Liberty: Book 6 of the Legacy Fleet Series

by Nick Webb

  When he was finally gone, his father breathed a deep sigh of relief. “Well. That could have gone better. Could have gone worse too.”

  “You could be sitting in the brig,” Zivic pointed out.

  Captain Volz took his seat in the captain’s chair. “Ensign Riisa. T-jump us to Britannia, please. Lieutenant Qwerty, send a message to our friends that we’re leaving, and to please follow us.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” came both replies in unison.

  Ballsy flashed a fatalistic grin. “Time to not only commit mutiny, but to commit it while all of Britannia is watching.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Sickbay

  Sword of Justice

  Debris cloud of El Amin

  “Danny?” She bolted from the office and back into sickbay. “Danny?”

  She’d thought the Valarisi were extinct. Proctor had exterminate them, decades ago. She was ordered to commit genocide. According to her personality file at IDF Intel HQ, it was what caused the irreparable rift between Oppenheimer and Proctor.

  There should be no Valarisi organic fluid left. They were all dead.

  Of course, the Swarm was supposed to be destroyed too. And yet they came back, bigger and badder than ever.

  Her head snapped in the direction of a thud out in the hallway. Slowly, deliberately, she crept towards the door, her gun drawn and gripped by one hand, cradled by another, pointing downward but ready to be swung around the door frame.

  She held cover by the door for another few seconds, waiting for more noises, but nothing came. So she swung around the door frame and aimed down the hall.

  It was empty.

  A crash in the next room. Whatever he—it—was doing, he sure didn’t care if anyone heard him.

  She crept down the hallway and approached the door to the room she was hearing scuffles and clanks and clatters from. Good Lord, what the hell was he doing in there? It sounded like he had every tool out he could find and was assembling a bomb, or he was searching through cabinets full of metal and glass.

  She glanced up at the sign over the door, and her heart skipped a beat. Her jaw dropped a hair. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Galley.

  Tentatively, she peered around the corner.

  Danny, standing at the counter, his bare ass hanging out the back of the hospital gown, with almost the entire contents of the fridge assembled in front of him, gorging himself on everything he could shove into his mouth all at once.

  “Hungry?”

  He spun around, clutching onto a bowl of ice cream with a death grip, a look in his eye that said if you mess with my dessert I WILL END YOU.

  “Fiona?” He dropped the bowl onto the counter with a clatter and started moving towards her. “Fiona, oh my god it’s you. And …” his eyes took her in, the ruined skin on her face, the burns, the effects of the intense radiation, “… you look like shit.”

  “Hold it!” She raised the gun a hair. Not pointing at him. But not pointing at the floor either. “You’re Danny?”

  “Of course I am. Who the hell do I look like?”

  “What’s your last name?”

  He looked confused and a note of fear crept into his eyes. She tensed, counting the seconds he wasn’t answering, and wondering, if he were controlled by the Swarm, how long it would before he started either guessing or change the subject. “Proctor. Danny Proctor. Fiona, what’s going on?”

  “Where did we meet?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he started. She raised the gun slightly higher, still not pointed at him, but pointed at the wall. “TJ’s place. In the back. You know….” He looked slightly embarrassed. “Riding the horsey.”

  She wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. He was right, the first time she saw him he was riding a ridiculous mechanical toy horse meant for small children in the back of a popular restaurant on San Martin. But the Swarm could have figured that out by infiltrating their network of friends.

  “Ok. Ok. Last thing.” She lowered the gun a hair. “What does my tattoo say? The one on my ass.”

  He looked confused. “You … don’t have a tattoo on your ass. Or is there something you’re not telling me?”

  She holstered the gun. “Danny. What the hell is going on?”

  He forced a weak smile. “I asked you first.”

  “Are you Swarm or not? I saw your file. It said they injected you with Swarm. And after they did, you—you healed. Fast.” She left out the part about how he may have actually been dead for awhile, in case he didn’t know.

  “They did. I overheard it all when they thought I was asleep. Apparently they were setting a trap for my aunt, and the president paid Huntsman for his services. But Huntsman didn’t want money. The payment, apparently, was the UE government’s secret sample of Swarm matter that they’d kept. The only one. But, and here’s the weird thing, after they injected me, I woke up and after a monstrous headache, I could remember everything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The fall from orbit. Going through the atmosphere. Landing. My recovery those first few days. I couldn’t remember any of it before. Not even a hint. But after the injection? Clear as a bell. Down to the last detail. I figure that whatever the Swarm matter was doing to heal my body, it was healing my brain as well. Reconstructing my memories at the same time.”

  “So … you are Swarm.” Her hand moved back to the holstered gun.

  “No no no, not like that. I mean, yeah, they injected me, but there was a problem. I overheard them talking about it. Pretending to be asleep, again. Apparently some Skiohra lady freaked out and nuked the Ligature. That’s the word they kept using. Ligature. She destroyed the Ligature, they kept saying, wondering if it was permanent or not. Whatever the Ligature is, they think it’s what was preventing the Swarm matter from actually making contact with the Swarm. And so, voila! All the benefits of Swarm matter, with none of the pesky side effects, am I right?” He grinned. “Come here. Give me a hug.”

  “Danny, no!” She took a step back. “Don’t you remember your history? Swarm matter was extremely contagious. Worse than the cold. One touch, skin to skin, and I’d be infected too.”

  “Oh.” He took a step back too. “Oh yeah. Sorry.”

  She calmed down a few notches. Everything about him. His voice. His personality. His stupid jokes at inappropriate moments. Everything was Danny. The Swarm could never fake this. “Well, they were right about one thing. Once Polrum Krull terminated the Ligature, the Dolmasi lost their minds. It seemed the Ligature was central to the functioning of any being that had once been in contact with it, or something. And so it makes sense, I guess, that with it gone the Swarm matter wouldn’t be able to take control of you.”

  “Well that’s a relief. Because there’s another thing.” He’d picked up his bowl of ice cream and spooned another mound of it into his mouth.

  “What’s that?”

  His full mouth muffled the words. “They took samples from me.”

  She remembered the file name. Viral Assays. “Oh.” She thought some more. “Oh shit.”

  “You know what that means, right?” Another spoonful of ice cream.

  “It means that there is no longer only one surviving sample of Swarm matter left from the war.” She felt a chill all over. “There are several.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Well. That … complicates things. The war was going badly as it is.”

  He scraped the bottom of the bowl. “Yep. And one other thing I heard Huntsman talking about. One of his teams was working on a related project.”

  “More bad news?”

  “Bad news is my specialty, Ms. Liu. It appears that, not only do they have multiple viable samples now—dozens in fact—now they can control it. As long as certain things are done to the target when the first infection is made. Neural meta-space pathways or something like that.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’d say that’s bad news.”

  He set the bowl back down and licked a fe
w fingers. “It means, whoever they infect next, they’ll be directly under Huntsman’s control. In fact, he’s already done it. I don’t know a name, but it’s someone high up in IDF.” He picked up a carrot next. “Fasten your seatbelt, Fiona. This ride’s about to get wild.”

  Chapter Forty

  Inside Titan

  Near Britannia

  “I … beg your pardon?” Proctor thought she’d misheard.

  Granger’s tone was rising, as if he was tired. Very, very tired. “I need this existence to end, Shelby. I’ve been alive and conscious and thinking for far, far, far too long. You have no idea what a hell it is. How much I’ve dreamed of death over the years. Of just having a frickin break, you know?”

  The doors to Engineering were not opening for them as the others had. She supposed it was under Tim’s direct control.

  “Tim, I can’t—”

  “Promise me, Shelby. Promise me you will.”

  “I’m not going to kill you, Tim. Not after everything that’s happened. I’m not losing you again.” She was fighting back tears. The marines were staring at her. She didn’t care. She balled her fists and wanted to punch something. The doors. The marines—no, that was a bad idea. “Not happening.”

  “You’ve got to, Shelby. It’s all part of the plan. If you don’t, the Swarm will win. Earth will be destroyed, and humanity overwhelmed. Believe me. I’ve thought about this for billions of years. I’ve run the simulations. I’ve made the calculations. Everything points to one thing. To win, to finally, totally win and completely destroy the Swarm, you must kill me. I must die. There’s no way around it.”

  “But … why?”

  “Many reasons. I’ve told you one selfish reason already. I want to. I’m tired of being aware. I want to rest. But another reason is entirely practical. The Swarm is part of me. They’re in me. Inseparably. They don’t control me, and they don’t know my thoughts or my plans, but they’re always with me, and as long as I live you’ll never be free of them.”

  She shut her eyes tight. Her balled fist pressed against her lips. “Ok. Fine. I promise. But not now.”

  He paused for a few moments. “No. Not right this second. But soon.”

  The doors slid open.

  “Your way is clear. I think you’ll know what to do. And once you do it, I’ll no longer be able to speak to you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, Shelby. I told you. I’m different. I’m not Tim anymore. You’ll see.”

  She stepped inside Engineering. In some ways, very little had changed. Same consoles, same layout. In other ways, it was utterly alien. The colors, the markings on the walls, the smell.

  And there, in the center of the room, in between the central command console and the coolant controls, was a machine that had been set up. It looked remarkably like a coffin, but she supposed that was just her imagination and the recent morbid conversation playing tricks on her mind. Tubes and wires flowed from it like a web. A few indicator lights flashed on the side. The top was open, and she approached, wanting desperately to not have to look inside but knowing there was no alternative.

  She put her hands on the edge, and peered in.

  No one was there. Just electronics, wires, tubes, fluids, lights, relays, indicators, and nothing even remotely human.

  “Tim? Where are you?”

  “I told you, Shelby. I’ve … lost some parts.”

  “You’ve lost all your parts.”

  “Ninety-nine point nine nine nine seven one percent of my parts, to be precise.”

  “What’s left?”

  “I’m kidding. There’s nothing left. I have no original organic parts left. Nothing. In fact, I’m not even sure I’m human anymore, Shelby. I’m basically a really elaborate computer program. And there, just by your left hand … that small black box with the green light on it. That’s me. If there’s anything that can truly be called me, that’s it.”

  The box was small. It would fit in her palm. “It looks pretty highly integrated into everything around it.”

  “Just yank it out.”

  “Yank?”

  “Pull. Hard. And then … run.”

  She immediately started looking around engineering, wondering what would make it necessary for her to run. Would the Swarm jump out at her and try to stop her? Were there traps? Who the hell would set traps? Tim? Dammit, Shelby, focus. “Ok … why am I running?”

  “Because I’m the only thing keeping this ship running. The quantum displacement field that is holding back Titan’s magma will fail within twenty minutes without me constantly adjusting the phase. And that’s only the beginning. The point is, you’ll be wanting to get out of here fast. And I won’t be able to help you or talk to you— Aw shit.” His voice had changed abruptly.

  She looked around Engineering, but saw nothing. “What?”

  “We’ve got trouble.”

  “Of what variety?”

  “Unwelcome guests.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Bridge

  ISS Independence

  Near Britannia

  In a flash, the unnamed planet purported to be the homeworld of the Skiohra disappeared on the viewscreen, instantly replaced by a view of Britannia, with Saturn’s moon Titan behind it and to the left from their perspective. It was a lot closer to the planet than when they’d left just a few hours ago.

  “Huh,” said Zivic. “I guess Jesus Granger heard me after all. Looks like Titan might be trying to pull Britannia back into orbit.”

  Commander Mumford, the science officer, let out a short breath of amazement from his station near the back of the bridge. “I tell you, I never thought I’d see anything like this. Pure magic.”

  Ballsy raised an eyebrow. “Magic, Mr. Mumford? Never thought I’d hear a scientist say something like that.”

  “How else can you explain it? I can almost—almost—buy the likelihood of a q-jump engine with a high enough power output to be able to move a moon. But this? Look at these readings. Britannia is feeling the pull of Titan, and therefore experiencing an acceleration vector in its direction, which, when you add the acceleration vector due to the sun, is resulting in a vector that will eventually, in the next hour or so, pull it back into its usual orbit. Titan, on the other hand, you want to know what acceleration vector due to gravity it is experiencing?”

  “Surprise me,” said Ballsy.

  “Zero. Titan is literally feeling zero gravitational pull from either the sun, or Britannia. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is. Newton will not be cheated, my friends.”

  Zivic chuckled a bit. “Not after what Einstein did to the bastard.”

  Oppenheimer snapped his head in Zivic’s direction. “You think Einstein did anything to invalidate Newton? Far from it. All he did was refine the model, not toss it out. Newton is just an approximation to Einstein. And Einstein is just an approximation to Nguyen. And Nguyen’s q-space theory? Probably just an approximation to something else. Which gives me comfort that this, maybe, is not magic.”

  Ballsy stood up from the captain’s chair. “All right. Last I heard, the president was on his way to Britannia for a meeting of the UE congressional security council. Is Interstellar One here yet?”

  “Yes, sir. It hasn’t descended to the surface yet. Looks like it just made orbit,” said Whitehorse.

  “Send a request for a teleconference. And Qwerty, you get on your horn and try to raise someone in the UE congressional leadership, and patch them into the party.”

  Both officers set to work. Zivic sidled up to his father and murmured, “You really think they’re going to side with you? This is a huge gamble, you know.”

  “It is,” replied Ballsy. “But it’s also the right thing to do. We’re a nation of laws. And if our leaders think they’re above the laws, then we’re doomed.” He looked up at Zivic. “And if our own house is not in order, how in the world can we ever hope to beat the Swarm? You weren’t there thirty years ago. We were this close, this close,” h
e held up two fingers a centimeter apart, “to losing, and all because of politics. Because of sniveling politicians thinking they were above the law, and wheeling and dealing and maneuvering behind the backs of the people and the military and the officers and crew who were sacrificing everything to win. I lost everything in that war, son.”

  “You didn’t lose mom.”

  Ballsy tensed, and frowned. “I never told you. Never told you about Fishtail.”

  “Oh? Who was that?”

  “A pilot. Jessica Miller. Was married. Had a kid. Her husband died in the first Swarm attack at Moonbase, I believe.” He was choked up. “I saved her. Twice. And she saved me. I thought I’d lost her, but against all odds, I saved her. But the experience changed us. I thought … I thought—” he shook his head in embarrassment. “This sounds crazy now that I say it out loud, but I thought I was going to marry that girl. I thought I was going to be that kid’s dad. But after seeing so much death and loss and nearly dying ourselves, it just got … awkward between us, and we drifted away from each other.”

  Zivic was silent. He knew his father wasn’t trying to imply anything other than his own sense of loss. His own horrifying experiences during the Second Swarm War, but the subtext was unavoidable. “And so you married Spacechamp instead. Consolation prize.”

  Ballsy glared at him. “How could you say that? That’s not true. Not in the slightest.”

  “Isn’t it, Dad? You left her, and me, after what, three years? That’s all you could take of having second best?”

  Ballsy’s face was turned purple, and Zivic thought for just a moment that a fist might be coming his way. But Captain Volz was nothing if not cool under fire. “That’s another thing I lost because of the war, son. In the war I was a hero. I was invincible. I was heralded by parades in my honor. Fifty gun salutes when I came to speak at academy graduations. Media interviews. Celebrities fawning over me. And then, when I got home, I was a—”