by Nick Webb
Whitehorse continued on. “Ok, then lets go backward in time from there. Have there been any other moments where you blacked out? Periods of time you don’t remember?”
He thought for a very long time. Zivic almost thought he had started ignoring them. “Yes. One time. I passed it off as just me being deep in thought, but….”
“Yes?” Whitehorse put her hands up on the plastic. “What happened? Where were you?”
“It was … earlier today, actually. Oppenheimer had come aboard, and after we’d exchanged our … pleasantries … on the fighter deck, he left and went to his temporary quarters to take a piss or something. I stayed behind for a minute to talk to the deck chief about repairs. I remember examining the deck plating that Oppenheimer’s shuttle had landed on to make sure the inductive rechargers were repaired, and … I must have been deep in thought about whatever the chief told me, because the next thing I know, I was walking down the hallway to the bridge. I assumed I’d absentmindedly walked the whole way, lost in thought. But … maybe I didn’t.”
Whitehorse nodded. “That makes sense. Oppenheimer brought the singularity torpedo aboard in the shuttle. He was probably planning on secretly ordering a deck hand to load it into a launch tube for him, after hours or something. But it looks like you beat him to it. So that, when he left, he just assumed it was still on the shuttle, when in fact it was primed for launch from the Independence.”
Zivic frowned, and scratched his head. “Yeah, but dad couldn’t have loaded that thing by himself. Someone had to have helped him.”
“Which means,” Whitehorse said, walking over to the doctor’s console in the corner, “whoever helped him is still here. And they would remember helping him.”
“Unless they’re infected too.”
“True. But let’s not worry about that until we have to.” Whitehorse opened the comm to engineering, and after some back and forth got someone on the line who said he’d seen Ballsy on the flight deck.
“Yeah, he asked me to unload something from the admiral’s shuttle,” said the yeoman. “I got him a grav-lift and helped move it. Took it down the hall to the forward launch tubes. He said he’d take it from there, so I left.”
“Thank you, yeoman, that will be all.”
“Wait,” said Zivic. “Did he … touch you?”
“Touch me?”
“Like physically touch you. With his hand. Like either a handshake or him slapping you on the back, or anything like that.”
The yeoman pondered a bit before answering. “Yeah … I can’t think of anything. Why? Is that important?”
“Very important, yeoman,” said Whitehorse. “If you remember anything, let us know. And also, if you find yourself daydreaming at any point, only to find yourself someplace else as if you’d wandered there without even thinking, let us know asap. Understood?”
“Understood, sir.”
“Whitehorse out.” She tapped the comm, and sat back in the chair. “So. We have the murder weapon. We have the delivery mechanism. We have the series of events that led up to the murder. But we don’t have a suspect. Or a motive.”
“Yes, you do,” said a voice from the open doors of sickbay.
Zivic stood at attention and Whitehorse jumped to her feet. “Admiral?” they both said in unison.
Admiral Proctor stepped into sickbay, holding something with one hand, clutching it against her chest. “The murderer is Patriarch Huntsman. And the motive is horse shit, as far as I’m concerned.” She turned to the enclosure. “Ballsy? I need to know if you’ve seen Huntsman in the past, oh, two weeks. Ever since the battle over Earth where the Granger moons first started to appear.”
“No. I haven’t. But I meet any number of people when we dock. Admirals, other captains, their aides, resupply chiefs, food truck workers, I mean, I’m not exactly in a hermetically sealed box. Well, I am now, but you know what I mean.” He jutted his chin out at her chest. “Speaking of boxes. What’s that?”
Proctor stiffened a bit, as if she were taken aback at the question. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But for now, while there’s still the possibility you’re under Huntsman’s direct control, I’m going to have to leave you in there, and not tell you a single thing about what I’m doing. Understood?”
Ballsy took a deep breath. Zivic knew he was still coming to grips with Britannia and his role in it, and would likely be crying a lot more in the coming days. If he didn’t die first. “Understood.”
Proctor turned to leave, with Zivic and Whitehorse in tow, when Ballsy called after her. “Shelby, I need to ask you what I asked them. They turned me down. But I know you.”
She looked back at him. “What is it, Ballsy?”
“Kill me. If, in the coming hours or days its not looking like you can cure me and there’s even the smallest chance I could strike again, kill me. Please.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. “Of course I’ll kill you, Ballsy. What do you think I am, an idiot?”
Ballsy glanced towards Zivic. “See, son? War messes us up good.”
Proctor flashed a dark smile. “Yes it does. But when war comes, if you’re not messed up by the time the fighting starts, you lose. I refuse to lose.” She held the box up. “And with this, I won’t.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Sickbay
ISS Independence
Gas giant Calais
Britannia System
She stepped away from the door to sickbay and it slid shut. “Get Mumford. Tell him to meet me in the science lab. And any technician or officer that Mumford thinks would be helpful in figuring out what this is and how to open it.” She held the little black box up again. Looking at it, it was almost like the events of the previous few hours, and the last few weeks, were a dream. She had dreamed. She’d dreamed of her little sister. Her one in a million brain cancer. Her miraculous recovery. Her horrific death at the hands of an reckless driver the same day she was given a clean bill of health.
And how just two weeks ago Granger’s voice spoke strange words from that event, the dying words of her sister, words that he could have never known. And now? She was holding a black box.
“Does that have to do with Granger?” said Zivic.
“It does.” She lowered her voice so any passersby wouldn’t hear something they shouldn’t. “It sounds crazy, but it might be Granger himself. What’s left of him, anyway.”
Zivic whistled low. Whitehorse held her hand out. “May I?”
Proctor handed it over and Whitehorse examined it, studying its surface, its material, hefted its weight. “There are metal pads here. Maybe for electronic access?”
“That’s what I’m hoping. Let’s go.”
Whitehorse summoned Mumford and one of his deputies, a woman named Achebe. They all arrived at roughly the same time, except for Ensign Achebe whose usual post was in the lab itself. “Ma’am? Good to see you again,” said Mumford, leading her into the lab.
“You too, Commander. Ensign,” she added, nodding to Achebe.
“What have we got, admiral?” said Mumford, looking at the black box.
“I found it in Titan,” she began, handing the box to him. “When Granger’s ship burrowed into it, he somehow managed to create a giant empty void inside the mantle, and at the center was the remains of his ship, which for the most part was the old ISS Victory, heavily modified. He spoke to me there. And that is what he told me to take with me.”
“He said he’s in there?” asked Mumford, incredulously. He walked over to a table full of instruments.
She hesitated. “He didn’t use those words. I assumed that what he was telling me, but he did say he had no original organic parts left, were his exact words. In fact, he said he was the box. I don’t know if he was just saying that to imply his essence was in the box. I can’t be sure. That’s why we’re here. We need to access him. Contact him.”
Mumford inserted the box into the chamber of one of the instruments. “Well let’s see what’s in there
first.”
Moments later the monitor next to the instrument turned on and displayed a ghost of an image. A white box, false color image, she assumed. The instrument was a full spectrum imager, which was currently scanning the box with every wavelength from energetic x-ray, terahertz rays, UV, visible, infrared, microwave, even short wave radio just in case there were any receivers inside of it.
“Well, it either is completely absorbing every single wavelength, or it’s completely solid. Take your pick.”
She tapped a few resolution buttons on the side of the machine. “Commander, there was technology down there inside Titan that I’d never even dream of. I think we can be safe to assume door number one. The spectrum analyzer can’t even nail down an alloy, and the mass spec can’t even tell what atoms this thing is made out of. I think it’s safe to assume it can also absorb all wavelengths.”
He took the box out of the scanner and carried it over to the electronics bench. Achebe was preparing a few electronic leads that she would be able to affix to the metal pads almost hidden on the black surface. “Let’s see if we can’t integrate into its electronics package.”
Proctor, Zivic, and Whitehorse waited, silently, for nearly ten minutes as the other two worked on it, speaking in low voices.
“This could take awhile, Admiral.”
“We’ve got time. Not too much time, but this is definitely our number one priority right now. Keep at it.”
An hour later, Mumford threw up his hands I front of his chest. “I’m stumped, ma’am. We can’t even figure out what protocol it’s using. We can’t even send in a passive signal to explore the physical electronic structure to give us a sense of what we’re working with. This thing is sealed tight, and I can’t think of any other way to get inside that we haven’t already tried.”
She had been sitting. Zivic and Whitehorse had already left to attend to other duties. Achebe was still tinkering with one of the instruments that was pointed at the box, but Mumford came and sat next to Proctor, shaking his head. “I don’t get. I’ve never seen anything like it. I can literally tell you nothing about that box except for the fact that it’s a physical solid object, it’s black—almost a perfect blackbody in the sense that there are no molecular or atomic absorption lines in the spectrum. And it’s most likely got circuitry inside, but even there I can’t be certain. This thing is literally a black box. And you … think Granger is in there?”
“Deus ex machina,” she said. “God in a box. Ever since I heard his voice and knew it was him controlling those moons, I thought he’d be able to save us. That, if he had such wondrous technology at his disposal, he could wave his hand and the Swarm would disappear. Magic to us, but just another wildly advanced technology for him. But … there are no deus ex machinas. That thing is not going to save us,” she pointed at it. “Which means we’re doomed.”
Neither Mumford or Achebe said anything to that. Achebe kept working. Mumford leaned forward with his face in his hands.
“Britannia is gone. Titan is destroyed. There are other Granger moons, but now that we’ve got this thing here, will they still function? Titan was falling apart around us before we escaped—Granger warned us he’d lose control over it once we removed this thing. And without those moons? They’ll cut through our defenses as if we weren’t even there. Every one of our planets will be destroyed. Earth too. And why? We still have no idea what they even want, other than our deaths.”
The comm buzzed. “Ma’am? I’ve got an incoming transmission for you,” said Qwerty. “It’s Krull again. She asking to speak to you.”
Proctor rolled her eyes. “Not again. We don’t have time to go on her wild goose chases.” But she stood up and went to the main console near Achebe. “Patch it through down here, lieutenant.”
A moment later, Krull’s face appeared on the screen. “Motherkiller—”
“WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP CALLING ME THAT?” yelled Proctor. She’d had enough. And she snapped.
Krull’s eyes widened.
“My name is Shelby Ann Proctor. Admiral Shelby … Ann … Proctor. Stop referring to me by some accidental event that happened thirty years ago. I did not mean to kill your predecessor. Or her children. I had no idea. And it’s not fair of you to keep calling me that for so damn long.”
“Admiral Proctor, I’ve told you before, it is not an epithet. It is a sign of respect among my people. I mean no—”
“But among my people, Krull, it is a sign of disrespect. And I’ve tolerated it for far too long, in the name of interspecies cooperation and cultural understanding and tolerance. No more. Start showing me respect, or get the hell out of our space.”
“I understand,” said Krull without missing a beat. “Shelby, I need your help. I—”
“I don’t have time to go fetch a starship for you, Matriarch. We went over this. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she moved to tap the screen off.
“Wait! Shelby, it is not the Dolmasi ship I need help with. I need help understanding something. It has to do with the Valarisi. You destroyed them, yes?”
Proctor closed her eyes. Another insinuation that she was a monster. She’d killed a matriarch and her tens of thousands of children. And she’d killed off an entire race. “Yes, I did.”
“All of them.”
“Yes. All of them. Nothing survived our assault on that fleet.”
“Are you sure?”
Proctor stared at Krull’s face, trying to decipher the alien’s meaning. Her feelings. And it looked like she felt … highly perturbed. “Matriarch? Has something happened? To the best of my knowledge, they are all dead.”
Krull nodded and leaned forward. “Yes. Something has happened. Something either wondrous, or calamitous.” She leaned forward, her tone soft, dark, serious, as if she was telling a state secret. “A few weeks ago, I destroyed the Ligature due to the damage being caused by your people’s casual use of meta-space pulses. The destruction was permanent, and something similar can’t be rebuilt without generations of work by my sisters and I. But as of two hours ago, I felt a small part of it return. Without my intervention. All on its own.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Bridge
ISS Resolute
Near Earth
Admiral Oppenheimer pored over the reports, following the status of the mustering of the fleet. The entire fleet. Every last ship. So many had died at Britannia, and in the weeks before at New Dublin, Mao Prime, Indira, Persepolis … the list went on. So many ships. So many crews. So many fine officers. All lost.
“Any change in the sensor readings, lieutenant?” He didn’t even glance over at the tactical station.
“No change, sir. The gravitational eddies are still localized out by Ceres in the belt. They’re moving, at the same speed as before.”
“Are they past Ceres yet?”
Vesta was actually humanity’s largest colony in the asteroid belt, but Ceres was symbolic as the largest asteroid—dwarf planet, actually—and in spite of its small population, the shipyards and supply depots orbiting above were critical to IDF’s defense of the solar system.
“No, sir. The eddies should pass it in about five minutes.”
So more waiting. Good. More time to prepare for the inevitable.
Earth was being invaded. Again. And this time, if they were interpreting the sensor readings correctly, by more than one Swarm ship.
Many more.
“Send word to the Stennis, the Avery, the Oregon, the Angola, and the Louisiana. They’re too damaged to help and there’s not enough time for them to fix any weapons systems to have any effect. They are to debark their crews at Moonbase, and prepare for Oppenheimer maneuvers.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the ensign at the comm station.
Oppenheimer maneuvers. He’d asked for a better name. Only self-aggrandizing assholes like Volz and Granger named maneuvers after themselves. But his XO had insisted. The other man now looked over at him from the XO station. “See, sir? It has a ring to it.”
&
nbsp; “Too many syllables. It’s a mouthful. Difficult to say in the course of a battle. It should be something simple like … sigma maneuvers, or something.”
“It’s too late, sir. Everyone knows what they mean now, and to change would take time and risk confusion. I can order it changed though, if you like.”
Oppenheimer shook his head. “No. No time. Just tell those captains to offload as much crew as humanly possible. I’m not a Tim Granger, throwing lives away so needlessly. Even in defense of Earth, we can’t become monsters. Not when there are real monsters out there.” He’d held a piece of intelligence close to his chest for months now. Not even Quimby knew. Not Sepulveda. And certainly not Proctor. Monsters were real. And they were coming.
“Good, sir. I’ve got to say, it’s a genius idea, and you deserve full credit for it, even if you don’t want it. They’ll never expect it. Every power plant on every ship anywhere has q-field shielding on it to prevent people from doing exactly what we’re trying to do.”
“Save the praise for me when we’re alive in a few hours. Until then, we’re all dead men.”
The tactical officer shouted. “Sir! One of the gravitational eddies just stopped near Ceres!”
He snapped to face her. “Did we receive a meta-space distress signal from them?”
“No, sir, this is based on visual sensors. The image is light-delayed.”
“How long?”
“Twenty-eight minutes.”
“Onscreen.” Everyone looked up towards the front wall of the bridge, which shifted from its diagrammatic tactical view of the inner solar system to a grainy visual of Ceres.
“Oh god,” whispered the comms officer.
In the empty space near Ceres, a giant Swarm ship snapped into existence. Easily a quarter of the size of the dwarf planet. A shimmering light appeared next to the ship, nearly washing out the image, and the next moment it disappeared. A moment later, Ceres exploded. Washing out the sensors again.