by Webb, Nick
Isaacson stared at the ever-growing cluster of rocks and debris in awe. He could only imagine the utter destruction such a large mass would trigger when it collided with the planet below. The atmosphere would ignite, the upper crust would liquefy into an ocean of lava. Nothing could possibly survive.
He really was going to eradicate the Swarm.
Chapter Forty-Five
Bridge, ISS Warrior
Interstellar Space, 2.4 Lightyears From Sirius
There was nothing he could do but watch, helplessly. Impact would be in seconds. No time to call Norton, to plead with him. No time to move the Warrior to intercept.
No time.
The explosion was tremendous. Spectacular. Blinding.
And just like that, the Old Bird, which he had thought was being repaired and retrofitted back on Earth, was gone.
Again.
The dreadnought was belching flame, molten metal, debris, wreckage, twisted metal and solid, glowing chunks of hull. Even though the massive ship was nearly a hundred kilometers long, it began to list and rotate as it absorbed the momentum of the Constitution, which had come in with terrifying velocity.
And he felt someone screaming in the back of his mind. Someone nearby.
It was Krull, he knew. She was feeling the death throes of her people. Not just the tens of thousands aboard the dreadnought, living their exterior lives, but the billions of Skiohra still living their interior lives inside the mothers.
Genocide.
“Get me Norton back,” he said, almost in a whisper.
“You’re on, Captain,” replied Prucha.
“Norton, you bastard, what have you done?”
“What have I done, Granger? I’m winning.”
“You’ve killed billions of innocent Skiohra lives—”
“Innocent Skiohra lives? You’re delusional, Tim. They’ve got you. They’re in your head. Think about it. Why have the Skiohra only barely fired on the Swarm? They haven’t destroyed a single carrier, and the reason why is obvious. They’ve been playing you.” There was crosstalk on the other end of the comm, and then Norton continued, “there, see? Now the dreadnought is firing on us. How do you explain that, Granger?”
Granger glanced at the tactical display—it was true, several antimatter beams shot out from the dreadnought toward Delta Wing.
“It’s clearly self-defense. We were the aggressors here, not the Skiohra.”
“Bullshit, Granger. Treasonous bullshit. Now, your orders are to continue—”
The transmission cut out. On the display, several beams stretched out from the dreadnought toward the ISS Lincoln, though at such a large distance the beams were more diffuse. Still, the damage probably knocked out Norton’s commlink for the time being.
It was a disaster. The front twenty kilometers of the dreadnought was utterly devastated, with a Constitution-sized hole in it. The remains of his old beloved ship had blown out the back, in the form of dozens of chunks of molten tungsten. The Skiohra, as evidenced by the still-screaming presence of Krull in the back of his mind, were enraged, the Swarm was pounding Delta Wing and Zingano’s efforts with Alpha Wing had started to go south.
Pure, utter disaster.
“We’re going to lose the war,” he muttered. He no longer cared who heard him.
Proctor had come up behind him. “The marines might still take the ship....”
Granger shook his head. “No. They won’t. You didn’t see Krull fight. It took half a platoon to restrain her. And she was unarmed. Our boys don’t stand a chance, no matter how many of them the Old Bird took out.”
The Warrior had been pounding the nearest Swarm carrier with mag-rail slugs, and now that it was in the midst of the formation locking down Delta Wing, the IDF ships had a chance to regroup. Half of them went to the aid of the Lincoln. The other half formed a two pronged trident line that Zingano favored in his engagements, and re-engaged the Swarm formation of carriers.
“Tim,” Proctor said. Her voice had changed. Whereas before she’d sounded like she was trying to keep hope alive, this time she was resigned. “Look. Zingano and Alpha Wing.”
While the Warrior had been busy assisting Delta Wing, the tide had turned for Alpha. Ship after ship exploded. The rest were flanked by fifteen surviving Swarm carriers, who’d backed them up into the dreadnought, which was shooting out the occasional antimatter beam as well. Victory was getting hammered.
Warrior bucked beneath them. Its underside was a wreck, with hull breaches reaching all the way up to engineering. Half its mag-rails were gone. None of the laser turrets were operational. They’d never even had the chance to try out the new experimental antimatter torpedoes that IDF Armaments had stocked them with on Avery’s orders, as all the launch tubes were destroyed.
They were on their last leg.
Granger punched the comm. “Mr. Pierce. It’s time for some fancy brickwork from our pilots. Are they ready?”
Silence.
“Mr. Pierce, please respond.”
The comm link was open, and he even thought he heard background noises, possibly heavy breathing, but there was no response. He glanced up at Proctor. Now what?
“Get down there, Shelby.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Fighter Bay, ISS Warrior
Interstellar Space, 2.4 Lightyears From Sirius
Proctor ran. Even as the hallways shook, buckling under the sustained fire from the Swarm carriers, she sprinted to the fighter bay, leaping over fallen girders, strewn battle debris, and even two injured crew members, bloody from being tossed against bulkheads.
Less than a minute later she burst into the fighter bay. The deck chief looked up in surprise from haranguing a young tech who was refueling a fighter. She dashed toward the CAG’s office, but nearly collided with the door when it did not open automatically for her. The door control was unresponsive.
Cursing, she looked up to the window, just above her head, where the CAG and his crew could look out at deck operations as they directed traffic and tactical operations. “You!” she called to a tech nearby, who was busy opening a new container of fighter ordnance. “Roll that over here. Now!”
Flustered and red-faced, the young woman pushed the large wheeled box of rounds toward. the window. Proctor joined her, pulling on it, guiding it into position.
She jumped on top, craning her neck to peer up into the fighter deck operations center.
Commander Pierce was alone. Sitting in his chair next to the console. She could barely hear Granger’s voice yelling out of the comm speaker.
On Pierce’s lap was a photograph.
In his hands was a gun. He stared at it.
“NO!” she yelled. Pounding on the window.
His head jerked up toward her. His eyes were swollen and red. His face tormented and twisted.
Oh god, she thought. She saw in his eyes only one thing.
Hopelessness. He’d given up. The pain had consumed him.
He’d made his choice.
“NO!” she shouted again, pounding on the window. “Pierce, we need you!”
But it was too late. His hand trembled as it brought the gun up to his mouth. His eyes shut.
Even from behind the window the shot rang in her ears. A stream of red followed the bullet when it came out the top. He jerked, and slumped. Blood poured from his nose.
She leaned her forehead against the window, still pounding on the glass with a fist, and, for the first time since the first invasion of Earth, she cried.
Granger is right. We’re going to lose.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Bridge, ISS Warrior
Interstellar Space, 2.4 Lightyears From Sirius
Granger heard the gunshot through the comm speaker and knew immediately what it meant, without having to ask Proctor.
“Pierce?”
The rumble of distant explosions answered him.
“Tyler?”
He should have listened to her. Should have taken her advice more ser
iously. Paid attention to his crew. He was so consumed with winning, with victory, with saving the human race, that he forgot about the humans around him. They were people.
And people could break.
“Shelby,” he began, his voice low. “Can you hear me?”
The comm crackled as the computer automatically patched him to the nearest comm receiver. “Yes, Tim.”
“Is he dead?”
“Yes, Tim.”
Another explosion, this time throwing all of them against their restraints. The Warrior didn’t have long to live, either.
“Shelby, we need a CAG. Someone the pilots trust. Who’s the most senior?”
After a moment, she answered. “Ballsy.”
He almost protested, not wanting to trust such a huge responsibility to someone so young, so full of adrenaline and testosterone. Plus, the kid had had it in for him ever since he came back from the singularity claiming to see a Swarm-infested Granger on the other side.
But he’d been with the crew from the beginning. For some reason, Granger considered the formal decommissioning ceremony of the Constitution the beginning. That was when his crew was born. When the fire started raining down. The champagne bottle breaking at the ship’s christening was the pleasant baptism of water. The baptism by fire was what really made a person. Made a crew.
“Is he there?”
“No, sir. He’s out in his bird.”
He motioned over toward Prucha. “Put him on.”
Could he do this? Could Granger do this? It felt hopeless at this point. So pointless. Why continue, why keep on fighting, if the cold death of space awaited them all in just a few minutes?
He noticed the bridge crew staring at him despondently. They were used to seeing the Hero of Earth in action, sure and confident in himself and his crew. Dammit, they still need their hero.
Could he pull things together one last time?
“Here, sir,” came Volz’s voice.
“Ballsy,” he said, using the semi-vulgar callsign. He’d act a swaggering hero, if only for a few more minutes. “I hereby appoint you CAG. Your mission: kick ass.”
“Uh ... yes, sir.”
“And your first assignment as CAG is to take out ten Swarm carriers in the next five minutes. Can you do that, Lieutenant?”
Volz flustered. “Sir? I don’t think that even a thousand fighters—”
“Ballsy, I gave you an order. I didn’t ask for excuses or hesitation. Now by my count, you’ve got over a hundred fighters with osmium bricks slowing them down, and no singularity targets to hurl them at. The Warrior is about to make an Omega run to end all Omega runs against the Swarm formation harassing the Victory, and I want to see some epic ball-busting on your end. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Commander Proctor will stay in the Fighter Combat Operation center and direct things until you manage to get back in. But don’t come back without blowing up a few cumrat ships. Granger out.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Fighter Bay, ISS Warrior
Interstellar Space, 2.4 Lightyears From Sirius
One of the fighter deck technicians managed to wrest the door open to the combat operations center, and Proctor took the steps three at a time. The CAG’s assistants followed him in—they’d been sent away for whatever reason by the late Pierce, and when she finally saw the body, surprisingly, it didn’t faze her so much as anger her.
As much as she wanted to respectfully pick up the body and lay it gently in the corner, there was no time. She unceremoniously shoved Pierce out of the chair, and in spite of the blood soaked into the fabric and pooled on the floor beneath him, Proctor sat down and pulled herself up to the console.
She took in the tactical situation. Ninety-eight fighters left. She breathed a quick sigh of relief when she saw that the Untouchable crew was still alive. That meant their new CAG wasn’t dead yet, at least. That would have been a new record—two CAGs within ten minutes.
She keyed herself into the whole fighter wing. “This is Proctor. Ballsy is the new CAG, people, but until he gets back to the nest, I’m it. Form up into your squadrons. Ignore the Swarm fighters. New target is the Swarm formation currently picking apart Alpha Wing of the fleet. Two fighter squadrons per carrier. Full acceleration until you reach maximum safe breakaway speed, then release bricks. Target....”
She paused. She knew eight osmium bricks wouldn’t be enough to disable a Swarm cruiser, at least not at these speeds. But they could at least neutralize ninety-eight antimatter turrets, which would at least buy Warrior, Victory, and Alpha Wing a few more minutes.
“One brick per antimatter turret. My lovely assistants will make individual squadron assignments,” she glanced at Lieutenant Schwitzer and Ensign Spiriti. Damn, they look too young to even be in flight school, let alone have graduate.
Granger’s voice blared out of the comm. “Shelby, you ready down there?”
She watched the tactical layout as the fighters started to respond, and winced as two more birds blinked out as they were caught in a Swarm crossfire. “Fighters moving into position, sir.”
“Good. Warrior will head out now, and hopefully distract their attention away from your people.” The comm channel stayed on, and Proctor heard Granger give the order for full thrust toward the Swarm formation, now at eighteen carriers. On the tactical display she saw that Alpha Wing was just barely hanging on: only fifteen ships, half of those disabled, but their fighters still fought desperately. They’d apparently caught onto the lack of singularities, too, as they’d begun launching their osmium bricks at the carriers as well. In such close quarters and with low speeds, though, the bricks were significantly less effective. Time to ramp things up.
The Warrior started to pull away from the remains of the battle near Delta Wing, and accelerated up to half a kps, then three quarters. Soon they’d reached a full kilometer per second, and they were over halfway there, guns blazing. Warrior’s—and Granger’s—signature move.
She noticed they were aimed at one of the carriers. Not dead center, but at an angle such that the underside of the Warrior, already devastated from multiple battles using it as a shield for the rest of the ship and other IDF vessels, would bear the brunt of the glancing collision. Not quite an Omega run, but the experience would not be a joy ride.
The fighters were in position, lined up by squadron and already accelerating toward their targets.
Showtime.
Chapter Forty-Nine
X-25 Fighter Cockpit
Interstellar Space, 2.4 Lightyears From Sirius
Volz and his Untouchable crew were lined up in their brick-launch formation. Not a static line—no sense in providing the Swarm fighters with easy targets—but they’d settled into a near-maximum acceleration vector alongside the Warrior, making occasional evasive maneuvers to avoid the stray bogey, while lining up their sights on the assigned targets.
Two kps, two point five kps, three kps ... at this speed the explosive energy from the osmium bricks tearing through the Swarm’s hulls would be unstoppable. The carriers might be huge, but a solid chunk of metal the size of a fighter slicing its way down the entire length of a ship was something else entirely.
“Launch in ten,” said Commander Proctor through the comm.
Volz was still trying to wrap his head around being the new CAG, but he pushed it from his mind—he didn’t need to think about that until he got back. “Look sharp, people,” he said. “Keep an eye out for bogeys as you launch.” He kept the nose of his bird lined up on the assigned carrier, and centered an antimatter turret in his scope—may as well make sure he at least took one of those out.
“Three ... two ... one ... launch!” Proctor shouted.
Volz pressed the release trigger after one final burst of acceleration, then immediate kicked in his reverse thrusters and veered away from the carrier before he slammed into it.
Blazing by the Swarm ship at breakneck speed, he craned his neck around to see if he could catch a glim
pse of the aftermath, making sure the auto-deceleration subroutine was engaged. Sure enough, the carrier his crew had targeted suddenly had four gaping holes from where the remains of the osmium bricks had shot out the backside. Secondary explosions erupted all over the ship. The carrier wasn’t destroyed—it still hobbled along and even attempted to veer out of the way of the Warrior, but the guns all fell silent.
“Yee haw!” shouted Pew Pew.
Fodder’s outburst was less positive. “Aw, shit.”
“What happened?” said Spacechamp.
“Release mechanism malfunctioned,” said Fodder. “My brick is still attached.”
Pew Pew snorted. “Well, Mr. Asterisk-one-big-unit, we can always help you get it off.”
“That’s what she said,” Fodder quipped.
“Here, let me shoot it out from under you. Turn around and hold still.”
“I hate it when other men tell me that.”
“Guys, another time, please?” Volz was watching out the viewport at the aftermath of the modified Omega run. The Warrior was coming in fast toward a carrier that was still actively firing. Destructive green beams lacerated the Warrior’s already devastated hull. “That’s not just an intercept course, people.”
Spacechamp swore quietly. Fodder and Pew Pew swore less quietly.
“She’s coming in for an actual Omega run,” said Volz. Damn. That dreadnought had better be worth it.
Chapter Fifty
