The Last Hero: Book 2 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

Senator Peter Pitt didn’t feel angry. He hadn’t lost his temper, he wasn’t a vengeful spirit, or possessing a thirst for blood. There was no rage in how he felt. His anger was cold, calculating, and entirely righteous.

  Admiral Jack Mattis had killed his son.

  Even now, months later, the very idea took time to sink into his head, to pass through his brain and lodge itself there. Any moment he expected Jeremy to call him, tell him it was all a dream, and they would discuss their days. They would enjoy a warm cup of coffee, or that delightful chai that Jeremy sometimes brought home, and they’d chat. Jeremy about his ship, and he about whatever BS blue-ribbon commission he was spearheading.

  He’d fired Mattis’s son. With relish and gusto. But that was a hollow victory. He’d actually felt worse afterwards, not better, as though he had prematurely cashed in his chips. Played his cards too early. Taking someone’s job couldn’t possibly compare to taking their life.

  No more mistakes in the future. The next time Pitt put his cards on the table, he’d be doing it to win.

  Until then he drifted around his office like a ghoul. Pitt had lost weight; exactly how much he couldn’t say, but it was enough that his skin drew closer around his thin frame, erasing whatever muscle mass age hadn’t already taken from him. His clothes reeked. His office was dusty. His body ached.

  He could barely summon the strength to turn off the TV. Some breaking news story about something he couldn’t begin to think or care about.

  Then one word caught his attention and held it.

  Alien.

  Groaning like the living dead, Pitt slid into his chair, drawn to the broadcast with mute fascination. He watched the whole film clip. Again. And again. And again. The blurry, shaky footage taken by some panicked man on a distant world. The too-public reveal of their alien foe.

  And all of the pieces slowly slid into place.

  He knew what to do. Pitt took out his communicator and flicked through his contacts. P, Q, R, S…

  Tvarika Seaton

  Chantrell Segar

  Caillen Selman

  Spectre

  There she was. No first name and no last. That little word which held so much promise and so much risk. His contact in the government whose position, it seemed, was … vaguely defined. But she was usually able to help him.

  For a cost.

  He tapped the contact with no hesitation.

  “This is Spectre,” she said, with barely a ring being completed. Her voice was disguised by a voice-changer, as it always was. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “I’m a patient man,” said Pitt, his voice sounding almost alien to his ears. How long had it been since he spoke to someone? Too long. But it didn’t matter. “I’m guessing you saw the broadcast.”

  “Most unfortunate,” said Spectre. “We’ll have to take action about this.”

  “I was hoping you were going to say that,” said Pitt, his smile widening. “I know just the thing….”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Outside the Chinese Embassy

  Sanctuary

  Omid Sector

  Well. The cat was out of the bag now. Mattis stared in bewilderment as the news feed cut over to some kind of expert or another; some talking head who would give their stupid uninformed opinion about what everyone had just seen.

  Now he didn’t need to keep the alien’s nature a secret anymore. It actually felt … good. Like a weight had been lifted from him.

  “What do you think, sir?” asked Modi.

  “I think it might help us,” said Mattis, turning his attention to the embassy once more. “Ryan, I hope you saw that. The galaxy is a big place—I know you have your concerns with the Chinese. You have questions about our government and the secrets it keeps. You aren’t the only one interested in the answers to a lot of questions that, perhaps, I can help provide.”

  “What do you know about the video?” shouted Ryan.

  “Not much,” shouted Mattis in return. “But we can look into it together.” A pause while he waited for an answer which didn’t come. He tried something else. “You mentioned Friendship Station—I was there. I can talk to you about it, and listen. You’re not the only one with a story to tell.”

  There was no answer, which could have been good or bad.

  “Sir,” asked Modi, “what are you trying to do?”

  Mattis shook his head. “Exactly what I said. I want him to work with me on this. He’s got a full crew of people in there: dedicated, loyal—they believe in him. Other people across the galaxy will too. I want him to say we’re working on it so those people believe it. Hell, after he’s done spending time in the brig for all this, he might even be able to help out directly.”

  “He may not want to do that,” said Modi. “Especially if he does go to prison.”

  After eating prison meatloaf for a few months, or years, Ryan might change his tune. “For now,” said Mattis, “let’s get the hostages to safety.”

  He turned back to the embassy. “We’re on the same side, you know,” said Mattis, his throat hoarse from all this shouting. “You want what I want. I’ve fought these things; I know things about them. Things that I can’t tell you. You know how it is, operational security and all that. But it looks like the media’s fucked that all up, so maybe—just maybe—we can start to do something about it. Together.” He wasn’t sure exactly what he was promising. “But we’re never going to get your voice out from within those walls. You have to come out and talk about this, or it’s going to end in blood.”

  The kid’s head disappeared from the window and Mattis breathed a sigh of relief. Okay. One thing down. He slowly, subconsciously, began patting the lion statue’s head.

  Lynch gave him a weird stare, his face all scrunched up. Mattis stopped patting.

  “Is it true?” shouted Ryan, a hint of fear in his voice. “Admiral, the video, the newscast with that thing. Was it real?”

  Mattis shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t fake it, if that’s what you’re asking. I saw it at the same time you did.” He gave a wry smile that, at the distance they were shouting to each other, he doubted Ryan could see. “Knowing Ramirez, though, I’d bet it’s totally legitimate.”

  It was good to see her again, even if it was in this distant capacity. Ramirez … suddenly he felt like he wanted to see her a whole bunch more.

  Why, you old fool? Why hadn’t you gone and seen her all this time? Sure, the Midway was ordered on patrol, and that was a good enough reason to avoid seeing her. Maybe. The truth was, of course, a lot more simple.

  She’d hinted that they might have a future together, and that scared him away.

  “I dunno.” Ryan’s voice became so quiet he could barely hear it. The guy swore to himself, probably loud enough for everyone inside to hear but not those on the outside. “I don’t know. That guy—that thing in the video—it looked Chinese.”

  “Lots of people look Chinese, Ryan. You’re overthinking it.” Mattis let it all sink in for a little bit, trying to banish the lingering thoughts of Ramirez out of his mind. There’d be time enough for that. Time enough later.

  “Okay,” he continued, his throat hoarse. “Just try to think this through. I can help you. You want to know the truth, well, I know things about these creatures. I fought them. And, well, now the whole damn galaxy knows that what attacked us wasn’t the Chinese. Wasn’t even human.” More or less. The full truth would be too much for him, and too sensitive to literally shout in the street. “But Ryan, hear this: if you hurt anyone in there, even I won’t be able to do anything. We can’t work together if you resort to violence.”

  Ryan didn’t answer right away.

  “Ramirez didn’t fake it,” called Mattis. “Or at least, if she did, I’m not going to chase that rabbit. Word of advice: never pick a fight with someone who buys their ink by the barrel. If lawyers are sharks, reporters are piranhas.”

  Laughter drifted toward them, faint, but genuine.

  “Okay,” shouted Mattis. “Fun’s
over, marine. My throat’s killing me, the sun’s going down, and those PRC marines are probably getting sick of the sound of my yammering. I’m thirsty, my ship’s sitting there rusting in space, and while I’m enjoying my XO and my chief of engineering actually not arguing for the first time in six months, I think it’s time we wrapped this show up. Send out one of the hostages, and we’ll talk specifics. C’mon.”

  There was a long pause. And then, finally, Ryan popped his head up over the window. “Righteo, sir,” he said. “Lemme send out the kid. I think he pissed himself anyway.”

  Mattis nodded, unsure if he could see the gesture at that distance. “Good call. I’ll be right here, and—”

  He flinched as a gunshot blew out the window pane next to Ryan’s head.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Inside the Chinese Embassy

  Sanctuary

  Omid Sector

  “Good call. I’ll be right here, and—”

  The roar of a gunshot made his ears ring, followed instantly by shattering glass. Castro’s head burst like a melon, painting the window frame with her blood.

  Instantly his hands found his rifle and he swung it about, eyes tracking the source of the noise.

  The biter had a tiny pistol in her hand, propped up on her elbows. How she found it was a mystery. How she freed her hands was a mystery. Her further intentions, though, were clear: she lined the still-smoking barrel up on him.

  Years of training took over. Ryan squeezed the trigger of his rifle, spraying her down with a five shot burst, center of mass, blasting her back onto the ground. He put another two rounds into her head just to make sure.

  “Castro?” Ryan risked a glance her way, and then immediately wished he hadn’t. “Corpsman!”

  Fitzgerald, their corpsman, ran over. His face fell the moment he saw her. “Shit. She’s dead.”

  Dammit. Dammit!

  “Ryan,” called Mattis, that old fucking bastard. This was all his fault. “What’s going on in there?”

  “One of our hostages got hold of a gun,” he said, staring at Castro’s dead body. This was Mattis’s fault. “Damn bitch shot one of my people. Now she’s dead.”

  “You shot a hostage? You son of a—!”

  “It wasn’t like that!” roared Ryan. “She had a gun! She shot first, and she was going to do me too, it was self defense!”

  “You don’t get to bust into someone’s house and claim self defense when they shoot back, Ryan!”

  That was true enough. Nobody said anything. All his men looked at each other, then to him. Ryan touched Castro’s shoulder, taking a breath. It was okay. It was okay. They could get through this. They would definitely serve hard time now but he’d take the most of the blame. He’d pulled the trigger, he’d organized the op, he’d been the leader—

  A deafening roar threw dust into the air and the whole building shook.

  Ryan grabbed Castro’s thermal imager and waved it around like a lunatic. He saw the glow from the SAM’s engine, the computers, the targeting antenna—

  There. Five Chinese marines, coming in through the floor. They’d blown out the floor on the lower level. During all this, all this shit he had forgotten about the attack below. They had probably been there for some time, waiting for a gunshot, waiting for the signal to take them all down. Biter was probably a part of this—probably one of them.

  Time to fight back.

  “Take out their shuttle,” said Ryan, to the nearest man.

  “Aye sir!”

  “Contact below,” Ryan shouted over the ringing in his ears. “Five reds! Lock and load, marines, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Shuttle Zulu-3

  Lower Atmosphere of Sanctuary

  Omid Sector

  Corrick lifted up the shuttle away from the embassy through the lower atmosphere, passing through a thick cloud that was grey and bruised and full of moisture. She pulled the ship up, hovering inside the roiling cover, condensation forming on the ship’s cockpit glass. She flicked on the autopilot.

  “Flying shuttles sucks,” she said, slumping back in her chair. “The damn thing handles like a pig in mud. With a broken leg. A pig with—” she waved her arms around. “I don’t know. Another broken leg. Just because. I basically have to drag the controls around like they’re made of lead, you know? Heavy and slow and fat and gross. I miss my fighter.”

  Flatline grunted.

  She turned to him. “Hey, you’ve been awfully quiet this whole trip. Something on your mind?”

  “Yeah,” he said, entirely unhelpfully.

  “What’s that?” she asked, creasing her brow. “C’mon. Don’t make me squeeze it out of you.”

  “Eh,” said Flatline, shrugging.

  Guano squinted. “What, you stop taking those friggin’ supplements they’re giving us? Going through vitamin withdrawal?” She shook her head. “Ever since the ejection you’ve been weird,” she said, shuffling around in her seat so she faced him a bit more properly. That was one thing shuttles had over fighters: a lot more leg room.

  “Me?” asked Flatline, blinking in surprise. “It’s you that’s the weirdo, Guano.”

  Now it was her turn to be taken aback. “What do you mean?” she asked. “I mean, we’ve barely said a word since the pickup. Roadie had me scrubbing the ready room, then writing all those damn lines—and now we don’t even have a ship!”

  “It’s not the ejection,” said Flatline, frustration creeping into his tone as though the source of it all was something she should have picked up on a lot sooner. “It’s what happened before that. During the battles. When you went all … weird.”

  Guano hesitated. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” said Flatline, staring straight ahead out the rain-streaked cockpit.

  The two of them sat in silence for a bit, the only sounds the gentle sound of the wind outside and the soft beeping of their cockpit instruments.

  “I don’t really know what it is,” said Guano, grinning and leaning over toward him, trying to lighten the mood. “But thanks for not reporting it. A mental health issue like that could get me crossed off the flight roster for good.”

  “Yeah,” said Flatline, again, his tone humorless. “It definitely could.”

  She sat back down in her chair again. “It’s not like that,” she said, a tad more defensively than was necessary. “I just—it’s not—” she shook her head. “I’m not crazy.”

  “Mmm. Spoken like someone who’s definitely not crazy.”

  Guano grimaced. “I know how it sounds, but it’s not a bad thing. It’s just—” she paused, collecting her thoughts. “When I got really stressed, back in the fight, it was like a whole universe of possibilities opened up to me. It was like doing the best weed you could imagine, but instead of slowing me down, it slowed down everything around me; I felt like I was moving normally, doing everything just like I normally would, but the world was going at half speed, you know? It just made it so much easier to track enemy movements, give me time to think, casually plan out exactly what I was going to do.”

  “Maybe you were having a stroke,” said Flatline, plainly. “You should get yourself checked out.”

  Guano laughed defensively and shook her head. “No way. If I gave Roadie any justification at all to get me crossed off the flight roster, he’d take it. I crashed two ships in as many days—that kind of thing looks pretty bad on your résumé. Last thing I need is a visit to the head-shrinks.”

  “Mental health’s come a long way,” said Flatline. “There’s lots of different ways it could go. It might be just normal, you know? A perfectly normal, perfectly natural reaction to combat stress.” A delicate way of saying Combat Stress Reaction. “But it might also be a clot in your brain that’s slowly killing you.”

  Guano took a shallow breath. Suddenly, all the pieces clicked into place. “You told Roadie,” she said, eyes widening. “You told him. That’s why he won’t let me fly. That’s why he made me take you on this
absolute milk-run. He doesn’t trust me.” Guano’s tone soured. “And neither do you.”

  “He’s worried about you,” said Flatline, a tad defensively. “And so am I. What happened to you—Patricia, that’s not normal.”

  Oooh. If he was calling her Patricia shit was serious. She straightened her back. “Lemme show you. I’ll show you it’s harmless.”

  Flatline grimaced, finally looking at her. “Maybe that’s not a good idea.”

  “No,” she said, firmly. “It is. I want you to see that it’s not a clot in my brain, or me wigging out, or—anything. It’s just a helpful state. Like a trance.”

  “Okay. Okay. So show me.”

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t work that way. You gotta activate it.”

  “How?” Flatline snorted. “You got an on-switch or something?”

  “Kind of,” she said. “I don’t really understand it myself, but if you stress me out enough, like put me in danger, it’ll happen.”

  Flatline obviously considered. “Okay,” he said. “How?”

  Guano reached behind her, to the back of her seat, and withdrew the medkit stationed there. She pried it open and rummaged around inside, pulling out a box of painkillers. “Here,” she said, handing them to Flatline. “Throw this at me.”

  He stared. “Just, like, throw it?”

  “Yeah.” She steeled herself, focusing on the box of pills. “When I’m in danger, it’ll activate and I’ll … I don’t know. Ninja-swat the thing out of the air or something.”

  Squinting skeptically, Flatline twisted in his seat, coming to face her, and then pegged the box of pills right at her head.

  It got her right in the left eye. “Ow! Fuck!”

  “Sorry!” said Flatline, eyes widening. “You said to throw it!”

  “I know, I know.” Guano groaned and rubbed her face. “Dammit. That’s going to bruise.”

  “It’s not my fault,” said Flatline.

  “I know, I know. Piss.” Guano sighed. “I dunno … it was supposed to turn on but it didn’t.”