Footsteps Of Giants - 1. Chapter 1

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

-Neil Armstrong

Footsteps of Giants

Chapter I

September 27th, 2143 A.D.

Orbital Platform Leonidas

Low Orbit over Neptune

I’d forgotten how hot these damned suits are.

They were made from seventy-three synthetic fibers and weaved together to form a mesh strong enough to deflect a piece of debris hurtling through space at near Mach two, I was nevertheless glad to be wearing it. The Klein SynthTech Suit had been adopted throughout the armada as part of the official uniform.

I sat alone in the cockpit of a small shuttle, fiddling with the fasteners on the sleeve of the suit, staring out the window at the profile of the massive Warship, Blinding Fury; my home for the last three months.

On the lower deck of the shuttle, a squad of marines prepared to enter the platform. I tended to stay as far away from soldiers as possible. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the work they do, the purpose they serve, but all that “standard operating procedure” bullshit was enough to make my head explode. I’ve had to deal with it for three months.

“Dr. Klein, final preparations are being made,” Officer Randall informed me. I turned to face him.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll be along in a moment.”

The Lieutenant wore his full suit, complete with helmet and gauntlets. Pressurization made his voice sound tinny. Through the mirrored faceplate of the helmet, I couldn’t see any features aside from my own reflected back at me. The soldier nodded, then left me alone once again.

I picked up my helmet and stared at my reflection. Tired, twitching eyes exposed a severe lack of sleep. This mission was the first time I’d been sent out into the field. My nerves got the better of me. Something strange was happening onboard the Orbital Platform Leonidas, and my directive was to find the cause.

The massive Orbital Platform was roughly the size of a small city and home to about fifty-thousand soldiers, scientists, and their respective families. The idea of becoming Chief Medical Scientist of the entire platform boggled my mind.

Many of the engineering staff had come down with a strange illness, similar to the Saturn Flu, but more contagious. According to the last status update, received before we departed for Leonidas, the engineering staff and their families had been separated from the rest of the population. The report was vague, and did not include the specifics of what was different about the illness, or the quarantine.

I snapped my helmet into place, pulled on my gauntlets and fastened them to my sleeves. I walked to the archway, and descended the ladder into the lower deck to join the squad of soldiers.

As I entered I got the distinct feeling they had been talking about me over the comlink in their helmets. I couldn’t know for sure, because all they had to do to keep me in the dark was switch over to one of the inaccessible military frequencies. I couldn’t care less what they thought of me.

“T-minus two minutes,” Commander Pierce announced. Pierce, a mountain of a man, stood nearly seven feet tall; a pillar of strength and rock hard muscle.

Time crawled by at a snail’s pace. Finally, the light to the right side of the airlock clicked from red to green, and the door slid open. The light from the orbital platform spilled into the shuttle, temporarily blinding me and forcing my helmet’s light shield to activate. I hadn’t noticed until then how low the lights on the shuttle had been. The soldiers took the opportunity to unclip their helmets and secure them to their belts.

“Welcome to the Leonidas,” a sergeant in a service uniform announced, which is strange for a welcoming committee. Usually this was the duty of the highest ranking official on the ship. The man showed signs of exhaustion, and he hadn’t shaved in days. Grease stains covered his tunic, and his collar was unbuttoned. He didn’t salute; a huge insult to the commander.

Pierce entered the platform followed by his squad. I entered last. The airlock quickly shut and I leaped away from it, yelping in surprise.

“This must be Doctor Adam Klein,” the sergeant said, struggling to contain a laugh.

“Commander Julius Pierce, reporting for duty.” Pierce didn’t salute the sergeant, as he was higher ranking. He appeared to be just as surprised by the sergeant’s lack of respect as I was. “Where is the Commanding Officer on this vessel?”

“Admiral Lane is a very busy man, Commander. His services are required elsewhere.”

“So he sends a sergeant with no respect to greet us? I’ll be filing a grievance with…”

“Commander, you will soon find out that things don’t exactly work your way on the Leonidas. We’ve all had to adapt in order to survive,” the sergeant said with a furrowed brow. “This way. I’ll escort you to Command Central.”

The sergeant walked away, down the long corridor. We had no choice but to follow. I unfastened my helmet and clipped it to my belt. The air smelled stale, and stank of old sweat. I almost wished I’d left the helmet on. I would get used to it sooner or later, and since I was going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future, it might as well be sooner.

At the end of the corridor was an Express Lift station. An outsized, round room with five lifts, each large enough to carry at least twenty people. The sergeant led us to the one directly in the middle. He used the touchscreen control module, and with the tiniest of jerks, the lift ascended. After a few minutes, we came to a stopand the doors opened.

The sergeant took the lead, heading straight down a dark corridor. Many of the overhead lights had fused, some of them flickered ominously. We weren’t the only people in the corridor. Soldiers and civilians alike walked in both directions.

Finally we reached a large metal door with the words ‘Restricted Access’ painted across it, and a touchscreen numerical keypad stood to the side. The sergeant punched in the code, and the door rumbled open.

Command Central had an ominous feel about it. Near the center of the room, a man with a snowy beard and a pair of old fashioned, wire framed glasses, sat in the command chair. He, like the rest of the crew, was exhausted, but it was worse for him. It was as if he carried the burdens of the world on his slumped shoulders. He glanced up as we entered.

“Ah! Commander Pierce! Good to see you!” He bounced out of his chair towards Pierce, who saluted rigidly. “At ease Commander. How was your trip?”

“The trip went well, Admiral Lane. But I’m afraid I must report on the conduct of the sergeant who welcomed us…”

“Watts give you trouble?”

“He didn’t mention his name, but he paid no respect to my rank.”

“Please forgive the sergeant’s behavior. We’ve all had to make some…adjustments, as of late.”

The expression on Pierce’s face bordered on the incredulous. He couldn’t believe the Admiral would excuse such behavior.

“Understood, sir,” Pierce said.

“I’ll give you a full briefing in private,” the Admiral said. He glanced at me. “Dr. Klein, I assume?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, without saluting. I was happy I wasn’t in the military.

“Lieutenant Kul will escort you to the current medical wing.”

A tall, skinny man with a pencil thin mustache walked towards me. I assumed this was Lieutenant Kul. He nodded, and I followed.

“What’s going on here?” I asked, matching his stride. IWalking swiftly was a chore in the SynthTech suit. I had to remember to cut down on the weight in the next design.

“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough. Things are not exactly normal here.”

“Okay, you’re the third person to say that since we arrived. Does everyone on this platform get off on being cryptic?”

He turned the corner into a short hall with a room at the end. The door opened as I was about to yell at him for an answer.

I stopped in my tracks..

I’d never seen that much blood.

Under normal circumstances, the room would have been a pristine white, with operating equipment and a nurse here and there. Blood formed pools on every surface; it stained the walls, the floors, the tables, the equipment. In the corner, stood three glass tanks. Each held a type of rodent I hadn’t seen before.

Blood dripped down the glass.

My head began to spin.

“Welcome to Hell,” Lieutenant Kul said. I reluctantly followed him into the room.

“What the fuck?” I asked as I got my bearings. “What happened here?”

“That’s what you’re here to find out,” a young man in messy medical scrubs said to my left. “You are Dr. Klein, right? I’m Dr. Ivy June”

“Y-yes, I’m Dr. Klein. But I thought there was some kind of disease here, not…this!”

The young doctor was handsome, and too young for my taste. He hardly seemed like he was old enough to be out of medical school, let alone be working as a doctor on an orbital platform.

“Doctor, this is the disease in its early stages, it seems like an ordinary case of Saturn Flu, but as it progresses, it does unexpected things to the body. In the final stages, the body goes into convulsions, sometimes so hard the patient breaks their back. Then the abdomen ruptures.”

“Can’t you keep the blood from spraying everywhere?” I asked. I was overwhelmed.

“What’s more important, keeping the room clean, or trying to save the patient’s life?”

“It’s just…can’t the room be cleaned now and then?”

“Dr. Klein, this room is sterilized every night. The blood you see is from today only. I…I lost six patients today…” His composure cracked, and I could tell that it was a struggle for him to remain calm

“I…I’m sorry Dr. June. I didn’t realize…”

“Whatever. I need you in that lab to analyze it as soon as you can,” he said, pointing to a door.

“Okay, so this might be a stupid question, but…” I considered the blood around me. “Shouldn’t we be wearing masks?”

“Whatever is causing this isn’t transferred through the air. As long as you don’t handle any infected blood with an open wound or get it in your mouth, you should be okay.”

I nodded, and turned toward the lab. He went back to the patient he’d been working on. The door slid open, and I entered the lab.

It was small, a stark contrast to the room outside. Perfectly clean on the inside, and all tools in their proper place. Off to the side stood a tall, cylindrical glass container with a metal lid.

Inside appeared to be deep red blood.

In the corner hung a fresh set of medical scrubs identical to the ones Dr. June had been wearing. Finally I can take this suit off, I thought to myself. I unfastened the clips of the SynthTech suit and peeled it off my body.

I stood with my back to the door, naked save for a pair of SynthTech boots, when the door slid open and Dr. June nearly crashed into me.

“Dr. Klein, one other–” he stopped short, seemingly lost for words. I sighed, and glanced at him from over my shoulder.

“I haven’t had a chance to go to my bunk yet, so I thought I’d just change into those scrubs over there.”

He didn’t respond. He stared at the large scar across my back.

His eyes slid down to my ass.

“Dr. June?”I said.

Finally he gazed into my eyes. “Y-yes?”

“Please hand me those scrubs?” It was clear from the tone in my voice that I didn’t want to explain the scar.

“Of…of course, Dr. Klein,” he snapped out of it, reached over, grabbed the uniform, and handed it to me. He turned around as I pulled them on and tapped him on the shoulder when I was done.

“Was there something you wanted to tell me?”

“Yes…we’ll be receiving another few patients in a few minutes from Sector G.”

“Sector G?”

“You really haven’t been properly briefed, have you?” He raised an eyebrow and propped his right hand on his hip.

I laughed. “I’ve been stuck on a battleship with a bunch of gun toting barbarians for the past three months. I haven’t seen any intel since before we left.”

“Three months?” He exclaimed. “That was back when they thought this was a strain of Saturn Flu! The symptoms have changed twice since then!”

“Twice? That’s…not possible. Is it?”

“Originally, the infected would exhibit the normal symptoms of Saturn Flu, only more severe. As time went on, the symptoms changed and they became more and more ill, eventually falling into a coma and dying. Now, once infected, they slip into a coma almost immediately, and six hours later they rupture, resulting in that horrible mess in the other room.”

“What time did today’s patients die?” I asked, horrified by what we were up against. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen.

“0900 hours this morning.”

I paused, waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, I regarded him with confusion.

“Wait… you’re telling me all six patients died at the same time? Nine o’clock?”

“That’s right,” he said. “I’d better get back out there; the new patients will be arriving any minute.”

As he finished, the door to the main room chimed, signaling their arrival.

“Speak of the devil and he will appear,” I said.

“I’ve never been to Earth,” he said. “But it’s clear the Devil’s been here a while. The question is, how do we get rid of him?"

He left and the door slid shut. I wanted to go with him to see the patients myself, but I had yet to acclimatize to this platform’s bacteria. Without the procedure, a sneeze from a patient could be fatal. I walked over to the blood sample, and began to analyze it for lack of anything better to do, at least until Dr. June finished prepping the new arrivals. I was definitely in over my head on this one. People depended on me, but I was no stranger to having lives placed in my hands.

I’ve always been gifted. As a kid, I was smarter than other boys my age. I rose through the ranks at school, graduating from high school a full three years early. I developed the first prototype of the SynthTech suit when I was eleven years old, and got my first taste of how cruel the world is. Three men died as a result of a flaw in the design. An error I should have caught.

I finished doing my first analysis of the sample, but I hadn’t identified any abnormalities. I knew the blood was infected, but not showing up on any of the results. I recalibrated the machine and ran the sample through again.

After the deaths of those three men, I decided to study medicine. I’d designed the SynthTech suit purely to make money. As soon as the bugs had been worked out of them, they became standard issue for the military. On the one hand, my suit saved peoples’ lives, and on the other hand it had become a weapon of war. It troubled me. I guess I became a doctor in part to atone for my sins.

The second analysis finished with the same results as before. I opened the cupboard next to the machine, and found an old fashioned sub-atomic microscope that had been partially disassembled and was covered with a thin layer of dust. I sighed, not at all looking forward to scanning the sample manually. I reassembled the microscope, then put the sample under the lens and peeked through the eyepiece.

I recoiled in horror.

How the hell could the computer regard this sample as normal? It didn’t even look human anymore!

I fiddled with the controls of the eyepiece, and eventually found the source of the illness.

“That’s strange,” I said, reaching over to press the buzzer on the intercom. “Dr. June, come in here please.”

“I’m busy out here,” he said, irritated.

“You need to see this. Now.”

He stormed into the room with the same look on his face had I punched his mother. I transferred the image from the microscope to the view-screen.

His expression melted away.

“What the fuck…? It looks almost…”

“Multicellular? I know. But it’s too small. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

The ‘virus’ resembled some type of insect, but it was nearly the size of a sub-atomic particle. It wasn’t possible for this thing to exist.

The sound of glass shattering and something heavy hitting the floor on the outside caught our attention. Dr. June took off through the door without a word.

I followed quickly, but ran into him outside the door.

The bodies of the new arrivals stood next to their examination tables. Heads cocked to extreme angles, limbs twitching. The one closest approached us, jerking his body around as if he’d never walked before in his life.

“What the fuck?” I said, trying desperately to comprehend what I was seeing.

“Please…help…me…” He cried out. But something wasn’t right about the way he spoke. The mouth moved up and down, but the lips didn’t change position at all. It reminded me of the way a ventriloquist’s mannequin mimics speech.

Dr. June moved towards it, but I put my hand on his shoulder and pulled him back. A patient broke the glass on one of the rodent tanks and devoured the animal.

“Don’t!” I shouted, gripping his shoulder.

He hadn’t seen the other one.

“I have to help them.”

“Look at that thing.”

His eyes widened in horror and he backed away. I gently pushed him towards the exit door.

“No! Don’t…go…” A shudder went down my spine as I stared at the blank eyes focused on our throats.

We bolted for the exit. I heard it’s shuffling, unsteady steps quicken behind us. It only took a second, but it felt like an eternity before the door opened. We rushed out and it closed behind us.

“What the fuck was that?” Dr. June screamed as I turned toward the door’s control panel.

“I have no idea. It tore that animal apart…”

I opened the small access port at the bottom of the control panel. Inside, a power supply with wires connected to the panel. I pulled the wires out.

“There, locked in.”

“We need to get to the bridge, now,” he said.

I couldn’t have agreed more.