by Webb, Nick
He collapsed to the floor. It’s over, he thought. If they can infiltrate this far, this high ... it’s over.
Crawling, fumbling toward his desk, he reached in the lowest drawer, withdrawing the pistol.
It’s over. It’s over. I can’t let them work through me again. He raised the pistol to his head. How many others? was his final thought.
A pop, some spray, and Rear Admiral Littlefield slumped to the floor.
Chapter Seventeen
Intergalactic Safari Expeditions Company Nature Preserve
Tanzania, Earth
Isaacson peered down the sights of his high-powered rifle, keeping the crosshairs steady on his target. He considered himself an expert, of course, and so had foregone the electronically stabilized version of the firearm. Why rely on electronics when I can rely on myself? There was no one to trust in the whole world, he knew, so may as well trust the only person who made sense. He was all that mattered. He was the only real thing.
I am god. With an ironic chuckle, he lowered his rifle and pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. It was midwinter in the northern hemisphere, but here in Tanzania the summer heat was oppressive. And even though he’d taken Volodin on a big-game hunting expedition to “oligarch’s playground,” as the nature preserve was called, complete with all the amenities the galaxy’s elite would need on such a hunt, he’d shunned the personal air conditioning devices in favor of a more natural setting.
He was a man. He’d rely on himself, his own wit, his own brawn. It was just Isaacson, his fortitude, and his high-powered Thiessen & Wells grav-assisted automatic-trajectory-correcting rifle.
“Why are you laughing, Eamon?” asked his friend, Ambassador Volodin, who was looking through his own sights at a target far off in the distance, across a savannah plain. Their targets weren’t live, of course. This was just the practice session required of all the patrons of Intergalactic Safari Expeditions Company. Most of the galaxy’s elite—politician and oligarchs and wealthy scions of “old money” families—were not the most accomplished hunters. They came here in order to indicate their status, not their skills. And so they invariably needed lots of handholding and guidance, as well as comprehensive insurance policies.
“I’m laughing at me, Yuri.”
“What’s wrong with you? You never laugh at you. You’re Eamon Isaacson, Vice President of United Earth, the least united government in the known galaxy.”
He raised the gun back up to his shoulder and looked down the sights again. The target was elephant-sized, about one hundred meters away, with concentric rings around a bullseye. “I’m laughing at my ridiculous situation. Here I am, with Avery enjoying record approval ratings now that we’re in the middle of a two-front war with both the Swarm and the Russian Confederation, and you, trying to figure out not how to decide on a cease-fire, not how to convince both sides to train their guns on the Swarm and at least hold off on shooting each other. No. When we get together, what do we talk about?”
“The only thing worth talking about, Eamon,” Volodin said, tightening his grip on the gun. “Ourselves.”
“But what about your good friend Malakhov?”
Isaacson fired. A split second later a hole appeared in the center of the bullseye, even though he was sure the shot had gone wide. Thank god for automatic-trajectory-correcting technology.
“He’s a useful tool, Eamon.” He fired off his own shot. “As am I. As are you. We’re all tools. All instruments and means to someone else’s end.”
Not me, he thought bitterly, even as he knew he lied to himself. He couldn’t face the fact that he was the biggest tool of all. First he’d been a Russian puppet and then he’d become Avery’s bitch, all the while thinking he’d been advancing his own self interests. And now here he was, trying to maintain the self-interested charade for Volodin, all while doing Avery’s bidding.
“Malakhov? Tool? Are you telling me you’ve got your president wrapped around your little finger? What’s he doing for you? What’s his angle?”
“Doing for me? Malakhov does nothing for me. But his angle is the same as Avery’s. It’s the same for all of them. World domination. Galactic domination. And knowing that gives us power over them. We see the whole chessboard while they only see the squares right in front of them. We know what makes them tick, and so we can channel their efforts for ... more worthy purposes.”
Isaacson took another shot, then tossed the gun down. The instructor nearby cringed when he saw that, but stayed where he was, safely by the open bar. The Vice President had instructed him that they weren’t to be disturbed, under pain of being forced to listen to a political speech.
“And your worthy purpose? I’ve never known you to be so noble, Yuri. For years we’ve been plotting Avery’s death, and now you want to serve a higher purpose?”
Volodin smiled, and set his rifle down carefully, like a practiced, trained marksman. Isaacson remembered he’d served in the Russian infantry as a young man. “Removing Avery was a higher purpose. Though now that I’ve seen her in action, maybe she, too, can be part of the higher purpose. As some of us are making Malakhov serve a higher purpose.”
Isaacson strode toward the land vehicle that would take them out to the “wild” part of the preserve where dozens of cloned elephants were waiting, semi-drugged so they wouldn’t run away. United Earth law forbade hunting big game animals, but by a small quirky loophole of the law, elephants that had already been shot and killed were grandfathered in. Someone figured out you could clone one of the dead ones and stay within the law by exploiting the loophole. But, drugged or not, Isaacson didn’t care. He just wanted to kill something. And elephants were something.
“And just what is this higher purpose you have in mind, Yuri?”
“Simple. Save humanity, of course. Not only save it from the Swarm, but save it from itself. Look around you, Eamon. Even if United Earth wins, what exactly has it won? And if the Russian Confederation wins, it will have won a pyrrhic victory, for Avery and the United Earth government and top brass will not go quietly. Once the Swarm is gone, there is nothing to stop full-scale civil war. You read the reports. You know what happened at Volari Three.”
Isaacson snorted. “Of course I did. Fifty Russian cruisers almost turned the tide during the largest space battle in history. Nearly gave the Swarm their final victory.”
“And three weeks later, IDF bombed the shit out of New Petersburg.”
Isaacson smiled. “Payback, my friend. Plus, I managed to convince Avery to attack New Petersburg instead of Smolensk, just like you wanted.” It was half true, at least. Volodin had asked him to try to influence Avery, and Isaacson had told her so. And she, wanting to ensure Volodin absolutely trusted her human tool, allowed him to tell Volodin that he had convinced her, and the attack happened exactly as the Russians wanted.
“Well, that still hurt us, but not as much as Smolensk would have. Still,” he said, stopping outside the vehicle as they approached, “You’ve been a good friend, Eamon. Both to me, and to the Russian people. And to your own, for taking actions that will increase the goodwill between our people, when the time comes. If the time comes.”
The ambassador sounded distant and hopeless. “You think it might already be too late?” said Isaacson.
“It’s possible. If the Swarm wins, we lose. If the Russian Confederation wins, half of humanity loses. If IDF wins, the other half of humanity loses. Take your pick.”
“And what is there to do about it? I can’t help it that your government has sided with the Swarm in the war. What logical choice is there for us to take? Just bow down to joint Russian-Swarm hegemony?”
“No, Eamon. There is a third way. And, being the man I know you to be, you’ll jump at the chance.”
The driver came over, interpreting their presence by the vehicle as their signal to start the hunt. They paused the conversation as they piled in. The drive out to the cloned elephant habitat only took fifteen minutes, and along the way they could see var
ious other enclosed savannah environments, each presumably holding collections of cloned animals. Isaacson saw several lions packs, giraffes, a rhinoceros—animals that a well-heeled oligarch from high society might want to hunt.
They arrived at the habitat, and the driver set them up on a pad outside the perimeter. A shimmering screen rose up a dozen meters in the air, forming a transparent barrier that would presumably keep the animals from reaching over or crossing through to harm their hunters. “It’s transparent to you,” said the driver, “but to them it’s reflective and angled such that they only see sky. You are invisible to them, my friends.”
The driver retreated back to the vehicle while Isaacson unpacked the rifle from the case. Volodin watched him, and Isaacson didn’t notice the other man hadn’t unpacked his gun until he was himself already leaning through the screen, elbows resting on the wooden railing. “Aren’t you going to hunt?”
“This is no hunt, Eamon. I prefer my kills to be ... more well deserved.”
“Suit yourself.” He scanned the savannah setting, catching a glimpse of a large elephant drinking from a small pond near a tree. “So? You were saying? What’s this third way you were alluding to?”
Volodin smiled. “Tell me, Eamon, for years we’ve worked toward Avery’s death, and for you to replace her. Tell me. What would you do in her place?”
Be president, he thought at first, before flinching. He’d almost forgotten she was listening. “The opposite of everything she does,” he said, putting on a good show for both Volodin and Avery. Volodin needed to hear he was committed to taking out Avery. Avery needed to hear that he was playing Volodin convincingly. Damn, this was getting hard to keep track of.
“Oh, come now, Eamon, she doesn’t do everything wrong. Really, what would you do?”
Isaacson sighted the elephant, and aimed for the head, which was bent low to the water, oblivious to the perilous situation it was in. “Before the war broke out, she was the worst president in recent memory. Nearly gutted the military. Raised taxes. Took on the families and companies that mattered. Tried to destroy our way of life. She’s been a disaster.” He ran through the litany of political complaints her opponents leveled at her, the same issues that Avery and her party would have claimed as accomplishments. In reality, he didn’t care a bit about the particulars. He just hated her as a person, and wanted the job for ... well, he just wanted people to call him President Isaacson. To be top dog. The person everyone in the room deferred to.
“And I just want my country to survive, Eamon. Tell me, what do you think would happen if you were the president of United Earth, and I was the president of the Russian Confederation?
Isaacson pulled the trigger. The bullet sheared through the elephant’s skull, and he saw a cloud of red emerge from the other side. The huge animal bolted instinctively, but then fell a few steps later and collapsed.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Humor me, Eamon. What would happen?”
Isaacson shrugged and sighted another animal. He knew the price would go up astronomically with every elephant he killed, but he didn’t care. The bill was on Avery’s administration anyway. “Well for one thing, the Swarm wouldn’t stand a chance against both of us. Then, after the war, I suppose we’d finally have peace and cooperation. No more endless suspicion and working at cross purposes. Humanity would be safer than ever.”
“Exactly, Eamon. Do you really think that the Swarm is all there is out there? Suddenly, out of the blue, come the Dolmasi. And we’ve just received intelligence about your meeting with the Skiohra. Hell, just the name of the Concordat of Seven suggests there are at least seven intelligent alien races out there. And if there’s seven, there’s most likely many more. And do you really think the Swarm is the worst out there?”
Another shot rang out. Another elephant slumped to the ground. Isaacson saw a third animal a hundred meters away. Its jaw moved steadily as it ate a mouthful of leaves, unconcerned about its neighbor’s plight, too drugged to care about anything. “I suppose not. But one mortal enemy at a time. I would have thought that your government knows everything there is to know about the Swarm and the Concordat of Seven.”
“And you’d be mistaken. You’re right about us, Mr. Vice President. My government has only thrown in with the Swarm out of self-preservation. But that doesn’t mean we know the first thing about it. We learned about the Dolmasi after you did. Same with the Skiohra. Just because we’re in the family doesn’t mean we know all the siblings. We only know the drunk, abusive father, who we suspect wants us dead as soon as he gets what he wants from us.”
A third shot. A third dead elephant. Isaacson saw a fourth a long distance off, perhaps three hundred meters. He wondered if the automatic-trajectory-correction system would be enough to let him bring it down. He set himself up into position. “Are you telling me you have buyer’s regret, Yuri? Wishing your government had stayed loyal to its own? To United Earth?”
Volodin lowered his voice, glancing to his left and right, even though they were completely alone, except for the driver who’d already retreated to the car. “Of course we have buyer’s regret. We’ve been regretting for months. We completely underestimated the Swarm. And furthermore,” he paused again, looking up toward the sky as if searching for surveillance drones. “Most of us in the political sphere have buyer’s remorse with Malakhov. It’s his fourth term, you know.”
“Pushing for an early election?”
“In a sense. Eamon, I need your help. If we succeed, it could mean we, the two of us, save our entire race.”
The fourth shot cracked the air. A moment later, the fourth elephant fell, drawing a grin from Isaacson. “Oh? Help with what?”
“Eamon, I need you to help me kill Malakhov.”
Chapter Eighteen
Bridge, ISS Warrior
High Orbit, Britannia
“York is just seven lightyears from Britannia,” said Proctor as they raced to the bridge. “They must know Zingano keeps his strike force based here. I’m worried this could be a decoy. Draw us away from Britannia and then strike one of our main worlds.”
“The thought had crossed my mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bill stays here and sends the Warrior with its own force, maybe supplemented with some of the newer ships in the third fleet based at Wellington shipyards in the Britannia System. We’ll know soon enough.”
They quickly maneuvered their way past a crew of workers installing the back end of a new mag-rail turret that had just been replaced. “Shelby, what about that research you’ve been hinting at? You’ve been holed up with your new team for weeks.”
She caught up with him around a corner. “Remember our resupply at Earth last month? Well, I brought on board a little piece of equipment that didn’t show up on any shipping manifest.”
“Oh?” He turned and raised his eyebrows, but kept his brisk pace down the hallway.
Ever since Ballsy had returned with Fishtail, albeit with a foggy memory, his report of talking to a fully-Swarm-controlled Granger had unnerved her. That, combined with the admission from Granger himself that when he’d confronted Colonel Hanrahan, he’d somehow been able to convince him, mind-to-mind, to lower his weapon. It added up to something suspicious, but she didn’t have hard evidence. At least, not yet. That should change soon, she thought.
“Remember Engineering on the Constitution? After you came back from The Event? How I carried you down there as we fell from the sky?”
“Still hazy, but sure,” he replied.
“You might not remember, seeing how you were passed out for a lot of that time, but there was a bunch of new equipment installed in Engineering.”
He nodded, twisting to the side as he rushed past a herd of fighters making their way down to the fighter deck. The alarms were blaring, signaling everyone to battle stations. “I remember. Haven’t had much time to think about it. Did we ever get the report of what it was? I presume it’s of Russian origin?”
“Of course. The vo
ices we heard on the sickbay voice recorders: Russian. You obviously were in their hands for at least a little while. And it turns out that equipment is Russian, too. Jury-rigged and duct-taped—it sure looked like they installed it in a hurry.”
He stopped momentarily, and his shoulders hunched. “Are you telling me you brought it here?”
“I am.”
“When were you going to tell me about it?” He kept walking, but sounded annoyed.
“When I figured out what it did. Sorry, I had to be sure.”
“Sure that I’m not, in fact, still under Swarm control?”
“I’m ninety-nine percent sure you’re not under Swarm control. Well, ninety-five percent sure, at worst.”
He shot her a look. At least he could still take a joke—he’d seemed particularly on edge the past month, ever since the Swarm attacks had intensified.
“Anyway,” she said, dodging the original question, “the techs down at IDF Science suspected it had something to do with singularity production. And they’re right.”
He stopped again, and turned. “Are you telling me...?”
“It’s in my lab now. We tested it. Nothing too big, of course—”
His eyes grew wide. “You made a singularity onboard the Warrior?”
“Barely,” she said. She held up two fingers. “A micro singularity. Femto. Like a billionth of a billionth the size of the ones the Swarm throw at us.”
He glowered at her, but resumed his brisk trot to the bridge. “That’s your big result you wanted to tell me?”
“Not quite. What’s really interesting is that we tested it on Swarm matter. I sent a small sample of Swarm matter through the pair we made. When it came out the other side, it was changed. Fundamentally changed. Many of the complex protein encoding structures were broken apart. It no longer responded to manipulation with meta-space signals.”
