by Nick Webb
The grotesque monster was now a pile of bloody pulp.
“Computer. Next target,” she said. Without looking back at him, she added, “If you don’t mind, Danny, I need a few more.”
“Be my guest,” he said, and sat down on the nearby bench.
Another almost comically evil-looking Swarm monster appeared, growling and sputtering incomprehensible words. Damn. The computer was good. She took aim, and unleashed a barrage into it until it, too, fell backwards into a mess of blood and gore.
“Feeling any better?”
“No. Computer, next target.”
It continued for five more targets, each time she got a little better with her aim, though she was far, far off her usual precision.
“Aunt Shelby, you can have my turns. I think we should get back to the others. Don’t you have a … campaign to plan? Battles? Defending United Earth?”
Her magazine was empty, and she tossed the rifle carelessly aside, something she’d trained her whole life to never, ever do. “What the hell is the point, Danny? What fucking good is it going to accomplish?”
His face went white. He had never, ever heard her swear. Ever. Not so much as a shit or a damn. Maybe a hell or two in his entire life. “Are … you going to be ok?”
She came back and sat next to him on the bench. “He went into a black hole, Danny, and he lived. He entered the Swarm’s universe, and with the Valarisi that went with him he waged a guerrilla campaign against them on their own turf, before finally escaping back to our own universe. HE came too early. Twelve fucking billion years too early. So he waited. And learned. And with his Valarisi companions he lived. For a long, long time. He built near-sentient robots. He influenced the evolution of entire planets and species so that, one day, there would be someone to stand against the Swarm when they came back. He built the Skiohra generation ships. He turned himself into a Skiohra embryo with the technology he’d developed over billions of years. He converted entire moons into giant space cannons. He reached through meta-space to somehow influence my dreams. He did all these wondrous, unbelievable things. And in the end? For what? To tell me, sorry, Shelby, I have no flipping idea how to stop them? What kind of bullshit is that?”
“Bullshit of the finest variety, Aunt Shelby. Just weird enough to be entirely believable, just real enough to be really … shitty.” He set his rifle down on the table next to the bench. “But … can we just give up? Shouldn’t we at least, you know, go down fighting?”
She leaned back against the table. “Sure. Fine. I suppose. Die sooner in battle rather than later as the Swarm hunts us down. Whatever. From what Tim says, dozens of ships are on their way. Danny, we’ve seen, at most, five so far, and even three was too much for New Dublin and a few Granger moons. We can’t survive ten. We certainly can’t survive dozens. I’m sorry, but it’s game over.”
Danny breathed in deep and exhaled. He was clearly preparing himself to make some kind of pep talk. Bless his heart. “Aunt Shelby, for as long as I’ve known you—”
“I’m sorry, Danny. But no. There is no speech you can make that will make this better.”
“Let me finish.”
He looked into his eyes and saw the five year old boy that would bounce on her chest as they wrestled. She couldn’t say no. “Ok.”
“For as long as I’ve known you, you were invincible. You were this legendary, mighty goddess that I knew was out there, defending the galaxy against the bad guys, and who’d come home every now and then and give me candy. Something I never told you—I saved most of that candy, when I was younger. I thought it was like, I don’t know, magical. I thought I was saving it for a rainy day when I was being bullied at school and I needed a strength boost to take on my enemies. Like it would temporarily turn me into a superhero or something.”
She smiled. “I didn’t know that. I knew you saved them. I didn’t know why.”
He continued. “And, you might hate admitting this, it might make you rally uncomfortable, but the truth is, most people out there, most adults, are just like I was. You were Commander Shelby Proctor, who miraculously repelled the Swarm and saved Earth during the Swarm War. You were a legend. And you walked among us, unlike Granger, who got to die and be a myth who was gone and worshiped. You were alive and worshiped. You have no idea the inspiration you brought to people. After I left home and left the bubble, I got to experience it in full force. People in the slums in Benevidez City on San Martin—they’d talk about you in reverence. You were the patron saint of hopeless causes. Anytime someone had to, you know, accomplish something that seemed impossible, they’d say something like, it was so much worse for the Companion, and so this won’t be impossible for me.”
He trailed off, as if out of words. But he wasn’t out of words, he was just taking the time to wipe his eyes. “And me too. I left home, and because of you I made it my goal to own my own spaceship by the time I was twenty-one.”
“And you did,” she murmured.
“Yeah. I did. Because of you, Aunt Shelby.” He finished wiping his eyes and stood up. “And now it’s time again. I don’t care if it’s impossible. Sure. You’ll probably fail. Whatever. But we all need to see you try. The fleet is out there, all of humanity and the Dolmasi and the Skiohra are out there, waiting to see what the legend does. And if you don’t act, then, well….” He shrugged. “Then everyone just assumes its hopeless. Come on, Aunt Shelby. Please.”
She closed her eyes, She was so, so tired. She hadn’t slept in days. She was bruised. Beaten. Bloodied. She limped. Her hair was falling out. She was a complete wreck, physically and emotionally. “Danny? You sure can give a hell of a speech.” She opened her eyes and stood up with a hand of assistance from him. “But there’s one problem. I still have no idea what to do. Granger doesn’t know what to do. My best friend, Ballsy, is sitting quarantined in sickbay because he’s under the Swarm’s influence, or Huntsman’s—I can’t be sure—”
“Wait, what?”
“He was infected with Swarm matter, somehow. I didn’t know it was possible anymore, with the Ligature gone.”
He cocked his head and glanced off to the side, as if listening to someone very, very carefully. “Take me to him,” he said, finally.
Five minutes later, they were in sickbay. She’d summoned Zivic, Whitehorse, Liu, and of course Granger and the two marines she’d assigned to escort him until she was absolutely sure his story added up and he really was Tim. All of them gathered around Ballsy’s bed, where he was still shackled.
“Is it my birthday?” said Ballsy, as he watched them all file in.
“In a sense,” said Danny.
“Who the hell are you?”
Proctor pointed at him. “Ballsy, allow me to introduce you to Danny Proctor.” She smiled broadly. “And also allow me to introduce you to one of the only living Valarisi in the universe. I’d tell you its name, but I don’t even know if they have names.”
Danny glanced over at her. “It’s more of a feeling than a name. This guy, if I were to name him, would be … Thankful? Hopeful?” He turned back to Ballsy. “I’m told you’ve been infected with a form of the Swarm virus. It came, originally from my friend here, but it was corrupted and bastardized by Huntsman, somehow.”
“That’s what I’ve been told,” said Ballsy. “Honestly, I don’t feel a thing.”
But, he looked nervous.
“Well, only one way to be sure. If you’ll allow me?” He opened the plastic enclosure, and stepped inside. From somewhere he produced a pocket knife, and before Ballsy could say anything Danny had nicked his arm, just deep enough that a tiny line of blood appeared.
“Ow! What the f—”
“It won’t hurt. Don’t worry.” Danny used his thumbnail to flick a scab off one of this fingers, and it, too, bled a little.”
Ballsy’s eyes widened, and he began thrashing around. “No! No! Stop! No! No!” He yelled, over and over again. For a moment, Proctor’s mind wandered back to old horror movies she’d watched where
little girls were exorcized of demons. The resemblance was uncanny.
Quickly, Danny pressed his finger next to Ballsy’s wound. And, almost instantly, Captain Volz fell silent, and then gasped.
Danny turned to the rest of them. “My friend says that, yes, Captain Volz was indeed infected and under someone else’s control. But he’s fine now. And, in fact, soon there will be a third Valarisi among us.”
Proctor frowned. “So, he’ll have a Valarisi companion inside him, with him, at all times, until he dies? Against his will? Danny, I don’t know if that’s ethical or—”
He held his hands up. “Oh, no no. It’s not like that. I can ask my friend to leave any time it wants. I’ll lose about, I don’t know, a few spoonfuls of blood plasma, but that’s about it. But honestly? I kind of like having him with me. And I can’t complain about the whole, you know, invincibility thing and never getting sick.”
Ballsy was smiling. “Well look at this. What is this, a birthday party?”
Proctor stepped into the enclosure. “Ballsy? You … you don’t remember? Do you remember anything? Britannia?”
He thought for a moment, and then his mouth opened, his jaw dropped. “Oh no. No.” He closed his eyes and Proctor wondered if he was going to cry or scream or just pass out. “I remember. Everything. Like I was watching over everything. Floating above. Oh my god. Britannia.”
Proctor rested a hand on his shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault, Tyler. It wasn’t you. You had no way to stop it.”
Ballsy let his head fall back onto the pillow and he exhaled deeply. Then his head shot back up and he stared. Dumbfounded. “Is that … TIM FUCKING GRANGER?”
Proctor chuckled. “It’s good to have you back, Ballsy.” He was back. She had Tim back, and now she had Ballsy back. Maybe there was hope after all. She pointed out towards a wall, as if out into space. “Let’s go, people. We’ve got a final battle to plan.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
Conference room
ISS Independence
Gas giant Calais
Britannia system
The conference room on the Independence was tense. They’d taken over an hour going over specifics, such as why Granger could no longer just summon the Granger moons at will as they were essentially on autopilot. How the entire IDF fleet appeared to be assembled at Earth for what looked like a climactic battle against an imminent invasion from at least five Swarm ships. How Vishgane Kharsa, who’d left an hour ago, would take at least a few hours to summon as many Dolmasi ships as he could. How the other Skiohra generation ships were still unlikely to come at Krull’s request, suspicious that it was an ambush.
Granger and Proctor sat at the head of the table. Krull at the other end. President Sepulveda in the middle with a secret service officer standing nearby. Zivic and Whitehorse sat next to each other—a little closer than usual. Then Mumford, Commander Rayna Scott, and Qwerty and Lieutenant Jamie “Ace” Broadside who, if Proctor’s eyes hadn’t deceived her, were holding hands when they’d entered. Danny and Liu sat near her, and they, too, were holding each other’s hand on the table. And of course her three favorite marines-turned IDF officers: Case, Davenport, and Carson.
“I think we can count on at least, oh, fifty Swarm ships arriving in the next day or so,” said Granger.
“Is that all of them?” asked Proctor.
He squinted and his brow furrowed. “I think? Honestly, the transition from embryo to human has left my memory a little jumbled. I do have thirteen billion years rattling around up here, you know. Luckily I took a few million-years-long old man naps occasionally so I don’t have to remember all of it.”
“Ok,” continued Proctor. “Let’s count on fifty, and if more show up, we’ll improvise. Ideas? Anyone?”
Ballsy held a finger up. “You know, I’ve been thinking about something. How about this. Go to the Penumbran black hole. Take a bunch of Avery’s old anti-matter bombs with us that I’m sure the President here can tell us all about. Meta-space shunt on all of them. The Swarm are attracted to large bursts of meta-space energy, are they not, Tim? Well, set them off within a few thousand kilometers from the event horizon, and when they appear, send out hundreds of shuttles, everything we have, and plant q-field interdictors on their hulls. And then—”
“What the hell? You can’t be serious,” said Lieutenant Zivic. “That’s my idea! The one you made fun of. The one you called crazy and me dimwitted for suggesting it? Remember?”
Ballsy nodded slowly. “In my defense, I am also dimwitted. Not quite at your esteemed level, son, but I do my best—”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“That’s what she said,” quipped Ballsy. “Now, as I was saying, once all their hulls have been planted with interdictors, they won’t be able to q-jump away if they happen to pass the event horizon. In the meantime, as many ships as we can muster will keep them distracted with as much fire as we can. Human, Dolmasi, Skiohra—everything we’ve got. And then, if we can communicate with the Granger moons, we have them all q-jump just inside the event horizon, creating just enough gravitational pull to tip them all over the edge. They all fall in. Permanently. And since the wormhole down there is gone, they’re destroyed. Crunched. Dead.”
Granger was nodding slowly, stroking his chin. “Ballsy? You’re right. That is crazy.”
“But it just might work,” said Proctor. “There are, ahem, a few holes in the plan, but the basic premise is just fine, actually. Good job, Mr. Zivic.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Zivic. Proctor wasn’t sure because one of his hands was covering the other, but it looked like he flipped off Ballsy next to him at the table.
“But the holes. I’m sorry, lieutenant, but a scientist you are most definitely not. This is a black hole we’re talking about. Let’s review basic facts, shall we? Number one. Right at the event horizon the gravity is so strong that it represents the point at which light can’t move radially away from the center. Any further out and the light spirals outward to eventually escape, and any further in, its trapped forever, making an eternal journey towards the center. Needless to say, outside the event horizon, at the distances we’re talking about, the force of gravity will be far greater than anything our engines can overcome. Not to mention spaghettification as the differential in gravitational force increases across our bodies and hulls.”
“So we do all of this much further out, then? But how can we be sure that the Swarm will fall in? The further out we start the more likely it is that one or more of them will escape,” said Whitehorse.
“We can start closer than our engines have the ability to maintain our elevation above the black hole. We’ll essentially be falling. And therefore on a constricted schedule. If we take too long, we fall into the black hole too with the Swarm. And we all know how that turned out last time,” she added, with a good-natured glance at Granger. “Once all the interdictors are in place, every ship can q-jump away, leaving the Granger moons time to q-jump in, between the Swarm ships and the black hole, and exert their tiny gravitational force that breaks the camel’s back, so to speak.”
Granger shifted. “And there is another hole in the plan. I can’t guarantee that I can communicate with the moons.”
“Once you are in contact with them, can you get them to do what you want?” asked Proctor.
“I believe so. I controlled them through meta-space. But not in any manner that you can possibly reproduce with your available technology. And frankly, I simply can’t remember the details, such that reconfiguring our meta-space transmitters would be pointless.”
Proctor pointed down the table to the Matriarch. “What if you had access to the Ligature, Tim?”
Krull shook her head. “I told you, Shelby Proctor, the Ligature is permanently gone. It will take hundreds of years—”
“Yes, I remember what you said. But you also said that a proto-ligature was manifesting itself, and you believed it was connected to the reappearance of the Valarisi. What about that?”
Danny raised a hand. “I think I can speak to that. My friend says that, basically, the more of his people that there are, the bigger the effect can be. But there’s just too few right now to make anything like the old Ligature.”
Proctor exhaled some air. “Well, then, I see little alternative. All of us, everything single one, should accept a Valarisi within us. Make the fabric of the proto-ligature bigger. More robust. Strong enough for Tim to be able to reach out and control the moons. Will it be enough?” She asked the question to both Granger and Danny.
“I think so,” they said in unison.
“Ok. Then that’s what we’ll do. I won’t require anyone to do it against their will. But the more we have, the likelier success will be. Agreed?”
Every head nodded.
Except Krull’s. “Shelby Proctor, the last time we did this, it was a catastrophe for my people.”
Danny turned to her. “But last time was different. The Valarisi were under the Swarm’s control then.”
“And what is to stop the Swarm from controlling the Valarisi once again? After we’ve infected ourselves?”
No one spoke. Not even Danny.
It was Liu who broke the silence. “We can’t guarantee that won’t happen. But my friend believes that this time is different. The first time they were taken by surprise. This time they’re ready. They know how to resist the Swarm now. Enough to repel any effort to control them.”
“How sure are they?” asked Proctor.
“Very sure. Like … ninety five percent? It won’t tell me a number, but that’s the vibe I get.”
Ballsy grinned. “If that’s the worst thing that can happen and it’s only at five percent, what the hell are we even worried about? We’ve got this in the bag.”
Proctor nodded. “Fine. Under the circumstances, that’s an acceptable level of risk.” She took a deep breath and stood up. “And now the next hole in the plan.” She waved to the viewscreen and it turned on to reveal a star map, showing Earth at the bottom, the Britannia system with Wellington Shipyards somewhat off to the left, and the Penumbra system up in the far right corner, in Russian Confederation space. “The entire IDF fleet is assembling down here, while we’re going to need them up here. There’s just no time. If we’re going to make this happen in the next few hours, at the same time that there is currently an attack underway on Earth … there’s just not enough time.”