by Webb, Nick
Bridge, ISS Warrior
Interstellar Space, 2.4 Lightyears From Sirius
“Time?”
“Ten seconds,” said Ensign Prince.
Granger tightened his seat restraints. This would be a wild ride, if they survived it at all. “All hands, brace for impact.” And again, to Ensign Prince at helm, “Look sharp, Mr. Prince. Just a graze. Slide along the surface and take out as many turrets as we can.”
“Doing my best, sir.”
Granger nodded. “I know you are, son. And a damned fine job you’re doing too,” he added, remembering Proctor’s recent lectures. He’d failed Commander Pierce. He wouldn’t fail the rest of them. At least, not in the few minutes they had left.
The distance separating them from the carrier shrunk at an alarming rate, and before he knew it, they hit, grinding across the surface, their hulls scraping together. The ten meters of tungsten armor plating served the Warrior well, preventing the Swarm hull from gouging up into it too deeply.
But the energy of the collision shocked them all. He was thrown against his restraint so hard he was worried he’d snap his neck. He knew there were injuries among the bridge crew as some of the officers didn’t have the full restraints he did, and he knew in his gut that many in the lower decks had perished.
They shed velocity quickly, and when they’d flown past the carrier, the Warrior’s lower hull glowed red. “One more, Mr. Prince. Slide us along the carrier just ahead.”
They repeated the modified Omega run, thrusters pushing them into position until they started grinding across the hull of a second Swarm carrier, knocking down turret after turret. antimatter beams from a dozen other carriers ripped into the upper hull, flashing green across the viewscreen until their view was almost completely washed out.
“Fighter bay reports brick deployment. Ninety-five launched. Over eighty-five antimatter turrets destroyed across ten carriers,” said Diaz.
The viewscreen flashed with green beams, but noticeably fewer. The remaining Alpha Wing cruisers were regrouping, concentrating their fire on the Swarm carriers that still had full guns.
“Cap’n,” came a tired voice from the comm.
Granger had been waiting for this call from his chief engineer.
“Yes, Rayna?”
“That second run cut through our main coolant line.”
“Did you shut down the plant?”
Silence. “It’s ... it’s stuck, sir. The automatic shutoff is damaged, and the manual controls are ... well, the compartment they’re in is open to space at moment.”
He grit his teeth. “How long?”
“Less than five minutes until we lose reactor containment. After that, we’ll have less than a minute until we go boom. Let’s ... just make it an even five?”
She sounded oddly calm about losing her second ship. If he remembered correctly, her grandfather had been the assistant chief engineer aboard the Warrior in his time.
He hoped it had been worth it. “Understood, Commander Scott.” He flipped on his general alert comm. “All hands....” He glanced over at Diaz, who nodded gravely. “Abandon ship. All hands to escape pods. Ship destruction in less than five minutes. Repeat, abandon ship.”
The bridge crew ripped off their seat restraints as they began to exit. The bridge was deep in the core of the ship, and the nearest space pods were a good two minutes away. He eyed the tactical display, noticing a third carrier ahead of them that was still firing, and intercepted Ensign Prince before the young man stepped away from the helm.
“One more thing, Mr. Prince.” He pointed down at the tactical display on the helm’s console, and tapped his finger on the image of Swarm ship ahead of them. “This carrier’s fighter bay doors are open. I want the nose of the Warrior stuck in there before we leave.”
A minute later, Ensign Prince nodded as the ship swayed again. “Done, sir. We’re lodged pretty firmly in there.”
“Good. Go. Get to your escape pod.”
Prince ran out the doors. Only himself and Proctor left—she’d run up from the fighter bay when he’d called for the evacuation. “I need to pick up a few things from my lab on the way. And Fishtail—she might still be a valuable link to the Swarm if we need it.”
A voice called out in the back of his mind.
Dammit. He’d forgotten Krull in the last few minutes. She was still down in the shuttle bay, restrained, angry, despondent at losing so many of her Children and her people.
“Go. I’ve got one more thing to do. Get to the Victory.”
They both raced out the doors. The customary marine guard had left, and the hallways were empty. At the intersection, they parted, and Granger rushed toward the shuttle bay, three decks down and toward starboard. He took the stairs two at a time, counting down silently in his head the remaining seconds they had left. Less than three minutes, he figured.
The shuttle bay was empty, except for Krull’s shuttle still parked on the landing pad next to the Warrior’s shuttle. He opened the door to the control room, expecting to see the Skiohra still bound with cuffs around her wrists and ankles and tied to the chair.
A dead marine lay slumped against the wall. The chair was empty, the handcuffs lying broken on the floor.
Chapter Fifty-One
Executive Command Center, Russian Singularity Production Facility
High Orbit, Penumbra Three
“Why are you telling me all this?” said Isaacson, though in his gut he knew there were only two possible answers. Either the Russian president was monologuing before he struck, satisfying his inner super villain, or....
“Because I need you, Mr. Vice President. Together, after all this is over, we can build a better world. You’re someone I know I can work with.”
Or ... Malakhov was looking for another tool. He was planning on using Isaacson for his own purposes. Just like Avery. Just like, he supposed now, Volodin.
Dammit. Just like every politician and military commander he’d ever met. In all his interactions with any person in a position of power or influence, that’s all he ever was to them. A tool. A means to an end. Avery with her thirty implants she’d injected into him. Volodin and his Swarm masters with his flattery and scheming, helping Isaacson with his initial attempts to kill Avery all while avoiding IDF defenses during the first foray against Earth. To all of them, Isaacson was not a partner, not a colleague. He was an instrument to enable the aspirations of others. Nothing more.
Anger boiled up inside of him. Not anymore. Not anymore! He resolved to start using others—make them his tools. Use them to boost himself, use them in his own plans. Stop being the pawn and be the queen. Or ... king. No, queen. Dammit.
“I agree, Mr. President. What do you need me to do?” Isaacson smiled eagerly. His first tool: Malakhov. Convince him that Isaacson was an eager and willing partner. Do what it took to gain his trust. Then, turn the tables. Make the other man a pawn in his own schemes.
Malakhov looked surprised, just for a moment. “Well, I admit, that was easier than I thought it would be. Are you so eager to turn on your own government, Eamon?”
“Just like you said, Mr. President, I don’t see it as turning on my government. I see it as saving our civilization. Finally achieving peace between east and west, after all these centuries.” He turned away from the window, away from the massive ball of gathering debris and faced the Russian strongman. “How can I help? The sooner we can end this, the faster I can take over for Avery, make an alliance, and start rebuilding.”
Isaacson hoped playing up the Avery-replacement angle would convince the man. He had been trying to kill her for years, after all. Malakhov would certainly believe his sincerity.
“Of course,” replied Malakhov smoothly. “In fact, that’s part of why I brought you here. I have a recently-acquired tool in my possession that I think you can make use of to both take out Avery, and possibly even some of the Swarm’s most deadly allies. The Skiohra’s ships are ... well, gargantuan. They’ve been one of the uncer
tainties in my plans. I never knew how they’d feel once the Swarm were destroyed. But recent developments will make that less of an uncertainty, and more of a bond between us, Eamon. You see, I’m going to give you the means to destroy the Skiohra, at the same time I destroy the Swarm and Avery. All of humanity will be so grateful to the both of us that ... well, let’s face it. We’ll be presidents for life.”
“And just what is this most recent development?”
“Come.” Malakhov shut off the viewscreen to the singularity enclosure, and the walls became opaque once more. He strode off toward another door on the other side of the giant viewport covering the wall. It slid open, revealing what looked like a medical examination room. A tall window was set into one wall, while the other walls were covered with monitors and medical equipment, cabinets, and diagnostic equipment showing the steady pulse of a person laying on the only bed in the room.
Isaacson passed the threshold, staring at the man on the bed. “Impossible.”
“I was expecting him, given events over Earth four months ago.”
The blanket covered most of his body, leaving his head exposed. His face was white and haggard, as if sick from a deadly disease.
Captain Granger. From another time. Alive, but only just.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Fighter Cockpit, ISS Warrior
Interstellar Space, 2.4 Lightyears From Sirius
Volz gasped as he watched the Warrior grind across the surface of the carrier. It happened so fast, with the ship moving at such a high velocity, that he almost didn’t believe what he was seeing. The carrier’s hull wasn’t as tough as Warrior’s, and vast chunks of the Swarm ship flew off like glowing white-hot embers from a piece of flint struck by steel. All the antimatter turrets on that side of the carrier were ground off, and the rest fell silent too as the Warrior careened into the second carrier.
By the time Warrior had slowed and slid off the edge of the other ship, she was in bad shape, hardly even recognizable anymore as one of IDF’s greatest warships. Gouts of flame erupted from a thousand holes before they reached the quenching vacuum of space. Half the hull glowed red, almost white-hot.
And a minute later, escape pods began shooting out from her like explosive seeds.
“Warrior’s toast, people,” yelled Volz into his headset. He would have expected notice from Proctor in the operations center, but the comm equipment was probably down, or everyone on the flight deck dead. Either way, it was their job to escort those pods to safety. “Intercept the bogeys out amongst the pods.” He looked and saw that most of the pods were aiming toward Admiral Zingano’s ship, which hovered near the Warrior, like a nervous twin watching its sibling die. “Get them to the Victory.”
They plunged back into the fray, targeting the Swarm fighters that were harassing the escape pods. Luckily there weren’t that many of them, and just a few pods were lost to bogey fire. But that was a few too many.
A brilliant green light illuminated his cockpit. “Holy shit!” he yelled into his headset. His eyes followed the green beam back to the last remaining Swarm carrier in the vicinity that was still unscathed. It had approached, and was targeting the escape pods, picking them off one by one. As the pods lacked any armor, each beam only had to maintain contact for a split second before the escape vessels exploded.
“All fighters,” he began, flipping his comm over to wide-band broadcast to not only Warrior’s fighters, but any other IDF ships in the area. “Target that carrier’s turrets. Give our people some cover. Move!”
“Disregard that,” said a voice. Fodder?
Volz glanced around him, and saw Pew Pew and Spacechamp’s fighters nearby. Fodder was nowhere to be seen. “Fodder, where the hell are you?”
Fodder breathed heavily into his headset. “I believe this situation calls for an Asterisk-one-big-unit,” he said, adding an odd chuckle. Volz craned his neck around, and finally saw it.
Fodder had peeled out into a wide loop, accelerator pressed beyond safety-limits. Volz could only imagine the g-force pressing on the man. “Fodder, don’t,” said Volz.
“I finally found a good use for this brick of mine,” he said, breathing even harder, apparently straining against the immense acceleration. His loop crested, and he’d begun swinging back toward them.
Straight toward the remaining Swarm carrier. Straight down its throat.
Volz heard Pew Pew mumble something, before he cleared his throat. “Don’t fly like my brother,” he said. His voice sounded solemn. He was saying goodbye.
Volz watched his sensor screen—Fodder’s velocity climbed high fast, reaching over four kps. Just before he hit, Fodder chuckled one last time, though this one sounded less forced than before. “See you on the other side, boys,” he said.
And then Fodder, with the osmium brick, plunged right into the nose of the carrier. A second later, a glowing fireball leapt out the rear of the ship, and a split second after that, multiple explosions ripped out from a dozen spots all along the kilometers-long hull.
The green beams fell silent. In their absence, the remaining escape pods raced over the empty gap between the ships and started landing on the Victory wherever they could find a berth.
“Goodbye, Fodder,” said Spacechamp.
Volz wiped an eye with the back of his glove. Hotbox. Pluck. Dogtown. Fodder. Fishtail.
Fishtail. Had she made it off the Warrior?
Chapter Fifty-Three
Shuttle Bay, ISS Warrior
Interstellar Space, 2.4 Lightyears From Sirius
“Looking for me?” came the gravelly voice from behind him. He turned. She was there, standing on the ramp of her shuttle.
Pointing the dead marine’s assault rifle at his chest.
“Krull. We need to get out of here,” he said urgently.
“We do. I, and my remaining Children. You, however, will die here.” She stepped down the ramp toward him, gun still trained on his chest. He noticed that her shoulder was damp with blood, the cloth soaked through and still spreading.
“Take me with you. I can help. We can still win this. We can still salvage—”
She made a strange guttural noise, as if dismissing him or scoffing. “We can salvage nothing. You have betrayed us. Billions have died on the Benevolence. Tens of thousands are still dying. Your men are still moving through the ship, hunting us down. Fortunately, they are weak. And slow. We are not. Soon, they’ll all be dead, your fleet destroyed, the Valarisi carriers disabled, and we will be on our way.”
“Where will you go? After the Swarm destroys us, surely they’ll come after you,” said Granger, eyeing the assault rifle as she stepped closer to him.
“They will. But we will be long gone. We’re leaving this galaxy. It will be lost to the Valarisi within a few decades. They will spread across the galaxy from one end to the other, from the core to the ends of the spiral arms. And then they will move on to the next galaxy, and the next. But we will outrun them.”
“But you’re free of their influence. Surely, when they enter their next regeneration cycle, you can find them, hunt them all down and destroy them while they sleep?”
She scoffed again. “You still do not understand, do you? Your people, the Adanasi, the ones you call Russian, they have broken the cycle. Never again will the Valarisi sleep. For centuries I helped manage the interim periods. Keeping their ships hidden and safe, moored safely to our own as we harvested asteroids and comets, building new ships, maintaining and growing their ability to conquer during the next cycle. But that is over now. The Valarisi are here to stay. And we must run.”
He held up his hands. Toward her, as she had taught him. “Krull. We can defeat them. I know we can. We’re missing part of the puzzle, but once we find it, we can free ourselves of them. I know it.”
The gun stayed pointed at his chest. Both of them held each other’s gaze. He could sense her rage, through the Ligature, and feared that her anger was too great, too overwhelming for any reason to creep in.
&nb
sp; And really, she was absolutely correct. His race had betrayed them. There was no reason whatsoever for her to trust him.
Especially not now—he tried to keep his eyes straight ahead of him, even as he noticed Proctor creep up behind Krull, brandishing a twisted piece of metal.
“It’s over, Captain Granger. They’ve won. Even now, the Adanasi think they have the Valarisi fooled. They are experts of deception. But the Valarisi have learned, and have turned the schemes of the Adanasi against them—”
The steel rod hit her head, and the next moment she was on the floor, at Proctor’s feet.
“She was right about to tell us what the Russians are up to!” he said, breathing heavily, glad he was alive and yet dismayed Proctor couldn’t have waited just five seconds.
“Ship’s blowing in twenty seconds. You want to stick around?” she said, rushing to the control panel on the wall and raising the bay door, revealing the shimmering force field keeping the air in—luckily the field’s auxiliary batteries were still full, though that wouldn’t last much longer.
But it was all the time they needed. Granger lifted Krull up onto his shoulders. Even as he touched her skin, he heard the voices of thousands scream in his mind. Her Children. The ones living the Interior Life, still inside of her. She may have been knocked out, but they were still very much awake. He climbed the ramp, Proctor right behind, and she shut the hatch behind them after the ramp swung up.
“What about Fishtail?” said Granger
“I got her in an escape pod with a nurse and three marines.” Proctor squeezed into the tiny chair at the helm.
“Can you fly this thing?”
“We’re about to find out,” she said, studying the controls, pushing what looked like the engine initiator.
Nothing happened.
Thirty seconds were up. The Warrior’s power plant would blow at any moment. His hand was still in contact with Krull, holding her on his shoulders, and suddenly he felt the Children in his mind. We hate you, traitor and oathbreaker, he felt them say, thousands, all at once, each in their own way with their own emotions.
