Warrior, p.7
Warrior, page 7
part #2 of Legacy Fleet Series
They stopped. Below them another iris-shaped door opened, admitting them to a large bay. Several other ships were parked on pads, but no one waited to greet them.
“Follow me,” said the captain after the ship had come to rest. He opened the door and led them into the giant bay, passing a ship Isaacson recognized as Interstellar One, the president’s personal star-liner. The lights were off, but the underside of the craft still radiated a substantial amount of heat, so he assumed she had only just arrived, too.
“This way, Mr. Vice President.” The captain waved a hand slowly past an ID scanner and the bay door heaved open with a mechanical sigh. Odd—he assumed the man was just a simple taxi pilot—a self-styled captain of his own personal shuttle. But, clearly, his security credentials were of the highest caliber.
They walked down a long, stark, poorly-lit hallway, wet with condensation, and soon entered what would have looked like a highly sophisticated command center were it not for all the cots and cooler chests littering the room. It had apparently been lived in by a small army of presidential staffers.
And there she was, right in the middle of her usual entourage: Chief of Staff Miller, a few ever-present aides, Congresswoman Sparks (her direct contact and hand in Congress), General Norton, (the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and of course, her poodle, held by what he assumed was a bodyguard, judging by the sidearms strapped to the well-built man’s waist.
“Eamon. Good—you’re here.” President Avery strode over, abruptly cutting off General Norton and extending a firm hand for Isaacson to shake. A large turquoise ring bulged out from one of her fingers—the one piece of jewelry she ever wore. “How’s your bunker? Ha! Look at us. Hiding like little girls while our enemies make plans behind our backs. You heard, didn’t you?”
“What’s that, Madam President?” he asked, falling into step with her as she pulled him by the arm toward a small office off of the main floor. When they’d all filed in and General Norton pulled the door shut behind him, she put her hands on her hips and regarded them all.
“All right, all of you out. Just Eamon. Give us a moment.”
Her entourage dutifully stood up and left. Isaacson glanced at Conner, who looked like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself, and motioned with his head toward the door. When it was closed she grabbed his arm again and pulled him in close.
“Someone is trying to kill me, Eamon. Someone on the inside. And they very nearly succeeded today.”
He tried to look shocked, but before he could say anything, she pulled him in closer and whispered. “And I think they’re trying to kill you, too.”
Chapter Sixteen
Atlantic Ocean, Earth
Subsurface Presidential Bunker Eight
Avery looked him up and down, apparently watching for his reaction. After a moment she repeated herself. “Did you hear me? Someone is trying to kill me. And you.”
You don’t say? Isaacson though with a slight inward smile. If Volodin was behind it, he supposed the other man would try to make it look like he was trying to take out both of them. Less suspicious that way.
He tried to look serious. And concerned—she’d want to see him concerned.
“But why bring me here? I thought it was wisest to keep us apart. You know … for the sake of leadership continuity in case….” He trailed off.
“In case the bastards shove a stick of dynamite up my ass? Ha!” She turned and grabbed a chair, spun it around and sat on it backward. She was full of swagger—just like during her campaign, but the recent months seemed to have given her a rougher edge.
“Somehow I doubt—” he began, circling the room.
“That someone is trying to kill me?”
That someone would use dynamite , he thought. He knew perfectly well there were plenty of people that wanted her dead. Himself included. At least, he did two months ago. He had to admit that with the national emergency she’d risen to the occasion rather dramatically.
She’d been smirking, but her face turned serious and she pulled out a flask from her jacket. “Look, Eamon, I’ve made a lot of enemies. You should know. I only chose you as veep to get the Federalist Party out of my hair and appease half the people calling for my head—oh, don’t give me that look, we both knew that. Let’s cut the shit.”
Avery offered the flask to him, and after hesitating a split second, he accepted it and drank. Bourbon.
“Very well,” Isaacson said. “And I only accepted because I thought you’d be ousted in the first vote of no-confidence within a year of the election and I’d be fast tracked for the presidency.”
“Ha! Now we’re getting somewhere.” She grabbed the flask back and swigged. “You bet your fat ass you were fast tracked. Probably more than you know. I knew there were rumblings for the vote, but I also knew I had the votes. The next one, though … who knows?” She stopped the flask and tucked it away. “But it’s in the past. Times change. We woke up in a completely different world, you and I, two months ago.”
He nodded his approval. “And you’ve done a singularly remarkable job, ma’am.”
“Not good enough.” She pulled the flask out, despite having just tucked it away, drank again, and coughed. “I appreciate the sentiment. But the truth is that we need to work together to survive. Not just my life. Not just your life. But all our lives.” She looked up at him, and he finally noticed the deep bags under her eyes. In spite of the no-nonsense tough-as-nails commander-in-chief persona she’d cultivated, she looked deadly tired. “They’re coming, Eamon. All these skirmishes are just feints. There’s no reason they can’t just send two hundred carriers to Earth tomorrow and wipe us out of existence.”
He drummed his fingers on his cheek. Isaacson remembered the message the Swarm had sent Ambassador Volodin during their brief flight on the Winchester during the battle of Earth. You die. Terse, but to the point.
And yet two months later, they hadn’t come. At least, not in force, and not to Earth.
Volodin knew something. He knew a lot of somethings, none of which he’d told Isaacson, who decided right then he’d force it out of the ambassador. Beat it out of him if he had to. He was almost sure the other man was under the influence of the Swarm, but those last moments in the Omaha command center had convinced him otherwise. And yet there was still something off about him. Something out of place. Why be so insistent on assassinating Avery, plot a convoluted scheme with Isaacson and President Malakhov to get rid of her, and then, at the first failure, retreat back to Russia with nary a word, and then supposedly make more attempts on her life without telling him?
It didn’t make sense.
“Eamon,” she began, “there are Senators. Governors. Congressmen. Many of them hate me, yes, I understand that. It’s politics. But there’s a group of them plotting my death. For whatever deluded reasoning they’ve conjured into their vacant brains, they think I’m a threat. Even before the emergency, they wanted me dead. Is it because of my past? My policies? My vagina? You know some of them can’t stand seeing an uppity woman grab them by the political balls and squeeze unless they do my bidding. They hate it. They hate me, for whatever reason.”
He nodded. He agreed—in fact, he’d been one of them. For months he’d met secretly with over a dozen of them, plotting the overthrow, scheming ways to get her out of office. Only a handful knew of the plans to kill her, but he knew there must have been others that shared the sentiment.
“Will you help me? We need to find them. Root them out, before it’s too late. And believe me, Eamon, in a few months—maybe even a few weeks, it could be too late.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I will help, Madam President. I’m friends with several of the factions, and dozens of senators owe me favors. I have a few thoughts about who it could be, but I’d rather keep that to myself for now. Give me some resources. Secret Service. Intelligence service. With my contacts and their … methods, I’m sure we can nail a few of these bastards.”
She stood up and reached out for his arm with a warm, vulnerable smile. She was so charismatic. Endearing. No wonder she’d won two elections outright, with no runoffs.
“Thank you, Eamon. I knew I could trust you.”
He gripped her hand in return. “And I’m honored to have your trust, Madam President.”
“Oh, Madam President my hairy ass. Call me Barb.”
She laughed again, and pulled the door open, waving her entourage back in. General Norton walked right up to her, about to speak, before glancing uneasily at Isaacson.
“Go on, General. Mr. Isaacson has clearance. What is it?”
The old soldier grumbled. “Madam President, I’ve just received word from the expeditionary force following up on Granger’s most recent lead.”
That caught her attention. She grabbed his arm. “And?”
“We found one. A Swarm world.”
Chapter Seventeen
The first thing he noticed were two blindingly bright lights above him. Was he on the Constitution? No—the color was off. The lights in sickbay were warmer. Inviting. Healing light.
These were cold. Almost blue. Harsh. One was bigger than the other.
He tried to move—it was hard. His limbs didn’t want to cooperate. It felt like moving through a pool of crystallized honey, but eventually, he managed to lift his head.
He was in a room. Small. A few more tables, some unfamiliar medical or technical instruments scattered on workbenches by the wall.
The strain was too much. He let his head fall back against the table, and just stared at the lights. Hours seemed to pass. Days? But when he lifted his head again he knew there were people in the room. Friendly people? Or enemies? It was all so hazy. The faces indistinct.
He fell asleep again, and when he awoke, he realized he could move his limbs—they were finally mobile. The pain had gone.
But he felt someone in the room behind him. He lifted his head to get a better look.
Chapter Eighteen
The Waypoint, Near Sirius
Bridge, ISS Warrior
Captain Granger bolted upright in his bed, gasping, hands clutching at his chest. The tumors … the cancer … the wilting pain—was it back?
He breathed deeply. Then whirled around to glimpse the person he knew stood behind him.
But the room was empty. It was just his bedroom on the Warrior , after all. The nearest people were the two marines standing guard outside his quarters.
It was a dream. Just a dream.
But it seemed like more. It felt so … real. So immediate and tangible and….
He shook his head. Was it possible? Was he remembering his ordeal? His vacation , as gossip on board called it? The dreams were occurring with increasing regularity. Always the same. Always hazy and incomplete and distant, like he was watching a film through blurred glass.
But they were becoming clearer. They were becoming memory, not dream. Dammit, he had to remember what happened to him. He felt like their lives depended on it.
“Sir, just a few more q-jumps away from the coordinates,” said Ensign Prucha over the comm.
He shook his head again to clear it. “I’ll be there in a minute, Ensign. Thank you.”
There’d been no reason to change out of his uniform when he slept at night—there was never the need. The Swarm incursions happened with such regularity that he found it far more convenient to only change when he showered. And so minutes later he settled into his chair on the bridge as a yeoman brought him his morning coffee. Was it morning? He glanced at the clock and realized he’d only slept two hours.
The ISS Warrior snapped into existence in an unremarkable area of space, just two and a half lightyears away from Sirius. The star shone brightly on the viewscreen, easily the most luminous object visible. Granger cocked his head toward the sensor station.
“Anything?”
Ensign Diamond shook his head. “Nothing yet, sir.”
Granger stood up and nodded. “Very well. Looks like we wait.”
“Just like Avery. Always keeping people waiting,” said Proctor.
Granger eyed her wryly. “You don’t like her, do you?”
Proctor shrugged. “She’s my commander in chief. Doesn’t matter whether I like her or not.”
“But you didn’t vote for her.”
“I … decline to answer.” Proctor tapped her console and changed the subject. “Admiral Zingano should be here momentarily. He was going to make a brief pass through the Proxima System just to review readiness there, but that shouldn’t take him long.”
“We need all the time we can get to make these repairs.” Granger examined the reports on his command console. “How’s the hull repair coming?”
“The main hole on the bow has been patched. That blast took out two whole mag rail guns and a laser turret, so we’ll have to completely replace them. We’ve got a dozen of each in storage, but it’ll take crews a week to install them. The rest of the hull damage is lighter, but will still take us about a week.”
Granger shook his head. “Too long. We need to be on the move. The next engagement could come in a week or it could come tomorrow.”
“If we get in a fight tomorrow we may not last long, sir. Especially not if it’s thirteen Swarm carriers like today.”
She was right, dammit. They’d have to lay low for a bit, or at least choose their engagements more carefully. Nearly three weeks of almost daily skirmishes had taken their toll. In fact, they were due at Churchill Station in the Britannia Sector to pick up replacement fighters and pilots. The losses were harrowing: thirty-five more pilots gone, including their birds, along with some support staff that had been standing in the wrong place when that enemy bogey slammed into the fighter bay.
“We’ll try to keep a low profile the next few days. Besides, I think I have an idea about what we’ll be doing, and it hopefully won’t involve flying into the middle of large formations of Swarm ships.”
She nodded, and before she could question further, Ensign Diamond called out. “Sir, the Victory just q-jumped in.”
Ensign Prucha added, “Admiral Zingano on the horn, sir.”
“Patch him through.”
The admiral’s voice blared over the speakers. “Long time no see, Tim. Avery should be along any minute now. Had a few last minute meetings on Earth. You heard about the latest attempt on her life?”
Granger leaned forward. “No, I hadn’t. Who’s trying to kill her? Swarm? Do they have agents on Earth?”
“That’s what we’re trying to get to the bottom of. And that incident with the Dolmasi at New Dublin—well that just confirmed what we suspected. That the Swarm are able to manipulate and control. How the bastards do it as a damn puddle beats me, but Avery’s not leaving things to chance. She’s left the capital and is running things from a series of secret command centers.”
“Is it the Russians? Could they be controlled somehow?”
It was a dangerous question in a way. It reminded everyone that he, too, had been in some sort of mysterious contact with the Russians, during his disappearance. And if the Swarm could control, and if the Russians were under their influence, then he had to tread carefully—what if he were under their influence? It was unthinkable, but it was something to consider.
“Don’t know, Tim. We’ve made diplomatic progress recently with Malakhov to get more support with the war effort. At first they tried to pull the neutrality shit, but we reminded them of what happened last time they tried to sit out a war.”
Granger shook his head. “I can’t believe we’re thinking about trusting them.”
“Look around you, Tim. We’re in a bad place. We can use all the help we can get.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but I don’t have to like it.”
The arrival of Interstellar One and the two escort missile frigates interrupted them. The three ships blinked into place, the stately, sleek presidential ship hovering in between two equally sleek, but deadly-looking military vessels, packed to the teeth with weaponry. Granger knew they were basically mini-Constitution s, almost solid blocks of tungsten, but about one hundred times smaller and with a crew of fifty. The hulls were so thick and the mag rails so numerous that there was only room for that many. One captain and forty-nine gunners. The president took her safety seriously.
“Incoming transmission from the president’s ship, sir. Conference call to both us and Victory . Visual.”
“Patch it through.” Granger turned to the viewscreen and smiled at the two people who appeared. Fleet Admiral Zingano, and President Avery.
Except she looked odd. A little more haggard. A little different. Had she changed her hair? No, that wasn’t it.
“Admiral, Captain,” she nodded. “Shall we meet aboard the Victory ?”
Admiral Zingano grunted. “Not quite finished building the ship yet, Madam President. We’ve got a hull and weapons and that’s about it. We’ll come to you.”
“Very well, Admiral. See you soon.” Her half of the screen blanked out.
Zingano gestured up at the screen. “She looks tired, don’t she?”
Granger raised an eyebrow at Zingano. “Tired? More like a different person. She needs to get out into the sunlight more.”
“So do we all. You’d look like an albino, Tim, if it weren’t for your scruff. Don’t you shave anymore?”
Granger grumbled. “Been a busy week. Killing cumrats takes precedent over my grooming.”
The admiral chuckled. “Well, when this is all over I’ll have time to court martial you.” He thumbed to his side. “Come on. Let’s get over there.”
The image blinked out, replaced by a view of Interstellar One and its escorts.
And then the escort ship to the left of President Avery’s vessel exploded.
Chapter Nineteen
