The Last Strike: Book 5 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  “Patch me through to the CO of Goalkeeper,” said Spears. “I want to speak to Admiral Chang.”

  “We already tried,” said Blackwood, frowning darkly as she typed on her console, “there’s a lot of interference. Jamming. Radar, EM, radio… everything. Our ECCM systems are algorithmically bypassing it; we should be opening a channel any second now. Standby—”

  Spears twisted in her chair to look at Mattis. “What’s your take on this?”

  He blinked. “Goalkeeper is a multinational effort,” he managed, fighting to get his breath back, “under Admiral Chang. There’s no way he would fire on a British warship. Especially without talking to us first. There must be something else going on.”

  Spears nodded firmly. “Anything specific you can offer?”

  Mattis hesitated, then shook his head. I know what you know.”

  If Spears was disappointed, she didn’t show it. “Blackwood?”

  “The algorithm’s found a pinhole. It’s weak, but it’s there. Patching you through now, Ma’am.”

  A loud, crackling squeal cut through the bridge, loud enough to hurt, and over the top of the static came an angry voice. “This is Admiral Chang. Report!” Static washed out his other words. “—the hell’s going on?”

  Mattis glanced worriedly at Spears, but said nothing.

  “This is Caernarvon actual,” the captain said. “Our radar warning sensors show you’re giving us the stink eye, Admiral. Mind explaining why you’re locking us up like you’re about to give us a very bad day indeed?”

  The interference increased. “—ay again,” said Chang. “We c—you.”

  “Trying to compensate further,” said Blackwood. “Dammit. This is some high-energy jamming. Sophisticated stuff.”

  Mattis scowled. “The source must be close,” he said. “And powerful. If it’s emitting that much energy, it should be easy to trace.”

  “Right you are,” said Spears. “Blackwood, locate the source of the jamming.”

  “Aye aye, Ma’am,” Blackwood said. “Calculating the signal’s origin and calculating a firing solution. Loading ‘party mix’; 30% AP, 70% HE.”

  Was Spears onboard with this? Mattis looked from her to Blackwood. “You’re going to shoot the jammer?”

  “Better have it and not need it than need it and not have it.” It was hard to argue with that logic.

  “That’s right,” said Spears, vaguely unconvinced. “Blackwood, hold fire until we have confirmation, especially if it’s any part of Goalkeeper. We are not going to fire on an international station unless they fire first.”

  “Signal origin located,” said Blackwood resolutely. She checked her instruments, and straightened her back. “The jamming is coming from the CIC of Goalkeeper’s primary satellite.”

  “Weapons safe,” Spears said immediately. “Return guns to bearing zero, elevation zero, and disengage targeting systems. The last thing they want to see is our turrets turning.”

  “Aye aye,” said Blackwood, notably frustrated. “Standing down.”

  Mattis played it through his head. Goalkeeper was a massive network, expressly spread out so that damage to any single part could be compensated for by moving other satellites into place, or by changing the orbits of existing systems. The massive jammer on the command center was… not in keeping with its design philosophy.

  “They’re baiting us,” he realized out loud.

  “Pardon?” asked Spears.

  “It’s bait,” Mattis said, convincing himself as he spoke. “Goalkeeper… I don’t think they’re actually painting us with their radars at all. Or, if they are, it’s only in response to some other threat. That’s why the jamming is coming from the command center—whoever’s doing this, they want us to fire at the command center because that is casus belli for them engaging us; we would have fired first. Right after you took me, Lieutenant Corrick, and a civilian on board, too. The optics would be terrible.”

  A slow smile of comprehension spread across Spears’s face. “My God, you’re right. What should we do?”

  “Run,” said Mattis, firmly. “Keep our guns powered down. Turn the ship away from Goalkeeper’s command center, power up the Z-space drive, and jump away. We can sort everything out later—by sending messengers in shuttles if we need to. But there’s a reason they’re jamming us, and it’s to keep us from communicating and realizing what’s really going on.”

  “Alternatively,” piped up Blackwood, “they’re about to fire on us and we need to take action. Now. Goalkeeper’s weapons are powerful, but right now, we have a perfect shot straight into their CIC. We can cripple them before they have a chance to even let off a shot. And with this jamming, they won’t have a prayer of knowing what we’ve done before they’re hit. We should act first, Ma’am.”

  “The prisoner’s dilemma,” Spears mused. “If we fire and they don’t, they lose. But if we don’t fire and they do, we lose. They’ll be thinking the same thing.”

  “That’s why we should jump away,” said Mattis. “Let cooler heads prevail.”

  “That’s why we should shoot first,” said Blackwood.

  There was no time for debate, and Spears knew it well. She leaned forward. “Prep the ship for jump,” she said. “Power down all weapons. Hell, turn off the navigation lights too. Everything. Make the ship as non-threatening as possible. Then jump.”

  “Aye, Ma’am,” said Blackwood, without missing a beat. “Working.”

  Precious seconds ticked away, nothing but the squealing radio systems and the radar lock warning alarms reverberating around the bridge.

  Then the Caernarvon jumped away, and the view of the bridge outside was replaced by rainbow hues and dancing lights, and everything was quiet.

  “Well,” said Blackwood, her tone chipper. “That was exciting.”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Mattis said, frowning. “What the hell is going on?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Infirmary

  HMS Caernarvon

  Low Earth Orbit

  Guano stomped toward the infirmary, power walking through the warship’s long corridors, fighting the eternal battle between speed and professionalism. She had to show Mattis and Spears that she was ready—that what had happened to her was not her fault, and that she was actively working to make things right.

  She tried to pay no attention to the Marines behind her. One looked like a Ken doll—blonde, tan, all chiseled jaw and blank expression. The other seemed smarter, and watched her constantly with keen, dark eyes. In fact, he actually reminded her a bit of Roadie, which was probably why she couldn’t bring herself to turn around and give the two of them some of her infamous trash talk. That, and they were obviously ready to shoot her in the back as soon as she acted out in any way.

  She had killed Roadie and Flatline. Nothing could make that right. But maybe, just maybe this could be a new start. To contribute something. Somehow.

  Deep in her thoughts, it took Guano a moment to register the General Quarters alarm sounding throughout the ship.

  “Aww, shit! What now?” she growled angrily and broke into a run, following the signs that pointed the way to the infirmary. The ship’s lighting switched to an ominous red glow. That was new… did all British ships do that?

  She rounded the corner, nearly barreling over a nervous looking Ensign, then dashed into the infirmary. The whole place was on an active footing, with doctors and nurses standing by, ready to receive patients. It wasn’t too crowded—the medical team were just at their posts—but she couldn’t see her charges.

  “Hey!” she shouted. “Agent!” Guano searched her mind for the name of the policewoman. Investigator. Whatever. “Puking FBI lady!”

  “Here,” came a shout from somewhere in the crowd.

  Guano stepped forward, but a nurse aggressively blocked her path.

  “Sorry,” he said. “We can’t let you past there.”

  “I’m with Captain Jack Mattis.” Guano folded her arms. “And… whats-her-face
. That special agent lady. The ship’s on General Quarters, so this is no time for crap!”

  The nurse sighed, his eyes flicking to the Marines—Ken and Not-Roadie—behind her, then stepped aside.

  Agent-lady was sitting on an examination bench, spent foil wrappers nearby. Some color had returned to her face, but she still looked like a fish out of the water for too long; withered and unhealthy.

  “You look like shit,” Guano shouted over the sound of the wailing General Quarters alarm.

  “Thanks,” said the woman, though the smile on her face seemed good-natured. “You look like shit too.” What was her name? Brendan? No, Blair. That was it. Blair.

  Guano grabbed a surgical mirror from nearby and checked herself out. Blair was right—her hair was a nightmare, her skin dry and flaky, and her dandruff had returned with a vengeance. The stress of prison—and murdering her two closest friends—had obviously not been kind to her complexion.

  It was an inconvenient time to think about Roadie and Flatline, but Guano tried her best to act nonchalant. “Guess we could both use a makeover,” she said, putting the mirror down, forcing a smile. It wouldn’t be good to have a breakdown right now. She had to hold it together.

  Fortunately, Blair laughed. “Right,” she said, obviously still suffering, but at least able to manage a crooked smile, her fingers in her ears. “How long is that alarm going to go on? What the hell does it mean?”

  “A while,” said Guano. “Until, you know, the situation is dealt with. Or until we’re all dead.”

  Blair didn’t laugh that time. Maybe that kind of humor didn’t work well with civilians.

  “Sorry. It’ll be a while. It’s the call to action stations.”

  “That explains,” said Blair, gesturing through the door, “why all the doctors jumped up in such a hurry.”

  Of course the civilians didn’t know anything. Guano sighed, reaching up and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Anyway, yeah. It should go away soon.” She tried to change the subject. “So, how about them local sports team, huh?”

  Blair snorted. “Don’t really much follow sports, sorry.” She grimaced as though she might throw up again. “How did you get roped into this anyway, Lieutenant?”

  She understood Blair was trying to make conversation, trying to get her talking so they didn’t think of the alarm blaring around them, but it didn’t do anything for her. All of her instincts screamed to jump into action. To be where the fight was. “Yeah. Well...” No sense trying to drag it out. “I was in prison for murder. Spears got me out.”

  Blair’s whole body tensed up. “Murder? What—”

  “I didn’t do it,” Guano snapped. “It was… complicated, but I didn’t do it. Not really.”

  Blair just looked at her. Didn’t back her up. But then again, how could Guano expect her to?

  “I really didn’t do it,” she said. “I know everyone says that, but I didn’t.”

  “They do all say that,” Blair said stonily.

  “And prison sucked. By the way. Just so you know.”

  The subject—the murders—was obviously something Blair didn’t want to discuss, but at the same time, she was clearly looking for a distraction from puking. “Yeah, well… thanks for that clarification. How was prison? What did you do to get in there? Seemed a little trite to just… ask, you know? I deal with the other side of things. Putting people in there.”

  “Yeah. It’s okay. I get it.” Guano gritted her teeth, forcing herself to be sociable. “Spent most of it in solitary to be honest. Didn’t make any friends, didn’t make any enemies. Didn’t get to join any gangs—didn’t get a chance. Almost all of the people in there were just stupid kids, really. That was my impression, at least. No hardened criminals. Just… idiots who did stupid things like pull a gun on their CO, or get busted for a DUI, or drugs. They didn’t want a crazy pilot—” she caught the word on her tongue. “Former pilot in their business, I guess.”

  That, and most people seemed actually genuinely happy to see her, like she was some kind of hero or something. Nobody had messed with her. Had they known what she’d done?

  “Great,” said Blair, unsmiling. “I’m glad to see our nation’s penal system is effective.”

  Right as Guano formulated a biting comeback, the General Quarters alarm went silent. “Guess we live to get arrested another day.”

  Blair shook her head. “I don’t get arrested. I do the arresting.”

  Guano almost said “Well, the day’s still young!” but she squashed the thought down. No need to push it too far. “Okay,” she said instead, hands on her hips. “Now you’re looking a bit better, let’s get us some quarters and get settled in, shall we?”

  “Right,” said Blair, pushing herself up to a sitting position. “Then we can get to work trying to find out who killed the President.”

  “Yeah,” said Guano, casting a worried look to the ceiling. “I think that might have to get put on hold for a while. We might have bigger fish to fry…”

  “Nothing us civilians can do about that,” said Blair, truthfully. Damn. She was right.

  Her own words rattled in her head. Former pilot…

  It was true. She was finished.

  “Anyway,” Guano said, forcing herself to remain calm, keep her tone neutral, steady. “While I’m here, I guess I better check in with the medical techs. Since I’m the freak with robots in her brain, after all.”

  Blair’s blank expression reinforced the sneaking suspicion that she didn’t quite appreciate Guano’s humor, so Guano gave up and whipped around to grab the next passing nurse. It happened to be the same one who had stopped her on her way in. “Hey, my name is Lieutenant Corrick. I’m the one with the nanobots.”

  Her name seemed to spark recognition in the guy. “Holy shit,” he said, eyes widening. “Patricia Corrick? You are really not supposed to be back here.”

  “But Spears said—”

  The nurse snapped his fingers and, almost immediately, the two Marines were clamping her shoulders with their heavy hands.

  “Okay, okay, I’m going,” she huffed to Ken—she still couldn’t quite look at Not-Roadie. “No worries.” And they immediately frog-marched her straight to the exit.

  “Guess I won’t be on the flight roster anytime soon, huh?” she asked them.

  “Correct,” said Ken said robotically, with that inhumanly handsome face of his. Don’t enter the infirmary or anywhere else unless ordered to by Captain Spears,”

  “But she did—” Guano began. Two beefy hands clamped even harder; it was useless. “Forget it.”

  Former pilot. The words rattled around her head. Was this to be her last flight? And not as a pilot—or even as a passenger—but as a prisoner?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bridge

  HMS Caernarvon

  Z-space

  Mattis had to admit that he’d missed this. He’d missed being on the bridge, in the center of the action, surrounded by the crew typing away at consoles, fingers flying with precision. He’d missed the huge monitors displaying a multitude of sensor information, data uplinks, and images of the strange, multi-hued unreality of Z-space.

  The awesome sight was almost enough to put out of his mind the disturbing implications of what had just transpired. Almost.

  And the niggling knowledge at the back of his mind that he was forbidden from ever commanding a ship again.

  “So,” Spears said, steepling her fingers. “Seems that we’re out of the woods, for now.”

  “For now,” echoed Mattis, considering. “Damn. And here I thought we could actually complete a simple mission with no complications.”

  “Doesn’t sound like us,” said Spears, whimsically. “Speaking historically, at least.”

  True enough. Things never seemed to go smoothly. The best-laid plans never survived contact with the enemy, after all.

  Blackwood spoke up. “We’re a substantial distance away from the station now. We should drop out of Z-space and recover.”
r />   Spears considered, then nodded firmly. “A solid plan, number one. Do it.”

  The ship slipped out of Z-space into an empty, desolate void—the vast, almost infinite emptiness between solar systems.

  “We’ve translated out of Z-space,” said Blackwood, straightening her back. “All systems are green across the board, Captain.”

  “Very good.” Spears sighed, leaning forward and adjusting her already perfectly neat hair. “Where’s my bloody tea?”

  “I’ll hustle some up for you,” said Mattis.

  She waved her hand dismissively. “I’m not having you fetch tea on my ship. I didn’t run all the way back to Earth to recruit a chai wallah, Admiral.”

  Mattis attempted to smile through the grimace that swept, unbidden, over him. “I’m sorry, but it’s not Admiral anymore. I was demoted to captain after the events of… late.”

  “Strange,” Spears said, a sly smile creeping over her face. “I think I might have misplaced that memo. It’s my ship, and if I want my crew to call you Susan, I think they will.”

  Well. He wasn’t about to contest that, nor undermine the chain of command on her ship. “Very well,” he said, grinning a little. “It is your ship.”

  A light blinked on Blackwood’s wrist computer. She inspected it, then looked to Spears. “Captain, we’re receiving a long-range communication from Admiral Chang on Goalkeeper.”

  “Oh,” said Spears. “Now they want to talk.” She clicked her fingers. “Put them through.”

  The speakers crackled--a man’s voice. “Goalkeeper Station One, Caernarvon. This is Goalkeeper actual. Priority alert.”

  Yeah. Priority. Mattis recognized Admiral Chang’s voice. The man had left him a voicemail, first welcoming him to Goalkeeper. All the associated guilt came back in a flash. Mattis shouldn’t have taken so much leave; he should have just reported for duty right away. But then, if he had… he wouldn’t be here now. And who knew what he would be involved in instead?

  Spears straightened up in her seat. “This is Caernarvon actual. Glad to hear that our comms have cleared up somewhat.”