“So if you knew about this whole thing, why didn’t you tell us?” Alice asked. “I thought you trusted us.”
“I trusted you, but I don’t think you trusted me very much, and I don’t blame you. I’ve had to betray all of us for this.”
“Admiral, you told me before you left you might not be able to keep in contact with me,” Kama Yu said, raising her head to stare at the man she’d once worked closely with. “You knew you might not come back from that mission?”
“I hoped I wouldn’t,” Chang replied. “I think I was trying to die to pay for my sins, but Captain Riley had other ideas. I always keep an escape ship handy and he must have gotten me to it before the ship was destroyed. I vaguely remember the thing but I know my ship is dead. The course on my shuttle was preprogrammed and took me straight here, where I had sent Preston for safekeeping.”
“You said we already had the fuel,” Lee said, not wanting to listen to Chang talk about more death. “What fuel?”
“Have you examined the device yet?” Chang said, understanding the change in conversation. “Have you looked at it, Alice?”
“Not really,” she replied, looking at the floor. “I haven’t … um … had the time.”
“She’s been having some trouble because of the Ch’Tauk torture. It seems she was the victim of an Engineer plan as well.”
“I know,” Chang replied, looking up at her with one cloudy eye. “They told me what they were doing.”
“You bastard!” Alice said, lunging across and slapping the crippled man on his uninjured side.
Lee reacted too slow to stop her, but grabbed her by the waist and held tight. She struggled, trying to reach Chang again. Her nails, never long because of her repair work on the ships, seemed like claws extended to tear away what flesh the man still had. Farthing was able to help, pulling the crazed woman away and holding her arms by her side. She roared in anger at the Vadne, but soon quieted as Lee moved closer to Chang.
“How could you?” Lee said, confronting the man nearly nose-to-nose. “You know what they did to her and you just let it happen?”
“What would you have done to save the galaxy, Lee?” Chang said in a small voice. “I had so few choices back then if I wanted the war to end in our favor. So few choices to act on.”
“I would have done anything but let those creatures torture the ones I love,” Lee replied. “I would have—”
“What?” Chang said, his face suddenly carved from stone. “You would have done whatever you needed to do to survive, Lee. That’s what you’ve always done, and just like me you wouldn’t have had a choice.”
Lee stepped back from the man. He stared into the hard eyes for a long moment before turning away. Chang rubbed his face but otherwise made no move to exit the room. Alice had finally calmed, and Farthing loosened his grip on her arms, although he kept one paw on her shoulder. Kama Yu seemed to shrink back to the wall as she reflected on their situation. The only person who seemed animated was Telexo, who was looking from one of them to the other in bewilderment.
“So … uh … what about the fuel thingy?” the Tonal first officer asked. “I mean … he never really answered the question.”
Chang tapped a control on the arm of the chair and a small holographic projector dropped from the ceiling. A small representation of the weapon appeared at Lee’s eye level. It rotated slowly above Chang’s head like the sword of Damocles. Lee turned back to look at it before Alice stepped away from Farthing, her eyes wide as she reached into the projection with both hands and then spread them. The weapon seemed to split apart into thousands of pieces. Lee could make out the standard elements of an explosive, but there was a cavity inside which he was unfamiliar with. After looking closely, he assumed it was the space for the fissionable material they were supposed to already have. Alice, however, moved in closer, touching various pieces and rotating others. It was quiet for two minutes while the woman immersed herself in the design. Lee was about to move in and take her out for fear she was losing herself again, but instead she turned to him with a look of horror on her face.
“Oh my God,” she said, looking from Lee to Chang, who was wearing an expression of deep sorrow on his damaged face. “You can’t do it. It’s barbaric! Lee, you can’t fire that thing.”
“Why not?” Lee asked, bewildered by her sudden horror. “What goes in it?”
“We needed material which existed simultaneously in both universes,” Chang explained. “It was the Engineers who came up with the solution. I tried to talk them out of it, but this, they said, was their duty to the universe.”
“No,” Alice said. “This is too much to ask. We can’t do this, Lee. We just can’t.”
“Do what?” Lee asked, stepping to his fiancée and holding her shoulders tight. “What are you talking about?”
“It isn’t a fission device,” Farthing said, realization suddenly dawning on him. “It’s a fusion device, isn’t it?’
“Yes,” Chang replied. You understand, don’t you? We don’t need to rupture the bridge between the Gizzeen universe and ours. We need to close it. This is the only solution.”
“Alright, so it’s a fusion bomb,” Lee said, looking at his former first officer. “So?”
“The fuel, Lee. The fuel is—”
“It’s penance,” Chang said. “One of the Engineers is stepping into that thing and you’re going to blow it to hell.”
26
2…
Outside the orbit of Jupiter
In the depths of interplanetary space, distances are relative. When a planet orbits, it is absent from an area for months and even years, only claiming passage for a short time and leaving the rest for dust and occasional comets. In the months since the Gizzeen invasion, the blue energy which seemed to float freely around the sun was unmarred by the passing of Jupiter or its moons, its orbit having been cleared only on the far distant side of the solar system. Clearing that energy was fleeting. Although the energy possessed a mild charge and emitted a blue light which surrounded and moved with the solar winds, it also behaved as a liquid, folding in as a planet passed, reacting to gravity like a wave crashing upon a rocky outcropping. It swallowed the rocks whole even as the rocks broke the flow.
A small fleet of Ch’Tauk ships, less than one hundred in all, were traveling through the orbit of the Jovian planet, escorted by a much larger Gizzeen vessel. The vessels moved at their top speed through the murk, as their extra-dimensional generators refused to work inside the blue soup.
The passage through space had been long and the Ch’Tauk were getting restless to meet their new masters and reunite with their comrades nearer to the Sol orbit. If they had been paying more attention, they might have been able to make out a wake travelling alongside their own course
The ripple moved faster than the fleet. At times it seemed to jump ahead of the rest of the fleet by thousands of kilometers and at other times it slowed to a crawl. Had they been able to turn on their M-space engines, they would have detected massive distortion waves emanating from just the other side of reality. In regular space, the ripples created a break in the blue energy. As the ripples passed the orbit of Jupiter, the wake opened up the blue energy in an ever-widening cone of influence. Space began to clear ahead of the fleet as the energy retreated from the ripple. Unlike the passage of a planet, the energy did not fill back in as the ripple passed. This time, the cleared space stayed clear. If they had been looking, they may have noticed M-space erupting as a roiling mass just beyond the perception of their sensors.
Unfortunately for them, none of the ships passing through noticed a thing.
Battleship Resolute
The trip back to Resolute was quiet. After the revelations about the device they were planning on using to close the interdimensional bridge, Chang had become fatigued from his injuries and needed to rest. Lee pressed the man for more details, but Preston McGraw returned to shuffle them all from the room and towards the shuttle bay. Farthing returned to his own vessel
while Alice, Kama, Chang, and Lee rode in the cramped utility vessel back to the battleship. Alice kept looking over the specs of the bomb, trying to find some other solution to the problem, but found none.
When the landing bay pressurized, Doctor Demsiri and his team were waiting to take the injured admiral to sickbay. Chang had been cared for as best the small mining colony could, but their facilities were crude and not up to the task of tending to his severe injuries. Chang’s burns covered nearly half his body and the internal damage to his organs was severe enough to cause Demsiri to induce a coma so they could operate and repair the damage. Lee was told it would be days until the man awoke, so he put the time to good use trying to get Resolute into top shape for the coming battle. Kongo followed suit, utilizing some of the raw materials provided by the colony and the Barathists and Ixloab to create new weapons platforms.
The refugee separatists had turned out to be only the smallest portion of the remaining fleets. The Ixloab expeditionary fleet numbered in the hundreds of ships and the Barathists had nearly as many. When questioned about their location, however, Karan only replied they would have to wait for Chang to awaken to get that information. Preston McGraw was no help either, as he stayed by the admiral’s side. Kama Yu seemed even more withdrawn than the admiral and Lee began to grow worried about her. When Demsiri finally called to tell Lee Chang was awake, the woman’s normally placid face became almost frantic and he had no choice but to allow her to follow as he left the bridge to see the man.
Sickbay was quiet when Lee arrived with Kama. As he entered the sterile environment past the reception area, Lee was amazed to see most of the beds empty. He had lived with battle for so long that seeing the place cleared out was a new experience. He had to admit he had never had much use for the place except when he needed to visit the injured after a battle. Demsiri was a kind man who had been feeling the stress of the constant battle lately, and Lee vowed to get to know him better when their present mission was over. He held Kama Yu off as he entered the inner care ward. She nodded and stepped back to the outer area while he checked in on Henry, who was sleeping in the next bed over from Chang. Demsiri was waiting with a data pad in hand.
“Captain,” the doctor said, stepping aside to allow Lee a better view of Chang. “He’s been asking for you. He’s weak, but I think I can give you a few minutes.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Lee replied. “Kama Yu is outside and wants to speak to him as well. Will that be alright?”
“We’ll see how the admiral feels.”
“The admiral feels as if he’s in the room and wants to be spoken to like an adult,” Chang said from a reclining position. “Give me five minutes with the captain and then send Kama in. I need to talk to her before we get moving.”
“Mister McGraw has been here for the last few days,” Demsiri said, placing the data pad down and stepping towards the clear sliding door. “Shall I send for him?”
“God no,” Chang said. “I’ve had enough of him for a while. Let him sleep or something,” Chang said, rolling his eyes and staring at the ceiling with his one good eye. “He’s the galaxy’s best bureaucrat, but the worst grandmother a man could ever want.”
Demsiri gave a small chuckle and exited. It was the first time Lee had heard the man laugh in years. When he looked back at the exposed half of Chang’s face, the man seemed to be trying to smile. It was something about him Lee admired. Despite the damage to his body, Ronald Chang still commanded and led people. He had a way about him which simultaneously made you feel at ease and want to run into battle. It was probably the reason Lee followed the man blindly at times but hated him at other times. This would be one of the latter times.
“It’s not going to work, Ron,” Lee said, dispensing with any niceties. “The plan’s going to fail.”
“I know,” Chang replied. “I knew it from the moment I shipped off to Proxima and the Ch’Tauk betrayed us. They already know about the device and they are working with the enemy.”
“They are the enemy!” Lee shouted, losing control of his anger in the face of the man’s complacency. “The Ch’Tauk and the Gizzeen are one and the same and you let them onto my ship. You gave them access to my bridge and forced me to trust one of them with the information.”
“I didn’t force you to trust anyone,” Chang said in a low voice. “I don’t think I can force you to trust anyone, Lee. You’re a fighter pilot just like I was once. You see a situation and identify targets. That’s who you are. That’s why I rely on you so much.”
“You mean you use me. You use me to further your plans for the galaxy,” Lee replied. “You don’t want to take over the galaxy, but you damn sure don’t want it making any decisions without you.”
“Lee, I—”
“No, you listen for once. You’ve been playing God for so long you don’t even know how to be one of us anymore, do you? The Engineers explained everything and you let them do it,” Lee said, his anger uncontained. “You let them take Alice and torture her.”
“Lee I—”
“You let them think they won so you could make them allies and then turn them against the Gizzeen, but you didn’t count on their nature, did you? You didn’t count on the Ch’Tauk being Ch’Tauk no matter which skin they’re wearing.” Lee paused for a moment, a new thought entering his head. “You planned that raid at Proxima as a test, didn’t you? You wanted to see if they would turn and they did.”
“I didn’t think they—”
“You planned to test them against themselves and that plan backfired, so you got a new plan,” Lee said, pointing an accusing finger at Chang. “That’s you, isn’t it? You have plans within plans within plans. When that plan failed, you called on your old ship to bail out the galaxy just like it always has, and your trained captain to do your bidding.”
“Lee, you don’t understand…”
“You said you didn’t think anyone could force me to trust, but you do,” Lee said. “You force me to trust you each time you send me off into the darkness to save your ass. And you know I will because that’s what I do. It’s the reason you wanted those damn books written about me, isn’t it? You wanted me to have a reputation to live up to and expectations to meet, but I’m not that guy, Ron, I’m not him. I’m not some character from a dime-store novel who never gets hurt and never dies. I’m a real, flesh and blood man and I have had enough! Do you hear me? I’m through with you. I’m through with the galaxy and I’m through being a hero for people I don’t even know. It’s over!”
“I know,” Chang said after a long pause. “I know you’re a man who’s been hurt over and over again, Lee, and I never wanted to put you in that position.”
“Hurt? What do you know about hurt? Your brother died. Your family died,” Lee said, his rage being replaced by a colder anger. “Big deal. The whole of the human race lost everything, Ron. The rest of us lost and we didn’t go off making plans with the enemy. I held my father as he died. I watched Alice die and I couldn’t do anything about it. I’ve watched my crew die because you wanted to send us out to be your personal heroes.”
“And I watched all of it,” Chang said, his own anger rising despite the painkillers in his system. “I watched it and I knew with each casualty report it was my name on the bottom and my fault. All of it, Lee. It’s all my fault and I am trying to take responsibility for it by saving what I can.”
“Saving the galaxy?” Lee said. “Is that why you tried to fly straight into the heart of Sol System? Is that why you tried to lead the charge?”
“No,” Chang said. “No, that’s not it at all.”
“Then why?”
“He was trying to die.”
The new voice had come from behind Lee. When he turned he saw the bruised and bandaged face of Henry Moore. Lee realized the argument must have been loud to have woken the old soldier from his bed. Henry was standing against the doorframe, preventing the door from closing with his body, wearing an angry scowl that made him look even fiercer than he had when
Lee had fought with him before.
“You don’t see it, Lee, because you ain’t been there yet,” Henry continued. “I hear it in his voice. He tried to go into Sol because he thought he was paying the price for his sins. Ain’t that right, Ronnie?”
“Henry,” Chang said, “I led that mission because I thought it was the best way to get myself and the recon fleet into Sol so we could do the most damage and send back some intelligence.”
“Ron … don’t lie to me. You knew you wouldn’t come back from that mission. You also knew you wouldn’t be able to do squat against the Gizzeen,” Henry said, pushing off from the doorframe and entering the small room. “You knew it and you led how many crewmen to their deaths? Do you even know?”
“Henry…” Lee began before he was cut off.
“No, Lee,” Henry said. “Don’t defend him. You just spent a lot of breath saying you wouldn’t do that anymore, so don’t bother. Let him answer the question.”
The three men looked between each other for a long moment. Lee finally turned back to Chang and stared. He realized Chang had done it again. Somehow he had managed to get him to defend him despite his tirade against that very thing. Chang’s head lowered as much as it could with the bandages in place. He seemed to be wrestling with the answer before he took a long breath and looked Henry Moore in the eye.
“Twenty-one hundred altogether,” Chang said slowly. “It includes captains, officers, crewmen, and the people who cooked me my breakfast that morning. If you like, I can try to recite all of their names. It was the first thing I asked Preston to give me when I arrived here. I almost have all of them down.”
“How can you live with yourself?” Henry asked. “How can you keep breathing each day knowing what your decisions have cost the human race?”
“I keep breathing because I keep hoping, Henry,” Chang said with renewed vigor. “I keep breathing so I can come up with a better plan to save the galaxy.”
Resolute Strike (The War for Terra Book 7) Page 22