The Last Strike: Book 5 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  Then he turned to greet someone else, and suddenly it wasn’t him at all.

  Trembling, she eased her finger off the trigger. Someone else entirely… an innocent British sailor going about his duty. And she’d nearly shot him in the head for it.

  Holy shit.

  Guano took a deep, long breath and holstered her pistol in her pants, just in time for Not-Roadie to break through the crowd behind her and crash-tackle her to the ground. He grabbed her arms, pinning them behind her back, and she felt heavy-duty cuffs slide around her wrists. The pistol was yanked away.

  “Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he spat. Sailors were staring at her from every direction. She caught the surprised expression of the guy she’d nearly plugged.

  Guano shrugged him off. “I thought I saw someone,” she said.

  He scowled at her, then, with a sigh, grabbed her and pulled her to her feet with one hand. “You’re in some deep shit now,” he said, muttering darkly as he dragged her back toward her quarters. “You know how much bloody bullshit trouble I’m going to get into because of this?”

  She finally looked him in the eye. To her surprise, she thought she detected an infinitesimal hint of amusement there. Understanding? So she tried it: “Hey, if you won’t tell anyone, I won’t tell anyone.” She could have sworn she’d seen Spectre-Brooks… sworn it on her life. “Deal?”

  He didn’t answer right away, and for a moment she thought he just might agree, but Ken finally caught up to them, a vein in his forehead bulging—livid with anger—in his abnormally tan face.

  Not-Roadie turned to his partner and returned the stolen pistol. He gave Guano one more searching look. Then—“Nah. Sorry. I have to call this one in.”

  She sighed. Maybe she was losing it.

  Or worse… maybe she wasn’t.

  Still, Not-Roadie hesitated before touching his radio. But Ken let out an exasperated puff and grabbed it. “Sergeant Whitacre to Commander Blackwood,” he said. “There’s been an incident with Lieutenant Corrick. Code green, no injuries.”

  That couldn’t be good. “Blackwood here. Acknowledged.”

  “Should I drag her to the brig, Ma’am?”

  Blackwood sighed down the line. “Check in with the infirmary, see if they’re ready to examine her yet. If they aren’t, do it.”

  Not-Roadie snatched his radio back and changed frequencies, glaring at Ken—Whitacre. “Sergeant Mayaan to the infirmary. Interrogative, how goes Doctor Manda’s surgical preparations?”

  “We’re almost ready,” said the voice on the other end. “If she’s being a bother, bring her down now if you want.”

  Anywhere was better than the brig. “Hey, uh, Mayaan”—So much better not to constantly think of Roadie—“Ask them about the thing with the nanobots. How are we doing on that?”

  The voice on the radio answered her: “We’re good to go, just undergoing final preparations now. We can move the schedule up.”

  Ken grabbed her arm and abruptly turned them back toward the infirmary. “We’re on our way now,” he barked into the radio.

  “Works for me, ” said Guano. Then paused. “Wait, surgery?”

  “Yup,” said Mayaan, as Ken half-carried her, half-dragged her, clearly still furious. “Just for that little stunt, you’re getting your head cut open.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bridge

  HMS Caernarvon

  Z-Space, near Earth

  Mattis moved to take his customary spot on Spears’s left. Blackwood stood to the right beside her XO’s console.

  “We’re coming out of Z-space,” said Blackwood, tapping a few keys on her wrist-mounted computer. “We should be right where we left off—in a different rotation, of course. But the computer will correct that.”

  “Great,” said Mattis. “Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this quickly.”

  The ship completed its translation, multicolored hues of Z-space fading away and replacing themselves with the black inky void of real space. The guns of Goalkeeper, along with its missile batteries, magnetic railguns, nuclear torpedoes… so much death encircling them, were ready to fire in a single moment.

  “Well, said Blackwood, her voice pleasantly chirpy, “if they’re going to shoot at us, now’s their moment.”

  Spears smiled grimly. “As long as I get my bloody tea, and maybe a crumpet, I think I’ll be fine.”

  Mattis wasn’t sure if they were joking or not. Spears’s dry humor was almost impossible to discern from sincerity. “At least it’ll look cool,” he said. “Plenty of witnesses. The pieces will probably drop down into Earth’s atmosphere. Look really pretty.”

  “Very pretty,” Blackwood agreed.

  They waited. They waited for Goalkeeper to destroy them, to break Caernarvon’s hull plates and bulkheads. But nothing happened.

  “Captain,” said Spears. “Incoming transmission from Goalkeeper.”

  She signaled to put it through.

  “Welcome to Earth, Captain Spears,” said Chang. “Don’t mind the hardware on display. Not that we don’t trust you, but…”

  Mattis squinted at the screen, staring down the barrel of a massive cannon larger than any gun he had ever seen. Or even heard about. It must have been nearly 100 cm in diameter—twice as big as even the biggest World War II naval gun, and bigger than anything that saw service in the Sino-American war by a long way.

  The mere thought of being struck by such a monstrous round… A single shot of that thing would end them.

  “Trust has to be earned,” said Spears, evenly. “We know that just as well as you do. It’s not a concern, Admiral Chang, and to be honest, if our suspicions are confirmed, we just might appreciate those guns.”

  “You like them, huh?” said Chang, with no small degree of pride. “All the recent upgrades have really raised the level of Goalkeeper’s capabilities, especially Little Friend right there.”

  Cheeky. Mattis had noted how easily Goalkeeper had been overcome during The Battle of Earth, where it had contributed almost nothing. A skirmish wherein Jeremy Pitt had been killed in action. And then, just when they all thought Pitt was back, he had turned out to be… something else.

  Still, regarding Goalkeeper, it was good to see its capabilities increased. This time it might actually do something. “Glad to have you on our side.”

  “Very glad to be here. So. Run this plan of yours by me again?” asked Chang, cautiously. “Just so we’re all on the same page.”

  That was actually a wise idea. It was probably good to have everyone clear on what was about to happen before they started firing off heavy ordnance into space, especially given what had happened before.

  “So,” said Mattis, “the plan is for the Caernarvon to adopt the same orientation and position it was in when it was painted, and then fire in the direction of the laser. If there really is a cloaked ship, we’ll find it.”

  “Copy that,” said Chang, and then he hesitated. “Wait, is that… Jack Mattis? I know your voice from the news.”

  He chewed on his lower lip. “Y—yeah.”

  “What the hell are you doing on board that ship?”

  Spears cut in. “The good Jack Mattis is helping us on special request from the Royal Navy. He’s here as our guest. We just picked him up.”

  “And don’t think that’s quite a coincidence?” asked Chang, suspicion creeping into his voice. “That this kind of incident happens the moment you bring Admiral Jack Mattis aboard—”

  “Actually,” said Mattis, formally. “It’s Captain Jack Mattis.”

  Spears muted the call and turned to glare at him over her shoulder. “Not on my ship you aren’t,” she said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

  It was genuinely nice of her to stand up for him like this, and a captain’s word was law in the Navy. “Aye, Ma’am. Just keeping up appearances.”

  “Do so less convincingly.” Spears unmuted the call, and her voice instantly melted into a warm British cordiality. “In any event, A
dmiral Chang, if you be so kind as to put a pin in this discussion and table it for a later date, I’d be much obliged.”

  “Very well,” grumbled Chang. “Mattis, when you finally report for duty, we are going to have a long, boring conversation about this. Bring scotch. Bring lots of scotch. For me. You get to watch me drink it and try to explain this mess away.”

  Lots of scotch it was.

  Spears tutted. “So we’re cleared weapons hot, then?”

  Chang sighed. “There’s no observable traffic along the corridor you’re firing along, and whatever is eventually in the line of fire, well, they’re much too far away for us to care about.”

  The idea that they would be lobbing high explosive shells into space for them to drift out of the solar system and onward forever was a sobering thought. Eventually they would have to stop, either by falling into a star or hitting something and exploding.

  No time to think about that. “We’re ready,” said Mattis.

  “Very good.” Spears adjusted her collar. “Blackwood?”

  “Aye, Ma’am.”

  “Fire down that corridor. And have the camera track the shots, I want to see what we hit.”

  Blackwood typed on her console. “Six guns, HE-tracer, tight spread following prearranged vector. Firing.”

  The ship shook quietly as the rounds leapt away from the Caernarvon’s guns, bright yellow streaks flying across space, the tracers leaving bright and highly visible lines. Blackwood’s camera followed them dutifully as they sailed away.

  And they continued to sail, on and on. The rounds flew past the silhouette of the moon and onward, growing fainter and fainter as they moved farther away.

  “Well,” said Mattis, dejected. “that isn’t good.”

  Then the rounds disappeared.

  He couldn’t believe it right away. Must have been his old-man eyes… but the more he stared, the clearer it became. The rounds had simply…vanished. The very moment they’d entered a spot approximately a hundred and seventy-thousand kilometers away.

  A cloaking field.

  “Repeat,” said Spears, her voice charged. “Hit them again!”

  “Aye Ma’am, six guns, HE, tight spread following previous vector. Firing!”

  Another set of six streaks went out. “Fire for effect,” said Spears, “all guns. Keep firing.”

  The ship shook as it opened up, whining softly as all its weapons spoke. Waves of fire streaked toward the void, following the path of their previous shots, and just like those ones, they simply disappeared after crossing a strange, seemingly arbitrary threshold.

  Then the cloaking field melted away to reveal a massive Avenir warship.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bridge

  HMS Caernarvon

  Space, near Earth

  The Avenir ship’s front was marred from weapon impacts, scars still glowing an angry yellow. The bridge of the Caernarvon instantly became a frenzy of motion, and the General Quarters alarm rang throughout the ship. Screens lit up, revealing a flurry of information that Mattis tried to digest.

  Though he admittedly missed the action, in some ways it was interesting to not be the one in charge. Mattis could observe the minutiae of functions a combat warship completed in real time. Despite the inevitable rush of adrenaline, the instinct to command—it just wasn’t his place to make the decisions now. So, instead, he watched the loading process for each individual gun proceed in the graphs, the torpedo guidance system calibrate for a launch, the counter-missile point defense systems spin up and begin searching for targets.

  And, of course, he saw the hulking ship ahead floating angrily in space, red lines growing over it as it charged its weapons. Odd—they should be shooting by now, but the cloak must have drained their power. Despite its bulk, the ship was clearly smaller than the other Avenir he’d faced. And it probably had a commensurately smaller reactor core.

  Soon, the frenzy calmed down as everyone settled in to wait and watch. Was it hostile? Was it one of the Avenir ships that was on the hunt for Spectre?

  Or was it controlled by Spectre himself? Mattis shuddered as he remembered Spectre, Avenir-controlling device in hand, standing triumphantly on the bridge of an Avenue ship over Chrysalis, flanked by Avenir he’d essentially converted into his own drones.

  And minutes later, his beloved Midway had paid the ultimate price.

  “Detecting energy buildup in their forward weapons spires!” yelled an ensign at ops. “And they’re painting us with targeting lasers!” The bridge burst back into a flood of activity as the realization hit that this was indeed a battle and not a parlay.

  “Designating hostile ship as Skunk Alpha,” said Blackwood. “Killing with guns. Prepared for torpedo launches on your command, Ma’am.”

  “When you have a clear shot,” said Spears, sitting in her chair with her posture attentive, “not before. See if we can identify their point-defense and hit them with our guns. Soften them up a bit. Loosen their guard.”

  “Very good, Ma’am.”

  Spears snapped her fingers toward one of her junior enlisted personnel. “Irish breakfast,” she said. “Piping hot if you please.” Tea again. Always with the damned tea…

  Mattis had fought the Avenir before. He knew what to expect. “If there are any serious buildups of energy within the ship,” he offered, “it could well be a mass-driver, but that’s unlikely with a smaller ship. They have other tricks—a gravity-bomb, or their portal-opening device…”

  Spears considered, stroking her chin carefully with her hand. “Seems like every time we fight these buggers, they have something new up their sleeves.”

  “Firing,” said Blackwood.

  A barrage of gunfire splashed against the hostile ship. The vessel continued to power its weapons, obviously struggling to bring its strike capabilities up in the face of its sudden discovery.

  “That does seem to be their thing.” Mattis scowled darkly, unwelcome thoughts intruding into his head. Thoughts of how his side always seemed to win, but that it was only ever due to chance or numbers. “And this does, of course, raise the question,” he said. “Where did this one come from?”

  “It’s possible it came through with the ships involved in the Battle of Earth,” said Spears. “Assuming it could maintain its cloak through Z-space translation. Or it’s possible it came in later, through… whatever mechanism the original fleet used to get here.”

  Either way it was an academic discussion best left for another time. The Caernarvon continued to pour fire into the hostile ship, scoring dozens of hits and solid weapons impacts, yet received no reply.

  “Why aren’t they returning fire?” Mattis asked. “There’s no way we hit them that badly…”

  “Unclear,” said Blackwood. “I can confirm we haven’t received a single hit yet. Damage control teams are standing by.”

  That was a good place for them to be. Standing by. Mattis liked them there.

  A voice cut in over the din of the bridge. “Captain Spears, incoming transmission from Goalkeeper. Text only.”

  “Read it,” said Spears.

  The officer turned back to their screen. “It reads as follows: Goalkeeper requests permission to engage.”

  “Requests permission?” echoed Spears, eyes widening. “What do they want, a blasted handwritten invitation? Reply by the same channel: Weapons free, coordinate fire with our guns.”

  The message was sent. Then, almost as though they were waiting for the cue, screens on the whole bridge lit up as Goalkeeper opened fire.

  The last time Mattis had seen Goalkeeper in action it had been a fairly underwhelming event, where the turrets and weapons had been largely inaccurate, ineffective, and easily destroyed. Their guns were too small, missiles too small, everything too small…

  Whatever the system had been then, it couldn’t hold a candle to what it was now. The whole section of visible space ahead turned white as a full barrage of the planet-wide defense network opened up, thousands of rounds leaping acr
oss the void to each blast a hole the size of a large car in the forward hull of the scout ship, as though its armor were paper.

  Then Little Friend’s round—seeming more like a falling star than a cannon projectile—drove into the Avenir vessel, buckled its hull like a boxer’s fist slamming into drywall, broke through to its inner core, and blasted the thing into a white-hot ball of expanding gasses and debris.

  Mattis genuinely had no idea what to say in the face of such an awesome and terrifyingly destructive display, so he just stood mutely watching the flaming wreckage of their enemy tumble through space.

  “Uhh… Skunk Alpha is trashed,” muttered one of the bridge crew, sheepishly.

  “Bloody Yanks,” muttered Spears, finally. “Always with the biggest guns.”

  “I guess some of them are all right,” said Blackwood, smiling.

  Mattis found the levity unsustainable. “That was just a scout. A smaller one. And it either didn’t seem to use its weapons properly, or… more alarmingly, didn’t want to. Either way, I’m reluctant to pat ourselves on the back too much.”

  “It remains to be seen.” Spears considered. “Commander Blackwood, please take charge of the salvage and investigation of this ship. Or whatever’s left of it.” She looked to Mattis. “And, Admiral, please do accompany her if you could. Your expertise and experience with these devils from the future will surely prove invaluable.”

  Spears wanted salvage? From that? Mattis watched the spinning pieces of debris tumble toward the camera and shook his head. “I’ll do what I can,” he said.

  “Make sure you do,” said Blackwood ominously, the words sounding almost like a challenge. “But be careful. We’re still reading power signatures from some of those larger pieces. Stay alert. I doubt the Avenir are out of tricks just yet.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Surgical Ward 1

  Infirmary

  HMS Caernarvon

  Low Earth Orbit