Liberty: Book 6 of the Legacy Fleet Series

by Nick Webb

Zivic’s voice blared over the open comm. “Woohoo! And that’s how it’s done, people!” He kept whooping. And Proctor could swear she heard Ballsy whoop and holler over the same channel. But her view was drawn outward, to the rest of the battle.

  One ship down, yes. But things were grim, indeed.

  Ido, an entire moon, was breaking apart in very high orbit over Britannia. If the Swarm didn’t destroy the planet, the ensuing firestorm of meteors would. Everything on the surface would be vaporized, the planet rendered uninhabitable for thousands of years.

  “Tim. Now,” she whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Terrace Heights playground

  Whitehaven

  Britannia

  Sarah Watkins eventually got tired of screaming. Her father showed up to the playground, and the three of them huddled low on the grass in an extended family hug. She wasn’t sure why. Were they all going to die? But she found she couldn’t actually say the word die.

  “Daddy? Are we going to be ok?”

  She saw a lot of emotions play out on his face, and couldn’t recognize most of them. One stood out, though.

  Fear.

  But what made her scared was the forced smile on his face. She knew when he was faking.

  “I … I don’t know, Sarah. This has happened on some other worlds in the past few weeks, and most people lived through those. Except….”

  He refused to continue on with his except, even after persistent pestering, but she knew he meant New Dublin, where Aunt Jeri and Uncle Steve lived.

  Finally, there were only so many more hugs she could take, so she wandered back to the swing set. Her mother had wanted to go home, but her father had looked at her in the way adults do sometimes, saying things without saying them, and then said, “What’s the point?”

  So she climbed on the swing and started up again. There was another moon in the sky now, near the three big ships. And the three bigs ships were shooting at it. It was a fun fireworks show, but even that got boring after awhile, so she swung higher and higher.

  Her mother screamed again. But this time was different.

  It was an excited scream.

  “Look! One of them is breaking up! Look!”

  Everyone still at the playground was staring up at the sky, and, indeed, one of the giant ships was glowing a dull orange and pieces of it were floating away from each other.

  And a few moments later, it seemed like those pieces were bigger than before.

  And bigger.

  “Sarah! Come here! Now!” Her mother’s scream sharpened. The unmistakable and contagious sound of fear had returned. Sarah started breathing heavily again, but made herself not scream. She was done with that. Only little kids screamed, and she was big.

  She jumped off and her dad whisked her up and then the two of them ran, and ran, and ran. Where to she had no idea. She looked back behind them and up as her father ran.

  The glowing pieces of the ship were even bigger.

  But now there was something new. Something bigger than the ships. And there were lots of them. More than the ships.

  She pointed up with her finger and counted. “One, two, three, four, five, six. Six moons, mama!”

  Her parents stopped running and looked upwards again.

  But they didn’t have time to celebrate. Because at that point the earthquakes began.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Bridge

  ISS Defiance

  Near Britannia

  Commander Carson pointed up at the screen. “There’s Ampera Raya and Tal Rishi, from the Jakarta sector. And Hestia 9, just a few lightyears from its home. And the two moons from the Scandia system. And—”

  She recognized the still dull orange glow. “Titan.”

  Tim was here. Had he heard her prayer? Was it a prayer? Was she a frickin Grangerite now?

  It was a plea. A cry for help. And whether he heard it or not, he was here. With half his army.

  Well, a little over half now—she watched helplessly as Ido, Bolivar’s former massive moon, started to crack and crumble, disintegrating. And the remains of the destroyed Swarm ship were descending lower and lower towards Britannia, no longer held aloft by its propulsion system and now completely under the planet’s gravity’s sway.

  Just the crashing ship alone would kill everyone on the surface. And if anyone survived, they definitely wouldn’t live through the remains of Ido colliding with the planet.

  Britannia was doomed.

  Billions would die that day. “My god,” she breathed, and staggered backwards to her chair, collapsing into it. She couldn’t even remember having stood up. Her brother would die. His wife would die. Everyone she knew and loved would die in the next few hours.

  Unless….

  “Davenport. I want a laser, tight beam, aimed straight at Titan, and just like before, encode my—”

  He was shaking his head. “Ma’am, remember the lasers are down.”

  Dammit, she forgot. “Whitehorse, come in.”

  “Whitehorse here, admiral,” came the reply across the comm.

  “Aim a megawatt laser at Titan, lowest power, and encode the following message in the phase envelope.”

  She could almost hear her signaling to Lieutenant Qwerty to get moving on the orders. “Ready, admiral. Mr. Qwerty says go ahead. You’ll be broadcasting live.”

  “Tim, Ido and the dead Swarm ship are falling. I know you’re busy with the other two ships, but unless something is done right now, Britannia is lost. And all eight billion people there. I … I think you can do something. Gravity assist. Remember the early days of rocketry? Before fusion drives and q-field manipulation? They’d use chemical rockets, and in order to pick up speed they’d get close to another planet, let themselves be pulled into the gravity well, and then slingshot—”

  Lieutenant Case pointed up at the screen. “Ma’am, something’s happening already!”

  She hadn’t even finished her idea, but whoever was listening down underneath Titan’s surface knew exactly what she had been going to say. Three of the Granger moons started accelerating, quickly, down toward Britannia. Their speed was breathtaking, and she could only guess at the unthinkable quantity of energy it would take to accelerate them so.

  And she simply could not guess what the people down on Britannia were thinking. Nor think of the huge tidal stresses being placed on the planet’s crust. She hoped her new beach condo had earthquake insurance. And flood insurance. And fire insurance. And falling moon debris insurance.

  “Ma’am, the debris from the dead Swarm ship and Ido is … it’s changing course! It’s being pulled in the direction of the three incoming moons! Stronger now. And stronger—”

  Britannia was nearly as big as Earth, with point nine five g’s at the surface. But luckily, it was still relatively far away. Farther than the three moons that were almost upon them. It was a wonder how the propulsion system worked. It seemed to allow the moons to ignore gravity, and yet exert their own gravitational pull on things around them.

  The moons accelerated past the giant clouds of debris. And the debris accelerated with them. But away from the planet—just barely. All he needed to do was get all of it past escape velocity, something like ten kilometers per second, and Britannia was safe. It would have spectacular meteor storms every night for hundreds of years, but it would be safe.

  “Seven kilometers per second,” said Lieutenant Davenport. “Seven point five. It’s working, ma’am. The three moons are giving everything of any consequential size a good boost past the planet. It should be safe now.”

  Tim had saved them. Again.

  Which left the two remaining Swarm ships. And the disintegrating Ido. She looked at the other screen, which had been displaying the raging battle between the other three moons and the two remaining Swarm ships.

  Except the Swarm ships were gone. No debris, so they’d turned tail and run away.

  They had won.

  Commander Carson glanced over at her. “Ma’am.
I have a transmission coming in from Admiral Oppenheimer. He claims he can see us, and is ordering us to turn you in, or the remaining ships of the fleet will open fire on our location.”

  “Well the bastard didn’t waste any time now, did he?” She steepled her fingers in front of her face and considered. “He could be bluffing. Maintain radio silence. Titan is here, and I want to get down there and solve a thirteen billion year old mystery.”

  Lieutenant Davenport cleared his throat. “Uh, ma’am? The Resolute, the Poland, and the Angola have all changed course and are headed in this direction.”

  “Hold. Case, get q-drive coordinates entered in, but do not engage until I say so.”

  He nodded. Davenport looked up at her. “Ma’am, they’re getting closer.”

  “Are they aimed precisely at us?”

  He examined the flight vectors. “Well … not perfectly. But their course brings them within two kilometers. Well within firing range.”

  She watched the ships get larger on the viewscreen. “Hold,” she said again. They were just kilometers away now. “Hold….”

  Lieutenant Case’s finger hovered over the q-field initiator. She could see it tremble. After all they’d been through that day, they were on the edge of their seats waiting to see if their own would fire on them.

  “Hold,” she murmured again.

  The three ships flew past them. Not so much as a course change. She let out a breath.

  “You called his bluff, ma’am,” said Case, impressed.

  “Asshole,” she replied, shaking her head. “He almost witnessed the greatest catastrophe our civilization has ever seen, and before a minute passes he’s back to old petty grudges.”

  “Sounds pretty damn human to me,” Case said. “We’re very good at petty.”

  “Well Oppenheimer is an expert. Ph.D. in asshattery. And I worry it’s going to get us all killed some day. I hope that new moronic president fires the bastard.” She stood up. And stretched. Finally. “Lieutenant Case, belay the q-jump and enter in coordinates for Titan. We’re going in before he gets away this time.”

  There was one thing to attend to first. She headed to the bridge’s exit. “I’ll be in sickbay. I’ve got a not-dead nephew to worry about now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Executive Complex

  Manhattan, New York

  Earth

  “Sir, the UE Security Council is waiting in the Blue Room,” said Peel, his new chief of staff, running behind President Sepulveda, who, in between crossing out lines in his Presidential address to the union he’d deliver in an hour, was also talking to Oppenheimer on the phone, drinking a quad mocha, and occasionally berating his staff for not keeping up with his walking pace.

  It wasn’t fast, he always told them, is was purposeful. Fast implied frantic energy, like a headless chicken running around, terrified of its impending death. No, the new president of United Earth walked with purpose. That’s what he had his press secretary constantly say to the presidential press corps when they repeatedly asked about his unusually hurried walking speed.

  I mean, good Lord, he thought, in between editing speech lines, don’t they have something better to do than nitpick my walking style? Like … maybe … report on the war?

  “Tell them I’ll be a few minutes. I want this speech done and back to Andy before this damn meeting. No, Christian, I’m talking to Peel here, not you. I understand. Be here as soon as you can. Tombstone out.”

  Tombstone. Every time there was a new president, the Secret Service gave code names to him or her and their immediate family members. Due to his last name, one of his detail had said it sounded a lot like the Spanish word for burying a body. But since he didn’t speak Spanish, they just called him Tombstone. He suspected it was also because, given the current hopeless war with the newly appeared Swarm, they didn’t expect him to last a month.

  And so, to seize the narrative and the symbolism, he’d started using it himself, sometimes in public.

  “Sir, the point of a code name is so that would-be presidential assassins don’t know who we’re talking about,” one of his Secret Service officers said one day.

  He had looked at him askance. “Tom. Do you really think a serious presidential assassin isn’t going to do some research before he tries taking me out? The code names aren’t exactly classified top-secret.”

  “No, but using them in public so much will … point certain people’s minds in the wrong direction, and get them wondering what your real code name is.”

  He’d nearly dropped his national security briefing folder at that point, and pointed at the man. “You’re telling me I don’t even know my real code name?”

  “No, sir. It’s classified top-secret.”

  “I’m the fucking President, Tom. I can declassify anything I want.”

  “Yes, sir, you can. And there is a bureaucratic process for that, which, to tell the truth, can take up to three months. And in the meantime, sir, we’d choose a new one.”

  He had shook his head and continued with his daily presidential brief. “Sometimes you all are more annoying than a monkeyslut in heat. Fine. I’m Tombstone. But I’m using it whenever the hell I want.”

  “Fair enough, Mr. President,” the agent had replied.

  The same Tom was ahead of him now, the only person in his ever-present entourage who not only could keep pace with him, but actually stay ahead. Sepulveda called ahead. “Tom, Oppenheimer is showing up within the hour. I need a secure space to talk.”

  Tom tapped his ear and started whispering to the central secret service office.

  He made the last few edits on the holographic display hovering less than a meter from his face, then swiped the whole document over to his chief of staff. “Ok, Peel, get that off to Jody for polishing.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  They were walking through the garden atrium of the Executive Complex, the presidential mansion on the two hundred and twelfth floor of the largest building in downtown Manhattan. The odor of lemon cleaner hung in the air: the cleaning crew had just come through, and now the gardeners were out in force tending to the hundreds of trees, flower beds, ands shrubs lining the pathways of the atrium. Off three of the sides of the vast glass space were the entrances to the three main parts of the United Earth Government: Interior Affairs, the military, and the State Department. The fourth led to the actual presidential living quarters and the offices of his staff, where he’d just come from, but he was headed for the south wing, which housed the military.

  It wasn’t the pentagon, or even the vast IDF Fleet headquarters in Omaha. But it was the main interface for the military with the other two sections of the executive branch.

  A man he vaguely recognized approached him—so many faces to learn in the past two weeks—surrounded with several aides of his own. He’d come from the direction of State, and Sepulveda finally recognized the man just before he started speaking.

  “Ambassador Shin, what can I do for you?”

  The Chinese Intersolar Democratic Republic’s ambassador to the UE bowed slightly before speaking. As was his custom, Sepulveda now remembered. “Mr. President. I know you’re a busy man, so I will be quick.”

  “Yes, I am, thank you. What is it?”

  “First, my government wants to officially thank you for your military’s assistance at Mao Prime two weeks ago. I believe you already spoke with Premier Wen over meta-space text, but he wanted me to thank you in person.” The ambassador bowed again, this time far lower.

  “Ok. Fine. Anything else? Kinda fighting a war here.” He was shuffling his feet, eager to be purposefully walking again. The security council hated to be kept waiting. But he was the president, so wait they would.

  “Yes. Yes, there is,” said Ambassador Shin, hesitantly, rising up from his bow. He produced a data pad and flicked through to a video. “Watch this.”

  Two ships, in orbit around a green-blue planet speckled with white clouds. He didn’t recognize the planet. But
the ships … Sepulveda cocked his head, looking closer.

  “Those are Skiohra generation ships.”

  “Correct, Mr. President.”

  He watched more. “Holy … shit.” He couldn’t believe the scene unfolding.

  The ships were firing at each other. Large sections of one of the ships exploded, and soon the entire thing q-jumped away, leaving the other one in orbit, but heavily damaged.

  “What the ever-loving hell was that?”

  “That, Mr. President, was the Skiohra generation ship Benevolence, exchanging fire with the generation ship Magnanimity. There are only six total, as you most likely know, ever since the Harmony was lost during the war. And now….”

  “Did the Magnanimity survive? Where was this taken?”

  Ambassador Shin nodded. “We believe it did. We tracked it to an unpopulated system near our borders out towards Dolmasi space. But this was taken at an M-class world within our borders. Well, within the CIDR’s borders, at least. Designation of Shao-587.”

  “Descriptive name. Is it populated?”

  “It is not. Our National Council of Preservation decided decades ago that this world would be a … reserve world, I believe the translation would be. A place we could eventually settle, if the population pressures on our existing worlds ever grew too great.”

  “Walk with me.” He resumed his purposeful stride towards the military wing of the executive headquarters. “So. Does your government believe that they were … what, scouting it out for their own settlements or something? And then two separate clans of the Skiohra got there at the same time, each hoping to settle, and then started fighting? That doesn’t sound like the Skiohra. At all.”

  “No, it does not. While we know very little about them, what we do know suggests they are eminently peaceful. War is abhorrent to them. They fight alongside us at times, as they did in the Second Swarm War, and as they did two weeks ago for The Companion Admiral Proctor. But in general, this is a very, very odd event.”