by Nick Webb
On the splitscreen was Talus, standing in front of the United Earth executive office tower. He’d mercifully paused the executions—though the most recent victim still lay in his blood—and was now droning on about the new order. Of Earth’s glorious future now that it had a united purpose. Industry would be revamped. The entire economy shifted to production of the great war machine.
And not just war. The work of setting up a bureaucratic state that would rule the galaxy. And beyond. Conquering—liberating, as he called it—countless alien races that they would yet discover, and bringing them united into the fold, for the security of all.
“War will be a thing of the past,” he continued. “There will be no fear, no violence, no terrorism, no battles. Not even crime. For the first time in human history, we will finally and truly have security.”
Danny snorted. “Where have I heard this before . . . can’t put my finger on it.”
“Oh, every despot’s speech throughout history?” said Liu, her face glued to the other half of the screen, watching every last passenger board. “That was all of them. Two hundred and sixteen men, women, children.”
Danny shook his head. “My god, just think. If Talus had been able to actually get these people up into that line—watching kids get executed on live video, broadcasted to the whole world.” He shuddered.
“Yeah, well, after this batch escape, he’ll want more, and next time it will be harder to save them.”
“I know. I feel like we’re just buying time.”
“We are.” She looked at him and reached her hand down to his. “Your aunt will figure something out. Granger will. Someone will. We just need to give them the time.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Look, they’re taking off.”
Talus continued on the other side of the screen. “And there will be those, at first, who will resist. This is understandable. It is also unacceptable. Hear me now: those who resist this new order, this new security, will reap the consequences. If you sow fear and violence, you will harvest fear and violence. Even now, there are those who plot my overthrow. Those who would thwart my will. Believe me: your efforts will be in vain.” He smiled diabolically. “And you will mourn.”
At pit had developed in Danny’s stomach at the turn the speech had taken. He looked back over to the other side of the screen. “They’re up past ten thousand meters, and accelerating. Pretty soon they’ll reach escape velocity and it will be pretty damn obvious what’s going on.”
“They’ll q-jump out by then,” said Liu, still watching Talus.
“And as an example of what awaits those who rebel against the new order, I present to you the case of Amarillo, Texas. It has come to my attention that there is a militia group based in this city that has participated in guerrilla operations against Findiri soldiers. And as a comparison case, let us consider a group of associates of rebel IDF officers that are now attempting escape from Earth.”
The pit in Danny’s stomach turned into a rock, and he ripped his handheld out of his pocket. “Troy, Troy, come in. Are you there? Come in. Dammit!” He glanced at the comms channel and saw that it was transmitting, but he couldn’t rule out that the signal was jammed.
Talus continued. “And in these two cases, one will solve the other, in a solution of poetic justice. For just as the traitor Granger continues to scoff at the rule of law and not turn himself in, those that fight for him will, instead, be fighting each other. Such as it always is. Violence begets violence, and we can never choose how that violence ricochets through time . . .”
“Troy, can you hear me? Come back. Do you hear me? Come back!”
On the video screen, it happened in slow motion to his eyes. The freighter was climbing higher, and higher, and then . . . it flattened. Pancaked out into a fiery blast that spread out for kilometers in a flat plane.
“No!” he yelled.
Liu fiddled with the video feed, and brought up another split screen. “Amarillo,” she murmured. On the screen the image of the city center—or what remained of it—loomed like a graveyard against the untouched portions of the city all around it. It was like a small nuclear bomb had gone off. Some buildings still stood, but nearly everything was squished into oblivion. A billowing mushroom cloud rising up from the circle of destruction.
Danny was pounding the desk where the video screen rested, so hard it nearly jolted off.
“Two million people live there. Not all in the city center, but still . . .” Liu trailed off.
It took them a while to realize that Talus was still talking. “This was avoidable. My fellow citizens, let us unite. Unite in the pursuit of security and greatness. And to those who will fight us, be forewarned: all civilian traffic off Earth is hereby banned without a proper permit from UE authorities. Any ship that attempts escape will suffer the same fate as that rebel freighter. And a city on Earth will be paired with the escaping ship, as befell the beautiful city of Amarillo.” He turned and motioned to the Findiri soldier at the head of the dwindling line of prisoners to continue.
The soldier stepped forward, and then something unexpected happened.
He fell down on his face, as if dead.
He didn’t move. From the reactions of the other Findiri soldiers, it seemed that no one was surprised, or had any reason to suspect he’d been killed by a sniper. They just . . . stood there. Talus waved at another soldier to take the executioner’s place, and it obliged. Two other soldiers stepped forward to drag the dead Findiri away.
And the executions went on.
“What the hell happened there?” said Danny.
“I don’t know. He just . . . died.” Liu stood up and headed toward the door. “And that’s our cue to leave. Talus was on to us. We need to get the hell out of here before we’re next.”
Before she could open the door, it burst open, kicked in by a Findiri soldier. Before he could even process what was happening, Danny saw Liu twist out of the way, narrowly dodging a blast from the energy weapon the soldier had leveled down at her, and in the same motion she grabbed him, used her swinging momentum to throw him to the floor, and as she flew away in the opposite direction she grabbed onto the neck of the second soldier behind the first and cleanly snapped his neck with her arms.
He heard another blast, this one accompanied by an odd sensation. His abdomen felt strange and he looked down in time to see a small hole in his shirt, with blood soaking the edges.
At the periphery of his attention, he heard the first soldier’s neck snap after Liu sprung forward onto the fallen soldier, but by then he was already falling. In the back of his mind he wondered how much blood he could lose before the Valarisi inside him could no longer work to fix the damage, even as his vision went starry, then blank.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Irigoyen Sector
San Martin, High Orbit
ISS Independence
Conference Room
Shelby Proctor was no politician. Rayna, how could you? she thought. The suggestion that she had anything in common with politicians was outrageous.
Wasn’t it?
And yet here she was, in a roomful of representatives from every single major faction of humanity. Herself, representing United Earth—or at least the portion of United Earth that hadn’t sided with the Findiri—Curiel for the Galactic People’s Congress, Vice Premier Wang of the Chinese Intersolar Democratic Republic, Secretary of State Federov for the Russian Confederation, and Imam Jalal Baran of the Caliphate’s Senior Council—who claimed to represent a majority of the council members.
“So you want to establish a galactic federation? Or a republic? Or just an alliance? It’s not entirely clear to me what you’re asking, Admiral Proctor,” said Federov.
“That’s fair, because in all honesty I don’t know what is possible, or what is best. All I know is that divided, we will fall.” She looked around the table at the other four. “You’ve seen firsthand what the Swarm did just a few months ago. All of you are old enough to remember Swarm War Two. In
both wars, we nearly didn’t make it. We came this close,” she held up two fingers next to each other, “to being wiped out as a species both times. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg you. We need to finally come together. And not just us, but the other alien races we are in contact with.”
“Dolmasi?” said Wang. “You want us to enter into a governing structure with the Dolmasi? They nearly destroyed our capital world two months ago.”
“They . . . weren’t in a right state of mind. The Dolmasi brain’s reaction to the meta-space waves generated by Granger’s Golgothic ship were far more intense and violent than ours. Remember—they arrived in force at the battle of Penumbra, and even helped at Bern just a few days ago. You might not like them, but they are, believe it or not, on our side against the Swarm and the Findiri.”
“Admiral Proctor,” began Imam Baran, “how can we trust that any of these races share our values? Democracy. Independence. Freedom of thought. Freedom of worship. A commitment to the civil covenant. The rule of law. The Eru? We don’t know the first thing about them. The Itharans? Same, though a shade more than the Eru. Dolmasi? I agree with my CIDR colleague, it is not apparent at all to me that the Dolmasi share our values.”
She drummed her fingers on the table. She was used to sitting at a conference table, hearing all the arguments for and against a position, and then making the decision, expecting everyone else to follow it.
This? It was like herding cats. Democracy was messy, she supposed. And necessary.
“I understand all your concerns, and honestly, that is all for you politicians and diplomats to figure out later. But for now I want to put in place the framework. The basic structure. Details can come later.”
“And whom do you propose lead this new . . . organization of states?” said Curiel, finally breaking his silence. She’d been in contact with Danny just hours earlier, and knew his and Rice’s theory about Cooper and Curiel. Was he who he said he was? If not, then who the hell was he?
But no matter who he was, he represented the entire Galactic People’s Congress, not to mention the most powerful corporation in history.
“Again, that is a decision for a later date,” she replied.
“I disagree,” he said, cooly.
Wang snorted. “I suppose you think it should be you? Your arrogance is legendary, Mr. Speaker, and now I see why.”
Curiel held up his hands innocently. “I’ve said nothing about wanting to lead the organization myself. But I think we, as representatives of humanity, should have this discussion first, amongst ourselves, before we go out and promise the farm to the Dolmasi. We need to decide, here, now, are we going to be content with a Dolmasi leader? A Skiohra leader? Eru? Trit? For god’s sake they can hardly build a starship without utility tape and you want them to lead a galactic government?”
Proctor sighed and took a deep breath. “Mr. Speaker, I’m sure there are parties in the UE that can’t stand the idea of President Cooper in the executive office. Tough shit. It’s democracy. In a few years they’ll get a chance to replace her. You,” she turned to Wang, “your party has dominated CIDR politics for over two hundred years. Yet inside the party you held elections, and you won the vice-premiership by the barest of margins. Are you illegitimate? Democracy is messy, my friends, yet it is, in some form or another, the system that each of our governments and people have chosen. Lead by a Trit? Sure. Why the hell not, if the majority of sentient beings in the nation picked her?”
The room was silent for a moment.
“Nation,” said Fedorov. “That’s the first time you’ve come out and said it. You want to dissolve our nations, and form a new, pan-cultural, pan-racial, pan-galactic nation. I’m afraid my concerns align with my colleagues: how can we be sure that the alien races share our values? The people of the Russian Confederation will not have their lives dictated by an alien that knows nothing about us.”
“I’m not proposing that, Mr. Secretary. There is room here for some form of federalism. Maybe the galactic government is only in charge of issues that affect all of us as a whole, such as our war against the Swarm, with our current nations still in charge of local law. Perhaps something more robust, that ensures individual rights across all worlds equally, but allows for local interpretation and implementation of those laws. I don’t know, you’re the politicians, I’m just an old soldier trying her hardest to save our people from imminent destruction the only way that is left to me.”
Her words had shamed them into silence. At the mention of her service to humanity, which they all were very familiar with—she having saved all their worlds, multiple times—they seemed to be at a loss for words.
Curiel broke the silence. “The admiral is right. We must be united in the face of our common enemy. And after that? Who’s to say there won’t be another alien race out for galactic domination that we need to unite against. No. The time is now. The time has come. We must finally unite as a species, and as races of goodwill.”
Proctor nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Speaker.”
“And furthermore,” he continued, “we need to unite as humans and join this new organization as a single unit. Not as RC and UE and GPC and CIDR and Caliphate. But as humanity.”
That comment was less well-received by the other three.
“It simply won’t work, otherwise,” he said. “Think about it. President Wang of the new Galactic Republic rallies the fleets for a defense against a new Swarm offensive. Worlds hang in the balance. We need every ship we can get. Except President Dipshit of United Earth thinks that Rivadavia needs ten starships for orbital defense, New Dublin needs eight, and so forth, and by the time President Wang meets the Swarm in battle, he’s got nothing because he was undercut by the other leaders. No. We need one, central, strong, unified leadership, or this simply will not work.”
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, his point made.
And it was a good point.
“If the entire purpose of this is our common defense against powerful alien enemies, then I believe Speaker Curiel is right. There can be no half-measures here. We’re either all in, or all out and scattered to the wind.” She lowered her voice, “Which, ladies and gentlemen, we surely will be if we do not finally unite.”
More silence.
“Then who will it be?” said Wang.
Curiel looked at Imam Baran. Interesting, she thought. The Imam cleared his throat, as if with a prepared statement. “I nominate Speaker Curiel of the Galactic People’s Congress to be humanity’s representative and leader in whatever galactic government that comes from these efforts.”
Proctor closed her eyes and pursed her lips, trying very hard not to swear. If there was one person she did not want as humanity’s leader in the new government, it was the being acting like Curiel. She directed her thoughts inward. Did those two arrange that beforehand?
WITHOUT A DOUBT, came her companion’s reply. COULD YOU NOT TELL FROM THEIR BODY LANGUAGE? THEIR FACES? THE SUBTLE TONES IN THE IMAM’S WORDS? WE HAVE LEARNED MUCH ABOUT HUMANS THE PAST FEW WEEKS, AND THIS ONE WAS UNMISTAKABLE.
“Very well,” said Proctor. “Vice-Premier Wang?”
“Russian Confederation President Sidorov. His presidency has been competent and he has made CIDR-RC relations the highest priority of his administration. As we do not believe we can muster the votes for our premier, we will throw in with Sidorov.”
Who most undoubtedly has made huge concessions to the Chinese in order to secure this vote, she said to her companion.
THAT IS ALSO TRUE. THIS STATEMENT WAS ALSO PREPARED AHEAD OF TIME. CAN YOU NOT TELL?
Oh, I can tell.
Both of those men were unacceptable to her. Sidorov had CIDR-friendly foreign relations only to spite UE and keep human power centers balanced between the traditionally Western and Southern powers on Earth.
And only now she realized that the extensive politicking and negotiations that must have already occurred before the meeting, and that, in spite of what Rayna had said, she was a terrible
politician, as she now found herself in a position of choosing between two evils.
“I’m sorry. United Earth abstains for now.”
Vice-Premier Wang shoved back from the table in anger, and left the room. Secretary Fedorov steepled his hands in front of his face, as if considering what to do next. Imam Baran was shaking his head.
And Speaker Curiel was smiling serenely, as if all was proceeding according to some plan. Danny’s and Fiona’s theory about Curiel nagged at her. If he was Quiassi, and therefore perhaps been masquerading as a human in Earth’s past, who would he be? If Cooper was possibly Avery? Then Curiel....
Perhaps Malakov? Could it be?
And so an even worse choice than President Sidorov. Shelby Proctor stood up and followed Wang out the door. She had failed. And she knew it.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Veracruz Sector
Chantana III
Eru Generation Ship
“Captain Granger?”
He heard the voice, but it was hard to pull his eyes away from the cataclysmic wave of destruction that had poured off the surface of Chantana Three. All four Findiri ships were engulfed by it, including one of the IDF ships. The Resolute was nowhere to be seen.
“Dad,” the voice repeated. That snapped him out of it.
“We’re going,” he said. “But my god, Jasper, look at it. Was Britannia the same? Both destroyed, completely, because of me?”
Jasper rested a hand on Granger’s shoulder. “No. Not because of you.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because of the Findiri.”
“Who I created.”
“Because of the Swarm.”
“Who are here this time because of me.”
Jasper shook his head. “No. You’re not the reason for all this. You’re the solution to all this.”
Granger looked back at him. “You really believe that?”