GENESIS - THE BEGINNING. Book 1

CHAPTER 17 ... Landfall - plus 29 hours, Overlord

His stomach churned. 

A headache pounded where once upon a time he prided himself in being one of the few lucky ones to never be afflicted with such a minor affair. Could this be what was termed a migraine? Without knowledge of such mundane affairs, it could be a toss-up. What he did know was that the pain was getting worse. Even his joints were painful. He moaned his distress as he tried to ease his hipbone into a more comfortable position on the hard ground. The insulated self-heating sleeping bag, professed to being the infantryman's best friend being half a step behind his Lasgun, did not seem to be doing a good job of supplying body warmth as he was shivering his butt off. Cold sweat covered his entire body and was running in rivulets down his face. Could he have picked up some flu virus or something? Should he get a medic?

Still wondering what he should do, Trooper first class, John (Johnny-boy to his friends) Carlton Young, slipped into a coma, defecated in his military trousers and died soon after.

Of the eight thousand troops encamped in the demolished city of Fordsburg, close to two hundred others of his brethren showed the same symptoms. Unlike him, a diehard to the last, many of them called for unsympathetic medics who believed that the troopers tried to shirk their responsibilities. It was only when one unfortunate soldier happened to die while trying to convince said medical practitioner, that the alarm was raised. Word spread. Rumors abounded. The bush telegraph was reinvented.

The Empire had unleashed some sort of germ warfare against them. The food/water/air was poisoned. The only edible food was what could be found in shopping malls or stores. The kind still with wrappings on. (Company cooks had foraged and supplemented fresh greens and fruit to dwindling stocks of freeze dried and bland rations - there was a war going on after all and it took time to have food stocks delivered. Time that the infantryman was not prepared to wait for) The word spread, stay far away from running water – what there was of it, and drink only bottled water or better yet, water supplied by their own military – that is of course if the bastards had not taken a short cut and refilled their tankers from some close by stream or dam. Within minutes the word went out that any person with symptoms of pains or headaches should report to their NCO's who took down particulars and sent them off to the medics who erected a hospital dome in a relatively undamaged park where the only casualty was a duck pond. By the sixth death, alarm bells their persistently clanging in the heads of surgeons who called in Evacs* to remove the afflicted to a quarantine ship for further scrutiny and investigation.

"There is nothing wrong with this man." The coroner said, removing skin-thin and blood covered gloves. Flicking a foot pedal with the tip of his shoe, he dropped the gloves into a bin marked for incineration.

"You mean other than him being dead and all his insides laying on every conceivable surface?" Major Skinstead ironically asked.

"Other than that Major, there is nothing wrong with this man." The Coroner smiled grimly. "Appendicectomy as a child. Relatively fit. No malnourishment. Seems he had eaten not so long ago. Bit mushy though and requires more testing to see just what he ate. No puncture wounds and aside from a few abrasions on knees and elbows, there is nothing I can find that can determine cause of death. This fellow," he clapped the corps lightly on the shoulder. "Is a prime suspect for the human race."

"I'm not following."

"And neither am I, I'm afraid." Quipped the Coroner. "This is definitely a curious situation."

"Curious? Situation?" the Major stared with astonishment at the white cloaked man before him. "Just to remind you sir, in case you have not noticed , but we are invading the so called Empire with close to half a million troops and I cannot have men dropping like flies for no other reason than curiosity or because they feel like it. Find something."

"Oh. I will Major. If I may say so, my curiosity is piqued."

The Major stared at the coroner with disgust. "I do not believe I like you sir."

"Not unusual. Now, do you mind? I have work to do."

The Major turned on his heels and left the theater. He had a report to type out. A report that positively, with one hundred percent certainty, would have the top brass descending on his not so large shoulders shortly.

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