
MacKenzie: Is there any way we can use the Kobyar or Grunden equipment to our advantage? I want to quell the fighting with minimal bloodshed if we can help it…
Bloodshed.
The word landed like a thunderclap in Roy’s brain. Not metaphorical bloodshed – real blood, real vessels. That Grunden soldier in the grunt. The scan of his cerebral vasculature, decimated. The cause? Nanoparticles. Microscopic, stealthy, and catastrophically effective. Triggered by an electromagnetic field emitted by… off-world tech.
Off-world tech. Like the kind they were most likely surrounded by right now.
He looked at MacKenzie – all precision and purpose, four pips and the bar below them glinting like a constellation he had no business navigating by. She hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words to him since he’d boarded Artemis, but something in her bearing scratched at a long-dormant nerve.
His mother would have adored her.
oO Lives are at stake, Roy. Get your act together. Oo
He cleared his throat. Quietly. Like a man introducing himself at his own trial. He opened his mouth – and then Imril spoke.
Imril: ::Pointing to Bancroft:: We found out the Syndicate has planted certain transmitters on at least some Grunden vehicles. They’re using them to activate a lethal poison in some people, presumably soldiers who they know won’t play along with prolonging the war, and to maintain communication between here and the moon. They use Nausicaan energy cells that are prone to overheat. If we bombard those transmitters with signals along these frequencies, overwork them with too many signals to coordinate, we can force them into critical overheat. Shut down any transmitters within range our our signals. That would blind whoever’s embedded on the moon, and put a stop to more assassinations.
Roy shifted slightly, the floor beneath him creaking. That would blind whoever’s embedded on the moon. There was something in that phrase that stuck at the back of Roy’s brain. The word.
Blind.
Bancroft: That’s brilliant, Imril. If we can blind the transmitters, we stall the threat at its source. Based on the investigation I performed, it seems the most likely route of ingestion for these EM-sensitive nanoparticles is through food or water. We have to operate under the assumption these particles are already in every Grunden – and likely every Kobyar – bloodstream. Because if we’re wrong, we’ll know it too late.
Somewhere in the room, a monitor beeped steadily – the only constant sound in a command center that now seemed to be holding its collective breath.
Richards/Kexxin: Response
Oolwi: The local tactical drones are spoken for, but there are weather-control drones in abundance to commandeer. Will they suffice?
Imril: I think so, on the ground level. We just need them to transmit, not shoot. We would need the Artemis, though, for long-range application of the idea. Assuming it works.
A spark popped from a nearby conduit – faint, but enough to draw a flicker of attention. Roy caught the scent of overheated insulation and resisted the urge to make a joke about how even the room itself was on the verge of a critical overheat.
Oolwi: Alright. If the Captain approves, I’ll get you the drones.
Bancroft: Thank you, Major. But… I can’t overstate the urgency. Every second we delay is a second closer to a possible systemic collapse – a planetary genocide.
His voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to. The word ‘genocide’ did all the heavy lifting.
Blind. Blind.
Kexxin/Richards/MacKenzie: Response
Imril: Is there a way to coordinate the Grunden and Kobyar orbital satellites to do the same? We could cover the whole planet that way.
Outside, the wind picked up. Dust slapped against the windowpanes like impatient fingers. Somewhere in the back of Roy’s mind, a metaphor tried to form – something about an hourglass tipped sideways… sand and time… and how they were running out of both.
Kexxin/Richards/MacKenzie/Oolwi: Response
Imril: We don't presently have any evidence that these transmitters are present on any Kobyar vehicles. But I don't see why they wouldn’t be, if this is how the Syndicate is monitoring the war and killing off undesirables.
Roy could still see the cortical scan in his mind’s eye – arteries blackened like ink spilled on vellum, neurons suffocating beneath the weight of a thousand microscopic saboteurs.
Blind. Blind. Blind.
Bancroft: ::slowly, with growing urgency:: Imril, Dr. Richards, Captain – the Grunden soldier I examined – the one from the Grunt – his brain didn’t shut down because of random drift. The nanoparticles weren’t scattered. They moved with purpose. Every last one of them flooded into the cerebral arteries at once.
He paused, eyes flicking between each of them.
Bancroft: I don’t know how – maybe it’s something in the frequency – but they were directed. Which means if whoever’s holding our people has them in their bloodstream too…
Kexxin/Imril/Richards/MacKenzie/Oolwi: Response
Bancroft: ::grimly:: If someone out there can weaponize these particles, then so can we. But we don’t have to be the monsters in this story. I’m not advocating we use them to kill – I can’t – though I’ll admit, there’s a dark appeal to that at the moment.
He glanced around, pulse fluttering against his collar like it wanted to escape his body. The weight of what he’d just said hung in the air – not heavy like judgement, but brittle, like something that might shatter if anyone breathed wrong.
Blind. Blind. Blind. Blind.
Kexxin/Imril/Richards/MacKenzie/Oolwi: Response
This mission had become a crucible for him, melting down everything he thought played well together: do no harm, preserve life, follow orders. But lately, each principle had its own voice, and none of them were singing in harmony. Worse – they’d stopped asking for permission.
He wasn’t entirely sure if the words leaving his mouth still belonged to him, or if he was just the vessel for some more decisive version of himself – one being swiftly forged in the oppressive heat of this impossible conflict.
And yet… even as doubt curdled in his chest, his voice kept steady.
Bancroft: I recognize that I’m flirting with the line of ‘do no harm’ here – but if that Oath had footnotes, this mission would be there under ‘situational ethics’.
He gave a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Bancroft: But if we could manipulate these particles – really aim them – then maybe we don’t need to pull a trigger to stop someone in their tracks. Imagine if we could redirect them to the cochlea – short term deafness. Or… or the capillaries around the retina. Instant blindness. Non-lethal, non-permanent, but incapacitating enough to matter.
Blind. Strategic. Surgical. Reversible. He clung to those ideas like a lifeline.
Kexxin/Imril/Richards/MacKenzie/Oolwi: Response
TAG/TBC!
===
Ensign Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1