by Nick Webb
Tim shook his head. “I’m sorry too, Tobey, for what it’s worth. For all of it. Every choice I made, I could have made differently, and that could have resulted in less death. Less pain. Less loss. But I can’t change it. And I want to die because of it. I want to die. I killed the Chesapeake. My own people. My old friends. So you see, I not only contributed to the deaths of your family, but the deaths of mine. And I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t change it. But there you go. That’s about as much begging as I got in me. Please forgive me. There’s my beg. Forgive me. I beg you.”
“Me too, Tobey. I beg your forgiveness. Please.”
Silence.
They looked at each other, and both shrugged.
“You morons. Did you think I would fall for your stalling? Did you think you could, as your last act of revenge, distract me and keep me here past the point of no return? You’ve failed. And now I must leave you to your fate. My Earth awaits, where I will be received as king and lord and god, with the full might of the Swarm at my back.”
It worked.
Proctor’s eyes widened.
Talk to the fleet. Talk to everyone. Right … NOW!
And just like that, the waves of madness ceased. She exhaled suddenly, not even realizing she was holding her breath, and jabbed the general wide-band comm channel again. “All ships. All people within the sound of my voice. Human. Dolmasi. Skiohra. Valarisi. I know how to beat them. Finally. The only way we do it is together. Stop shooting each other. Finish the plan. We’re so close. We can have victory, but we can only enjoy it together. Having it alone is no victory at all. Proctor out.”
She glance down at the status of the shuttles. They’d all finished. Except one. She punched the comm again. “Ballsy? We’ve got two minutes, and then we’re dead.”
Chapter Seventy-Four
Bridge
Sword of Justice
Black hole
Penumbra system
“We’ve got two minutes, and then we’re dead.” Shelby’s voice was a welcome relief, after the long minutes of madness. But when he’d come to, he realized that tragedy had struck.
His two marines were dead. Their bodies were still strapped to the hull, but shrapnel or debris had pelted the ship and ripped through their bodies.
“Standby, admiral. Start the next phase. Pull everyone in to the bays and get the hell out. Ballsy out.”
He studied the distribution of the interdictors that had been placed. There was a hole where a q-field would be able to form and spread over the ship. Right … there. A few taps of the sensor controls revealed that one of the ship’s q-jump engines was humming to life deep within that area of the ship. They were getting ready to leave. If only he could take out that engine, then the lack of interdictors on that area of the ship wouldn’t matter. They would be stuck.
He switched to the squadron channel. “Son, get out. Now.”
“What? We haven’t finished, Dad. This Swarm ship here still has at least twenty more interdictors it needs. We can enlist another shuttle to use its spares—”
“Son, there’s no time. Believe me, I’ve got this. Get to the Mama Bird, and get the hell out.”
He switched over to an encrypted channel to Admiral Oppenheimer. “Christian. What’s the minimum mass for your fancy trick? And minimum speed.”
“Four hundred tons. And a delta V of at least ten point two kilometers per second.”
“All right. Thanks. Nice knowing ya, Christian. I’d chit chat more and give a better death speech, but, you know….”
“Time is short, friend, I understand,” said Oppenheimer, heavily.
“I was going to say, but, you know, you’re an asshole, but sure. Yeah. Ballsy out.”
He reversed the thrust vector from up, to down. His ship no longer was straining against the inexorable pull of the monstrosity below. He was now accelerating at a frightening clip down towards the pitch black disk, which now covered almost a quarter of the stars below him. Strange, warped streaks representing the light of stars behind the black hole wrapped themselves around the edges. It was beautiful, in a way. Terrifying. And beautiful.
“Dad! No!”
He flipped the channel back over. “Son, we both knew it had to end this way. Eventually. It’s just … who I am. It’s my signature move. I leave just when people need me most.”
“Dad. Please. We can figure something else out.”
He glanced at the timer. “Actually, no, we can’t. You’ve got exactly one minute to get your ass on the Independence’s flight deck.” He softened his tone. “Go, son. And please, please, get your act together and beg Jerusha to take you back. Please. For my progenies’ sake.”
“Dad….”
“I love you, Ethan.” He watched the speed indicator tick over past ten kilometers per second. Point one. Point two. His finger hovered over the q-jump initiator, the coordinates already entered in. “I’ve loved you so much. So damn much.”
Ballsy flipped the comm off, and before he lowered his finger, he projected a thought inwards. Hey. Sorry I’m killing you after only a few hours of life.
It replied. It’s been an honor, Captain Volz. The highest honor.
He pressed his finger down.
Chapter Seventy-Five
Bridge
ISS Independence
Stable orbit
Penumbra system
The rendezvous point was just fifty million kilometers out of the gravity well. Plenty distance to achieve a stable, safe orbit, but not so far that they couldn’t appreciate the view.
Whitehorse was the last to leave, and when the Independence was all alone, she said, “Commander Mumford, are the interdictors working?”
He scanned his screens. “Yes. They’ve already tried several times to establish q-fields around their ships, but failed.”
“Then get us the hell out of here.”
The navigation officer tapped the console, and immediately their view shifted from that of the hellish maw of the black hole beneath them with fifty Swarm ships and two battle-scarred moons above, to a far more peaceful view of the same scene, but from a safe distance. The telescope zoomed in.
The comm speaker blasted Granger’s voice. “I’m summoning the other Granger moons. They’ll be here any—”
And just like that, right beneath the Swarm ships that were temporarily prevented from q-jumping, eight more moons flashed into existence, adding their tiny pull to the incontestable sway of the black hole. Now they wouldn’t have time to remove enough interdictors to escape. The plan, crazy as it was, would have never been achievable without those moons. Granger may not have had a plan, but he sure as hell gave them the tools to get the job done.
“Fifty thousand kilometers. Forty. Thirty. Twenty.” Commander Mumford glanced up at the screen. There was no momentous event. Nothing actually happened on the screen. But, at some point, all fifty Swarm ships unmistakably slowed down, slower, and slower, and slower, until after a few minutes they were only moving at an imperceptible pace. And, if she wasn’t mistaken, they looked slightly more red than before.
And … flatter. They were getting squished, which was not what she expected. She expected spaghettification. But when she thought about it, she realized the ends of the Swarm ships closest to the event horizon were experiencing slower time than the ends further away from the horizon.
The moons too. They were squishing up into shells as they got closer and closer to the event horizon. Flat, curved shells.
And it was done. From their perspective the Swarm ships only had a few kilometers left to go to pass the event horizon. But, now that the Einstein-Rosen bridge was gone—Granger had assured them it was—they would not pass the event horizon. Ever. From the outside’s perspective. They would get redder and dimmer, their light would pass into the infrared and microwaves and they’d disappear, and eventually the photons leaving the surface of those ships would be stretched into radio waves, growing longer and longer until they were the size of the event horizon itse
lf. And even then they wouldn’t have entered it, but only come within millimeters, or less. And they’d be as flat as a sheet of paper.
Unless the tidal forces ripped them apart before then.
Either way, there was nothing else to watch. Just a frozen fleet of Swarm ships, and below them, eight nearly flat circles. It was both spectacular and banal.
Whitehorse had been standing several feet in front of the captain’s chair, but she now breathed a sigh of relief, and calmly backed up, sat down. “It’s done.”
Proctor’s voice came over the comm. “No time to celebrate, people. There are repairs to be made on at least eighty ships across all three fleets if we want to get out of here anytime soon. Come on. Move it!”
Whitehorse jumped back to her feet.
But then Proctor added, “And well done. Everyone. Well done.”
Chapter Seventy-Six
New York City
Earth
The parade was surprisingly modest, as parties celebrating the survival of Earth go, but it was big. And loud. And everyone was drunk, including Proctor. Not smashed, but pleasantly buzzed. There was ticker tape. Floats. Kids running after candy. Cheerleaders. Marching bands from three hundred different high schools and colleges. President Sepulveda was the master of ceremonies, of course, a role he relished and hammed up for the crowd of tens of millions. With billions more watching by video transmission, or later, when the courier ships went out with recordings of it.
Sepulveda strode—purposefully—back to the podium and waved to the crowd to get them to quiet down a few decibels. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the time has arrived. One of our heroes has returned, and I hear he has a few words to say.”
The crowd went wild. Tim Granger, in full dress uniform, appeared from behind a curtain nearby, and waved to the crowd. After about minute, he started his speech.
Which, to Proctor’s dismay, was surprisingly short. Far, far too short.
Because she had to speak next.
“Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.” He held a single piece of paper in front of him, with just a few handwritten sentences. “A great man once said—and I’m paraphrasing because I wasn’t there—Don’t be a hero. Just be a human, who does great things. And then who goes home and does normal things.” He looked up at the crowd, whose volume level had fallen to an astonishingly low level.
He’d paraphrased Ballsy, she knew. She hadn’t been there either, but Jerusha had told her. She wiped a tear away.
“He also said, don’t give in to the siren call of war. The false glamor of war. It was neither noble, or glamorous. It was dark. It was dirty. It was ugly. It was brutal and vicious and heart-breaking. And may we never do it again.”
The old pit in her stomach clenched lightly at the last line. Humans were, after all, human. War was inevitable. But may we at least have a respite, she thought.
He waved his piece of paper in the air, smiling at the crowd. “That was it. I was always terrible with speeches. Just terrible. Let’s move on here, and get to the real celebrity, then, thank god, more booze.”
The crowd cheered and he started to leave the podium, but then turned back to it. “And please, please, please, for the love of all that is good and holy, stop … the silly … Grangerism mumbo jumbo. It’s me. It’s just me, folks. I fart like the rest of you.”
She murmured, “Oh god, he must be really drunk.”
Whitehorse leaned towards her. “Actually, he hasn’t had a single drink yet.”
Proctor closed her eyes and shuddered. “Well, I can’t wait for tonight. The ball should be … quite an event.”
The crowd was cheering, pulsing with her name. Shel-by! Shel-by! Shel-by! She blushed, and took the podium. Her sixty-nine year old veined and wrinkled hands gripping the stand. She raised a fist into the air. “To victory!”
The crowd went insane.
Another fist pump. “To United Earth!”
The decibels, somehow, increased further.
Another fist pump. “To Verdra Dol!”
Half the crowd fell into a hush. The other half looked around, from left to right, then back up at her, confused. Most had not forgotten the recent mini-war with the Dolmasi.
Another fist pump. “To the Benevolence! The Fervor! The Munificence! The Bountiful! The Honor! The Amity! And, finally, to the late ship Benevolence, whose matriarchs and citizens died thirty years ago to save our planet!”
Many were cheering again. Many were not.
One last fist pump. “And finally, to the Valarisi!”
The crowd quieted down until all that was heard was the occasional crying of a baby. This last one was the last straw. They could not, would not, cheer the beings they thought were the most responsible for the war a generation ago. So they’d been taught in school.
She grunted, and smirked at the crowd. A kind, patient smirk. But a smirk nonetheless. “Look at us. Cheering our own, but ignoring our brothers and sisters who died in greater numbers than we did for our liberty. Even though you’ve been taught that the Valarisi were simply a vehicle for the Swarm and not their collaborators, you still stay silent. Why?”
She let the question stand for several seconds. “I’ll answer for you. They are not our tribe. Neither are the Dolmasi. Nor the Skiohra. And if they are not in our tribe, then they are our adversary. Our hunting grounds are ours and they can go starve for all we care, because our tribe comes first, dammit.”
More silence as the crowd absorbed. “Well that’s not what happened out there. What happened out there, was unity. It was teamwork. It was … family. The Swarm used to call us all family. That we would be absorbed, by force, into their family. And I’ll be honest with you. They were half right. Their method was wrong, but their goal was right. They wanted a great, cosmic family. They wanted unity. Granted, it was a grotesque version of unity. And they deserved their final fate.” She nodded for several seconds. “But that’s what won us the battle. The fearsome Dolmasi. The distant, aloof Skiohra. The enigmatic Valarisi. And us. Humans. We came together, and for a day, with the Valarisi’s help, we were perfectly united in purpose. And to tell you the truth, even in the midst of the horror of the battle, it was also heaven.”
People started clapping, at least. No cheering. But polite clapping. Oh well. They would learn. They had to. Many understood. Many never would. But hope for the rest of them wasn’t out of reach. It can’t be, for all our sakes, she thought.
“When I first came aboard the Constitution under Tim Granger, I was called the buzzkill behind my back, and now you see why.” She waited for the inevitable laugh. “So I’ll leave you now, and we can get on with our well-deserved party. But I leave you with this call.” She raised her voice not quite to a yell, but loud enough the anyone in the crowd whose attention had waned through the, frankly, boring speech, would snap back. “Reject the tribalism. Reject the calls to fight the other team. The other party. The other species. The other football club. The other family down the street that has a bigger interstellar corvette than you. Don’t demonize the other candidate. Don’t hate the opponent. Oppose them. Debate them. Disagree with them. But then, at the end of the day, break bread with them. Because I promise you this: we will all need each other again. And again. And again. Thank you.”
Some cheering. Lots of clapping. Buzzkill indeed. She felt like a schoolmarm. A marine escort beckoned to her, and she followed him behind the curtain, to where Granger was waiting.
“Nice speech,” he said.
“You too,” she said.
“Think anyone listened?”
“Probably not.” She shrugged. “But if we’re lucky. Really, really lucky, maybe one or two. And that might just be enough.”
She glanced around the large temporary tent enclosure, which was serving as a green room of sorts as the various speakers prepared for their time at the podium. Ace and Qwerty were kissing—as a matter of fact, they’d never stopped since the last q-jump. Zivic and Whitehorse were holding hands, talkin
g and laughing with Fiona and Danny, who were also holding hands. Danny caught her attention.
“Aunt Shelby! Did you see? She actually said yes.”
She smiled. “Heaven help you, Ms. Liu. Just a fair warning. You’re going to be spending a lot of time flying through space with this kid.”
Liu, for only the second time since she’d met her, smiled too, squeezing Danny’s hand. “Gladly.” The happy couple kissed.
To her left, she noticed that someone had approached Tim, and was talking in a rather loud voice. “Captain Granger, my name is Tom Rice.”
Granger shook the man’s extended hand. “Pleased to meet you Mr. Rice. Thank you for coming.”
The man wasn’t smiling. He held on to Tim’s hand. “My brother served on the Chesapeake. Was on it when it died.” He stared Tim straight in the eyes.
Tim looked away and let go of the hand. “Please excuse me.” His face was clearly pained, and his mouth kept moving as if he didn’t know what else to say.
Oh Tim. War has broken you. She paused to consider. “Maybe it’s broken us all. Irreparably.”
The voice of her companion whispered, wordlessly, in her mind.
Not irreparably. And that is good. Because we will need you yet.
She nodded. And despite the hope in the speeches today, she couldn’t even think the words, but she knew they were true anyway:
War was coming.
And if the most recent deep space scans that Oppenheimer had shown her were to be believed, it was coming sooner than they’d hoped.
Epilogue
Secure hardened information facility
Asteroid 5837-A
Asteroid belt
Sol System
Admiral Proctor, Admiral Oppenheimer, and Captain Granger sat alone in a room. The walls were bare. They were deep inside a rock in Sol’s asteroid belt, in one of IDF Intel’s many secret secure information facilities, where they could talk with a sure knowledge that no one, absolutely no one, would ever know what they were saying. The guards outside had been dismissed not only from the facility, but from the asteroid itself. They were the only three living souls inside.