The Last War: Book 1 of The Last War Series Read online

  Ramirez touched his forearm. “Hey,” she said, nice and quiet. “Easy.”

  Right. Easy.

  Apparently she wasn’t the only one who noticed. Senator Pitt slid up to his other side. “You don’t like me, do you?” he asked plaintively.

  “I don’t think about you at all,” said Mattis.

  That seemed to make Senior Pitt angrier, but putting the guy in his place sure helped calm Mattis down a bit.

  Senator Pitt stormed away, tiny feet thumping on the metal deck. He grabbed Commander Pitt’s shoulder and hurriedly whispered something to him that Mattis couldn’t hear.

  Malmsteen, fortunately, spoke loud enough to include them all. “We don’t have any more information than you do. I’m sorry, Senator.”

  One of the junior Comm officers twisted around in his seat, his console flashing. “Captain, Flash traffic from Fleet HQ.”

  A printer began working, decrypting the communication and preparing it to be read. Mattis fought down the urge to walk over and look.

  Malmsteen picked up the printout, touching the side of it so that it could be decrypted and read. His eyes scanned over the lines of text, then jumped back to the beginning and read it again, then jumped back to the beginning and read it a third time.

  Must be serious. Out of respect, Mattis extinguished his cigar between pinched fingers and returned it to his breast pocket.

  Malmsteen touched the ship-wide communicator at his neck. “All senior staff report to the briefing room,” he said and glanced Mattis’s way. “And you as well, sir. And you, Senator.”

  “I’ll wait here,” said Ramirez.

  Malmsteen laid down the printout and, for a brief moment, Mattis could see something within him being brutally suppressed. A concern. Worry. Fear.

  Serious indeed.

  Chapter Ten

  Briefing Room

  USS Midway

  Mattis always liked being in the briefing room. It meant trouble. It meant danger. But it also meant a chance to do his damn job.

  The senior officers of the Midway filtered into the cramped room, taking seats around the central, raised wooden table. Those from the bridge came quickly, and the remainder filed in over the next few minutes. He swam in memories in this place…his first deployment with her, his first real mission. His first military action.

  Damage reports and casualty assessments. That memory brought him back down. Every time there was a shooting war, someone died. Shao’s ship had lost crew too, and apparently, many more than his own…

  Wow, concerned for the Chinese now, are you, old man? What was wrong with him? Focus on the present.

  Malmsteen stood at the head of the table. “Thank you all for attending so promptly. It’ll come as little surprise that the first order of business is to confirm what many of you already suspect: At 0544 Zulu-Earth time, the medical ship USS Keelaghan detected a relayed distress call from Capella Station, reporting that they were under attack. The strength, composition, nationality and nature of their assailant or assailants are unknown at this time. However, reconnaissance by automated probes has confirmed that the station has been destroyed, seemingly with all hands.” He paused, and Mattis digested the news he expected to hear. “A search is currently underway, led by the Keelaghan, to locate any potential survivors, but based on the support capacity of the Mark V escape pods, any recovery efforts will, in a matter of approximately sixteen hours, transition from rescue to body retrieval.”

  It was unlikely anyone got out alive, if the only transmission from the station was a single status report. What had happened? Those things were armored fortresses bristling with weapons. In peacetime, certainly, they would have been more cautious about bringing their full power to bear, but…still.

  “It’s particularly worrisome to me,” said Mattis, “that whatever destroyed Capella either silenced all transmissions from a military-grade relay, without even static getting through, or wiped them out before they could even identify their attackers. This represents a shift in the balance of power we haven’t seen since—”

  Senator Pitt coughed loudly. “I’m sure you have lots to bring to the table, Admiral, but let’s hear the captain out.”

  Mattis almost reflexively touched the still-warm cigar in his breast pocket, but let the insult slide.

  “Either possibility is troubling,” said Malmsteen, resuming his seat, “but the latter is downright terrifying. Either way, we have no further information to go on, so until until that point, I’m keeping the ship at Condition II.”

  “I concur, Captain,” said Mattis. “The crew will grumble about the increased readiness, but we’ll be needed soon… I can feel it.”

  That raised just a little smile from Malmsteen. “We Are The Fulcrum,” he answered.

  “What?” asked Senator Pitt, squinting in confusion.

  Time to educate the son of a bitch. “It’s the ship’s motto,” said Mattis. “The Midway is named for The Battle of Midway, the turning point in the Pacific theatre. Imperial Japan had the US Navy on the back foot; we were still bleeding from Pearl Harbor. The Zero ruled the skies. Their ships were faster, bigger, better. But then…the American forces intercepted and decoded a series of Japanese transmissions before their attack on Midway, reconstructing their battle plans in significant detail. The result was a hard battle—it wasn’t a rout or a massacre, by any stretch, merely an even battle. Fortunately, the Japanese were surprised, their carriers in a vulnerable position refueling their aircraft, and their losses were heavy. Imperial Japan already struggled to replace lost ships, planes and pilots, whereas the US could.

  “After Midway, the US had the initiative, and rode it all the way to Tokyo. Midway was the turning point, the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare. Accordingly this ship, too, is the turning point. The fulcrum upon which battles and wars turn.”

  “This ship,” said Senator Pitt, the venom in his voice barely disguised, “is the relic of a past war, of battles with a people who are now our friends, a needless provocation. There is no evidence that Capella was destroyed by anything more than an industrial accident which they mistook, in their paranoia, for an attack by some kind of outside entity. For all we know, they might have just been, I don’t fucking know, hit by a comet or something, because some Junior Lieutenant was snoozing in front of their radar.”

  “Comets don’t jam military comm relays.” Malmsteen drew himself out of his seat, slowly and deliberately. “Thank you for your tactical input, Senator Pitt,” he said, and then looked deliberately to his XO.

  Commander Pitt stood as well. “Senator, we have a lot to discuss, and today’s been a very stressful day for all of us. Perhaps you’d consider retiring to our VIP guest quarters.”

  The way it was phrased implied this was not a request. To Senator Pitt’s credit, he stood up, scowled at his son, and stomped out of the briefing room without saying a word.

  “The VIP quarters seem a bit ostentatious for someone like him,” Mattis remarked. In his day, they had been reserved for visiting signatories and political figures, such as Pitt, and were spacious and lavishly decorated—especially for a military vessel. The office was full of potted plants that were actually real, set against wooden panelling and floors, filling the room with vivid hues of greens and natural browns. It was like a Bob Ross painting come to life.

  “The VIP quarters,” said Commander Pitt, “are currently unoccupied due to a minor issue. Last I heard there was a small leak—tiny, really—in the nearby sewage pipe.” There was a slight crack in the facade of the officer. “Old bastard should learn to shut his face.”

  Sometimes the apple did fall far from the tree. The brief moment of satisfaction was stolen from him, when he recalled his own son hanging up on him. Chuck and Commander Pitt…were they so different? Was Mattis on the right side of this one?

  Malmsteen tilted his head, looking away for a moment, as though listening to a noise none of the others could hear. He touched his throat. “Ac
knowledged. I’m on my way.” Then he turned back to the rest of them. “I’m sorry, all, but duty calls. Long-range sensors have detected an incoming contact.”

  “A contact?” Mattis didn’t like it. Not one bit. “What kind of contact?”

  Malmsteen hesitated before answering. “We don’t know. But it’s big.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Fighter Hangar

  USS Midway

  Guano walked out of the CAG’s office, her gut aching as though she’d been sucker punched. Capella…gone. She’d almost been deployed to that station. But for the whim of some fleet bureaucrat, the medical ships would be picking up the pieces of her body and trying to vaguely guess what went where.

  A US space station destroyed out of the blue. What the hell was happening?

  “Hey,” said Flatline, jogging to catch up. “What the hell, right?”

  “Yeah.” What else was there to say? “What the hell?”

  One of the Midway’s other pilots, Mohinder “Longjohn” Silver, was waiting for them. “I heard you two in there,” he said, grinning like the Cheshire cat, “trying to give Major Yousuf an aneurysm. Apparently it was, uh, raining dicks.”

  Flatline glared at him.

  “Yup,” said Guano, waggling her fingers in the air. “Apparently I’m trying to start a war, or something. Ugh.” She couldn’t fully stifle a laugh, not even smothering it in a massive grin. “It was all Flatline’s fault,” she said. “He was all like, hey, we should totally race those Chinese fighters. He basically forced me.”

  Flatline choked. His eyes nearly bugged out. “It wasn’t me! It was her—she was all like—and then, and then…”

  “It’s true,” said Guano, straight faced. “All his fault.”

  “You were racing Chinese fighters?” asked Longjohn, his eyebrows leaping toward the ceiling. “Oh shit, were they J-84’s? Please tell me they were J-84’s.”

  “Yup.”

  The guy was like a ten-year-old talking about a girl he had a crush on. “How…how close did you get?”

  “Close enough to look into their cockpits with Mark I eyeballs.”

  “Holy shit! You saw the pilots with your own eyes?” Longjohn grabbed her shoulders. “Tell me literally everything that happened, immediately.”

  “I don’t kiss and tell,” said Guano, casually peeling his hands off her.

  Undeterred, Longjohn similarly grabbed Flatline. “Tell me literally everything that happened, immediately.”

  “Uhh,” said Flatline. “No? It’s classified, dude.”

  “Careful,” said Guano, “you’ll give him another heart attack. He’s delicate. Fragile. Especially after Roadie smoked him like a fine cigar.”

  “Never heard that one before,” muttered Flatline. “Hah, hah, hah…”

  Longjohn scrutinized them carefully. “Wait, Chinese fighters… Is this because of Capella? Did they attack you?”

  “They locked us up, but I don’t think they really wanted to shoot.” Guano stuck out her tongue, scrunching up her face. The memory hurt. “But dammit, they—”

  “Scared the shit out of us,” said Flatline.

  “They did not.” She folded her arms. “They just…concerned me.”

  “Concerned the shit out of us,” said Flatline.

  Right. Same difference, right?

  “So,” asked Longjohn, “you’re still on the flight roster after all that?”

  “Yeah,” said Guano, taking a short breath. “Roadie had me swear to every God that I could name that I wouldn’t be so, uhh, ‘damn fool clusterfucked idiotic’ ever again, which I was more than happy to do—”

  “Likely because you’ll be doing worse,” said Flatline.

  “Likely because I’ll be doing worse.” No sense denying it. She was the best pilot in the fleet, despite being nearly posted to a station out in the sticks—obviously a mistake on Fleet’s behalf—and when someone was that good, they had to take some risks. “I thought he was about to blow a gasket.”

  “Eh,” said Flatline, “if he wanted us off the flight roster, he would have just done it instead of spending twenty minutes abusing us. Roadie’s a good CO in that way; he wants us to learn and do better. He’s trying to teach us, not punish us.”

  Guano grumbled. “Cleaning the ready room for a year sure feels like punishment.”

  Longjohn blew out a low, long whistle. “A whole year?” He grinned at Flatline. “You done fucked up, brother!”

  “I told you, it was her!”

  Guano guffawed. “Nah, nah. I tell you what, though, I came this close to shooting them…”

  “That would have been bad,” said Longjohn.

  “Yeah, no shit!” She laughed. “Man, I would have loved to bag me a couple of J-84’s, though. First kills in the galaxy, my friend! We would have lined them up like ducks and—”

  A klaxon cut her off. The whole hangar bay flooded with red light and Yousuf’s voice came over a crackling speaker.

  “All hands to action stations, all hands to action stations. Alert-five craft prepare to launch and intercept bogeys at two-two-eight mark six-nine. All pilots to their craft.”

  “Shit,” said Guano, and then all three of them ran for their ships.

  “You might still get a chance,” said Flatline as he pulled ahead of her, sprinting toward their Warbird.

  Smartass.

  Chapter Twelve

  Bridge

  USS Midway

  Mattis led the senior staff out of the briefing room, with Captain Malmsteen and the rest trailing behind. Ramirez was right where he’d left her, arms folded in front of her.

  Despite everything, despite the chaos that was seemingly sweeping through the ship and carrying all sense and logic away with it, Ramirez was there like a rock. Was she always this tough?

  Of course she was. It was stupid to think otherwise—

  “Admiral Mattis?” Malmsteen’s voice shook him out of his trance. Damn it. How long had he been staring?

  “Uhh,” said Mattis unhelpfully. “Sorry, I was thinking of something else. Say again?”

  “I was just asking,” said Malmsteen as he slid into his command chair, every bit the pompous captain, “if you had any thoughts on the signal we’ve detected. Commander Lynch?”

  “I’m bringing it up now,” said their comm officer. Commander Lynch, presumably.

  The signal…yes. Mattis strode over to Lynch’s tactical seat.

  “This is the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Lynch, seemingly half to him, half to Malmsteen. “It looks likes a fleet signature, it vanishes for fifteen seconds, and then it reappears. And it keeps repeating that pattern. Here, look.”

  “Never seen anything like it,” said Mattis. “Must be a glitch.”

  “With such regularity, Admiral? That’s a hell of a glitch.”

  Mattis squinted, curling back his upper lip. The guy was right. Lynch’s instincts aligned with his; he just didn’t like the way it smelled. A career captain’s instinct nagged at him. Didn’t feel right. “We should get our alert-five craft out there,” he said finally. “Get eyes on that thing. And I don’t mean radar and fancy sensors. Human eyes. See what we can see. If there’s something there, then we can engage it at standoff distance. If there’s nothing there…well, the fighter jocks get a little bit of excitement to break up the endless patrols and drills, don’t they?”

  Malmsteen smiled a proud, ever-so-slightly smug smile. “Commander Lynch?”

  Lynch twisted around in his seat. “Alert-five craft have already been ordered to launch, with the rest currently either refueling or on standby.”

  Well, good. Mattis couldn’t help but return just a little of that smile. “Nice work. I’d also move the old girl out, get away from this station—or should I say big fat target? Again, if it’s nothing, no harm no foul. We get to stretch the old girl’s legs. But if there’s something out there, the last place we want to be is tethered to a massive space station under Chinese command.”

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p; Malmsteen seemed less enamored by that suggestion. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that moving the ship away from the Chinese station might be taken in a very poor light, especially given that the nature and intentions of this mysterious contact—whatever it may be—haven’t yet been made clear.”

  That, thought Mattis, was a fancy way of saying: we don’t know if they’re Chinese or not.

  Fair call.

  “We could at least power up all our systems to alert footing,” said Mattis, carefully phrasing it as a suggestion rather than a command.

  Again, Malmsteen considered. “Let’s wait until the picture clears, or our fighters have eyes on the contact. I don’t want to risk antagonizing our Chinese friends.”

  Well, he tried. Malmsteen’s command, Malmsteen’s orders get followed. Mattis had to accept that.

  “Alert fighters are away,” said Commander Lynch, “designated Wing Alpha. They’re vectoring toward the contact now. Another wave of fighters is being scrambled. Estimated time till launch: three minutes.”

  Good. Nice, even dispersion.

  “Sir,” said Lynch, “the signal is…it’s evening out.”

  “Good,” said Mattis and Malmsteen in chorus.

  Mattis inclined his head respectfully, signaling for Malmsteen to continue.

  “Analyze it,” said Malmsteen, “and get a clear picture up—”

  “Sir!” Commander Pitt cut over the top. “Z-space contact!”

  Another ship? “Did the damn reds call in one of their friends?” asked Mattis, letting a little more venom escape than intended.

  “Unclear,” said Commander Pitt, reading the radar screen with frantic eyes. “Another contact, and another, and another… I’m reading a dozen ships, sir. They’re not any configuration I’ve ever seen.”

  “Bring all systems to alert power,” said Malmsteen, drumming his fingers on the armrests of his chair. “And recall our marines. Sound the decompression alarm until our crew are aboard. Then seal the outer hull, cross check, and detach the docking umbilical. Execute emergency disembark and move away from the space station.”