by Nick Webb
Malakhov leaned over the low railing, holding loosely to a bar that connected the railing to the ceiling. “And in that time, we’ve cleaned up engineering—it was flooded with radiation from the damage it sustained with the Swarm—and I’ve installed some equipment you’ll find very useful in your mission. Ten singularities should do it. One for each of the six remaining Skiohra dreadnoughts. One for Avery. And three extra, just in case you need them.”
“You trust me to take the Constitution, fire singularities at the Skiohra dreadnoughts, send Avery into another, and then return in time for you to patch Granger back up and send him on his way back to Earth?”
“It’s not a matter of trust, Mr. Vice President. It’s a matter of interests. I know you. This aligns with your interests. You want to replace Avery. You want peace with me. You want to be rid of the Swarm. This accomplishes all three.”
He was right, of course. This was something Isaacson wanted. All three of them.
But he was tired. Sick and tired of being the tool. Of being the pawn in someone else’s game. That Isaacson was dead. Gone. He wouldn’t stand for it anymore. Malakhov was playing him, using him for his own purposes, just like Avery was doing. No more.
Malakhov grinned at him, and turned back to watch the work crews scurry over the Constitution. “I take from your silence that you’re in. Good. Preparations have already been made, and within—”
He was still leaning over the railing, and, surprising even himself, Isaacson grabbed the President and thrust him outward with all the strength he could muster.
Malakhov was surprisingly strong. The epic photographs of him weren’t exaggerations—before he could fall down three hundred meters into the cavern, he grabbed firmly onto the support bar that held up the railing, swinging out, and then toward the ledge, grabbing at the support railing with his other hand, dangling there, his face overcome by shock. This was clearly the last thing he expected.
Isaacson channeled his anger, all the bottled-up rage and violence he’d been suppressing over the months he’d been under Avery’s thumb. Every violent thought, every feeling of vengeance and malice he’d been pushing deep down within himself and away from Avery’s all-seeing view finally burst out. He screamed, kicking at Malakhov’s stomach and lunging out to punch the man in the face again and again.
In spite of Isaacson’s assault, Malakhov was managing to pull himself back onto the ledge. Shit, he thought. If the other man stood up, Isaacson was a goner. He kicked at the leg Malakhov had managed to swing up onto the ledge, and without even thinking pulled the pen from his pocket and rammed it straight into the man’s eye.
Malakhov screamed. He reached up to pull at the pen. Isaacson kicked at the remaining hand holding the rail.
And President Malakhov fell. Three hundred meters. Screaming, all the way down.
A final crunch confirmed he was gone. Isaacson felt a thrill of something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
Control. Victory.
He was free.
Chapter 54
Sickbay, ISS Victory
Interstellar Space, 2.4 Lightyears From Sirius
Granger looked down at the admiral. His friend. No—friend was too strong a word. But the man had stood up for him among the top brass when no one else would.
Now he was alone, with a General Norton who was possibly under Swarm influence, at least according to Zingano.
“Doctor, please inform the bridge of the Admiral’s wishes,” he said, looking sternly at the woman.
She nodded slowly, still in shock at seeing her first alien and losing her commanding officer within the span of a few minutes. “Commander Oppenheimer, this is sickbay….”
“Go ahead, Doctor,” came the reply. “Make it quick, we’re in a bit of a situation here….”
It wasn’t until then that Granger became aware of the ship shaking all around them as it was pounded by enemy fire. The battle had continued without him this whole time, but he hadn’t even noticed.
“Sir, Admiral Zingano is dead. And he invoked standing order ten.”
“Thank you, Doctor. I understand. Oppenheimer out—”
“No, sir,” she interrupted, “you don’t understand. Admiral Zingano named Tim Granger the commander of the Victory.”
Silence. Granger was sure he heard a muffled curse on the other end. “Is … uh … is he there now?”
“I am, Commander Oppenheimer. I’ll be up to the bridge shortly.”
Another pause. Granger supposed it involved more swearing. “I understand, sir. Orders until you get here?”
“Continue battle operations. You’ve done an excellent job so far, Commander. Please keep it up.” Krull issued a low moan. “Expect me shortly. Granger out.”
He motioned toward Zingano’s body, and the doctor called in a nurse to carry it away. Granger moved Krull onto the examination table.
“Captain…?” began the doctor. “What … exactly … is it?”
“She is a matriarch of the Skiohra people,” said Granger. Krull moaned again, softly. “Can you help her?”
“I don’t even know her anatomy, Captain. The only thing I can tell is that she bleeds, is bipedal, and has a similarly shaped head as us. Does it contain a brain? Does she breathe? I assume so, because of the nostrils. Does she—”
“I don’t know, doctor. Just start … scanning her or something. Surely you’ll see something wrong.”
The doctor grimaced again, and pulled out a device, waving it slowly over Krull’s head, chest, and abdomen.
“Also, you should know, she has … well, she has about twenty-two thousand Children inside her.” He forced a brief smile. “Don’t let that throw you off.”
The doctor shook her head. “This is all gibberish to me. I mean, I see organs. There’s a brain. But I don’t know what an appropriate blood pressure would be, I don’t know if these cells are anti-bodies or—”
“Hold on,” he said, reaching down to grab Krull’s hand. The Children helped him once. Surely they’d help him save their own mother.
He reeled backward. A flood of images assaulted his mind, They were crying out, in a frenzy.
Because she was dying.
Slow down, he thought at them. Too much, too fast. He glanced at the images coming up on the display being fed from the doctor’s diagnostic device. Error messages flashed on the screen as the medical algorithms struggled to decipher the alien’s physiology. Just tell me what to do. Slowly.
The flood stemmed to a trickle. The image of blood came into his mind, then numbers, then a few other simple procedures. “You need to raise her blood pressure up above…” he began, relaying all the information they were giving him. The stream ended with an image of her head injury, a bleeding brain, and a chemical formula. “Her brain is bleeding from where Proctor hit her. You need to stop the bleeding with … something.” He was no chemist.
“With what?”
He strained at the formula, trying to remember his basic chemistry class at the academy. “Two carbons with hydrogens coming off … a few nitrogens … phosphorus….”
“That’s not helpful.”
He threw his hands up in the air. Krull was dying. And only she had the secret of what the Russians were up to, and how the Swarm was going to exploit it. “Just fix the brain bleed, doc. Do what you’d do for me. For him,” he pointed to Zingano’s body which lay near the wall. “She bleeds, she walks, she talks, just like the rest of us. Just give her what you’d give me.”
The ship lurched violently to the left, nearly throwing Krull off the bed. The doctor reached down and strapped restraints over the alien, swearing as she ranted about chemistry and anatomy and why the hell doesn’t anyone take basic science anymore and all this wouldn’t be necessary if only they’d give her proper equipment and….
“Doctor, I’ve got to go to the bridge. Keep her alive. Fix her. That’s an order, and your highest priority right now, even if your next patient is me. Understood?”
And with
that, he ran out of sickbay, heading to the bridge and to what he knew would be a testy confrontation with General Norton.
If he, the military chief closest to the president, was compromised by the Swarm, then god help them all.
Chapter 55
Bridge, ISS Victory
Interstellar Space, 2.4 Lightyears From Sirius
The marines that were supposed to guard the entrance to the Victory’s bridge were sprawled unconscious outside the doors, victims of the violent shaking and explosions rocking the ship. Every head snapped toward him as he strode onto the bridge. Commander Oppenheimer stood up. His face betrayed his feelings—it was clear what he thought of Granger. Admiral Zingano may have trusted the Hero of Earth, even amidst the rumors that he was collaborating with the Swarm, but Oppenheimer looked to be more skeptical.
“Commander Oppenheimer, I relieve you, sir,” said Granger.
Silence. Even amidst the shaking and rocking and distant booms and yells, every head on the bridge stared at Oppenheimer, to see what he would do.
“General Norton—before we q-jumped in—announced to all of us that you’d turned. That you’d been corrupted by the Swarm.”
Granger stared at him. There was nothing he was going to be able to say to convince them otherwise. Nothing to do but wait and see what they decided.
“But … the Admiral trusted you. After Norton signed off, all Bill said under his breath was ‘bullshit.’ And Doc tells me he transferred command to you right before he passed.”
He stepped aside from the chair. “I stand relieved, sir.” He retreated to the XO’s station. “Please don’t get us all killed,” he said under his breath.
Granger smiled grimly, and took the captain’s chair. “We’re still alive, Commander. And while we’re still alive, we’ve got a fighting chance.” He examined his tactical readout at the command station to his right. The battle was a mess. The remaining Swarm carriers were pounding the surviving IDF ships, who fought back under the seemingly random fire from the dreadnought, which appeared to be shooting at both Swarm and IDF targets.
A green antimatter beam lanced out from the dreadnought and ripped into the nearest Swarm carrier, hitting it in a weak spot and piercing it through. But moments later the same turret focused its attention on the ISS Panikkar, one of Victory’s escort ships. The Panikkar fired back.
It was a free-for-all.
And he supposed the marines were still slogging through the ground war all along the hundred kilometer length of the dreadnought.
“Get me General Norton,” he said toward the comm station. The comm officer worked the controls. Granger turned around slowly, looking for a familiar face. Where the hell was Proctor?
“You’re on, Captain.”
“General Norton, this is Captain Granger commanding the ISS Victory. I strongly encourage you to call off—”
Norton’s angry voice interrupted him. “What the hell? Granger? Commander Oppenheimer, what is the meaning of this?”
“General, I’m the commanding officer of the Victory, by the express command of Admiral Zingano. I ask you again, sir, call off the attack and regroup to—”
“Like hell. Look, Granger, we’re doing well over there. We control about … ten percent of the ship. But now that it’s started firing on us … and these Swarm carriers are still hounding us….”
Why was the dreadnought firing on both sides? He reached out in his mind, calling to the Skiohra on the Benevolence, thinking the question to them.
You are all a threat. You must all be neutralized, came the furious chorus of a reply. And he saw their strategy as they thought it: attack both the Swarm carriers, and IDF, keeping them on equal footing, such that neither would have the advantage over the other until it came down to the last two ships, most likely the Victory against one of the least damaged carriers. Then the Benevolence would lay into both of them, even if it meant sacrificing one of their own matriarchs.
Wait, he told them. I can save your matriarch. We can still destroy the Valarisi together. Just give me a chance.
Prove it.
He had to get that army of marines to stand down. There was no negotiating with the Skiohra until they did. “General,” he began, “if I can convince the Skiohra to destroy the remaining Swarm carriers, will you order a cease-fire? Give us a chance to figure out what’s going on?”
Norton didn’t immediately reply, though he heard muffled discussion on the other end.
“General, too many lives are at stake. If we don’t act now, hundreds of thousands of IDF soldiers and officers will die.”
“Fine, Granger,” said Norton. “If you can get them to turn on their own ships, then fine. Give us a breather, and we’ll talk to them. For all the good it will do us.”
“Thank you, General. Granger out.”
He closed his eyes. This would require all his powers of persuasion. Please, he began. Please stop firing on us. If you destroy the Valarisi ships, I can convince my superiors to withdraw all the soldiers on your ship.
Lies.
Believe me.
Your people are not to be trusted. They have already demonstrated that.
But we can learn. We can learn from you. You are an honorable, ancient people. We have much to learn from you. Please grant us that chance.
He could feel them debate amongst themselves, even as every few seconds another tens of thousands of voices disappeared as another mother perished. The argument swayed one way, then another, and all the while, as more voices disappeared, the side in favor of taking a chance on Granger started to win out.
“Captain,” said someone at tactical, “the dreadnought has ceased firing on the fleet. They’re ramping up the assault on the carriers.
Granger opened his eyes. On the viewscreen the sight was incredible. The dreadnought opened up all of its antimatter turrets, raining terrible green fire upon the more vulnerable Swarm carriers. One exploded. Then another. Then three more. Soon, there were only five left.
The guns of all of the survivors of Alpha Wing combined with the deadly onslaught from the Benevolence finished them off quickly.
Norton’s voice sounded over the comm speaker. “Well, Granger, impressive, to say the least. You’re a goddamned hero. Now watch as we finish this.” The channel cut out. On the viewscreen Granger watched, seething with anger, as the IDF fleet opened fire on the dreadnought.
Granger pounded on the armrest. “Dammit!” That swaggering, lying fool.
Maybe Zingano was right. Maybe Norton really was compromised. Controlled by the Swarm. And not just with the backdoor virus, but the full-on usurpation strain.
And if so, maybe he could be manipulated. Maybe Granger could exercise the barest, momentary control over him, like he had Hanrahan. He closed his eyes, and reached out, toward the ISS Lincoln. Reaching for Norton’s mind through the Ligature.
Friend, stop.
He tried to think of how he could convince the Swarm to cease their operations. If Norton really was under Swarm control, then they were using the IDF army to retake the dreadnought for themselves. The reason why was obvious—the ships were deadly, worth at least fifty Swarm carriers each.
Friend, I have information the Skiohra are hiding from you. Stop the attack, and I can convince them to tell us what they know. Everything depends on it.
Nothing. No response from the Swarm through Norton. Or any other potential Swarm-compromised person on that ship, or anywhere in the immediate vicinity. Meanwhile, the Children were screaming again. The soldiers continued their assault, and the voices continued to dwindle in number.
Dammit. “Helm, is the q-jump drive operational?”
“Yes, sir…” began the officer, confused.
“Initiate a q-jump to these coordinates on my mark,” he said, entering in a set of numbers on his console. At the same time, he broadcast the thought to the Skiohra. Jump. Come with me. I can stop the soldiers if you come with me.
They had no choice. In spite of the chorus of Ch
ildren calling for attack and denying Granger’s request, the majority, fearful and weary of battle, overcame the voices of mistrust. Not due to any trust in Granger or what he was saying, but due to desperation.
We come.
“Mr. Oppenheimer, are all Warrior escape pods aboard?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Recall the fighters. Both Victory’s and Warrior’s. And the ones from every other destroyed Alpha Wing ship we can fit in here. They have three minutes to land, and then we’re out. If they don’t all fit in the fighter bay, send them to the shuttle bay and the cargo bay. Pack ‘em in.”
Norton would try to stop them, he knew. This was basically mutiny. Not just insubordination. This was a one-way street, a path there was no coming back from. General Norton would go back to President Avery and the top brass and say he’d turned, that Granger had joined the Swarm openly.
This had better be worth it.
Two minutes later, they were all in. “Jump,” he said, while simultaneously thinking the order to the dreadnought.
The screen shifted, the remains of the fighter battle replaced by empty space.
Moments later, the dreadnought snapped into existence, debris still streaming from the massive hole gouged out by the former ISS Constitution. A battle still raging all across its thousands of decks, in effect, one large ground war, in space.
“Get me on the invasion force channel,” he said, and waited until the comm officer nodded toward him. “IDF invasion force, this is Captain Granger. Cease fire, and lay down your arms. I repeat, cease fire. All battle operations are hereby suspended, on orders from the Commander in Chief herself.” He supposed if he was going to lie, he may as well go big.
It took a few minutes for the orders to propagate through the command structure, but he knew the results faster than anyone, as the Children’s voices began to change, from dread and fear and confusion….
