The Last Strike: Book 5 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  Guano pulled down her hospital gown, trying to not let her backside fall out. The hard, cold bed she was lying on was extremely uncomfortable, to say the least. The last time that she’d seen the inside of a surgical ward, it had been when Flatline was injured. And the more she thought about him, the less comfortable she felt.

  And it didn’t help that her wrists and ankles were restrained by leather straps.

  “So,” said the chirpy, far-too-British doctor who had prepared a large, ominous-looking machine ready to scan her. She was wearing one of those wrist computers that the Royal service people all wore. “First time seeing one of these?”

  Guano eyed the machine suspiciously. It was like a box-shaped porcupine with every quill shaped like some kind of camera. “Considering I think this is a custom-built thing designed specifically to scan for nanobots in infected patients, of which I’m willing to bet there is only one—me, I don’t exactly know how you’re expecting me to answer that question.”

  The doctor sighed “True enough. But let me just put down on my notes that the patient was irritable and belligerent.”

  “If you don’t,” said Guano, “they’ll probably think I was losing my mind again.”

  The doctor chuckled lightly and wrote something down, then put away her pen and paper. Strange that she was using such simple, primitive recording techniques. Must be like an MRI—can’t have computers nearby. “Okay,” said the doctor. “I think we’re ready to begin.”

  Guano squirmed uncomfortably on the bed. “What’s your name again?”

  “Doctor Sunila Manda,” she answered patiently. “And don’t worry. I’ve been assured by the absolute best people that this device is perfectly safe.”

  Perfectly safe, yet she had to be its very first victim. Had it even been tested? “Somehow, I don’t feel this thing is safe,” she said.

  “Don’t be such a wet blanket, you’ll be fine,” Doctor Manda scolded lightly. “…Probably.” She smiled. “Now, just stay still…”

  Easy to do when she was strapped down. Great… just great. Guano took in a sharp breath and held it.

  “That’ll do,” said Doctor Manda, tapping her wrist computer.

  The porcupine spines lit up, each of them glowing as they moved toward Guano, peering at her like the curious eyes of some kind of horrid beast. They hovered all around her head, inching closer until they were a hair’s breadth away from her skin.

  Guano stifled a nervous laugh. “Always joked about how my military service would end with me getting my brain cut open and examined for observation and study in the name of science,” she said, trying not to blink or breathe or do anything that might cause a needle-camera to be driven into her skin. “Didn’t think it would actually happen, though. Nope.”

  “That’s fine,” said Doctor Manda. “Just count backwards from ten.”

  That she could do. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.”

  Doctor Manda smiled widely. “Wow, check out that brain. Great pre-frontal neural activity. The machine is waking them up… and a good thing, too! Those little bugs are really getting excited. Makes them a lot easier to see.”

  “So hey, you’re in my brain right now.” She ground her teeth. “That’s… neat.”

  “Mmm. Okay, we’re going to stimulate them in three, two, one… mark.”

  Nothing. She didn’t feel any different at all. “Are you sure it’s working?” No answer.

  “It’s hard for me to believe that this thing is waking up a bunch of tiny robots in my noggin when I can’t even seem to… to keep myself…” her voice trailed off. “Awake.”

  Somehow she had been transported. She was no longer in the infirmary. She was no longer aboard the Caernarvon. She was surrounded by a green wall of liquid. Familiar liquid.

  She was back in the vat on Chrysalis. Doctor Brooks was there, standing right there, his face leering at her through the glass.

  “Hello, Lieutenant Corrick,” he said, his voice so clear, despite the tank. “I want you to listen to me very carefully…”

  And then, with a start, she was back in the infirmary. More specifically, she was lying on the cold metal deck, face down, the broken remains of the leather straps wrapped around her arms and legs.

  “Sorry about that,” said Doctor Manda. She was leaning against the far wall, her hair slightly tousled. “I cut the power. You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” said Guano, taking a deep breath to steady herself. She pushed herself up onto her knees. “Damn. How did I get on the floor?”

  Doctor Manda hesitated. “You… well, you stood up, broke your restraints, and tried to kill me.” She watched Guano warily. “Well, I guess we know that you are being affected, I suppose,” she offered.

  Guano pushed herself up back onto the table, groaning softly. She must’ve nailed her elbow when she, apparently, facedived onto the deck. “Ow.”

  “Maybe,” said Doctor Manda, “we should consider some stronger restraints while you’re under.”

  “Are you hitting on me?” Guano with a lopsided smile.

  Doctor Manda snorted a little, but still seemed somewhat frazzled by what had apparently just happened. “Let’s just get you some hardened steel restraints and see how that goes, shall we? And maybe get a couple of Marines in here, too…”

  Guano lay herself back onto the hard bed as worry started to creep into her brain. “You sure that’s necessary?” she asked.

  “That was two percent power—a test,” said Doctor Manda. “If we want to get those things out of you, we have to be able to identify them, and in order to be able to do that, we’re going to have to keep you engaged and lucid the whole time. Obviously it won’t be possible for you to—ahem. Move around like that during the surgery.”

  “Damn,” said Guano, her chest sinking. “I’m even more messed up than I thought.”

  “You’re going to be okay,” said Doctor Manda, smiling hesitantly. “You’re going to be just fine.”

  That, Guano mused dejectedly, was exactly what people said when things were not going to be fine at all.

  Chapter Twenty

  Hangar Bay

  HMS Caernarvon

  Space, near Earth

  With the Caernarvon matching velocity to the largest debris field, they were now ready to go. Mattis strapped himself into the Extra-Vehicular Activity suit, double and triple-checking everything. Then, when he was done, he checked Blackwood’s suit and she checked his. Behind them, in the hangar bay, their team of Royal Marines likewise suited up; each one of them, in turn, checked the next.

  He appreciated their comprehensiveness. It was highly unusual for senior staff to go out on a salvage mission like this, but given the sensitive nature of what they had found, Spears had specifically asked him and Blackwood to lead the operation. They were accompanied by a small company of trusted Marines who had been ordered to be extremely cautious. Nobody was taking any chances.

  After what had happened to Chuck, that suited him just fine.

  “I think we’re good to go,” said Blackwood, giving him a firm clap on the shoulder that he barely felt through the thick EVA suit. “Okay. The plan is pretty simple; everyone splits up into pairs, and sees what they can find. Guess you’re with me, Admiral.”

  It still gave him slight pause each time Spears, Blackwood, or their crew addressed him by his previous rank, but he was long beyond caring about such things. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll try to keep up.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Blackwood turned toward the hangar bay doors and touched her wrist-mounted computer. Responding to her command, the doors silently swung open.

  “Neat,” said Mattis, pointing to her device. “I’m going to have to find myself one of those some day.”

  “Sooner rather than later, I hope.” Blackwood’s magnetic boots disengaged and she pushed off the deck, small puffs of gas propelling her toward the exit. “They are exceptionally useful.”

  Mattis clicked his heels together,
disengaging his own boots, and pushed off after her. The suit’s computers plotted out a course for him and steered him in behind her as they drifted out past the hangar bay doors and toward the nearest large piece of debris.

  “Teams, split up,” ordered Blackwood. “You all know your assignments.”

  “I don’t know our assignment,” said Mattis, feeling slightly foolish, bringing his mind to the moment. “Guessing it’s the big bit.”

  “You are a clever biscuit,” said Blackwood, her tone disarmingly polite. Although it was sarcastic Mattis didn’t sense any genuine hostility there. “How’re you finding floating in space?”

  Mattis had done enough EVAs to not worry too much. He turned his head, getting a lovely shot of Earth in the background; a perfect, blue-green marble floating in space. “I rarely get to see our homeworld so close,” he said. “It’s… it’s comforting, really.” It was also comforting because Elroy and Jack were not there. He hoped they were safe and having fun, wherever they were.

  “I don’t find it comforting. Any number of mechanical failures at this second could, well, immediately end our little sightseeing tour.”

  “Well, so it always is in space,” he said. “The void is a harsh mistress.”

  “But sometimes kind.” Blackwood raised a gloved hand, pointing to something he couldn’t see. “There’s our first piece.”

  They drifted closer. In a few moments, the debris was in full view; it was a hull fragment, brittle and torn at the edges. It was probably from deep inside of the ship judging by the lack of reinforcing. There was some kind of huge metal box attached to it.

  “Okay,” said Blackwood, leveraging puffs of gas to slow herself down. “Let’s pull up alongside it. You grab the left side, I’ll grab the right.”

  “Roger,” said Mattis, tilting his head. The suit’s guidance systems read the command and pushed him away from Blackwood toward the twisted hunk of metal. It slowly spun as he approached it, the edges still glowing an angry yellow. Heat from the explosion. “Careful, it’s hot.”

  “Our gloves should be able to withstand it.” Blackwood floated in opposite him, grabbing hold of the metal, her suit’s jets fighting to steady the giant thing. Thin wisps of smoke rose from her fingers. “Grab hold.”

  He did so, taking the other side, his own EVA suit struggling to slow the heavy piece’s momentum. He could feel the heat from the metal, burning and melting his gloves, but Blackwood was right; they were tough.

  Finally, between the two of them, they were able to stabilize it. Mattis got a good look at the debris.

  The hunk of metal, nearly fifty meters across, seemed to be an internal bulkhead attached to a refrigeration locker, the frozen box sealed with a magnetic lock. “I think we saved their sandwiches.”

  “Bully for us,” said Blackwood. “I’d love to taste food from the future.”

  “Maybe that’s why they’re coming to our time,” said Mattis. “They’re here to steal our snacks.”

  “You sound like Commander Lynch,” she said. Blackwood aligned her wrist to the magnetic lock, engaging her cutting laser. A bright shower of sparks leapt from the metal as a tiny sliver dissolved.

  …Did he? Carefully, Mattis leaned over and pulled open the freezer, a shower of frozen ice and boiling gas spraying out. “Time for lunch,” he said, grinning to Blackwood.

  “Oh, nothing wrong with an early lunch break,” said Blackwood, smiling widely through her spacesuit. “C’mon. What do we have?”

  Inside were row after row of frozen bodies encased in ice. “Whoa,” said Mattis, staring. “Looks like we’ve got their morgue?”

  Blackwood’s face fell. “Not so good for lunch, then,” she said.

  Mattis chortled. “Oh, I dunno,” he said, reaching up and brushing away some of the ice. “They might be kinda tasty with the right…” his voice faded away as his hand revealed a line of faces.

  The corpses were all President Schuyler.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Space

  120km from HMS Caernarvon

  Near Earth

  “…amount of hot sauce.”

  Mattis stared at the row of line of frozen President Schuylers stuffed into the freezer. There were a dozen of them, all lined up like sardines in a can. Frozen blocks of human. They were even dressed in identical suits.

  “Well, ain’t that dark as all bloody hell,” said Blackwood, floating up beside him. “This isn’t regular salvage; Spears will want to know. We should call it in.”

  “We definitely should.” Mattis touched his radio. “Mattis to Caernarvon: we found a giant frozen box full of corpse-clones of the recently assassinated President of the United States.”

  There was a long, pronounced pause. “This is Caernarvon actual,” said Spears measuredly. “I’m afraid I’m going to need you to say all again.”

  “The first piece of salvage we’ve recovered is a bunch of clones, frozen in some kind of cryo unit. Clones of the recently deceased President Schuyler.”

  “Other reports are coming in,” said Spears. “They’re finding bodies. Or body parts. I’m guessing they, too, might be your former President… but, of course, being Royal subjects, they wouldn’t recognize her as well as you would.”

  That made sense.

  “Oh,” said Spears, almost as an offhand comment. “Be careful of the scavs. We’re tracking a bunch of civilian traffic moving in from all directions, and I’m betting not all of it are curious travelers. We’re warning them away, but you know what civilians are like. Most avoid military warships but some just can’t help themselves. My motto is: they can look but they can’t touch. Anyone who touches is a scav.”

  He turned to Blackwood. “Scavs?”

  Blackwood coughed into the radio. “Scavvers are illegal salvage operators. Ever since the Battle of Earth, there’s been a bunch of low-life rats coming around to pick the bones from the various wrecks and debris fields that have sprung up in the system,” she fumed. “They’re rotten space pirate scum and they tend to shoot first and ask questions…well, only when they’re put on trial.”

  Personal vendetta? He wanted to ask, curious about her intense reaction, but in light of their present mission, he thought better of descending into personal conversation. “Oh, great.” Mattis slowly shut the door of the ice box. “Well, hopefully we won’t run into anyone who’ll have anything worse to say to us than ‘good morning’.” He sighed. “We should get this morbid thing back to the ship, and join it with all the others, I suppose.”

  “It is certainly morbid,” said Blackwood, staring intensely at the metal surface of the freezer box. She frowned, scrutinizing it closely.

  “What?”

  “It’s warm,” said Blackwood. “The debris was hot, almost too hot to touch, and it’s hot all the way through… but there’s ice on the inside.”

  “It’s heavily insulated,” said Mattis. “I guess.”

  “Is it?” Blackwood eased the door open again and stuck her fingers inside. “This material is less than a few millimeters thick. Even the best insulating material we have has an R-value of, oh, say fifteen over an inch. Even vacuum is only fifty per inch. For the metal to be yellow-hot and the inside to be ice… that’s some serious magic.”

  A ship silently flew past them, snatching up pieces of debris. Some kind of civilian ship, painted bright pink, seemingly oblivious to the huge warship nearby.

  Despite the presence of the other ship, Mattis didn’t like watching Blackwood feel around the door. A feeling in his gut didn’t like her curiosity. “We shouldn’t be fiddling with it. That’s something for the salvage engineers to pick apart later. Earth is right there; there’s no need for us to get handsy.”

  “I know, but—”

  Something made the hairs on the back of Mattis’s neck stand up; he wasn’t sure what it was, but just as he was about to act, a powerful rush of energy surged out of the device, a palpable wave of cold washing over him. The temperature on the inside of his suit plung
ed, like a door was suddenly opened on a midwinter’s night in Maine. His breath misted up his visor.

  “Oh shit!” Mattis said, flailing around madly to break up the sudden ice formation on the inside of his suit. Burning pain danced all over his body. “Goddammit, that’s cold!”

  Instinctively, Mattis wiped at the outside of his visor, trying to clear it, but the fog was on the inside of his suit. He kicked and thrashed, blinded and freezing. Did his suit have a hole in it? Was this what dying in the vacuum of space was like?

  It wasn’t, but his panicked mind didn’t know the difference. He grabbed his radio. “Blackwood! Spears! Mayday, mayday, mayday. We activated some kind of trap on our salvage item.” He had no clear way to identify it. “It’s a cold—it’s a cold thing. My whole suit is freezing up.”

  His teeth chattered violently and his muscles ached as any remaining body heat was sapped away. Nobody answered. He couldn’t see or hear Blackwood. His ears were full only of a faint creaking from the ice buildup, the puffing of his respirator, and the faint crackle of static over the line. His suit flashed warnings at him, ominous phrases like signal lost and error and emergency beacon activated.

  “Blackwood! Blackwood, are you out there?”

  Cold. So cold. So freezingly, bitterly cold. It must have been below zero Celsius… below ten even. And he was essentially naked inside his suit, with nothing but a thin cotton jumpsuit. His brain couldn’t think anymore. “Blackwood! Caernarvon! Come in! Anyone?”

  Then, ominously, the hissing sound of his respirator stopped.

  Ice. His breath had frozen and iced over the ventilator. The tube was blocked.

  Mattis frantically began hammering on the side of his helmet, trying to dislodge the blockage. The warning chimes and beeps were replaced by wailing klaxons. Port ventilation blockage one said. Helpful. Maintenance/servicing required said another. Very helpful.

  All his scratching and beating on his suit hadn’t accomplished anything. He felt himself spinning, tumbling through space as his own frantic movements threw him completely off course. All the air he had to breathe was what he had in his suit, and to maintain pressure, it was pretty tight fitting.