Victory (13 page)

“You have something in mind, Madam President?”

“Of course I do. Send a meta-space message to General Palmer.”

“Army chief?” said Norton in surprise. “Ground troops?”

She nodded. “We’re going to do something that, whatever the outcome, will leave us in a stronger position. Just like with Isaacson.”

“I’m afraid I’m still not following on how allowing Isaacson to go out to Penumbra Three with Volodin will result in anything but headaches. Once outside your immediate control, there’s no way he’ll do what you want. He may not even return.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m finally playing smart, General. He’ll go out there, and whether he chooses to follow through with it or not, the programs I’ve uploaded into his implants will accomplish our goals.”

“Are the scientists sure? Are they absolutely certain it will work?”

“Nothing is certain, General. This is a gamble. And in a game of chance like war, what else do we have?”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Bridge, ISS Warrior

High Orbit, Britannia

As soon as the
Warrior
q-jumped into the Britannia system, a message from Admiral Zingano appeared on Granger’s terminal.
 

Meet me on the
Victory
, as soon as you get in. Bring Proctor.

“Diaz, you have the bridge. Commence resupply and general repair ops.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

He left the bridge and headed for Proctor’s lab. It was on the way to the shuttle bay anyway, may as well tell her in person. Plus, it would let him get a peek at that singularity equipment she’d hauled over from the
Constitution.

They’d only left the devastated York system two hours before, but she was spending every waking moment he didn’t need her on the bridge stowed away in her lab. He suspected she slept there. With his permission, she’d reassigned a fifteen-person science team from fleet headquarters. Ostensibly, this was merely a satellite lab of IDF Science Division. A mobile lab that could be on the front line, the first to take data or draw samples or make observations. But in truth, Proctor was the main show. At least, that was what Granger suspected. He’d met the eggheads at IDF Science. All hat, no cattle, he believed the saying was. Most of the best scientific minds these days went to either medical or materials and weapons science.

“Tim. Good, you’re here. Come look at this.”

He sat down next to her at one of the molecular imaging scopes. She gestured to the eyepiece, and he looked inside.

“What am I looking at?”

“Not entirely sure, but I think I’ve isolated
three
separate strains of Swarm virus.”

“Swarm matter comes in three flavors, huh?”

She selected the next sample and moved it into the scope’s field of view. “Not quite. If you’ll remember, a few months ago I discovered that Swarm matter itself was just a precursor to virus, not a virus itself. It can manufacture billions of different types of proteins, enzymes, and structures with so many functional groups that I don’t even begin to know what to call them. But then I hit the Swarm matter with a focused meta-space field, and voila, virus. Highly transmissible, but not through the air, thank god. Mainly mucus membranes. Saliva, blood, etc.”

“So, you’re saying you want my dating history?” He deadpanned the joke as he watched the sample change yet again through the eyepiece when she dialed in the next one.

“Actually, the more research I do, the more I’m convinced you’re completely safe. Recent evidence to the contrary be damned ... really, Tim, do you have to go around flaunting your newfound mutant telepathic skills? I’m sure it unnerved the hell out of the bridge crew.”

He nodded, still peering at the sample. “You’re right. I’ll be more discreet.”

“And speaking of the crew....” She paused, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her bite her lip, hesitating. “We’ve been going nonstop for four months, Tim. From the original
Constitution
crew, only about two thirds have survived. Lots of people are on their last leg.”

“We’re at war, Shelby,” he said, still gazing at the virus.

“I know, Tim. But it wouldn’t hurt to pay attention to their mental state on occasion. Rayna is on edge—she babies those engines like, well, her baby, and she hasn’t gotten more than four hours of sleep a night since Lunar Base.”

“She’ll be fine. She’s made of tougher stuff than you or I.”

“I agree,” said Proctor. “But even more troubling is Commander Pierce. He might hide it well, but he’s been at breaking point for weeks. And now he’s lost his family—”

“We’ve all lost family, Shelby.”

“Not like him, Tim. Neither of us are married with kids.”

“Other people have lost spouses and kids. They’re still fighting.”

“Barely, Tim, barely. They’re barely fighting. You don’t see them the rest of the time. I do. I’m the XO. When I’m not in here with the science team or up on the bridge, I’m down in the galley or on the rec deck.” She sighed. “Look, all I’m saying is, maybe make some time to have a few heart to hearts with Pierce and Rayna and Prince and Diamond and Diaz. Make some appearances down on the rec deck. Let the crew know that you care.”

“Caring’s not my job, Shelby. Keeping us all alive is my job.”

“Caring will help them stay alive, Tim. That makes it your job.”

Dammit
. She was right.
Again.
“Fine. I’ll see what I can do. Now tell me what I’m looking at.”

“You’ll do fine, Tim, just like you have with everything else. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.” She rested a hand on his arm—what was she doing? But rather than pull the arm away, he kept it there. Not that he had anything even approaching romantic inclinations—he simply didn't have the luxuries of time nor circumstance for that. It was just nice to have a friend. He’d missed Abraham Haws so damn much after he died during the battle of Earth—it was good to know he wasn’t alone.

She cleared her throat and continued on. “But what we’ve got here are three strains. The first matches the ones I pulled from Hanrahan and Wyatt. Fishtail too. All of them were—and in Fishtail’s case
is
—completely under Swarm control. The second is a similar virus, but it has far fewer functional groups than the first. The first had something like two thousand bonding possibilities. The second one has just eight.”

“Sounds promising. Eight beats two thousand.” He looked up. “Anyone we know have this?”

He nodded. “I took the liberty of getting access to a sample of Admiral Azbill’s blood. Remember him?”

“The one who almost lost us the battle of New Dublin. How could I forget? How did you convince him?”

She shrugged suspiciously. “I had one of my new techs accidentally bump into him before she left Earth. Forged orders from Zingano. I’m sure he won’t mind. Bill hates Azbill anyway.”

Granger looked back into the scope. “You’re telling me that John Azbill is infected with Swarm virus?”

“I’m calling it, the
backdoor virus.
It seems to lie inert. Dormant, in a person’s body, unless activated by a very particular meta-space signal. The main virus responds to all kinds of signals. The backdoor virus only to a handful.
 

“Just like the functional groups, right?” he said, connecting the dots.

“Exactly. The backdoor virus can only perform a few functions, responding to only a few meta-space signals. I assume once we examine Admiral Littlefield’s blood, it’ll become pretty clear why Wellington Shipyards blew.”
 

“You think the Swarm had backdoor entry into his mind? Influenced him, just enough, to destroy the ships?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. And the third,” she said, bringing up the final sample on the scope. He peered inside.

“Anyone I know?”

“Yes.
You
.”

He pulled back to glance at her, frowning. “Mine’s detectable?”

“Of course. Once I knew what to look for.”

“And what are you looking for?”

“This sample matches the one I sent through the micro-singularity I made. The singularity inactivated the main virus. The
first
virus. But something about the shock of traversing a singularity pair disrupts most of the virus’s response functionality. It only responds to one waveform of meta-space signal now. But this means that you were, at one point, infected with the full virus. It tells us that Lieutenant Volz is probably right—you were on the other side of his singularity, and you were acting for the Swarm.”

He peered at it, with its hundreds of protrusions and cilia-like extensions and arms. One part of it was labeled with its molecular makeup. Words like
ketone
and
methyl
dominated the word-soup, but several stood out to him. “Lanthanum trioxide? Iridium? Thorium? Uranium 238?” He pulled back to glance nervously at her. “I’ve got uranium pumping through my blood, Shelby?”

“Oh, calm down. It’s the non-radioactive isotope. And it’s less than a femto-gram. You’re fine. Better than stage ten thousand cancer, wouldn’t you say?”

He shrugged. “So. We have proof. Actual physical data, that I’m not a crazy time-bomb waiting to go off.” He stood up and stretched his neck after having hunched over to peer through the scope. “Maybe that will calm Norton down and half the top brass. I swear the’ve been calling for my head from day one. God help us all if Zingano ever kicks it.”

Proctor shut the scope down and stowed the samples in her desk. “Proof? That’s a stretch. It’s compelling evidence, but still not proof. I doubt this will sway General Norton. Honestly, if it weren’t for Avery, Norton would have had you tossed out an airlock by now.”

Granger motioned to the door. “Come on. Zingano wants to see us. Let’s keep him happy. I prefer to be on this side of the airlock.”

They walked to the shuttle bay where a pilot stood outside his craft, waiting for them. Once inside with their restraints attached, the shuttle glided out the bay doors, revealing the deep blue atmosphere below, and, beyond that, green continents. Britannia was the most Earth-like planet humanity had settled so far—more Earth-like even than Earth—and one of the first habitable planets discovered. As such, its population was burgeoning, rapidly dwarfing the cradle of humanity. Since it was slightly less dense, but more massive, the land area was nearly twice as large as Earth, and hundreds of cities peppered the coastlines along every continent.

“Shelby,” said Granger, after he’d sealed the hatch to the cockpit so they’d have another moment alone. “We need to be able to block the Swarm’s meta-space signal. They do it. Since the first contact, four months ago, they’ve been doing it to us. They come in, and any ship within a certain range of a carrier loses meta-space comm until the carrier is neutralized. I want that. We need that.”

She closed her eyes, as if running through the possibilities, modeling who-knows-what in that brain of hers, immediately trying to attack the problem. That was Proctor. She never blinked in the face of an insurmountable problem. She just ... figured things out, and then implemented solutions, managing people and resources so expertly that his superiors had wanted to snatch her away from him. Hell, her ship, the
ISS Chesapeake
, was nearly ready. It had taken longer than planned to retrofit it, but it’d be ready within weeks. Yet there were already rumblings at IDF to make her an admiral, skipping the captaincy altogether. Half the push was to spite Granger, sure, but half came from sheer admiration for her abilities. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up as head of IDF someday, and would have his condolences.

“And one more thing. We need to be able to shut down an active Swarm virus.”

She opened her eyes. “We’ve been trying desperately. But we can’t seem to move beyond the cure I injected into Wyatt. As it stands, the cure kills.”

“What about something temporary? Don’t cure, but block. If the cure kills, then forget it. Just focus on blocking. Or target just a few of those functional groups on the virus, and maybe give the victim a fighting chance. Let them fight Swarm control.”

“Interesting.” She turned to stare out the window as they approached the
Victory
, a carbon-copy replica of the
Warrior
and
Constitution
. “I hadn’t thought to do a half-measure like that.” She glanced over at him. “No offense.”

“None taken. You never were one for half-measures.”

“I’ll work on it. Both ideas.”

Zingano met them in the shuttle bay and immediately handed Proctor a small briefcase.

“What’s this?”

“Blood.”

She and Granger eyed each other. “Whose?” he said.

Zingano thumbed toward his chest. “For one, mine. As well as every other admiral and captain based here at Britannia. Turns out, Rear Admiral Littlefield committed suicide. Bullet straight though his own brain.
After
he self-destructed every antimatter bomb present at Wellington Station.”

“You suspect the chain of command has been infiltrated?” said Granger.

“Well it obviously has. Look at you.”

“And Admiral Azbill,” added Proctor.

Zingano smirked. “Bastard. I’ll send word to IDF CENTCOM at once. Have him detained.”

Granger shook his head. “The Swarm doesn’t know we can detect their influence. Maybe for now it would be best to allow them to think they’ve got us fooled?”

Zingano weighed the options. “For now. But this means our circle of trust is closing. We need to test me, General Norton, Admiral Chandrasekhar—my deputy.”

“And Avery?” said Proctor.

Zingano shook his head. “If Avery’s got it ... well, god help us all.”

Proctor nodded in farewell and hefted the briefcase. The shuttle door closed behind her, and the craft took off, leaving Granger and Zingano alone.

“You know,” Zingano said, thumbing in the direction of the departing shuttle, “she’s been due at the
Chesapeake
for a few weeks now.”

“I know. I just don’t think it’s wise to lose her right now.”

“Lose her? Heh. Putting one of the best commanders in the fleet at the helm of one of the best ships isn’t what I’d call
losing
her.”

“Dammit, you know what I mean, Bill. Plus, something tells me we need her doing the science more than we need her doing the commanding.”