by Nick Webb
And now he was going to lose another one.
Chapter Sixteen
She knew she was dreaming, but as always, Proctor couldn’t stop the familiar sequence from proceeding. It went like clockwork. Inexorable and incontestable.
“That shot is one in a million, Shell,” her sister said. And she was right. Shelby peered through her scope at the bird off in the distance, perched on the branch of an acacia tree on the savannah. Its plumage was a wild shade of purple mixed with yellows and fiery oranges. She wasn’t even sure if it was a real species of bird—sometimes the simulator got creative. They called it an “elf bird”, since it’s hooked beak and inquisitive face reminded them of what an elf from certain fantasy novels might look like.
But for now, that bird was real, and she was going to hit it, whether it was two meters away or … she checked the range finder on her rifle … two hundred meters away.
She thumbed a few more beads on her rosary, and mumbled the custom prayer she’d come up with for occasions like this on her virtual hunting trips with Carla. “Hail Mary, full of grace, help me shoot that bird’s fat face, hail Mary, full of grace, help me shoot—”
Carla grimaced. “I told you to stop that. Mom said it was blasphemous.”
“You’re blasphemous, Car. You’re messing up my shot. In the church of the holy shooting range, that’s worse than calling a magazine a clip.”
Carla’s grimace turned into a sly smile, and she leaned in close to Shelby’s ear even as she began to pull the trigger. “One in a million,” she whispered.
The trigger pulled. The shot went wide, and the bird flew away with a flurry of flaps and squawks. Purple and yellow feathers drifted down in a cloud to the branch where the bird had been perched. Shelby turned to Carla and swore. “Dammit, Car! I had it, and you ruined it!”
Carla giggled, as only a twelve-year-old could. “It’s not even a real rifle. Just adjust the auto-aim controls on the program and get this over with. Come on, I want to go home. I’m feeling tired.”
Shelby scowled. “In a few minutes. I want to hit that damn elf bird.”
“Stop swearing. You know mom hates it. She’ll make you say a hundred more Hail Marys tonight.”
Shelby smirked. “Only if you tell on me again. Come on, Car, I’m fourteen. I can swear all I want.” She settled back into her aiming position, which the computer automatically detected and summoned the purple and yellow plumaged elf bird again. In the back of her mind Shelby wondered what kind of bird it really was. Something exotic, no doubt. Something from the lush savannahs of Britannia, or Cadiz. Those worlds always had the prettiest birds.
It flew in from the canopy of branches to alight on its previous perch, and began preening itself. “Ok, Car, here we go. One in a million. Prepare to be amazed….” She bit her lip, repeated her silent, blasphemous prayer again, and squeezed the trigger.
Missed. “Dammit!” Shelby pounded the giant fallen tree she’d been leaning against for balance. “Ok, one more and I’ll—” she turned to her sister to convince her to stay for another few minutes.
But Carla was on the ground, sprawled among the fallen brown leaves. Several were caught up in the tangle of her wild hair.
Her eyes were closed.
“Carla? Are you napping on the job? Come on. You’re supposed to be helping—”
She trailed off when she saw the trickle of blood coming from the girl’s nose. “Car! Carla!” She shook her sister, but she didn’t wake up.
And even in her dream, she realized that moment was when the decades of nightmares began.
Chapter Seventeen
Earth
Lower Manhattan
United Earth Presidential Mansion
“Agent Pratt, get the hell out of my way.”
President Theodore A. Quimby thought himself a Man of the People. Capital ‘M’, and capital ‘P’. After all, when you win your election in a landslide vote, taking forty-nine out of sixty-two worlds and nearly fifty billion votes, it’s easy to think people love you. It’s easy to interpret the crowds of millions at your rallies as a show of love for you, and not a show of revulsion for your opponent.
And so when the alien ship had shown up last month and thrown his celebrity-filled calendar for a loop, actually forcing him to meet with his generals and intelligence officials, he was beyond pissed. Not just at the modest loss of life and the loss of the ISS Chesapeake, but the fact that the secret service now objected to every single one of his usual activities.
No more glad-handing the crowds. No more jogs through Central Park, dropping in unexpectedly at fast food restaurants to grab a burger or curry and a photo op with regular joe voters.
He was the most powerful man in the galaxy. And he was a prisoner.
“Sir,” said Agent Carter, “I can’t allow you to leave the presidential grounds without your motorcade.” He filled the doorway of the presidential mansion’s rear exit with his massive frame.
“Bull honky. Malarkey. I’m the goddamn president of United Earth. More people voted for me as their leader in the history of civilization than anyone else. I’ll do what I fucking want.” He tried to get around him. “Come on, Kal,” he called behind him to his body man, Kalvin Quinkert. “We’re going on this jog whether Tiny here wants me to or not.”
Tiny—Agent Carter—didn’t budge, but rather stretched his arms out to completely bar the door. “Congratulations on your life-affirming election victory, sir, but I’m still not moving. Please wait for the motorcade and the rest of the security detail.”
Quimby held a finger up to the man’s nose. “I’m not going on a run with ten god-damned armored vehicles following me, or with twenty secret service agents that can’t keep up.”
Before Agent Carter had time to respond, the hallway filled up with presidential aides, followed by his chief of staff. Goddammit! “Sir—” Mr. Bird began.
“Can’t I get twenty minutes, Mick?”
Mick Bird, the chief of staff, shook his head solemnly. Always so solemn. Like a god-damned graveyard groundskeeper. Why the hell did he hire this guy? Right. His rich asshole of a veep, John Sepulveda the sixth or eight or some bullshit, insisted his cousin get a plumb job. Paying his political debts. “Sorry, sir. It’s Fleet Admiral Oppenheimer. He’s in your office.”
Quimby let out a defeated sigh. “Fine.” He allowed Agent Carter to escort him back to the executive office suite, his body man in tow, followed up by Bird and his aides. Shit, it’s like a circus wherever I go.
When he stepped back into his office, Oppenheimer rose to greet him. Dark circles ringed his lower eyelids. It was clear the head of IDF had gotten little sleep over the past few weeks. “Mr. President, we have a situation.”
“Another one?” Quimby collapsed into his desk chair, accepting his defeat. Maybe tomorrow he’d make it out for his run. He bent down to take his running shoes off and slipped the loafers back on. Maybe he could turn back time to three months ago and throw the election to his opponent. Being president had turned out to be awfully … inconvenient.
“Proctor is at it again. Defying orders, going rogue. And this time she’s fraternizing with the Skiohra without authorization.”
Quimby waved a hand impatiently, rubbing his temple with the other. “Slow down, slow down. Back up. Did the operation work? The meta-space pulse?”
Oppenheimer made a face. “That’s what I’m telling you. She’s defiant. I ordered her to hit the Dolmasi ships with it, and she did at first, but only at one tenth power before giving up completely and running off to beg the Skiohra for help—”
“Wait, she actually left Mao Prime, tracked down the Skiohra, and brought them back to the battle?”
Oppenheimer shrugged. “Well, no, not exactly. The Skiohra ship Magnanimity showed up halfway through the battle and—”
“That’s the same one Granger and Proctor dealt with back in the Second Swarm War, right?”
“Correct, sir. The one the Constitution collided with in the
war. It showed up, and Proctor started unauthorized talks with them, and convinced them to get the Dolmasi to stand down.”
Quimby leaned forward. “So … and help me out here, Admiral … she defused the situation? That sounds like a win to me. Can I go running now?”
Oppenheimer’s face seemed to be getting redder and redder. As if he found it beneath himself to be explaining military matters to a civilian. “It means, Mr. President, that the main force of the Dolmasi escaped. They initiated aggressive action against us, and right when we were on the cusp of victory, Proctor let them escape.”
Oh god. The dick-wagging. President Quimby folded his fingers patiently on his desk. “So, it sounds like we have a second rogue admiral on our hands, except this one seems to be in the business of stopping wars, not profiting off of them. Tell me, have you sacked Mullins yet?”
A pause, and when he answered, his voice was ice. “The situation has not changed, Mr. President.” Oppenheimer clearly did not like talking about the Mullins situation. It showed on his face. In his voice. “We can’t just relieve him of duty. As the virtual head of Shovik-Orion, the chaos he could cause in all our military systems is unthinkable.”
“Would he do that?”
“A month ago I would have said no. I would have said Mullins was a patriot who would never think of doing something so … brazen and callous. But now?” Oppenheimer scowled and folded his arms. “I’m already working on an exit plan—a way to reduce our dependence on the Shovik-Orion-produced military systems, so that when we do cut him loose the damage he could cause would be greatly reduced. But, unfortunately, that plan is years off. Re-writing software and reverse-engineering almost every system on our fleet ships is no small undertaking. Plus, we have to do it covertly, so the bastard doesn’t find out and lose his shit.”
Quimby waved a hand impatiently. “Ok, ok, we’ve discussed this all before. Why are you here? Explain to me why I don’t get to go on my run today.”
“Proctor. As I said, she—”
“Yes, yes, she’s a defiant bitch. But she’s a war hero, Christian. She’s earned her right to be a free-range admiral.”
“Not when she endangers the mission!” Oppenheimer was clearly getting agitated.
“And what mission is that? Winning the war against this new alien threat? The … the Golgothics, or whatever their name is? I think her track record on winning wars of alien aggression is already quite established by now. In my first intel briefing I learned that it was actually Proctor that tracked down the last Swarm ship over twenty years ago and annihilated it. Now, tell me, can I go on my run?”
Oppenheimer sighed. “Mr. President, I think it’s time I … laid it all out for you.” The admiral talked like a man at the poker table about to reveal all his cards, and unsure that his bet fit the hand. This ought to be good.
“You mean you haven’t laid it all out for me before now? You realize I’m the god-damned commander-in-chief, right?”
“It’s because it’s more of a hunch. But somewhat based on raw intel. Highly classified intel. A month simply isn’t enough time to brief you on every piece of intel we have, or on the incredibly complex details of our history with the Swarm and its attendant races. You see, I believe the new alien ship, the Golgothics, was … sorry, let me back up.” He stood and started to pace. “When the Swarm hit us the first time over a hundred years ago, it was simple. Aliens attacking us, we fight back, and, for no apparent good reason, they give up. They leave. We win. But then … thirty years ago, they came back.”
Quimby nodded. “That’s well understood, I thought. The orbital cycle of the black hole in the Penumbra system with its red-dwarf companion opened the meta-space … uh, rift, into whatever universe the Swarm came from. Every hundred and fifty years. Except the Russians at the time, headed by President Malakov, opened it prematurely with the artificial singularity tech, giving us the gift of Swarm War Two. My dad was president of the Senate at the time. Told me all about it.”
“Correct. But you’re leaving out some of the history. In Swarm War One, it was just the Swarm. It was simple. One enemy. Everything was clear cut, apart from the usual political and diplomatic bullshit with the Russians, Chinese, and the Caliphate. But in Swarm War Two, all of the sudden the Dolmasi show up. A race that claimed to be under the control of the Swarm, until they coincidentally figured out how to free themselves from Swarm influence. And then, wouldn’t you know it, the Skiohra show up a month after that with some sketchy bullshit story about how Granger’s actions at the battle of New Dublin somehow magically freed them from Swarm control as well.”
Quimby hesitated. “I … hadn’t heard that part. How did he do it? Granger, freeing them from the Swarm?”
“Doesn’t matter. Has to do with the interaction between the Ligature—the meta-space link all the Swarm-affiliated races used to talk to each other behind our backs—and the Russian singularity tech. Something about mixing quantum mechanics—what the Ligature depends on—with general relativity, which governs the singularities. But the important part that stands out to me is this. When the Skiohra showed up, they told Granger that the Swarm family was made up of not one, not two, not three, but seven races. The ‘Concordat of Seven,’ they called them.”
Quimby grit his teeth and gripped the edge of his desk. “Why isn’t this common knowledge? Why wasn’t I told?”
“I’m telling you now. You’re a new president and, frankly, there’s just a lot of shit to catch you up on. Takes time, Mr. President. And if we were to tell the general population that there were seven alien races out there, my god, can you imagine the panic? It’s bad enough with just the Dolmasi and the Skiohra lurking out there. Good thing they generally keep to themselves or things would be worse.”
Yes, definitely should have thrown the election. Quimby leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet onto his desk. “So … who are the rest of the seven?”
Oppenheimer held up his fingers as he listed them off. “One, the liquid Valarisi, who we used to think of as the Swarm but just turned out to be a race the Swarm had corrupted and controlled, and who are now completely extinct, thanks to our friend Shelby Proctor. Two, the actual Meta-Space Swarm, we call them. The beings who extended their influence though the Penumbran black hole and took over the Valarisi thousands of years ago. Three, the Skiohra. Four, the Dolmasi. And five, the Adanasi. That was the Swarm’s name for us. Humans. At least, the humans they brought under their control. Mostly the Russian high command at the time.”
“Shit,” Quimby breathed. “And are … are they still under Swarm control?”
Oppenheimer scowled, as if he were lecturing a child. Quimby made a mental note to replace the asshole at the earliest opportunity. “Of course not. The Meta-space Swarm is gone. Granger sealed the Penumbra link permanently with a bunch of President Avery’s anti-matter bombs. And the Russians did what Russians do best—there was a huge purge right after the war. Malakov basically disappeared the entire high command and replaced them. You can probably guess where the old ones went.”
“Siberia?”
“Or worse, Canada. Anyway, that leaves two races. The Findiri, and the Quiassi.”
“Who are they? Where are they?”
Oppenheimer finally stopped pacing and turned to face the president. His look was grave. “We … don’t know.”
“What do you mean, we don’t know?”
“We don’t know, but I have my suspicions. Allow me to lay them out for you.” He pulled out a holo-projector data pad and began displaying a slick, flashy presentation on the wall of his office. High production value. It almost seemed Oppenheimer had scripted the entire conversation. At least, his half of it, and he seemed to know in advance what Quimby’s responses would be, and the president felt played because of it. Dammit, don’t they know who the hell I am?
“No, stop. I’m not sitting through a whole presentation. Just give me the conclusion. Get to the point, Admiral.”
Crestfallen, Oppenheimer
clicked the projector off and cleared his throat. “Long story short, I ordered Admiral Proctor to get out to the periphery sectors to investigate a few leads related to my suspicions about the Findiri and Quiassi. She refused. And given her actions at the battle of Mao Prime, I have reason to suspect that … she is under their influence.”
Quimby laughed. “Impossible. The Admiral Proctor? The quote unquote Companion of The Hero of Earth? Under the influence of some alien race? I don’t mean to go all Grangerite on you, Admiral, but if it ever got out that I was somehow against Proctor, I’d lose half the votes on Earth, San Martin, Britannia, and half a dozen other worlds. There’s not that many actual full-on-crazy Grangerites, but she’s damn popular. Even more-so now that she’s been called back into service. Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts about bringing her back? As I recall, it was your idea.”
Oppenheimer grunted at the reminder. “I didn’t anticipate Shelby being so … stubborn. I thought I could control her more than—”
Quimby snorted. “Control? Ethan it took me four wives to figure out you can’t control them.”
The fleet admiral made a face. “Mr. President, with all due respect, Proctor and I are not married, and your many marriages are nothing like—”
“Of course you are. You’re married to your job, Christian. Everyone knows it. And by extension, with Proctor, it’s like you are now dating an ex-wife of yours, loving and hating every minute of it. Fighting, re-opening and rehashing old arguments, gossiping about each other behind their backs … please don’t tell me you two are fucking….”
Oppenheimer was turning red, and Quimby couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or anger. Good. Let him feel both—it gets the control back where it belongs: with Mr. President. The admiral started to protest, but Quimby held up a hand to stop him.
“Kidding, Christian. Take the stick out of your ass. Look—it sounds like we both have similar problems. We each have a rogue admiral on our hands. Consider this my official permission to go do something about yours, while I go handle mine.”