The Last Hero: Book 2 of The Last War Series Page 2

  Fight the current war. Not the last war.

  He sighed. Six months out here, listening to Lynch defend the confederacy and Modi drone on about technological matters that didn’t concern him.

  So when the long-range communications system flashed on his command console, Mattis mostly felt a profound sense of relief.

  “Report,” he said to Lynch, pointedly interrupting his conversation.

  Lynch swiveled on his chair, palpably reluctant to abandon his current line of discussion, but as his eyes scrolled over his console his obvious reticence evaporated. “It’s a distress signal,” he said. “Coming in on Z-space, from a nearby Chinese embassy on the planet Sanctuary, in the Omid Sector. It’s being transmitted on an open frequency.”

  Normally the Chinese relied on their own. They must really be desperate. “What’s the nature of their distress?”

  Lynch read for a moment before continuing. “They’re reporting that the building is being overrun by the local inhabitants. They say there’s gunfire, and two of the Chinese marines have been wounded.”

  “Gunfire?” asked Mattis, scowling. “Who the hell shoots up a Chinese embassy? Especially now?”

  “According to the report,” said Lynch, a slight twinge of hesitation in his voice, “the primary bulk of the rioters are US veterans of the Sino-American War. Sanctuary has a disproportionate number of them living there, or so I hear. They call themselves the Forgotten. How dramatic.”

  Mattis knew why. He’d fought in that war himself. “Sanctuary was the site of one of the first open conflicts between the PRC and the US. The Chinese embassy was the site of some of the first bloodshed.”

  “This isn’t really our jurisdiction,” said Lynch, his tone sympathetic. “We’re a warship. We have a job to do. This is a matter for local law enforcement.”

  And yet, whatever served as a police force on that world didn’t seem like it was capable of maintaining order. Incapable, or perhaps unwilling. At this point the difference was vanishingly small.

  Still, Lynch was right.

  “Stay on course and relay the message for anyone else to respond,” said Mattis. “We can’t intervene.”

  It sucked, but it was the right call. Right calls were often like that.

  The long-range communications array flashed again. Another signal. “Sir,” said Lynch, “Fleet Command is responding to the relay. They’re ordering us to intervene.”

  That was fast. Suspiciously so. “Lets roll,” said Mattis. “Commander Modi, begin Z-space translation. Let’s get to Omid and find out what the hell’s going on over there.”

  Lynch relayed some commands, then glanced up to catch Mattis’ eye. “That was fast,” he said, echoing Mattis’s own thoughts. “You think there’s something bigger going on here?”

  Mattis set his jaw, but shrugged. “Let’s hope not.”

  Lynch mirrored the shrug. “Obviously. But … what do you think’s going on, Jack?”

  He considered. “After the things we’ve seen?” He turned back to the command console. “Who knows. Let’s just hope it’s a disgruntled veteran, deal with him, then get back to guarding civilization.”

  Chapter Two

  Parkland

  Georgetown, Maryland

  United States

  Earth

  Chuck Mattis fiddled with the lint in his pocket with one hand, his other hand pressing his communicator up to his ear so he could hear his husband better. “Can you say that again? The reception here is awful.”

  “Of course it is,” said Elroy Lowery-Mattis. “You’re out in the wilderness.”

  Wilderness. Chuck smiled faintly. “You know Georgetown is just across the river from Baltimore. I’m a strong swimmer. I could dive right in, hike to Baltimore, then catch a bus to Washington. I could be at Capitol Hill in, like, two hours.”

  “Are you sure? I hear banjos in the background. Best make a shelter quick, before you’re eaten by wolves.”

  Chuck laughed. “Okay, okay. I will.” He forced his tone to become serious. Elroy always had a way of making him laugh even when it wasn’t appropriate. “But seriously—what’s this about Jack?”

  Jack, formerly Javier. Six-month-old Jack Javier Mattis.

  “Oh, nothing. They’re just moving him to—” the connection dropped out for a second, then it returned. “For some kind of test, I don’t know.”

  “You … don’t know?” A spike of worry shot through him. “Do they think it’s serious?”

  “What?”

  Damn the lack of stable communications connection. His tiny device could send a signal via Z-space relays to distant star systems light years away, but it couldn’t get a good signal 30 kilometers from Baltimore. “I asked, is it serious? The problem with Javier.”

  “Nah,” said Elroy. “Honestly, it’s totally fine. It’s just a heart problem, something they think—”

  “His heart?” Chuck practically crushed his communicator. “Okay, I’m going to fly out there. He’s still an infant, if his heart gives out there might not be anything they can do. Where did you say he was being moved to?”

  “He’s fine,” said Elroy.

  “He’s not fine! You said his heart had some kind of problem.”

  “Hang on, lemme read.” Faint shuffling in the background. Or perhaps more static. Chuck couldn’t be sure. “Okay, here’s what it says. It says there’s a slight murmur in his heart. It’s not serious, but they want to move him to a specialist for evaluation. Worst case scenario—Chuck, it says here, worst case—is that he might need some minor surgery.”

  Minor … no surgery was minor on an infant. “Okay,” said Chuck, taking a deep breath.

  Elroy was quiet for a bit. “You aren’t freaking out about this because of your new job, are you?”

  Maybe. Chuck pulled his hand out of his pocket and ran it through his hair. Being a legislative aide was something he had little experience with—how exactly he’d gotten hired was a bit of a miracle—but the work so far was agreeable and his new boss seemed to like him. “I dunno,” he confessed. “Maybe. It’s certainly different than working as a policy analyst for Senator Pitt, but … the pay is better. I like it.”

  “Sounds like you’re trying to convince me,” said Elroy. “That’s going to be difficult when you don’t know yourself.”

  Yeah. That was … fair. “It’s not exactly where I’d envisioned myself at this age, married with a family,” he confessed. “But, you know, it’s … genuinely nice. And in regard to Senator Pitt, well—” Chuck grit his teeth so hard they hurt. “I think he did what he felt he needed to do given the circumstances.”

  “Mmm.” Elroy’s voice was tinged with humor. “Politics is a great field for you, Chuck. If you can lie about that, you can lie about anything.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chuck wasn’t mad—he was furious. But being furious at someone who was politically untouchable was useless. It was a waste of emotion and if he allowed his thoughts to progress unchecked, they would eventually consume him. So he put the anger, the bitterness, the sense of betrayal behind him and focused on the present. On his relaxing walk through the woods. On his new job. On his son.

  Or so he told himself.

  His communicator vibrated. Annoyed, Chuck glanced at it.

  PRIORITY ALERT: HOSTAGE SITUATION IN THE SHUAZZEN SYSTEM

  Shuazzen system … the Midway was stationed there. Chuck frowned to himself. “Hey, El? There’s a situation. I gotta go.”

  “Okay,” said Elroy. He was always so understanding. “Should I send someone to pick you up?”

  “Yeah. There’s some kind of problem in my Dad’s location … and knowing him, he just can’t stop himself getting involved.”

  Chapter Three

  Chinese Embassy

  Planet Sanctuary

  Omid Sector

  Marine Captain Mitch Ryan hadn’t seen cowering Chinese soldiers in a long, long time. Six soldiers in binders, four men, two women. He still had teeth marks on his hands where
one of them had bitten the crap out of him.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” he said, pacing in front of them, his assault rifle slung casually over his chest. “You bastards know why you’re here.”

  “Go to hell,” spat one of the embassy guards. She was the one who bit him. The biter. “The war’s over.”

  “The hot war’s over,” clarified Ryan, trying to keep his thick Louisianan accent understandable. “But it didn’t end. Not then. Not now. It’s still going.”

  “You’re insane.”

  Ryan had heard too many people say that today. “It’s still going, and we’re going to prove it.”

  “But—”

  “No. No more talking.” Ryan pointedly rested his hand on the grip of his rifle. “You get me?”

  She nodded mutely.

  One of his men, a fellow veteran, spoke up. “We’re ready to stream,” he said. “We’ll be live once we flick the switch. The video will go to GBC news, to hundreds of local news stations on settled worlds, and as far into space as our Z-space transmitter can get us.” He smiled. “We’re going to deep six the lies, sir.”

  Good.

  “Is the SAM ready?” asked Ryan. A surface-to-air missile would guarantee their safety from air strikes. “I don’t want any … surprises when we’re filming.”

  “Yup,” said his cameraman. “Any aircraft or spacecraft entering the atmosphere anywhere over this whole city is going to get splatted.”

  Then it was time for business. Ryan hadn’t been on TV for a while. Between that and seeing the Chinese prisoners on their knees, this day had been worth all of the waiting. He moved in front of the camera and took a breath, glancing over his shoulder at the huge American flag flying above him, and the kneeling prisoners below it. They looked suitably scared. Even the biter.

  “Ready?” said his cameraman. “Five, four, three, two…” He pointed.

  “My fellow Americans,” said Ryan, the words feeling good as they rolled off his tongue. “My name is Marine Captain Mitch Ryan. I’m here to address you all on a matter of great urgency. That topic is … the government. More specifically your government, dear Americans. The Office of the President of the United States is a sacred position to all of us. A beacon of freedom for all of humanity.” Ryan once again rested his hand on the grip of his rifle. “But that position has been disrespected by the so-called President Edita Schuyler; disrespected in a way you and I can no longer tolerate.”

  “Go to hell!” The biter shouted, disrupting his thoughts. One of his fellow veterans thumped her in the back with the butt of a rifle.

  Slowly, Ryan returned his attention back toward the camera. “Friendship Station,” he said. “Most of you know this place. Saw its construction, beam by beam, bulkhead by bulkhead, on the news. Two years of work. Tens of thousands of tons of steel. The blood and sweat of Americans put into creating this … thing. An ideological bridge between us and our enemies. We tried to make peace with our enemies. Because that is the American way. And what did our enemies do? They burned that bridge from under our feet.”

  He reached down and grabbed the biter by her hair, yanking her face up into the camera. “These Chinese, they aren’t like us. They don’t think like us. Don’t want the same things we do. They don’t want to live freely. They choose to exist under the iron boot of tyranny and oppression, and extend that oppression to others. That is why they attacked Friendship Station. That is why they murdered our fellow Americans in cold blood.”

  Ryan released the biter’s hair and let her fall face down on the ground. “There’s a narrative at work here. A narrative being written by those in power, working for their own interests and against those of the people they swore an oath to serve. Instead, they turn their efforts towards destroying that which generations of Americans have worked, fought, and died to create.” He pulled back the charging handle and chambered a round in his rifle. “We believe that which can be destroyed by the truth should be. And we plan on doing plenty of destroying.”

  The veterans raised their rifles, but right as they were about to fire, the cameraman waved his hand. “Sir, we’re off the air.”

  “What?” Ryan scowled over his shoulder. “Stand down, men. We want them to see this.” Then he turned to the cameraman. “What’s the problem, marine?”

  “Something’s blocking the signal. A jammer—a big one, too. Not a local source. Something in orbit.”

  A shout came from the other room. “Captain, a ship has pulled into orbit! It’s the Midway, sir!”

  The Midway. His old float, with the old man himself, Admiral Jack Mattis. They couldn’t possibly have asked for better luck.

  “Oorah.” Ryan’s smile became a mile wide. “Power down the SAM and let them land. Ladies and gentlemen, reinforcements have arrived.”

  Chapter Four

  Apartment 13B7, Whitley Building

  Planet Zenith

  Tonatiuh Sector

  Steve Bratta looked between the calendar and his new phone, and grimaced.

  The phone might have been an inferior model—although its incompatibility with his multifunction headphone jack and secondary battery port was a serious concern—but it still worked and, thanks to the backups on his external hard drive, he still had all his contacts. A lesser man may have found his efforts to contact anyone stymied by the loss of his phone, but Bratta was better prepared than that. It had been four weeks since the incident and he really needed someone to talk to, but she was the only person he could think of to call.

  With a significantly diminished sense of anticipation than usual, he connected the new phone to his external hard drive, and dialed.

  The voice that came through was thick, familiar, and defiantly Scottish. “Jean Tafola, speaking. Who is this?”

  She’d gone back to her old surname? Rude. “Steve. Steve Bratta. Your husba—ah, ex-husband.”

  There was a long pause. “Alright, Steve. To what, may I ask, do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Pleasure? I thought you didn’t want to talk to me, after the yelling, and the swearing, and the—”

  “I don’t.”

  “Oh. Right.” But Jeannie was his only—well, hope of surviving was a probably little melodramatic. Probably. Bratta’s hand started shaking. “Uh, I do need to talk to someone right now, and I don’t have anyone else really so I don’t suppose you’ll let me talk to you anyway?”

  “You … don’t have anyone else? Really, Steve?” There was either confusion or pity in her voice. It was hard to tell over the distortion, but it wasn’t his fault the signal optimization program he was running was still in beta. It had worked just fine on his other phone.

  “Well, I am seeing someone, but I can’t talk to her.”

  “You? Seeing someone?” Jeannie asked.

  “I’m sorry, how are you both surprised that I have no one else to talk to, and that I am seeing someone? These seem to be mutually exclusive views, Jeannie.”

  “It’s Jean.”

  “Really? Come on, you’ve always been Jeannie to me—”

  “You have five seconds.”

  Bratta blinked.

  “Four.” Jeannie’s voice was as cold as the soup he’d forgotten about fretting over this call.

  “Three.”

  Wait, she was actually serious? “No no no, please,” he gabbled. “Jeannie I’m in trouble I think and I—”

  “Two.”

  “IwasattackedbyanalienatworkandIgotitonvideoandittriedtokillmebutitdidn’tandthenamarinedestroyedmyphonebutthevideo’sonmyharddrive … help.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “I know it sounds crazy, but please! It really happened, I haven’t been to work since.”

  “No. Steve. I have no idea what you just said.”

  “Oh, sorry.” He wondered if there was any way to tell her that wouldn’t end in her hanging up. He took a deep, steadying breath. “Do you remember the alien attacks last year?”

  “No, because I live entirely in my own head.”
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  “You’ve never—”

  “Like you,” Jeannie interrupted pointedly.

  “Jeannie! That’s wholly undeserved, I—so you remember them?”

  “Of course, Steven, who the hell forgets an alien attack? Now why are you wasting my time?”

  “I think I might have been attacked by one of them. And I think I might have the only video evidence of them, outside the government.” He paused to let that news sink in.

  “You know, I might just give your local police department a ring, because you are either clearly extremely high, or—”

  “What? Jeannie, do you have any idea how dangerous recreational ingestion of psychoactive compounds can be?”

  “Yes. I am a police officer.”

  Bratta pinched the bridge of his nose. This was going far more poorly than he’d feared. But then, that tended to happen with a lot of his social interactions. “They … they were right in front of me, Jeannie. They wrecked my car, and I think … I don’t know, they were angry. They came out of nowhere, everyone ran, I lost my glasses. I … I don’t know what’s going on, and you’re the only person who can help me. Um, I think the future of humanity might depend on it.”

  There was silence, broken only by the sound of a chair scraping. “Steve, tell me you’ve learned to lie. Please.”

  Bratta found himself uncomfortably reminded of the circumstances that had lead to their divorce. How was he meant to respond to that? “No? I’ve, uh, always been able to lie? Most people can.”

  Jeannie must have exhaled quite forcefully, because the line blanked out to static for a second. “Alright, Steve. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  An image of the alien’s mottled parody of a face flashed before his eyes. He took a steadying breath. “Right. Well, four weeks ago, I was arriving at work. I couldn’t find my ID and I hadn’t had my coffee, but, well, that’s probably not important. Anyway, I was just inside when a body fell out of the sky. A body. Abdomen all but destroyed, multiple lacerations, severe head trauma. Not good. That was when the alien showed up, on top of the compound wall near where the body had fallen. It looked around a bit, like … like a werewolf in the movies, honestly, and I started filming, because, well, it was an alien, so that was interesting. But then it attacked the crowd, where I was, so I obviously had to stop filming to run away, and one of them wrecked my car in the carpark and I kind of froze up and got some footage of it, but then a marine turned up and broke my phone but I’d been recording to my external hard drive anyway so I still have the recording and—”