by Nick Webb
But each one repelled. Half of them by Captain Granger himself. Gods, the man was practically a legend in his own time. Even half the admiralty was eating out of his goddamned hand.
And for what? It’s not like the man was a god. He was no superhero. He was just particularly skilled at using his people and ships as cannon fodder. The brick-layer. He rolled his eyes at the latest report: thirteen state-of-the-art heavy cruisers used as battering rams. Wasted. Thrown away just so Granger could claim another stunning victory.
Conner shrugged again. “Yeah, I guess I could have been drafted into the Marines. But they sent me to the administrative corps instead. Don’t know why. Studied political science in college, but only for a year. And bad grades at that—too busy playing football. I figured someone was….”
He trailed off. Isaacson glanced up. “Was what?”
“Never mind. Need anything else, sir? I could use a nap. Stayed up half the night.”
“Gotta get your sleep, son. Can’t stay up watching football games.”
The young man clenched his jaw. Apparently he’d touched a nerve. “Just waiting for your call last night, sir. They told me to stay by my phone in case you needed me for the base readiness tour you were supposed to—”
“Ah, yes. Sorry about that. I cancelled at the last minute. There’s too many of those damn things. They do nothing but parade me around like a mascot, supposedly to build troop morale or some shit.”
Conner scowled, but closed his eyes and gripped the armrests again. “Yes, sir.”
They travelled in silence the rest of the way, and true to the captain’s word they managed to fly straight through the controlled airspace above D.C. without any problems. The airspace commission bureaucrats had apparently finally coordinated with the bureaucrats down in the executive office, and they’d coordinated with the space force pencil pushers—one big happy administrative circle-jerk. It was a wonder Earth was still standing.
It is still standing because the Swarm failed. And they almost didn’t fail because of you.
He shuddered, and pushed the thought aside. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He was supposed to be president by now. Avery was supposed to be dead, and the Swarm pushed back to their own territory. Ambassador Volodin had assured him that was the case.
But Volodin had been recalled to St. Petersburg. Isaacson hadn’t seen his old friend in two months. Heh—friend. Erstwhile co-conspirator was more accurate. He looked out the window and saw the familiar, sprawling D.C. skyline extending to the horizon in all directions. Now approximately ten times its original boundaries, it was half the size of Maryland. With great galactic republics came great administrative responsibilities.
The ship lurched. He glanced out the window again and saw their course had changed. “Hey. What’s up, Captain?”
“Change of plans.”
Isaacson stood up. Conner looked to be asleep so he moved past taking care not to brush up against him.
“What do you mean, change of plans?” he demanded.
“Sorry, sir, we’ve been given a new destination. There’s been an explosion at the executive mansion.”
Isaacson’s stomach lurched. Russians again? Were they still at it? He’d explicitly told Volodin right after the invasion that the plans were off. He was out of the assassination game. There was no time for shit like that with Earth’s existence on the line. “President Avery?”
“No idea, sir. They just tell me where to fly, and I go there. Order came from her chief of staff himself.”
Why didn’t they tell him directly? Just like the president’s staff to keep Isaacson in the dark. Her chief of staff was prickly, efficient, and had never liked Avery’s veep.
“Where are we going?”
The pilot pointed to a spot on the map. Isaacson blinked. “Not possible.”
“Regardless, sir, that’s where we’re going. I triple confirmed—thought my earwax had built up too much.”
The pilot’s finger returned to the navigational controls, but Isaacson was still fixed upon the location on the map the man had pointed to. He sighed—Avery had apparently kept a lot of things from him.
Including secret bases in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Chapter 15
Atlantic Ocean, Earth
Subsurface Presidential Bunker Eight
It only took them another forty-five minutes to re-enter the upper atmosphere and shuttle out to the coordinates in the middle of the Atlantic. By then it was dark, and all Isaacson could see out his window was the top of a sea of clouds illuminated by the nearly full moon.
The captain’s voice called from the cockpit. “We’re here, sir. Descending now. Hold tight—I’ve been told to make the descent quick-like. Leaf on the wind and all that.”
Isaacson had no idea what the captain was talking about, but without waiting for a reply he sent the shuttle into a steep dive. The craft only had light-duty momentum cancelers, and so both Isaacson and Conner were forcefully thrown forward and nearly ended up on the floor as the front of the shuttle pointed down sharply; just as abruptly they were then thrust back into their seats as the craft accelerated.
Isaacson noticed Conner’s white knuckles gripping the armrests and his wide eyes darting from the window to the cockpit and back again.
Poor kid. “Nearly there, son.”
Conner nodded quickly.
Dammit, the kid was probably going to pass out from the g-forces pressing them back into their seats. Isaacson was a little unnerved himself, but at least he wasn’t about to vomit—Conner’s face, meanwhile, had turned an unmistakable hue of green.
“Tell me about yourself, son. Where are you from? Where’s your family?”
The green face turned red. “Miami, sir.”
Isaacson’s stomach clenched. Aw, shit. “I see. I’m so sorry.”
Conner nodded his acknowledgment of the sympathy. “I was at college up in Massachusetts at the time. Kingsford college. They sent us to a bunker that morning, and since it was after finals we decided to throw a little party. We had no idea it was a real invasion—thought it was a drill. Got pretty plastered. I … I felt the shaking, but I thought it was just the beer messing with my balance. Shit, sir—I felt Miami explode from over a thousand miles away.”
Isaacson glanced out the window—they’d descended below the clouds and all was pitch black. He hoped the captain knew what he was doing.
“I’m sorry, son. Yeah, I remember that night. I was in the Omaha command center—wasn’t dark yet there, but—”
Conner interrupted, the memories apparently making him forget his manners. “It was night up there, and I came out of the bunker at one point and looked up. South, toward the horizon. Saw flashing lights way, way up there. Saw something explode with a flash so bright I had to shut my eyes. Then something like a real slow meteor flying away from the flash. I … I think I saw the Congress go down. It was heading out toward the east, at least, so I think it was the Congress. Crashed out in the ocean, didn’t it?”
Isaacson nodded. Dammit, if they were going to give him a neurotic basket case for an intern, couldn’t they have at least made it some hot young thing in a miniskirt?
“And … and, your family? They were in Miami at the time?” said Isaacson almost absentmindedly as he stared out the window toward what he assumed was the surface of the ocean just a kilometer or two below. Where the hell was this secret base of hers?
He immediately wished he hadn’t asked. Conner’s face screwed up. Contorted with a valiant effort to stave off tears. But within a few seconds, to the boy’s credit, he’d pulled it together. Good kid.
“Yeah. My brother was away at school out in L.A., but my mom, dad, two little sisters … yeah. Gone.”
Isaacson had nothing to say, so he kept quiet. Soon, the captain called back, “Here we go. Hold on—”
They both held firmly to their armrests as the craft decelerated at a stomach-lurching rate. Isaacson glanced out the window again, just in t
ime to see a giant tube extend upward out of the water. Since the running lights of the shuttle were not powered—he supposed as a stealth measure—the only illumination came from several tiny red lights circling the rim of the tube.
It opened. Like a giant maw that grew frighteningly large as they approached, it swallowed them up as they passed below the level of the water, but he soon realized that the tube was water-free, and extended deep into the ocean. They plunged straight down for several minutes, the walls of the tube now illuminated by the shuttle’s internal cabin light.
They stopped. Below them another iris-shaped door opened, admitting them to a large bay. Several other ships were parked on pads, but no one waited to greet them.
“Follow me,” said the captain after the ship had come to rest. He opened the door and led them into the giant bay, passing a ship Isaacson recognized as Interstellar One, the president’s personal star-liner. The lights were off, but the underside of the craft still radiated a substantial amount of heat, so he assumed she had only just arrived, too.
“This way, Mr. Vice President.” The captain waved a hand slowly past an ID scanner and the bay door heaved open with a mechanical sigh. Odd—he assumed the man was just a simple taxi pilot—a self-styled captain of his own personal shuttle. But, clearly, his security credentials were of the highest caliber.
They walked down a long, stark, poorly-lit hallway, wet with condensation, and soon entered what would have looked like a highly sophisticated command center were it not for all the cots and cooler chests littering the room. It had apparently been lived in by a small army of presidential staffers.
And there she was, right in the middle of her usual entourage: Chief of Staff Miller, a few ever-present aides, Congresswoman Sparks (her direct contact and hand in Congress), General Norton, (the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and of course, her poodle, held by what he assumed was a bodyguard, judging by the sidearms strapped to the well-built man’s waist.
“Eamon. Good—you’re here.” President Avery strode over, abruptly cutting off General Norton and extending a firm hand for Isaacson to shake. A large turquoise ring bulged out from one of her fingers—the one piece of jewelry she ever wore. “How’s your bunker? Ha! Look at us. Hiding like little girls while our enemies make plans behind our backs. You heard, didn’t you?”
“What’s that, Madam President?” he asked, falling into step with her as she pulled him by the arm toward a small office off of the main floor. When they’d all filed in and General Norton pulled the door shut behind him, she put her hands on her hips and regarded them all.
“All right, all of you out. Just Eamon. Give us a moment.”
Her entourage dutifully stood up and left. Isaacson glanced at Conner, who looked like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself, and motioned with his head toward the door. When it was closed she grabbed his arm again and pulled him in close.
“Someone is trying to kill me, Eamon. Someone on the inside. And they very nearly succeeded today.”
He tried to look shocked, but before he could say anything, she pulled him in closer and whispered. “And I think they’re trying to kill you, too.”
Chapter 16
Atlantic Ocean, Earth
Subsurface Presidential Bunker Eight
Avery looked him up and down, apparently watching for his reaction. After a moment she repeated herself. “Did you hear me? Someone is trying to kill me. And you.”
You don’t say? Isaacson though with a slight inward smile. If Volodin was behind it, he supposed the other man would try to make it look like he was trying to take out both of them. Less suspicious that way.
He tried to look serious. And concerned—she’d want to see him concerned.
“But why bring me here? I thought it was wisest to keep us apart. You know … for the sake of leadership continuity in case….” He trailed off.
“In case the bastards shove a stick of dynamite up my ass? Ha!” She turned and grabbed a chair, spun it around and sat on it backward. She was full of swagger—just like during her campaign, but the recent months seemed to have given her a rougher edge.
“Somehow I doubt—” he began, circling the room.
“That someone is trying to kill me?”
That someone would use dynamite, he thought. He knew perfectly well there were plenty of people that wanted her dead. Himself included. At least, he did two months ago. He had to admit that with the national emergency she’d risen to the occasion rather dramatically.
She’d been smirking, but her face turned serious and she pulled out a flask from her jacket. “Look, Eamon, I’ve made a lot of enemies. You should know. I only chose you as veep to get the Federalist Party out of my hair and appease half the people calling for my head—oh, don’t give me that look, we both knew that. Let’s cut the shit.”
Avery offered the flask to him, and after hesitating a split second, he accepted it and drank. Bourbon.
“Very well,” Isaacson said. “And I only accepted because I thought you’d be ousted in the first vote of no-confidence within a year of the election and I’d be fast tracked for the presidency.”
“Ha! Now we’re getting somewhere.” She grabbed the flask back and swigged. “You bet your fat ass you were fast tracked. Probably more than you know. I knew there were rumblings for the vote, but I also knew I had the votes. The next one, though … who knows?” She stopped the flask and tucked it away. “But it’s in the past. Times change. We woke up in a completely different world, you and I, two months ago.”
He nodded his approval. “And you’ve done a singularly remarkable job, ma’am.”
“Not good enough.” She pulled the flask out, despite having just tucked it away, drank again, and coughed. “I appreciate the sentiment. But the truth is that we need to work together to survive. Not just my life. Not just your life. But all our lives.” She looked up at him, and he finally noticed the deep bags under her eyes. In spite of the no-nonsense tough-as-nails commander-in-chief persona she’d cultivated, she looked deadly tired. “They’re coming, Eamon. All these skirmishes are just feints. There’s no reason they can’t just send two hundred carriers to Earth tomorrow and wipe us out of existence.”
He drummed his fingers on his cheek. Isaacson remembered the message the Swarm had sent Ambassador Volodin during their brief flight on the Winchester during the battle of Earth. You die. Terse, but to the point.
And yet two months later, they hadn’t come. At least, not in force, and not to Earth.
Volodin knew something. He knew a lot of somethings, none of which he’d told Isaacson, who decided right then he’d force it out of the ambassador. Beat it out of him if he had to. He was almost sure the other man was under the influence of the Swarm, but those last moments in the Omaha command center had convinced him otherwise. And yet there was still something off about him. Something out of place. Why be so insistent on assassinating Avery, plot a convoluted scheme with Isaacson and President Malakhov to get rid of her, and then, at the first failure, retreat back to Russia with nary a word, and then supposedly make more attempts on her life without telling him?
It didn’t make sense.
“Eamon,” she began, “there are Senators. Governors. Congressmen. Many of them hate me, yes, I understand that. It’s politics. But there’s a group of them plotting my death. For whatever deluded reasoning they’ve conjured into their vacant brains, they think I’m a threat. Even before the emergency, they wanted me dead. Is it because of my past? My policies? My vagina? You know some of them can’t stand seeing an uppity woman grab them by the political balls and squeeze unless they do my bidding. They hate it. They hate me, for whatever reason.”
He nodded. He agreed—in fact, he’d been one of them. For months he’d met secretly with over a dozen of them, plotting the overthrow, scheming ways to get her out of office. Only a handful knew of the plans to kill her, but he knew there must have been others that shared the sentiment.
“Will you hel
p me? We need to find them. Root them out, before it’s too late. And believe me, Eamon, in a few months—maybe even a few weeks, it could be too late.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I will help, Madam President. I’m friends with several of the factions, and dozens of senators owe me favors. I have a few thoughts about who it could be, but I’d rather keep that to myself for now. Give me some resources. Secret Service. Intelligence service. With my contacts and their … methods, I’m sure we can nail a few of these bastards.”
She stood up and reached out for his arm with a warm, vulnerable smile. She was so charismatic. Endearing. No wonder she’d won two elections outright, with no runoffs.
“Thank you, Eamon. I knew I could trust you.”
He gripped her hand in return. “And I’m honored to have your trust, Madam President.”
“Oh, Madam President my hairy ass. Call me Barb.”
She laughed again, and pulled the door open, waving her entourage back in. General Norton walked right up to her, about to speak, before glancing uneasily at Isaacson.
“Go on, General. Mr. Isaacson has clearance. What is it?”
The old soldier grumbled. “Madam President, I’ve just received word from the expeditionary force following up on Granger’s most recent lead.”
That caught her attention. She grabbed his arm. “And?”
“We found one. A Swarm world.”
Interlude
The first thing he noticed were two blindingly bright lights above him. Was he on the Constitution? No—the color was off. The lights in sickbay were warmer. Inviting. Healing light.
These were cold. Almost blue. Harsh. One was bigger than the other.
He tried to move—it was hard. His limbs didn’t want to cooperate. It felt like moving through a pool of crystallized honey, but eventually, he managed to lift his head.
