by Nick Webb
“Good. Destachio, move the Independence into that blind spot. Get so close you can tell me what flavor gum they’re chewing.”
He nodded without saying a word. His brow furrowed in concentration as he pushed the ship closer to the giant Findiri vessel, but not so quickly they crashed. “Fifty meters, ma’am.”
“Closer.”
His eyes went wide, but he nodded as he worked the controls. “Aye, ma’am. Now at thirty meters.”
“Closer. I want ten or less. And then use the navigational computer to lock us into that distance no matter what they do.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
The Independence drifted closer, until the two ships were almost one. At least the explosions below decks had died down.
“We’re still vulnerable to one energy weapon on their upper hull that has line of sight to us. And their fighters, of course,” said Urda.
“Better than all ten energy weapons.” She yelled back to the engineering station. “I want an answer on the q-drive, Lieutenant!”
He was yelling into his comm, arguing with the damage control and repair teams. Finally, he looked over at her. “They say at least a few hours, ma’am!”
My god, we’re not going to make it, are we?
A voice came over the comm on an IDF channel. “Shelby. Permission to board the Independence?”
“My god, Tim? Is that you? I thought you were on board the Crimson Phoenix!” She saw the transmission was originating from a small civilian corvette that was itself weaving in and out of squads of Findiri fighters, swinging around skyscrapers, barrel rolling, every maneuver the pilot could think of the stay alive.
“I was trying to, but as you can see it’s a little hairy out here. I think I can do a hot landing in the Independence’s fighter bay though.”
“You’re flying the corvette?”
“You better believe it. Coming in hot!” The small ship accelerated toward the Independence, and soon passed out of sight of the view screen camera.
A few moments later, she asked. “Did he make it?”
“Affirmative, ma’am.”
The deck still rumbled with impacts from the Findiri energy beam. “Damage report! What have we got left?”
“Three cap banks still operational, main power plant still at fifty percent. Conventional engines took a few hits but still able to keep us in the air. Rail guns and PDCs—about half of them damaged. Life support stable, but casualties . . .”
The XO trailed off. He was young still, she kept on having to remind herself. Urda shouldn’t be the XO of a capital ship. An assistant at the bridge tactical station would be more appropriate given his age. “Over two hundred dead. Over a hundred unaccounted for. Several hundred with severe injuries. We’re at about fifty percent of the crew either dead, missing, or injured, Admiral.”
And then another Findiri ship appeared in a flash on the screen. This one on their starboard side. The Independence was sandwiched in between.
“Inform the Kobe. Prepare to make their run.” She shook her head. Bern would be half destroyed. The Independence would be crippled if they couldn’t get away fast enough.
But she was left with no choice.
Another beeping from the comm indicated a broadband transmission was about to start. “What’s the source on that?”
Sampono’s eyes grew wide. “It’s the main Findiri ship, ma’am. They’re about to go live. With video.”
She jabbed the comm again. “Oh my god. Tim, get up here. Now.”
“I’m already here,” he said, from the rear of the bridge, stepping through the sliding doors. A young man followed him, but Granger stopped and held up a hand. “You’ll need to wait outside. Go down to sickbay and offer a hand. I imagine they need all the help they can get.”
The young man nodded and left the bridge, right as the front view screen changed and started carrying the transmission from the Findiri ship.
“I am Talus. The Director of the great Findiri fleet of liberation. And this is your only warning. Stand down. Submit to us. Give us the traitor Timothy Granger. And stand back as we transform your pitiful civilization into something . . . worthier.”
That voice. Proctor had heard it before, back at Paradiso, and had felt like she had heard it before. Now, it came from a man. He had started far from the camera, at the back of their bridge where his face was in shadow. But as he spoke, he approached, until he filled the screen.
“Oh my god. Oh my God, is that . . . ?” she trailed off. It couldn’t be. She’d sound crazy if she said it out loud.
Granger finished for her. “Abraham Haws.” He reached for the armrest of the captain’s chair to support himself, but he was staring at the view screen and missed, nearly falling before catching himself on the back of the chair. “That’s Abraham Haws.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Sol Sector
Earth
ISS Independence
Bridge
“Abe? Is that you?” said Granger, almost croaking it out.
The man on the screen that looked remarkably like the former XO of the old ISS Constitution smiled at the camera, but it was not a jovial smile. It had an air of triumph to it, and eagerness. “I was once called that. Been a long time, old man.”
“But . . . you’re dead.”
“I was dead, yes. Nothing a little Swarm matter couldn’t fix.”
Granger’s jaw was hanging open. “But—” He didn’t seem to have the words.
“But you beat them. Sent them back through that black hole to their own universe. And all Swarm matter here reverted to become Valarisi. Naturally I had that shit sucked from my pure blood as soon as I could, and returned to my people to lead the army that would finally take Earth. The birthplace of humanity. The birthplace of you, and therefore of the Findiri. We’ve finally come home, and we’re going to show our creator what he made.” He paused a few moments. “And make it even better.”
“I made you to stop the Swarm!” Granger was angry. Proctor assumed his emotions were all over the place, seeing the body of his best friend apparently inhabited by a being intent on conquering Earth.
“You made us to stop the Swarm, yes. It was written in our DNA—faulty DNA, whether by design, or the slow processes of cosmic radiation and time. It was written in our scripture. It was our purpose. And it was a destiny that was stolen from us. And instead? You. You stopped the Swarm. Two months ago. Rather than stand back and let us fulfill our destiny, you stole it from us, and by stealing it, we were robbed of our ability to become complete. To die knowing we’d fulfilled our purpose.”
“Then where the hell were you? You hid for millions of years. Where were you when we needed you? The Swarm nearly destroyed Earth. If I hadn’t returned and given humanity the tools to stop them, it would be gone. And eventually the Swarm would have turned its attention to you, and destroyed you too.”
Haws had stopped smiling, but now was holding up a finger and shaking it. “You . . . don’t remember, do you? I was told you might forget it all when you returned in this form. And it’s true. You’ve forgotten it all. All thirteen billion years’ worth.”
Granger was silent. And Haws smiled, taking his silence for affirmation.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?”
“You’re Abraham Haws. Who was once my . . . friend,” said Granger. His voice catching on the final word.
“I am Quiassi. One of ten. The very first of the ten.”
Proctor had covered her mouth in shock. Granger was speechless.
“Your creation of the Findiri was flawed. You made them with humans as a model, but without normal human passions or emotions or even biological functions. It was no wonder it was a failure from the start. And our DNA, and the creation machines that make us—flawed. So you made me and the nine other Quiassi to control the Findiri, to point them always in the direction of finding and defeating the Swarm. And again, you blundered it, this time in the other direction. Gave us too much humanity. Too much
passion. Too smart. Too ambitious. And so we disagreed, and fought, and finally went our separate ways.”
“I’m . . . sorry. I just don’t remember.”
“Of course you don’t. How can you fit thirteen billion years of memories into a skull that small. But it doesn’t matter. You deprived us of our destiny. So now we deprive you of yours. You will deliver yourself to us within twenty minutes. We will analyze you, poke you, prod you, disassemble you, and give ourselves every part, every passion, every function, every cell, chromosome, or amino acid you left out, and repair our genome. You’re the key. You made us from your own body, and so your own body will become ours, to finish what you started.”
The enormity of what he was saying was only just starting to dawn on Proctor.
“And furthermore, Earth is ours. All of humanity is ours. Once we have completed ourselves with your own blood, we will rule humanity for another billion years, and take it to far greater heights than it could have ever hoped to accomplish on its own. We are the New Men. Better, smarter, and stronger than the old men. We are immortal. We will be your eternal kings, and you will spend your short lives in our service. But the reward will be great. We will move into the Swarm’s old possessions across all galaxies, all universes, and do what they could never do.” He paused for effect. “Rule with benevolence. Rule for the good of all humanity.”
“Abe—”
“And if you resist? Earth dies.”
“Abe—”
“No more talking. You talked at us for thousands of years, then billions of years of silence. Now it’s your turn to listen. You have twenty minutes to deliver yourself.”
“No,” said Granger. He’d finally stood up from his fallen position next to the chair. “No. You’ll have my answer in ten.” He glanced at Sampono and cut his thumb across his throat. She ended the transmission.
“Tim,” Proctor began. “You can’t go over there.”
“I can. And I will.” He started walking toward the door.
“Tim, no. You heard him. We can’t just submit to Findiri rule. We can’t just give up Earth and all our worlds.”
“You heard the alternative. He’ll destroy it all, otherwise. And that was a broadband transmission. All of Earth saw that.”
She followed him out the bridge’s exit and down the hall toward the lift. “Tim, I—”
Aunt Shelby, Sepulveda urgently needs to talk to you.
“Oh god, can’t the politicians wait a goddamn minute?”
Granger glanced back at her. “Huh?”
He says it’s important. Something to do with the Findiri. Maybe a way to stop them.
“Danny is saying Sepulveda has information about the Findiri. Maybe how to stop them.”
Granger stopped. “That ignoramus thinks he can stop the Findiri? Let’s not waste our time, Shelby. Earth is on the line here.”
“Tim, like it or not, he’s the president of United Earth. Don’t you think we should at least listen to what he’s got?”
“I don’t give a shit what he’s president of. I outrank him by about a billion years.” He kept walking.
“See, Tim? That’s the problem.”
He stopped again, just outside the lift. “What are you talking about?”
“That. Right there. Outranking the president, my god. You acting on behalf of humanity as if you were God himself. No one asked you to.”
For the first time in over thirty years, she could hear ice in his tone. “And what do you mean by that, Shelby? Should I have just stood back and let Earth fall in the Second Swarm War? Because no one told me to save it? Should I have not lured the Swarm into that black hole? Should I have not returned and saved Earth again? Should I have not spent a billion plus years planning their final defeat? Do you think I just woke up one morning and said, hey, I think I’m going to try to save Earth today whether they want it or not? Do you know what I’ve been through to get here? What I’ve endured?”
“No. I don’t. Do you remember? How can you feel pain at something you can’t even remember?”
“I don’t remember the details, Shelby. But I remember the pain. I remember the anguish. How I felt. For untold eons of time. The pain of existing. The burden of enduring that and knowing that if I gave in to my pain, if I threw in the towel and allowed myself eternal rest, that humanity would fall.”
She paused, unsure of what to say. “Tim. It’s not just you. You’re not alone in this. Never have been.”
“Goddammit, I know that, Shelby.”
“But do you? Have you already forgotten two months ago? Us winning that battle at Penumbra? All of us. You gave us the tools, but all of us wielded them. Ballsy, Tim. Ballsy died to give us a fighting chance there. Just like you.”
He nodded. “An acceptable sacrifice. He’s a hero for it.”
“But what about the heroes who didn’t make so public of a sacrifice? Was theirs acceptable? What about the Chesapeake, Tim?”
He held up a hand and started turning back to the lift. “Don’t talk to me about the Chesapeake—”
“Why not? Was their sacrifice not acceptable? I haven’t told you this yet—Oppenheimer and I figured it was too soon to tell you. And it seems almost petty given what’s going on. But did you know you’re being sued? By one of the widows?”
He stopped, then gave a quick nod. “Yeah. I met her. During the big New York parade. She confronted me. Wanted answers. And Shelby, I didn’t have any answers. Still don’t. I have no excuse for what I did. I barely even remember it.” He turned back to her again. “And that’s why I have to go. Put an end to all of this. Put a stop to people dying on my account.”
“How very noble of you. But maybe, just maybe, the answer is not to rush off and act alone as if you have all the answers and as if yours is the only opinion that matters. Wait five minutes. Hear what Sepulveda has to say.”
He breathed deep. She half expected him to get into the lift. “Okay.”
She waved him over to the conference room through a door halfway down the corridor. Once inside, she pressed a few buttons on the comm controls, and moments later Danny’s face appeared on the screen. Next to him was Fiona Liu. And behind them, President Sepulveda and Senator Cooper.
“Mr. President. What have you got for us?”
“Information. I was listening to the Findiri’s demands, and their . . . rationale for it, such as it is. And, well, their rationale is wrong.”
“Well that’s easy, Mr. President,” began Granger, “because their rationale isn’t even rational. That Quiassi. Haws—whether it’s the real Haws or not. He’s insane. Why are we suddenly believing them?”
“Regardless, Tim. Because it’s not just a question of the problem of the Findiri. It’s . . . bigger than that.”
“Well this ought to be good,” said Granger.
“The Swarm is back. Again.”
Silence. Proctor stared at the screen in disbelief. “And—you have proof of this, Mr. President?”
“I do. An associate of yours, Captain Rayna Scott of the ISS Dirac, gave me the information herself. A single Swarm vessel came out of an artificial singularity on the surface of Britannia moments before the destruction.”
He paused to let the words sink in.
They sank in.
He continued. “Whether it was destroyed or not doesn’t even matter. What matters is—”
Granger interrupted. “They’re back. The Swarm is back.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Sol Sector
Earth
ISS Independence
Bridge
Proctor couldn’t believe her ears. It couldn’t be.
“Tim, I thought you said that all the Swarm were there at the battle of Penumbra. All of them, across all universes.”
He nodded slowly. “That is what I said. I was sure of it. I wasn’t sure about a lot of things, but that I was sure of.”
Sepulveda cleared his throat. “Then . . . it almost doesn’t matter what happens here today. If
it’s not the Findiri that gets us, it’s the Swarm. Even if that one ship was destroyed by Titan, there will be others.”
“No,” said Granger. “Mr. President, you were right. This does change things. We need to talk to Haws. Now.”
Proctor touched the comm controls. “Lieutenant Sampono. Hail the Findiri flagship and patch it in through the conference room.” She looked back at the screen. “And I think I don’t have to say you should probably stay out of this, Mr. President and Madam Cooper. They don’t know you’re here.”
Moments later, Haws’ face filled the screen. “And? I expected you here by now, Tim. What’s the hold up?”
“You’re not Haws.” said Granger.
Haws laughed. “I look like him, don’t I? You want a DNA sample?”
“Yes.”
Haws’ laughter disappeared. “You have ten minutes to get over here until I push a button and Earth is gone.”
“You won’t be doing that, Abe.”
“Why not?”
“Because I never stole your purpose, as you said. I never stole your destiny. It’s here. Right now. Abe, the Swarm is back. I failed.”
Haw’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”
“It’s true. We have the evidence to prove it. And they’re out there, somewhere, right now. And they’ll be back, like they always have. I tried to stop them, and I failed. The only beings that can stop them is you.”
“This changes nothing.”
Granger chuckled. “It changes everything. Why are you here? What were you created for? Your destiny is to end the Swarm. It’s time you actually do your fucking job.”
Haws stood motionless for a long time, as if struggling, wrestling with the idea of what to do next. “We will end the Swarm. Yes. But you’re mistaken if you think this changes anything for Earth. It is ours. And it is from Earth that we will build the machine of war that will destroy them. You will stand down. Your leaders will submit to us. We will restructure your society and your industry and your science, and with us at the head, we will finally do what you could never, ever do on your own.”
