by Nick Webb
Another explosion ripped through the hallway outside. The bright white light of the blast shone through the tiny space under the door.
“Wait,” he said. “I remember one more thing.”
Chapter 71
Volari Three, Volari System
Bridge, ISS Warrior
“Total of one hundred and twelve Swarm carriers, sir,” said Diamond.
Granger swatted the commlink to Admiral Zingano. “Bill, what do you think?”
“They knew we were coming. And they must have infiltrated the anti-matter supply chain somehow. We’ve been had, Tim. They may very well have been intentionally steering you to this planet right at this time.”
Dammit. Zingano was right. He’d been compromised—he’d been Swarm. What in the world had made him think this was prudent?
He watched the viewscreen. The camera had shifted to the incoming fleets. They approached from all directions—a dozen carriers from about ten different vectors. Yeah, they definitely knew Granger was coming.
“Sorry, Admiral. Looks like Norton was right.”
“Tim,” said Zingano, “this is over two-thirds of our fleet. We’ve got to get out of here. If we lose here, we lose the war.”
It was two thirds of the fleet, yes. But it was also a huge chunk of the Swarm’s forces. They’d never have a chance like this again, especially on offense. “Bill, we’ve got to stay. This is exactly what we wanted, besides the flub with the anti-matter. We’ve got them here, away from our territory. We won’t have to be defending a planet and a civilian population while we fight. This is the best chance we’ll have in awhile to hit them and hit them hard.”
“I don’t know, Tim….”
Granger pounded the console. “Dammit, Bill, you asked me to come back to IDF and I did. You asked me to lead the fleets and I did. You asked me to repel invasion after invasion, and I did. I did it all. Gladly. You called me back into command after my experience with the Swarm because you thought I had some brilliant insight into Swarm behavior or innovative tactics or could be the hero you could hold up to inspire the men. Whatever. It’s all bullshit. I survived because I fought to survive. I clawed my way to victory three months ago. Me and the Old Bird. And now here we are. The odds are against us. But if we win, we’re one step closer to winning for good. Let’s claw our way to victory. One more time.”
Silence over the comm.
“Sir, two minutes before the nearest Swarm vessels arrive,” said Diamond.
Zingano swore. “All right, Tim. Let’s give ‘em hell. I’ll lead Task Force Granger One. Admiral Tabor can take Task Force Granger Two. You take Three. I’ll tell the missile frigates to get the hell out of here—they’re sitting ducks.”
Granger eyed his tactical readout. Eight hundred missile frigates still orbited the planet below, though they were rapidly pulling up to join the rest of the fleet. Each had around forty officers and crew aboard—just enough to run a medium-sized ship and launch its bombs and missiles.
“No. Keep them here.”
“Tim? They’re useless. Just another target to defend.”
“Exactly. Another target for the Swarm to focus on while we pound them. Plus,” he watched the screen as several of the closer Swarm carriers started disgorging hundreds of fighters. “Bill, we need to clog up their fighter bays. These frigates would be perfect for that.”
The brick-layer. He could tell Zingano hated the idea by the sound of his voice, but to his credit he only hesitated a moment. “Fine. I’ll send the orders to them. You focus on mobilizing your task force. Provide cover for the frigates on their approach. Zingano out.”
The comm fell silent, and he bolted to his feet, nodding toward Diaz.
“All hands, prepare for engagement. Mag rail and laser crews stand ready. Arm nukes. Redirect all auxiliary power to laser cap banks.” Diaz unleashed into a flurry of orders to the bridge crew while Granger opened up the comm link to the fighter bay.
“Commander Pierce. Launch all fighters. Patrol for singularities and target their fighters and weapons installations at will.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” came the reply over the speaker.
He turned back to the screen. His task force had reassembled, and they were almost in range of the nearest cluster of incoming Swarm carriers.
But there was something else. Before his eyes saw them, he felt them. The deckplate started quivering slightly, and he recognized the tremor of the imbalance of the spinning engines cause by the gravitational distortion of artificial singularities.
“Detecting twenty-one singularities in this cluster, sir.”
Damn. Commander Pierce had his work cut out for him.
Chapter 72
Volari Three, Volari System
High Orbit
Spacechamp’s fighter was spinning out of control, and Ballsy knew he had just moments to pick off every single one of the four enemy fighters tailing her before they finished her off.
“Punch your starboard thruster to max!” She was spinning counterclockwise—what he was telling her to do would make her spin faster and more chaotically and might even make her pass out. But it was her only hope to evade being hit before he could knock out the four bogeys. He pressed the trigger. Make that three bogeys.
“Got it,” she said, her speech slurred a bit as her spinning accelerated and she began looping in wild, random patterns. The g forces would knock her out any moment, but it was all he needed. He could order her fighter to right itself remotely. With three more quick bursts he dispatched the remaining fighters who had begun to swarm over her, trying to lock her down.
When it was over he saw her fighter begin to slow down and right itself. “Thanks, Ballsy. I owe you one.”
“Four,” he corrected. “But that pays you back for last week—we’re even now.”
The comm set lit up, interrupting their chatter. “All squads, interdict and terminate singularities. Reading twenty-one contacts. We’ve got our work cut out for us today, people. Warrior squadrons will handle singularities at twenty-one mark four, eighteen mark six, and fifteen mark twenty.”
Ballsy nodded. “Let’s go, Untouchables. We’ve got a singularity with our name on it. Fodder, you’ll deliver the package. Pew Pew, you’re up next if he gets a null impact. Move.”
He veered away from the Swarm carrier they were flying near, and angled toward the nearest singularity along with two other squads. Each would attempt to deliver an osmium brick simultaneously—as a redundancy, since the likelihood of a single fighter’s brick connecting with the singularity were less than fifty fifty. Though so far, the fighters from the Warrior had only had two slip through the cracks over the past few months.
“Spacechamp, you good?” He saw her craft struggle to maintain a straight course.
“Yeah, just working out the new calibrations on these thrusters—got hit pretty hard back there.”
Red flashing lit up his cabin as enemy bogeys came up from below, but he saw them just in time. Looping up, around, and down, he caught two in his strafing fire, and grinned as he saw Pew Pew pummel his way through three more.
They veered back onto their course, with Fodder still at point and Spacechamp tailing. Less than a kilometer to go—just a few seconds.
“Releasing package,” said Fodder. His brick shot away as he pulled up and veered right.
Out of nowhere a Swarm fighter slammed into the brick. The bogey exploded into a million pieces, barely scratching the brick, but the momentum transfer was enough to push it just out of the way of the singularity. Ballsy, with a groan, watched it sail past and clear.
He sighed and shook his head. “All right, Pew Pew, you’re up.”
Chapter 73
ISS Lincoln
Brig
The shaking of the cell intensified—soon, Isaacson’s teeth were chattering, though he wasn’t sure if it was from the shaking or from fear of imminent death.
“Volodin told me … he told me the singularities are not a Swarm technology.”
&nbs
p; “They’re not?”
“No,” he whispered. “That’s one of the Swarm’s strengths. They force an exchange of technology with their new allies, he said. They gave the Russians better gravity field emitters, and in exchange, they gave quantum field technology to the Swarm. Somehow the Russians use them in their fusion cores to get better yield, but it looks like they’ve weaponized it with help from the Swarm. The singularities … they’re not Swarm. They’re Russian.”
From the other cell he heard Avery whisper a profanity. Then, she spoke. Her voice had changed. She didn’t sound vulnerable anymore.
She sounded angry.
“That will be all, General.”
And, as if at the touch of a button, the shaking stopped. He heard a clang from nearby, and realized the other cell had opened.
Footsteps.
Avery appeared in front of the bars of his cell. A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth and her eyes were taut with a piercing glare.
She was holding a gun. Pointed straight at his head.
Chapter 74
Volari Three, Volari System
Bridge, ISS Warrior
The Warrior shivered as devastating green beams ripped into her hull. A cloud of Swarm fighters enveloped her, nearly blocking out the view of the rest of the battle, which stretched out into the distance in every direction. Vast capital ships pounded each other while nimble fighters dodged and danced. Weapons fire of every kind blazed like a million crazed fireflies. Debris erupted from exploding ships and showered the vessels around them with their detritus: dead ship and dead men.
“Focus covering fire on the carrier at twelve mark two,” Granger called to tactical. “As soon as the Willow makes its omega run, shift fire to escort the Aspen into its target at twenty-eight mark five.”
Granger had seen over a dozen battles in the nearly three months since the invasion.
But none like this. The sheer scale was something that, if he’d been watching it on a theatre screen from the comfort of his retirement home in the Florida panhandle knowing it was a fiction drama, would have delighted him. Broken ships started blazing through the upper atmosphere, creating stunning, glowing tails like comets.
But this was not beautiful. This was death. All around him.
He glanced at the tactical readout. Thankfully, it was also death for the Swarm. They were taking a pounding as well, paying a heavy price for the ambush. Perhaps they hadn’t planned on so many IDF ships showing up. Either way, he was encouraged as he saw the count of active Swarm carriers tick down. Fifteen destroyed, five more disabled. And they’d only lost a tenth of their own fleet so far.
“The Aspen has destroyed the fighter bay of that carrier, sir. Redirecting fire to the other carrier.”
Granger nodded. He watched a shimmering singularity wink out as one of the osmium bricks hurled by a fighter connected with it. Where in the world are those things going? he wondered. If he came out on the other side of his journey above this very planet, where were all those things coming out?
Before he had a chance to wonder more, one of the larger singularities disappeared, and an instant later the Palisades, a heavy cruiser nearby, seemed to contract as if something were sucking it inward, then explode in a dazzlingly white blast. The shock wave hit the Warrior and the entire bridge lurched to starboard.
“Pierce!” He hit the comm with his fist. “We need fighter support on those singularities! We just lost the Palisades because of one!”
“Sorry, Captain. There’s too many of them. I had two squads assigned to the one that blew, but the Swarm fighters managed to catch them in a crossfire. Besides that, we’re running out of bricks, sir. Down to just twenty fighters with packages intact.”
“Keep at it, Mr. Pierce. If it comes down to it—if we run out of bricks—send fighters in. Granger out.”
Damn. They came up with the osmium brick strategy to avoid having to expend the lives of fighters on suicide runs. But if they ran out of bricks … well, sacrifices must be made. He remembered the very first fighter he’d ordered into a singularity. What was her name? Miller. Jessica Miller. How many more Millers would be required before the end?
He glanced at the tactical readout again. In spite of the loss of the Palisades and two dozen or so other cruisers, it was not a rout. In fact, if things continued the way they were, they’d not only win, but with up to half of their force still intact.
Some flickers on the viewscreen caught his eye. More ships.
“Captain—”
Before the sensor officer even said anything, Granger knew. He recognized that design. He’d spent ten years dreaming of the chance to smash a few dozen of them to pieces. And here they were, just like seventy-five years ago, coming right at the tail end of the fight. Right before total victory. Enough time for them to throw in a few token ships and claim they’d helped.
“—Russian ships, sir.”
He shook his head. The gall of those people. “How many?”
“Nearly three hundred, sir. Mostly heavy cruisers. A few super carriers.”
“Fine. Let’s see what kind of punch these bastards have. Send a message to their flagship with instructions to form up with—”
The sentence hung on his lips. On the screen, he saw something unthinkable. His hopes shattered.
Several Russian ships in the advance guard opened fire on the Nottingham, a heavy cruiser in Granger’s task force. Captain Barnes’s ship. More advancing Russian ships joined in. Within ten seconds, the Nottingham broke in half, spewing wreckage into space as the newcomers blazed past and bore down on the rest of his task force.
Chapter 75
Volari Three, Volari System
High Orbit
Volz watched in dismay as the singularity disappeared, reappearing seconds later, he supposed, at the center of the heavy cruiser nearby, the Palisades. It contracted for a moment before exploding in a dazzling blast. He veered away at the last second: even so, the debris from the blast showered his fighter, causing alarms to go off as several small holes ripped open in his hull.
“Sorry, Ballsy. I … I couldn’t shake these fighters….”
Pew Pew’s voice was solemn. He’d tried to launch his osmium brick, but a throng of enemy craft had enveloped him—far too many for Ballsy and Spacechamp to knock loose. His voice sounded as if he was blaming himself for the deaths of the thousand souls on the Palisades.
“Not your fault, buddy. Come on, we’ve got one more singularity to plug.”
His three squadmates collected into a tight diamond formation as they soared toward the remaining miniature black hole, shimmering as the surrounding rarified molecules, dust, and debris swirled in a tight vortex, casting off intense x-rays, ultraviolet rays, and of course, blinding white light. He blinked, and shadows from the light’s memory seemed etched into his retinas. He wanted to believe Captain Granger, that this was it. This could very well be the final time he’d have to face down one of these monstrosities.
The singularities were almost an affront against nature. A place where reality broke down, space compressed to something smaller than a point, time seemed hopelessly at its mercy, and on the other end….
Something. There was something on the other side to come back from, and it wasn’t just death.
“Ballsy, too fast, man!” Fodder’s voice blared in his ear, and he realized he’d pushed on the accelerator full-bore, blazing straight toward the singularity.
Fly faster, Ballsy.
He shook his head and eased back on the controls. “Sorry, got carried away. Fodder, Spacechamp, and I will handle those fighters coming toward us. Pew Pew, deliver the package when you see an opening. Looks like Roadrunner squad is attempting the same thing—let’s see if we can’t catch the bastards in a crossfire. Move!”
In a well-rehearsed maneuver, Volz—who’d been flying point—Fodder, and Spacechamp peeled off hard in three different directions as Pew Pew maintained his course. They wheeled around, blasting at the stray bogeys,
picking off the ones that tried to take aim at Pew Pew and his osmium brick.
He was closing. Less than a kilometer. Time seemed to compress as Volz watched his friend streak toward it, weaving in and out of intercepting fighters, avoiding the explosions of others as Spacechamp and Fodder caught them in their sights.
And the brick was away.
“Woohoo! Yeah, man, I—” Pew Pew started celebrating into his headset.
But he was premature. With a sickening lurch, the osmium brick banked out of the path of the singularity as a Swarm fighter slammed into it. A second fighter collided with Pew Pew’s craft, and he spun out of control, out of sight. On Volz’s scope, he lost contact with his squadmate’s fighter, the other pilot’s electronics fried and dead.
Fodder screamed into the comm. Spacechamp swore.
In the commotion, Volz thought he heard Commander Pierce’s voice. Something about omega runs. Ram the singularity. He heard the CAG order Fodder in.
Fly faster, Ballsy.
“Well boys,” Fodder began, clearing his throat. “If death’s good enough for my brother, it’s good enough for me. Take care, friends, and remember—” he punched his maneuvering thrusters and veered away as he finished, “—don’t fly like—”
And in another sickening collision, his fighter lurched as a Swarm craft rammed him, sending him tumbling away end over end, soon disappearing out of sight in the dim blue glare of the terminator line of the atmosphere below.
Both brothers gone, within moments of each other.
And the singularity grew larger.
Chapter 76
The Waypoint, Near Sirius
Brig, ISS Lincoln
“Last question, Eamon,” she began with a heavy sigh. The gun was still aimed straight at his forehead, just a foot away. He slowly raised his hands, though he couldn’t fathom why—it was obvious he had no way to fight back, no way to stop the inevitable. He saw the look in her eyes. She hated him. Loathed him. That much was clear.