The Last Hero: Book 2 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  Five. Four. Three.

  “They ain’t stopping,” said Spuds. “They’re just picking up more speed.”

  Two.

  “Wait until they cross the line,” said Guano. “That’s our orders.”

  One. Guano switched from radar guided to heat-seeking missiles.

  The first Chinese ship flew across the invisible ten-kilometer sphere her computer projected around the Midway and instantly turned red.

  Her finger hovered over the fire button and then, as quickly as the dot had changed from green to red, she felt it.

  Absolute, total calm and control.

  “Fox two,” she said, losing the missile and breaking hard, passing through the Chinese ship’s silver jet wash. It splashed across her screen, condensing on the glass.

  No time to see if the missile found a home or not. She thrust the stick forward, diving her ship, the g-forces thrusting her up into her seat. She spun the ship around, flying backwards, her own silver engine exhaust washing over her cockpit. Through the mist, she locked up another Chinese fighter and squeezed the trigger.

  Her ship vibrated slightly as the missile tore free of its railing. Again, no time to look. She accelerated, the force crushing her back into her seat, then locked up a third.

  “Good hit,” said Flatline behind her. “On both missiles. Splash two Chinese fighters.”

  “Did they bail?”

  “Yeah,” said Flatline. She could hear him pounding away at his keyboard behind her. “I got two distress beacons. The pilots are drifting out of the combat zone, life signs healthy.”

  Guano touched her radio, transmitting in the open. “Flag those pilots as neutral,” she said. “And make sure all ships understand that ejected pilots are to be avoided. Do not engage them, and avoid collisions.”

  Flatline’s voice spiked up. “You’re feeling it, aren’t you?” he asked. His gun chattered behind her, sending a stream of tracers flying off into space. “You’re feeling it!”

  “Oh yeah,” said Guano, much more deadpan than she intended, switching targets to a third fighter. “I’m feeling it.”

  “They’re on me,” said Spuds, the panic in his voice clear. “I got a tail. Two bandits, right on my six. They’re painting me.”

  His distress seemed so out of place to her. She swung her ship to the right, following her HUD’s directions to her wingman. “Drop flares, chaff, and engage ECM. Break right and maintain defensive posture.”

  Two Chinese fighters up ahead, their twin silver streams like snakes trying to bite Spuds. Guano lined up her gunsight on the lead fighter, gently squeezing the trigger. A tiny burst—twenty rounds or less—leapt out from her ship, well beyond the maximum effective range of that weapon.

  She watched the rounds fly out, toward the dodging, weaving Chinese spaceship. Flying, flying, flying …

  For a moment she thought she’d missed, then the rounds burst against the rear of the ship, little flashes of light in the black.

  “Splash three,” she said.

  The remaining Chinese fighter strafed Spud’s ship, blasting the wing off it with a well placed stream of gunfire. His smoking ship careered away, spinning violently.

  “Spuds, eject, eject, eject,” she said. The ship spun faster, faster—and then it broke up, bursting silently in space.

  “Damn!” shouted Flatline. “I’m looking for a distress beacon. Scanning …”

  No way he survived that. Guano lined up the Chinese fighter who killed him, and let loose her two remaining heat seeking missiles. At that range they barely had a few seconds of flight time before they speared into the Chinese fighter, blowing it to atoms.

  Blood for blood.

  “Guano, look,” said Flatline, pinging her HUD.

  She followed the flashing light, eyes seeing what he meant immediately.

  Three Chinese bombers on an attack run to the Midway.

  Chapter Seventy

  Bridge

  USS Midway

  Orbit above Chrysalis

  Kepler-1011 system

  Anger. Confusion. Sadness.

  Mattis ran the emotional gauntlet as he watched his forces meet those of the Chinese. Little dots on their screens, flying around and around, blasting each other with missiles and guns. From the distant vantage point of the bridge it all looked safe, quiet, even serene. A couple of little red dots winked out. Then a blue one. Pilots fighting and dying. Over what?

  “Open another channel,” said Mattis, grinding his teeth together. “Get Yim on the horn. I don’t care what it takes. I want to speak to that bastard. Right now.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Lynch was trying. He knew that. “We’ve got every dang antenna on the ship pointed straight toward them, broadcasting at maximum power. Six hails a second. We can see outgoing communications to their strike craft, providing them with coordination and telemetry. Their comms are working. They should be able to see our hails, bright as day. Practically screaming across the void at them, sir.”

  He knew that. He knew, deep down in his gut, that there was no way known that Yim couldn’t see what they were doing. It was stupid, pointless to continue down this path but, he had to. “Keep trying,” said Mattis. “Just keep trying.”

  The bridge crew avoided looking at him, eyes down on their consoles even though there wasn’t all that much for them to do. He hadn’t ordered weapons free yet—and he wouldn’t. Not yet. Not before he’d spoken to Yim.

  What was going on over there?

  “Sir,” said Lynch, twisting around in his seat. “We have three heavy strike craft making a direct run for the Midway. We’re detecting radiological signatures from their weapons bays. They’re carrying torpedoes, sir. Looks like they’re targeting our engines.”

  A good torpedo strike could cripple the ship or worse if the reactor core failed. The threat shook him out of his melancholy.

  He had to act or they could all die.

  “Spin up point defense,” said Mattis, his commander’s voice returning. “Flak barrages, go. Target those bombers and anything they launch, then target the scrap we make out of ’em. Order Alpha wing to break engagement and intercept. Protect the Midway, Mister Lynch.”

  “Aye aye,” said Lynch. “Rerouting strike craft.” He tapped a few keys, and then looked directly at Mattis, a pointed expression on his face. “Our torpedoes are standing by.”

  That wasn’t enough. He knew what he needed to do. What his crew needed him to do, his country …

  He had to fire.

  “Arm torpedo warheads and load them into the tubes,” said Mattis, forcing the words past his lips. “Target the Luyang III; center of mass, no messing around. Full spread, maximum yield, straight burn until impact.”

  “Just confirming,” said Lynch, “you want to fire on the Luyang III?”

  He did not want to do that but the situation was rapidly spinning out of his control. “We have logs of everything, right?” asked Mattis. It felt horrible to be covering his ass in a time like this, but there was more at stake than simply his ship. If tensions escalated to another Sino-American war it would give whoever his real enemies were the opportunity they needed to crush them both.

  Mattis had to make sure his actions were justified. And documented.

  “Logged in triplicate,” said Lynch. “We have everything. The Chinese strike craft, our hailing attempts, the targeting data for every damn ship out there, theirs and ours.”

  “Good.” Mattis took a deep breath. “Fire torpedoes.”

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Outside MaxGainz Home Office

  Chrysalis

  Kepler-1011 System

  Bratta blinked what was either sweat or blood out of his eye and stared up at the towering monstrosity that may or may not have recently been a militant extremist. It—he?—was closer than before. He thought. His vision was … funny, although his glasses did appear to be missing, which probably wasn’t helping.

  “So, rat,” the creature began in that drowning-eating-san
dpaper voice.

  “Actually, according to the Chinese zodiac, I’m a horse,” he interrupted, tittering. He got a boot to the ribs for his trouble, and found himself whooping in air on the asphalt, curled over in pain.

  “You think you’re here to joke?”

  “At least—” Bratta gasped, seized by some utterly insane impulse, “you think …” he had to stop to choke down more air, “… I’m funny.”

  The creature hunkered down beside him. Its eyes were too bright, almost—almost as if they were displaying some form of bioluminescence. “You,” it growled, “are the funniest little creature I have ever met. Which is why you’re going to tell me who you’re working for. Won’t that be a great joke?”

  “Not really,” Bratta decided. “You have very pretty eyes. Though you might want to work on the complexion. And the smell.”

  The giant bared its teeth. “You’ll smell of blood and piss when I’m done with you.”

  “That is likely accurate,” he agreed. “Bladder voiding is a typical reaction to danger and stress.”

  The creature grabbed him by the throat again. At this rate, he was going to be as black and blue as it was.

  “So answer me, before you die.”

  Bratta pointed pointedly at his extremely constricted windpipe. The creature released it a little.

  He blinked back a spate of tears. “Nope!”

  Its pretty eyes narrowed. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with, here. No one can stop what’s been set in motion.”

  Bratta propped himself up on an elbow, which hurt. “Would you … would you like to—” he hacked a cough, “—tell me the rest of your evil plan while you’re at it?”

  The Ryan-like thing drew back a fist, snarling. “Don’t mind if I don’t!”

  And then someone shot it in the head.

  Someone with sensible brown hair and a sensible blue-gray coat.

  Someone who was now running towards him. They seemed worried.

  “Hi, Jeannie,” he managed.

  “Steve! You’re OK!” she knelt down beside him. “Or—or not. That’s—a lot of blood.”

  Bratta nodded. “Unfortunately it’s all mine.”

  “That’s … that’s alright, Steve, there’s a shuttle nearby, we’ll get you back to the Midway just fine, provided there still is a Midway to get back to—”

  “I expect you will,” he said. “I don’t think my injuries are life-threatening.”

  Jeannie let out a choked laugh. “You are the doctor.”

  “I am. Can you get my glasses? I seem to have lost them.”

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “I see them, over there. Give me a second.”

  She walked over to the other side of the alley and bent over to pick up some indistinct blur.

  And the rotting giant’s prone body leapt up off the asphalt and slammed into her. Jeannie ducked and twisted, and they both ended up on their feet, circling each other in the narrow street.

  Even without his glasses, Bratta noticed a deep line along the side of the thing’s head, seeping surprisingly regular-looking red blood.

  “Tried to shoot me, eh?” hissed the thing.

  Jeannie’s smile was sharp as a razor, and about as warm. “More than tried.”

  “Should have aimed better, bitch,” the creature snarled, and snapped an arm practically thick as a tree trunk—and again, far too long for its body—out at her.

  She twisted away on the ball of her foot. “Not my fault you’re a zombie-looking-freak who doesn’t know when to die.”

  “Zombie?” he practically roared. Privately, Bratta thought it was a little excessively villainous. “That would require me to be dead! No, we are homo insequens, the future of the human race!”

  Jeannie feinted and shot forward, trying for a trip. The thing weathered the attempt like it was made of stone. She stumbled as she recovered, and was rewarded with a glancing blow to the face.

  “You do kind of look like you’ve been six feet under a while,” she retorted, sounding more Glaswegian with every passing second. “No offense or anything.”

  “An acceptable sacrifice for this kind of power!” the creature slammed its fist at her head.

  She barely ducked in time, and danced behind it. Once it drew its fist away, Bratta could make out a crater in the wall where its fist had connected.

  It occurred to him that Jeannie was not going to win this fight. The thought was like a bucket of cold water to the face.

  Jeannie was in too close with it to draw the gun, and against that much force—which should have shattered the thing’s fist, he noted—her luck and reflexes would only hold out so long. And, she didn’t have the hitting capacity herself to damage it in the slightest.

  But, he realized, he might.

  He grabbed his bag and began searching desperately for his phone’s charging cable.

  “If you never want a date, I guess,” Jeannie taunted from the other side of the alley.

  The creature only chuckled and swept a leg under Jeannie’s feet. She turned the resulting fall into a shoulder roll and came back up out of the range of its swiping fist. Barely.

  Bratta jammed the charger under his armpit. Come one, come on, come on. He’d seen a charging port on Lockbreaker’s processing unit, all he had to do was find it and trust that Modi was the sort of man who used standardized ports.…

  “There’s no point, you know,” Jeannie panted. “The information’s already out there. Killing us? Does nothing.”

  It replied by flashing its handful of rusty teeth. “Killing you is a good way of not having to care if you’re lying.”

  The device was ready. Bratta clawed his way upright, using the brick wall behind him. Jeannie saw him and her eyes flew wide. The creature saw that and paused. Apparently it shared the human instinct of the look behind you trick.

  And in that moment Bratta charged. And for the first time, hoped against hope that his device would break. And as he flew at the behemoth of a pseudo-man, he pressed Lockbreaker’s off-switch.

  Bratta yelped as a painful current shot through his finger. The creature that had once been Mitch Ryan screamed as a rewired Lockbreaker short-circuited the full charge of Bratta’s combination external hard drive and battery into its body, and it fell.

  He felt a burning sensation all along his right arm, and collapsed on top of its body. Oh. Lockbreaker’s wires must have overheated. And his ankle hurt, that was bad.

  “Steve?” he heard Jeannie say. “Steve? Oh my god, he’s dead, are you OK?”

  He tried to respond, but his vision was going really funny, and he hurt a lot, actually.

  “I’m getting you out of here, now.”

  The last thing Bratta saw before everything went dark was Jeannie’s back, as she slung him over her shoulder.

  “M’hard drive just saved your life. Can’t be mean to it now,” he whispered into her coat.

  “Of course, Steve,” she said, a little too … affectionately. And then there was nothing.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Bridge

  USS Midway

  Orbit above Chrysalis

  Kepler-1011 system

  The instruments around him flashed as the Midway’s torpedoes leapt away from their tubes, engines flaring as they streaked toward their target, each leaving a thin silver stream behind them to mark their trail.

  Right as they fired, the Luyang III fired as well, an identical volley of missiles.

  “Torpedoes away,” said Lynch, followed immediately by, “incoming torpedoes. Gun batteries are maintaining rate of fire and scoring good hits on the target.”

  Thanks for telling me what I already know!

  Mattis took a breath and pushed the anger out of his mind. Feeling angry at Lynch, or at Yim’s apparent betrayal, solved nothing. There was no sense in being annoyed at things he could not change. All he could do now was work towards solving it. “Adjust flak batteries to fire on those torpedoes. Bring them down. I don’t want to ruin the Midwa
y’s paint job.”

  That was standard procedure. But, of course, torpedoes were armored against such things. As he watched, the Luyang III fired up its own gun batteries, blasting the Midway’s torpedoes with salvo after salvo of fire.

  Twin lines of torpedoes sailed out, crossing paths in the void of space where, for a brief second, both sets of ordnance were exposed to gunfire from both ships.

  “Ready a second volley,” said Mattis. “And fire when ready.”

  “Still loading,” said Lynch, tapping furiously at his console.

  Suddenly, all around them, shouts of alarm sprung up. “Captain,” called the comms officer. “The Luyang has fired another barrage of torpedoes, headed our way.”

  Again? So soon? Mattis scowled. Intel on Chinese torpedo capacity had been underplaying their capabilities significantly. “Have their advantage recorded in the ship’s computer,” he said, bitterness painting his words. “Intelligence are going to have a lot to answer for.” The Midway shook as a wave of Chinese fire splashed across her bow, mostly deflected by her armor. The Chinese guns weren’t the problem.…

  Lynch finished typing, standing up and straightening his back. “Well sir, you know military intelligence. The oxymoron division.” He grimaced at a monitor, showing the torpedoes streaking across space towards them, fire from the Midway’s guns streaking past, or bouncing off the armored hull. “We should get ready for those things to join the party.”

  “Aye,” said Mattis, nodding firmly. “Turn our bow into them, Mister Lynch. The armor at the front of the ship will absorb the impact.”

  “So much for not ruining the ship’s paint job,” said Lynch. “Executing the turn. Bearing 084 mark 279.”

  The view began to change, rotating around as the ship turned, presenting its most heavily armored section to the incoming nukes. The hull on the Midway, as with all warships, was specifically designed to absorb nuclear detonations, but each impact stripped off layers of their protective armor. It was temporary, but such was the nature of space combat. Fighters were like dancers, swirling with impossible speed and precision, engaging each other with finesse, grace, and dexterity. Battleships, however, were armored boxers, bashing each other’s heads in with brute force.