by Nick Webb
“Tim,” she said, her breath catching. The Swarm beam—green and utterly deadly, just like she remembered from the war—was boring into Titan, sending up massive plumes. He can’t die. Again. Not again. “All hands, and everyone within the sound of my voice … open fire. Attack!” She glanced back at Whitehorse, and nodded. “Fire.”
Chapter Seventy-One
High Orbit over Earth
ISS Defiance
Bridge
As one, the Earth Defense Fleet of IDF—all sixty ships—the Independence, the Defiance, the Dolmasi fleet, every single ship in the vicinity of Earth, accelerated towards the grotesque, utterly alien ship, and unleashed everything they had into it.
In all of Proctor’s memory of the Second Swarm War, she never remembered such a scene. Never had she witnessed so many ships firing so many weapons at a single target.
And it was certainly having an effect. Thousands of explosions peppered the uneven surface of the Swarm ship. Bulbous, kilometers-long sections that hung out from the main body of the ship haphazardly burst into massive gouts of fire before the vacuum extinguished them. On the surface of things, it looked like an almost too-easy victory was imminent.
But the sheer scale of the thing made progress deceptive. While the fleets were pounding the section of the behemoth ship she could see, she knew that hundreds of kilometers lie out of view, untouched and undamaged.
“Shelby,” said Admiral Oppenheimer over the comm, “I’ll take Resolute’s task force and flank that thing’s port—we’re reading a power signature over there that indicates it might be the ship’s power plant. Maybe if we knock that out—”
She nodded. At this point, it was anyone’s guess how to stop this thing. “Understood, Christian.”
Titan continued raking its red beam across the surface of the ship, back and forth, almost haphazardly. It was terribly destructive, but as far as she could tell it wasn’t having anything more than a superficial, localized effect. She turned to Whitehorse to confirm. “Is that beam doing anything to it?”
“Not that I can tell. It’s just burrowing into the surface of Titan,” she replied, seeming to misunderstand Proctor’s question. “And Titan’s weapon is doing pretty substantial amounts of damage to the ship, but its power levels are stable.”
Proctor nodded slowly. “We need to help him out.” Even a battle station the size of a moon was not quite enough to take out this new, massive incarnation of the Swarm ship. And their own ships batted about around it like gnats. They needed something to tip the scales, to put them over the edge.
On the viewscreen she watched as, in the distance, another deadly green beam erupted off the surface of the ship and slammed into one of the IDF battleships in Oppenheimer’s attack wing. Within a second it had bored completely through the hull—its armor and shielding crumpling like tissue paper—and the ship exploded.
“The Firedrake is gone,” said Whitehorse. “And so is the Rattler—that was the ship Oppenheimer had the anti-matter bomb on.” She looked up, her face getting whiter by the second. “It’s picking us off one by one. We won’t last another two minutes.”
So this was it.
This was how humanity ended.
“Ma’am, it’s rotating,” added Whitehorse. “One of those weapons spires is now aiming directly downward. Right into the center of North America.”
Proctor watched in helpless horror as the monstrosity turned, and the giant, bulbous beam turret began to glow. Given what it had done to the surface of Titan, central North America would soon be a glowing wasteland.
Another ship appeared out of nowhere. This one much, much smaller.
“Ma’am, I’m getting a hail from a ship called….” Whitehorse peered at the screen, “The USS Elf Owl.”
She let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d held. “Babu. Zivic.” She motioned to Qwerty to patch her into the fleet. “All ships, aim at the base of that turret pointing at Kansas. One spot. Dig a hole. I’ll explain later.”
The amassed fleet, even the Dolmasi ships, began pounding at a single location at the base of the dozens-of-kilometers-long beam turret. The tip was glowing a fierce green, indicating it was nearly charged to capacity. And the hole they were blasting was minuscule compared to its length.
But it should be enough. It had to be.
“Ensign Babu, you ready?” She tapped her comm to make sure she was talking to the newly-arrived missile frigate, which was hopefully carrying a full inventory of the anti-matter missiles that President Avery had stockpiled and hidden all these years. “Launch … five, no, ten—” The sheer size of that turret, and the size of the beam leaping off another of the turrets targeting Titan boggled her mind. “Shit, just launch all of them. Straight into that hole we opened up for you.”
“Ma’am … uh, we have a problem,” came Babu’s voice.
Damn.
“What is it?” she barked at the comm receiver.
“The launch mechanisms. They’ve all deteriorated. It’s been twenty years since they’ve been serviced.”
A pit formed in Proctor’s stomach.
“Ensign?” She took a breath. “Are the detonators intact?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looked down, and tried to keep her voice steady. Earth. Remember Earth. “Then, Captain Babu, deliver those missiles into that hole. Whatever it takes. Even if that means….”
She couldn’t even finish the sentence.
Everyone on the small bridge was looking at her, the meaning clear in their faces. They were horrified, but they understood the need.
“Admiral,” Babu began. “Was that … was that … a promotion?” His voice was light and breezy, but it had an edge to it. He knew. He’d understood her. But, being Babu, he was going to go out with a grin, however much it hurt.
She swallowed. “Yes. Yes it was, Captain.” She watched the tip of the turret begin to crackle with energy. Earth’s destruction was imminent. “Captain, godspeed. I’m sorry, we’re out of time. Go. Now.”
She stood up.
Everyone else on the bridge stood up.
“Batshit, time for you to actually earn your callsign,” she said.
“Just give me a target, ma’am,” his voice crackled through the comm.
“I hear you’re trying to break your father’s record. Look out your window. Swarm fighters. More than you could ever ask for.”
“Apples to apples,” he replied, distantly.
She frowned. “What?”
“Sorry, ma’am. What’s the mission?”
“Escort Babu in. Get him into that hole at the base of the turret on that ship. Then get out before it blows. Understood?”
“With pleasure, ma’am. Batshit out.”
The missile frigate accelerated away towards the hole. Zivic and his wingman, Bucket, shot out of its tiny shuttle bay and swarmed all around the thing, shooting aside any stray Swarm bogeys that got in its way. She trusted that they’d pull away, but she was almost too numb to even say anything. Not a word, not a breath as she watched them swerve, veer, barrel roll, hard six, blasting bogey after bogey that darted after the frigate.
“Admiral,” continued Babu, even as his ship was just a few kilometers from the hole, “by my new authority as Captain, I’m renaming this bucket of bolts. This is Captain Babu, signing off from … the Plunger of Doom.”
Even as her vision blurred with the tears, she let out a laugh that she stifled with a fist.
The frigate plunged into the hole, and a second later the viewscreen washed out in a blaze of white. When it readjusted, she watched as the entire turret broke off from the grotesque, giant ship, its jagged end still crackling with kilometer-sized explosions from the residual anti-matter build-up.
“Godspeed, Captain Babu,” she whispered.
Chapter Seventy-Two
High Orbit over Earth
Lieutenant Zivic’s Cockpit
The counter on Zivic’s dashboard monitor ticked higher and higher. Si
xty-seven. Squeeze trigger. Sixty-eight. Hard six, roll, squeeze trigger, miss, tap port thruster, squeeze trigger, sixty-nine. Seventy. Warning lights, puncture in the port fuselage. Squeeze trigger, seventy-one.
He was in the zone. He knew, instinctually, that this was it. This was the endgame. This was showtime.
Finally, after far, far too long, his father’s record was going down.
“Bucket, watch your four!” He spun up and around, the sudden g-force throwing him against his restraints, but managed to finger the trigger just in time to relieve Bucket of his tail. Bucket, returning the favor, swerved hard left and spun, raking another fighter homing in on Zivic.
His eyes still hurt from watching Babu’s ship explode inside the hole the fleet had carved into the monstrous ship looming in the background, its hull sprawling away into the distance like the mutated, gnarled surface of a planet that looked like it had rheumatoid arthritis and a bad case of leprosy.
“Batshit, get your ass back to the Defiance, now!”
He did a double-take. The voice was not Admiral Proctor’s, or Jerusha’s.
It was his father.
“What, worried that your record’s about to fall, dad?” Seventy-three. Loop, squeeze trigger, seventy-four.
“Ethan,” his father began again, this time, his voice sounding … pained? “Ethan, listen to me. Let it go.”
Let it go? Swerve, hard dive and left, squeeze trigger, seventy-five.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Ballsy. Let it go?”
“Please, son.”
“Dad, you fucking left me and mom when I was fucking three! I didn’t see you for fucking fifteen years, you never called once. Not a hint of interest. Not a fucking glimmer of you wanting to even know me. Not until mom dies do you even say hello, and that’s at her fucking funeral, and you’re telling me to fucking LET IT GO?”
A round clipped his right wing and he spun out before regaining control by a last-second reroute of auxiliary propellant. He yelled again in frustration, and peppered another bogey with dozens of rounds. Seventy-six.
“Ethan, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I fucked up. Big time. But please, listen.”
Seventy-seven.
Seventy-eight.
Bucket yelled over the comm. “Batshit, watch out!”
He swerved away from a bogey he was about to collide with, flipped a six, and blasted it and its partner to hell. Seventy-nine, eighty.
“Yeah, dad? Listen to what? What the hell could you possibly say to me after all that?”
The sigh came through loud and clear. “Son, just that … I messed up, and lost your mom. And lost her permanently before I could make good. And I messed up again, and lost you too. Please, I can’t lose you again without making good. Please give me another chance.”
The giant ship started turning again.
Give me another chance.
He’d thought those same words, over and over again in the past few weeks, waking up in cold sweats after nightmares where Sara Batak died again and again and again, and always, Zivic was powerless to stop it.
“Batshit,” began Bucket of the comm, “you’re venting propellant. One more minutes and you’re a sitting duck.”
He shrugged. “Better than a shitting duck,” he said, squeezing off another few dozen rounds. Eighty-one. Eighty-two. God, that sounded funnier in my head.
“What’s it going to be, Batshit,” Bucket continued. “We’ve already pulled off our heroic shit. We going down in blaze of glory?”
Squeeze trigger. Eighty-three.
“I’ll let you know in about eighteen bogeys,” he said, raising his voice over the klaxon that had started screeching in the cabin. Pressure loss. He was at vacuum. Propellant almost gone. Fuselage riddled with holes.
He looked down and saw a billowing white stream coming off his leg. One of the bogey’s rounds and clipped his suit and he was venting oxygen.
“Time’s up,” he said to himself.
Chapter Seventy-Three
High Orbit over Earth
ISS Defiance
Bridge
More shimmering green light illuminated the screen as the Swarm ship lashed out at other IDF cruisers and battleships from its other, smaller turrets. Even as part of it burned with secondary explosions ripping through its hull, over three quarters of the massive ship looked to be completely untouched.
“It’s not enough,” she murmured. “We can’t beat this thing.”
Captain Volz’s voice erupted over the comm. “Shelby, that thing is just not stopping. And … it’s turning again. Pointing one of the smaller turrets at Earth. Might not be as big as the other, but we’re looking at extinction-level shit here if it fires.”
“How bad would it be?” said Proctor. But she was already doing the math in her head, and it wasn’t pretty.
“You know Chixlub? The dinosaur-killer?” Qwerty held his thumb and forefinger out a few centimeters apart. “Child’s play. Multiply Chixlub by a million. The end. Earth is uninhabitable for a thousand years, ma’am.”
Whitehorse nodded. “Detecting a massive power buildup. Looks like it’s readying another beam.”
It couldn’t be, she thought. After all that had happened. The series of unlikely events, only to culminate in the Swarm finally hitting their target. Finally destroying Earth. Why couldn’t the unlikely events favor humanity? Just once? Just one more one-in-a-million shot.
Just like Carla. It was happening just like with Carla. The disease had flared—the so-called Golgothic ship had appeared out of nowhere like a cancer. Then the threat had abruptly disappeared, only to be replaced by the horror of something even more abrupt and deadly. A speeding car out of nowhere mowing down the innocent.
And they were powerless to stop it.
Except this wasn’t a dream, and they still had the most powerful weapon she’d ever seen defending humanity. Titan continued pummeling the Swarm ship, little by little chipping away at the thing. Perhaps, given another hour, it could completely destroy it.
But they didn’t have an hour.
“It’s finished turning. Power levels are rising,” said Whitehorse.
Tim, we need you, she thought. We need you to do more. We need that brick wall out of nowhere. We need the bricklayer.
“Oh my God. The bricklayer.”
“Ma’am?” said Qwerty.
She’d just done it with Babu. He was young. A full life ahead of him.
Now she needed to do it to Tim. Again. Whether he was still sixty-five or ninety-five or thirteen billion, it was his time.
This was why he’d come back.
He came back to die.
She spun to face him. “Mr. Qwerty, can you open a channel to … to Titan?”
He shook his head. “Honestly, ma’am, I’ve been trying here in the background the whole time. Seems whatever is down there in the core either is too shielded to pick up our transmission, or they’re not equipped to receive it.”
“Fine. Then we use his own language. Lieutenant Whitehorse, prepare to fire a terawatt laser. Any target. But Mr. Qwerty is going to patch in a phase pattern that matches what Tim used to talk to us. Can you do that, Mr. Qwerty?”
“Yes, but … what in God’s green Earth are we going to say?”
“Leave that to me.”
Chapter Seventy-Four
High Orbit over Earth
ISS Defiance
Bridge
“Ready, Admiral,” said Whitehorse. Qwerty nodded too.
“All right. Message as follows,” she began, watching as Qwerty readied to encode her words into the phase of the laser beam. “Tim, it’s Shelby. I’m stealing your nickname, Tim. I’m hurling a brick. And it’s you. I’m ordering an Omega Protocol. I repeat, Omega Protocol is hereby ordered. And you, Tim Granger, are the brick.”
Everyone on the bridge waited, not even breathing, not even moving. Staring at the screen, waiting for an answer, or an acknowledgement.
“Anything?” she asked.
She nodded towards Qwerty. “Again. Tim, this is Shelby. We’re on our last leg here, Tim. All we’ve got left is you. I hate to…” she bit her lip. “I hate to get you back after all these years, only to throw you away. It’s … it’s a miracle that you’re here. I believe that. But we need you to do it again. To sacrifice yourself for us. Again.” She bit her lip harder. “My god, I don’t want to lose you. Not again. But it’s Earth. It’s our home. I imagine, even after thirteen billion years, it might seem like a distant memory—I won’t even begin to understand what you’ve been through. But it’s our home. Mine. Yours. And only you can save it. Please. Omega Protocol, Tim. It’s the only way.”
“Admiral! Something’s happening,” said Whitehorse.
Indeed. On the screen, she saw that Titan’s beam had shut off. On her console she saw a massive power spike originating from Titan’s core, and moments later she saw that translate to movement.
Somehow, against the very laws of physics, Titan visibly accelerated. A hundred kilometers per second. Two hundred. A thousand. And before she knew it, the collision was imminent.
She mashed a hand on the all-hands comm link she’d held on standby. “All ships! Get out! Stand clear!”
The fleet was already on the move, accelerating out of the way as fast as they could go. Several q-jumped away, disappearing in white flashes, apparently knowing they’d never get away in time before Titan was upon them. One ship was too damaged to move, and was smashed into nothingness as Titan plowed right through it, erasing any trace of its existence.
The two enormous masses connected in a piercing, white flash. Yellow-gray Titan, and the somewhat smaller gray monstrosity that was Earth’s oldest and most persistent enemy, disappeared in the glare. The viewscreen oversaturated with the glow of the blast, and by the time it adjusted, she saw that most of the bulk of the Swarm ship was a molten mass on the ruined landscape of the moon, covering over half of the surface.
