by Nick Webb
“Commander, time to get under way to our final destination, wouldn’t you say?” Granger leaned onto the main command console, looking up at his old friend.
Haws grumbled something under his breath. “If you say so, Tim.”
“I do. Take us out.”
Haws barked orders to the navigation and engineering crew, working them through the process of spinning up the remaining engines, checking safety interlocks, securing decks for inertial transport, and marking off the checklists for departure from the Lagrange point. Granger nodded approvingly whenever a department chief called out for his final authorization, but otherwise stood back and let Haws handle the affair. It would be his final command, after all. His old friend deserved to go out with dignity.
Within the hour, Haws barked from across the bridge, “She’s all ready, Captain.”
Granger nodded slowly, and walked to the center of the bridge, glancing around at all of the crew. A hush fell over everyone as they realized he was about to speak.
“I’m not one for speeches.” He glanced up at the ceiling with a frown, and turned to look at all the various departments scattered around the command center. “She’s a good ship. The best. It’s been the highest honor serving with you all.” He turned to navigation. “Time to Lunar Base at fifty percent drive?”
The answer came without a pause—they’d already made the calculations. “Three days with a two-hour acceleration burn and a four-hour decel burn on final approach.”
“Very well.” He glanced back at Haws, who kept his face stiff and frowning. “Let’s take her home.”
Chapter 14
Veracruz Sector, Leon System
IDF Intelligence Ship ISS Tirian
“Sir, we’re approaching the other southern continent. ETA is three minutes.”
LaPlace glanced at his readout. “Major cities down there?”
“Just one, with several outlying towns and settlements. All orbital traffic is silent on this side of the planet as well.”
Minutes ticked by, and the ocean passed underneath them, peaceful, unaware and uncaring of the devastation on the land nearby. Soon their orbit brought them over another brown and green landmass, and before the sensor officer announced anything, LaPlace saw it.
Distant flashes of light, like lightning from a massive thundercloud, and a clutter of objects in the lower atmosphere, just at the edge of sight.
LaPlace jumped to his feet, still staring at the scene. “Report.”
The sensor officer shook his head. “Lots of ships out there. Unknown identification. Unknown design and configuration. They’re….” The officer swore and pounded the console. “Looks like the surface is under attack. There are a few orbital defense ships nearby, but they’re mostly destroyed. The city is a sitting duck, sir, and they’re getting pounded.”
“Any indication we’ve been detected?”
“No, sir. All ships have maintained their attitude and orbit.”
And then it came time for a decision. Get away while they could, or linger for a few more minutes to record more data? If this was the beginning of a full-scale Swarm invasion then they would need all the intel they could get. It was also imperative that they determine the attacker’s identity. For all they knew, this could be a Russian Confederation force.
“Keep sensors on passive scan only. Zoom in with the cameras, all wavelengths. Let’s get a closer look.”
Chapter 15
Halfway between L2 and Lunar Base
Sickbay, ISS Constitution
“How long do I have, Doc?”
Granger braced for the reply. He knew what was coming. He’d put off the appointment far too long. He’d managed to avoid his chief medical officer, Doctor Wyatt, for months now—ever since the lumps and pain returned.
“It’s hard to say, Tim. Two months. Three. Four, if you’re lucky.”
“Months?” That took him by surprise. He’d assumed a few years. “What about Hitraxin? Won’t that knock the tumors out for another few years?”
The doctor scowled at him. “Well sure, it would have done that, had you come to see me at your regularly scheduled appointment six months ago. Hell, Tim, what did you think would happen? Did you really think ignoring it would make it go away?”
“I’ve been busy,” Granger demurred.
“Bullshit. You’ve been irresponsible. Now it’s metastasized and soon your lymph nodes will be fatter than your damn head.”
Shit. He didn’t need this right now. First they take away the Old Bird from him, and now he gets his life taken away too? He shifted uncomfortably on the examination table, studying the scans Doc Wyatt had given him. The tumors were unmistakable: white, black, and dark red blobs interspersed all throughout his midsection, some larger, some smaller, but each deadly.
“Look, I can give you Metastacin—that should stabilize them for a month or so. And Flaginox will keep the pain and tissue inflammation at bay….”
Doctor Wyatt was fiddling with his handheld medical scanner, avoiding eye contact. They’d served nearly a decade together, and he counted him as one of his best friends on board—and Captain Granger didn’t make friends easily. Why make friends when they’ll inevitably disappoint you?
“It’s ok, Doc. It’s my time.” He said the words, but they rang hollow in his own ears. “Look, I’ve got to do a walkdown of the ship one last time before we arrive at Lunar Base. Make sure our new guest hasn’t mothballed the whole place before she’s supposed to.” He stood up to leave.
“Are you going to tell the crew?”
Granger walked to the door. “Now why the hell would I do that, Doc?”
“Are you at least going to tell your—” began Doctor Wyatt, but the doors sliding shut cut him off.
Granger stalked the halls, aiming vaguely towards engineering, nodding at crew members as they passed. When he reached the only elevator that would take him down to engineering, the door didn’t even open—the mechanism merely groaned in protest as the gears ground unfruitfully against each other.
Damn, she’s as sick as I am.
Digging his fingertips into the joint between the sliding door sections, he grunted as he struggled to pull them apart. When a two-inch space appeared, the mechanism finally caught and the doors sprung open.
“Engineering,” he grumbled to the empty air inside the lift.
A soft beep indicated the computer’s acknowledgement, and the lift moved. Momentarily, the speaker announced, with a fair amount of distortion, “Engineering.” Hell, even the speakers were going out. Maybe it really was time to just pull the plug on the whole ship.
“Sir, glad you’re here,” began a frazzled Commander Scott before he could even get a word in, “I tried contacting you before about this but couldn’t find you. She’s gone too far this time, Cap’n.”
Somehow, he knew exactly which she his chief engineer was referring to.
“What is it this time, Rayna?”
She led him to one of the vast engine bays that housed one of the six main drive units, and pointed. “Look. I go to bed last night with engine four not disassembled, and when I wake up this morning, it is disassembled. Anything wrong with that picture, Cap’n?”
Granger ground his teeth together. The entire unit was taken apart, and the lead ballast was clearly gone. “Where’s the ballast?”
“Where do you think, sir?”
Granger spun around and strode back toward the lift. “Prepare a launch tube, Commander.”
“Sir?”
“A launch tube. We’re going to need it to aid the disembarking of our guest.”
He didn’t stop to look, but he could almost feel the broad smile cross Rayna’s face. Hell, he’d love to press the launch button himself if it meant he could be rid of Shelby Proctor a few days early.
Chapter 16
Veracruz Sector, Leon System
IDF Intelligence Ship ISS Tirian
Commander LaPlace peered at the screen, trying to see the ships firing down
at the surface. The sensors were recording every last detail, but he wanted to visually verify the identity of the attackers. He knew, from years of military and intel training, what the Swarm ships should look like. At least the ones that attacked Earth seventy-five years ago. They were quite literally a swarm. A few central carriers acting as bases for thousands, tens of thousands of fighters. Earth’s defenders were simply overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, not to mention the superior technology and firepower.
“Comm, have a q-jump data pod ready to go. I want to have something ready to send just in case….” He let the words hang in the air—his bridge crew would know exactly what he left unsaid.
“Aye, sir. Data pod loaded and currently downloading all available telemetry.”
LaPlace nodded. “Good. Append the bridge’s audio recording as well. They may as well hear what we’re talking about.” He turned to his nav officer. “Ensign, I want q-jump coordinates laid in and your finger hovering over the initiate button. Understood? We’re talking hair-trigger here.”
Satisfied that the ensign was ready to hightail them out of there, he redirected his attention back to the sensor log.
“Ops, am I seeing this right? Those are not Swarm fighters. At least, not according to our historical data.”
“You’re right, sir. These are slightly larger. We’re detecting around two hundred of them, all around the size of one of our V-wing fighters. Maybe double the size of an X-25.”
A Swarm fleet from seventy years ago would have sported many times that number of fighters. And the central carrier in the middle of the screen was possibly even more massive than the old Swarm carriers. But the design—it looked vaguely … human? Nothing like the Swarm cruisers from the history books, with their dozens of nacelle arms and vast jagged pylons that presumably acted as fighter bays.
As LaPlace watched, about three dozen of them broke off from the main engagement over the city and moved sharply towards one of the partially destroyed IDF cruisers.
“Captain, I’ve got power readings from that Zafano class cruiser. Transponder signal is that of the ISS Vallarta. Their main reactor has restarted and several of their mag-rails are energizing.” The officer looked up at the screen to watch. “They’re firing at the incoming ships, sir.”
LaPlace glanced up. Sure enough, the battered cruiser, still steaming air, smoke, and debris, had angled itself such that several starboard turbo-mag-rail cannons had a clear shot at the large fighters. He could almost imagine the pulsating rhythm of the shots—the cannons fired around five rounds per second at speeds approaching ten kilometers per second.
Several of the enemy fighters flared up into fireballs, but the rest accelerated at incredible speeds towards the Vallarta, and fired their own streams of high-velocity projectiles at the ship. The rounds exploded with ferocious energy into the side of the IDF cruiser, which spewed debris and fire—quickly extinguished by the vacuum of space. Soon, a gaping hole was exposed. But that was only the beginning. One of the large carriers, a massive behemoth of a ship lit by sickly green running lights, veered towards the Vallarta and unleashed a dazzling green energy beam.
The beam blazed toward the hole in the starboard side of the Vallarta. LaPlace glanced down at his sensor readout and knew what was about to happen without asking his ops officer, who nevertheless called out, “I’m reading a radioactive signature, sir! That beam’s got anti-matter in it, and it’s interacting with the—”
But the flash on the screen cut him off. Even though it was only a holographic viewscreen and therefore limited in the amount of energy it could put out, they all automatically shielded their eyes. When the screen desaturated, the ISS Vallarta was gone.
A moment’s silence permeated the bridge.
“Ensign, have you scanned those fighters for life-readings yet? I want to know who we’re dealing with and then get the hell out of here.”
“Working on it, sir. There’s some kind of odd interference messing with our sensors. I can’t get a good reading on what’s inside those things. At this point, could be human. Could be … well, even back during the Swarm War we were never able to get life-sign readings from the Cumrat ships—”
“Sir! The ships….”
LaPlace snapped his head back to the screen. The surviving belligerent fighters had changed course and were now flying directly towards them.
“Ensign! Now!” He yelled at the nav officer, who hit the q-jump initiation on his console with a jab of his poised finger.
The viewscreen held steady.
“Ensign, I said NOW!” The fighters appeared to speed up.
“Trying, sir. I think whatever is interfering with the sensors….” The ensign drifted off, tapping buttons on his console furiously.
LaPlace pointed at the ops officer. “Launch the data pod. Get that thing out of here.” He turned back to navigation. “Ensign, evasive maneuvers. Swing wide and Z minus fifty. Put some distance between us—maybe we can clear their distortion field.”
He felt the ship lurch as the inertial canceling system struggled to keep up with the maneuvers the nav officer was keying into the console. Movement on the screen caught his eye.
“Sir, they’re firing!”
“Keep swerving, Ensign!” He craned his neck around. “Is that data pod away?”
“Aye, sir!”
“Did it make the q-jump?”
An explosion erupted across the bridge and Laplace shielded his face from the flames. When the emergency system extinguished the fire, he looked back to ops. The officer was slumped against his console, his head and torso scorched black and blistery red. Glancing down at his own readout, he swore—the data pod had failed to q-jump.
IDF headquarters would not be warned.
“Ensign, maximum acceleration! Get us to the wreckage of the Vallarta! Maybe we can put some debris in between us and—”
But the nav officer never got the chance to acknowledge. Another explosion ripped through the bridge, and a giant section of bulkhead blasted away, revealing the blue-tinged atmosphere of the planet far below. As the air spewed out, sucking the nav officer with it, LaPlace glared at the enemy fighter speeding directly towards them. The forward guns of the other ship glowed, and, using his last breath which erupted out into the vacuum, he spat towards the incoming fighter out of spite before blacking out.
Chapter 17
Halfway between L2 and Lunar Base
Fighter Bay, ISS Constitution
Captain Granger strode up to the doors of the fighter bay’s maintenance hangar, pointing to the two marines stationed there.
“You two, with me. Your orders are to arrest Commander Proctor at my signal. Understood?”
The marines looked at each other nervously. One of them cleared his throat.
“I said, AM I CLEAR?” he barked, and one of the marines stiffened his back.
“Uh, sir, she gave us the order that if you interfere with her work, we are to confine you to your quarters. Said she had authorization from Admiral Yarbrough herself.”
The marine flinched as Granger marched up to him. Unbelievable. She’d crossed the line. He stood toe to toe with the marine and yelled in his face. “I am the captain of this ship, soldier! How would you like to spend the next five years rotting in the brig for insubordination and mutiny?”
He hadn’t realized he was waving his fists in the air, and he self-consciously lowered them. Dammit. He’d lost his ship. Five days ahead of schedule.
“Tim?” Granger turned to the voice. It was his CAG. Commander Tyler Pierce.
“What the hell do you want?” he replied gruffly, still eyeing the nervous marines, who clearly were quite torn. What was the military coming to? Had the decades of peace and prosperity made them all fat and complacent? What was Yarbrough thinking, undermining him like this?
“Just wanted to show you something, sir.” The CAG thumbed in the direction of the Air Group’s mission room. He was a younger gentleman, clearly the son of some patrician senator or ol
igarch on one of the more prosperous worlds, perhaps York, or Versailles, judging by his decidedly upper-class accent and the overly conservative part in his hair.
Still glowering at the two marines, he followed his CAG into the mission room—a mini-amphitheater surrounding a podium in front of a holoscreen. Several technicians were busy installing a few extra rows of seating in the front and another was fiddling with the terminal on the podium.
“What are they doing?” Granger asked, indicating the techs.
Pierce’s expression betrayed his annoyance. “Do you really need to ask?”
“Proctor?”
Pierce nodded. “They’re turning this into a fighter combat simulation room. Bring fifty tourists in at once, show them a cute battle sequence up there on the screen, brief them on their mission, then off they all go to sit in the cockpits of the fighters out there.” He thumbed in the direction of the fighter bay, which Granger now had zero desire to see, even though Proctor was in there and he was itching to blast her out one of the fighter bay airlocks.
“Is it bad? Are they all stripped down?”
The CAG shrugged. “Well, not all of them. Just twenty or so. And all of the fighter’s systems are still intact. They’ve just rigged them with dummy torpedoes Proctor printed out in the fab, and upgraded … uh, downgraded the computers with some new battle simulation program she brought with her from the Smithsonian. But they’re all roped off and repainted some god-awful shade of purple and yellow—she thinks it’ll make them look more futuristic for the visitors, you see….”
The captain groaned. “Purple and yellow?”
“Yeah, tell me about it. But Tim, this isn’t why I asked you here. Come into my office for a moment.”
Granger followed him into the CAG’s office and took a seat next to the terminal next to Pierce. He smiled at the pictures of the man’s family displayed neatly in dark metal frames on the desk—two little boys sitting on the lap of a gorgeous blonde woman posed in front of some pine trees. “Family’s on York?” He nodded towards the picture, the faintly purple tinge to the deep blue sky clueing him in to where it was taken.