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

by Nick Webb

  Nothing. Just stone. Staring at Proctor intently.

  Proctor stood up. “Barb, I’m sorry, I’ve got a war to fight. Civilizations to save. I’m sure you’re familiar with the routine. If you’ll excuse me—”

  “Sit down, Shelby.” Avery’s ragged voice took a sterner note. “I turn one hundred next week. Doc says I’ve got ten more years, tops, assuming I don’t take the new stem cell-based hormone shit. Which I won’t. Shit’s unnatural.” She reached out a hand and waved two fingers, which summoned Connor from wherever he was waiting. “This is the real reason why you’re here, Shelby.” Connor handed Avery a data pad, which she held out to Proctor.

  “What?” said Proctor.

  “What?” said Huntsman.

  “What, you didn’t think I’d summon the admiral here just because you thought you had some information, that she ended up already having anyway? Of course she’d already have that video, dipshit.”

  “But then—” Huntsman had gone even more red, understanding that he’d been played. He looked around himself, probably half expecting to see military MPs move in.

  Avery cackled. “Calm down, jackass. It wasn’t you that asked me to come here. It was me that summoned you here. You might think you’re ten steps ahead of everyone, but in reality, I’m fucking ten miles ahead of you all. Now listen. I’ve brought you here for one simple reason. You have the ear of Curiel, and the information I’m about to give the admiral could have a significant bearing on the events of the days ahead. I want you to go to Curiel, and give him a message. But first, take a look, Shelby.”

  Proctor accepted the data pad from Connor, and brought the information up on the screen.

  It couldn’t be.

  “How did you….”

  She scrolled through. It seemed remarkably complete. And impossible.

  “When I was still president, I initiated several top secret programs. Weapons and intel programs of course—the anti-matter program being the most … visible example,” she paused, and seemed to wink at her. “But one of the lesser known programs was of a more analytical and academic bent. Didn’t have the interest of the top generals, so I was able to sneak it through under some lesser-noticed programs. And when I left office, I took the results with me because I deemed it necessary. And now I’ve giving it to you.”

  “You managed to infiltrate the Dolmasi merchant fleet, and interpret their language?”

  “Not all of it, just a modest vocabulary and list of rudimentary grammar rules, but yes.”

  Qwerty was going to have a field day with this. “How did you….”

  “Not important. Suffice it to say I had friends in high places back then. And coming off saving not just one civilization but three, I had a lot of fucking favors to call in. I trust your multi-lingual show off of a lieutenant can use this?”

  Interesting. She apparently knew about Qwerty. Proctor nodded silently, still poring over the data.

  Avery swiveled in her wheelchair to stare Huntsman down. “Now, dear, go back to your friend Curiel, and tell him he’s got bigger fish to fry than arguing with Quimby or Mullins or Proctor or Tigre or whatever political enemy-du-jour he’s fighting against. Tell him no one cares about his show-boating. It’s time to face the real threat.”

  “And that is, Madam President?” He looked skeptical.

  “The real enemy is coming. They may already be here.” Avery held up a finger and waved it towards Connor, indicating she was ready to go. “If we don’t all start fighting it together rather than fighting amongst ourselves, I fear the worst.”

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Orbit over Britannia

  Shuttle

  Proctor was so lost in her thoughts during the shuttle ride back up to orbit that she didn’t even notice Babu calling her until he waved a hand in front of her face.

  “Ma’am? Ma’am? We’re nearly there.”

  “What? Oh, yes, thank you, Ensign.” A quick glance out the viewport told her that they’d cleared the atmosphere and were angling towards an apparently-empty direction of space above Britannia, which she knew was occupied by the stealthed Defiance. Liu had finally managed to get the damned thing online again—the young woman was resourceful, she’d give her that. When she put her mind to something, she worked doggedly, single-mindedly, and achieved it.

  She been lost in thought about former President Avery. While the Dolmasi language research would certainly be very helpful to Lieutenant Qwerty, it just didn’t make sense why Avery didn’t just transmit the blasted file to her instead of going through some round-about scheme to get Patriarch Huntsman passing her a note through Secretary General Curiel to meet him at Avery’s retirement compound, only to show her a video she’d already seen. It didn’t add up.

  “Hold on,” she said, looking up at Ensign Babu. “Send word to the Independence. I need to talk to Ballsy. One on one. In my ready room on Defiance.”

  Babu passed the message forward to the pilot, and Proctor slid back deep into her own thoughts. Before she knew it, she was sitting in her ready room, hands cupped around a hot cup of coffee courtesy Ensign Babu, and facing Captain Volz. His face looked grim.

  “I’ve got the final numbers from the El Amin engagement with the Dolmasi. You ready for them?”

  “No.”

  He looked taken aback, but she waved him on.

  “Ten ships lost, five with heavy damage. Eleven thousand five hundred and two dead, over a thousand still in critical condition. Overall, nearly ten thousand wounded.”

  She set her cup down and held her head in her hands. “Dear God.” Even one was too many. Eleven thousand? “We can’t afford this war. Either in lives, or ships. However you want to measure it. Mullins is going to pay.”

  “There’s more,” said Volz. “You took a pounding here on the Defiance. There’s a chance that another ship, if they know just how to look, might see you even when you’re stealthed.”

  “And you can bet that Mullins knows just how to look. If we’re ever in the same orbit as him again, we’ll need to have our finger on the q-jump button.” She picked up her cup again and drained it. “Ballsy, how do you fight a man who’s determined to plunge our civilization into an apocalyptic war? Just think what Mullins could do if he, for example, went to Earth and unleashed his meta-space pulse and baited a Dolmasi fleet there?”

  “You think he’d do that?”

  “Well he’s certainly shown he’s capable of it. He did it at El Amin. I’m certain he and Shovik-Orion are responsible for the development of the meta-space shunt. That pulse at El Amin was generated with a small anti-matter bomb. The smallest version that came from Avery’s secret weapons program. And even with the smallest version, Mullins was able to generate a meta-space pulse larger than any we’ve seen so far, and it wreaked such havoc with the Ligature—or at least with the mental state of the Skiohra that Polrum Krull decided it was better to destroy it rather than leave theselves vulnerable. Just imagine what Mullins could do with one of the full-size versions of that bomb.”

  “You think there are any more still around?”

  She chuckled darkly. “Funny you should ask. Avery even mentioned them a few times during our conversation.” She paused. “In fact, it almost seemed like she was emphasizing them. Hinting at something. The tone in her voice. The way she said it….”

  Volz leaned in. “What did she say?”

  “It was in the context of the Dolmasi language data she gave me. She mentioned she had a handful of secret programs running, and that the anti-matter bomb development program was just one of them, the language program being another. And … well, it’s silly, but … she winked at me.”

  “Excuse me? She winked at you?”

  “Yes.”

  Volz seemed to be waiting for something more. “And?”

  “Ballsy, you didn’t know Avery like I did. I only met her a handful of times, but she never, ever, winked. She was always direct. Always in your face. A vulgar trash-talking no-bullshit straight-shooter.
Wink? Barbara Avery would have sooner curtsied and offered to make me tea and crumpets.”

  “So? What does it mean? Was she trying to tell you something? Something between the lines?”

  Proctor thought for several moments, trying to piece it together. “It’s been bothering me: it’s odd that she summoned me there just to give me the Dolmasi language information. It’s something she could just as readily transmitted to us.”

  “And risk all of UE knowing that she’s still an active player and helping you?”

  “Oh, they already know that. Having me as a guest did nothing to hide that. Better to transmit a coded message if secrecy and discretion were her goals … oh.”

  “Oh, what?”

  “Code. I remember thinking it at the time, but dismissed it. Maybe she brought me there to give me the data in person because what she wanted to tell me was coded?”

  “Coded how?”

  “Maybe in the data itself. The language data. I mean, let’s face it, the language data is valuable, but in retrospect, it wasn’t that valuable. Nothing Qwerty couldn’t have figured out on his own in a couple more sessions with the Dolmasi.” She tapped the comm button on her desk. “Mr. Qwerty, please come to my ready room. Bring the datapad I gave you.”

  Moments later, Qwerty sauntered through the door. “Summoned to a top secret meeting? Wow. I’m gettin’ popular.”

  “Like I told you before, Mr. Qwerty, you are the most valuable officer in IDF at the moment. Please have a seat.” When he’d settled, she reached out for the datapad, which he handed over. “Tell me about the language data. Has it been helpful?”

  He shrugged. “Well, yes and no. Yes, there are a bunch of words there I didn’t know yet. And a few grammar rules I’d gone back and forth on, but honestly, those particular rules weren’t that important. I would have gotten the meaning across either way. There were a few morphological issues it helped me out with, but again, nothing groundbreaking.”

  She flipped through the various data files. “So, nothing you couldn’t have figured out yourself given a few more days?”

  He smirked. “Honestly? A few hours.”

  “Notice anything … strange? About the data? Or the datapad?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “You know. Odd. Files that shouldn’t be there. Encoding algorithms that seem out of place or … just things that might pique your curiosity as to why they’re there?”

  “Honestly, ma’am, I wasn’t looking for anything like that.”

  She tossed the datapad back to him. “Well look now.”

  He fiddled with it, swiping back and forth between files and indices and folders. He shook his head every now and then. Finally, he looked up. “Sorry ma’am. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Proctor stroked her chin. “Damn.”

  Volz pulled the datapad toward him and examined it. “Well, back up. Maybe it was in something she said. Not in the datapad, but in her words. Was there anything else odd about that conversation?”

  Proctor shook her head. “Now that I think about it Ballsy, the whole thing was just weird. Surreal. Why the hell have me there with Huntsman, when she knows he’s a complete moronic snake-oil salesman? He’s a total fraud. Inventing an entire religion and making off with who knows how much cash and power and influence. Plus, he’s in bed with Curiel. Surely Avery knows that. Why have both of us there? And then acting like we were old friends, when in fact we’d only met a few times. And then why give me data that, in the end, isn’t all that helpful?”

  “Would she have known it wouldn’t be helpful?”

  “Avery rarely did things on a whim. No, this meeting had a purpose, and the more I think about it, the more I realize we have no idea what that purpose was.”

  The three fell silent. Qwerty looked almost uncomfortable to be there, but had nothing else to add. Proctor looked up at Volz, momentarily forgetting her polyglot lieutenant was there. “Ballsy, I’ve been having dreams. Well, a dream. The same dream. Over and over.”

  “Oh?” Volz leaned in, very interested. “Are you a believer in dreams? Subconscious trying to tell you something?”

  She made a face. “No. I most certainly do not believe anything of the sort. But….” She hesitated. It sounded so foolish. “But, well, it’s not exactly a dream. It’s a moment from my childhood that I’m reliving over and over again. When my sister died. She told me, talking about a bird we used to hunt in a simulator, follow the elf bird to Mars. I … just couldn’t help thinking about it as we were talking about the Mars Project. Avery’s anti-matter bomb program.”

  Qwerty nodded. “Well, that makes perfect sense.”

  They both turned to him. “What?” she asked, incredulously.

  “Elf bird,” he said. “Avery.” He glanced from one to the other, and back again. “Get it?”

  Proctor slowly nodded. “What, you think Avery, in my subconscious mind, gets turned into something like … aviary, and from there to bird? And that I should follow the bird?” She shook her head. “Stupid. Just plain stupid. We’re wasting our time.”

  Qwerty shook his head. “No, ma’am, that’s not it at all. The surname Avery comes from the old English name Alfred. Alf, or rather, aelf. Means elf. And red, is like … counsel, or advice. So Avery literally means elf’s counsel.”

  A strange feeling washed over her. Such an … oddly specific meaning—how could the death ramblings of a little girl sixty years ago have any bearing on what was going on?

  Qwerty continued. “So maybe in your dream your subconscious is telling you to take Avery’s advice.”

  “Yes, but what is her advice? She’s told us nothing we don’t know.”

  Qwerty perked up. “What about in the words themselves?”

  Proctor shook her head again. “No, nothing she said is ringing a bell or sticking out to me—”

  “No ma’am, I mean in the vocabulary words.” He reached for the datapad, which Volz relinquished. “Maybe something about their order, or just which ones she included and which she excluded….” He paged through the lists of words and their supposed meanings, muttering occasionally to himself.

  Proctor was skeptical. “I don’t know. It sounds too simple. Too obvious. Why would she risk so much on just a simple—”

  “Bingo,” Qwerty announced.

  Both Proctor and Volz stared at him.

  “It was in the vocab words. The second word of each definition lays it out for us. It’s like an acrostic—a poem where the first letter of each word spells something out. This one is only slightly more sophisticated, easy to miss, but easy to catch if you know you’re looking for … something.”

  Proctor waved him along. “And? What does it say?”

  He picked the datapad back up and cleared his throat in an overly theatrical way. “Ahem. Dear Admiral. Hard times coming. I saved several bombs for occasions like this. Use them wisely.”

  “Oh my God. She did stockpile some. I mean, Mullins had to get his from somewhere, right? There’s got to be others she’s hidden away somehow. Qwerty? Any indication of where?”

  Qwerty swiped back and forth between different files, muttering and shaking his head. Finally, “Aha.”

  “And?”

  He looked up. “Had to switch to the vocab files titled numbering system. Same deal, an acrostic method using the second term, this time with letters and numbers. C-A-L-A-I-S, I-C-C-1-7-0-1-5-2-D.”

  Proctor nodded, understanding immediately. “Calais. Wellington Shipyards in the Britannia system. Ballsy, check the registry for a ship with registry number ICC 170152D.”

  Volz accessed the computer terminal at the desk, and moments later came up with a nod. “A missile frigate. Mothballed. Cold and dark, in deep storage.”

  “That’s our bird. Probably filled to the brim with anti-matter bombs.” She paused for a moment. “What’s … what’s the ship’s name?”

  Volz almost looked like he went white. “The … ISS Elf Owl.” He set the datapad down. “Well. Holy shit.”<
br />
  Qwerty eyed her. “Well if that don’t fry the grits I don’t know what does.”

  Follow the elf bird to Mars, she’d said. To Mars. The Mars project. The anti-matter bombs. Somehow, they were necessary. She’d need them in the days ahead.

  Proctor paused. She knew the linguistic connections here had to be coincidental. It was absolutely impossible that a dying Carla had somehow foreseen this moment. Less than even a one-in-a-million chance. Still, she couldn’t ignore Avery’s message, unnerving, inexplicable coincidences be damned.

  “Fine. Set course for Calais. And then we’re on to Earth, just in case that’s where Mullins decides to lure the Dolmasi next. And send in Ensign Babu. I’ve finally got a job for him.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Orbit over San Martin

  ISS Defiance

  Pilot’s Ready Room

  “And then, just like that, in less than five seconds, I told her, ‘Bingo.’”

  Zivic sipped his terrible coffee, rolled his eyes, and glanced at Whitehorse, who was looking similarly annoyed. The brilliant Lieutenant Qwerty, while personable, had turned out to be quite the self-promoter. “You actually interrupted the admiral with bingo?”

  “You can bet your cheesy gr—”

  “Please stop saying cheesy grits in regular conversation. Normal people don’t do that.” Whitehorse stood up from the table in the pilots’ ready room and began rustling around in one of the cupboards for something to eat. “It makes you sound like….” She glanced over at Zivic for help.

  “An idiot?” he offered.

  “Now wait just a minute,” Qwerty began, apparently only just beginning to sense that he’d lost his audience. “I was only saying that I thought it was rather brilliant of me, if I say so myself—and I do—to come up with the solution to the code within five seconds of the admr’l asking me to look into it. That’s all. All humility here. Like my grans always said, he who toots his own horn should—”

  He was interrupted by the doors opening and in walked Ace. She stopped in mid-step when she looked up into the room. “Oh. Hi!” She may have blushed—Zivic couldn’t quite tell since she’d suffered light burns on parts of her body, including her cheeks. Wait … was she … into him? After all? What about that girlfriend that Jerusha had mentioned? That meant that … just maybe … if he said just the right thing … maybe a smooth move later when they were talking fighter jock shop….