Defiance: Book 5 of the Legacy Fleet Series (The Legacy Fleet Trilogy)

by Nick Webb

  He chuckled. “And knowing you, from the sound of your voice, your mind is made up about where you’re going next. Earth? To stop him just in case he goes to the center of civilization? I’d bet you anything he tries to unleash that meta-space shunt there. That’s where our force is strongest. That would provoke one hell of a battle.”

  She nodded, and suddenly it hit her.

  Polrum Krull. The Ligature. “She destroyed it. Why would she do that to themselves unless she thought….”

  “Shelby?”

  “Just a hypothesis. Less than that. A thought. Krull destroyed—at least she claims she destroyed, or perhaps she just temporarily shut it off—the Ligature. The meta-space communication system they’ve had for millennia that allows them to instantly interact with every being connected to it. But the meta-space shunts interact with it in a way that dumps astronomical amounts of energy into meta-space, and subsequently into … every being attached to it, including the Dolmasi.”

  “You think its absence presents us an advantage? From what we saw at El Amin, once the Ligature was gone, the Dolmasi went off the rails. It was like the Ligature was a calming influence for them all these years.”

  “Right. I think it was. And with the Ligature gone, Mullins’s meta-space shunt may still work, may still summon the Dolmasi and make them even crazier. We can’t just count on it not working. And given what the Skiohra did to the Ligature, we have no idea what effect that shunt will have—you’d think they wouldn’t just destroy it on a whim, and if destroying it now doesn’t prevent Mullins from pulling meta-space shenanigans then one must wonder why Krull pulled the trigger. Perhaps it was just to prevent the shunted meta-space energy from bleeding over into the Skiohra’s mental link with one another.”

  Volz grunted. “Basically leave all the other races using the Ligature high and dry. Save the Skiohra, but screw the Dolmasi, the Quiassi, the Findiri, and whatever random Russian still on that thing.”

  She nodded, but she she hadn’t gotten to the point yet. “But, and here’s the key, from my Swarm research thirty years ago, I learned that the Ligature also acted like a one-way channel. Like a meta-space diode. And like a regular electronic diode, it’s a one-way street. You have a call going in one direction, and a response going in the other. But always one thing at a time. One direction at a time. Now that it’s gone….” Her face scrunched up, trying to remember all the technical work she did with meta-space signals and the Ligature when she was Tim Granger’s XO during the Second Swarm War.

  “You think we can counter it?”

  She nodded. “I think so. With the diode gone, it’s no longer a one-way street. And anytime you have a two-way street, in terms of wave properties, you can have one of two things. Constructive interference, or destructive interference. And since meta-space signals are indeed waves….” She turned around to Whitehorse at tactical. “Lieutenant, you’ve got a new job. Adjust our meta-space transmitter, building on the specs that Oppenheimer passed to us to recreate a meta-space pulse, but this time, invert the phase to what would typically be found in a pulse produced by a meta-space shunt.”

  Whitehorse slowly nodded. “Yeah, ok. It’ll take me awhile, but I think I can do that. Can I test it?”

  “No, you may not. This has to be kept absolutely secret. Come up with your best simulations, and that will have to do.” She turned back to the comm. “In the meantime, I’ve got an appointment to keep.”

  “To Earth? Head off Mullins, in case he’s going there?” said Volz through the comm.

  “No. I’m going to Britannia.”

  He sounded genuinely surprised. “Britannia?”

  “I’ve got a … social call to make. Former president Avery wanted to talk to me. I ignored her, and then … El Amin happened. Mullins launched that torpedo. And who started the anti-matter weapons program in the first place? Avery. Could it be that, after all these years, there are still a few that she squirreled away, and Mullins knew just where to find them? Whatever it is she’s got to tell me, I figure it’s time I heard her out.”

  “Got it. What have you got to lose?” Volz replied.

  “That’s exactly what I’m hoping to find out.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Orbit of Britannia

  Shuttle

  Proctor wondered what someone might see—if anyone was watching—when the shuttle left the bay. Would it appear to emerge from the black emptiness of space? Would they catch a glimpse of the shuttle bay’s interior, like she had when she arrived onboard? Britannia’s orbital space was teeming with ships—IDF cruisers and frigates, industrial transports, merchant freighters, leisure yachts and corvettes for the ultrarich, and smaller colonial transports for everyone else. Out the window she saw one such colonial transport, probably packed to the brim with settlers from Britannia’s overcrowded cities bound for one of the newly established settlements on Rivadavia. Inflated real estate prices tended to drive off the sane and keep the speculators, the heirs to large fortunes, and those willing to cram themselves into apartments scarcely fifty square meters. She watched a particularly bulging colonial transport escape from the upper atmosphere full of the sane, the hopeful, and the young, and wished them well.

  Would they make it? Would they be waylaid by pirates or slavers, or Dolmasi, or another Golgothic ship? So many dangers in the universe. Maybe Oppenheimer was right. Maybe humanity needed to focus on finding the Quiassi and Findiri before they found humanity. Maybe nothing could be left to chance. The two unknown alien races could be benevolent, but she supposed that chance was one-in-a-million, given what she knew about intelligent races—humanity being exhibit A of just how shitty intelligent beings could be to each other.

  “Hold on, ma’am,” said Lieutenant Zivic, who she’d asked to pilot the shuttle. She tightened her restraints, and nodded at the small squad of marines accompanying her. They were traveling light—just her, Zivic, and five discreetly armed marines. They were only going to a retirement community at the outskirts of Whitehaven on the seashore, after all, no need to draw undue attention. And it was Britannia, the center of human civilization after Earth, so barging in with a platoon of armed-to-the-teeth marines would probably not be well-received in the sea-side resort where Barbara Avery had retired.

  A short time later, after a few minutes of choppy atmospheric reentry and Zivic having a small argument with port control, who insisted on knowing the exact identity of everyone on board—everyone save Proctor—they were there.

  The secret service met them in the driveway of the compound, along with a middle-aged gentleman Proctor recognized as Avery’s long-time body-man-turned secretary. He’d started as the late Vice President Isaacson’s body man, but after his untimely death at the hands of Swarm-corrupted Ambassador Volodin, Avery decided the kid knew too much, and rather than ship him off to one of the remote new colonies at the edge of explored space, she brought him on-board, and then decided she actually liked him. What was his name? Connelly? Connor? Yes, Connor.

  “Ms. Avery is expecting you, ma’am. Welcome.” He held his hand out in greeting and muttered something into his earpiece.

  Proctor shook the outstretched hand. “Are we alone?”

  “No. Huntsman is here.” His face betrayed what he really thought about the idea of a wacko upstart prophet having the ear of his boss, one of the most significant and powerful presidents UE had ever seen, and one who had a remarkable ability to stay relevant this long past her tenure. Without another word, he waved her along, not to the front door of the sprawling residence, but around a side path to the rear, where, in the middle of a garden veranda, surrounded by fountains and hanging grape vines, sat a shriveled former President Barbara Avery in a wheelchair, like an old, wizened elf.

  The old woman cackled and smiled, the deep lines and wrinkles bunching up around her face. “Shelby, how the fuck are you?” Her arms quivered as she pressed herself to a stooped standing position, and waved Proctor in for a surprisingly solid hug. “Fucking doc sa
ys I have to stand up and walk around at least twice a day. This counts.” She collapsed back into the wheelchair with a grunt.

  “As foul-mouthed as ever, I see,” said Proctor, sitting across from her, a smile spreading over her face. She’d only met the former president a handful of times during the Second Swarm War, and just twice afterwards, but she was still as feisty and vulgar as ever.

  “You know what they say about shriveled old cunts like us, Shelby.” She trailed off and picked up her cup, taking a sip.

  “What’s that, Barb?”

  Avery shook her head. “Fuck if I know. Fuckers talk about us behind our backs. They can fuck off—I’m rich and have my own beach resort, and they’re eating shit.”

  Proctor couldn’t help but smile at the over-the-top vulgarity. She took a deep breath, relishing the scent of the ocean breeze coming off the water just a hundred meters down the rocky slope from the veranda. She remembered her own beach property she’d bought just the week before Admiral Oppenheimer showed up in her classroom at Oxford Novum University. A month ago. What the hell had they done about her class? Had the students kept showing up? Had the administration replaced her? Someday, preferably soon, she could go back both to her new house and her classroom, assuming she still had a classroom to go back to.

  “Barb, why am I here?”

  Avery cackled. “What, don’t want to see me? We’re old friends, Shelby.”

  “Barb, we hardly know each other.” She turned to Conner, who’d returned with a steaming hot Irish coffee—how he’d known what she wanted was beyond her. Damn, the man was good—she saw why Avery kept him.

  The former president waved a dismissive shriveled hand. “Nonsense. When you’re ninety-nine fucking years old, you hold on to any friend you’ve got. All my friends, all my family, are dead, Shelby. All I’ve got left are the old shrews down the street I play backgammon with, you, Connor—though between you and me I think he works for IDF Intel,” she paused to eye the man who stood not ten feet away, who shrugged at her in return with a slight smirk on his face, “and maybe Quimby. But now that he’s president he don’t come around so much, the fucker.”

  Shelby nearly spit her drink out. “You’re buddies with President Quimby?”

  “Buddies? No.” Avery tipped back her drink, which, from the smell wafting over, Proctor could tell was a dark bourbon, possibly infused with chocolate. “But I was mortal enemies with his pops when I was president and he was president of the senate, and so I did what the old adage says. Keep your friends close,” she took the last swallow of her drink, “and your enemy’s children supplied with loud toys. Naturally, I gave my enemy’s child the loudest, most obnoxious toy of all. The presidency.”

  Proctor snorted. That was one of her favorite things to do a few decades ago—giving her brother’s kids annoyingly loud toys as payback for all the ways he’d tortured her as a little kid when she was nearly twenty and still grieving Carla.

  The thought brought back memories of Danny. And the awful, mysterious circumstances of his death. “I used to do that with my brother’s kid.”

  Avery nodded. “That’s why I brought it up. That’s why you’re here, Shelby. That’s why I’ve got that cunt Huntsman here. He’s got some information for you. Or at least, he thinks he does. I want to make sure he thinks he’s giving it to you.”

  “What information? What could a fanatic so-called prophet have to tell me? I’m trying to fight a war here, Barb.”

  “He knows what happened to your Danny.”

  Danny? She remembered the grainy video Admiral Tigre had produced for her, with the unidentified ship docked with the Magdalena Issachar.

  Avery nodded at Connor, who ducked out of the veranda.

  “Danny died. Falling through Sangre de Cristo’s atmosphere in nothing but a vacuum suit.”

  “So he did. And I’m sorry.” The former president finished her drink and set the cup aside. “But do you know who tossed him out there? I’m guessing you don’t. Huntsman is here to tell you.”

  She thought about Avery’s words, and how she had phrased things. “And what do you mean, make sure he thinks he’s giving it to me?”

  Avery laughed. “How long have you known me?”

  “They always said you were ten steps ahead of everyone else.”

  “Ten? Fuck. Make that ten fucking thousand.” She pulled a flask from her hip pocket and tipped it into her empty cup. “Pay attention. You surely know I’m being watched, right? They’d never let me sit here and hold court with admirals and upstart prophets without listening to every word. Just keep that in mind dearie, and you just might learn a thing or two.”

  What the hell was that supposed to mean? She was about to press further, but a sound behind them cut her off.

  Patriarch Huntsman appeared behind the wheelchair, holding a bottle of beer and a data pad. “Admiral Proctor! What a surprise,” he said. “The prophecies are true, after all, and here you are. The Companion to the Hero of Earth,” he pointed to Proctor, “the Facilitator of the Ascension,” he indicated Avery, “and the Prophet of the Next Generation,” he said, thumbing towards himself. “Just as the prophecy foretold, gathering just weeks after the ascension itself.”

  Proctor resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “And whose prophecy was that, Mr. Huntsman?”

  A small smile. Almost humble. “Mine, of course.”

  Chapter Sixty

  High Orbit over Earth

  The steel shipping container had cooled somewhat. It no longer glowed red-hot, but it was still scalding. Hot enough for the heat to penetrate to the core of the house-sized chunk of gallium, liquifying the entire fifty tons of metal.

  The gallium didn’t slosh, didn’t churn, as one might think it would moving so fast around the Earth. It was, of course, in free-fall, and orbiting at an altitude where normal freighters and cruise-liners never ascended. But soon, something changed. A vibration rippled through the gallium. Something was disturbing it.

  A nozzle extended from the rear of the container, just above the thrusters. With a clank, the pump’s engine engaged, the aerosol device sucked gallium from the compartment, injected helium, and the nozzle dispersed the pressurized mixture out behind the make-shift craft. It dissipated like a faint, silver cloud. A glittering trail left behind by the accelerating cargo container.

  Now the sun rose above the horizon, now it fell.

  When it rose, the glittering microscopic particles of gallium melted, forming an ever-expanding gallium haze left in the wake of the container.

  When the sun fell behind Earth’s limb, the cloud froze as the gallium solidified.

  And still the steel container accelerated, spreading the trail of silvery metallic cloud in an undetectable band around the Earth.

  Undetectable to anyone not looking for it.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Britannia

  Whitehaven Oceanside Estates

  Proctor eyed the self-proclaimed prophet warily. “And? This better be good. I don’t have time for your delusional Grangerite bullshit.”

  Huntsman chuckled softly and sat down on the couch across from her, to Avery’s right. “It’s good. If you care about your nephew, it’s good.”

  “What the blazes do you mean, if I care about my nephew? My nephew is dead. And if I find out you have anything to do with it, Huntsman, you’ll find yourself flying out of one of my airlocks before any UE criminal court can get to you.”

  He scowled. “Of course I don’t have anything to do with it. It wasn’t even GPC.”

  “Are you sure?” said Proctor. “And if you are sure, how would you know that? Are you in bed with Curiel?”

  Avery cackled. “She means figuratively, dear. No need to tell us about your raucously gay sex life. I know all about your values.”

  Huntsman scowled again. “I might not be a Mormon bishop anymore, Madam President, but I do have my standards.”

  Avery waved another dismissive hand. “You missed the point. I was hoping for a
nice racy story to get me all bothered. Whatever. Go on, then.”

  Huntsman glared at her, but held up the data pad. “My sources tell me that it wasn’t GPC at all, in spite of what certain parties would want you to believe. It started with the GPC, but it ended with none other than … well, see for yourself.” He handed the data pad over to Proctor.

  It was the same video feed Tigre had showed her. The grainy image of the Magdalena Issachar, and the unidentified ship docked with it.

  “That’s it?”

  Huntsman’s face fell. “What do you mean, that’s it?”

  “That’s it, as in, I’ve seen this. You think I don’t have access to all the orbital video feeds from the military satellites over Sangre de Cristo?”

  “But they were tampered with. This is the original video feed.”

  Proctor smiled. “Interesting. How did you know they were tampered with?”

  Huntsman actually went red. “Because one of my tech guys analyzed the video and it showed all the hallmarks of tampering. Said something about sample rates and interlacing pixels and … stuff.”

  Why in the hell had Avery summoned her here to get information she already had? How had she phrased it? He’s got some information for you. Or at least, he thinks he does. I want to make sure he thinks he’s giving it to you. And then she hinted that someone was listening in on them. Which meant, what? That Avery was going to try and tell her something … in code? She studied the older woman’s facial expression and demeanor.