The Last Hero: Book 2 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  Mattis digested that, tapping his lower lip with a finger. His story was … strange. Very strange. Nonsensical, even, but that actually made him trust Yim more.

  A lie would have made much more sense. A lie would have been a carefully constructed narrative, designed to make him trust it.

  Lies had to make sense. Reality, however, was under no such restriction.

  “Okay,” said Mattis evenly. “Let’s assume that I believe you. Why did they let you go? Put you back into command?”

  Yim gave a kind of non-committal shrug. “Probably a combination of things. Being a war hero was one. I still have powerful friends in the Chinese Politburo. Also, they probably realized I genuinely didn’t know anything. At least, not anything they cared about. Despite this, I think they did it reluctantly—they put me on a work-heavy assignment way out on the border where I couldn’t cause trouble.”

  Sounded familiar. Disturbingly so. Mattis hadn’t been interrogated like Yim had been, but then again, maybe there were some legitimate differences in the way Chinese and American authorities operated. It made sense, sort of.

  “Admiral,” said Yim, “there are things going on that affect the whole galaxy. And I need your help putting the pieces in place.”

  “Okay,” asked Mattis, “where do we go from here?”

  “Depends,” asked Yim, turning back to face him, finally. “What do you know about the Ark Project?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  En Route to MaxGainz Branch Office

  Glasgow

  Earth

  Bratta looked out of the car window at Glasgow’s miserable sky.

  “Jeannie, I recorded a video. I … look, I’m a doctor. I save the world by inventing a new type of vaccine or something, not with this—” he waved his arms around angrily. “Police- spy- journalism stuff.”

  Jeannie only seemed to half pay attention to him, her fingers drumming on the wheel as she drove.“Well, maybe that’s what they were trying to do.”

  “What? Journalism stuff?”

  The tapping stopped. “Steve, cut the kid act. Maybe they were trying to create a new vaccine.”

  Bratta forced himself to look at her, face to face. Why did arguments with her always have to be so hard? Even—especially—when she was wrong. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re right. And that’s why we’re on the way to the MaxGainz corporate office, to find out. You ask the right questions, I make sure they answer them.”

  He toyed with the zipper on his jacket. Four weeks ago he’d been going to work on a new planet like a normal human, with a bright future of brilliant scientific discoveries ahead of him. Three weeks ago he’d been hiding in his apartment on trauma leave, talking occasionally to his goldfish and the robot vacuum. The same held for two and one weeks ago, but that was fine. It had been … therapeutic, especially after he’d modified the robotic cleaner to sing. Well, actually, now that he thought about it that didn’t sound healthy at all, but … that was in the past. Now, he was driving through Glasgow with his former wife, towards an office of a company he was technically right at this moment skipping out of working for, on the extremely questionable basis of “Jeannie decided it was the best lead so she’s following it.”

  Not to mention the fact that what she seemed to have in mind sounded rather, well, illegal.

  “Jeannie?”

  “Yes?”

  “How are you going to make them answer anything?”

  She took her eyes off the traffic for a second to frown at him. “My work badge.”

  “But … you’re a police officer.”

  “Well yes,” she replied slowly. “That’s why it works.”

  “Isn’t that sort of illegal? Crooked?”

  “Crooked?” she scoffed. “Steve, this is literally my job. I’m a police officer. We police things.”

  Technically correct. “But I mean, shouldn’t you call this one in to the office, or … something? Aren’t you worried about your professional integrity?”

  She laughed. “I’m more worried about my planet. Besides, a lot of police paperwork is post-facto, and just remember: you can’t make an omelet without breaking into the farm to check they aren’t putting illegal additives in the chickens’ food.”

  That was … an analogy. Perhaps not the best one. “Ok, Jeannie,” he conceded, shrinking back into his seat. He didn’t try to talk for the rest of the ride.

  Far too quickly, they reached a blocky building with small windows. Light rain began to bead on the windscreen as they pulled into the half full carpark.

  “So,” Jeannie said as she crawled though the park. “Am I going to have to cover for you skipping work, or will they not be scanning faces at the office?”

  Her tone was so conversational, Bratta took a moment to realize what exactly she’d said. “I … uh … well, they might.” He thought about it for a second. “But, uh, if they’re using my company photoshoot as a reference, then that probably shouldn’t be an issue anyway.”

  Jeannie looked surprised.

  “It’s bad,” he informed her, searching through his pockets.

  He held out the ID. Jeannie glanced at it and slammed on the breaks.

  “Wait. That’s awful, Steve.” She leaned in curiously, somehow fascinated by the depiction. “You look like a serial killer, smiling like that. How were you not carted off to a nut house? I’ve seen more genuine smiles on axe murderers. How. How did that even pass as an ID in the first place?”

  He raised his hands helplessly.

  Jeannie shrugged and slotted the car neatly into a vacant space. “Well, their loss, our gain, I guess. Get out, and let’s go make some paper-pusher real uncomfortable.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Captain’s Ready Room

  USS Midway

  High orbit above Sanctuary

  Omid Sector

  The Ark Project. The same thing Senator Pitt had mentioned.

  “I know it’s gone,” said Mattis, simply. “It was a genetic seed bank for humankind on Ganymede. It was the alien’s first target. They blew the colony up from orbit. Whatever secrets were held there, they’re long gone.”

  Yim nodded slowly. “I understand how you might think that.”

  The evasiveness was palpable. Mattis squinted. “You have something more for me, Yim?”

  “I know there are more,” he said, with confidence that spoke to the truth of his words. “Many more. The one on Ganymede was the largest, by far, but there are others—smaller ones, backup storage locations that the Deep State will want to bring online as soon as they can, if they haven’t already.”

  That tweaked his interest. “You mentioned that before. Deep State? What’s that? A Chinese thing? American?”

  Yim tensed up, visibly. “I honestly don’t know. Probably both. It was a … thing I overheard after I was rescued. A whispered thing, spoken of only in the dark corners of this facility. They seemed to be a part of the Chinese Bureaucracy, but also part of something much more. The staff clamped down on my questions when I started asking about them, and after I got out, too. Something is off, here, and they don’t want people asking questions about it.”

  More secrecy. More evasion of the truth.

  “You mentioned backup locations. Any idea where these locations might be?” asked Mattis.

  “I was hoping,” said Yim, “that you could tell me.”

  Well damn. “How about you tell me what you know,” said Mattis. “And I’ll see if I have anything for you.”

  “Mmm.” Yim nodded. “The genetic seed bank on Ganymede was modeled after one on Svalbard Island, up in the Arctic Ocean on Earth, built hundreds of years ago. That one was designed to safeguard humanity’s food supply in case of global disaster. But this one was to safeguard us. Humans. Our DNA. It contained a broad, diverse record of our genetic history. It was designed to enable us to survive a disaster that would wipe most of us out, so we could use it to rebuild. There is a threshold of
population, below which we simply would not have the genetic diversity to sustain the human race. That’s what the Ganymede seed bank was for—to recreate humanity if our numbers ever dropped too low.”

  “Right. Do you know why it was destroyed?”

  “Not a clue,” said Yim. “I can only assume the attackers wanted to eliminate our species—completely.”

  His conclusion, too. There had been one question Mattis wanted to ask, but he wasn’t sure exactly how proper it was. He didn’t want to push too hard, but … what the hell. Yim wanted his trust, right? “Actually,” said Mattis, “maybe you can help me with something else. Shao’s ship, the Fuqing. She was damaged, severely but not critically. We went to send over repair teams, and they scuttled themselves. Blowing themselves to atoms rather than risk us boarding. Why would they do that?”

  Yim’s eyes widened. “I have no idea. This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

  Mattis glowered, but he couldn’t press Yim about that. “Then I suppose we’ll never know.” He then continued, half-joking, half-serious. “Not unless Shao got herself into an escape pod too and, similarly, miraculously avoided detection until her inevitable rescue. You didn’t see her while you were in that place?”

  “No. I did not.”

  Damn. Despite being enemies in the past, Mattis had found a quick bond with Shao. They thought alike and, despite their profound ideological differences, he had come to respect her as a warrior. The notion that Yim had survived where Shao had not seemed to be an injustice in the scheme of things, but one he could do nothing to change. Sometimes bad things just happened to good people.

  Such was the nature of war.

  “Very well,” said Mattis, taking in a long, slow breath. “We should focus on our work.”

  To that Yim seemed to agree. “Yes, the Ark Project. But if it’s gone, destroyed as you say … what more can we do?”

  Mattis considered. “I honestly have no idea.” It was a slightly grim, defeated confession, one made slightly worse by his demand that Yim tell him everything while he himself was not able to reciprocate. “The video that Ramirez broadcast,” he said, carefully keeping his knowledge that the creatures seen within were not aliens, but humans from the future far away from his mind. “I can’t help but feel that it’s connected to this.”

  “It can’t hurt to take a look,” said Yim. “In life, I’ve found, the universe always gives you a signpost pointing where to go next; you just have to look for it.”

  “Interesting idea.” Mattis nodded firmly. “Anything in particular we should look for?”

  “We won’t know,” said Yim, “until we find it.”

  Circular Chinese logic. Mattis bit back his frustration. “It might actually be a good idea. Since the video was given directly to the media, and then they broadcast without editing, there’s a chance there could still be some kind of hint as to its location. Might be a good place to start.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” said Yim. “There might be more we can learn, too.” He snorted playfully. “Unless we could ask Miss Ramirez to disclose the location.”

  That would be a mistake. Her last interview with Mattis had not gone well. More guilt welled up inside him. He shouldn’t have let it go on this long; he should have spoken to her.

  Focus on work. “If only we could,” said Mattis.

  “Why not simply ask your superiors? It was a military complex, was it not?”

  “Like yourself, I’d prefer my superiors not to know my interest in this issue. Not yet, at least.”

  “Mmm.” Yim considered again. “The video is raw and unedited. An intelligence nightmare. We should be able to get something from it if we’re studious and careful.”

  It was about time an intelligence nightmare worked in their favor. Mattis tapped on his desk, lighting up the monitor that served as his port wall. A few more taps and he had access to the news feeds, and with a bit of searching, Ramirez’s broadcast.

  “Here,” he said, “let’s go over it.”

  So they did. Over and over and over. Mattis and Yim crawled through the video, frame by frame, trying to find something that might give them any indication or clue as to what they were looking for. Mattis mentally airbrushed out the alien creature, the marines, and anything that was a distraction. The flash of gunfire. Panicked people. The distant, unobservable skyline.

  “This is pointless,” grumbled Yim, the film paused over the giant, obnoxious coffee shop logo with its too-bright neon sign and Chinese lettering. “There’s nothing here to indicate anything. We’ll have to see if we can get intelligence on this. They can drag up sub-pixel content and look for things that might be smudged by frame interpolation.”

  “Maybe,” said Mattis, stifling a yawn. “Maybe we just need a break.”

  “Not a bad idea.” Yim stretched his arms up high. “A rest would be nice.”

  “I could go for a cigar,” said Mattis, reaching into his breast pocket for a cigar. “You smoke?”

  “No,” said Yim, firmly. “I don’t. Far too old for that.”

  “Smoking when you’re old is the best,” said Mattis. “Don’t want to be too young, or it might kill you. But at our age, anything that’s going to kill you would have already done so. What’s the harm?”

  With a reluctant sigh, Yim took the cigar, turning it over in his fingers. “Are you sure coffee wouldn’t be better? I could really go for some Yǒufú De Rénxìng.”

  “Some what?”

  “Coffee,” said Yim, jabbing the cigar at the screen. At the giant logo with its Chinese writing. “That thing. Blessed Humanity.”

  Mattis shrugged. “Never seen that before in my life.”

  Yim laughed as though Mattis had made a joke, sticking the cigar between his teeth.

  “What?” asked Mattis, confused.

  “Blessed Humanity is a coffee company,” said Yim, like he was talking to a child. Then he snapped his fingers. “Ah, of course you wouldn’t have heard about it. It’s only recently gotten permission to operate on two non-Chinese worlds—and Friendship Station of course, before it exploded. I made sure of it.”

  “Which worlds?” asked Mattis, eyes widening. Had the truth been staring them in the face?

  “What?”

  Mattis sat up straight, the lethargy banished. “You said the Blessed Humanity coffee company operated on only Chinese worlds, except two. The people in those pictures aren’t Chinese, so: which two worlds were they?”

  The light went on in Yim’s head. “Zenith in the Tonatiuh Sector, and New London.”

  New London. What a shit-hole. “Okay,” said Mattis. “New London is closer. Much closer. We’ll go there first. And if we can’t find anything, we’ll go to Zenith.”

  “Worst one first, huh,” said Yim, his tone grim. “I’ve heard stories of New London. I’d hoped never to visit.”

  “Why did Blessed Humanity set up a coffee shop there?” asked Mattis, curiously. “It’s the last place I’d consider something like that.”

  Yim just smiled. “It was the only place they could get a permit for. New London’s a backwater. They’ll take just about any old Chinese company there.”

  “Right,” said Mattis. It was strange to be working alongside Yim after all that had happened. Memories of his brother’s face once again drifted back into his mind, but they were cut out by a chirp from his communicator.

  “Admiral Mattis,” said a voice, harried and angry. “It’s Nurse Alonzo from sickbay. We need you down here. Now.”

  Modi.

  “Get back to your ship,” said Mattis, standing. “I have to take this.”

  Chapter Thirty

  MaxGainz Branch Office

  Glasgow

  Earth

  Bratta tagged along behind Jeannie as she strode into the reception area like she owned the place.

  The receptionist, a well-dressed young man who looked fresh-faced enough for this to have been his first job, looked up and smiled. “Good afternoon, how may I help y
ou?”

  Jeannie fixed him with the look that Bratta had privately named no I will not listen to reason no matter how convincing you may be, Steve. “I’m here to speak to the manager.”

  The receptionist broke eye contact and looked at a screen in front of him. “Do you have an appointment, Miss…?”

  “Officer Tafola. And no, we don’t. Just a few questions for your manager.” She flashed her badge.

  The receptionist looked a little stunned. “Of course, officer,” he stammered. “Just let me check that he isn’t in a meeting now … No, no, he’s should be free to see you now. I’ll … I’ll let him know you’re here, shall I?”

  Jeannie nodded, entirely professional. “Thank you.”

  The room fell silent as the receptionist turned his attention back to the screen. Bratta spent the interval thinking about the work he should be doing—regenerating muscle tissue in mice with induced birth defects—because to think about what he was actually doing here was to invite disaster. Jeannie had a poker face, he had a poker … fail.

  That always sounded so funny in his head.

  Besides, the techniques he’d been briefed on were interesting, even if he’d never actually managed to work in their labs. He let his mind wander … the work he could have done with that kind of equipment, that sort of funding … he’d always been lucky, really, in his interests. It was definitely an advantage to be invested in the sort of research big drug companies wanted done. Much easier than being obsessed with, oh, a species of South American pygmy possum, or—

  Jeannie cleared her throat.

  “Ah, sorry,” he jerked back to reality. “Coming.”

  She nodded and turned on her heel. That probably meant she wasn’t going to be relying on him for directions, because, he realized with a sense of mild hope, he hadn’t the foggiest where they might be going. Perhaps they would miraculously get lost and he wouldn’t have to indulge in … corporate espionage? Fraud? Something illegal, anyway.