by Nick Webb
A second later, they were free, flying straight up from the Bern suburbs and toward space.
“He’s on our tail, sir!”
“Yeah, they do that,” he replied. A calm had fallen over him. He was a fighter pilot again. Like riding a bike. With missile launchers.
“There ahead of us! Three more!”
“I see them. Don’t break my eardrums, kid.”
“Sorry.”
He yanked this way and that on the controls, pushing the tiny corvette through various evasive maneuvers, more trying to give him time to think than to actually escape. The Findiri ships were firing, but they were consistently missing. Though each shot was missing by only a meter or two. That told him they weren’t shooting to kill, but shooting to damage the ship enough to force a landing.
They wanted him alive. Good to know.
“This thing have any guns?”
“Yeah. I’ll—I’ll see if I can operate them,” said Jasper.
He fiddled with the copilot controls, and soon the front of the corvette erupted with gunfire of its own. The kid was a terrible shot, but Granger wasn’t picky. “Just keep them distracted while I figure this out.”
A round from one of the Findiri fighters clipped a wing, and the entire corvette shuddered.
“Well, there goes thruster number one,” said Granger. “Three to go. If Vestige has any more ships lying around, now would be a good time, kid.”
As if on cue, one of the Findiri fighters off starboard exploded in a beautiful fireball. “Good timing, kid.” He veered the corvette toward the destroyed fighter, knowing the intact fighters were most likely hightailing it away from the fireball.
“Uh, that’s not one of ours. Doesn’t look like an IDF fighter either. Too big,” said Jasper.
The new ship was big. Not capital-ship-big, but a nimble little gunship packed to the teeth with PDCs and even a few railguns. Which were all ablaze as several more Findiri fighters had appeared, and had engaged the newcomer. He recognized it, and smiled.
“Receiving a hail from them,” said Jasper. “Addressed to you, sir.”
Granger tapped the comms on. “This is the—” He realized he didn’t even know the name of the corvette, and looked to Jasper for help.
“The Legend.”
He rolled his eyes. Great.
“This is the Legend. Is this who I think it is?”
“Captain Granger. Pleasure to meet you again. It’s Danny Proctor on the Crimson Phoenix. If you’ll follow me, I think we can—”
He didn’t even finish the sentence before a Findiri capital ship snapped into existence just a few hundred meters away. The shock wave of the displaced atmosphere expanded outward, overtaking the Crimson Phoenix and knocking it violently off course for a moment before it righted itself. A second later the wave hit the Legend, and slammed Granger back in his seat. He glanced back at the capital ship and saw it was disgorging dozens of fighters.
“Well shit,” said Granger. “That’s not ideal.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Britannia Sector
Orbit of Britannia Debris Cloud
ISS Dirac
Captain’s Quarters
Something was bugging the shit out of Captain Rayna Scott. And for once in her life, it wasn’t that she had to deal with people dumber than her.
Something felt . . . wrong about that video.
She was in her quarters—she’d promised Commander Simmons that she’d really try hard to sleep this time and not get distracted by data.
The data was mostly in. The error bars on that meta-space phase variance pathway across Britannia had shrunk enormously, and she was now ninety-nine point nine percent sure that the source of the extraneous isotopically-shifted mass was centered at President Avery’s retirement home.
And the video pushed her the rest of the point one percent of the way there. There was no question. This was it. Case closed.
And yet.
“Replay, from timestamp twenty-four point oh,” she said, and pinched her fingers together to zoom out. She wanted to see the whole view of everything the camera had caught.
Hellishly orange-yellow Titan was bearing down fast. This time she watched that carefully. Next time she’d focus on something else, but this time make sure you’ve locked down what Titan’s doing, Rayna.
It filled most of the entire sky. Half of it was illuminated by the sun, and she could just make out the angry swirling clouds of methane in the upper atmosphere of the moon. The other half was mostly in shadow, but the sunlight reflecting off Britannia illuminated it to a small degree, the blue Britannian light mixing with the intrinsic yellow of Titan’s atmosphere to form a ghastly greenish hue. Like a rotting hulk about to consume a living world.
“Slow to ten percent.”
She watched the time stamp progress at only one-tenth speed, and then refocused on Titan. The upper atmosphere of Britannia began to glow a dull red where the two planets’ atmospheres began to touch. The screen whitewashed for a moment, and then out of the corner of her eye she saw the Swarm ship appear, but she maintained her focus on Titan.
They called it a Granger-moon. One of the twelve moons that Granger, in the form of that horrible golgothic ship that caused the Dolmasi to go mad and the ISS Chesapeake to die. It was no longer a lifeless planetoid bearing down, but almost a piece of Granger himself. She knew by then that Shelby had rescued his main memory core—his entire being—from the center of the moon, and so Titan was pilotless. Falling helplessly to the barycenter of the two bodies.
The glow in the atmosphere turned a brighter red, then orange, then white.
“Slow to one percent.”
The white glow was in the center of the future impact zone, and out from there the color gradient scaled down from white to yellow to orange to red to nothing, all in rings around the white-hot center, with what looked like waves forming at certain radii. In any other context it would be breathtakingly beautiful.
She watched the timestamp tick down to the end of the video, going back and forth between it and Titan. The white disc of fire grew larger and larger. Any millisecond now, the two masses would collide.
The entire view of the camera flashed white again, marking the end of the video.
She rewound a few seconds, then played it again.
And again.
What the hell is wrong?
She played it again, watching the white disc of fire fill the sky. She hit pause right before she knew the camera view would wash out.
“Sarah, you’re still there, I presume?” she said to the empty cabin.
“Yes, ma’am,” the young data tech replied. “What do you need?”
She’d asked the girl to stay tuned in to her cabin, to be on call to help her with any data analysis she might need—remotely, rather than in person, just in case Rayna did indeed fall asleep.
“I need the exact time that Titan made contact with Britannia. Or rather, the time at which, say, half its atmosphere had collided with the surface of Britannia—I assume the times are within a few dozen milliseconds of each other, but what the hell.”
A few dozen seconds of silence on the other line. “Got it, ma’am. According to the sensor logs on the ISS Madagascar, it happened at exactly eight hours, thirty-two minutes, five point five seconds BGT, Britannia General Time.
“Error bars?”
As if she’d been ready for the question, Sarah responded. “Plus or minus point two-five seconds.”
“Okay. Now let me just see here . . .” She converted the relative timestamp of the video to the absolute time measured in BGT. “Ah. Interesting.”
Very interesting, indeed.
“The flash that destroyed the camera happened at eight hours thirty-two minutes, one point four seconds.”
A few moments silence, then, “Ma’am? You think a four point one plus or minus point two five discrepancy in the time is significant?”
Captain Rayna Scott smiled wryly to herself. “Dearie, let m
e tell you a story. It’s a story you already learned in school, so I’ll just say some keywords. Granger. Artificial singularities. Swarm. Black holes. Yada yada. Dearie? Four seconds isn’t just four seconds.”
She clicked play again and watched the screen wash out.
“It’s an eternity.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Sol Sector
Earth
ISS Independence
Bridge
Admiral Proctor knew a lost cause when she saw one. This was not lost. Nearly hopeless? Sure. Would it take a miracle? Absolutely.
Unfortunately, she’d already filled her quota of miracles.
“Look, they’ve spread out across at least ten different orbits. A good twenty ships on this one here,” she pointed to a group of holographically represented ships hanging over her central command console, “pass over the eastern seaboard of North America and come close to the British Isles, hit China, southeast Asia, then Australia, before heading back on up across western South America. That group alone comes within range of at least fifty major cities. It’s the one the flagship joined up with. I think that’s the group to focus on and try the commander’s q-field trick with.”
Volz shook his head. “Some of these other orbits are nearly as bad. This one here hits the west coast of North America, Central America, and most of Africa. Some of these others don’t hit so many targets in one orbit, but the ones they do hit? Both of these here go directly over IDF headquarters in Omaha.”
The fleet was scattered, some still fighting back at Paradiso, some pursuing parts of the Findiri fleet that broke off toward New Dublin, Indira, and Mao Prime. And of the ships that survived the fiasco at Paradiso, about half had come with her to Earth to face the main force.
And it was not going well.
“Still no word from Oppenheimer?”
Ensign Sampono shook her head. “Nothing from the Resolute, ma’am. Things were a little hectic back at Paradiso. Can’t tell if it was destroyed, or escaped somewhere.”
Proctor had an odd feeling in her gut. “Escaped, but running radio silent? Something’s off.”
The bridge rocked, and she could hear rumbling far down below near engineering. “How are repairs coming, Urda?”
Urda scanned the XO terminal. “Power back up to eighty percent. But the q-jump drive took a real bad hit back at Paradiso. It’s a miracle we even got here.”
So. Not quite out of miracles yet. Was there one more in the hopper?
“Tell them to put a band-aid on it. We’re going to need a few more q-jumps today, I’ll wager.” She watched the orbital map displayed above the console, and the various groups of ships traveling along the demarcated curves above the planet. The path of the Independence and a handful of other ships was just minutes away from intersecting the orbit of the main Findiri group that was currently passing over the gulf coast. “All hands. Prepare yourselves.”
Her little battle group of angels had actually held its own at Paradiso. But she was down to four ships.
Soon to be three ships.
“When we’re five seconds from intersecting their orbit, decelerate, crank up the vertical thrusters, and circle us counterclockwise around them.” She eyed the map carefully. “Tactical, where will that put us?”
“Right over Norfolk, Virginia, ma’am.”
“Adjust the course when we reach them, try to draw them out over the Atlantic at least one hundred kilometers.” No sense in pitching a major orbital battle directly over one of the more populated centers of North America.
“Aye, ma’am.”
“And have the ISS Kobe begin accelerating.” She glanced at Shin-Wentworth. “Commander, you have the best feel for that Findiri technology. Send your best-guess coordinates to the Kobe when they’re ready for their run.”
He nodded solemnly. “Yes, ma’am.”
Aunt Shelby!
She had to catch herself on the edge of the console, the voice in her head surprised her so much. It wasn’t her companion. It was Danny.
What is it?
It’s Granger. I’ve rescued him from a squad of Findiri fighters, but now I need some rescuing myself.
“Goddammit, not now,” she whispered.
Aunt Shelby? It’s bad. The biggest Findiri capital ship just q-jumped in and now it’s hanging out a few kilometers over downtown Bern, Switzerland, and sending out waves of fighters.
Their capital ship? Shit.
Danny, you say you think it’s the flagship? Are you sure?
No idea, Aunt Shelby. But it’s big. Might be the biggest.
She waved the biggest group of holographic ships toward her and expanded. “Sensor sweep on this battle group. Now!”
Moments later, an officer at tactical responded. “Done, ma’am. What am I looking for?”
“Are all the ships still there from before? Have any left?”
“Aye, ma’am. They’re down by one. It’s the same big one we tried to kill back at Paradiso.”
I’m coming. Hold tight, Danny.
“New orders! Listen up!” She turned to the bridge. “The Independence is intercepting what might be the flagship. It’s currently terrorizing Bern, and most likely trying to abduct Captain Granger. We’re going to stop it. Captain Phillips, you have command of the task force. ISS Kobe with us.”
“Aye, ma’am,” came the two captains’ voices through the comm.
“Engineering, we’re q-jumping in thirty seconds. Are my engines ready?”
A moment later, the engineer replied. He didn’t sound happy. “Buyer beware, Admiral. They technically work, but under normal circumstances I wouldn’t use these until we’d spent a week in dry dock making repairs.”
“These aren’t normal circumstances, Lieutenant. Will we make it?”
Another long pause. “Probably.”
“Good enough. All hands, prepare for q-jump and what will likely be a very rough ride.” Orbital battles were one thing. Battles in a gravity well like Earth’s? The battle at Penumbra where the fleet had to fight the Swarm while falling toward the event horizon of the black hole was technically more difficult, but not by much. Here they had an atmosphere to deal with, and lots of civilian traffic.
“Q-field ready, Admiral,” said Destachio.
“Initiate.”
The tug at her stomach coinciding with the flash on the screen told her that the q-jump engine worked, at least.
The explosion and violent shock from the deck that came afterward told her it was probably the Independence’s last for awhile.
“Arrived, ma’am,” said Destachio.
The screen was filled with the sight of the giant Findiri ship she’d seen before at Paradiso. Dozens of fighters streamed out of its bays. “Find the Crimson Phoenix!”
“Found it, ma’am. At fifty mark three. Two kilometers away.”
The main view screen shifted to show the beleaguered ship, dodging and weaving through a swarm of Findiri fighters. Its guns were blazing—Liu was good, for certain. But not miraculously good. “They’re goners in less than a minute at this rate,” she said. “All starboard PDCs, target all enemy fighters near the Crimson Phoenix. Port, focus on the capital ship. Navigation, swing us around in between the two.”
Aunt Shelby, you should know that I also have Sepulveda and Cooper on board.
What?!
Yeah. Long story. We’ve been doing a lot of rescuing today. What do you want us to do?
Just stay alive, until I can figure out how to either get us out of here or destroy that ship.
Both were tall orders, given the status of the q-jump engines, and the fact that the Findiri ship outgunned it five to one at least.
Explosions rocked the deck as the Findiri energy beams slammed into the Independence. The bridge was in chaos as the damage control station was barking orders to the response teams. The tactical station was a shouting match as they coordinated targeting so many targets at once.
A particularly large blast knocked her off her
feet and she fell backward, catching herself on her chair.
“That one took out one of our main cap banks!” said Urda. “Down to three!”
She scanned the airspace, assessing the situation. They were just a few kilometers above Bern, and several buildings were ablaze from missed shots from the Findiri ship and its fighters. Their side was more careful, but the enemy had no care in the world if the city below them burned.
“How many energy weapons on the port side of that thing?” she shouted.
“Three, ma’am!”
“All gun crews. Focus on those three! Take them out!”
The Findiri ship had at least ten of them scattered across the rest of the ship. But she needed to buy them some time.
“And how long until we have a q-jump?”
The engineering liaison officer shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am, it’s going to be a while, if at all. Our main damage control team is . . . dead. The chief is assembling a new team and sending them in, but the entire compartment is flooded with gamma radiation. They need time to don—”
“No time! Get them the hell in there—right now, suits or no suits—and get me a jump!”
“Aye, ma’am!” yelled the officer. To his credit, her ordering a dozen of his crew mates to their fate didn’t phase him. That crew would either die from the acute radiation poisoning, or spend the rest of their lives suffering its effects, no matter how miraculous the latest drugs had become.
“Let me know when they have a time estimate. Then tell them to cut it in half. Understood?”
“Aye, ma’am!”
The view screen had lit up with all the weapons fire from the Independence raking across the port side of the Findiri ship, and it firing back relentlessly, sending wave after wave of destruction radiating up through the deck plates. She didn’t even want to think about how many casualties they were racking up.
“The three energy weapons on the port side have stopped, ma’am, I think they’re destroyed.”
