by Nick Webb
She continued. “And when the alien ship arrived at Bolivar, what happened? I know the official report, but I want your perspective. What was going on on the station?”
Batak shrugged. “Look, Admiral, I’d love to talk, but seeing how I’m in a jail cell, I think it might be best to have a lawyer around.”
She folded her arms. She was done talking already, and Proctor could tell by the defiant look on her face that she meant it.
“Look, Ms. Batak, you’re in this cell now for two reasons. One, is that this is a military vessel at red alert in wartime. We don’t have room for civilians and this just happens to be the easiest non-classified area to keep you in. Two, someone well-placed wants you back at Bolivar. Very badly. Enough that one of my admirals asked for you by name.”
She supposed a white lie was permissible, given the circumstances. Mullins hadn’t, in fact, used her name. But he didn’t have to. The fact that he was demanding her return, and Zivic’s, was just a little … off. Normal procedure would have been to drop them off at the nearest IDF CENTCOM base, which in this case would be with Admiral Tigre right there in the San Martin system. Not all the way back at Bolivar.
Batak smirked. “Good reason for me to keep my damn mouth shut then, ma’am.” The lopsided smile disappeared, replaced by ice. “I’d like a lawyer, please.”
Ballsy leaned in to whisper in Proctor’s ear. “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere. Let’s go talk to Ethan. Doc will revive him if I ask.”
Batak cocked her head at him, a look of … recognition spreading over her face. At least, it looked like recognition—Proctor wondered where Batak would recognize him from. Though there was that whole celebrity thing from being a hero of the Swarm War. For that matter, why didn’t Proctor warrant the same look of recognition? She was the companion of the Hero of Earth, after all. Proctor laughed inwardly. At least the girl wasn’t a Grangerite. Her attitude would have been much more deferential if she had been.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” said the mechanic. “You’re his dad? Zivic’s.”
Ballsy eyed her. “I am. Why? Has he talked about me?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Quite a bit, actually.”
Proctor’s heart sank a little. Any chance that the girl might talk seemed to have left the room, and get torpedoed by one of the alien ship’s super-rail-gun slugs.
Ballsy stayed quiet, as if hoping she’d continue unprompted. Luckily, she did.
“He said you two had a major falling out. Detests you, actually. That much was clear.”
“Well, let’s just say we’ve had our … issues,” Ballsy said, his lips tight.
Batak regarded him, as if weighing her choices. “He … well … he also said … that he could trust you. That’s why we’re here. He was looking for you. Said you were the only one he trusted to tell it to. He was desperate to get you some information.”
Proctor’s ears perked up. “Information?”
Batak sighed, as if she was committing to an action she wasn’t sure about, but was going to do nonetheless, consequences and regrets be damned. “Ok, I’ll tell you what I know. What we came here to tell you,” she said, looking straight at Ballsy. “Ethan said he could trust you, so I’ll trust you. I just hope that after all is said and done, I can go home. You know … alive, and all.”
Proctor turned back to fully face the girl. Girl, she thought. She kept on thinking about the mechanic as a girl when she must have been at least twenty-five or so. Have I gotten that old? “Sara. I promise, I’ll do everything in my power to protect you. But the truth is, something is going on. Something deeper than just a deadly alien invasion—and heaven help us, that’s bad enough. But between Sangre de Cristo, the multiple attempts on my life, my missing nephew, a simmering resistance movement that seems like its about to break out into open revolt and revolution, and a host of other details that I don’t have time to go into right now, I think we’re looking at something far bigger, far deeper than that. I’ll be honest: we need you.” She breathed. Why the hell was she opening up to a mechanic? Oh well—she supposed it might make the girl feel more inclined to hold nothing back. Good Psych-ops, Shelby, she could hear Granger telling her.
“Ok.” Batak nodded. “Everything. Look, Ethan and I have been thinking the same thing. There’s something big going on.” She proceeded to lay it all out. From when she’d been assigned to Watchdog Station and started seeing odd sudden changes in personnel, to the alien-induced hysteria when the mystery ship attacked, to the assassination of the Shovik-Orion contractor, Jerry Underwood, that Ethan witnessed. Their subsequent escape from both Watchdog Station and the Miguel Urquiza, then from San Martin, and their theories about Shovik-Orion and the GPC being in bed together. And the meta-space echo on board their shuttle.
“Excuse me? Did you say meta-space echo?” said Proctor. Before she knew it, she was on her feet, though she didn’t quite understand why.
“Yeah, that’s right. I mean, that’s the best way I could describe it. I’m no scientist. Just a grunt mechanic, ma’am. But those readings—it was like the ghost of a meta-space reading, coming in and out, almost … circular, around a point in that shuttle. I mean, I know that’s crazy, there’s no such thing as a circular meta-space signal, but—”
“Holy shit,” breathed Proctor. She turned to Volz. “Ballsy, we’ve got to talk. Excuse us please, Sara—”
Batak stood up too, looking quite angry. “Wait, I tell you all that, and you just leave to go—”
Proctor touched her shoulder. “We’ll get you some quarters. And I’ll have guards posted. Discreetly,” she added, noting the sudden look of panic on the girl’s face. “They’ll keep you safe. But I need to go. You’ve reminded me of something critically important.” She motioned them all to door. “Come on.”
Before they even approached the door to the brig, the comm crackled to life. “Admiral Proctor?”
It was Commander Yarbrough.
“Yes, Commander?”
“Sir, we have … a situation here.”
Another one?
“I’ll be right there.” She pointed them all through the door, and glancing at Ballsy, she thumbed towards Batak, indicating he arrange accommodations and guard for her. “What’s the situation, Commander?”
“We’ve been holding station in orbit around El Amin as ordered, ma’am. Except we have a guest. A very … large guest.”
Proctor’s blood ran cold. That meta-space ghost of a signal on that shuttle couldn’t have…. No, it couldn’t have….
The Swarm couldn’t be back. They couldn’t. They were dead. She killed their last ship, years ago.
She cleared her throat. “Swarm?”
“No, ma’am. Skiohra. One of their six main generation ships. And their leader is asking for you. By name.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Irigoyen Sector, San Martin System, El Amin
Bridge, ISS Independence
Proctor wasn’t sure what she’d find on the bridge. Would the appearance of a one hundred kilometer long alien generation ship would provoke an eerie calm among her bridge crew, or would they be running around with their heads cut off at the sight of a ship that could destroy the Independence a thousand times over? The massive ship packed a punch greater than a hundred of the old Swarm carriers, using the same anti-matter beam turrets as their old enemy, a weapon so powerful it could slice through even the old Legacy Fleet carriers like the Constitution and the Warrior.
And for that matter, the Chesapeake. The thought of Captain Diaz’s boat, her old boat—the last of the Legacy Fleet—succumbing to the mysterious alien ship just a few days ago filled her with … what was that feeling? Anger?
Sadness? As angry as she was, it sure felt a lot more like mourning. Nostalgia, more like it. It was like the end of an era had come. The Legacy Fleet was no more. A simpler time had passed. Straightforward enemies of old had been replaced with mysterious shadows that threatened to destroy them all from within.
&n
bsp; You’re being melodramatic, Shelby. She smiled—maybe so. But all the same, what she wouldn’t give to have Granger, Prucha, Diaz, and Spacechamp back. And the Warrior and Chesapeake. All the old crew. Her friends. Her family. Too many had passed on, and in the meantime it seemed their problems only multiplied and grew more complex.
The bridge doors opened, and to their credit, the bridge crew was calm and confident, working steadily, even as the unimaginably massive Skiohra vessel filled the screen. A super dreadnought, that’s what they called them back in the closing days of the Swarm War. It stretched off into the distance, its surface details getting lost in the blackness of space. The light from San Martin’s sun was too weak at this distance to illuminate it further.
“Status.” Proctor approached her chair, but didn’t sit down. Rather, she stood behind and gripped the headrest. It seemed to be her preferred position these days. Face death standing up—that’s what she supposed her subconscious was trying to do.
Commander Yarbrough looked up from the XO’s station. “They’re waiting to talk to you, ma’am.”
Proctor eyed the ship. She’d studied the Skiohra for years after the war, in her spare time as captain of the Chesapeake, and even during her tenure as fleet admiral. It was a scientific interest, certainly, but there was something else about the aliens that called to her. “Which ship is it?”
“Ma’am?”
“The name. Which one is it? There’s only six of them. Benevolence?”
Yarbrough scanned through the data on his console. “I … one moment, Admiral. I’m sure it’s here in their transponder data—”
Her eyes found the telltale damage on the ship, now decades old. And one spot in particular—a giant, gaping hole that the Skiohra had apparently not filled in, but rather just patched around the edges. “It’s the Benevolence.”
“Are you sure?”
She pointed at the damage on the ship. “That’s where the Constitution hit. General Norton—God bless his cankered soul—brought the damaged Old Bird with him during operation Battleaxe and flew it straight through Benevolence’s heart.” She was murmuring, mostly to herself. The memories seemed fresh, like they happened yesterday. She could almost see the great gouts of debris and fire erupt from the Benevolence as the Constitution flew through at horrific speed. The Old Bird had been close to being repaired and recommissioned, and then Norton flushed it away like a turd. Tossed it like a disposable brick.
“They’re standing by, Admiral,” said Lieutenant Qwerty. “Shall I put them onscreen?”
She nodded, and came around to stand in front of her chair. She assumed the Skiohra position of greeting, trying to remember the correct pose. Arms raised in front of her, palms up. Or was it down? Shit.
The viewscreen shifted from displaying the ship to the image of an alien. A Skiohra matriarch. Unimaginably old—thousands of years—though due to the Swarm Matter that had coursed through her veins for centuries, she’d been preserved, her lifespan stretching far past the already-long length of a typical Skiohra.
The Matriarch had her arms extended in front of her, palms up. Good, she’d gotten it right.
“I am Vice Imperator Pulrum Krull. Do you remember me, Mother-killer?”
The name cut her to her core. Mother-killer. They hadn’t forgotten, apparently. “I do, Krull. And I see you still call me by that … odious epithet.”
Krull lowered her arms. “It is not meant as an insult, Mother-killer. Merely as a statement of fact. It is only a descriptive term. Like you would call someone Captain, or Admiral, or President, or even … mother.”
“Still, I think I’d prefer it if you called me Admiral Proctor. Or just Admiral, thank you very much.”
Krull nodded once. “Very well, Admiral. You’ve summoned us here. My question to you is, why?”
“Excuse me?” Summoned? She glanced over at Commander Yarbrough, who shrugged.
The matriarch continued. “Through the Ligature. The meta-space link. You remember it, do you not? You must, for you’ve used it to summon us. In a rather … crude manner.”
Proctor shook her head. “I’m sorry, Vice Imperator Krull. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The Ligature,” Krull repeated, insistently. “All races subjugated by the Swarm used it. The mental link. You call it meta-space, but that is such a crude, sterile term. The Ligature is alive.” Krull paused, as if waiting for an answer, but Proctor had none to give. The alien sighed, and continued. “It started with us, you know. Our people developed it, over hundreds of thousands of years. Then the Swarm stole it, and used it as part of their campaign of subjugation and domination. Even Granger had it placed within him. And now you’ve used it to summon us. Why?”
“Lieutenant Qwerty,” Proctor began, without looking over at him, her eyes still resting on the alien on the screen, “have we sent any meta-space messages in the past few hours?”
“Just a few ma’am,” he replied. “Two to Admiral Mullins on Bolivar, one to CENTCOM on Earth, one to Admiral Tigre on San Martin.” He shook his head. “That’s it.”
Krull shook her head. “No, Admiral. You don’t understand. This was not a meta-space message. This was a summons. A clear, unmistakable sign to all beings connected by the Ligature for millions of parsecs around, saying quite clearly, here … we … are.”
Another chill went up Proctor’s spine. A summons. Here we are. Perhaps the most dangerous message any race could say to the unfathomably expansive black depths of the universe.
“And it wasn’t the first. It wasn’t even the most powerful. The one sent two weeks ago nearly incapacitated all of us.”
The chill deepened. “Two weeks ago?” No. It couldn’t be. “Vice Imperator, where did that other signal originate from?”
Proctor knew the answer before the alien could reply. There was only one place it could have come from. Oh, Danny, what the hell were you up to?
“From the world you call Sangre de Cristo.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Irigoyen Sector, San Martin System, El Amin
Bridge, ISS Independence
“How? What could cause something like that?” Proctor took a few steps towards the screen as she spoke. “Do you have any idea?”
Vice Imperator Krull regarded her solemnly. “I thought you could tell me. Because it has caused an uproar among my people. For days, my ship was filled with mayhem. Discord. It disrupted the Ligature. If it had been any stronger, it would have damaged us. How it has affected the Dolmasi, and the other client races of the Swarm, I can’t even fathom.”
“But how is that possible?”
Krull shook her head. “Like I said, Admiral, it was as if a large amount of energy was channeled into meta-space somehow. It was unmistakable, unorganized, and utterly powerful.”
Proctor turned away and paced back to her chair, but still didn’t sit. “Krull, two weeks ago, Sangre de Cristo was attacked by terrorists. They detonated a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere above one of the cities, completely destroying it. Are you saying that a nuclear explosion can cause a release of energy into meta-space?”
“No,” said Krull. “Nuclear technology is familiar to us. And archaic. Our people haven’t used it for millennia, beyond simple fusion power devices, and even those are outdated by thousands of years. But either way, nuclear reactions do not have an effect on meta-space.”
“Then what happened on Sangre de Cristo to cause such a meta-space disruption?” Proctor turned back to the screen. It felt like they were close, so close to figuring out the mystery. The conspiracy. Or multiple conspiracies. Or multiple coincidences.
There were no coincidences. Not like this.
Krull gave a most decidedly human expression—a shrug. Apparently she’d studied human communication over the decades. Proctor remembered that the matriarch had tens of thousands of primordial, bodiless children living inside her, all with fully developed minds, each with personalities and passions. Some of them probably devoted them
selves to understanding human communication, and Krull was most likely drawing upon their knowledge right now.
“What do your children say, Krull? Surely you have some within you, living the Interior Life, that have devoted their lives to understanding meta-space physics and technology.”
She nodded. “I do. Hundreds, in fact. They form quite the vocal faction within me.”
“And?” Proctor said, trying not to let exasperation creep into her voice. “What do they think?”
“They only have theories. Hypotheses. But the dominant opinion is that there was, somehow, a meta-space shunt attached to that nuclear weapon. Some sort of device that could channel raw energy into meta-space.”
Proctor nodded. “A meta-space shunt. And, theoretically, what would such a device look like? Would it have some sort of meta-space signature by which we could detect it?”
“Theoretically,” began Krull, “it would utilize one of the artificial singularities that you humans provided to the Swarm years ago. It would be altered, and kept as a microscopic virtual particle, no larger than the space between sub-atomic particles in quantum condensate—a Planck Length, I believe your science would call it. And it would be manipulated to attract all energy in its environs. Catch it in a circular orbit, and while the energy is orbiting the singularity, shunt it into meta-space.”
Shit.
“Krull, artificial singularity technology was banned right after the war, thirty years ago. All singularity devices were destroyed. Every Swarm ship was destroyed. I made sure that there were none left.”
Krull shrugged again. “All the same, Admiral, that is the leading theory among my children. It may be that a few singularities … slipped through the cracks, as you might say.”
