The Last Hero: Book 2 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  “All hands, brace for impact.” Lynch studied the incoming torpedoes. “Impact in five, four, three, two, one …”

  A roar filled the room, like a gong, as the whole ship vibrated from the impact of the half-dozen torpedoes, their nuclear warheads bursting in space, the impacts tossing the ship around like a rag doll. The metal of her struts groaned in protest, the noise reverberating around the ship until it faded into a barrage of alarms.

  “Damage report,” said Mattis, hands holding onto the arm rest with such force his knuckles turned white. “How bad?”

  “Breach in forward storage compartment A15,” said one of the bridge officers. “Sealing.”

  Casualty reports came in from all over the ship. Falls, trips, crew members struck by debris—nothing critical, but certainly not good.

  “We can’t take too many more of those,” said Lynch, picking himself up off the floor.

  “Effect of our own torpedoes?” asked Mattis, trying to determine it for himself. The monitors were all washed out from the radiation.

  Their radar operator pulled up her screen. “Detonations on the front quarter of the Luyang,” she said. “We hit ’em pretty good.”

  And they’d been hit back in return. “How long until we can fire again?”

  “Two minutes,” said Lynch. “And probably, by that time, the Luyang will have another salvo coming toward us.”

  Damn. Twice as fast—that was a huge gulf in capabilities.

  “We have to even the odds,” said Mattis. Maybe they could use their strike craft to attack the Luyang directly. Or perhaps they could call for reinforcements—which would never arrive on time, but it was an idea.

  Or they could retreat.

  Before he could make a decision, Ramirez, a tablet held in both hands over her chest, pushed past the marine guards at the ruined entrance to the casemate. “Jack!” she shouted. “Jack!”

  “Get her out of here,” hissed Mattis. A civilian busting onto the bridge during a firefight was a massive breach of protocol. If they survived this, he was going to have words with her. That kind of thing simply couldn’t happen.

  “Wait,” shouted Ramirez, as the marines grabbed hold of her shoulders. She threw them off. “Jack, the feed from Chrysalis—from Bratta—you have to see this, right now!”

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Lieutenant Patricia “Guano” Corrick’s Warbird

  11km from the USS Midway

  Orbit above Chrysalis

  Kepler-1011 system

  “You know,” said Guano as she lined up a radar-guided missile shot on a Chinese bomber, “I promised to go get myself checked out when I got back to the Midway.” She squeezed the trigger, sending the projectile leaping off the rail toward her enemy. “We never got around to doing that.”

  “This isn’t really the best time for this!” shouted Flatline, his guns chattering behind her. “We got a contact coming in, bearing 270 mark 015!”

  She tilted the ship so that Flatline had a better angle of fire, touching the rudder with her foot to adjust the ship, dragging her gunsights over the path of the second bomber. The computer plotted its course, making it so easy to aim. “I also promised Roadie that I wouldn’t break his shuttle.” Brrrrrrrrt. Spent shells flew out from the underside of her ship as she sent a stream of death toward the ship trying to destroy her mothership.

  “Yesyesyes,” spat Flatline, “you’re a terrible person and I will have Roadie spank you later, but for now, please focus on the dogfight we are right-fucking-in-the-middle-of!”

  She laughed, watching with something approaching almost boredom as the first of her missiles smashed into the Chinese bomber and blasted it into a billion glowing pieces, while her gunfire blew holes in its friend, causing it to slowly spin, aimless, obviously damaged. The crew punched out. “How are those ships behind us?”

  “Oh, they’re real friendly, trying to—no wait, they’re firing again!”

  Guano had anticipated that and was already turning the ship. The stream of fire flew past her ship, drifting off endlessly into the void.

  “Shit,” said Flatline breathlessly, “they almost hit us.”

  “But they didn’t.” Guano flipped the ship, spraying a burst of gunfire she knew wouldn’t hit, but accomplished her primary aim—the two Chinese fighters broke away. “Take care of the bomber, will you?”

  Flatline’s gun spat flame and death behind them—way too much ammunition for her liking—and she locked up the fighters that had pursued them.

  “Fox one,” she said, dumping all of her missiles. “We are winchester on missiles.”

  “Almost out of gun ammo too,” said Flatline. “I got that bomber good. Look at him burn.”

  A glance in her rear view mirror confirmed it. The Chinese bomber, belching quickly dissipating smoke, began spinning aimlessly toward the Midway, engulfed by the flak barrage. For a moment all she saw were bursting shells in space, and then the Chinese fighter’s torpedoes exploded, vaporizing the ship. The nuclear tips wouldn’t detonate like that, of course, it was the conventional explosives inside the warheads that blew, but still. A radiological mess scattered all over space, yes—but not a nuclear blast.

  Otherwise they would all be dead.

  “A‘right,” said Guano, flipping the ship again and aligning her nose to the Midway. “Time to rearm. Let’s burn for home. Alpha-1 to Midway, we are RTB, intent to rearm and re-engage. Prepare the hangar bay for combat landings.”

  “Confirmed,” said a welcome voice, Roadie, in her ear. “Come right in, we got plenty of missiles. Call the ball.”

  She grinned, steering for the open mouth of the landing bay. “That’s what I like to hear, my CAG. ILS engaged, Alpha-1 has the ball. Skids down in forty seconds.”

  “Hey, you didn’t wreck your ship this time,” said Roadie, stifling a wet cough in her ear. “And I’m not your … well, I am your CAG, but don’t say it like that.” He sighed. “You aren’t Tango-Uniform, that’s what I like to see. Good job. Maybe you can get through this one without costing the US taxpayer a fortune.”

  “Mmmhmm,” said Guano. Tango Uniform. Totally useless. “I’m learning. I lost a full centimeter of height when I ejected—if I keep that up I’ll be a midget in a few short years. Which, honestly, would be pretty damn awesome if you ask me.”

  “You’d make a cool midget,” said Flatline, somewhat unhelpfully. “I like little people. They’re awesome.”

  Roadie, on the other hand, just snorted. “Oh, so, she does learn. Just saying, if you get bored of the creature comforts of your cockpit, don’t just pull the ejection handle, okay? It’s not an I’m sick of being in a cramped spaceship and wanna take a walk outside button.”

  She snorted dismissively. “Roger that. Hands off the boredom button.”

  There was a faint crackle on the radio as the Midway loomed larger in her cockpit canopy. “Hey, Corrick,” came Roadie’s voice again. “This is a private line. You, uhh … you feeling okay?”

  “If you’re asking if I’m really calm,” she said, hoping he would get the hint. “I am.”

  “No, I meant, are you in the … you know. The trance thing.”

  Normally him missing the point so widely would piss her off, but instead, she just calmly thumbed the radio. “Yes.”

  “Great,” said Roadie. “Okay, you’re coming up on the hangar bay now. Don’t mess up the landing.”

  Never. The ship touched onto the landing strip, all three skids touching the deck at once. The perfect landing, a so-called first kiss. Space-suited technical crew ran out to her, frantically clipping missiles to her ship’s hard points and feeding in belts of ammunition.

  “Okay,” she said, waving off the ground crew. “Let’s get back out there.”

  “Good thing,” said Roadie. “Bag a couple more for me, will you?”

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Bridge

  Luyang III

  Orbit above Chrysalis

  Kepler-1011 system
<
br />   Yim could do nothing but watch, helplessly, as his ship fired salvo after salvo of gun fire, flak, and torpedoes at the Midway and their strike craft.

  It wasn’t supposed to be this way. His own ship stolen from under him. He sat in the captain’s chair—the irony of that fact not entirely lost on him—as Xiao gave the orders, directing the flow of battle and coordinating weapons strikes.

  “Reload torpedo tubes,” said Xiao. “I want a third barrage ready to go in moments.”

  “You’re stressing the autoloaders too far,” cautioned Yim as the ship groaned underneath their feet, still reeling from the American nuke strikes. “They aren’t designed to be used for sustained fire.”

  “Then what good are they?” spat Xiao, the stress of the situation obviously mounting on him. He wasn’t anywhere near as experienced as Yim—this was his first actual battle.

  Yim folded his arms in front of his chest. “Commander Xiao, this is crazy.”

  Obviously rattled, the man shook his head. “I have to follow orders. The Joint Chief of Staff—”

  “Is obviously in the wrong here,” said Yim as another volley of fire washed over the Luyang and the ship shook with the force of the return barrage. “Think about this. There’s a reason he wouldn’t let me talk to him, because he knew I was on to something. There’s something on that asteroid that will blow this whole thing wide open and we need to find it. And to do so, we need to stop shooting at the only friendly ship in this system!”

  The cogs turned over in Xiao’s head, and the man began pacing back and forth, obviously trying to balance his conscience with his intellect. For all his faults Xiao wasn’t a bad person. Just … loyal to the state. A little too loyal.

  “Xiao, we can’t—” said Yim.

  “Shut up!” Xiao grabbed the XO’s console and focused on it. “I can’t deal with this right now. I have a battle to win.”

  “You have a battle to lose,” said Yim, matter-of-factually. “Our rate of fire advantage with our torpedoes is designed to be balanced with striking and moving. It’s not designed to be fired like this. You’ll burn out the articulators and jam it.”

  Xiao’s eyes flicked from console to console, as though searching for the one that would tell him what he wanted to hear. “They’ll hold,” he said. “These machines were forged in Tsingtao. That’s my home. The people who made it are family. They’re strong. Master craftsmen. The articulators will hold.”

  Right on cue, the whole ship shook from stem to stern, and a massive explosion tore through the port side of the ship, nearly throwing Yim off his feet.

  “Articulator failure,” reported one of the crew, muttering a dark curse under their breath. “The torpedo launchers are down.”

  Without their primary weapon the fight was lost. Yim moved up beside his XO, resting his hand on Xiao’s shoulder. “Come now,” he said. “I know we haven’t served together long, but must trust me. This is pointless. We need to cease fire and answer the hundreds of hails the Americans have left for us. It’s time.”

  Angrily, Xiao shrugged off Yim’s hand. “No, we can still win this—”

  Yim drove his foot into the back of Xiao’s knee, knocking the man down, his free hand snatching the pistol out of Xiao’s holster. Xiao fell face down on the deck, rolling onto his back. He groaned in pain, propping himself up with an elbow, suddenly finding himself looking down the barrel of Yim’s pistol.

  “Admiral, wait—”

  Yim shot him in the face. Twice.

  A tense silence fell over everything, broken only by the rumble of gunfire and the chirping of the communications computer.

  His ears rang. Gunshots in enclosed spaces were known to cause hearing loss, but so did death. It was better than the alternative.

  “Cease fire,” said Yim, slowly holstering his still smoking pistol. “And answer those damn hails. Get the Midway on the line.”

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Bridge

  USS Midway

  Orbit above Chrysalis

  Kepler-1011 system

  The incoming torpedoes shut off their engines, drifting for a split second before detonating silently in the vacuum of space.

  “Sir,” said their communications officer, her tone almost disbelieving. “The Luyang. They’ve answered our hails.”

  Oldest salesman technique in the book. Keep ringing till someone picks up. “Put them through,” said Mattis. “And call off our birds—all ships, return to base, weapons safe. While I’m talking to Yim and trying to sort this mess out, get damage control teams to inspect the bow of the ship. And anywhere else that needs it.”

  “Aye sir,” said Lynch. “Opening the channel.”

  The connection that came through was full of static. “Admiral Mattis,” said Yim, somewhat breathlessly. “I apologize for the outburst. We had a minor case of … mutiny over here, but we’ve resolved the situation to my satisfaction. Our strike fighters are returning. There’ll be no more unpleasantness heading your way.”

  Normally Mattis would be ready with a playful quip, a sarcastic response, or something else to deflate the tension, but all he felt was relief. “Resolved?” he asked. “Do you need us to take care of some prisoners for you?”

  “No need,” said Yim. “Our morgue has space enough for them. When my XO took my gun he might as well have shot himself with it. Turns out I had to do the heavy lifting, which is obviously a nuisance, but there you go. Apologies, once again, for the uncivil behavior.”

  Well. That explained that. “Thanks for taking out the trash.”

  “Any time,” said Yim. “Hold please.” The communication fluctuated for a moment, then went totally quiet, as though muted. When Yim came back he seemed to be talking to someone else nearby. “—that the damage is shored up. And someone get that body out of here.” A faint click. “Mattis, we’re having some minor issues over here with the aftermath of the battle. I’ll have to call you back.”

  “Wait,” said Mattis. “Let your men put out the fires. I have something to show you.”

  With a tap of his keyboard, Mattis sent the feed from Bratta’s camera straight to Yim. Everything. He knew that when all this was over, and the paperwork was being filed and the reports written, he would have to explain why he transmitted the information he had straight to the Chinese, but that was a problem for the future. In fact, given the secrets and misdirections surrounding Chrysalis and the Forgotten and everything that had happened since the Battle of Earth, it felt good to send through absolute, unmitigated truth. Just the facts. No filter.

  “Ó, wǒ de shàngdì,” exclaimed Yim, aghast. No doubt he was seeing the same thing Mattis was. “Oh my God…”

  “This thing—this conspiracy. It runs deep,” said Mattis, his hands clenched by his sides. “Deeper than we probably know. The people you’re looking at will do anything to accomplish their aims. We need to expose them. I’m going to take this video, give it to our local friendly reporter, and broadcast this thing to the galaxy. No more secrets. No more lies. Let everyone see what we’re up against.”

  “I understand what you’re saying,” said Yim, a slight hesitation coming into his tone. “But Admiral, do you really think we can go public with this?”

  “We don’t have a choice.” If they waited, someone else would do it before them. And they might not tell the full story. Half-truths mixed with falsehoods could be far more damaging than any lie. “I need you to be onboard with this, Yim.”

  “How can I refuse?”

  Mattis smiled grimly. “Okay.” He took a breath. “I need to make a call to Chrysalis. I have a man down there, and I want him back. We’ll send in the marines as soon as you’re ready.”

  “There might be civilians,” said Yim, somewhat unconvincingly. “I’m concerned about casualties.”

  “There might be,” conceded Mattis. “If you’re concerned about that, we can start a controlled evacuation.”

  “Not sure there’ll be time enough for that. One of our governments i
s bound to interfere.”

  Typical. “Well, let me talk to them, maybe they’ll have some kind of solution for us.”

  Yim’s voice became painted with curiosity. “How do you propose to do that? Through your man?”

  Bratta was in no position to relay anything to anyone. That guy—it had been a wonder he was still alive. “Nah. I figure if I send them a message, they’ll pick up.”

  Yim seemed to consider, pausing for a moment. “Okay. Do it. I’ll listen in.”

  With a gesture to Lynch, Mattis patched in the Chrysalis communications systems. He broadcast the message to as many people as he could reach.

  “Attention Chrysalis Station. As you’re no doubt aware, there’s been a minor bout of uncivilized behavior in your orbit. I wish to advise that the hostilities have ceased and to apologize to your good people for our … unsettling outburst.” He paused for effect. “That said, we have become aware there exists a secret genetics lab hidden within your planetoid. Gaining access to that facility is our only goal. I assume I can count on your full cooperation in this matter.” Another pause. “And Senator Pitt? If you’re hearing this, I want you to know that you’ll be treated fairly if you cooperate.” He ended the transmission.

  “Yeah,” said Lynch, grinning sardonically. “We have all the guns. They’re going to cooperate a‘right.”

  Mattis wasn’t so sure. “Pitt won’t.”

  “That ain’t our problem.”

  Good point. “Get Modi up here,” he said. “I want a report on the damage we’ve taken. I don’t like having to fight without an intact casemate protecting us. If we’re going to need anti-rad shots, I want to get them in us as soon as possible.”

  “Sure thing, Admiral. I’ll go round up the space janitor.”