by Nick Webb
He mulled over the latest revelation. The Valarisi, attempting something at the robot world that Shelby nearly died trying to stop. The Swarm, now with a singularity shield of their own, which they just witnessed was capable of transporting entire worlds through time and space. The Findiri, divided and changed, somehow, and warring amongst themselves. Talus dead, but the remaining Quiassi hiding amongst humanity, each with their own possibly nefarious ends.
And himself. Tim Granger. A thirteen-billion-year-old man who just met his son, and then lost him. A man who’d yearned for death and release, but now found himself leading the fight against an enemy that . . .
. . . that he just now remembered. The Swarm. Not just humanity’s enemy, but the enemy of all existence. He remembered. They had returned. To the one place and time where several events were converging that would help them achieve their goal:
The end of the universe—this entire timeline from the very beginning and this universe of universes, and the escape of the Swarm from that destruction to a new reality. One where they could reign for another epoch of time, until they found the next universe. And the next. They would never stop. They would end the very existence of anything if it meant they could exist for another day.
But he’d come to this time, this place, for another reason. To stop the Swarm from ever existing themselves.
Had he succeeded? Time would tell.
EPILOGUE
Sol Sector
Earth, New York City
United Earth Executive Offices Tower
Former President John Sepulveda was on the verge of becoming current President John Sepulveda. Why?
Because he was the greatest president in the history of United Earth. That’s why. Go to hell, Suzie Tompkins in Mrs. Dolworth’s third-grade class, he thought as he walked down the final hallway to her office. His office. Not hers any longer.
Honestly, most people would say it was a miracle he’d gotten off the Defiance. But all it took was some good ego stroking, a little politicking, a few hasty promises he had no intention of fulfilling, and Commander Rice let him leave. With an official IDF shuttle escort to boot.
And now the Findiri occupation of Earth was ending almost as fast as it began. Talus was dead. Varus, his right-hand-man, apparently had come to Jesus and was born again and promised to restore Earth to the way it was.
Which left him, the greatest President the Union had ever known, strutting toward former President Cooper’s office with a huge grin on his face.
The door opened for him before he even reached a hand out. “Mr. Sepulveda, come in,” said Admiral Oppenheimer, who held the door open for him, offering a handshake.
He took it, warily. “Admiral? Has Madam Cooper offered an amnesty I was not made aware of?”
“Oh, save it, John. We need him and he needs us more so that makes him useful.” Cooper was sitting at her desk. His desk, he corrected himself.
He took a seat opposite her, staring her down, daring her to say anything other than welcome back, Mr. President, I kept your seat warm for you.
“I’m sure he’ll come in handy after his trial. My question is, when’s the ceremony?”
She did a double take. “I’m sorry, the what?”
“The inauguration ceremony. Mine. Have you drafted your letter of resignation yet?”
She threw her head back and laughed.
That did not bode well for the rest of their conversation.
“Cooper, we had a deal,” he began, “We decided—”
“Yes, yes,” she said, waving a hand dismissing him. “We said a lot of things. But circumstances have changed, John. Talus? The other Quiassi? I’m sure you were well on your way to figuring out a few of the others.”
Sepulveda’s eye narrowed. He’d listened to Rice’s and Danny Proctor’s speculations, but in the absence of actual proof . . .
“You left the note, didn’t you?” he said. “On my desk. President Avery is alive. And she wants what’s hers.”
She nodded. “I did. Or rather, a custodian did, at my request.”
The confession. She really was former President Barbara Avery. A Quiassi, having taken the form of Senator Cooper as she lay dying of cancer.
“So you were trying to get into my head. Mess with me. Not warn me.”
“I was doing both, to be honest. And I’m still trying to get into your head. Trying right now, in fact,” she said, with a wry smile.
“You’ll fail,” he said.
“I already succeeded, John.” Without waiting for a reply, she stood up and retrieved something from a table nearby. A suitcase, which she set on the desk in front of him and opened. “See that there? It’s a small prototype momentum-transfer shield that the brilliant researchers at Smolensk science station came up with.”
“Would have been super helpful four days—”
“Shut up, I didn’t ask for a response.” He was too dumbfounded to protest, and watched as she lifted the device away and pulled out the false bottom of the suitcase, revealing another compartment. This one held only a vial loaded into a meta-syringe. “And this? Recognize it?”
“Should I?”
She laughed again. “Probably not. They call it the Juice. The researchers at Smolensk station have finally managed, after nearly four months since I got them the last remaining old Swarm matter sample, to recreate something like it. A modified form of it, at least. It’s not actual Swarm. But upon introduction into a human it produces the same viruses that make the host susceptible to . . . persuasion. And control.”
“What have you done, Avery?” He shook his head. “Are you insane? Trying to recreate the Swarm? Isn’t one ship attacking us enough? You want to make more?”
She sat back on the desk and crossed her legs, not even making an effort to guard the vial. He could grab it. Run off with it, get it to someplace it would be safe and unused.
“I told you. It’s not the Swarm. But it will let me, finally, after eons of thinking and planning, defeat them, forever.” She leaned forward, as if getting to the best part. “And not only that, but with me at the head of humanity, acting as guide, protector, philosopher, and king, we will be safe against all the threats that are out there. The Swarm is just one, and the universe is a very, very, large place.”
Wait . . .
“Did you say king?”
She smiled.
He started to get up, but found his legs wouldn’t respond. Nor his arms. Or anything, except for his mouth. “My god, have you . . . poisoned me?”
She laughed yet again. “Oh, John, you’re adorable. No, I haven’t poisoned you. But the good Admiral here has done what I told him to. He passed the Juice on to you, skin-to-skin.”
Now it was more than his legs and arms.
It was his mind.
He tried to think one thing, and another thought would come in its place. He struggled to think about what his plan had just been—grab the vial and run. Right? Right?
That sounded like a terrible plan.
“Yes, king. You see, John, Former President Avery is indeed back, and she does indeed want what’s hers, as she considers it. And she has it, after a fashion. She has it in the form of being the leader of the Galactic People’s Congress and possibly will have it even more with whatever this new thing is that Proctor is trying to put together. But it’s rubbish. We’re not allying with aliens to defend against aliens. We’re going to keep it in the family, John.”
“You’re,” he slurred, “you’re him.”
“Who, John?” she asked, innocently.
“You’re Malakov.”
She smiled deviously, and tapped her nose.
He remembered a time where that news would produce a fair amount of alarm and horror within him.
Now it sounded fantastic. That man was legendary. Controlling the Russian Confederation for decades before his sudden disappearance at the end of Swarm War Two.
“And what are we going to do?” he asked.
“Well, first,”
she began, getting back up off the desk and returning to her chair. She pointed at Oppenheimer. “You’re going to kill him.”
“Him? Why? Couldn’t he be useful?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But he allied with the Findiri. He’s a useless, traitorous fuck. As useless as a Findiri dick. You know about them, right? Human but not human? Men but not men? An abomination that Granger created.” She could not hide her revulsion. And he felt the same. “So even under my control, I can’t trust him. Shoot him. Now.”
Sepulveda stood up and walked around the desk, opening the top drawer and pulling out his hidden sidearm attached to the underside of the desktop. He approached Oppenheimer and raised the gun to his temple. The man’s eyes almost looked like they were pleading, but he didn’t move.
Sepulveda fired.
Blood splattered the wall, and Oppenheimer’s body fell to the floor.
“Good. Step two, we need to take care of Proctor. She’s too smart for her own good.”
He nodded. “Agreed. But haven’t you heard? She’s already dead. Or dying. Her XO informed me that she forcibly removed her Valarisi companion.”
Cooper’s eyes lit up. “Oh! That’s excellent news. My loyalists inside the RC failed in their earlier attempts, but apparently she did the job for them.”
“Loyalists?”
“John,” she said with a chuckle, “I didn’t just disappear. I’ve been building. In the shadows. Building forces and assets that would come in handy during the final days of the Swarm War. Swarm War One, Swarm War Two, their appearance four months ago, and now this? The Swarm War never ended. But it will end now. I will do it. We. You and me. You truly will be the greatest president United Earth has ever had, John.”
He smiled. Earth would be safe. And he’d finally get what he wanted. All thanks to her. To him. To Malakov, that brilliant, glorious Quiassi.
Thank you for reading Leviathan, Book 8 of the Legacy Fleet Series. If you enjoyed this book, would you please leave a review?
Majestic, Book 9 of the Legacy Fleet series, will be released in November, 2021. Preorder it now!:
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