by Nick Webb
Liu’s eyes settled on the image of the young man in a hospital bed: a mirror image to the wreckage of her own body. “Good Lord.”
“Amen.”
Liu tried to push herself out of the bed, but the IV line pulled at her arm. “Where?”
“The ruins of El Amin. The former moon in the San Martin system. I assume there is a ship hiding out there, using the debris as a way to avoid radar detection.”
“Why try to avoid radar detection? Why not just keep him in a hospital on San Martin?”
“There can only be one reason. He’s related to me. And if you’re right about me being a threat to those in power, they’re using him as a way to get to me, and so they can’t risk keeping him in a normal hospital. They’re keeping him in a place where it would be easy to spring an ambush on me when I get there.”
Liu’s eyes lit up. “We’re going there?”
Proctor stood up and folded her arms. “No. We’re not.”
“What?” Liu ripped the IV line out with a grimace and finally stood up to face her. She was surprisingly strong for someone who’d taken many times the lethal dose of radiation and been nearly dead, twice now.
“We’re not. I’m sorry, but as much as I love Danny, my precious nephew, our entire civilization is on the line. If I don’t get down to whatever is inside Titan and figure out how to stop the Swarm, then Danny’s dead anyway.”
“But, you can’t just leave him with whoever these cockjuggling bastards are that have him—”
“We’re not. Well, you’re not.”
Proctor’s meaning finally dawned on Liu, and she straightened her back. To Proctor’s surprise, the woman saluted. “I won’t let you down, ma’am.”
“You’d better not. This is your last chance, Fiona. Don’t squander it. And they’re almost assuredly waiting in ambush for me, so don’t let your guard down, even for a second. I’m pulling what strings I have left to get you a small decommissioned military resupply freighter—I assume you can pilot that just fine? It even has a mag-rail and a few lasers so you won’t be completely defenseless.”
Proctor turned to the exit, making a motion towards the computer monitor to record her voice. “Time of death for Fiona Liu, fourteen hundred hours. Cause: acute radiation poisoning. Body committed to space.” She supposed the worst that could happen to her for falsifying medical records was an early retirement. Again. She pointed at the now-officially-dead woman. “Get moving. As soon as you have him, bring him straight to me.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Executive Complex
Manhattan, New York
Earth
Oppenheimer looked disheveled, which was completely unlike the man. He was usually neat to a fault. Boots were always spit shined. Hair was always perfectly parted and slicked. But now his sleeve was ripped, grime and dirt crusted half his shirt. The other half was covered with spotting that looked suspiciously like dried blood. “Mr. President. You wanted to see me?”
Sepulveda looked him up and down. “You look like shit.” He stood up from his chair and walked across his office to pull a chair from the corner. “Sit. We need to talk.”
The admiral looked like he’d rather throw a punch, but he took the offered chair. “Looking like shit is one of the many drawbacks to having your ship almost get shot out from under you.” His eyes hardened. “That, and losing most of my crew.”
Sepulveda sat back down behind his desk. Directly over Oppenheimer’s left shoulder was a painting of George Washington kneeling by a horse. Over his right hung a portrait of Prime Minister Pam Hardy, who’d led United Earth through the devastating Second Interstellar War. War was all around them, memorialized by portraits and photos, and now, Sepulveda supposed, by the blood that was rubbing off on the chair from Oppenheimer’s uniform. “I appreciate your sacrifice, admiral. And that of your crew. I understand many didn’t make it.”
“Thousands didn’t make it. Tens of thousands.” Oppenheimer was stoned faced, as if numb from the battle and the sheer numbers. They’d won, but the cost was steep, and painful. Almost too painful to think about.
But think they must. Civilization depended on it. “Admiral, I understand Britannia has been pushed out of its usual orbit. What happened?”
Oppenheimer scowled, as if suffering through a conversation with a civilian during a war was about to break his straining temper. “It’s what happens when five moons get too close to a planet. Gravity’s a bitch.”
“And the plan?”
“How the hell would I know? I lead the war. I don’t lead recovery. Go talk to your science advisor about it. Make him earn his keep.”
Sepulveda held his breath five seconds before answering. He was trying to give the man some space, to be patient and let the attitude slide, given he’d just been through hell and helped saved a planet. But it was wearing thin. “Ms. Tanaka is occupied with the stabilization of New Dublin’s crust. Five new volcanoes just erupted out of a major fault line, right on the most densely populated coast of the continent of Irienne. I was hoping you’d have some insight to our new problem, having seen these Granger moons in action.”
“Pft. Granger moons. They save our asses, and then charge us interest. It’s two steps forward and three steps back with those turd birds. Sure, they save a planet, but then they doom it to a future ruin of natural disasters, volcanoes, and in Britannia’s case, an upcoming winter that won’t end for a few hundred thousand years. And then we’re supposed to clap and celebrate and praise Jesus Granger.”
President Sepulveda stood up abruptly. He’d had it with the attitude. “Admiral, I understand you made an attempt after the battle to bring Proctor in. Tell me. Why?”
Oppenheimer’s face turned a shade of red. “Because she’s an insubordinate, mutinous, coward of a—”
“Why did you do so, after we had made plans with Huntsman to bring her in covertly? Do you realize you jeopardized that plan? You clued her in that we’re still on her trail.”
The admiral scoffed. “Of course she knows we’re on her trail. She’s a murderer. What would she expect, a medal?”
Sepulveda stopped pacing and leaned over the desk, gripping the edges with white knuckles. “If she suspects what lengths we’ll go to to bring her in, she’s not going to take the bait. I paid Huntsman far too much to let that happen. He’s set this whole thing up for us, and I’ll be damned if you go blow the whole plan up with your pathetic little grudges and the patience of a two year old.”
“How much did you pay the bastard?”
“Too much. It would have been easier if he had just wanted cash. Hell, I can print that stuff. But he would only barter, and in return he has arranged for the collection of Proctor at El Amin’s asteroid cloud. And I won’t have you gallivanting around trying to be Wyatt Earp and cowboying it up just so you can beat your chest and wave your dick and say you caught the bad lady and taught her good. Focus. Big picture.”
Oppenheimer actually rolled his eyes. “And what, exactly, is the big picture? Mr. President?”
“You really don’t get it, do you. You think this is all about payback, or revenge, or something as trite and insignificant as that. I don’t care what you and Proctor have between you. It’s history, and it’s irrelevant. Big picture? Win … the … war.”
Oppenheimer steepled his fingers in front of his nose and took a deep, calming breath, as if trying with all his effort not to scream. “And how, pray tell, Mr. President, do you propose we accomplish that? By lecturing your generals on manners?”
Sepulveda was done. He straightened up, trying not to visibly clench his fists. “By being smarter than the enemy. And we have more than one enemy, Mr. Oppenheimer. By my count, we have, oh, five. The Swarm, sure. But we’ve got those unpredictable Granger moons flying around out there. We’ve got Huntsman, who I don’t trust farther than I can ejaculate. We’ve got the Skiohra. We’ve got the Dolmasi. We’ve got the Galactic People’s Congress,” he held up four fingers in air quotes.
&nb
sp; “That’s six.”
“Whatever. My point is—”
“And besides, there’s eight.”
Sepulveda’s eyebrows went up. “Oh?”
“You’ve left off the Quiassi and the Findiri.”
The president shook his head. “For the love of—” He paused a took a breath. “Admiral. I have personally spoken to half the admiralty now, and they all say, to a man, that your theory is a load of chickenshit. The Quiassi and Findiri were bogeymen that the Skiohra made up to scare us thirty years ago into doing their dirty work for them.”
Oppenheimer scowled. “I disagree.”
“Clearly. But as I was saying, I don’t want to just take out the Swarm. I want to take them all out. All of them. All at once. One fell swoop. One coordinated action that will ensnare them all into a series of actions that they must take for their own survival, but that will ultimately end in their annihilation and our victory.”
“You talk big for a man who just inherited a job from a dead guy two weeks ago.”
Sepulveda smirked. “You don’t believe me?” he chuckled. “Of course you don’t. I’m just useless Vice President Sepulveda to you. But you will.” He walked around the desk and handed a data pad to the admiral. “I’m sending you on a top secret mission—”
“You? You’re sending me? You do realize I’m your Fleet Admiral of the space navy. I’m the one that sends our ships and captains out on missions. I command the fleet. You don’t send the leader of your military out on a hare-brained scheme that most likely will result in—”
He was looking down at the data pad, and stopped abruptly.
Sepulveda smiled. “I’m sending you out on a mission. Take a ship. I’d recommend the Independence and Captain Volz, just to keep an eye on him and hold him under our thumb for awhile so he doesn’t interfere in our plans for Proctor. And go fast, before the situation changes.”
“How is this right?”
“I trust my sources.”
“But … a whole Skiohra Generation ship, just sitting there in orbit? Powered down? In orbit around a planet that—”
Sepulveda shrugged. “Now, in fairness, we’re not one hundred percent sure that planet is their homeworld. But the pieces fit. And if you can take over that ship, steal its tech and download its specs, and set off a meta-space pulse that will summon every Swarm ship from here to high heaven and make the Skiohra fight them in defense of their own planet, well then…” he grinned, “That’s two birds with one stone, isn’t it?”
“And how do you propose to hit the other four at the same time? The Dolmasi? The GPC? Huntsman? The Granger Moons?”
Sepulveda sat back down, the smile never leaving his face. “I’ll surprise you.” He waved his hand in a shooing motion. “Now get.”
Oppenheimer scowled one last time, then left in a hurry. So negative. Sometimes he wondered if that man wasn’t under the Swarm’s influence after all, like Proctor had suggested once. Sepulveda sat back down at his desk and yelled out the still-open door. “Tom, get me a coffee. And put some damn whiskey in it this time.”
The other man leaned in through the door. “Sir, I’m your head of security, not your—”
“Tell it to someone who cares. Go. Get.” He made another shooing motion, even as he was distracted by a notification flashing on his desk terminal. Marked priority, his eyes only.
From intel.
He opened it.
“Interesting. Shelby, you didn’t take the bait. And as always, you’re sending someone else to do your dirty work for you.” He waved the terminal closed and stood up to drag the chair Oppenheimer had been sitting in back to the corner. With dismay he noticed that, indeed, blood has smeared from the uniform onto the chair’s fabric. “Oh well. We’ll make do with what we get.” He leaned his head out the door. “Wen? Is Interstellar One ready yet? I’ve got that blasted UE Congressional Armed Services Committee meeting on Britannia in two hours. What’s the holdup?”
Tom, the secret service agent, appeared with the coffee and a scowl. Sepulveda took the cup from him. “Oh, and Tom, pass a message to intel for me—I believe Wendy is in her office downstairs. Tell her I want to know who’s in that freighter heading out to San Martin. And to send a few backup ships to hang around the vicinity of the El Amin cloud.” He took a sip. “For when Huntsman’s op goes tits up.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Pilot’s bunk
ISS Independence
High orbit, Britannia
“He wants us to what?” Lieutenant Zivic had woken up from his two hours of sleep to a call from Jerusha Whitehorse. He sat up in bed and rubbed the deep fatigue out of his eyes. “Take Oppenheimer himself on a covert mission? Why? Why him? Why us?”
Whitehorse shrugged and said without a hint of sarcasm. “You know, I didn’t ask him. Admiral Oppenheimer and I aren’t the bosom drinking buddies we used to be.”
“Right. But why do you think?”
“I don’t know, Ethan. I guess they don’t think much of your plan for fixing Britannia’s orbit and want you as far away as possible. Really, honey, it’s all about you.”
“I know.” He shook his head, still trying to wake up. “I mean, tasking a fighter pilot with pushing a planet back into its orbit made tons of sense. But now heading out to some random unpopulated system to escort the Fleet Admiral of IDF on some secret mission? Even stupider. Shouldn’t we be, you know, fighting a war somewhere?”
Whitehorse shook her head in exasperation. “You’re incorrigible, you know?”
“What does that mean?”
“Look, Britannia’s not going to be in any danger of eternal winter for at least a few more months. Plenty of time to flash out a signal to a passing Granger moon and ask it for a gravitational assist. That was your plan, right?”
“More or less. Already did it, in fact. Didn’t get a response—no indication it was even heard. Best I can do, you know?” He rolled out of bed and started pulling his boots on. He’d slept in his uniform. Model of efficiency, he was. “Right, so we’re off to a system in uncharted space—”
“It’s actually in CIDR space.”
His eyebrows lit up. “The Chinese? Are they getting involved now? I guess Mao Prime scared the shit out of them. Enough to actually assist in humanity’s defense.”
“They were always fighting alongside us, Ethan. Just because you can’t see them out your fighter’s window doesn’t mean there aren’t millions fighting alongside you at the same time. Seriously, come off yourself. I know you’re the center of your universe, but it’s cold and dank in there and you should come out once in a while.”
“Oh stop.” He pulled the other boot on over his pant leg and clasped the top snug under the knee. “What are my orders in particular?”
She smirked. “What else? Escort duty. And fast—we’re leaving in five minutes.”
“As in, escort until the shit hits the fan and then start shooting anything that moves?”
“More or less,” she said, echoing him. “Hey. Gotta go. Your dad is barking at me.”
“Just don’t let him bite you. You know. Rabies. Ethan out.”
Her holographic face disappeared over his bed, replaced by an IDF logo which disappeared itself after a few seconds. He checked the mirror, grimaced at his hair, but shrugged and left in a hurry.
When he arrived on the fighter deck, the crew was still in pandemonium over the effects from the battle. Cleanup and repair was only just started, and here they were trying to get five fighters fueled and restocked and off the deck before they’d even had a chance to rest.
And those were the ones that were still alive. The others were down in sickbay’s makeshift morgue.
“Who are these guys?” he asked Moonshine, one of his fellow pilots, thumbing over to five shuttles that had appeared since the last time he’d been down there three hours ago. A group of rough-looking marines were sitting around laughing and roughhousing. As marines are wont to do, he supposed. He recognized their tone. Thei
r mood. The laughter was a little louder than it should have been. Those who weren’t roughhousing were sitting, cleaning their rifles, quieter than they should have been. He was a pilot, they were marines, but he recognized all of it.
They were about to head into battle. And many of them expected not to make it.
“Spec ops. They arrived with Oppenheimer.”
“Don’t tell me he’s going on the mission with them.”
“Are you kidding? He’s up on the bridge kicked back with a glass of wine, most likely. Admiral, remember?”
“Any idea what the fight is?” He walked with Moonshine past a few fighters until they arrived at theirs, parked side by side. Deck hands were scurrying everywhere, all over the two birds, making last-minute checks.
“Escort.”
“So I heard.” Zivic pulled himself up to the fighter’s hatch. “Any idea what the fight really is?”
“Escort. Then shoot. What am I, the CAG?”
“He died over Britannia. So … technically, yes.”
Moonshine looked slightly crestfallen. “Oh.”
“It’s been three hours since you inherited the job, Moonshine. Don’t tell me you haven’t whipped all your pilots into shape and prepared a kickass motivational speech already.”
“I haven’t. Was I supposed to?”
Zivic grinned. “You’re going to make an excellent CAG. Hold’em was an asshat anyway.”
“Don’t speak ill of the dead.”
“We’re all dead, Moonshine.” He gave a slight nod to his fellow pilot, pausing a moment before pulling the hatch shut. Moonshine mirrored the nod back at him. The look in his eye. The look that meant he completely understood.
They were all dead men.
“So we may as well have fun with it. See you on the other side.” He pulled the hatch tight and engaged the seal, and vaulted himself over into the pilot’s seat. He flipped on the link to the bridge. “Jerusha we’re all ready down here.”
