by Nick Webb
“Be ready to shunt all five exawatts through the array,” he said.
“Ready, sir,” said the officer, his face a little white.
He tapped a few last minute adjustments to the phase variances of the quantum field. That should do it.
This was it. Showtime. “Now,” he said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Sol Sector
Earth
Findiri Ship Destiny
Varus opened his eyes.
And saw everything anew. Everything . . . somehow looked different. Felt different. Even his saliva tasted . . . different.
He glanced around himself, saw that he was still connected to the Corporal Chambers via the tubes in his arms, saw his fellow brothers-in-arms all along the walls, similarly connected. He made eye contact with several, and saw in them that they, too, were changed.
“Adjutant,” said Nubo, next to him, “what is happening?”
He shook his head, trying to disperse that cloud that was still hanging over his mind from the effect of the change.
It did disperse. He breathed in deep. The air felt . . . different. Almost like it had a life in it like it never did before.
He looked down at a hand and moved his fingers. He looked up at one of the monitors on the wall, which showed an array of unfamiliar ships set against a field of stars, and nearby . . .
Earth.
And it was beautiful. It felt beautiful, a feeling he had never felt before. He knew the word, but had never known what it meant.
Now he knew.
He turned his head and looked at the screen showing Talus, still standing in front of the chamber, grandstanding to the viewscreen in front of him, lecturing and boasting and threatening.
And he felt a well of revulsion swell up. Another word he knew the meaning of but only now felt for the first time.
What had happened to him?
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Sol Sector
Earth
VFS Majestic
Granger had fallen from his chair and was now half-kneeling on the floor, his head in a hand.
“You see, Tim? They’re all waking up, and if my instruments are correct, they are repaired. Born anew, immortal, ready for a new epoch, a new day. The dawn of the human empire that will span not just the galaxy, but the universe. All will be safe, all will be secure, productive, useful, and—believe it or not, Tim—happy.”
Granger croaked out a reply. “You’ll force us all to be happy, Talus?”
A laugh. “I won’t have to, Tim.”
He looked up at the screen, watching several of the Findiri soldiers separate themselves from the sconces in the wall. Very much alive.
The chamber behind Talus fell silent. Blood still dripped down the window. He’d watched his own son, the man he barely knew, be ripped apart and disintegrate before his very eyes. A nightmarish scene that would haunt him forever.
“Sir, uh, I’m reading some very strange signals coming from Earth. And not just Earth, but out a ways from Earth as well,” said one of the officers at the tactical station.
Commander Swift looked down at the data coming through to the XO’s station. “Large simultaneous meta-space and q-field spike. Never seen anything like it. Well, except for during the great war, and even then it wasn’t nearly this big.”
“The great war? You mean Swarm War Two? Thirty years ago?” said Granger.
“That’s the one, Captain. These readings—they look a lot like what we’d see before the Swarm ships would launch their singularities. Big q-field and meta-space spike. Only these—my God, I’ve never seen energies this high.”
Granger grabbed the chair and pulled himself to his feet with what felt like a Herculean effort. Jasper. Did that just really happen? “Is . . . is it coming from the Findiri flagship? Is this some effect from their Corporeal Chambers?”
The tactical officer shook his head. “Nothing from the flagship, sir. I’ve pinpointed the location on Earth. It’s coming from the ISS Volz.”
“Shin-Wentworth, what the hell are you doing?” he murmured.
The helmsman was staring at the screen. “Sir! Look!”
Granger turned and watched.
On the right side of the screen, Earth hung peacefully against a backdrop of stars.
And beyond it, farther to the right, the stars were wavering, like he was looking through a mirage effect on a desert road. And the space there was getting brighter, and brighter, until soon the stars had washed out and there was only a region of piercing brightness that almost overwhelmed the camera.
And then a planet came out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Sol Sector
Earth
ISS Volz
Bridge
“Power holding steady at four point six exawatts, sir,” said the engineering officer. “Impedance is still matched and we’re coupled into the grid with ninety-five percent efficiency.”
“Good,” said Shin-Wentworth. He watched the screen with bated breath. The energy flowed from the power grid, through the ship’s inductive array, and routed through the q-field and meta-space emitters, all shaped by a waveform generated by the electronic cube Klollogesh had given him.
And the result was stunning. The two-dimensional singularity coupled with the cube that they’d taken with them was now out in space, just twenty thousand kilometers from Earth, and growing large enough to swallow a planet.
Which just happened to be his plan.
“Sir! Something’s coming out of it! Reading a massive power spike, way off the scale,” said the engineering officer.
Indeed, the light from the singularity dimmed, and in a flash disappeared altogether, replaced by a planet.
Paradiso.
It looked exactly the same as the planet they’d just left less than an hour ago in the Il Nido sector. Except this one was different.
Megan was there. And Molly and Eddie. And they were alive.
“Uh, Commander,” began the engineering officer. His face had gone from a vague pale color to almost pure white, like he’d seen a ghost. “The planet’s velocity and trajectory . . . it’s heading straight towards Earth.”
He grabbed his console station and swiveled it toward him, examining the data pouring in.
Dammit, he was right.
“And both Earth and Paradiso are in each other’s gravity wells. They’re pulling each other in,” said the officer.
“How long?”
“Less than fifty minutes.”
No. He was not going to miraculously bring back his family against all odds, only to lose them less than an hour later. No. He would not accept that. He jumped to his feet and ran back to the science station, punching the comm button there. “Director Wiggum, where the hell are you? We’ve got a big problem.”
A problem that was about to become a repeat of Britannia.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Sol Sector
Earth
Findiri Ship Destiny
Varus yanked the tube out of his left arm, then his right. It hurt, and somehow, it hurt far worse than it should have. He shrieked. He’d felt pain before, hadn’t he? Pain existed before, but it was never anything more than a nuisance. He’d once lost a finger in an accident, and had broken his ankle. Both times the pain was just an indicator that something was wrong, nothing more.
Now? It was like his arms were on fire. Blood flowed from where he’d pulled the tubes out, and the burning pain was like nothing he’d ever experienced.
Unless . . . this was just the first time he’d felt actual, real pain. The first time he’d felt anything as . . . a human? Was he just a human now?
A swell of emotions surged through him. Anger. Frustration. Relief. Joy. Excitement. Hatred. Every emotion he’d felt before, one at a time, but nothing like this. It was like the emotions were ramped up to a billion from what he’d felt before.
Was this what being a human was like?
Talus continued his speech, and one emotion in particular asserte
d itself over all the others. It was like hatred, but different. Hatred by itself had no aim, no purpose, no goal. This emotion did, and he had no word for it. Like hatred coupled with justice and righteousness and zeal.
He glanced back out the viewport at Earth, but now the scene was different.
Another planet, nearly as large as Earth, was bearing down on it.
Talus droned on and on about the birth of the new empire, how all was now made new, that everything was changed and Earth would now find peace and security.
He looked from Talus, to Earth, to Talus, and soon realized that, yes, everything had changed and was made new, and that the Hegemon and Director of the Findiri Empire would soon be a hegemon and director of nothing.
What could he do? Probably nothing. But he was an adjutant, and therefore had a ship.
Doing nothing was not an option.
“Nubo. Find Granger. We need to talk. Now.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Poincaré Sector
World IXF-459, Low Orbit
ISS Independence
Bridge
“Now adding the lasers to the mix, ma’am. Now hitting targets on the Swarm’s hull with railgun, laser, and torpedoes.” Urda examined the tactical readout. “And the damage it’s sustaining from the robot sentinels is increasing. In fact,” he looked at some other data, “we’ve seen a ten-percent increase in their numbers in the past two minutes.”
Admiral Proctor was clenching her armrests, It was a big risk, taking the Independence in so close, at a range where they were very vulnerable to the Swarm’s weaponry. Her ship had just been through two devastating battles in the previous days, and many systems were still offline. They’d managed to restock their torpedoes and ordnance and make basic repairs, but that was about it.
“What about the Swarm ship? Are we even making a dent?”
“We are, ma’am. It’s just a question of if we’re doing it fast enough. They could shift their focus to us at any time, and we’ll be toast.”
CLOSER, SHELBY.
The voice of her companion was so insistent, and she could feel its urgency.
CLOSER.
“Mr. Destachio. Move us into close range. I want all PDC cannons trained on that thing. Everything we’ve got.”
“Aye, ma’am. Moving to three thousand meters.”
They really were in the thick of it now. Dozens, hundreds of little deadly robotic sentinel ships rushed all around them, ignoring the Independence and focusing all their fire on the massive Swarm ship, which in turn was also ignoring them and picking off the sentinels one by one.
By all accounts it was a raging, spectacular battle. A fireworks show in the skies above IXF-459. Wreckage from destroyed sentinels flew past, some colliding with the Independence herself, though luckily not traveling at a velocity sufficient to cause appreciable damage. The only reason Proctor even felt remotely able to appreciate the scene was because the Independence itself seemed to be invisible to every hostile party.
And then in a flash, the Swarm ship disappeared. Q-jumped away to some unknown distant destination.
AND NOW THE TIME COMES, the voice of her companion said.
And just as suddenly, the Independence became the prime target of the battle, rather than the spectator, as hundreds of sentinel robots all simultaneously turned their sights on it and surged forward.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Sol Sector
Earth
VFS Majestic
Jasper. My son. I had a son. I had a son and he’s gone. Granger steadied himself against the chair, still watching the planet bearing down on Earth, and still trying to wrap his mind around the incomprehensible loss he just suffered. The horror of the image of the blood-soaked chamber window had burned itself into his mind’s eye.
“Captain, it’s Paradiso,” said Swift.
“What?”
“Everything matches. The continents, the cities, everything. Reading tens of millions of people on the surface. Except, it looks like it’s the Paradiso from before the momentum shield disaster.”
“Shin-Wentworth,” Granger murmured.
“And, uh . . . shit,” Swift continued. “It’s forty-five minutes away from a direct hit on Earth. It’s Britannia two point oh.”
Granger forced the memory of the blood-soaked chamber window from his mind. Forced away every memory of Jasper. At least for now. Grieving could—must—wait.
“Goddammit, why can’t my shitty memory forget this one?” he murmured to himself. “Is the Volz still down near the surface?”
“Yes sir, just hovering ten kilometers above the North American nexus of the Western Hemisphere Power Grid. Looks like it’s tapped into it inductively, siphoning off nearly the entire capacity. Widespread blackouts are being reported all across the continent.”
“Put me through to the Volz,” he said.
Swift motioned to the comms officer. “Channel open, sir.”
“Shin-Wentworth, this is Granger. Mind telling me what the hell is going on?”
The viewscreen split, half showing Paradiso’s steady fall toward Earth, and half now covered with Shin-Wentworth’s face. “I used technology that Klollogesh gave us. Two-dimensional singularity tech—the same ones that were holding up Chantana Three’s crust. And I . . . I used it to bring back Paradiso from before the attack. Everyone there is safe now.”
“Safe? Look out your window, Commander.”
Shin-Wentworth closed his eyes. “Yes. I know.” He opened them. “We’re working on a solution, Captain.”
He wanted to berate the man, rake him over the coals, swear at him, beat the shit out of him, but he had a world to save. Two worlds. “Okay, what have you got?”
The man shrugged reluctantly. “Nothing yet, sir.”
Something beeped on his console and he tried to find the source. Thankfully, the comms officer caught his eye. “Sir, receiving a hail request. This one from the ISS Dirac.”
He waved up to the screen. “Have her join the party.”
The image of Paradiso accelerating in its fall toward Earth disappeared, replaced by the face of Captain Rayna Scott. Her eyes seemed to be tracking something on her monitor instead of the camera, but that was just Rayna’s style.
“Good to see you again, dearie. Looks like we’re in a pickle here.”
“Any ideas, Rayna?”
“Well, here’s the thing,” she began, sucking a bit on her lower lip. “Last I saw Shelby, she told me to get a handle on these two-d singularities.”
“And? Did you?”
She laughed. “That was only five hours ago, dearie.” She laughed some more before becoming quite sober. “So naturally I’m about halfway there.”
“You think we can send Paradiso back through a singularity? Before it hits Earth?”
“No!” interjected Shin-Wentworth. He’d lost his composure for a moment, but pulled himself back together quickly. “It wouldn’t work, sir. The singularity I used to bring it here was decoupled from its secondary partner during Paradiso’s transit. Without a secondary, there’s no telling what will actually happen to Paradiso. Most likely just crushed in an artificial black hole.”
“Does that save Earth?” said Granger.
“Likely no, since the black hole will still be there, with the same mass as Paradiso. It’ll cause just as much destruction on Earth, if not more, given that Earth could then be sucked into the singularity too.”
“Okay, so three strikes against using that singularity,” said Granger. “Rayna? Do you concur with Shin-Wentworth?”
“The dipshit’s right, dearie, unfortunately.”
“Great. What’s the alternative, Rayna? You said you’d been studying these things?”
“I’ve gotten all up in their business, dearie. But no big ideas yet. Would be great if we had a much larger version of what the Findiri folks have on their ships. Two-d singularity basically covering the entire hull, and what goes in one side comes out the other.”
“Ye
s!” a voice from behind Shin-Wentworth yelled out suddenly, making Shin-Wentworth almost jump. Behind him a mousy, disheveled man appeared who looked like he’d been crying.
“What is it, Wiggum?” said Shin-Wentworth.
“She’s right! The Findiri ship’s singularity is exactly what we need, times a billion!”
He looked a little deranged, and Granger half-wanted to tell Shin-Wentworth to get the man a tranquilizer and a good night’s sleep. “And how do you propose amping up their singularities by a billion, Mr. Wiggum?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He laughed. A little too long. When he saw that everyone was still staring at him, he added, “Exactly how we did it before. Couple into the inductive power grid.”
Granger stroked his chin. “So you’re saying get a Findiri ship down there, couple it into the grid, and tap into enough power to extend the ship’s singularity shield to cover the entire Earth? Rayna? Is that even possible?”
“Hell if I know.” She paused to think for a moment. “No. No, it won’t work. Remember the battle at Paradiso? I wasn’t there but I watched footage. Remember what happens when something passes through that singularity shield and gets too close to the edge? Blammo. What happens if Paradiso comes in and just grazes the edge of the shield, which is actually a likely scenario? You’re looking at the largest explosion the Earth has ever seen since the one that made the moon.”
Wiggum was about to protest, but the more he thought, the more it became clear that he agreed. “No. She’s right.”
“But, why not just use more than one ship?” she added.
“More than one?” said Granger. “Send several Findiri ships to the surface and have them all tap into the grid and make their own shields?”
“No. But couple the singularity shields of a handful of ships and tie them together, almost like a net. Send them out some distance from Earth, so that there’s no chance of Paradiso grazing the edge.”