Excerpt: Repercussions

1345 hours, July 13, 2220 (Earth Calendar) \
ETFC Research Base, Meta System, Planet Veridis

“If you would step this way please, we can begin the examination.”

She grimaced, knowing full well she should be on the other side of the glass window, be a part of the group doing an ‘examination.’ But here she was, on the inside, next to the corpse that had contracted the alien virus, not knowing if she had the virus now or not. The military had been crucial on the lockdown, on the quarantine, but everyone else that had been with her and the corpse were now dead of either shock or the virus as well. The reasons for her survival so far were unknown to her and the military and medical scientists that had been brought to Veridis.

Her shoulders drooped as she sat, leaning against the wall that was farthest from the bodies and gore. She buried her head in her knees, not wanting to see the scientists and their military guards gawk at her and the chaos around her. She was not some guinea pig in their little failed experiment. She could hear them now though, the footsteps of, maybe, seven people coming towards her and the mess hall where everything had started. She turned on her telecom, the one thing she had been allowed to keep in her imprisonment.

“…The year is 2220, a year of space outlook and scientific outreach. We are proud to say that this year we have accepted the peace offerings of the Ind, the alien race we encountered upon Marx in 2208. The President of the ETF is pleased to state that he will personally accept the offerings and greet the Ind with hospitality, and that we should do the same when visiting them or vice versa…”

The telecom screen flickered as she turned it off, not wanting to hear even more optimistic garbage that was in fact more lies to keep the vastly spread population of Earth happily unawares. She knew the truth though, and it revolved around the base she had been stationed at nearly nine years prior. The Ind were definitely not handing out peace offerings to Earthlings and they most certainly were not seeing the President of the ETF. The Ind were hell bent on seeing all that came from Earth was decimated: humans, the animals and plant life, the technology and discoveries made by the intelligent life on Earth. Battle after battle, skirmish after skirmish, lost world after lost world; it made no matter anymore how long the war with the Ind had been going on. The only thing that mattered now was the virus the Ind had set upon the first and only colony on Veridis.

She pulled her ID off of her lab coat, flashing it before her coffee eyes.

Name: Specialist Amy Rane Daugherty
Clearance Level: 7
Veridis Science Team

The picture underneath her name was not one of her better moments, her face sour. She turned it over, staring at her blood speckled barcode, her fingers shaking as the memories washed over her. She gripped her badge in anguish, knowing full well she would most likely live the rest of her days within her confinement, going only where the military designated she could go. She would never see those she wished to see again, never see the other planets she had heard so much about.

“Amy…” Someone hissed her name from beyond the glass, her head jerking up to meet her mocker.

She stood frantically, dashing to the glass and pressing her hands into it, hoping beyond hope she could reach the man before her. “Jake! What are you doing here? You should have kept going with the group!” She chastised him, a smile on her lips, and the haunted look in her eye disappearing altogether.

“I was allowed to make sure that my friend was doing all right and yet to die.” He quoted hollowly, “I was to give condolences and ask for any last requests.”

She grimaced, her hands falling to her sides, the hand holding her badge slowly opening, the plastic falling to the floor. “I… I see.” She muttered, her eyes turning away from his. She would become a guinea pig, the fascination of many scientists in their conquest to discover the cure for the new virus. She knew her life was forfeit now, and that thought did not sit well with her.