by Webb, Nick
But now the grounds had been expanded significantly to house the legions of dead left behind from Swarm War Two. The war he himself contributed vast numbers to. Entire starships that he flung at the enemy like inert bricks. Saving Earth, but killing hundreds, thousands of crew at a time.
He paced down one of the long, long, eternally long pathways, the uniform white stones marked with crosses, stars of David, Islamic crescents, and various other religious symbols lined up in hauntingly beautiful rows stretching almost as far as his old eyes could see. Glancing at his map, he saw that he was nearly there.
The entire section he was walking along housed the remains of the ISS Killarney and ISS Greystones, which, in his distant memory, he recalled slamming into Swarm ships over New Dublin, on his orders. The ghosts of a thousand officers and crew surrounded him, interrogating him, demanding he answer for his sins before they let him pass. He slowed his pace, telling himself over and over that it was worth it. That the lives, the blood spilled was worth it. That the freedom and life and civilization that the sacrifice allowed were worth it.
But the ghosts were not convinced. He was sure of that.
He stopped.
He’d passed it. Somehow, he knew. He glanced back down at the map on his data pad, then turned around and retraced his steps for a few dozen feet.
There it was. Beneath a stone marked with a white cross—though Granger never knew the man to be religious, not in the slightest.
“Hey there, old man,” he murmured, and groaned as he knelt down. He touched the gravestone, tracing the name with a finger. Abraham W. Haws.
Old man yourself! he imagined Haws saying. And it was almost as if he could hear him. His old XO. Often a touch inebriated, always unreasonably cranky. But the best friend, advisor, and confidante he ever had.
He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. You’re, what, seventy, or so? I’m thirteen billion and change. Got you beat.”
I’ll say, you old bastard. Still can’t beat me at cards though.
“No, I reckon I can’t.”
He fell silent for at least five minutes, not even thinking, just feeling. Wishing he had someone—a friend, a lover, a companion, a wife, a comrade—anyone, just someone who could understand. But who could understand what he’d been through? What he was facing? The regret of unthinkably difficult decisions.
Shelby? Yes, in a way. She was the only person he could really think of as an old friend. But even then, he’d known her for, what, zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero one percent of his existence? And he’d been out of her life for thirty years.
There was no one. Except his ghosts.
“What the hell am I doing, Abe?”
Beats the hell out of me, Tim.
“I used to have a purpose. I used to be respected, and I used to be competent, and was a leader, and knew what to do, even when I really didn’t but it felt like I did. What happened to me?”
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
“Yeah, I know. I’m moping. Self pity’s all I’ve got these days, it seems. The world has moved on without me. I’m a relic.”
You’re a legend, Tim.
“A fancy word for a relic.”
Own it, old man.
The words were in Haw’s voice, though they were his own, and he wondered what he meant by them. Own it.
“I . . . can’t, Abe. I’m done. When I came back, I made Shelby promise that after the Swarm was defeated she’d let me, well, die. That’s all I’ve really wanted for millions of years, I think. I’m tired. So. Fucking. Tired. All I want to do is rest. To not think. To not feel. To not be. Just to finally . . . rest.”
So go eat a bullet, jackass.
He chuckled at the black humor. “Not my style. I jump into black holes. Or off cliffs. Or out of ships and through blazing white hot atmospheres. A gun? Too crude.”
Then throw yourself at the Findiri. Like a brick. Sacrifice yourself to stop them. That should do the trick. Two birds with one stone, right?
“You make it sound so easy.”
Maybe it is.
“Maybe it is,” he repeated aloud. He felt, somehow, like some distant, fleeting memory, that to stop the Findiri all it would take was something . . . simple. That didn’t mean the simple thing wasn’t difficult, at least that he could remember. But it was simple. He needed to remember.
And therefore, he needed those manuscripts.
“I needed you, Abe. I’ve needed you for a long time. You served at my side for over twenty years. I relied on you. You supported me. I supported you. I loved you like a brother I never had. And in my most dire moments of need, I was alone. You were already gone.”
Brothers—true brothers—are never gone, Tim. I was with you the whole way.
He sighed. “I know, old man.”
And you had new brothers with you. And sisters. Shelby. Your crew that made it onto the Warrior.
“I know. I know.”
And you’ve got family now, too. Rice. Your new crew. And Shelby hasn’t abandoned you.
“I know. Goddammit, I know.”
And your favorite wackos, the Grangerites.
“Oh god.”
They’re harmless. And they could be an asset. They worship you, for hell’s sake.
“But—and I can’t stress this enough—they’re wackos.”
Aren’t we all?
He grunted. “Touché.”
He thought what else the dead man would tell him. If they had the time, what would they discuss? Strategy? Brainstorm ideas for stopping an alien race he created but forgot how to defeat? Banter about old times? But before he could put more words into his friend’s dead mouth, an air raid siren interrupted the conversation he was having with himself, and he looked up from the gravestone. Other visitors and mourners nearby were walking quickly toward the periphery. Some were running. Others were looking up toward the sky.
“Shit,” he mumbled, and flipped his data pad over to the IDF official stream. In blaring all-caps letters, the dreaded words. The ones he prayed he wouldn’t see.
IDF FLEET DEFEATED AT PARADISO. FINDIRI FLEET IMMINENT AT EARTH.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Il Nido Sector
Paradiso
Saavedra City
Molly Shin-Wentworth was super smart for her age, and she knew it. She told herself this often, ever since her second-grade teacher called her a prodigy. She liked the word prodigy. It sounded important. And smart.
“Molly! Get back in here! It’s not safe in the backyard!” her mother yelled. She was halfway through the back door, and had lunged for her as she passed, but missed.
“Mom, if the bad guys are going to destroy Paradiso, do you really think inside is safer than outside?”
Her mom, with a surprising burst of speed, dashed over and snatched her ear. “Listen, young lady, mom said stay inside, so you stay inside!”
Somehow she managed to wrench herself free. She paid for it with a very sore ear, but she wasn’t going to sit out her first space battle. She wanted a front-row seat. Dad was up there, after all.
“Molly!”
“Stay inside and miss the fireworks? Hell no!”
“Molly, language!”
But she was already outside in the backyard, and looked up.
Sure enough, she could just make out some white dots, waaaay up high. Like satellites, except these ones were like a cluster of them, some moving toward and away from each other slowly, and other smaller ones flitting this way and that. And it sparkled. The entire cluster drifted slowly eastward.
“They’re in an inclined orbit. That means they’re not just going west to east, but north as well. For better surface coverage, probably.”
She said it to no one in particular—just wanted to sound smart, she supposed. Her mother apparently had given up, and a few seconds later she could hear the protests of her little brother who felt left out, stuck in the house with Mom. Poor Eddie.
She didn’t understand why M
om was so hysterical. So white and shaken. Didn’t she remember that Dad was up there?
She remembered the conversation they’d had just an hour ago. It was short, but her dad had told her, “Don’t worry, Molly. I’ll be your shield. They won’t get through me. You take care of your mom and brother, hear me?”
Dad was her shield. The enemy, whoever they were, didn’t stand a chance.
She sat down on the grass and gazed at the sky, watching the cluster of ships drift north-eastward. After a minute, she heard a faint snap, and a buzz. Like the hum of certain power lines her dad had shown her in the mountains on a hike one time.
A few moments later, a faint flash of blue overhead outlined a vast circle hanging over their city. She could see the outer edge, kilometers away, then it disappeared as quickly as it came. But the hum remained.
“Whoooooa,” she said. “Dad wasn’t kidding.”
Sure enough, a few tiny spots on the giant circle lit up in blue, and disappeared. Followed by other small blue flashes here and there across the circle. She squinted, and it wasn’t complete dark after all—the faint blue glow remained, and it sparkled with tiny little dots that she could only just make out. “It’s the shield. Dad made us a shield.”
Molly may have been a prodigy, but her dad? Her dad was brilliant.
“He’s going to kick. Their. Ass.”
“Molly, language,” came her mother’s voice, and she felt a hand on her shoulder. Her voice was more calm this time, and she was carrying Edward on her own shoulders.
“See that, mom? Up in the sky? That’s dad’s shield.” She pointed.
Her mom looked up and squinted. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Remember how dad was talking about his research on the Trits’ planet? He was saying all that stuff about gravity and quantum and lots of energy pushing the planet’s crust up so they could live under it? He figured it out! He’s using it to protect us!”
She looked up at her mom, and saw by the porch light that her face had turned even more pale. She felt her mom’s hand grip her shoulder.
Very, very tightly.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Il Nido Sector
Paradiso, High Orbit
ISS Hammer
Bridge
Commander Shin-Wentworth pointed to an area of the holographic tactical display hovering above the command station. “There. Ensign Callahan? Pilot us into that space in between those two enemy ships. They won’t risk firing on us and we’ll get a minute or so to pummel them.”
The woman at the helm nodded. “Aye, Commander.”
A gentle change sway in the deck plate indicated they were accelerating to that position—their inertial cancelers were only operating at twenty percent efficiency, and they felt nearly every change in acceleration.
“Good. Good—now unleash whatever railgun slugs we have left into the ship at port—aim for weapons turrets and anything that looks like it can shoot.”
The port side guns of the Hammer blasted away at the ship nearby, and, sure enough, it didn’t immediately start firing back due to the other Findiri ship on the other side. That wouldn’t last, though.
An explosion ripped through the rear of the bridge as an enemy railgun slug hit a power distributor behind the wall. Shrapnel flew—pieces of wall paneling and power conduit sprayed them all. Shin-Wentworth shielded his face, and when he looked around the bridge afterward saw that everyone was fine, except for a few scrapes.
“They’re firing back, Commander!”
“Steady. Keep us here another ten seconds, then accelerate directly at them.”
“Sir?” Ensign Callahan looked back at him in surprise.
“Don’t worry, Ensign. They’ll move. We’re severely damaged and they’ll think we’re on a suicide run.” He turned back to tactical. “When they dodge us, send our last torpedoes up their ass. Take out their power plant.”
“Aye, sir!” said the officer at tactical.
The battle was going far better than he would have suspected. They were going to lose, sure. But they’d taken out two Findiri capital ships, had scanned the enemy enough to know the nature and placement of their engines and other critical systems, come face-to-face with their micro-thruster mines and were starting to develop strategies to overcome them, and in general had gathered vital intel on the way they fought.
And they’d only lost half their little task force.
Only.
He grunted, and chided himself for using the word. Only a few hundred dead? Great! “Don’t turn into a monster, Harry,” he mumbled to himself.
“Sir?” said his tactical officer.
“Now!” he said, pointing at Callahan and then back at tactical.
This acceleration was far higher, and he had to grab onto the command console to catch himself from falling.
The view screen vantage point changed and he watched as four torpedoes powered away from the Hammer. One got caught by the enemy’s PDC cannons, but the other three found their mark, and slammed into the rear of the vessel.
They must have hit something critical, because moments after the initial three explosions, a massive fireball erupted out the back, and when it extinguished into the vacuum, they saw the entire ship split nearly in half.
Everyone on the bridge cheered.
“Good job, folks. But this ain’t over. Helm, take us to—”
“Sir! A whole lot of ships just q-jumped in!”
A knot immediately formed in his stomach.
“It’s the ISS Resolute,” said his tactical officer. “Oppenheimer just rode in with the cavalry. That means he thinks we can actually win this thing!”
The knot in his stomach loosened a bit, but didn’t disappear.
“It’s too easy,” he said. A glance at the holographic tactical display told him good news: the Findiri fleet still numbered over thirty ships, but Oppenheimer was rushing in with a good fifty, plus the remnants of Eagle Wing and Angel Wing and the Independence. “We’re . . . going to win.”
“Broadband announcement from the Resolute, Commander.”
“Play it.”
The speakers came to life with the sound of Admiral Oppenheimer’s triumphant voice. “To all Findiri vessels. Surrender, and you will be treated well. Power down your weapons. If you don’t we will blast every last one of you into—”
The transmission exploded with static for a few moments.
“—so hard you won’t know what . . . wait. What the hell—” his voice cut out.
Shin-Wentworth spun around to tactical. “What happened?”
The officer, his eyes wide, punched a few spots on his console. “I’ll try to replay whatever the cameras saw.”
Before the viewscreen showed the replay, he glanced at the holo-display of the tactical situation. And counted. “Oh my god. A third of the fleet is . . . gone.”
The viewscreen finally switched to a replay. Oppenheimer’s fleet soared into the orbit of the battle, his fleet divided into three separate task forces.
I one of the three task forces, something strange started to happen—starting at the ship in the lead, and soon repeated by every ship behind it.
It smashed into something which briefly flickered with intense blue light, and pancaked out into a flat circular explosion. Each ship, over the next several seconds, similarly smashed into the invisible wall and exploded into a flattened fireball. The final ship managed to veer off at the last second.
When the fireballs dissipated, the glowing wreckage of seventeen ships hung in space, seventeen circular piles of scrap and bodies drifting slowly away from a faintly flickering blue wall.
“Commander!” yelled tactical.
He didn’t respond, but muttered under his breath, “But, where did all that momentum go?”
“Commander! The surface! Saavedra City!”
The viewscreen switched to show the surface. Where Saavedra city had once been, now resided a giant, billowing circle of dust that mushroomed upward.
The viewscreen flickered, and Saavedra city replaced the mushroom cloud. There was, maybe, something above it?
“Zoom in and enhance, preferentially in the blue.”
There was a blueish sparkling disc over the entire city, extending well past the suburbs.
And then it crashed down, and through the circle, which was now glowing in a semi-opaque blue, he watched as first the skyscrapers crumbled, and then every single building flattened before the view was obscured by a cloud of thick dust.
“There’s the momentum,” he said, so low only he could hear it.
He heard wretching behind him. The tactical officer was on his hands and knees. Ensign Callahan moaned and cried. “No,” she said.
“My babies. My Megan,” was all he could manage.
It was all he could think.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Il Nido Sector
Paradiso, High Orbit
ISS Independence
Bridge
“From what I can tell, it was some kind of momentum-transfer field. A flat plane that absorbs momentum from one location in space, and transfers it to another,” said Commander Zivic. He was far more subdued than normal—his voice was low and solemn. Shaken, clearly.
Admiral Proctor watched Saavedra City burn. The dust cloud had dissipated slightly, and she could see that the massive crush of the momentum-transfer disc had caused countless explosions across the city where electrical stations had been destroyed, or where chemical stores had ignited, except they looked otherworldly—the disc was still in place, so it was like watching campfires trapped under a thick pane of glass.
Zivic continued. “Each of those ships was—damn—at least a megaton of mass? Traveling at, what, ten thousand kilometers per second?”