by Nick Webb
“The Ascension,” said Proctor, using the oft-repeated words of the Grangerites. They might be crazy, but at least they had the science more or less correct. Once the radio waves originating as photons coming off the ISS Victory and Granger were stretched into radio waves and passed the dimensions of the black hole itself, that meant he’d truly … ascended, whatever that meant. Passed through the event horizon. Gone on to another universe. Or rather, his atoms. Nothing could survive that kind of gravitational stretching. “Krull, two weeks ago we faced the mystery ship. The one some of us called the Golgothic ship. We faced it, and we thought we’d won. Until it burrowed its way into one of our moons, Titan. And now that moon is … growing. Adding mass to itself, deep inside the crust, or the mantle—honestly our scans are useless so we can’t even tell that much.”
“Yes, we are aware of the situation. I’m afraid we are just as confused as you are. But I assure you, a substantial portion of my children are working on the problem.”
Proctor nodded and continued. “But what you might not be aware of, is what our sensor scans picked up inside that ship right before it blew. It picked out the letters I-S-S V-I-C. Which I believe is part of the hull nameplate of the ISS Victory. The ship—”
“Granger’s ship,” interrupted Krull. “Interesting. Very, very interesting.”
“I think, Vice Imperator, that is as big an understatement that I ever heard. But that’s not all. We ran the isotopics. The tungsten from that nameplate came from the Victory all right, but what was puzzling was that the isotopic signature would indicate that it is … over thirteen billion years old.”
Krull stared at her, unmoving, unspeaking. If she thought the claim incredible, she gave no clue.
“You heard me, Matriarch? Did that translation come through? Thirteen billion years. The universe itself is only thirteen point eight billion years old.”
“I heard, Admiral. And I have no answer. Black holes are … curious things. Just like with your artificial singularities, there are some of my children that theorize they connect different parts of our universe. I believe your technical term is Einstein-Rosen bridges.”
“Wormholes.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re suggesting that Granger went through a wormhole?”
“I suggest nothing. To go through a wormhole implies that Granger—assuming he was alive when he went through—went to another location within our universe. Possibly up to billions of lightyears away. If so, we would have felt him through the Ligature—it connects all points in the universe instantaneously. But I have other children that theorize one can traverse the fabric, the boundary, of the universe itself and end up in another reality. The physics are complicated, but solutions to the equation exist that take one to another non-causally-connected universe.”
“Which one?”
Krull did her exaggerated shrug again. “There are endless numbers of universes. Reality knows no bounds. We know that the Swarm came from but one of those universes, but that is the extent of our knowledge of any universe other than our own.”
“So you’re saying that Granger could have gone to the Swarm’s universe?” Proctor felt the irrational hope spring up within her, and she inwardly chided herself. She sounded like a deluded Grangerite. Face it, Shelby, what’s lost is lost. Look to the future, not the past.
“Again, Motherkiller, I’m saying—suggesting—nothing. My children theorize much. They spend their days thinking. I have a small group of five children that are convinced that Granger is indeed a god, like your upstart religion claims. I have another group of four children that solve human word puzzles all day. One child, one of my oldest, is on an endless search for the largest prime number. He’s convinced there is one. Children do … the oddest things. I tell you this, these possibilities for Granger’s final resting place, only as a way to … what’s your term? Brainstorm? I have no idea what happened to him. No idea why a piece of the Victory ended up on that alien ship. But I think you’re right—solving that puzzle is essential to understanding our other problems.”
Proctor sighed. “Like the Dolmasi.”
Krull frowned. “No, Motherkiller. The Dolmasi’s problems are almost entirely human caused. And I have not brought the Magnanimity here to save you from the Dolmasi. I’ve come here to tell you to stop. Stop interfering with the Ligature. You play with forces you don’t understand—things you can’t possibly comprehend.”
“Matriarch, I assure you, I have no idea what happened over Sangre de Cristo.”
“But you know what happened here. At Mao Prime. You’ve been prodding them. Trying to disrupt them. Keep them off balance with meta-space spikes in an effort to gain advantage over them in battle.”
“I … yes,” she conceded. “I did so without realizing the long-term consequences. I apologize. But Matriarch, we need help with this problem. If I am ever to have time to divert my attention to the issue of that alien ship that is now transforming Titan into … something else, then I need help with the Dolmasi issue now.”
Krull shook her head slowly. “Motherkiller, I am not here to fight your petty wars for you. After I help you with the Dolmasi, would you then require my help against your renegade Admiral Mullins? And after that, would you require my help to go finally subdue your pirates and slavers? Or would you like to resume your endless wars with the Russian Confederation? Believe me, Admiral Proctor, there is no end of ways we could help you with war, because that is your nature, and we will not enable it. My people have been preparing for the last thirty years to re-embark on our mission of galactic exploration. There is so much to discover and learn about the universe. About existence and reality itself. The last thing we want is to get bogged down fighting in … human wars.”
Proctor felt a surge of jealousy. Galactic exploration. That’s exactly what IDF should be doing. Exploring the stars. Meeting new civilizations and building relationships across the galaxy, exchanging knowledge and technology. Instead, we get jackasses like Mullins and Oppenheimer.
And not just jealousy. It was a little irritating to be lectured by an alien that enabled the rise of the Swarm in their galaxy, even if that help was coerced.
“At least … at least help us talk to them. If we could only talk to them, get them to see we don’t want to fight them….”
“I’m afraid you admitting that you don’t want to fight them would only embolden them. They are a … vigorous race. In your travels I’m sure you’ve encountered the remains and traces of dozens of civilizations destroyed by the Swarm. But it wasn’t the Swarm that destroyed them. Each race the Swarm came upon, it judged. It judged whether they were worthy of incorporation into the Ligature. Into their family, as they called it. But most civilizations were found … wanting. They were judged to be too inferior. And in those cases, the Swarm sent in the Dolmasi. And the result, every single time, was destruction. Complete, utter destruction. I’m afraid your problem is more serious than you thought, Motherkiller. The Dolmasi won’t stop until humanity is either destroyed, or they are convinced that you are too strong to conquer. There is no middle ground with them. Up until now they had thought you were too strong to conquer. Apparently that has changed.”
A chill up Proctor’s spine once more.
“Please, Matriarch. Something … anything to help us communicate.”
Krull hesitated. At least, that was what Proctor interpreted the body language to mean. “I’m afraid, we do not know the Dolmasi tongue.”
“Really?” Proctor was genuinely surprised. “But you know ours. You could communicate with the Swarm when they were still here.”
“We could. Through the Ligature, we essentially spoke Swarm. We spoke with the Dolmasi in the Swarm communication protocol, again, always through the Ligature. We never had a reason to learn the Dolmasi’s language. But humanity? We had to learn your tongue. And frankly, it was easy. The Swarm consumed several individuals of your people, and assimilated knowledge of English, Chinese, Russian, French, German,
and a few other human languages. And through the Ligature, those tongues were taught to me almost instantly. It was necessary to ease humanity’s assimilation into The Family, The Concordat of Seven, as they called it. After the First Swarm War, over a hundred years ago, the Swarm gave us the task of preparing humanity’s entry into The Family, and so we spent seventy-five years laying the groundwork. Working behind the scenes, so to speak, to bring you into the Ligature. But that is irrelevant history. What matters now is stopping the Dolmasi, then understanding this new alien threat that is altering your moon Titan.”
A thought occurred to Proctor. “Is there a chance the alien ship that burrowed into Titan is Findiri? Or Quiassi? We’ve still heard nothing about either race, in thirty years of searching.”
The reply came quickly. “No.”
“Are you sure—”
“I’m sure, Motherkiller, beyond any doubt. They are both a great distance away from us here, and I will speak no more of them.”
“Why not?”
Krull looked like she was struggling. “Because. Because, is all. Some latent command by the Swarm, some … thing they implanted in all of us, forbids me from even contemplating them.”
How very odd.
Krull continued, “But this I know: the ship that crashed into Titan has nothing to do with them. It is something new. Something we have no knowledge of. And it is not something I wish to become involved with. Neither it nor your Dolmasi problem—”
“But can you—”
Krull interrupted her. “As I said, we will not intervene, but perhaps I can help you communicate with them, as you asked.”
“What can you do for us?”
The hesitation was unmistakable this time. What Krull was about to say was clearly uncomfortable for her. “I will give you … the keys to the Ligature.”
Chapter Fourteen
Britannia Sector
Britannia
Outskirts of Whitehaven
Nile Holdings Inc. Warehouse
When Keen finally saw the customer, he did a double take. From the subtext of his supervisor’s words, he’d half expected to meet a well-heeled plutocrat. A trillionaire looking to supply his estates with a lifetime supply of … whatever it was trillionaires kept in stock. Booze? Fluff-coke? Women? Nile Holdings, Inc. didn’t supply either of those, though Keen was sure it had subsidiaries or corporate partners that did.
He did a double take because the customer had no face at all. Rather, he—or she—wore a mask. Like a gas mask or pressure suit helmet, whose face shield was tinted with a mirror finish.
And the voice.
“Half the amount should have transferred by now, Mr. Joe Rishell. My bank’s representative tells me he just made the transfer moments ago.”
The voice was almost robotic. Either he had a voice implant, or the helmet was adding distortion to his voice. This person definitely did not want to be found out.
Which meant the payoff would be even higher. Keen smiled. Shit, he’d not only be able to buy his own nudie bar, but his own penthouse in Whitehaven. Maybe even go back to Earth. Get an estate out in Tennessee, or a penthouse in Seattle or New York.
Joe, his manager, checked his hand terminal, and smiled. “Indeed, the transfer is complete.” He looked over at Keen with wide eyes, trying not to let the customer see his glee. He passed the hand terminal to Keen and turned back to the customer to go over a few more details.
Keen glanced at the device, which was still connected to the warehouse’s corporate bank account.
One hundred million dollars.
Holy shit. Granted, most of that belonged to the company, but, damn, the bonus would be astronomical. And—he checked to make sure … yep, that included a generous tip. A million dollars each, for him and his supervisor. Five hundred grand for the secretary. That alone would be enough to pay off all his debts and buy a new house there in Whitehaven.
Best … day … ever. He cleared his throat. “I’ll get to work right away on the shipment, Mr….?” He turned to his supervisor for help with the name, trying to suppress the urge to laugh, grin, shout, to grab the customer by the hand and shake it right off. “Anyway, what’re the goods?”
The customer answered for him. “Gallium.”
“Gallium?” Huh, interesting. “How much? Ten kilos? A hundred?”
“All of it.”
Keen paused for a moment, trying to remember how much supply they had. Basic chemicals, compounds, and elements was one of Nile Holdings inc.’s specialties—they supplied all the government research labs and industrial research partnerships. “Uh … all of it? I think we have over fifty metric tons of the stuff … I don’t know if—”
“All of it.”
One million dollars. Plus the bonus, which he still hadn’t even bothered to calculate yet. Probably another two million on top of that. “Right away, sir. I’ll have it all ready by the end of business tomorrow.”
“No. I want it tonight. Stay all day, all night if you have to. That gallium needs to be on a cargo hauler immediately, and not a moment later. Understood?”
He shook his head, repeating the mantra in his head, three million dollars, three million dollars, three millions dollars….
“Understood. I’ll get it done by the end of the day. Destination?”
The stranger shook his head. “You don’t need to know.”
Joe Rishell demurred. “Well … we don’t need to know an exact location, but the distance will determine what kind of cargo hauler we use. Is this somewhere on planet? Here on Britannia? Or out to Calais or one of the stations in-system? Or Earth? Farther?”
“Farther. That’s all I’ll say.”
Keen shook his head, still repeating the mantra in his head. “Very well, I’ll transfer it into one of our long-range haulers. We’ll use the Angry Betty—she’s got the most powerful q-jumpers of all our ships. Get you there in a pinch.”
The customer shook his head. “It’ll get you there in a pinch. This is a delivery. I don’t have the time to come along for the ride—I’ve got … other things to be doing.”
The customer handed him a data pad of others specifications for the order—what kind of container to be used, some kind of dispersal and aerosolization equipment, simple orbital thrusters for the container. Apparently this was to be moved around in orbit for at least part of its journey. Whatever. The money was good. More than good. It was astronomical. The customer could have demanded the gallium delivered in a thousand gold-plated douchebags and neither Keen nor Rishell would have bat an eyelash.
Payday was coming, baby.
Chapter Fifteen
Orbit over Mao Prime
Lieutenant Zivic’s cockpit
The recovery ship was going to be too late. Ace was running out of time. Zivic knew that if the loss of blood was great enough to make her pass out, death was soon to follow.
He had to do something, now.
“Ok, Ace, hold on tight, SAR bird’s coming,” he said. The backup power cells were still full, and he did something that under normal circumstances might be considered extremely foolish.
He dumped all the reserve power into the auxiliary thrusters. Before he gunned the accelerator, he checked to make sure the tow line connecting him to Ace’s bird was still intact. It was. It spanned the twenty meters separating them, taut.
“Batship, we’re detecting odd power readings from your—” began the deck hand.
“Tell the SAR that I’m meeting them halfway. More than halfway, if I can manage it….” He gunned the thrusters. The extreme forces shoved him deep into his seat, and he finessed the controls to minimize the whiplash on Ace’s bird.
Before he knew it, they were nearly there. Search and Rescue was only just departing the Independence’s flight deck, and before he crashed into either of them he swung his hobbled fighter around and used up the last of the backup power cells to slow them down enough for the rescue team to latch onto them.
“Batship, we’re detecting you
just used the last of your reserves and that you’ve lost life support—”
“It’s ok. I’m on suit life-support. I’ll be fine for a few minutes. Just get Ace the hell out of here.”
It took far longer than he would have liked, but the recovery vehicle latched onto both of them and gently towed them down onto the flight deck of the Independence. He jumped out of his cockpit before the hatch could get even halfway open and sprinted towards Ace’s ruined bird.
The recovery team was already pulling her out.
She was a bloody mess.
Shit. Shit shit shit… he repeated in his mind. The medics were strapping her to a gurney and injected her with something before they rushed her out the door. He sprinted close behind, ignoring the searing pain in his ankle—when did that happen? Had he somehow injured himself during the mission? Didn’t matter. All that mattered was saving the girl. Being the hero.
Dammit. Was he falling for that girl? What was it with him and falling for women he rescued? Before he knew it they were at sickbay, and he followed them into the surgical ward.
A nurse blocked his path. “That’s far enough, Lieutenant.”
“But—”
“I said,” she stared him down, “that’s far enough. You did your job, now let us do ours.”
The doors shut, and all he could do was pace the wall, trying to peer around the blinds that had been drawn across the window into the surgical ward. Dammit. He was too late, wasn’t he?
Sara Batak, dead. That kid he’d left behind on Ido’s research station, dead.
