Constitution: Book 1 of the Legacy Fleet Trilogy (13 page)

A flurry of defensive fire blasted up from the surface—Lunar Base’s robust orbital defense was giving the alien fleet a run for its money. Granger heard a few abortive, quiet cheers as one of the alien vessels broke apart under the withering fire from below, but they soon fell silent as they watched another huge alien ship bear down on the
ISS Clyburne
—itself a massive carrier—and slice it in two with a devastatingly effective directed energy weapon that arced across space in a lethal, brilliant green light.
 

Granger heard several officers behind him moan. After entire careers of waiting and training vigilantly for an enemy that never came, they were unprepared for the emotional impact of real threats and losses. He knew several of them probably had friends on that ship. He knew Captain Arenson personally, and a giant pit formed in his stomach as he watched one of the halves of the
Clyburne
burst into a massive explosion as it was hit by a second devastating beam.

Chapter Thirty

Earth’s Moon

Bridge, ISS Constitution

“Captain, something’s happening,” called out Lieutenant Diaz. Granger peered at the screen and saw that he was right—something very odd was happening, just as in the surveillance vid from Phobos Station. A piercingly bright light had appeared in the midst of the alien fleet.

And as before, the video feed began to pulse.

But this time he noticed something else. A faint humming in the deckplate. Like a distant vibration, low and rumbling and barely perceptible.

He turned to Haws. “You feel that?”

“Feel what?”

Dammit—was his head playing tricks on him again? If they survived the day he’d have to go down to Doc Wyatt and get his brain scanned. The headache, combined with the faint vertigo from the deep pulsing in the ship were evidence enough that the cancer had spread.

“That pulsing. It started just when the video began shaking, and that light showed up next to the alien ships.” He glared at his XO. “You’re telling me you can’t feel it?”

Another voice sounded out across the bridge from the doors sliding open. “I feel it.”

Granger breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. “Good, so I’m not crazy. Why are you not down in fire control, Commander Proctor?”

“Not much point. They’re going to have about eighty percent of the firing systems up in the next fifteen minutes. Not much more I could do, so when I heard the alarms I came down here. Thought you could use some of my expertise on the Swarm. Such as it is,” she added with a faint grimace. “No one knows much, but my doctoral dissertation was on Swarm anthropology.”

He regarded her with a skeptical eye. “How in the world did you study Swarm anthropology without any living specimens? Or dead specimens for that matter.”

But he hardly heard her answer, as his attention had swiveled back to the screen to watch as the brilliant light increased in intensity, even as the bombardment from the defenses on the surface intensified. One of the alien ships erupted in a massive explosion as one of the high-yield quantum thermonuclear warheads found its target, but the other ships held formation around the growing point of light.

Granger knew what was about to happen. They’d seen it less than an hour ago, and the next moment confirmed his fear. The light disappeared—it moved so fast his eyes couldn’t track it. He wasn’t even sure it moved, possibly because when it disappeared the video feed was overwhelmed with static and distortion. But a second later a massive explosion erupted out of the lunar surface far below, blasting outward, taking the entire Lunar Base with it.

Someone across the bridge in environmental operations vomited.

“Well, Commander? What does your Ph.D. in Swarm Anthropology tell you about that?”

Proctor was silent as the entire bridge watched the aftermath. A giant plume of rock, dust, and debris wafted up from the surface, the low gravity of the moon permitting the cloud to extend hundreds of kilometers upwards. Soon, it was nearly where the alien ships had been, though they had quickly moved off after their doomsday weapon launched. They were now finishing off the remaining IDF vessels that survived the initial onslaught.

“Well, for one, they’re an evolutionarily cyclical species. This is just the latest of a series of regular leaps forward for them. Each cycle they expand outward from their core systems or homeworld, clearing out the space around them, before retreating back.”

Granger stared at her. “How the hell do you know all that? I thought we knew nothing about them. All of IDF’s expeditionary forces came back empty handed. The Swarm disappeared seventy-five years ago, inexplicably, without a trace, and now you’re telling me you somehow know more than IDF intel about our deadliest enemy—”

“Oh, they know all this. Or rather, they’ve been told. None of this is corroborated. You’re right, all the expeditionary forces sent out in the early years after the Swarm War came back empty handed, so I had to rely on ... more indirect methods. I studied the worlds they left behind, reconstructed maps of their expansion, networked with technological anthropologists to glean what we could from their ship design. In the end I couldn’t come to many firm conclusions beyond what IDF scientists have come to, but I have my hypotheses. Or rather, I used to. I left my science career fifteen years ago for the military.”

Granger considered her for a moment, wondering if they could glean anything from her previous studies that might help them, but out of the corner of his eye, movement on the still-playing video feed caught his attention. An IDF ship breaking off from the melee, which had become more of a mop-up operation for the aliens.

“It’s the
Thrush
, sir,” said one of the tactical crew. “My brother is on—” but he broke off as he watched a brilliant green beam flash out from the nearest alien ship and lance right into the heart of the
Thrush,
a smaller light cruiser. The beam emerged from the far side, and within a few seconds the entire ship burst into a muted flame, quickly extinguished by space.

And then it was over. Every IDF ship had succumbed, and without hesitating, the alien fleet started moving as one.

Straight toward Earth.

Straight toward them.

Chapter Thirty-One

Near Earth’s Moon

Flightdeck, ISS Constitution

The simulator training was intense, but over far too quickly. In a sense, flying the simulated fighter was like flying her usual shuttle, only with guns. And now she was encouraged to fly at breakneck speeds and take the curves as fast as she could.

“Did pretty good for a newbie,” said Lieutenant Volz as she pulled herself out of the simulator, using his offered hand as leverage.

“Thanks, Ballsy.”

“Just don’t fishtail your landing, Fishtail, or that callsign’s gonna stick.”

The hour was up, and the two of them jogged through the fighter bay, which swarmed with activity as the work crews frantically pushed to get as many birds into service as humanly possible. The interactive museum displays, models, and soft ropes and poles for queue formation were shoved unceremoniously into a corner—all trappings of retirement had been tossed aside.

“Ok, you’re in that one there. Stay close to me. Our squad will fly in three-man attack wedge formation with single backup while we’re out there, just like you practiced in the sim. You, Dogtown, and Hotbox will fly point and I’ll back you all up.”

She climbed up into her bird, and before she knew it she was initiating the engines and lifting off the deck. The pulsing screen of the energy airlock shimmered around her as she passed out into the vacuum at the end of the runway where she awaited with her squadron the inevitable order to deploy.

Voices of the other pilots chattered excitedly over the comm, and she felt a thrill of adrenaline. But after a minute of waiting, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out a picture of Zack as a baby, held in her husband’s arms. It was when they were on a hike up in Yosemite right before her redeployment.

She reached and jammed it into a small space between the dashboard and one of the indicators so that it popped up vertically on its own. Her two favorite people in the world right in her view as she readied the rest of her fighter’s systems for combat.

Ballsy’s voice rang over her headset. “All right, bitches, we’ve got confirmation! Get ready!”

Glancing one more time at her baby son and Tom, she gunned her engine.

She swore she’d see them again.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Near Earth’s Moon

Bridge, ISS Constitution

“Sir, they’re accelerating rapidly!” said Lieutenant Diaz. “I don’t know how, but they’re at thirty g’s. At this rate they’ll be on top of us in five minutes!”

Haws sidled up to him and whispered in his ear. “Tim. This is crazy. We’re no match for them—not even with the
Qantas
backing us up. We’ll be dead in five minutes.”

“What are you suggesting?” murmured Granger.

“Q-jump with whatever civilian ships that are capable of docking with us, and get back to Earth now. Meet up with the fleet. It’s our only hope. Maybe fighting alongside the rest of the fleet we might actually make a difference. But this? This is suicide.”

Haws had kept his voice low, to avoid any listening bridge crew from hearing their commanders discuss a possible retreat. Worse—a retreat leaving behind defenseless civilians to their certain doom.

“None of those ships have q-jump capability, and we don’t have time to let them dock. I’m not going to leave these people to their deaths,” he replied in a murmur.

“Tim, if we stay, they’ll still die, just a minute or so later,” pleaded Haws.

“And if we leave, we’ll die just a few hours later. So what’s your point?” He said this out loud and several officers glanced at the two of them. He raised his voice to the whole bridge and pointed at the comm officer. “Pipe me through to the ship.”

“You’re on, sir.”

“This is Captain Granger. As you may know, we’re about to engage with the enemy fleet. Probably Swarm. I’ll be honest with you: the odds don’t look good. These bastards just took out Lunar Base and half a dozen IDF vessels in under ten minutes. This is the real deal, folks. This is the moment we’ve trained our whole lives for.”

He paused to glance around the bridge. Except for the hum of systems and the sound of the ventilation, all was silent, all paying rapt attention to the captain. He needed this to be good.

God, he hated speeches.

“We’ve already lost friends. We’ve lost family. Ships newer and larger than ours have already met their end. But I’ll tell you something.” He glanced at Haws, who glared back. “This ship has never met her match. Seventy-five years ago, when she was already fifty years old, she held her own against the Swarm. She and the rest of the Legacy fleet. The
Congress
, the
Warrior,
the
Independence,
and the
Chesapeake
, all lived to tell the tale. So I say to you: do your duty. Stand firm. Keep your wits about you. Remember your training. Be true to her and she’ll be true to us. And if we fall, then by God we will fall in defense of humanity, and those after us will tell stories that will pass through the ages. Granger out.”

Haws grumbled. “Let’s hope there’s still someone around to tell stories about us.”

Granger ignored him. “Launch fighters. RPO crews stand ready. As soon as the fleet is in range I want firing solutions. Scan their vessels for their power plants and focus on them. I want their power systems crippled as soon as possible. Contact the
Qantas
, tell them to back us up—our armor is ten times as thick as theirs. And if Captain Argus gives you any guff about his precious smart-steel armor, just remind him I have operational authority over this mission.” His string of orders came out so fast that those around him at first weren’t sure which was directed to whom. But within a few seconds they snapped into action, Haws barking orders to the weapons crew, Commander Proctor relaying orders to the fighter bay, and the comm station chattering into their headsets.

“Time?”

Lieutenant Diaz glanced at his console readout. “One minute, twenty seconds until maximum firing range, sir.”

“Begin firing in twenty seconds. I know targeting is less accurate, but I want a barrage to greet them on their way in. Full spread, rate of fifty kilograms per second for the mag-rails. Wait on the lasers until they’re in range.”

“Aye, sir,” said the tactical officer. “Targeting computers engaged, ready to fire. In ten. Nine. Eight. Seven....”

This was it. Granger gripped the edge of his command station and glared at the viewscreen on the wall, as if daring the enemy fleet to come any closer.

“Two. One,” continued the tactical officer. “All guns, fire.”

On the screen he could barely make out the flashes of the mag-rail slugs as they shot away at speeds faster than his eyes could track. With any luck, a few would find their targets and soften up the fleet before it arrived. He watched as two by two the fighters sailed out of the fighter bays and glided into formation, flanking the giant ship. Soon, sixty-three were out, and above the hum of general operational activity on the bridge all he could hear was the distant pounding of the mag-rail guns firing their slugs.

“Anything?” he said to the sensor officer. “Any impacts?”

“Not yet, sir. Targeting is difficult at this range, and they have time to move out of—” The officer peered closer at his display, “Hot damn! We hit one, sir. Got ‘em good.”

“On screen. Maximum magnification.”

The view of the distant approaching points of light was replaced by a grainy close-up of one of the alien ships, which was belching fire and debris. “Good work, people,” he said, with a nod to the tactical station.

“Twenty seconds until laser firing range. The fleet is beginning its deceleration. Holy mother of god ... Sir, they’re decelerating at over five hundred kps per second. That’s—”

“Impossible?” Commander Proctor finished his sentence for him. “I think not, Lieutenant. I think we’ll find the Swarm will be full of surprises today. It’s how they’ve evolved—every cycle they swarm outward, with a whole new slate of technology to throw at their perceived enemies—”