Warrior (book)

Warrior is the second book in the Legacy Fleet trilogy by Nick Webb. It was published on November 16, 2015.

Description

We repelled the Swarm, for now. But they won’t stop: they’re inhuman. They have no inhibitions. No conscience.

And no mercy.

But from the crucible of battle has risen an unlikely hero. Captain Timothy Granger, at the helm of another time-tested battleship, will take the fight to the enemy. He’ll discover their secrets. Find their homeworld. Destroy it before they destroy ours.

He will save us all. He must. Or we’ll die.

WARRIOR

Summary

Warrior starts with a bang, as Granger swoops in to the New Dublin system to save it from a Swarm attack. He is a legend at this point, having not only saved Earth, but several other worlds from Swarm invasions. Near the end of the skirmish, a new alien race shows up—the Dolmasi. They claim to be friends of the Swarm, and warn Granger not to pursue the fleeing Swarm ships.

On Earth, both Vice President Isaacson and President Avery survive separate assassination attempts, and Isaacson, humbled by his guilt that he’s caused the destruction, nevertheless starts to suspect a conspiracy on Avery’s part, and begins to investigate her anti-matter program behind her back.

Avery narrowly avoids another assassination attempt in space that kills her body double and destroys her ship’s military escort frigate. Besieged constantly by the withering Swarm offensive as well as the unknown political enemies in the shadows, she gives the go-ahead to Granger to strike back into what they perceive is Swarm territory, though they can’t seem to find any actual Swarm planets, much less their homeworld.

Granger leads the assembled strike force deep into Swarm territory, crossing Russian Confederation space, and stumble upon a planet with a few orbiting Swarm carriers. After a short battle, the Dolmasi intervene again, destroying several ships in Granger’s fleet. Granger agrees to a negotiation meeting with Vishgane Kharsa. When they meet, they shake hands, and Granger momentarily blacks out and relives the vivid dream he’s been having about laying on a medical bed and staring out the window at a strange planet.

Proctor figures out that there is a meta-space link between all individuals controlled by the Swarm, and later discovers the existence of an actual Swarm virus that infects people. They detect this meta-space link coming from Vishgane Kharsa, and also a second signal coming either from Doc Wyatt, Colonel Hanrahan, or Granger himself.

They stumble upon another planet with several Russian ships around it. They withdraw under Russian threats, and their probes find another world with possible Swarm activity around it. When the images come back, Granger realizes it’s the image of the planet from his dreams, and remembers Kharsa—and the Swarm—feeling longing and nostalgia for the planet when he was temporarily connected to the alien during the handshake, as if it’s the Swarm homeworld.

The Dolmasi stage a surprise attack, forcing the fleet to return to Earth. Granger convinces everyone that the planet they saw with the probe is the Swarm homeworld, and Avery and Zingano authorize a full-scale invasion fleet. They arrive at the planet, destroy a few orbiting stations, but the anti-matter bombs deployed to raze the surface are all duds (thanks to Isaacson). The Swarm show up in force, the largest fleet Granger has faced yet. Big fight. The Russians show up, and openly declare themselves for the Swarm, and turn the tide of the battle against IDF. The Dolmasi show up, and all hope fades, but they, surprisingly, start firing on the Swarm.

Ballsy flies into a singularity to destroy it. After the barely victorious battle, Vishgane Kharsa reveals the planet they just conquered was not the Swarm homeworld, but his own homeworld, and that he’d been influencing Granger to do the Dolmasi’s dirty work for them, as the planet from Granger’s dream was a false memory implanted by the Dolmasi. Ballsy reappears from his singularity, with Fishtail, who soon dies. Granger orders her injected with Swarm matter to bring her back, and she falls under Swarm control, but lives.

Avery, having suspected Isaacson of the assassination attempts, manages to get him to believe that General Norton has arrested them both and is overthrowing the government, and will soon execute them both. She tricks him into confessing to her his involvement in the Swarm invasion. She gets the confession on tape, then reveals her duplicity to Isaacson, and injects him with thirty silver implants that monitor his thoughts and emotional state and can deliver mind-bending pain, essentially making him into her puppet.