Leviathan: Book 8 of the Legacy Fleet Series

by Nick Webb

  “And the rest of the bodies? Haws?” said Liu.

  “Well, we assume they were all still there, and when it crash landed the bodies were all collected and buried.”

  “We assume,” she repeated, looking at him questioningly.

  “Okay, now that you put it that way, sure, it’s not one hundred percent, but—what else could have happened?”

  She shrugged. “We’ve seen a lot of shit the past few months. Hell, you died.”

  “Touché.”

  "If you're so sure he's here, then why are we here?" said Fiona.

  They continued walking down the road of headstones until he came to one that caught his eye. "That's the one."

  “Abraham Haws,” said Liu. "Let's get this over with."

  She pulled out her handheld scanner and switched over to the subterranean package. Kneeling down, she waved the scanner back and forth over the grass, pausing every now and then to adjust the sensitivity.

  “Detecting a large rectangular box," she began. "And inside are the remains of a human. Sex is male. Adjusting sensitivity now to lock in on a DNA signal."

  Danny bit his lower lip. So much was riding on this measurement. If the grave had been empty, or if the body inside turned out to be someone else, then they were faced with the very real possibility that Abraham Haws, Timothy Granger's former executive officer, was actually a Quiassi. And that he had not in fact died, but had managed to escape the destruction and find his way back to Findiri space, where he somehow took the reigns of power and pointed their war machine at Earth.

  "Analyzing the DNA now," said Fiona. Her brow crunched up. "Well, I've got good news and bad news."

  His stomach clenched. “Okay, good news first."

  "Abraham Haws is most definitely dead. And that means Director Talus is lying." Fiona shook her head, and waved the scanner back and forth again over the grass.

  “Okay, if that's the good news, do I want to hear the bad news?"

  “The bad news is that, assuming the degradation rate of the DNA hasn't been influenced by something unnatural, Abraham Haws did not die at the battle of Earth thirty-one years ago,” Fiona began. She shook her head again in disbelief. "He died three months later.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sol System

  Earth

  New Haven, Connecticut

  Vestige Corvette Legend

  Their hot extraction went surprisingly smooth for the first ten minutes. Granger almost dared to think that the Findiri ships shadowing them on the way down to the surface were really just there by coincidence. They ended up peeling off toward New York City halfway down the gravity well from low orbit.

  They’d landed at Yale’s only landing pad, taking up every single slot due to the corvette’s sheer size. Luckily it was near the libraries—Jasper had pulled up a campus map and scrolled through the list and shrugged. “Which one?”

  Granger glanced at the list. “Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript? That sounds promising.”

  They bolted from the landing pad and ran across a quad lined with buildings. “That’s the one,” said Jasper, pointing to an ancient-looking edifice. “Let’s just hope he’s all packed. I got the impression that Danny had been in contact with him.”

  It was evening, and the summer sun had fallen low in the western sky. A few small groups of students were scattered around the quad, and a few of the nearby ones gawked at him.

  “It’s Granger!” said one of the kids in the closest group. “Holy shit! It’s actually Granger!”

  He stopped, and seeing the kids sprawled carefree on the grass, he suddenly realized that this was possibly going to be one of the least safe places on Earth very soon. The kid who’d yelled his name approached, wide-eyed and star-struck. Granger went up to him and grabbed his shoulders.

  “Son, what’s your name?”

  “Cole.”

  “Cole, I need you to do something for me. This whole area is about to be overrun by Findiri soldiers. None of you are safe. I need you to get everyone out of this area, now. Can you do that for me?”

  Cole looked shell-shocked. But to his credit, he managed a reply. “Uh . . . yeah, I can do that. I think.”

  “Good. Godspeed, Cole. And when you’ve warned them all, get the hell out yourself. Don’t be a martyr.”

  With that, he took off at a jog toward the library, Jasper by his side, leaving the wide-eyed student behind. A few seconds later he heard the kid yell. “We’ve got to get out of here, now! Granger said Findiri soldiers are coming! Move, people!”

  “Your fan club is alive and well,” said Jasper.

  “Shut up.”

  For a sixty-eight-odd-year-old body, he felt surprising spry. Normally, back in the day a few billion years ago, his knees would be screaming at him by now.

  They burst through the front doors, scanned the signs, and dashed across to the Rare Collections office.

  It was empty. In fact, the entire building seemed to be empty. Jasper pointed to some bags and books still scattered across a nearby study nook, as if someone left in a hurry. “Looks like whoever is in charge here had the foresight to evacuate the place. Which means they know that danger is incoming too. Maybe Danny managed to warn them.”

  “Which also means we’re probably not going to find Qwerty just hanging out in one of the offices up here.”

  Jasper looked all around the vast space of the first floor. “Maybe there’s some, I don’t know, blast shelter or secret tunnels or something?”

  Granger cocked his head. “Secret tunnels in a Yale library?”

  “I don’t know! Just brainstorming.”

  “Brainstorm on your own time. At this point we can risk a call to Qwerty. If the Findiri are incoming anyway, we’ve got little to lose if we’re tracked.”

  He grabbed his handheld out of his pocket and keyed in the channel for Qwerty’s IDF comm device.

  “Commander Qwerty, this is . . . the Bricklayer. You copy?”

  Dammit. He swore he’d never use that nickname himself. But much better than The Hero of Earth, he supposed.

  “Copy, sir, this is Qwerty. What can I do you for?”

  “I hear you need a ride home, Commander. Need a lift?”

  “Couldn’t have come at a better time, sir.”

  “Where are you?” He glanced at his handheld screen. “I can’t seem to triangulate a position for you.”

  “That’s because the library director here was kind enough to show me to some kind of funky secret tunnel they’ve got underground. Probably high metal content in the soil preventing triangulation.”

  Jasper pointed at him. “Ha! Am I allowed to say I told you—”

  He mimicked the finger, pointing back at the kid. “No, you are not.” Then, back to the handheld, “Roger that, Commander. What’s the best way there?”

  They’d paused by the front desk in the rare collections office, and he glanced out into the main library area.

  “Just take the lift. That’s what the director says. All the way down to B3. Then out of the lift, down the hallway, and we’ll meet you at the last door on the left.”

  Some movement out near the front entrance caught his eye. He shifted his body so he was hidden behind the door frame, but peeked out through the crack between the door and frame. “Dammit. They’re here.” He slowly, slowly, pushed the door shut, then locked it.

  Jasper was peeking through the bottom of a window that looked out into the main library. “Yeah, uh, our way to the lift is cut off.”

  “Commander, that’s a negative on the lift. We’re stuck in the rare collections office. Any other ideas?”

  “Hang on . . . Okay, the director says just use the stairs. There’s a secondary staircase that’s accessible through the rear of that office. Four levels, then you’re here.”

  “Right.” He motioned to Jasper to follow him, and, crouching as low as he could, retreated to the rear of the office and down the narrow hallway they found there. At the end, thankfully, was a door mar
ked stairs.

  Just as the door closed behind them, he heard a loud crash coming from the office.

  “Move!” yelled Granger. “They kicked down the door. They know we’re here.”

  He somehow managed to take the stairs two at a time, silently thanking his previous immortal Jesus-Granger self that he’d made himself a body that, in spite of its age, was remarkably well put together.

  Jasper was just a step behind him, pausing every floor to swing his arm back up the stairs and point with the—

  “Is that a gun? Where the hell were you hiding that?” It was very small, just slightly bigger than his hand.

  Jasper nodded. “Down my pants. Don’t ask.”

  “Don’t tell.” He resumed his mad dash down the stairwell, and by the time they reached B2, he heard another loud crash from above.

  “They kicked in the stairwell door,” said Jasper, breathing heavily.

  “One more floor,” he replied, grabbing onto both handrails as he quickened his pace.

  Qwerty was at the bottom, holding the door open. “Captain! So glad to see you. Hope you didn’t bring your friends.”

  “I did. We’ve got to move, Commander. Bar the door if you can.”

  Qwerty slammed the door shut behind them and looked around the hallway for something to drag in front of it. “Director Peck?” he called, “Can we bar the door?”

  From the next doorway down, another man emerged, dragging a desk. Jasper ran to help, and within seconds they’d managed to shove it up against the door.

  “That’s not going to slow them down much,” said Granger. He turned to the director. “We need another way out of here.”

  The director pointed at the last door on the left down the hallway. “Tunnel. There’s a security door we can latch shut. Won’t stop them forever, but might slow them down.”

  “Where does it lead?”

  “Several exits,” replied the director. “Goes all the way to the admin building on the other side of campus.”

  “We just need the one closest to the landing pad nearby.”

  The director nodded. “Then follow me. Mr. Qwerty? Don’t forget your bag.”

  Qwerty’s eyebrows nearly jumped off his forehead. “Good Lord, one high-stakes chase and my brain is gone.” He ran back to the room they’d pulled the desk from and came back with a large suitcase.

  The director ran down the hallway, the rest of them trailing. Before Granger followed him through the door, he was almost knocked off his feet by the shock wave of an explosion from the other end of the hallway. The desk flew backward and seemed to explode in a fireball.

  “Shit, they’ve got their energy weapons. Move!” yelled Granger. He’d seen what they could do when he was running through Arlington National Cemetery.

  Jasper shut the door behind them, and they all ran down one more staircase and through another door, this one looking far more sturdy than the others. Made of metal, it had a huge latch on the other side that swiveled into place across the door.

  “And now it’s a sprint, gentlemen,” said the director, waving them forward. “And this is where I bid you farewell.”

  “No, you’re coming with us. Move it,” said Granger, motioning down the dimly-lit tunnel.

  “It’s too far to run before they can blast through this door, and you’re wasting time arguing. I’ll stay behind and try to convince them you went another way, or at least slow them down, somehow. Get you a few extra seconds. Now MOVE!” The diminutive, mousy man had a presence to him when he wanted it.

  Granger nodded once. “Thank you, Director. It’s been an honor.”

  The sprint down the long tunnel went surprisingly quickly, but he soon realized that they’d just come to a tee. A sign pointed left listed off several academic buildings on campus. A sign pointing right said simply, President Fred Quimby Quad.

  “The old bastard got a college quad named after him?” said Granger, motioning them down the short hallway that ended in stairs. “Stay in school, kids, and you too may become president of United Earth and get a college campus quad named after you.”

  Another explosion from the direction they’d come indicated they’d broken through the metal door.

  And a short scream indicated that Director Peck’s attempt to slow them down was unsuccessful.

  They dashed up the stairs, unlocked the latch holding a similar metal door shut, sprang up the stairs beyond that, turned, and ran up another flight. At the top, another metal door, and through that—

  Intense daylight nearly blinded Granger as his eyes adjusted from the dim tunnel to the evening sunset.

  “There’s the landing pad. Move!” Granger pointed to the left of the little building they’d exited—apparently a storage shed that doubled as an entrance to the tunnel system.

  They ran across the grassy quad, Granger scanning left and right for either Findiri soldiers, or students to warn. Thankfully, there were neither—Cole had done his job well.

  On the other side of their corvette, in another grassy area, sat two more ships. A shuttle, and what looked like a Findiri drop ship. Two armored Findiri soldiers stood guard near the lowered hatch.

  “Dammit,” said Granger, still jogging toward the corvette. The soldiers would see them any second from now. “Give me the gun, kid.”

  Jasper looked at him in shock. “What?”

  “Give it to me. And you two get yourselves in the ship as fast as you can. I’ll cover for you.”

  “You’re insane. You’re the most important person in the galaxy right now, the person we have to keep from getting into Findiri hands at all costs, and you want to be the one to cover us?”

  Granger snatched the gun out of his reluctantly offered hand. “Exactly. And there’s not a kitten’s chance in a dog pound that they’ll kill me, which will give you two the chance to get on board, lift off, swing around and pick me up. Got it?”

  He didn’t even wait for a reply. Pivoting, he sprinted to his left, out of the cover of the corvette and into full view of the Findiri soldiers, and then turned and sprinted straight toward them. His arm leveled up and he began firing as fast as his finger could pull the trigger.

  The Findiri soldiers swung their energy weapons around, and for a brief moment Granger thought he was mistaken, and that he’d soon find a few holes punched in his chest. But one of them held a hand up to his visor, and then grabbed the barrel of the other’s weapon to keep him from firing.

  “Good little minions, now just stay focused on me . . .” He left firing, and, predictably, the rounds just bounced off the Findiri armor. That didn’t stop them from dashing for cover behind their drop ship. One of them crouched and angled his gun around the corner, then fired off a few beams of energy that struck the ground nearby.

  The ground exploded where the beams struck and Granger had to cover his eyes and was nearly thrown off his feet. “Now don’t you play dirty,” he mumbled, and continued firing at the two soldiers taking cover.

  A high pitched whine coming from behind him, followed by a roar, told him that Jasper had managed to start the engines. Soon he could feel the blast of air rush around him as the corvette soared into the sky.

  He risked a glance upward.

  “Dammit,” he said. In the air above, at least a dozen craft were descending. Some Findiri fighters, some drop ships, and mixed in with the enemy ships were a handful of IDF fighters as well. He stopped his sprint and started jogging the other way, his lungs about ready to explode.

  “Run to that clearing to your right and we’ll come low enough you can jump onto the lowered hatch!” said Jasper, his voice sounding out from his handset in his pocket.

  “Look up, kid. We’ve got more company.”

  The corvette circled around, easily absorbing the energy blasts from the two Findiri soldiers, and lowered close enough to the ground nearby that Granger made a break for it, sprinting across the grass and jumping as high as he could. His feet landed, and someone reached out and grabbed his arm before he fe
ll backward.

  “That’s a fine high jump you’ve got there, Captain,” said Qwerty, who pulled him into the corvette and slammed his fist on the hatch controls.

  Jasper yelled back from the cockpit. “Captain! There’s at least twenty fighters all around us. They’re circling around, matching my every move. No way I’m getting us out of this.”

  Granger shook his head and entered the cockpit. “We’ve got to try.”

  Qwerty sat down next to him. “There’s only one way out of this, sir. And unfortunately the south end of campus is going to pay for it. We’ve got to q-jump us directly to orbit.”

  Jasper’s face went white. He’d clearly never performed an atmospheric q-jump, which wasn’t all that surprising given their extreme level of risk and the massive destruction they caused nearby matter. He remembered watching the video of Interstellar Two and the Swarm ship q-jumping away from former president Avery’s retirement home. The entire cliffside had exploded, taking a few Swarm ships with it.

  “I can’t have more innocent people die on my account, Commander,” said Granger, more quietly than he’d planned.

  Jasper looked back at him. “You warned them. You had that kid get everyone out.”

  Granger shook his head again. “There might still be some stragglers.”

  Jasper turned back around to the controls. “Good thing this is not an IDF ship and you are not in charge, old man. Hang on!”

  Before Granger could say another word, Jasper had entered in the commands and pressed the initiator button. A loud bang and a jolt that nearly threw Granger out of his seat immediately followed, after which an eery calm settled over the cockpit.

  He glanced out the window and saw they’d appeared in high orbit over Earth. “That was incredibly reckless, son.”