Victory (12 page)

His eyes flashed, just for a moment. Oh, god, he was so easy to play. Just one mention of public adoration and he basically gets a boner. She tried hard not to roll her eyes.

“Are you sure, ma’am? I mean, sending me out there, out from the influence of your ... monitoring?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll be adequately monitored. My team in charge of your implants has been busy writing a firmware program that will be uploaded to your implants very shortly. It will keep you from thinking anything
too
treacherous, and keep a running log of your thought and emotional parameters that I’ll have access to when you return. Any deviation from the script, and....” She gave him a knowing shrug and lopsided smile as she reached for her coffee. Can’t let him forget the consequences. He rubbed a temple at the reminder, and she wondered just how intense the pain could be. She should test that sometime.

“And what if he’s dead set against it? What if we can’t make the concessions that he wants? What if I can’t—”

“Eamon, Eamon ... I can’t solve all your problems for you. It’ll require some improvising. You’re brilliant at that. Honestly, how in the world did you make it to this point if you can’t think for yourself?”

“I—”

“Dismissed, Mr. Vice President. Be a dear and send General Norton in when you see yourself off the ship.”

Isaacson stood up, paused a moment as if he wanted to say something else, but chose not to and left. Avery, however, read his intended thought on the screen nearby.
And what if the program fails, and I betray you out there?

The door shut, leaving her alone.

“Don’t worry, Eamon, you won’t. Nothing you do can betray me now.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Bridge, ISS Warrior

Asteroid Belt, York System, Britannia Sector

“Captain, incoming signal from the main Dolmasi vessel. Asking for you by name.”

Granger waved a hand up toward the screen. Moments later, Vishgane Kharsa appeared, looking as triumphant as he supposed a Dolmasi could look. The alien had dropped all pretense of mimicking human social cues like laughter and shrugging and frowning, but Granger knew smugness when he saw it.

“Vishgane. It is good to see you again. You are most welcome.”

“Granger. You should not be here.”

“How did you know we were here? You must have been pretty close to have come so quickly.”

Kharsa held a single hand out. Granger did not quite understand the motion, but the words made it clear. “You summoned us, Granger. We were close, within a few lightyears, monitoring Valarisi movements near Britannia, and we heard your voice.”

“We?”

“We. All of us. We are just like you, Granger. Once one has been under the influence of the Valarisi, one retains the link. They can no longer control you, or us, and we must be careful that they do not see through our eyes, but the fact remains, we all heard you. And the decision was made, out of gratitude for what you, Granger, have done for us, to come to your aid.”

The open discussion of his link to the Swarm made Granger uncomfortable, but there was nothing helping that now. The secret was out in the open. Proctor had known, and the bridge crew had suspected. Now it was fact. May as well acknowledge it. Own it. Make it, publicly, for the benefit of his people, part of his arsenal.

“Can you control them? Can I?”

“In some ways, yes. In most ways, no.”

Granger waited for an elaboration to the cryptic response. Before it came, Proctor interrupted. “Sir, incoming meta-space transmission from Admiral Zingano. Sending it to your terminal.”

He glanced down to the readout.
Warrior
and her fleet were to return to Britannia as soon as the battle was over to begin something Zingano was calling, Operation Ground War.

“You must leave, I know,” said Kharsa. How he knew that, Granger had no idea. Could they read his thoughts? “You project them too loudly at times, Granger. It is how we all heard you, lightyears away. I’m surprised every Valarisi ship and every other asset of the Concordat of Seven within a hundred lightyears didn’t converge on this location.”

“I’ll be more careful,” assured Granger. The thought was unnerving, that this whole time, out of sheer carelessness, he may have been telegraphing his own intentions to the Dolmasi, to the Swarm, to the Skiohra. Hell, even to the Russians.

“Before you depart, Granger, a warning. You are about to engage in negotiations with the Skiohra.”

“Yes,” he said, confirming what should have been highly classified information. “You know them?”

“No. No direct contact, that is. As I told you before, the Valarisi keeps the Concordat of Seven highly compartmentalized. We knew them from a distance, but that is all. By reputation.”

“Explain,” said Granger.

“Each member of the Concordat of Seven has their strengths and weaknesses, as any race does. When the Valarisi conquered my people, they used us for our ability to procure resources. We were experts at it. We had spread across thousands of lightyears, harvesting raw materials and energy from countless protostars, dead brown dwarf bodies, and asteroid fields. That infrastructure largely remains in place, and controlled by the Valarisi.”

“You haven’t retaken your former worlds? Just the homeworld?”

“We simply don’t have the resources. All our fleets have been recalled to the homeworld, and there they stay, until we can be sure the Valarisi pose no threat. Otherwise, for us, it is extinction. A fear you know all too well. That is one of the strengths the Valarisi see in the Adanasi. In you. The Russians. You fight to survive, at all costs. But perhaps the greatest tool the Valarisi have absorbed and adapted from the Russians is the ability to deceive. Duplicity. Subterfuge.”

“What about the Skiohra?”

A low grumble from Kharsa, which Granger interpreted as either wary anger, or fear, or deep concern. “The Skiohra. Great shipbuilders, of course. But fearsome warriors. You might not see it, looking at them. They are physically small. But what they lack in size the make up for with both formidable strength and technological prowess. When they attack, they come with deadly force. The antimatter beams? They are a Skiohra innovation, copied onto all our ships. They built the Valarisi’s fleet, scaled down significantly from their own ship size. It is them you must be very careful of, Captain Granger.”

“Do you suspect they’re duplicitous? That they’ll betray our truce?”

“Hard to say. We do not have contact with them. But regardless of whether they are controlled by the Swarm or not, if they desire it, they will destroy you. Before the Valarisi brought them into the Concordat, no fewer than five other races met their end at the hands of the Skiohra. It is perhaps from them that the Valarisi learned their ruthlessness. Their utter focus on destruction and mayhem, even as they pursue their main goal of unification.”

“That sounds somewhat contradictory, don’t you think?”

Kharsa held out another hand. The gesture must mean agreement, Granger supposed. “That is true. The Valarisi, or rather, the Concordat, is, fundamentally, a contradiction. You well know, Granger, that they consider us
friends
. They consider all life to be part of them—all life is destined to be united with them, subsumed into them, and ultimately, controlled by them. Is that friendship? You know the answer. They have absorbed from the Skiohra the ability—if one can call it that—to project overwhelming and terrifying force. Fortunately, they still lack much of the Skiohra’s tactical abilities. You may also have noticed that the Valarisi ships, once set upon a world, are not the most innovative of fighters. That alone is our most significant advantage.”

“And the others? What of the other four races? We know of you, the Swarm themselves, the Skiohra, and the Russians. There’s three left.”

“We know little of them. Two are races you have little to fear. They are on the other side of the galaxy, and will most likely keep to themselves, only coming to their own defense if attacked.”

“Are they peaceful?”

“I wouldn’t say that. Rather, they are artifacts. They were the first races the Valarisi conquered. From one, they learned interstellar travel, and nothing more. From the other, they absorbed their life cycle. The pattern of expansion, and rest. I think you’re aware that the Valarisi were not supposed to have emerged from their lifecycle for another seventy-five of your years?”

“We’d worked that much out, but have no idea why.”

“For that, you’ll need to ask your own kind, Captain.”

The Khorsky incident. He knew it. He’d suspected Russian involvement with the Swarm ever since that day, ten years ago. “The Russians?”

“I think you know the answer to that.” Kharsa held out a hand one last time, indicating affirmation. “The question is, why?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

President's Stateroom, Frigate One

High Orbit, Earth

Norton stalked through the door, motioning to his marine guard to wait outside with the secret service officers. “Madam President,” he said in greeting as he sat down. “I assume your meeting with Isaacson was fruitful?”

“Very. My team uploaded the new programs while he was sitting here.”

“Does he suspect anything?”

She chuckled. “Oh, he suspects a
lot
of things. But his greatest suspicion will be his undoing. He suspects that I’m telling the truth. That I’m sending him out there to make a treaty with Malakhov, and that when he gets one I’ll truly let him go.”

“Why would he think that, Madam President?”

“Because he’s a narcissist, General. He’s at the center of his world. We—me, you, the rest of us—we only exist as shells of skin and flesh to him. We don’t exist as human beings in his mind, at least, not self-aware, feeling individuals. He’s a true psychopath. He can’t empathize. He’s incapable of it. And so, when I dangle the chance in front of him of being worshipped by the masses, of being in a position of true power, he can’t resist.”

Norton scowled. “Is he really that naive?”

Avery expression was clear:
are you kidding?
“General, this is
Eamon Isaacson
we’re talking about. The oligarchic buffoon with the nice smile and boyish good looks who, in spite of his family, connections, wealth, and power managed to spend three whole years of his vice presidency trying to kill me with nothing to show for it except for making me late to a hair appointment once. The man wouldn’t know his own dick from a hot dog if it was wrapped in a bun. His mind is so prodigiously empty that my technicians had to invent a new sensitivity setting for the inter-cranial monitoring system I put inside him,” she said, patting the terminal nearby that gave her the readout of Isaacson’s thoughts and mental state.

The general nodded. “Well sure, he’s a few tines short of a pitchfork, but don’t underestimate him, Madam President. Once Volodin got involved in the assassination attempts a few months ago he very nearly succeeded. Don’t forget about
Interstellar One
. And the
Verso
and
Recto
,” he added, referring to the president’s former starliner and its two military escort frigates.

“Yes, Volodin,” she sighed. “Did we ever grab a sample from him?”

“No, Ma’am. CIA is still working on it. But until they do I think it’s safe to assume he’s Swarm, like the rest of the Russian high command.”

“Agreed.” She sipped her coffee. “What’s our ETA at Britannia?”

“Two hours. Zingano is already there. The
Hero of Earth
is on his way,” he added with a snort of derision.

Avery gave him a sharp look. “You need to get over him, General. Focus your anger on the enemy, not our best weapon.”

“I
am
focusing on the enemy, Madam President. I think it unwise to place so much trust in him. He’s been compromised. By his own admission, for god’s sake.”

“And
that’s
why I trust him, General. The very fact that he’s so unsure and hesitant about his own loyalties, so anguished about once being under Swarm control—that alone tells me he’s on our side. Plus, if he were still under Swarm control, the Swarm must be the worst tacticians in the galaxy. They could have destroyed Earth months ago. Earth, New Dublin, Marseilles, Johnson’s World, Tyr ... they all would have fallen were it not for Granger. The man has spine, and even if he’s rough around the edges and borderline insubordinate, so be it—he’s the best we’ve got.”

“Then god help us all,” said Norton. “I don’t trust him. Not since the Khorsky incident. Not since he demonstrated he’s willing to disobey direct orders,
and
throw his superior officers under the bus during congressional questioning.”

“This is not the playground, General. Just because he told on you once doesn’t make him evil or the teacher’s pet or unpopular or whatever your problem with him is. Man up, and win me this war without all the catfighting. Got it?” She’d started glaring at him. He glared back. It was clear he detested being told by a civilian how to do his job, but to his credit he nodded stiffly. “Yes, ma’am.”

“What do you make of Granger’s report?”

“Troubling. The Skiohra add a new wrinkle to the patchwork of threats we face. Those super dreadnoughts are overwhelmingly powerful—the battle of Indira is the first time any of our commanders has defeated one—”

“And yet you
still
distrust Granger,” she said derisively. “Go on.”

Norton scowled again. “His initial report claims that there are six of them—”

“Six? I thought IDF Intel said there were three. Four tops.”

“They could have lied to Granger. In either case, the meeting they requested with Granger is tomorrow.”

She swiveled her chair and stared out the window at the numberless stars and empty interstellar space. “We need something big, General. We’re losing. Losing badly. We need to do something daring. Completely unexpected. We can’t continue to rely on outside events to save us. Just like what I’m doing with Isaacson, we need to do something that will result in our gain no matter what the outcome of the tactic is. We’ve fought bravely, we’ve fought desperately. It’s time we started fighting intelligently. Ruthlessly.”