Battletech: Biohazard (Commissioned)

Battletech: Biohazard

Chapter 1

Date: April 13, 3005
Location: Delos IV, Federated Suns

"It is going to be nice to have some shore leave," Jasmine muttered, looking around at the rest of her tank crew as they walked through a small town on the surface of the world. It had been a long time since they'd departed from Clan Space, and they had been granted limited liberty to go and enjoy walking around for once instead of being cooped up inside a dropship.

"Do you really think they have anything worth seeing on a world such as this?" Aleks, the tank driver, asked. "We are on the far outskirts of the Federated Suns. I doubt there will be anything entertaining to be found here."

"We will not know until we have seen for ourselves," Sen shrugged, the Goliath Scorpion not quite at odds but still an interesting addition to the crew. "Even in such places as this, much culture and history can be found."

"Look, a bar," Frank, the youngest of them, interrupted. "I do not know about the rest of you, but I have heard a great deal of talk about the local brews."

"We can go get a drink," Jasmine sighed. "Just try not to get us in trouble."

"Alas, I am wounded!" Frank clutched at his heart. "Have I not earned your trust?!"

"On the battlefield," Jasmine chuckled, shaking her head. "Not on leave."

The four of them moved together through the barely-paved roads and entered the aptly named. "Steve's Saloon". Entering, the locals turned around before shrugging and ignoring the Mercenaries. Sure, it was not exactly a common thing for newcomers to enter a bar and get some drinks. But the locals didn't seem to care.

As the four took a seat at a nearby table, the small display in the corner of the bar continued to play what looked like old news from a few years ago.

"What is she talking about?" Aleks asked the waitress when she stopped by to collect their drink orders, gesturing towards the screen.

"Oh, that?" the woman drawled. "That's just an old replay from twenty-nine sixty. First Prince Andrew Davion took the old Warrior Cabal and gave them an ultimatum. If they could take and hold Tikonov, then they'd get their wish. If they couldn't, then they'd have to submit to his reforms. Well, they should've expected the Capellans to play dirty. Half their infantry got injected with "C" before the start of things, the Warrior Cabal didn't stand a chance. They took the first city, and within a few weeks they'd been thrown back offworld."

"You seem to know a lot about this," Sen commented. "Where did you happen to obtain this knowledge?"

"I'm surprised you don't know," the Waitress shook her head and laughed. "It was the reason the Treaty of Sixty-Five was established. Not that it held the Crappies for longer than a decade, but it was still something that we're taught in schools. That, and that the Dracs ceded any worlds they'd taken from the Fedsuns and Lyrans in twenty-nine twenty-five in exchange for closed borders. We occasionally hear rumors from across the border. But not much else."

With that, she disappeared, vanishing into the kitchen area to retrieve their drinks.

"What is 'C'?" Frank asked, looking a bit pale as he turned his gaze away from the old news report. "And why did the Capellans inject their own people with it?"

"I suspect we will find out when the Wolf Brothers have finished negotiating our contract," Jasmine shrugged. "Anything else discussed should be done back at the barracks."

With that, the four decided to ignore the screens outside of making a mental note and began drinking the alcohol they'd been brought. They'd already been informed that their clan Scrip wouldn't be any good, so the Wolf Brothers had exchanged some Germanium with the Comstar representatives in order to give their people some of the local currency. Currency that the four rapidly spent on the best alcohol they'd had in their lives.

Hours later, the tank crew left the bar, staggering down the road to the spaceport and the tents that were serving as barracks for the next few weeks. The streetlights occasionally flickered and cast dark shadows throughout the town, giving it an almost sinister pall.

The closer to the spaceport they got, the darker it seemed to be. With entire sections of road being turned into areas only illuminated by the light of the stars and moons.

In one of said dark sections, Aleks doubled over and vomited, the dark red stain in the vomit hidden by the shadows, concealing the danger they were in.

"You good?" Jasmine asked, patting her driver on the back.

"Yeah," the short man nodded. "Just the drink catching up to me, I will be fine."

With that, the four finally reached the tents and the lighting that surrounded the handful of dropships that had been allowed to make landfall. The light exposed the four, revealing Aleks's usually dark skin to have a pale look to it. His eyes seemed bloodshot even beyond the effects of alcohol, and he staggered in a way that made him look almost wounded.

"You do not look well, my friend," Sen said, helping his friend into their shared tent.

"I just need some rest," Aleks replied, sitting down on his bunk and laying down, turning his head away as he coughed.

"Then we shall leave you to it," Sen replied, sitting at the table and pulling out a deck of cards that the four had been using for the better part of a year to entertain themselves.

Three of the four found themselves so engrossed in their game that they ignored the few coughs of their driver, their laughter masking the sounds of Aleks's breathing until it finally slowed, stilled, and stopped. They were so consumed that they missed it when Aleks's body stood and began to shuffle towards the table.

"Hey, Aleks!" Frank grinned as he looked up at Aleks shrouded in the light above him. "You're up!"

Frank's smile slowly turned to horror as the man turned and lunged at Jasmine, the speed and unrestricted strength Aleks now possessed giving him enough time to begin tearing at he skin, causing her to bleed and scream before she pulled out a knife and stabbed her once-friend in the neck, dropping him and leaving him writhing on the ground.

"The hell was that?" Sen stood up, his sidearm drawn.

"I have no idea," Jasmine headed for the medkit and began drawing out gauze to wrap the long scratches and bitemarks on her arms. "But whatever it is, is is probably local."

"I'm calling the MPs," Frank muttered, moving to step over Aleks's body to do so, before his leg was grabbed. "Shit!"

Aleks didn't seem to be dead now that he was bleeding from the throat; instead, he seemingly had renewed strength that he used to bring his jaw and clamp onto Frank's calf, the usually flat teeth drawing an unusual amount of blood.

"Aleks, stop!" Sen barked, firing the sidearm into the dead man's chest, which seemed to have no effect whatsoever. Continuing to squeeze the trigger, the tanker walked the rounds up into Aleks's head, sending chunks of brain matter and brain stem through the tent and causing him to finally let go.

"Sen," Frank collapsed to the ground. "I do not feel so good."

A dark growl sounded from another nearby tent, and Sen glanced around, seeing Jasmine lying in a pool of her own blood on the ground. It shouldn't have been possible; her wounds had not been deep enough for such things. But the proof was in front of him.

Backing up, Sen turned and ran, ignoring the screams of Frank behind him as Jasmine seemed to stand back up from the dead and strike.

There was only one place where he would be safe, the dropship. Sen reloaded his pistol and began running towards the source of the gunfire he heard in the distance. It wasn't cowardice when you were faced with things that should not be possible. Running through the series of prefabs and tents. He headed for it. Safety. That was the one goal he had in mind. The Inner Sphere wasn't safe. Not for the Wolf's Dragoons, and not for the Clans.

Chapter 2

Sen never made it to the dropships. Despite the fact that he had felt fine, by the time he reached the emergency perimeter that had been set up by those who weren't infected, he had joined the rest of the zombified crowd.

However, he was one of the few zombies with a weapon in his hand, and when the still twitching muscles that composed his hands pulled on his hands, occasionally a shot would ring out among the zombified Wolf's Dragoons.

The vehicles, fences, and walls prevented the zombies from moving forward, and they hadn't been infected for long enough to show the 'common' mutations that occured when people were exposed to the T-Virus as of yet. Not that any of the Dragoons knew that. They were more concerned with ensuring that no one else was infected.

They were still grouped up with weapons pointed at their old comrades when a pair of 'mechs walked up, painted in an olive drab similar to that of the old SLDF, with the words ISBC on their chest.

"This is Inner Sphere Biohazard Countermeasures," the Firestarter broadcast. "Remain where you are, and we'll deal with the infected. Afterwards, my associates will distribute antivirals and begin basic treatment and tests."

A wave of flame spread out from the pair of 'mechs, washing over the infected and setting them ablaze in the way that only battlemechs and the flamers powered by the raw power of the sun could.

After a few minutes of continuous fire, the pair of Firestarters shut off the flamers and began to allow their 'mechs to cool. All that remained of the Wolf's Dragoons' undead comrades was bone and ash, the results of not knowing exactly what was waiting for them here in the Inner Sphere.

While the twin Firestarters kept vigil over the flaming corpses, a bunch of vehicles with the ISBC markings rolled up. IFVs, APCs, and VTOLs began to distribute people dressed in armor with weapons. The thing that distinguished them was that all of them bore the signature cross of a medic. They didn't speak much, keeping masks over they face while they began going through each of the remaining Wolf's Dragoons and injecting them with an antiviral.

"Who is in charge here?" One of the members of the ISBC asked.

"I am," Colonel Travis King stated, holding up his hand. "Can you tell us what the hell is going on here?"

"I'm Captain Piers Nivans of the ISBC, we've given antivirals to your people, but until you've had the chance to get any of the Vaccines, we don't recommend that your people make landfall," the blond stated.

"You are going to have to explain this," King growled. "I just had a lot of my people turned into some sort of freaks!" he spat on the ground. "And then you fucking set them on fire."


"I'll explain it once everyone's been treated," Nivans sighed, pulling his mask down and leaning against a nearby APC. "It's a long story, and one that doesn't always make sense until you've gotten the full background."

"Colonel Wolf will not allow us to return to the rest of the jumpships until we are able to confirm that none of us are infected," Travis sighed, rubbing exhaustion from his eyes. "As it is, our negotiations with House Davion and the Federated Suns may be at stake due to this."


"The ISBC is not involved in the Succession Wars," Nivans replied automatically. "We're an independent organization that receives funding from Comstar and donations from people who don't want the T-Virus and Umbrella to continue to dictate how we wage war. We don't care about the war itself ending or not. I mean, we'd like for there to be peace. But honestly, we just want the viruses removed from the equation."

"I do not understand any of that," Colonel King shook his head. "I believe now would be the time to explain everything."

"Well, we can't narrow down the specific year, but our best guess put's it around twenty-eight fifty or so," Nivans stated.

—————-

"You are going to tell me exactly why a pair of Firestarters and an independent organization turned a hundred of the people under my command into ash!" Jaime growled at the Federated Suns representative, his hands making a grasping motion towards his holster as he stood up and stepped back from his chair.

"Sure," The old grizzled vet shrugged. "It all started in the Free Worlds League in the Twenty-Eight Fifties. Company called Umbrella went interstellar and started selling something called B.O.W's on the open markets. They were marketed as a replacement for infantry guys like me. Occasionally, they'd offer a deal on something called a Tyrant, but we here out on the Periphery didn't really hear any of this until years later–."

————

"The T-Virus is something unique and extraordinary in the regular sense of the word," Nivans continued. "Some of the scientists who work for the ISBC say that if given time and enough proper experimentation, they could have cured cancer, or any number of other degenerating diseases. In layman's terms, it reanimates dead tissue and causes it to start working again. I don't know why it starts changing people like this," He gestured to the flaming corpses. "That's a question for the science guys. But, I do know that Umbrell didn't stop at the T-Virus. No, they weren't content with what this was, they were after more money, more power, etc. So, Spencer and his two partners went all in on the Research and Development. Finding buyers for untested B.O.W's in every nation except for the Draconis Combine."

"So, it is a virus," Colonel King crossed his arms across his broad chest. "That means there must be some sort of cure or vaccine."

"There are some vaccines," the ISBC Captain said after a moment. "The problem is that even when we give them to you, it doesn't make a difference in most cases. Any viruses based or built off of the T-Virus adapt to every environment except for the void. Every, person, and system they come into contact with is a different reaction. Bites, modified viruses, those will still affect everyone and everything."

"How much of the vaccine do you have on hand?" The Wolf's Dragoon officer asked.

"We keep a small stockpile on every world at the HPG complex as well as the formula and required materials to manufacture more," Nivans shrugged. "We'll share the manufacturing method with you, but we used up our immediate antivirals on you and the rest of your people. The Davion's will have their stockpile as well as a stockpile of the vaccine."

"Thank you," Colonel King inclined his head. "I will be sure to credit the Inner Sphere Biohazard Countermeasures with our survival. We will repay the debt we owe your organization."

"Just don't sink to using any of Umbrella's services and we'll consider it even," Captain Nivans said tiredly. "Now, I've got a report to file, and a list of procedures to follow," he extended a hand and shook Travis King's hand firmly. "Hopefully this is the last time we ever see each other like this."

—————-
Jaime frowned, his eyes locked on the Davion Liaison who had finished giving a brief history of Umbrella and their impact on the Inner Sphere. This wasn't anything that had been reported, expected, or explained prior to their entry.

The Dragoon Compromise had a mission, that mission was different, he would have to return to the Clans for new orders.

First, though, they had to acquire more information from certain areas of the Inner Sphere. This Umbrella Corporation must be investigated while the remainder of the unit moved.

"Thank you for the information," Jaime said. "Allow me to speak to my officers and decide on whether we will continue negotiations for a contract."

"I'll let my superiors know," the Davion Liaison nodded, standing and extending a hand for Jaime to shake.

Jaime ignored it in favor of standing and leaving the room. He needed to speak to all of his officers and they needed to collect the people on the ground. The mission had Ichanged. The question was. What did the Wolf's Dragoons need to do now?