“You’ll be well compensated for its return.”
“The salvage is not for sale,” said Reardon, with a strange edge of finality to it. Something dark and serious in his normally jovial, playful voice.
Spears very much did not want to let this go, but without Blackwood and Mattis back aboard, she had no leverage. “As you wish,” she said. She was tempted—so tempted—to push about the computer but thought better of it. The lives of her crew came first. “Hangar bay is open.”
“Right,” said Reardon. “Hangar bay. No tricks, or, I swear, I’ll put a bullet in your XO’s gut before you have the chance to shit your pants.”
Lovely. “No tricks,” said Spears. “Caernarvon out.”
She closed the connection, then looked to Locke. “Keep that boarding party standing by, just in case.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Surgical Ward 1
Infirmary
HMS Caernarvon
Low Earth Orbit
Guano woke up in the surgical ward, her body caked in sweat. The strange machine hovered over her, still lit up and studying her.
“Are you okay?” asked Doctor Manda.
Was she? That was a good question. The ghost of Brooks’s voice echoed in her ears. She was a clone. Was that true?
What had she even experienced? Was it just a hallucination? Had she imagined it all, or was she communicating with Brooks? Or with one of his clones? Had he survived being shot by her?
So many questions. Questions she knew, in some way, she would likely never truly receive answers to.
“I think so,” she said, her face dripping with sweat. “I… I kinda experienced a really powerful hallucination, lasting right from when you activated the thing until just now. I was seeing some crazy shit. Dead people talking to me, a campfire in the woods, and something really trippy when—I presume—you started to pull the little bastards out of my head.” She smiled weakly. “But you got rid of them, right?”
Doctor Manda moved into view, holding up a test tube filled with a thimbleful of sludgy grey liquid. “This should be all of them,” she said, smiling brightly. “We checked six times. Couldn’t see any activity even on the highest setting. Now we just gotta close you back up, and we’re done here. Don’t worry, we’ll be keeping you totally sedated for the process.”
“Close me… up?”
Smiling lightly, Doctor Manda picked up a mirror and held it up, showing Guano the top of her head. Her scalp had been removed, the skull beneath it as well, and the vein-streaked grey matter of her brain was fully exposed.
“Oh,” she said, staring in bewilderment at her own brain. “That’s neat. My little… brain-thingie right there. Just chilling.”
“Mmm hmm. Brain-thingie. Poetry.” Doctor Manda put the mirror away. “So, you might be experiencing a whole host of symptoms. Weakness, dizzy spells, poor balance; this comes from having your skull removed. But if you start to experience personality changes, confusion, speech problems or seizures—complex or total—report to the infirmary straight away, okay?”
“No worries, Doc,” she said. Her second question snagged in her throat. “I…” She had to say it. When her mind had been addled, she had often tried to ‘break out’ and say things, to fight for control… and couldn’t. So she forced herself now. “I had a conversation with a clone of some dead guy.”
Doctor Manda blinked in confusion. “You spoke to someone while you were under?”
“Yeah. That’s right. I wasn’t sure if it was a hallucination or not, but… I wanted to ask what you thought. You’re the doctor after all, and I’m laying here with my brain hanging out having a chat with Spectre.”
“You most certainly are,” said Doctor Manda, pausing a moment to consider. Guano thought the next question would be who is Spectre?, but it wasn’t. “The truth is… we don’t know, but it does seem promising that you were able to mention his name.”
Guano raised an eyebrow.
“I read your report and court transcripts in preparation for the surgery. You mentioned that name in your statements.”
Right. Well. “Okay,” she said, getting to the real point. “Do you think it’s possible he was communicating with me? Through the dream somehow?”
“Didn’t you shoot him?”
She wanted to nod but couldn’t. “Yes.”
“Right, so I think,” said Doctor Manda, slowly, “that it’s unlikely you were receiving any kind of new information while you were under. It’s more likely that your brain was constructing a hypothetical situation—something that you feared, on some level, would come true. And the thing you imagined in there was only saying what you unconsciously wanted him to say.” Doctor Manda looked away for a moment. “That said, we simply cannot discount the possibility it was real communication. With the nanobots out, it shouldn’t happen again, but if it does… report it straight away.”
“Yup. Absolutely, definitely will do.” She smiled. “Okay, Doc. Enough being open-minded today. Better put my brain back in.”
Doctor Manda smiled widely. “Okay, we’ll close you up. We’ll make sure you’re sedated during the process, and I promise you won’t feel a thing. Nurse?”
A sturdy male nurse carrying a massive syringe approached in Guano’s periphery. She wanted to protest, but the next thing she knew, a rush of cold was filling her veins. She tried to focus on what Doctor Manda had said. How could she possibly be a clone? And with the nanobots removed, she would be fine. Right?
As the nurse started up the bone stitcher, there was still a niggling doubt echoing around in Guano’s head, but she hoped it would just fall out of the open part of her skull. That was how ideas worked, right?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cargo bay
Aerostar
Inside the Caernarvon’s hangar bay
Mattis gingerly put his suit back on and acutely felt that the biofoam’s painkiller effect had worn off. Pulling the pants up over his naked self was a trial; every time the metal touched his skin, it stung, but he knew that as uncomfortable as that was, it was going to be a lot worse to be exposed to the vacuum of a decompressed shuttle bay.
Blackwood, to her credit, seemed to bear with the pain more easily than he, and didn’t seem to be bothered by his nakedness—or her own. She was fully suited up and ready to go before he finished getting into his pants.
“You doing okay?” he asked. “How are your burns?”
“They’re fine,” said Blackwood. “Nothing an analgesic won’t fix once we’re back on board. It’s just pain, it’s fleeting.”
Mattis smiled. He couldn’t help but admire her ability to shrug off all that skin damage. His own body was tingling pretty bad, and he knew that once the medication fully wore off, he’d be in agony—but Blackwood was so much worse off than he was, and yet, seemingly dealing with it a lot better. “Well… you’re doing very well, anyway.”
Blackwood tugged on her helmet, sealing it. “In the submarine corps, sailors would train for coolant leaks in a starship reactor. Which was a fun exercise. If you were hurt during this kind of thing, your injury would depend on whether the leak was coming from the evaporator end or the condenser end of the system. Both would horrifically scald your average crewman with an extremely toxic chemical, but one instance might be incredibly hot while the other instance was incredibly cold. So this is nothing.”
“Sounds horrific,” Mattis grumbled. He checked his own helmet and suit. Intact.
“Because it is. Being a submariner is a simple job that’s not an easy job. Your every move is dedicated to making sure that the number of ‘surfaces’ equals the number of ‘dives’.”
“Mmm. A noble goal,” he said. Although antiquated, he was glad that the Royal Navy’s submarines continued to serve, both on Earth and on other worlds. The British public was heavily against giving them up. Britannia Rules The Waves, after all.
Without further ado, the loading ramp lowered, venting the cargo bay’s atmosphere out into space,
the air rushing past them as it fled the confines of the Aerostar.
Beyond the loading ramp were five armed Marines, their faces obscured, and a central figure standing in front of them whom, he guessed, was Spears. He cycled through his radio frequencies until he found one open. “Captain Spears,” he said.
“Admiral Mattis,” replied Spears warmly. “Good to see you again.”
Mattis jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I found the Aerostar for you,” he said, grinning, though his face was likely obscured. “Through sheer dumb luck. And also because Blackwood blew herself up.”
“Technically speaking,” said Blackwood, “I blew both of us up.”
“Right. Well, anyway, Reardon’s complaining about wanting to be paid, so I suggest that you do so… half in advance, half after that overblown peacock tells you what he knows about the Avenir.”
“I’m a woman of my word,” said Spears, slightly put out. “He returned you to us. He’ll be paid in full and sharpish. As for the Avenir… I have something he might want in exchange for that information.”
Was Reardon’s experience really that important? There must be something else at play here. Best not talk about the backup. Mattis took a step down the loading ramp. “Right, well, he’s eager to get going, so I suggest you make your offer soon. He, uh, can hear you by the way.”
“I’d almost be offended if he couldn’t.” Spears cleared her throat. “So, Harry Reardon, I’m prepared to pay you now, once I have your account details.”
Reardon coughed over the line. “Yeah, no, sorry love. It’ll have to be cash. Reputable businessmen like me don’t exactly have, you know, bank accounts.”
“Oh,” said Spears. “That’s a tragic shame, because my ships don’t carry cash in such large amounts. Why would we need to?” She clicked her tongue. “So sad.”
“Hey,” said Reardon, angrily. “You said you would pay me.”
“Correct, but I did not specify the way in which I would do so,” said Spears. Mattis could hear the smile in her voice. “Perhaps a trade, then? I can have my engineers effect some repairs on your ship, and I do have an extra Type 66-B Z-space engine that’s compatible with practically any kind of ship. It’s got a defective coolant coil, but you could just install the one you have, so I’m sure I could be easily convinced to part with it.”
Reardon was practically drooling down the line. “A Type 66-B? That actually works?”
“Type 66-B,” said Spears. “Practically brand new. Apart from the coolant coil.”
Clever girl. The Type 66-B was a top of the line Z-space engine, the fastest around by a long margin, but it had a rarely known flaw—it would blow its coolant coils on the regular. It would also emit a radiation that would make it exceptionally easy to trace.
Mattis only knew about it because the military had approved the Type 66-B for use in its warbirds, then had discovered the issue and kept it classified.
Reardon said nothing for a while, obviously mulling over the trade. Then, finally, he spoke up. “Lady, you got yourself a deal.”
Mattis adjusted his radio so he was only talking to Spears. “You’re really going to give him an engine?”
“One moment, Mister Reardon. I just have to check something.” There was a faint hiss as she changed frequencies. “That’s correct,” said Spears over their private line. “Because I suspect that Reardon knows about the problem with the Type 66-B, and I suspect that he knows a way to fix it. Or at least mitigate it. But that’s not my concern. Installing the engine will require access to his ship and his ship’s computers, and that’s what I really want. Because if they have a copy of that backup, that’s where it’ll be.”
Very clever girl indeed. All she really wanted was the computer.
“So I have it?” asked Reardon.
Spears fiddled with her wrist-mounted computer, then answered over their shared line. “Yes.”
Reardon laughed into their ears. “Suckers.”
Chapter Thirty
Conference Room 3
HMS Caernarvon
Sol system
For the first time since they had left Earth, despite his injuries, Mattis felt like things were going their way.
Blackwood went to sickbay, and so did Mattis. They were both slathered with more foam, but after it had done its work, the doctors allowed them to return to duty.
On the way back to Spears, Mattis fetched Blair from her quarters. She seemed concerned for his burns, but happy to be out of her room and, at least for now, much less space-sick. The Aerostar was locked down in the hangar bay and the Royal engineers went to work on it, cutting and welding and preparing to install the new engine.
In the interim, Spears had apparently shepherded the crew of the Aerostar into a spare conference room. Just somewhere to keep them distracted while they worked, and by the time Mattis returned to them, there was a heavy air of boredom clinging to both of the brothers.
“Who’s that?” said Reardon, jabbing a finger at Blair.
“Denelle Blair,” said Mattis, delicately leaving off the Special Agent part. “She’s… assisting us.” He sat in one of the empty chairs, and Blair sat next to him.
“So hey,” said Reardon to Spears, for what Mattis assumed was not the first time. “When’s my ship going to be ready?”
“Well,” said Spears, patiently. “A full Z-space engine replacement is going to take some time. Two days at least, maybe three. In the meantime, we can assign you temporary quarters and make sure you’re comfortable.”
“I do like being comfortable,” said Reardon, grinning like some kind of mutant cat.
“He does,” said Sammy.
Spears nodded politely. “And I have to confess: military ships are not exactly wheelchair accessible. But we’ll do whatever we can to make you comfortable, too.”
Sammy nodded appreciatively, but his smile quickly fell.
“You okay, son?” asked Mattis.
“Not really.” He ran his hands along the armrests of his wheelchair. “You’re giving us a fifty-million dollar engine, practically brand new, for what? Returning two military crewmen who we had a clear obligation to return anyway?”
“No we didn’t,” Reardon butted in, waggling his finger. “We did it out of the goodness of our hearts. No obligation.”
It was difficult to tell whether or not Reardon was bluffing; it was insane to Mattis that the kid would consider actually kidnapping senior military personnel from the US and British Navies. But he was also apparently in desperate need of cash. It had to be a bluff.
Sammy seemed to ignore his brother’s blabbering. “The bounty was only thirty-thousand. How did that go from thirty G’s to fifty mil?” Sammy shook his head. “No, something’s not right here. You want something else.”
Spears leveled her gaze at him. “Perceptive kid,” she said. “The truth is that you are correct, Mister Reardon.”
“That’s me,” said Harry Reardon, pointing to himself.
“Harry’s your first name,” said Sammy, a clear edge of exhaustion in his voice. “My last name is also Reardon.”
“Anyway,” said Spears. “Yes. Correct on both counts. The point is: you are correct.” She took a shallow breath. “I need to see the computer you salvaged from the Stennis.”
“I told you,” said Reardon, “it’s not for sale.”
“Everything is for sale,” said Spears, politely.
“Not this.” Reardon looked directly at him. “After the last battle, where Chuck…” he stopped, voice trailing away. “W-where Chuck was there, we scavved a computer from the wreckage of the Stennis. It had a whole bunch of stuff on it. Stuff like you wouldn’t believe… we’d only just scratched the surface looking at it, but we could tell right away it was incomplete.”
More memories of Chuck. He pushed them down, and away. Couldn’t focus on them now. “What kind of stuff?” asked Mattis.
Reardon didn’t answer right away. Whatever it was had obviously disturbed him.
; Sammy leaned over to his brother. “You can tell them,” he said, quietly.
“It’s a list of things,” snapped Reardon, giving his brother a playful shove. “I dunno what it was precisely. Just lists. Sammy was working on a theory and I’m not sure on the details, but… he knew it was about cloning. Honestly, I wanted to just scrap it and sell the metal, but then the bloody thing just woke up. Turned itself on. No power source or anything. I was afraid it had sent out a beacon. So we executed a Z-space translation. But it was just turning itself on, I think.”
“So you ran,” said Spears, thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you come back?”
“Because I didn’t know who to trust.”
“I know that feeling,” said Mattis.
Spears leaned forward slightly. “I need to examine that computer. I need it to answer that very vital question, the very same one you are: can people be trusted? How do we know? How can we prevent what happened there from happening here?”
“Okay,” said Reardon, grumpily. “Fine. I’ll…give it to you access to what’s on the computers. But I want Sammy to be the one who analyzes it. You can have a copy of the data, but Sammy opens it, Sammy figures out what it is.”
“That’s fair,” said Spears.
Reardon smirked. “And I want something else. Not money.”
“Very well, what is it you want?”
“I want to help you. I want…” he puffed out his chest. “I wanna have a Han Solo moment. Where I become everyone’s hero forever.”
Spears’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Han…?” The old reference was lost on her.
“Solo,” Reardon repeated.
“Oh god,” muttered Sammy.
Mattis bit his tongue to keep the response in check.
“Also I want a uniform,” said Reardon, grinning like a moron. “I always thought I’d look sick in one.”
“We’ll see about the uniform,” said Spears, evenly. “But we’d certainly welcome your help.” Spears’s eyes flicked to Blair. “And since you asked, we actually could use your help to locate a certain individual.”
The Last Strike: Book 5 of The Last War Series Page 13
