by Webb, Nick
She wanted this. She didn’t realize how much she’d been wanting this. The grilling by the senators only confirmed it—she had no desire to sit at a desk, to deal with bureaucrats. And, damn, if the academy wasn’t chock-full of bureaucrats.
“On one condition,” she said. The tiny restaurant fell silent. “We change her name. From now on, she’s the Granger.”
No one spoke. But everyone nodded.
“She’s the Granger,” repeated Rayna.
Pew Pew snorted, and laughed out loud. “She’s? She’s the Granger?”
Commander Scott rolled her eyes. “Ships are girls, Lieutenant. Get over it,” she said, to more laughter.
They sat down to eat, and as the hour passed, Proctor became more and more comfortable with her decision. Her brother would be hurt, of course, as would the kids—they were opening their home to her. Giving her a well-earned respite from the rigors of command and IDF and ships and space and battle, and everything uncomfortable and unpleasant about living in close quarters with a thousand other misfits aboard a floating hunk of metal.
But the Old Bird, and the Warrior, they were her home. And this was her family. And the Chesapeake—the Granger—she couldn’t imagine a better home than that.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Epilogue
President's Stateroom, Frigate One
High Orbit, Britannia
President Avery puffed on her cigar, her feet kicked up on the desk. A whiskey bottle fell off with a crash as her calf brushed up against it, but she shrugged. There were plenty more bottles. All the time in the world now to get drunk and dally with the cabana boys as she saw fit. A woman had needs, after all.
“I think we’ve got things tied up on my end. What I still can’t believe, is how damn lucky we were with Granger. That a man should pop up out of nowhere and rise to the occasion—boggles my mind. We should have had something more concrete in place.”
Avery nodded at her companion. “He was pretty amazing, I admit. One big-damn-hero moment after another. But, you know, if he hadn’t been there, someone else would have. That’s the thing about us westerners. Everyone thinks they’re the hero. But when the time comes, most people scatter. They wilt. But not Granger. He had spine. And if it wasn’t him, it would have been Proctor. Or Zingano. Or someone.”
“After all our plans, Avery, it unnerves me to think it all rested on chance. If he hadn’t pulled off what he did, if he hadn’t been susceptible to the clues we sent his way, sent Proctor’s way ... I shudder to think. I mean, what if Granger had denied her science team to board?”
“He wouldn’t have done that. There was no time for him to pore over personnel backgrounds. He trusted Proctor. And she had no time to pore over personnel backgrounds. Believe me, Mr. Malakhov, no matter who was there, I’m confident we would have pulled it off.”
The Russian shook his head, and slammed back another shot. “Whatever. I’m done. My end is clean, and, if I’m not mistaken, I’m dead. No thanks to you.” He winked at her with his new eye—the surgery scars were healing fast.
“Yes, terribly sorry about that.”
“Did you really have to send Isaacson after me like that? Sloppy.”
“Honestly, I didn’t know he’d actually try to kill you. But either way, we both know the Swarm had to be absolutely convinced we were at each other’s throats. They had to be completely and utterly distracted by our little civil war. I think we accomplished that, wouldn't you say?”
He poured himself another glass. “Yes, well ... next time tell your puppets not to aim for my eye. That hurt.”
“What are your plans?” Avery puffed another ring of smoke into the air.
“Vacation. One, long, thirty-year vacation. I’ve been president for, what, sixteen years now?”
“Come now, Mr. Malakhov, something tells me you could pull some strings in the Duma, and you’d be president for life.”
“I’m dead, remember? Went through a great deal of hassle to get to this point. If I were to suddenly come back to life, that would be a fearsome amount of wasted effort.” He poured himself another shot from the whiskey bottle. “No, Madam President, I’ll be quite content to disappear into the countryside of the Caucusus. Or maybe a little island on New Petersburg.”
They smoked their cigars and drank in silence for awhile longer, before Malakhov finally stood up to leave. “Well, Madam President, it’s been a pleasure. A fruitful and profitable thirteen year relationship. The fact that humanity is still here—well, I think that says a lot about what we’ve accomplished.”
She tapped her shot glass with a finger. “There’s one last thing I’m still not understanding.”
“Yes?” He stopped at the door.
“The antimatter. All my clandestine programs developing that shit. The manpower, the expense—all of it. We loaded it up on all those ships at your insistence, waiting for our chance to shove it down the cumrats’ throats. And then at the end, of course, it worked. We shut down the Link. But my question is—well, two questions, actually.”
“Shoot.”
“Why didn’t you just give us the damn antimatter technology to begin with? I never understood that.”
“Appearances, Madam President, as you know all too well. It would have raised suspicions.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes. Whatever. I’m sure we could have arranged something. But no matter. The bigger question is this. And I have the feeling you don’t have an answer for me.”
“Try me.”
“The antimatter pods. From the torpedoes Granger launched. They’re still on their way to the target. He hasn’t even finished crossing the event horizon yet, from our perspective, and won’t for another hundred thousand years at least. From his perspective, my scientists tell me that he’ll witness the end of our galaxy before the tidal forces get strong enough to finally rip him to shreds. How can the Link be truly destroyed if we can sit outside that infernal thing, point a sensitive scope at the horizon, and still see the damn antimatter falling in? Nothing’s been destroyed. No antimatter has reacted with a single molecule of that black hole yet.”
He paused with the door halfway open, nodding. “You’re right. Makes no sense. All I knew was that, in my interrogations with the Swarm subjects, that point came across loud and clear, though they never said a word. They tried to hide it from me. They were terrified of the idea of antimatter falling into that thing. It’s why they never gave us the antimatter beam technology. Just think what we could have done with that. Fly a hundred ships out to the little bugger and beam a few tons of antimatter straight into the hole itself. No fuss, no muss.”
She shrugged. “Anyway. It’s over.” She puffed another ring. “What do you make of the reports from the Octarous cluster about possible ship movements in Findiri and Quiassi space?”
He walked out the door. Before it closed, he called back, “Not my problem anymore, Barb. And if you’ll take my advice, you’d get out before it becomes your problem too.”
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