Victory (26 page)

He could feel them debate amongst themselves, even as every few seconds another tens of thousands of voices disappeared as another mother perished. The argument swayed one way, then another, and all the while, as more voices disappeared, the side in favor of taking a chance on Granger started to win out.

“Captain,” said someone at tactical, “the dreadnought has ceased firing on the fleet. They’re ramping up the assault on the carriers.

Granger opened his eyes. On the viewscreen the sight was incredible. The dreadnought opened up all of its antimatter turrets, raining terrible green fire upon the more vulnerable Swarm carriers. One exploded. Then another. Then three more. Soon, there were only five left.

The guns of all of the survivors of Alpha Wing combined with the deadly onslaught from the
Benevolence
finished them off quickly.

Norton’s voice sounded over the comm speaker. “Well, Granger, impressive, to say the least. You’re a goddamned hero. Now watch as we finish this.” The channel cut out. On the viewscreen Granger watched, seething with anger, as the IDF fleet opened fire on the dreadnought.

Granger pounded on the armrest. “Dammit!”
That swaggering, lying fool
.

Maybe Zingano was right. Maybe Norton really was compromised. Controlled by the Swarm. And not just with the backdoor virus, but the full-on usurpation strain.

And if so, maybe he could be manipulated. Maybe Granger could exercise the barest, momentary control over him, like he had Hanrahan. He closed his eyes, and reached out, toward the
ISS Lincoln
. Reaching for Norton’s mind through the Ligature.
 

Friend, stop
.

He tried to think of how he could convince the Swarm to cease their operations. If Norton really was under Swarm control, then they were using the IDF army to retake the dreadnought for themselves. The reason why was obvious—the ships were deadly, worth at least fifty Swarm carriers each.

Friend, I have information the Skiohra are hiding from you. Stop the attack, and I can convince them to tell us what they know. Everything depends on it
.

Nothing. No response from the Swarm through Norton. Or any other potential Swarm-compromised person on that ship, or anywhere in the immediate vicinity. Meanwhile, the Children were screaming again. The soldiers continued their assault, and the voices continued to dwindle in number.

Dammit
. “Helm, is the q-jump drive operational?”

“Yes, sir...” began the officer, confused.

“Initiate a q-jump to these coordinates on my mark,” he said, entering in a set of numbers on his console. At the same time, he broadcast the thought to the Skiohra.
Jump. Come with me. I can stop the soldiers if you come with me
.

They had no choice. In spite of the chorus of Children calling for attack and denying Granger’s request, the majority, fearful and weary of battle, overcame the voices of mistrust. Not due to any trust in Granger or what he was saying, but due to desperation.

We come
.

“Mr. Oppenheimer, are all
Warrior
escape pods aboard?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Recall the fighters. Both
Victory
’s and
Warrior
’s. And the ones from every other destroyed Alpha Wing ship we can fit in here. They have three minutes to land, and then we’re out. If they don’t all fit in the fighter bay, send them to the shuttle bay and the cargo bay. Pack ‘em in.”

Norton would try to stop them, he knew. This was basically mutiny. Not just insubordination. This was a one-way street, a path there was no coming back from. General Norton would go back to President Avery and the top brass and say he’d turned, that Granger had joined the Swarm openly.

This had better be worth it.

Two minutes later, they were all in. “Jump,” he said, while simultaneously thinking the order to the dreadnought.

The screen shifted, the remains of the fighter battle replaced by empty space.

Moments later, the dreadnought snapped into existence, debris still streaming from the massive hole gouged out by the former
ISS Constitution
. A battle still raging all across its thousands of decks, in effect, one large ground war, in space.

“Get me on the invasion force channel,” he said, and waited until the comm officer nodded toward him. “IDF invasion force, this is Captain Granger. Cease fire, and lay down your arms. I repeat, cease fire. All battle operations are hereby suspended, on orders from the Commander in Chief herself.” He supposed if he was going to lie, he may as well go big.

It took a few minutes for the orders to propagate through the command structure, but he knew the results faster than anyone, as the Children’s voices began to change, from dread and fear and confusion....

To glee and triumph.

Then righteous anger, tinted with a thirst for revenge.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Bridge, ISS Victory

Interstellar Space, 2.3 Lightyears From Sirius

It was over. At least for now. The antimatter turrets on the dreadnought were quiet. Proctor relayed reports from Colonel Barnard that the marines had stood down, and either retreated back to their docking ships or barricaded themselves in different sections of the dreadnought.

But the
Victory
was a mess. Granger hadn’t noticed it before, but there was dried blood smeared all over and around the captain’s chair, and nearby a beam from the partially collapsed ceiling lay on the floor, pushed to the side. Probably the beam that killed Zingano. He looked up—sections of the deck above them were visible through the ceiling.

“Status summary,” he said, glancing at the XO’s station where Commander Oppenheimer and the ship’s XO were conferring with each other.

“We have q-jump drive, life support, and the main engines. But the power plant has been damaged. Not critically, but they’re short-handed down there as it is. We lost half our engineering crew in the attack.”

The bridge doors slid open and Proctor finally walked through. He supposed she’d been coordinating rescue operations for the
Warrior
crew, getting all the escape pods to safety and accounting for who was still alive.

Granger motioned over to her. “Get Rayna and her crew down to Engineering.” He turned back to Oppenheimer. “Your chief engineer—is she good?”

“He’s dead, but—”

“Then Rayna Scott is the new chief. Please inform the deputy chief of the change,” he said, not pausing to address whatever concerns the Commander was going to bring up. They were out of time. Krull had information, and from what she had been saying it sounded time-critical. “Sickbay, this is the Captain,” he spoke to the open air.

“Sickbay here,” said the doctor.

“Status of our patient, Doc?”

“Still unconscious, but stable. I think. Believe me, Captain, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know when she wakes up.”

Still unconscious. For all he knew, the Russian plan she’d alluded to was already in progress, and they’d never even get to Earth or Britannia or whatever the target was in time.

“Thank you, Doc. Granger out.”

Now, the would wait, and hope that Krull would wake up again. Looking around at the ruined bridge, Granger knew there was plenty to do in the meantime. Even if they knew exactly where they needed to go in the next hour, they’d never be able to get there with the ship in its current state. And then there were the quick glances and the outright distrust on the faces of half the bridge crew. He knew they had good reason to look at him that way.

He was a renegade.
 

In spite of Zingano’s confidence in him, the rest of the top brass hated him. And he’d just fled an active battle with known collaborators of the Swarm. IDF knew he could communicate with the Swarm and their allies through his mind, and that naturally created distrust. Hell, even
he’d
mistrust himself if he didn’t know any better.

And he’d disobeyed direct orders from General Norton. In theory, any of the top officers aboard the
Victory
would have solid legal standing if they ever decided to mutiny. Any court martial worth its salt would decide that they’d acted rationally if they chose to topple him and toss him in the brig, or even put a bullet in his head.

“Commander Oppenheimer, casualty report,” he said. For what lay ahead they’d need a smoothly running ship, and a crew he could trust. At the moment he had the survivors of two crews, all of whom had just lived though one of the most traumatic battles he’d ever seen.

And he’d seen many.

“During the engagement we lost, at current count, two hundred and thirty-eight souls. Including Admiral Zingano, Chief Engineer Ryu, the entire bridge ops crew on duty at the time, my deputy XO, and over half our fighters.”

“Wounded?”

“Still too early for exact numbers, but the most recent estimate from sickbay is ninety-one crew members too wounded for duty. A dozen of those are critical and may not even make it.”

He turned to Commander Proctor, who’d been hovering near the empty science station, apparently lost in thought. “Shelby?”

She shook her head, regaining focus. “Yes, Captain?”

“What’s the status of
Warrior
’s crew? How many made it?”

After a moment of confusion, she brought up her data on a science station terminal. “We lost a handful of escape pods during the flight over from
Warrior
, but most made it. I count eight hundred and two crew members. Many wounded, but most not critically so.”

“We need to integrate the two crews. Can you do that?” He noticed her head had drifted off to the side again, as if lost in thought. “Shelby?”

“Sorry, Tim, I’ve just been thinking. Trying to put it all together. The Swarm. The two viruses. The Skiohra. The Dolmasi. The meta-space signals. What it all means.”

Granger nodded. He understood—she needed to work on the
real
problem. Someone else could handle the drudgeries of command. “Commander Oppenheimer. My Lieutenant Diaz is now your deputy XO. You and he will handle the integration of the
Warrior
’s crew aboard the
Victory
.”

“How long will your old crew be staying, sir?” Oppenheimer’s gaze was neutral, but the question dripped with meaning.
How long will you be here, Granger
?
How long will we be on the run from IDF
?

“As long as it takes to save our civilization, Mr. Oppenheimer.”

Oppenheimer squirmed in his seat. Something had happened. Bridge crew officers were whispering amongst themselves. Granger glanced from Oppenheimer, to the tactical crew, who was also eyeing him uncomfortably. Finally, the comm officer spoke up. “Captain, we just picked up a meta-space signal from General Norton. You are to be apprehended, and we’re supposed to return to his location.”

Granger sighed. It was inevitable, of course. “You should all know that, right before Admiral Zingano died, he told me he suspected Norton was under Swarm control. Your own doctor can verify this. And I think the disastrous results of this hair-brained mission speak for themselves. So think long and hard before you make your call, Mr. Oppenheimer.”

It was mostly true. Of course, in the minutes after Zingano had suggested as much, Granger had reached out to Norton through the Ligature, and determined that, in fact, the man was just being a stubborn jackass. No Swarm-control needed for that. No need to ascribe to foreign influence the ability for an officer to be a moron.

“But I’ll tell you this, Mr. Oppenheimer,” he began again, and turned to look around at the entire bridge crew. “I’ll let you all in on a little secret. They call me the Hero of Earth.” He paused. The bridge was silent. “Bullshit. I’m no hero.” He pointed up toward Proctor. “There’s your hero.” He pointed down in the direction of the shuttle bay. “More heroes down there on the fighter deck and shuttle bay. And here’s another secret. When I was floating above Earth, in the
Constitution
, broken and hobbled, I knew with certainty that we’d win. Even as those first carriers closed in on us, battering the shit out of us, breaking our noses and kicking our asses, even then I knew. We would win. And do you know how I knew that?”

He rested his gaze on the navigational officer at helm. He hadn’t had to give a good rah-rah speech in awhile—his old crew had gotten to the point where they performed expertly in every battle even when all he said was
go get ‘em
, but this crew was on the cusp of turning on him. They needed their hero.
 

And the best hero was a reluctant hero.

“I knew we were going to win, not because
I
was the hero, but because I was resting on the shoulders of heroes. We won that battle, Mr. Oppenheimer, not because of me, but because of my crew. In fact, I literally rested on the shoulders of Commander Proctor when she carried me to safety as the
Constitution
blazed through the atmosphere and crash landed in Utah. Came to rest almost nose to nose with the monument to the old
ISS Victory
, in fact. It was why this ship was named what it was. Zingano thought it was poetic or some shit. But the fact remains, it’s not the guy in charge that’s the hero.”
 

He turned back to Oppenheimer. “It’s you. And by god, Commander, Earth needs us. Britannia needs us. Novo Janeiro needs us. Marseilles needs us. All of humanity is depending on us, and the decisions we make right now. One wrong move, and it’s over.”

He stepped away from the captain’s chair and made for the exit. “You all have a duty. What that duty is is your own decision, and I won’t stand in the way of it. Let me know what you choose.” He motioned for Proctor to join him, and silently prayed that Oppenheimer wouldn’t call the marines on him before he managed to leave the bridge. “But for my part, I hope you choose to be heroes.” And with that, he passed through the bridge doors which opened to receive him.

After they’d rounded the bend, Proctor whispered behind him. “That was pretty good.”

“Think they bought it?”

“If they don’t, this’ll be the shortest mutiny on record.” She smiled, even if briefly. Good—her old sense of humor was intact. “Where are we going, by the way?”