“No,” said Mattis. “This is not normal in any sense.”
The four of them walked up to the coffee shop. A beleaguered, scrawny Chinese kid with mopish, unkempt hair and a greasy uniform regarded them with sunken, dead eyes, standing behind a sheet of bulletproof glass with a dozen gunshot impacts in it. His expression lit up when he saw Admiral Yim.
“W-wait, I know you!” he shouted, jabbing a finger. “Hey! You! You’re Admiral Yim, aren’t you? You’re here to take me back home, right?”
For once, Mattis wasn’t the one being recognized in public. “Keep your voice down,” hissed Mattis. “We just want to talk to your boss.”
“Boss?” The kid shook his head. “That’s me. Boss checked out and booked it months ago. I’m the only one left in this damn place, and I only stay because it means I get to keep all the money for myself. At least, until the stock runs out. You think I’d stick around if I had a ticket off-world?”
Damn.
“Mind if we take a look around?” asked Yim, then paused as he considered. “In exchange for a lift back to my ship. We can take you somewhere safer.”
“Deal,” said the kid, wiggling out of his apron. “Believe me, I’ll be happy to see the back of this dump.” The barista opened the side door, letting them all in. “I’m Sing. Friends call me Sing Sing. You know, after that New York prison? Got electrocuted once. That’s what got me the nickname. Friends thought its was funny. Some friends, right?”
“Right,” said Mattis, taking stock of the cramped shopfront littered with open cardboard boxes, and with a dirty sleeping bag stuffed into one corner. Did the kid live here? “Let’s search this place and find out what we can.” He grinned at Yim. “Like you say, maybe the universe always gives you a sign, if you know how to look.”
“What’re you looking for?” asked Sing, clearly eager to please them. “Maybe I can help. You know, I know this place. And I know how to make a mean hazelnut latte with extra foam. Or maybe a caramel macchiato, that’s some nice coffee and it’ll definitely get your neurons firing. I mean, all I have left is the plunger to make stuff with, but believe me, I’m basically a wizard at that thing by now. Or a chai-chocolate, if you want? And, uh, if you ask nicely, I might have extra flavors under the counter, if you catch my meaning.”
The best and only hope in their investigation was a barista who wanted nothing more than to buy a ticket out of his hell-hole using coffee laced with stuff. If the universe really was guiding their actions, it was doing so with a profound sense of irony. “Basically,” said Mattis, “we’re investigating that news report. The one with the alien attack. It had a coffee shop just like this one, and we were looking for leads. Specifically places, names, connections. That kind of thing. Anything you can tell me.”
“No aliens ’round here,” said the kid, his eyes widening slightly as he realized, presumably, he’d told them he had nothing to offer them. “B-but, I can tell you this: I overheard the old boss talking. The only reason Blessed Humanity was allowed to operate was because they had a partnership with an American company. MaxGainz. They make steroids. Lot of their workers used to come here, before the gangs moved in. Lot of ’em.”
Interesting, but not that useful.
“Sorry sir,” said Modi. “It looks like we nearly got killed in a cab for nothing. I think this expedition is a failure.”
Maybe, maybe not. “You could call it a failure, but I prefer the term ‘learning experience.’”
Sing looked uncomfortable. “You’re still taking me with you, right?”
“Yes,” said Yim, distractedly. “We will.”
“Maybe that company is a front for something,” said Mattis, considering. “Steroids are basically bioengineered these days, grown entirely in a lab. It’s not unreasonable that they might use that as a cover for other genetic research.”
Sing looked around. “Genetic research? In a tiny dump likes this?”
That was a good point. Mattis tried not to focus on the smell emanating from the open boxes, nor thinking about how long Sing might have been sleeping here. No wonder he was so eager to leave. “Are all the stores this big?”
Sing nodded. “Mostly. I mean, if you wanted information, you’d have to go to the corporate office on Earth. But good luck getting information out of Blessed corporate—you’d be better off asking MaxGainz.”
“MaxGainz have an office on Earth?”
“Most companies do,” he said. “For tax reasons. Tax havens. If you stay on Earth, pay less.”
Seemed like a good enough reason as any.
Yim’s communicator beeped, followed almost instantly by Mattis’s. And Lynch’s. And Modi’s.
Mattis picked his up, cautiously.
“Sir?” said a young-ish sounding officer. “This is the Bridge.”
“We’re a little busy down here,” said Mattis.
“So are we,” said the officer. “A ship has just finished a Z-space translation. They say they’re the Forgotten.”
More of those assholes. Lynch looked pale, glancing forlornly at the road. He hadn’t said a word since they got out of the cab. “Should I call a taxi, sir?”
Mattis scowled. “Screw taxis. If I’m going to die down here it’s not getting T-boned by some lunatic. Get the shuttle to come pick us up directly. We gotta get back to the ship before another veteran with a chip on his shoulder starts a war.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The streets of Glasgow
Earth
Sol System
Bratta glanced at the wing mirror. The mismatched lights glistened behind them. “Jeeeaannie?”
She didn’t take her eyes off the road. “I’m doing everything I can, Steve.”
He looked around. Even he could tell his eyes were slightly wild. “You slowed down!”
“Yes, I did. Shush.”
“Shush? We are being tailed! Jeannie, in the last twenty-four hours I’ve fled off-world, been mugged, and interrogated my own boss! This is getting to be a bit much!”
“You should try police work some time. Have I told you about the time I got shot?”
Bratta glowered. Yes, okay, she usually had a story to one-up his experiences, but did she have to keep bringing that up every single time they got into an argument? “Technically,” he said, “your body armor got shot.”
Jeannie pulled into a different lane without indicating, and his heart leapt straight into his throat. This was why people had self-driving cars, this was why people had self-driving cars, this was why people had self-driving cars and he was actually going to die. Horns blared around them. “Are we going to have this argument again?”
“No,” said Bratta. “I just want you to drive like a normal person, and also, while we’re at it, shake this tail!”
“I’m not even sure we have one,” said Jeannie, “but we’ll know soon enough. If they follow us after that.”
Bratta twisted in his seat and stared out the rear window. As the chaos began to settle, the odd pair of headlights was nowhere to be seen. He slumped back into the chair. “That was …” he took a deep breath. “That was really illegal, Jeannie.”
“You keep using that word. I don’t think it means as much as you’d like it to mean in this situation.”
She was so calm it was unnerving. “You’re not worried?”
Jeannie flicked her eyes to the rear-vision mirror. “Not yet. If it shows up behind us again, then I’ll consider being worried. There’s a lot of traffic. Could be a coincidence. Rule number one about losing a tail: The key is to be unpredictable. Slow down, speed up, make ridiculous, obvious mistakes. If they make ridiculous, obvious mistakes too, you know they’re following you.”
He turned back again. Nothing. “Why are you so bloody calm about all this?”
“No point in being bothered by what you can’t be sure is there.” Her voice was low, even. Calm, like someone talking to a spooked cat. He found he didn’t particularly appreciate the gesture. “I drive better when I’m not
panicking, Steven.” She slowly turned the wheel around a corner, sarcasm seeping into her voice. “Funny that.”
“I—well, that’s obvious, I suppose.”
“Yup.”
Silence between the two of them. Bratta knew what that meant. He had annoyed her. “It’s funny,” he said, trying to strike up conversation again. He’d found this sometimes worked. “How you know so much about an ancient psychology. Driving, that is.”
She raised her eyebrows and craned to look in his wing mirror. “Driving isn’t exactly ancient yet.”
“I was using hyperbole, Jeannie. It happens to people when they’re about to be attacked for playing super-spy. It’s an incredibly strange coincidence, really, you know?”
She didn’t seem to think his joke was particularly amusing. That wasn’t too insulting though, neither did he. “Well, there is good news,” she said. “If we do get attacked, we’re right, and we’re the good guys.”
“What?”
The car in front of them braked suddenly. His heart hammered. What if they were being caught in a trap? It would have taken a really good driver, but a pincer maneuver would probably be possible in these conditions. His mind raced with a thousand possibilities.
“Well,” Jeannie shrugged. Perversely, she seemed to have relaxed tenfold since he’d raised the possibility of them being under attack. “They’re expending resources to stop us. That means something we said—in fact, I’m willing to bet something you said—hit Stepka hard. We’re on the right track. As for the good guy bit, have you watched any blockbusters lately? Random conspiracy theorists harassing hard-working staff is bad. Cops following their guts over regulations and plucky scientists—that’s you—investigating corruption in their own company, and then being attacked by our corporate overlords for it? That’s good. Heck, if—”
She broke off, eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror.
“They’re back.”
Damn it all. Bratta had just gotten his heart rate under control.…
“Well,” said Jeannie, “I’m normally on the other side of this, but buckle up, Steve. Here goes nothing.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Outside the Blessed Humanity coffee shop
New London
Omid Sector
The shuttle roared as it hovered overhead, engines blasting up dust and filth in all directions, scattering it all in a blast radius away from the ship. It lowered itself down through the air, resting in the middle of the street, blocking both lanes of traffic. Another one descended further down the street, bearing the flag of the People’s Republic of China. Yim’s shuttle.
Mattis, flanked by Modi and Lynch, walked toward the lowered ramp of their craft, ignoring the beeping and shouts all around him. He worried for a moment if someone was going to shoot at them, but as he stepped onto the metal of the deck, he knew why they restricted themselves to hurling verbal abuse.
Next time, marines. Armored vehicles. Definitely.
Yim got aboard his shuttle with Sing in tow. Mattis was glad that Yim hadn’t made his promise idly. Strangely this little moment, more than everything they had gone through so far, comforted him.
It meant he could trust Yim.
Maybe.
Lynch flipped the planet the bird as the loading ramp raised itself up and sealed closed.
“What a shit hole,” said Lynch, his tone half angry, half bitter. The shuttle lifted off, rumbling as it drifted up through the atmosphere. “Hope we don’t have to go back there again.”
Mattis smiled grimly. “Well, you know. The Midway still has sixty-four nuclear missiles, armed and prepped. Delivery in two minutes or less, or your next one’s free. Would definitely clean up the city.”
For a second, Lynch almost seemed to be considering it. “Nearly got killed by a damn taxi driver,” he murmured to himself.
Mattis bit his lower lip as he watched his XO’s face mulling over the possibility. “Lynch, you know we can’t actually nuke the—”
“I know.”
“And you know I was joking, yeah?”
“I know,” said Lynch, staring out the window at the retreating lights of the city down below. “Ahh, but a man can dream.”
Mattis honestly couldn’t say he wasn’t thinking it, too, but Lynch seemed to take the joke a little too seriously. “I’ll pencil in nuking New London from orbit when we’re done with this mess,” he said. “For now, we should look into what these idiotic extremist assholes want.”
“Aye aye,” said Lynch, somewhat reluctantly, then with a firm nod. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s do this.”
Mattis took out his earpiece from his pocket and clipped it on. “Lieutenant Corrick, was it?”
“No sir,” said the pilot, a man. “Guano—uhh, I mean, Lieutenant Corrick promised the CAG that she wouldn’t damage the last shuttle. And she damaged the last shuttle. I assume she’s being roasted alive right now, Admiral.”
He resolved to instruct Major Yousuf to go easy on her. Shooting out their own cockpit was crazy, but it had prevented a major diplomatic incident. “Okay,” he said. “Get us home. Meanwhile, fire up the long range antenna, I wanna talk to my ship.”
“Aye sir,” said the pilot.
His ear-piece chimed. “Midway,” called Mattis. “Tell me about this incoming ship.”
“Admiral, we’re still gathering information about it,” said the officer. This was why he liked having Lynch on the bridge, he would have already had everything ready to report by now. But at the same time, the guy couldn’t be both on the bridge and down on the surface with him. “But it looks like it’s a smallish size troop carrier. An older, outdated model.”
Older and outdated sure described those angry veterans. And himself, probably, in the eyes of the public, but he put those thoughts out of his mind. No time for feeling sorry for himself. “What’s it doing?” he asked. “Is it engaging anything?”
“Negative,” said the bridge officer. “In fact, it seems to be unarmed. It’s docked with the orbital defense grid.”
Every colonized world had a satellite defense grid. Earth’s was Goalkeeper, the most massive and well-funded of them all, but even a little world like this one would have something formidable defending it. Mattis cursed quietly to himself. It was only designed to defend the planet from external threats—a ship flagged as American would be allowed to dock.
“Launch fighters,” he ordered. “Engage and destroy that troop carrier. Stop them from taking command of the platform. Don’t engage it directly, however—if we hit that platform, it’ll shoot back.”
“Sir, it might be too late for that. The orbital platform is launching drones to engage us.” The guy on the other end of the line was shocked. “They can’t have taken it that quickly. It’s about as likely as winning the lottery.”
Damn robots. The Forgotten had worked fast; too fast, in his opinion. Maybe they had a guy in the inside. Maybe they were exploiting a known bug in the system. Either way, it didn’t matter. They had to be stopped. “Someone wins the lottery,” said Mattis. “Every week. Midway, engage and destroy those drones. We’ll be docking with you shortly. Prepare to receive us.”
“Yes sir.” The link closed.
The shuttle began to duck and weave, artificial gravity fighting with inertia. Mattis strode over to a passenger seat, folded it down, and strapped in.
“I’m gonna puke,” said Lynch, looking green as he fumbled with his straps.
“I’d recommend not doing that,” said Modi, firmly secured, his hands resting on his knees.
The motion made even Mattis a little ill. “You’re coping well,” said Mattis to Modi.
“Why are you even a little bit surprised?” asked Lynch, running his hands through his hair. “You know he’s basically an android. Maybe that’s more literal than I thought—urrgh.”
“Androids,” said Modi, seemingly able to hold a perfect poker face, “can act without emotional barriers, without filters. I notice things you fleshlings miss. Such as wher
e the medkits are. They include anti-motion sickness pills.” He pointed. “Between your legs, Commander.”
Lynch growled angrily, reaching down and grabbing the small plastic container clipped between his thighs. “You’re really starting to tick me off, Modi. I don’t know if it’s this ship bucking like a bull or your smug goddamn face that’s making me wanna hurl.”
Modi smiled, probably for the first time in months. “Boop beep. Our kind don’t know the meaning of annoy.”
Mattis couldn’t help but guffaw at Lynch’s discomfort. “Okay, okay,” he said, waving a hand. “Settle down you two. Lynch, take your pill.” He took a breath to steady himself. “When we get back to the Midway, we have to get ready to move.”
“Aye aye,” said Modi.
From outside the tiny window on the cramped shuttle, the Midway loomed closer, hangar bay doors wide open.
A ship leapt into view, an old model boarding craft, its entire front a giant magnetic grappler. It swung to the side, smashing into their craft.
Alarms blared. The shuttle rolled over, jerking as the pilot fought to right themselves. The hangar bay, once a welcoming beacon of safety, became a terrible danger.
Shit shit shit shit shit—
Mattis held on tight as the shuttle slammed onto the deck, screeching as it slid across the metal landing strip, throwing up sparks. Lynch was thrown from his seat, disappearing into the isle.
With a loud crash the ship came to a stop half way down the landing bay. For a second there was eerie silence, broken only by Modi leaned forward, groaning and clutching his wounded shoulder.
The boarding craft flew into the hangar bay beside them, narrowly avoiding the closing hangar bay doors. It latched onto the far wall of the hangar bay, throwing out sparks as it began to cut into the inner hull.
Tricky. The enemy had piggybacked on their transponder signal, bypassing the Midway’s point defense systems and anti-boarding countermeasures. Clever bastards. Their next step was all too clear.
The Last Hero: Book 2 of The Last War Series Page 12
