Constitution: Book 1 of the Legacy Fleet Trilogy (19 page)

She shrugged. “Who else could it be?”

“It’s a big universe, Commander.”

“True. But in this case, I think it is them.”
 

She fingered several buttons on the terminal and motioned through several menus until she brought up what looked like a star map of the closest five hundred lightyears or so.

“Here, look at this.”

“What is it?”

“It’s my doctoral dissertation.”

“Do we have time for this?” he asked, warily looking at the countdown timer which was keeping track of their approach to Earth. Over an hour remained until they began their deceleration burn, but there were still a whole lot of repairs to be made.

“You asked, sir. And yes, this will only take a moment.” She pointed at a specific point on the map. “Part of my work was to see if I could determine a general location for the Swarm homeworld. Of course, that problem has been a hot topic in Swarm research for over half a century, and I didn’t succeed.” She tapped again on the map, drawing a circle around a few parsecs of space. “But I think I narrowed it down.”
 

She drew a concentric circle around the first. “These systems all look like they were raided thousands of years ago. Not many data points here, but we’ve found evidence of other civilizations. Other aliens. Just a handful. All very primitive. But there was hardly anything left—any artifacts we found point to an abrupt end, all roughly at the same time.” She drew another circle around the first two. “These systems show similar signs of civilizational collapse, but hundreds of years later.”

With her finger she drew a third, then a fourth, and a fifth circle. “In each of these zones, the destruction all happens at the same time. The theory was that the Swarm simply moved outward over time, conquering system by system.”

Granger shrugged. “Sure looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“It does. But it’s happening systematically. They expand, clear out a region of space farther than they did the time before, and when they reach some pre-set distance, they stop, retreat and regroup, and essentially go into hibernation until the next time.”

“What do you think it means?” It was an interesting theory, but Granger could not see any way it would help them in their current situation.

“At first, I agreed with all the other xenobiologists and anthropologists and thought they were simply systematically conquering their neighbors—expanding their territory slowly but inexorably. But do they start colonies? Do they take over planets? Do they exploit resources? No. They don’t. They attack, they retreat, and they hibernate. Well, that last part’s speculation—they may simply enter a sort of refractory period or regeneration cycle. They may very well stay awake and conscious—in fact, I think this current invasion proves that they spend their dormancy period developing new offensive technology.”

“The point, Commander.” Granger was getting impatient. They still had a lot of work ahead of them before their arrival at Earth.

“The point is that it’s an evolutionary strategy. Somewhere, on some planet, they evolved from an animal that, every set period of time, swarmed outward from its habitat, cleared the space around them of competitors, such that when their offspring came of age there would be no competition for resources. The evolutionary trait has followed them to space, and I calculated the cycle period. Two hundred and eighty-nine years. Every two hundred and eighty-nine years, they expand their sphere of aggression by a distance factor of around fifty percent, wiping out any competitors within that space, spending the intervening years developing the new technology for the next cycle.”

He stared at her, wondering if he missed the point.

“Did you hear me?” she asked.

It finally hit him.

“Did you say it happens every two hundred and eighty-nine years?”

She nodded, and shrugged. “With an uncertainty of plus or minus twenty years, but yes, that’s what I said.”

The answer hit him like a punch in the stomach. “Then what the hell are they doing out here just seventy-five years after their last cycle?”

“That, Captain, is a very good question.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Near Earth

Bridge, ISS Constitution

The alarms were going off in Granger’s head. It didn’t make any sense—why would the Swarm come out of hibernation two hundred years early?

“Have there been deviations from the average cycle period before?”

“None. The largest variance was around twenty years, six cycles ago, but that’s just noise in the data.”

He stroked his chin and walked back towards his chair by the captain’s console. “Could it have anything to do with the last time they invaded Earth? They just up and left halfway through the invasion. No one has ever figured out why.”

“It’s probably just that their cycle ended midway through the invasion. When the timer goes off, they turn around and go home, regardless of what they’re doing.”

He watched the timer tick down until their arrival at Earth. Glancing at the long-range scanners, he saw that the alien fleet had yet to arrive there, though he wondered what they’d even be able to see this far out.

“Sorry, no,” said Granger. “That’s too easy of an explanation. Too simple. Too coincidental. Couldn’t there have been something that would both explain their retreat seventy-five years ago, and that they’re cutting their dormancy period short this time around?”

Proctor shrugged. “The conspiracy theorists would say that IDF lured them to Earth in the first place, to justify the military’s existence and increase funding and support for its related industries.”

He eyed her. “And you believe that?”

“Of course not. But as unified as Earth is, remember that some of the old nations want to reclaim their former glory, in their eyes.”

Granger swore. “The Russians.”

“Hey, don’t put words in my mouth, Captain. All I’m saying is that the Russian Confederation didn’t make out so badly in the last invasion. Nearly every other continent on Earth, and every other colony world got hit pretty hard.”

It couldn’t be. “That’s just Russo-phobic nonsense, Commander. I’d have thought better of you. We’ve heard of these types of conspiracy theories for decades. Just because you’ve discovered that the Swarm has broken dormancy early doesn’t lend any more credence to the crackpots.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “But just one more thing. Don’t you think it a little odd that the Russian Science Federation just announced quantum teleportation technology a few years ago, and now the Swarm is back, flinging forced quantum singularities at us? From all our legacy data, they never had any sort of quantum technology—it was all gravimetric-field-based back then, like us. At least, their navigation was. Their improvements in that area would explain their new ability to sustain such high accelerations. But the singularities? That one came out of left field, and the only known users of quantum tech are a few small research groups at IDF Technical, and the Russian Science Federation. You do the math.”

“Captain,” said Lieutenant Diaz. Granger turned to face him, and noticed the man’s face harden with whatever news he had. “
Valhalla Station
has engaged the Swarm, sir.”

“Put it on the screen, maximum magnification.” He knew they wouldn’t be able to see much, just a lot of pixelated, blurred points of light swarming around the massive station.

“Aye, sir.” The entire bridge crew looked up.

The alien fleet had stopped several hundred kilometers away, and were engaging what appeared to be a sizable IDF fleet—CENTCOM must have summoned at least two dozen heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and what looked like one of the super-carriers, probably the
ISS Justice
, Granger thought—its home base was Earth.

A flash of green. Then another. Followed by several more sustained bursts from the lead alien ship.

And it was gone—the super-carrier
Justice
. At least three thousand souls manning its gun crews, engine rooms, half a dozen flightdecks ... all gone in a brilliant, pixelated flash of light. The massive ship fractured into two main pieces, and the aliens, not content with the destruction, blasted the remaining larger half until it too exploded into several dozen smaller pieces.

“Good god,” breathed Commander Proctor, who was now standing next to Granger near the command console. “The
Justice
is the largest ship in the fleet, and it didn’t last more than a minute against those monsters.”

Granger stared at the screen, at the wreckage breaking apart and the alien ships blasting through it towards the remaining cruisers, which had started to mount a furious defense.

“If we survive this, heads are going to roll at IDF. Whoever ok’ed those smart-steel garbage hulls is going to be airlocked.” He winced as another heavy cruiser erupted into a giant fireball, snuffed out by the vacuum. Tapping the comm, he yelled, “Rayna, do we have full engine power yet?”

Some flustered swearing in the background, then Commander Scott’s harried voice. “Yes, sir. Eighty percent. That’s all you’re going to get, Cap’n, without going into dock.”

“Fine.” He turned to the nav crew. “Stop deceleration burn. I want another full thrust burn. Three g’s. Hold that thrust for twenty minutes, then decel. How fast will that get us there?”

One of the techs ran the numbers. “Twenty-five minutes, sir, but at that speed we’ll blaze right past the battle. It’ll take us at least forty minutes to decelerate.”

“Just do it. Three g’s. GO!” He tapped the comm again. “All hands. Secure the ship for a full thrust, three g burn. And after that, return to battle stations. Red alert.”

The navigation crew snapped into action, and before long they were all pushed into their seats as the ship once again leaped forward, the gravitational field struggling to keep up with the huge inertial forces acting on the ship and its contents.

“Sir, how in the world is this going to help? We’ll get there faster, but only for a few brief seconds—” Granger held up a hand to silence his new XO. She was just like Haws in a way—he always used to bark his disapproval of orders he didn’t understand, and, in spite of the breach of decorum, it comforted Granger.

“We’re doing a drive-by. If we wait another hour to get there, there’ll be nothing for us to do but bury the dead, Commander. At least this way we can take out one of their ships. Soften them up for whoever’s left. And when we finally decelerate and swing back around, that’s one less ship to worry about.”

He strode over to the tactical station, nodding to the crew chief. Granger wasn’t even sure this would work, but it was all he had. He mentally ran a few numbers, took a painful breath, and began. “Listen up. We only get one shot at this, so pay attention.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Near Earth

Flightdeck, ISS Constitution

The four of them sat on a bench close to their fighters, ready for the inevitable moment that Commander Pierce would signal them to man their fighters and launch. Miller eyed the new pilot—the one who’d replaced Hotbox on their team. A young man from the
Qantas
’
s
fighter wing. She didn’t have time to catch his name, but he had introduced himself as Pluck.

Lieutenant Volz was murmuring instructions to Pluck while Dogtown held his lined face in his hands, whispering something to himself. All around the fighter bay, in the midst of the madness of the technicians and crew readying the last dozen or so fighters for launch, she saw the scene repeated over and over: pilots engaging in their rituals. One woman repeatedly kissed something hanging around her neck, which Jessica couldn’t recognize from across the bay. A cross? A rabbit foot? Another young man next to her was tossing and catching a golfball over and over again. All of them preparing. Preparing for the performance of their lives. Or their deaths. Repeating meaningless rituals meant to calm and focus their minds.

She had nothing. Or did she? Her mind turned back to the picture sticking up out of the dashboard in her X-25. Little Zack-Zack, and Tom. All she had left of her husband.

What if she didn’t return? Who would raise Zack? Could her parents handle it? Of course they could—they raised her, didn’t they? But they were getting older, and should be enjoying their retirement, not doing her job for her.

She might not come back. The possibility stared her in the face, taunting her. Sucker-punching her in the gut.

Zack needed to know his mother was thinking about him at the end of her life. Even if he wouldn’t appreciate it now, he would when he was older.

“Ballsy, here,” she said, motioning to him. She twisted her wedding ring off her finger and held it out to him.

His eyebrows lifted. “Is now the right time, Fishtail? We haven’t even kissed.”

She ignored his joke. “Give it to my son. If I don’t come back.”

He stared at the ring, then back at her. “You’re coming back. We’re all coming back.”

“Fine. But just in case, I want him to know I was thinking about him. That I’m doing this—all of this—for him.” She held out the ring.

Ballsy swore, but took the offered ring. “Ok, but I’m giving this back to you when we get back.” He slipped the ring onto his pinky—the only finger it would fit on.

“Thank you,” she mouthed, for Commander Pierce was announcing something over a loudspeaker.

“All pilots, board your birds and stand by to launch.”

And that was that. Everyone put away their golf balls, rabbit feet, crosses, rings, pictures of loved ones—things they’d been fiddling with to keep focused—and rushed to their fighters. Jessica climbed the ladder to her own bird and was about to jump into the cockpit.

“Fishtail!” She glanced to her right, where Ballsy was seated in his own cockpit. “I’ve got your back. Don’t worry—you’ll see the little guy again. I promise.”

She nodded and smiled a tight-lipped acknowledgement.

But Ballsy wasn’t God. Just some fighter jock with an oversized sense of self-worth.

The cockpit frame descended and locked into place, and she put on her headset. At least the kid meant well, and she appreciated it. Flipping on the comm, she signaled Volz. “Hey. Thanks.”