Victory (8 page)

Granger tried to stifle a grimace at the reminder that he was once under Swarm control, but Proctor only nodded again, seeming to catch more of the chief scientist’s meaning than Granger did. He made a note to ask her about it later—perhaps it had to do with her secret Swarm matter research she’d been conducting with her new team when time allowed. She
had
said she’d made a minor breakthrough, though since the battle yesterday he hadn’t had time to bathe, much less grill her on the results.

Silence fell around the table as everyone was reminded about the possibility that Granger could still somehow be under the influence of the Swarm.
 

“So now what?” said Avery. “I want a plan. We’ve been on defense ever since the Volari Three incident. For now we can count on not having to fight the super dreadnoughts, at least. But the Swarm has pulled out all the stops and we’re getting our asses handed to us. Bad. Give me something, gentlemen. Something audacious. Something bold.”

Zingano shook his head. “We still, after four months, have no idea where their
real
homeworld is.”

“What about the Skiohra captain. What’s her name, Vice Imperator Krill—

“Krull,” corrected Proctor.

“Whatever. Did you ask her if she knew the location of the homeworld, Tim?”

Granger shook his head. “We only talked for about five minutes. It didn’t come up. But we established a schedule for regular communications and decided on a location in open space where we’d meet two days from now and discuss matters further.”

Avery locked him in her gaze. “If they’ve been slaves of the Swarm for thousands of years as they say, I can’t see how they’d not know the location of the homeworld, especially if they’re the Swarm’s shipbuilders. How can you build a fleet for your masters and not know where they’re filling it with all that Swarm shit goo? Get that information, Tim. Even if you have to blast your way onto her ship and rip the information from her computer yourself. Hell, we’ve got twenty million marines just itching for their chance at real combat. I’m afraid all this space warfare has them a bit disappointed and restless. Got cabin fever, all of them. A little close quarters hand-to-hand combat with these midget douche-weasel Skiohra folks might be just the way to blow off the steam that they need.” She chuckled a dark laugh.

“I don’t think a hostile takeover of one of their ships would be prudent at this—” began Zingano.

“Kidding, Admiral. But only half kidding. Prudent my ass—if they don’t cooperate with us, we treat them like the enemy they are, and use them as a war asset. Don’t kid yourselves, gentlemen, until we win this war, the Skiohra, the Dolmasi, the Russians—hell,
especially
the Russians—are our enemies, no matter how much we pretend we’re still one big happy family.”

She turned to General Norton, who’d been whispering furiously with an aide that had tapped him on the shoulder. “General? Something wrong?”

“Yes, ma’am. We’ve received a meta-space distress call from the planetary defense command on York in the Britannia Sector. York is under attack.”

Chapter Sixteen

Wellington Shipyards

Gas Giant Calais, Britannia System

When the order came, Rear Admiral Littlefield wasn’t expecting it, of course. Such orders are never anticipated. One never plans for them. All he knew was that one moment he was signing requisition orders for fifty-three new q-jump engine manifolds from the industrial center on Novo Janeiro, and the next moment, he had a moment of clarity.

These ships are all faulty. They need to be restarted from scratch.

Littlefield paused, shaking his head. What an odd thought. He stretched his back from the customary hunched-over position he always adopted while in his cramped office chair, and craned his neck to look out the window. Over sixty gleaming new heavy cruisers floated nearby, perched against the umbilicals coming off the shipyard nacelles, scaffolding still enclosing about half of them, all waiting for their freshly commissioned and conscripted crews.

And all of them were
faulty
, somehow. How did he know that? He shook his head, and made a mental note to himself: get more sleep. Drink less coffee. Maybe, just maybe, start that exercise regimen ordered by his doctor. Ok, maybe he wasn’t all
that
bad—if things got worse he’d resort to such desperate measures. But definitely the sleep and the coffee.

These ships are all faulty. They need to be restarted from scratch.

The thought was stronger this time, and he nearly jolted out of his chair.
What the hell?

And yet, on the other hand, it made perfect sense. He’d been forced to cut some corners recently. The war against the Swarm was getting desperate. There was no time for the usual six-hundred-point long safety checklist that had been the standard before the war. He’d cut that down to the essentials. Basically, make sure the damn things don’t explode at the first q-jump. Explode on the two hundredth q-jump? That wasn’t as critical. Most of these ships weren’t expected to make it past their fiftieth q-jump. The life expectancy of an average ship was about one month from launch. Such were the times.

These ships are all faulty. They need to be restarted from scratch. Not only that, the shipyards itself could use a refit.

He stood up and paced his small, narrow office. He was a
rear
admiral. An entire career of ship-shape cleanliness, meticulous adherence to orders, and occasional, strategic ass-kissing had led him to this, the pinnacle of his career, and here he was, in a tiny closet that had been refurnished into an office, in an orbital installation floating over the god-forsaken gas giant in the Britannia solar system that should have been mothballed last century. Wherever the thought had come from, he was right. This place was downright obsolete.
 

Out the window, the red and orange sulphur dioxide and ammonia clouds swirled almost imperceptibly on Calais, the gas giant below. The upper atmosphere was a veritable gold-mine of helium-3, which was necessary for a properly functioning q-jump drive, so it made sense to him why the Wellington shipyards had been originally located here.

But what he didn’t understand was the layout. The scale. In fact, every detail about the giant structure trailing off into the distance now made no sense to him. Why were there thirty separate scaffolding structures, each building an entire ship? It would be far more efficient to have a hundred smaller structures, or two hundred, or two thousand, each building the same component of a ship, and then piece the whole thing together on down the line. Ford was onto something seven hundred years ago—had they strayed so far?

The shipyards could use a refit. Why not start from scratch
?

He weighed his options. It
was
a bold plan. Start from scratch. He’d be an innovator. A disruptor. The entire military needed a paradigm shift, he realized. And lowly Rear Admiral Littlefield was just the man to do it.

And his
friends
would reward him handsomely.

His friends? Who the hell were they? He had no friends. Just superiors who thought they knew more than him. Subordinates who grudgingly followed his orders, but he knew, just knew, that they secretly detested him. His real friends understood him. He was one with them. With the great family.

He shook his head again, and sat back down to approve more requisition orders. Seventy-two fusion power plants from Earth. Two thousand mag-rail turrets from Novo Janeiro
,
five hundred pallets of power conduit from Brunswick. Eight hundred and thirty-two tons of bonded—

He dropped the datapad and swiveled back to the window. It all didn’t matter. They were going to lose, unless he could revolutionize the ship-building enterprise here, and then replicate that success across the other five shipyards. If IDF didn’t double, or triple, its production rate, they were goners.

These ships are all faulty. They need to be restarted from scratch. The shipyards needs to be rebuilt from scratch. Only I can do this. Only I—only we can save humanity. The Adanasi cry out for our help. Our guidance. Our friendship and fellowship. They need us. Only we can save them.

It all made perfect sense to him now, where, just moments before, it had only been a fanciful thought.

We’ll fix this,
he pledged. For a moment he wasn’t sure if that was
his
thought or
our
thought, but the next moment the confusion passed.
My, I, we, us, our—it’s all the same. Whether by my own voice, or my servants, or my family, or my friends, it is the same.

His command terminal against the wall would do. It was connected to the secure network—only ten such terminals even existed, and two were in this very shipyard. He logged in, giving the appropriate security credentials, presenting his retina for a scan, and giving a verbal passphrase for a voice match. The Special Armaments Command System required rigorous security. Anything less was dangerous—they couldn’t risk the enemy ever getting access to antimatter armament control.

He scanned through the list. Not optimal—only half of the ships at Wellington were stocked with antimatter torpedoes. They were behind schedule. Avery had been insistent that every single ship be stocked with at least a thousand, even though the admiralty doubted they’d ever be used. Far too slow to be effective. But it would do for his purposes. Even one torpedo would do nicely.

As he entered the command, the thought crossed his mind,
my mind, our mind
—
we will prevail, after all
.
None shall hurt, or fear, or make afraid, or divide. We will be one.

The command entered, confirmed, reconfirmed and locked, he swiveled back to the window. Ten second countdown.

Ten.

Nine.

This should be glorious
, he thought.
We’ll bring order.
 

We?
What the hell...
?

Eight.

Seven.

Why are we counting down? Why am
I
counting down?

Part of his mind was fuzzy. But he remembered clearly what was going on.

Six.

He jumped out of his chair and raced back to the terminal. There was still time. Still time.

Five.

Four.

He furiously brought up armament control, his fingers shaking.

“Abort. Authorization Littlefield alpha-omega-pi-zero-zero.”

Three.

Two.

The computer chimed in with a compassionless voice. “Authorization denied. Initiation process is locked.”

One.

He spun toward the window. Simultaneously, thirty ships exploded. The fire lasted just seconds, but the debris flung outward at terrifying speeds, engulfing the sections of the shipyard nacelles the former ships had been connected to. He squinted—dozens of kilometers away, the antimatter armament depot vanished in a haze of fire and wreckage.

He collapsed to the floor.
It’s over
, he thought. If they can infiltrate this far, this high ... it’s over.

Crawling, fumbling toward his desk, he reached in the lowest drawer, withdrawing the pistol.

It’s over. It’s over.
I can’t let them work through me again.
He raised the pistol to his head.
How many others
? was his final thought.

A pop, some spray, and Rear Admiral Littlefield slumped to the floor.

Chapter Seventeen

Intergalactic Safari Expeditions Company Nature Preserve

Tanzania, Earth

Isaacson peered down the sights of his high-powered rifle, keeping the crosshairs steady on his target. He considered himself an expert, of course, and so had foregone the electronically stabilized version of the firearm.
Why rely on electronics when I can rely on myself?
There was no one to trust in the whole world, he knew, so may as well trust the only person who made sense. He was all that mattered. He was the only real thing.

I am god.
With an ironic chuckle, he lowered his rifle and pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. It was midwinter in the northern hemisphere, but here in Tanzania the summer heat was oppressive. And even though he’d taken Volodin on a big-game hunting expedition to “oligarch’s playground,” as the nature preserve was called, complete with all the amenities the galaxy’s elite would need on such a hunt, he’d shunned the personal air conditioning devices in favor of a more natural setting.

He was a man. He’d rely on himself, his own wit, his own brawn. It was just Isaacson, his fortitude, and his high-powered Thiessen & Wells grav-assisted automatic-trajectory-correcting rifle.

“Why are you laughing, Eamon?” asked his friend, Ambassador Volodin, who was looking through his own sights at a target far off in the distance, across a savannah plain. Their targets weren’t live, of course. This was just the practice session required of all the patrons of Intergalactic Safari Expeditions Company. Most of the galaxy’s elite—politician and oligarchs and wealthy scions of “old money” families—were not the most accomplished hunters. They came here in order to indicate their status, not their skills. And so they invariably needed lots of handholding and guidance, as well as comprehensive insurance policies.

“I’m laughing at me, Yuri.”

“What’s wrong with you? You never laugh at you. You’re Eamon Isaacson, Vice President of United Earth, the least united government in the known galaxy.”

He raised the gun back up to his shoulder and looked down the sights again. The target was elephant-sized, about one hundred meters away, with concentric rings around a bullseye. “I’m laughing at my ridiculous situation. Here I am, with Avery enjoying record approval ratings now that we’re in the middle of a two-front war with both the Swarm and the Russian Confederation, and
you
, trying to figure out not how to decide on a cease-fire, not how to convince both sides to train their guns on the Swarm and at least hold off on shooting each other. No. When we get together, what do we talk about?”

“The only thing worth talking about, Eamon,” Volodin said, tightening his grip on the gun. “Ourselves.”