The Last Champion: Book 4 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  He turned to walk back to the airlock. Something struck him right in the gut, a powerful impact that dislodged him and sent him off the hull of the ship. Air rushed out from his abdomen. Air mixed with blood.

  Lynch tumbled slowly in space, as the mutant, apparently still able to move, weakly plinking at him with his rifle. Damn things can survive without air…

  Slowly, gradually, everything went black.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Bridge

  USS Stennis

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  Sampson, her suit still malfunctioning, rushed forward as fast as she could, rounds from Spectre's assault rifle plinking off her armor as she held up her arms to protect her face shield. The other Rhino ran toward him from the other direction, and within a few seconds they had knocked the gun out of his hands and had him pinned to the floor.

  Smith and the former Senator Pitt walked up to him. He struggled and fought, but the Rhino armor held him immobile. “Shhh…” said Sampson, “struggling only makes it worse.”

  “Tell me, Spectre, was it worth it? Trading your soul for this kind of ruined immortality? Do you even know who you are anymore? Who you were?”

  Spectre laughed. And laughed.

  “Can I just snap his neck?” asked Sampson.

  Smith shook his head and held up a hand to silence her. “Just a few things I want to know from you, Spectre. And if you cooperate, I’ll let you live.”

  “No!” yelled Pitt, aiming his gun at the man’s face. “That th-thing has taken my son, taken his body—corrupted him—turned him into a monster!” he was stuttering, shaking with rage, almost unable to speak.

  Smith held up a hand to wave the gun away. “Just wait, Senator. You’ll get your chance. But first I need mine.” He turned back down to the grinning Spectre, looking up at them through the eyes of Jeremy Pitt. “What’s your name?”

  “JP-98.”

  “Your name.”

  The grin widened. “I am Legion.”

  “What’s your name?” Smith repeated. “Your real name. Your given name. The name you were born with.”

  “I am Legion,” Spectre repeated. “Legion is my name. And soon, it will be Lord and Master. All of humanity will bow down before me. They’ll worship me as their creator and savior. The father of a new race. A better race. A master race of glorious humans, transformed into something perfect by their creator.”

  “Your name, please,” said Smith. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to gloat— just for a moment—to go back to your regular old self, the bloke, the dude, the washed up intel officer or corporate middle manager or janitor or whoever the hell you were before this, to just be the regular guy who almost achieved godhood, and to … rub it in. To say, hey, fucker, look at me! I’m Kevin. And look at what the fuck I did! I beat all of you! I’m the shit! You’re all nothing compared to me, you pitiful fools. Look at what Kevin did, and bow before me. Don’t you want to say that to me?” Smith had his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Your name. Who are you?”

  Spectre chuckled. “Eat shit.”

  Smith sighed, and after a moment, stepped back.

  Senator Pitt raised his gun, aimed at his son’s face, closed his eyes, and fired.

  And fired again. And again. He emptied the magazine.

  When he opened his eyes, there was nothing recognizable. Jeremy Pitt was gone. For good. The senator dropped the gun and started to cry.

  Another crack pierced the near silence and interrupted the sounds of Pitt’s weeping. The other Rhino fell to the floor, his actuators twitching, his faceplate smeared with blood.

  Out of the ready room stepped Jeremy Pitt.

  And then another Jeremy Pitt.

  “I told you, Mr. Smith. My name is Legion,” they said together, and they both raised their assault rifles. One of the Pitts continued, “though my particular name is JP-56. This is JP-14. We’re very pleased to meet you, however briefly.” They took aim.

  With an inhuman roar, something streaked across the bridge in a green blur. Smith couldn’t even track the thing with his eyes. And before he even knew what was happening he heard one of the Jeremy Pitts scream.

  The mutant. The one Mattis had rescued from the escape pod, had the man who called himself JP-56 locked in one powerful arm. With the other he reached up and wrenched the man’s head completely off.

  The body slumped to the floor, blood spurting from where the head used to be. The other Jeremy Pitt’s eyes grew as wide as saucers, but that was the only reaction he had time for, since a moment later the head of the JP-56 flew out of the mutant’s hand with such shocking speed and force that it knocked JP-14’s clean off. The second body jerked back as the head flew off it, and it too slumped to the floor, spurting blood.

  Senator Pitt started to wail even louder. The mutant’s chest was heaving, and it looked back at all of them, wearing what looked an awful lot like a goofy grin on his face. “Heads up.”

  Smith looked at the mutant in amazement. “Was … was that … a joke?”

  Sampson roared in laughter. “This dude’s funny!”

  The mutant nodded. “Our lord and master has kept us in mental chains for centuries. But I’ve studied the archives. I learned all about jokes.”

  His chest bounced a few times, as if he was trying to laugh—something he had clearly never done before, as he didn’t know what noise to make. Several weird sounds came from his mouth before the next crack came.

  The mutant was showered with bullets. Eruptions of blood sprouted all over his body and he screamed. Smith watched in horror as a stream of Jeremy Pitts ran out of the ready room, one after another. One of them attacked them with a barrage of bullets. Sampson shielded the two of them with her Rhino armor.

  “Fuck!” screamed Senator Pitt. Smith looked down at the other man, whose leg had erupted with a red wound of his own. He started screaming again.

  The mutant tore through the mass of Spectres, and as he did, he motioned toward the door. “Get out! I’ll take him. All of him.”

  Even through the shower of bullets, the mutant punched and swung and ripped his way through the clones. Smith could almost swear he heard him grunt the words, “freedom, bitches,” but he couldn’t be sure. And with the distraction, Smith scooped up the senator and ran out the door with Sampson close behind, shielding them both with her armor.

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Near Sickbay

  USS Stennis

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  Mattis strode toward the brig, Marines at his back and rifle pressed up against his shoulder, moving past corridor after corridor, sweeping the corners as he made his way toward the brig, following the sound of gunfire echoing through the passageways of the Stennis.

  He came across a series of bodies, three of them, lying face down in the corridor or slumped up against the bulkheads. They were all men and wearing US Navy uniforms, their hair matted with blood, gunshot wounds in their backs.

  All three of them were cradling snoozing, plainly alive infants.

  “Sir,” said one of the Marines near him. “Careful. Could be IEDs.”

  Shit. His heart ached. One of them had brown hair, just like Chuck’s… no. No, it couldn’t be. Chuck wasn’t wearing Navy BDUs. And yet, risking the possibility that it was a trap, Mattis crouched cautiously, overturning the body.

  It wasn’t him. It was an older man, his eyes glazed over, still and unmoving.

  Heartbreaking. A Stennis crew member who’d stayed behind, and had apparently tried to rescue the kids. And now he was dead. But at least it wasn’t Chuck. And the babies were all female.

  “Marines, take these kids. We gotta press on.”

  Obviously untrained with children, the Marines did their best, holding their weapons in one hand and the children, awkwardly, in another.

  Mattis stood and moved away from the dead adults. There
was no time to do anything for them, and they were too heavy to carry even if he wanted to.

  A crowd of people stumbled into the corridor, all wearing Navy uniforms. More Stennis crew. Most of them were holding a kid, some of them two.

  “Admiral Jack Mattis, US Navy!” he shouted. “All of you, get behind us!”

  Mattis scanned the faces of the frightened crewmen. All of them were shielding babies in their arms—more of the stolen children, he presumed—but none of them were Chuck.

  Another series of staccato gunshots, this time from a fork in the hallway up ahead. Mattis crept forward, rifle raised, following the sound of gunfire. More Stennis crewmen ran out from hiding places in rooms off side corridors and storage closets.

  He grabbed one of them, a tall, lanky man with ginger hair. “Admiral Jack Mattis, US Navy. I’m looking for another prisoner. Chuck Mattis.” The guy was barely listening. “Hey! Chuck Mattis, have you seen him?”

  The prisoner shook his head. “No, sir!” and he ran off toward the shuttle bay. Mattis shook his head and pressed onward toward sickbay where he hoped he’d find Chuck, and Jack. Hopefully still alive.

  Again, that was a lot of hope.

  A distant rumble shook the deck and bulkheads around him.

  “Sir,” said Modi over his radio, sounding somewhat out of breath. “We have acquired Lieutenant Corrick and are in the process of extracting her. Her muscle density is proving to make her transportation difficult, however we are proceeding as fast—” he grunted loudly. “As we can.”

  “Great,” said Mattis. “What was that rumble?”

  “The navigational array. It seems as though Commander Lynch’s mission was successful.” There was a faint tinge of worry drifting through Modi’s voice. “Although I am currently unable to raise him. The radiation from the destroyed array may be scrambling our communications with the outside of the ship.”

  That made sense. “Keep me apprised of any developments.”

  “Will do,” said Modi, closing the link.

  Then Mattis heard it, a noise traveling over the sound of shouting, moving people, and gunfire.

  A crying baby.

  “This way!” he said to the Marines behind him, moving forward, away from the empty brig, following the unmistakable, hiccuping bawl that accompanies a distressed infant.

  From farther down the corridor, another crowd of Stennis crew members ran out of hiding under a hail of bullets from Spectre’s people. Chuck was taking up the tail end, pistol in one hand and a swaddled bundle in the other. He was walking backward, now under the cover fire from Mattis’s marines, firing down the corridor they’d just come from. He was bleeding from the temple.

  Mattis felt relief flood every bone in his body. “Chuck!” he hollered over the crackling of the gun. “Here!”

  “Dad?” Chuck’s face mirrored the joy he felt. “Holy shit!”

  Jack continued to wail, loudly. Poor kid.

  Mattis’s relief at seeing his son and grandson was immediately stifled by the realization that Chuck was standing in the doorway, pistol in hand, a horribly exposed target. Mattis jogged over to him, grabbed him and pulled him out of the way. At the end of the corridor, two guards—humans in black uniforms he didn’t recognize—lay slumped by an emergency airlock.

  “I’m here to rescue you,” said Mattis, smiling like a jackal. “But it looks like you’re already doing that yourself.”

  Chuck smiled back. “They put me in the brig by sickbay, but then some of your Marines showed up, and we all kind of revolted. I got Jack, grabbed a gun, and… here I am.”

  “C’mon. We gotta get you both out of here.”

  Another rumble ran through the length of the Stennis, shaking the ship from stem to stern. Mattis and Chuck exchanged a worried look.

  “What was that?” asked Chuck, ejecting the magazine of his pistol and replacing it, awkwardly juggling Jack as he did so.

  A very good question and one which Mattis did not have the answer to. “Could be a secondary explosion from the navigational array,” he said, doubting every word. “Or it could be… well, it could be the reactor coolant finally having its effect on the power core. It could blow at any time.”

  “We should get out of here,” said Chuck, firmly.

  Mattis couldn’t agree more. “Follow me,” he said, heading back toward the airlock, with Chuck, the marines, and armfuls of howling babies in tow.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Near Sickbay

  USS Stennis

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  Mattis led Chuck toward the airlock. His son covered their flanks, making sure they didn’t get attacked from the rear. He was a civilian, but Mattis was proud of how Chuck managed the task. Carefully sweeping the corners with his pistol, checking each passage, keeping Jack pressed in close to his chest. It was just like they’d practiced, for fun, when he was a kid. Civilian-sloppy, but passable. It did the job.

  “We need to hook up with the Rhinos,” Mattis said over his shoulder to one of the Marines. The gesture caused his injury to flare with pain, but he ignored it still. “They can escort us out.”

  She touched her helmet, then shook her head. “No joy. Can’t raise ‘em, Admiral.”

  Mattis didn’t give it any more consideration. He would have to do it himself. “This way,” he said, picking up the pace to a jog. They needed to get off this ship… he just had a feeling. A terrible sensation in his soul that something bad was going to happen if they didn’t.

  Left turn. Right. Left. Straight through. The small team moved with the crowd, almost two dozen Stennis crew members moving with them, many holding children.

  The junction near the shuttle bay loomed in front of him, the Aerostar waiting for them just beyond. A crowd of Stennis crew were being shuffled aboard far, far too slowly.

  “C’mon,” he said, moving up to the junction and taking a knee, bracing his rifle against his shoulder. “Everyone on board! Let’s move, people!”

  Chuck, baby in hand, started shepherding people onto the Aerostar, and the two shuttles nearby the Stennis crew members had pressed into service. Mattis held down the corner, letting him work. Chuck helped the dazed, injured people aboard, offering a hand to those too injured to climb the step into the shuttles.

  From down the corridor, four Rhino suits stomped toward them. Mattis recognized Sampson’s rocket launcher. Smith ran in the center of them all, holding a badly bleeding Senator Pitt.

  “Sir!” shouted Sampson, her voice edged in panic. “We came from the bridge—there’s a whole lotta freaky things happening up there on the bridge. Clones of Jeremy Pitt. Lots of ‘em. Our mutant buddy took out a buttload of them before we escaped, but I don’t think he could have gotten all of them…”

  Another shiver went up Mattis’s spine. How many Jeremy Pitt-Spectres were there? “Any clue what they were up to?”

  It seemed they heard him. The comm snapped on with a brief hiss, and Jeremy Pitt’s voice boomed over the speakers in the shuttle bay. “Time’s running out, Mattis. Your man out on the hull may have sabotaged the radar dish, but that was only needed to calibrate the position in time the portal would lead to. It did not shut off the beam itself. In five minutes the portal will open, and when I destroy this ship and its energy gets shunted into that portal, it will collapse. And with it, the planet. And with the planet, this whole solar system will be laid waste.”

  Damn. Mattis grabbed his personal comm device and called Captain Spears.

  “Send it, Jack,” she said.

  “Spectre is going to blow the ship. And when he does, if that portal is open, the energy from the blast will destabilize it and destroy the planet.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “The second we get clear of the ship, destroy it. Before the portal has a chance to fully form.”

  “Got it. Spears out.”

  “Come on,” he said to the Rhinos. “Help get these peo
ple aboard.”

  Five minutes was basically no time at all. But within two, they had shepherded everyone onto the Aerostar and the two shuttles.

  Lynch had succeeded. That was some comfort. He touched his radio. “Caernarvon, Mattis. We haven’t seen any report of Lynch. Track down his emergency beacon and retrieve him. We are getting out of here.”

  “Confirmed,” said Commander Blackwood in his ear. “We’re already retrieving him. It looks like he became untethered at some point, and medical staff are preparing to do their work. Be advised: he looks like he’s in bad shape.”

  More of that British understatement. If Blackwood was saying that, then the situation was probably dire.

  He couldn’t think about it. His job was to get everyone out of here.

  “Tick tock.” Pitt again. “I see you and your little shuttle. Watch this.”

  “Shit,” said Mattis, taking stock of their situation. Chuck was just finishing loading the last of the Stennis crew aboard, a scared-looking guy in a galley uniform with a shaved head. “Chuck, get aboard. Now. Spectre’s about to do something and I don’t want to be around to see it.”

  “No,” said the guy, whimpering slightly. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to get on. I don’t want to.”

  “It’s okay,” said Chuck, moving toward him soothingly. “It’s fine, don’t worry.”

  The man was clearly having a nervous breakdown. They didn’t have time for this. “Get him aboard,” said Mattis, sternly. “Or we’re leaving without him.”

  “I can’t, I can’t—” the guy turned and bolted down the corridor, tripping and sprawling out a dozen yards or so away from the airlock, curling up into a tight ball and whimpering.

  Okay, that settled it. “Get aboard,” said Mattis. “We are leaving.”