by Nick Webb
On the sensor readout, he watched something strange. The ships he’d left behind—the Skiohra dreadnoughts and the Dolmasi fleet still engaged in mortal space combat with the remnants of the vast Swarm and Russian fleet—they seemed to speed up. The battle increased in pace and intensity, and Granger marveled at how fast the ships were darting around, until he realized that time all throughout the universe was speeding up relative to him. As he approached the event horizon, time for him, as viewed from the outside, would slow down to an almost incomprehensible crawl. Lifetimes and whole ages of civilization would pass as the kilometers separating him from the curtain of the universe eventually shrunk to zero.
Before it was too late, he reached out across the Ligature, searching for Polrum Krull, attempting to let her know what he was doing. If he failed, then she at least needed to be aware of what he’d tried. He needed to make that contact before time had sped up so fast for the outside universe that all the relevant events were long since past. Soon, he supposed, everyone he knew would be long dead. And a few minutes after that, Earth’s sun would go nova. Eventually, he supposed he’d get to watch the Andromeda galaxy slam into the Milky Way, and he’d have a front row seat to the creation of billions of more stars as the collision stirred up latent clouds of interstellar hydrogen. He’d get to watch civilizations rise and fall. Galaxies birth and die.
He found her, and the feeling in reply suggested the Skiohra understood. Then he turned his attention to a sensation that felt familiar. Something close by Polrum Krull.
It was himself. Now freed from the Swarm. He reached through the Ligature, as hard as he could, and thought he could feel himself open his heavy, tired eyes.
She was there. Looking at him. He could feel it. He projected a farewell, wanting nothing more than to somehow reach out, and hold her hand, and tell her that everything was going to be ok, that Earth was saved, that it was up to her now, that she’d be the Hero of Earth, that next time—if there was a next time—she’d be the one to step up and save their civilization from the next threat, when it came.
But he stopped himself. She’d already stepped up. She was the Hero of Earth. Just like him. Just like his whole crew, and the crew of the Victory, and the Lincoln, and the marine task force that executed the ill-advised mission to the Benevolence, and Scythia Krull—she was another Hero of Earth. And Polrum Krull. And the entire Skiohra civilization. And for that matter, the Dolmasi, for all their self-serving flaws.
Malakhov? Isaacson? Avery? Norton? He supposed even they had their parts to play, for good or ill. Even self-interested maneuvering could eventually be twisted and redeemed and made to serve the common good. Shit, except Isaacson, that bastard.
And then she was gone. Escaped, he hoped, but for him, gone forever.
And now he was alone. A moment later, he watched the stars blueshift until they were no longer on the viewscreen. With a quick alteration to the sensors, the view appeared again as the screen adjusted to show ultraviolet light, then x-rays. The event horizon loomed ahead. He wondered if he’d notice when he passed.
He wondered if the universe would end as he fell in, time sped up so fast on the outside that he could simultaneously witness both the beginning and final moments of reality.
He wondered why he had never let himself love. Could he have loved Shelby? Someone else? Only another life, another time, could tell him the answer. His time was gone.
He wondered if he’d still be awake when he crossed the horizon, if he’d survive the brief fall to the singularity—not some tiny, artificial thing that the Russian equipment could produce, but a raw, incomprehensibly dense point, where time and space and matter became one.
He wondered if he’d pop out the other side, like he had with the smaller singularities. Perhaps he’d meet the actual beings that controlled the Valarisi. The true Swarm. If he did, he hoped they had bodies, and that he still had a few torpedoes handy, and if not, a hefty assault rifle.
He wondered if it was all worth it. If he’d done everything he could.
He wondered if they’d still call him the Hero of Earth.
He wondered.
He wondered….
Chapter 78
Omaha, North America, Earth
Sally Danforth Veterans Memorial Medical Center
Ballsy thought he was dreaming. His dreams had been so vivid lately, ever since his own vacation. He wondered if he’d ever fully remember what happened. Floating through space, weightless, safety line wrapped painfully around his waist, reaching … reaching … reaching out for her, always just a hair too far away.
“Ballsy,” said the voice.
His eyelids felt incredibly heavy. But he knew that voice.
“Ballsy, wake up.”
He opened his eyes. She was there. But … not the she he was expecting.
“Spacechamp?”
The pilot beamed down at him and slapped him on the shoulder. Pain shot down his arm and he cried out.
“Oh, sorry, bud. Your shoulder was dislocated when Pew Pew grabbed your fighter with a tow cable. And a concussion. And … four broken bones on your left side. And … well, let’s just say you’ll be in that bed for awhile.”
Another voice from behind him was so loud that he wanted to stuff his ears full of gauze and shut his brain off—his head pounded with groggy pain. “Is he awake? Finally, Ballsy, we were beginning to think you didn’t like us or something.”
Pew Pew finally came into view, circling around his bed. Half his face was covered with thick bandages, and his own arm was in a sling.
“You’ve looked better,” Volz said groggily. It hurt to talk.
“Things got a bit rough there when that singularity took out the debris field. But, as usual, I threaded my way through. Dragging not just my sorry ass, but your sorry ass out of the way. Was touch and go there for awhile.”
Pew Pew lifted a bottle up to his mouth and chugged his beer. “You can’t drink in a hospital, man, what the hell are you thinking?” said Spacechamp, but with a wide grin.
“Screw that,” said Pew Pew, taking another swig. “We saved Earth. We deserve a god-damned medal. At the very least I deserve to get drunk off my ass. Besides,” he swallowed a few more times, before wiping his mouth on his good shoulder. “I’m drinking for two now.”
At first Volz didn’t understand, thinking Pew Pew was making a pregnancy joke, but that made zero sense. Then he remembered Fodder. They all fell silent for a moment, remembering the lost brother.
Ballsy’s gaze drifted out the window. Wherever he was, it was sunny, with late-winter rays lighting up the windows. Luckily, a nurse interrupted the uncomfortable silence, setting a meal tray on Volz’s lap. She didn’t even stop to ask if he was doing ok—she seemed quite rushed, in fact, and Volz finally realized she was probably attending to dozens, if not hundreds of people in the aftermath of the battle.
With effort, he grabbed the juice box on the tray and punched the top open, and dumped out the fruit from the fruit cup, holding it out the Pew Pew, who dutifully poured in a few inches. Volz passed the beer-filled fruit cup off to Spacechamp, then lifted his own juice box in the air.
“To Fodder,” he said. Spacechamp repeated him.
Pew Pew raised his bottle, and held it there for several moments, before composing himself. “To Fodder. Don’t fly like my brother.”
They touched their containers together, Ballsy’s juice box, Spacechamp’s fruit cup, and Pew Pew’s bottle, and they drank.
The question was burning inside of him. He didn’t want to distract from Pew Pew’s moment, and disrespect his brother, but he had to know.
“So…” he began.
“Yes?” Spacechamp set the empty cup back onto his tray.
“Where is she?”
Spacechamp and Pew Pew exchanged knowing, heavy looks.
“Guys?”
Spacechamp fumbled in her pocket for something, looking solemn.
“Guys? Please tell me. After all that, I deserve to k
now.”
Out of her pocket, Spacechamp pulled a small folding electronic pad and tossed it at him. He examined it—it was an average video screen comm device. Spacechamp smiled when he shot her a questioning look. “She left a few hours ago. Right when she woke up. She insisted—had to go to Sacramento and surprise her kid.”
Volz breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Pew Pew pointed at the device. “She said she’d be expecting your call.”
With a touch of his finger, the screen turned on, and initiated a call to a preset location. He unfolded the device and rested it on his lap, and moments later, there they were.
Fishtail. Her eyes bloodshot from exposure to vacuum and bandages on her head. But she was smiling. And Zack Zack bounced next to her.
“BALLSY! YOU FOUND HER!” said the kid, in his too-loud kid voice.
“We sure did, Zack.” He still couldn’t believe he was looking at Fishtail, her cold smirk replaced by warmth. Control and corruption replaced by life.
“DID YOU FLY FAST?”
Volz nodded, and, watching the kid bounce out of his chair from pent-up excitement and run around the room behind his mom, all he could do was laugh.
Chapter 79
Senate Hearing Room, Old Supreme Court Building
Washington D.C., Earth
“Do you, Shelby A. Proctor, promise to tell the entire truth, and nothing but the truth to this committee, on penalty of perjury?”
“I do, sir.” She held her hand high for all the cameras to see.
“You may be seated,” said the senator. She couldn’t remember his name, and she didn’t care.
On the raised dais before her sat the armed services committee of United Earth’s senate—sixteen men and women from across the surviving worlds that formed the core of the government. Behind her, filling the giant hall, thousands of congresspeople, journalists, celebrities, government officials, and regular citizens hushed as she sat down.
“Thank you again, Commander Proctor, for your service, and for your stellar performance during the war that has so devastated our civilization,” began the long-winded senator. She could tell by his expression that he didn’t like her, that he was putting on a good show for the crowd. But he was a nameless face to her. Soon, she’d fly off to Britannia, where her brother, and his wife and kids were waiting for her.
She was retiring. She couldn’t bear the thought of being a pawn again. After reading the senate reports of the previous months, as the armed services committee grilled admiral after admiral, general after general, and finally the president herself, it became clear that there was far more to the story than was being made public. Inconsistencies, aberrations between people’s stories, gaping holes in the computer records. She didn’t know exactly how, but it was clear to her that Granger, herself, and countless others in the military had been led on by shadowy figures in the government.
Avery professed her outrage, of course, and demanded that the senate get to the bottom of it. But, at least for now, Proctor didn’t care anymore. She had a cushy professorship waiting for her on Britannia, and a cozy mother-in-law studio with her family. She’d get to play with her nieces and nephews. Go out to eat. Lay on the pristine Britannia beaches.
“—So for the record, Commander Proctor, you have no knowledge of how or when the antimatter torpedoes were loaded into that storage bay on the Warrior, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir. I was on a brief one-day leave at IDF Science at the time.”
“Ah, yes. So it says in your report,” huffed the senator. “That’s when you expanded your science team to include half a dozen IDF scientists.”
“Yes, sir. Ensign Brendan Roth, Ensign Fayle, Lieutenant Kurt—”
“Yes, yes, I have their names here,” interrupted the senator, waving some papers in his hand. “What I’m wondering, Commander, is why we have no record of those service members at IDF Science. It’s like you came in and picked up some ghosts. Did you have ghosts on your science team, Commander Proctor?”
“I—no, sir. These were real people I worked with.”
“Then where are they, Commander?”
Silence in the great marble hall. Although she couldn’t hear anything, she knew that dozens of photographers were crouched nearby, taking her picture.
“I don’t know, Senator—” Her eyes darted quickly to the nameplate. “Quimby. As I said in my report, they probably were lost in the escape pods when we came under Swarm fire as we fled the Warrior.”
“Well surely you would have remembered at least one of their faces during your short stay aboard the Victory? Surely, you and Granger, having lost not one, not two, but three Legacy Fleet heavy cruisers in the space of less than five hours, might have thought to, I don’t know, check to see if at least some of the crew made it out alive before you sauntered off to the next ship?”
The crowd erupted in jeers behind her. She knew the crowd was on her side, that everyone practically worshipped Captain Granger and anyone that had served with him. Still, the question unnerved her. Because in truth, she didn’t know. So many unanswered questions.
And yet, they’d won. Against all odds, against all hope, they’d won. For now, that was all she cared about. That, and getting back into a classroom, seeing her family, and resting.
The senator held up a hand, and the crowd settled down. “I’m sorry, Commander Proctor. I’m sure it was a harrowing time. Losing the Warrior like that, then seeing the Constitution used like a brick against that dreadnought, and then escaping to the Victory, only to see it get swallowed by a black hole while at the same time you sent the time-travelled Old Bird back through another Russian singularity, all the while losing crew member after crew member … I’m sure it was terribly hard on you. You’ve been a good sport.”
His paternalistic tone and attitude grated on her. If she wasn’t under oath and under the tight thumb of dozens of video cameras, she had half a mind to vault over the table and punch the senator in the face. As it was, she held a saccharine smile glued to her own.
“Will that be all, senator?”
He vaguely waved a hand again as he examined his notes. “Yes, yes, I think we’re done with you,” he said. She started to get up. “Actually, hold on a minute. One more question, if you don’t mind, Commander Proctor.”
She lowered herself slowly back into her seat. “Yes, Senator Quimby?”
“Your graduate dissertation. On Swarm Periodicity and Refractory Processes. It was never taken seriously by the academy. Neither the broader academy, nor IDF Science. It was, for all intents and purposes, completely ignored. And yet, it turned out to be remarkably prescient on many issues related to the Swarm. Not perfect—no dissertation is, of course. But remarkably accurate, given what little we knew at the time. Why do you suppose it was not taken seriously?”
She shook her head. Why the hell was he bringing that up? She’d spent years on her research, living and breathing cyclical Swarm theory and breaking ground on what she thought would be convincing new directions in Swarm research. And then, she’d given it up. Command had caught her eye, and her imagination. Traveling to so many former worlds devastated by the Swarm—that had given her the wanderlust. The hope for adventure and exploration. And so she made her choice to give up the science and pursue command.
Now she was turning her back on IDF, and heading back into the classroom. What was she running from?
“I—I couldn’t say, Senator,” she said, inexplicably flustered.
“Do you think it was intentionally suppressed?”
Chattering broke out amongst the crowd. The nut-job conspiracy theorists had been having a heyday with all the events of the last six months, finding multiply-nested conspiracies amongst multiple government entities, colluding with Russians, with anarchists, with oligarchs and plutocrats from dozens of worlds, with the Swarm itself. The idea that true knowledge about the Swarm had been suppressed was one of the more popular theories, making Proctor, much to her extreme discomfort, something of a hero to
the tinfoil-hatted nut-jobs. If she had her politics right, Senator Quimby was somewhat of a nut-job himself.
“I couldn’t say, Senator. The idea of widespread suppression, coupled with a clear lack of evidence of said suppression, has never sat well with me. As you know, I’m a woman of science, and until you show me the proof that backs the idea up, the data that proves the hypothesis, then I’m afraid I can’t subscribe to such theories.”
More chattering. Another raised hand quieting the crowd. “Commander Proctor. Your credentials are impeccable. Your performance the past few months equally so. And so it boggles my mind that you were not taken more seriously before this whole fiasco began. Don’t the aggregated circumstances and clues point to something deeper here? That perhaps, the Swarm was coming, and someone or someones deep undercover knew they were coming, and prepared the way for them? Suppressing dangerous knowledge and ensuring that when the Swarm struck, we would fall before them like chaff before the wind? That we would be sifted, weighed, and found wanting?”
Senator Quimby was a religious man, and Proctor recognized the dog-whistles in his monologue. He was trying to stir up his base among those who were watching. And as far as she knew, everyone was watching. Hundreds of billions. All of United Earth, the Caliphate, the Chinese Intersolar Republic, and even the Russian Confederation.
But she wasn’t taking the bait.
“No, sir.”
He threw his notes down in a huff, and waved her away. “No further questions, Mr. Chairman.”
The rest of the questioning was more subdued, though the fireworks flew again when the final senator grilled her on the possibility that perhaps Captain Granger would return again, out of the abyss, like he had before. It was the most popular, but most benign of the conspiracy theories, because, at least in Proctor’s opinion, it came from a place of hope, rather than fear. She assured the committee that, no, Granger was gone. That, in fact, a scout ship had ventured as close to the Penumbran black hole as it safely could, and made optical observations of the event horizon, and confirmed that, at least from the outside universe’s perspective, Granger was inexorably passing through the horizon itself, and would appear to do so for the next hundred thousand years. Or, at least until his image was so redshifted that the wavelength of the light leaving him became as large as the event horizon itself, at which point, all information about his journey toward the center of the black hole would be lost to the universe forever.
