“Temporarily,” he said, pushing back his chair and standing up. “I have to go talk to a new friend.”
“A … friend?” the secretary said, curiously. “Should I pack you a change of clothes?”
“Oh no,” said Spectre, giving his best smile. “No need to change. I’m sure Admiral Mattis has prison garments in my size.”
“Ah, speaking of Mattis, we’ve just received a report that the Midway is off to inspect the damage at Zenith and track down the enemy fleet—”
Specter nodded, arranging his desktop for his absence. “As we expected, yes?”
“But first they’re going to rendezvous with the only known survivor of the attack, one Harry Reardon.”
Spectre glanced up. “Well that won’t do at all.” He considered. “Location?”
“Deep space. Halfway between Sol system and Sirius.”
“Away from prying eyes and ears. I won’t get there in time. Send in a distraction. I have far more important business to discuss with Mattis than some random smuggler.”
“Lethal?”
“Surprise me.”
Chapter Six
Earth
Washington, D.C.
Pentagon
US Naval Ops Situation Room
“Modi,” asked Mattis, a little frustration creeping into his tone, “what don’t you want to tell me about my ship?”
“It’s about the refit,” said Modi, twiddling his thumbs. “The new engines have been installed, but that was literally only just yesterday according to the daily reports—nobody’s had any time to test them and work out the kinks. And, of course, they will require a few tweaks before they’re truly operational. But how they were able to install them so quickly—they must be either very simple engines, mechanically, or … they’re actually not done and the report was in error.”
Mattis swore under his breath, instantly regretting it as he suddenly reminded himself he was surrounded by the highest ranking military offers in the US Department of Defense. He turned to Fischer. “Well, that puts a damper on that. Can we take another ship?”
“Not possible,” said Fischer, shaking her head. “Harry Reardon’s … well, as you’ve correctly inferred, he’s something of a nefarious character, and one thing these types have in common is that they’re paranoid. He was very specific. It has to be Admiral Jack Mattis, and Admiral Jack Mattis’s ship, the USS Midway.” A light clicked on in his head. That would be why she had let him keep command … one more time. “There’s simply no time to fully test the new upgrades, and there’s no way we can arrange alternate transportation. If Reardon sees you approaching and you’re not aboard the Midway, he’s likely to just Z-space translate out of there and we’ll lose our best, and only, lead.”
“That may be so, Admiral,” said Modi, clicking his tongue, “but these engine upgrades were developed by our contractor in the People’s Republic of China. There’s a lot of assumptions Fleet engineering had to make to even install the equipment, let alone integrate it with our systems. In theory the math checks out, but…”
“I understand,” said Fischer.
Mattis squinted, narrowing his eyes at Fischer, glancing briefly around the room to see if she had the Joint Chief’s support. She seemed to. “I understand what you’re getting at, Admiral, but you’re asking me to risk what is still my ship on entirely unproven technology, provided by a contractor from a foreign country with whom relations are best described as strained, that we haven’t even tested yet?”
“That’s correct,” said Fischer. “I understand that even if Bob Ross was painting this picture, you wouldn’t like it, but that’s just the way it goes. And it hasn’t been untested. Plenty of testing was observed on-site in Chinese airspace by our representatives. In any event, our best engineers have taken it apart and put it back together, and we’ve performed several tests on the ground as best we can. It all checks out. There’s no need to be concerned.”
“Which engineers Admiral?” pressed Modi.
“Pardon?” asked Fischer, obviously confused.
“Which engineers conducted the inspection?” he asked. “I am familiar with most senior engineers who would have this kind of access. Some I would trust with this inspection and some I would not.”
Fischer’s eyes narrowed slightly, and rather than address him specifically, she turned to Mattis. “Reardon is waiting. I don’t want to blow this chance. And given that the whole of Zenith has been wiped clean … it’s worth the risk. Fleet engineering assures me that engines will work.”
“Easy to say when you aren’t the one taking the risk,” muttered Lynch.
If Modi and Lynch were agreeing on something, it was probably an issue he should keep in mind. “I understand,” said Mattis, straightening his back. “I’ve tendered my advisement on this matter. That’s all I can do. Mister Modi, your concerns aside, are you absolutely certain that the work to the Midway is actually complete?”
“Complete enough, without doing a full technical audit,” said Modi. “There’s a small number of tasks remaining which can be accomplished once we’re up there. Small things—realignments, baseline normalizations, nothing fancy, and yes—we might even be able to squeeze in some tests before we fire it up.” He sighed dejectedly. “I doubt very much my sleep schedule—nor the deficit recently acquired—will be treated with any great kindness, but that’s a concern for later. Simply put: the Midway is technically space-worthy, Admiral. Barely.”
He nodded. “Good. Get ready to launch the ship, I’ll see you both in orbit.”
Everyone disbanded to do their jobs. Mattis answered a few questions from the rest of the Joint Chiefs—mainly promising to avoid any media attention and potential scandals as best he could—and then he was shown back up to the Pentagon’s main levels, where he retrieved his sidearm and began to arrange a lift up to the Midway.
The whole time, he couldn’t help but fight a profound sense of dread. Not just about the mission—what in the hell was going on? What kind of weapon could utterly destroy a planet?—but also about his ship.
This would be his last mission as CO of the Midway.
Again.
He’d been down this route before. Given up command of the Midway to younger Captains, and … and it hadn’t turned out well. He’d played the game. Done his duty. People had died.
Maybe Chuck was right. His turn was over. Maybe it was time to pass the baton?
A shuttle carried him up, away from the Pentagon and D.C. and toward Earth’s outer atmosphere, up past the blue sky and into the comforting, familiar black. He glanced out the porthole, watching the continental United States shrink away below him, and the curvature of the Earth grew more pronounced as the planet grew smaller.
Up ahead, the sun reflected off the steel scaffolding surrounding the USS Midway, held in place as the work crews tended to her. The long-serving ship had seen many battles in the years Mattis had been in command, and too many systems had been pushed to their limit. Even though hasty repairs had been effected, the scars of too many recent battles still remained. Scorch marks from The Forgotten’s cannon shells and future-human weapons alike hadn’t even been painted over.
It wasn’t just the engines. Every system on board was about to be field-tested. A lot could go wrong. The Midway was a fine ship, there was no doubt, but as he drew closer he couldn’t help but remember an old, sarcastic witticism.
50,000 moving parts, all supplied by the lowest bidder.
The shuttle docked, and Mattis—his thoughts focused inward, to the task ahead—made his way to the bridge, passing through the newly repaired armored casemate. Intruders had cut their way through it on the way to the ship’s command center during the confrontation with The Forgotten over New London. Finally it had been repaired. Only one of the many thousands of fixes scattered throughout the vessel.
“Admiral on deck,” said Commander Lynch as Mattis entered.
“As you were,” he said, taking the captain’s chair, sinking into
it slowly and deeply, a human personification of the growing feeling inside him. “Report status.”
Lynch arched his back until it cracked. “Well, sir, the good news is, that damn fool Modi was right. The new engines are in and, bonus, they’re actually plugged in and talking to the rest of the ship. Apparently. So maybe this hare-brained scheme will actually work out after all. The gantries are standing by to disengage when we’re ready; supplies have been loaded, and most of the crew have been located and embarked. The detaching process will take several hours; we’re all good to make a start on that, when you’re ready.”
That was good. “No time like the present,” he said. “Get ready to disengage the ship. Hopefully the rest of the crew will be along shortly.”
Lynch glanced at his instrument panel briefly, then back up. “Actually, sir, there’s … something else, it looks like. We’ve received a request to come aboard.”
“Stragglers from leave?” asked Mattis, frustration building, even as he tried to keep it in check. He’d managed to get back in time, although he understood that, for some crew members, finding them and bringing them here in a timely manner at such short notice was not going to be possible.
“Uh, no sir,” said Lynch, eyes widening as he read further. “This request came directly from the office of the Chief of Naval Personnel. We have a tag-along. Orders from Fischer herself.”
He frowned. “Fischer wants to put a man on my ship?”
Lynch snorted playfully. “Not unless you want to go to sickbay,” he said, turning the monitor around to show him a man he didn’t recognize embarking with Admiral Fischer’s clearance code. A doctor.
“Does she think I’m crazy?” asked Mattis, and then he remembered.
She said she’d be keeping an eye on him.
Chapter Seven
Earth, Low Orbit
USS Midway
Pilot’s Exercise Room
96. 97. 98. 99…
Patricia “Guano” Corrick’s arms shook slightly as she tried for that last pushup. Her arms burned and her chest ached, but Major Muhammad “Roadie” Yousuf, her CAG and the man who would decide if she would return to the flight roster or not, was watching.
… 100.
Did it. She slumped on the mat, body covered in sweat, her forearms aching. She clenched her fists to keep her fingers from shaking.
“You okay there, Guano?” said Roadie, crouching beside her. “Was that a hundred?”
“Yeah,” she said, propping herself up into a seated position. She grabbed her water bottle, splashing her face, getting at least some of it into her mouth. “I got ‘em.”
That seemed to relieve some of his concerns. Or, at least, she hoped so. Roadie clapped her on the back. “A’right, well that’s the physical out of the way.”
“Like I said.” Guano climbed up to her feet, shaking her hair dry. “It was just a cold.”
Roadie wasn’t buying it. “Colds don’t make people just pass out like that,” he said. “They had to haul you off to the medbay on a stretcher like a bag of rocks. That’s not normal.”
She’d been practicing this part of her little … speech … ever since she’d woken up in the infirmary. “The doctors told me it was just a cold,” she said. “One that caused dehydration. Couple that with, well, the somewhat lax attention to bodily maintenance that some of the pilots, including me, tend to display—” Roadie’s face soured but she pushed on anyway. “And the stress of a prolonged combat engagement in deep space, where God knows what could have happened to my oxygen supply, and there you have it. Dehydration plus stress plus no O2 equals a sick piece of bat shit.”
Roadie groaned slightly. “Yeah, well, Doctor Wright wouldn’t know sick if it landed on his boots. I’m still worried. I’ve got half a mind to ship you back to Earth.”
“You’ve got half a mind, period,” said Guano, trying to keep her temper in check. “You can’t seriously be thinking about sending me back now. You’ve seen the news. You’ve seen what happened at Zenith. We can’t be down our best pilot—”
“Our third best pilot,” corrected Roadie. “Like, maybe. Boracho is creeping up on you, to be honest.”
“Our best scoring pilot on the ship,” said Guano, a lot more defensively than she probably should have been. “And besides. Flatline’s basically a lost, dumb, idiotic child. If you ship me home you might as well do it to him, too.”
Roadie pushed open the door to the gym. “You say it like I wouldn’t do it.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Guano confidently. “I know you. You’re way too attached to us to do something like that.”
Roadie grabbed her arm as she stepped through the door, pulling her back. His face was stern and uncompromising. “You’re right,” he said, his faces inches away from hers. “I am attached to my pilots. You foolish, moronic, stupid, block-headed, cretinous, dimwitted, imbecilic, ignoramus simpletons are basically why I do this job. Including Flatline and Frost and all the other gunners. You’re all my family. All of you. But understand this: I won’t endanger my family to accommodate one ferret-brained pilot with a problem in her head.”
Guano tugged her arm free. “Nothing wrong with me or my brain,” she said. “Doctors confirmed it.”
Roadie didn’t seem convinced but he let her go. “Back to bed with you,” he said.
More time in bed doing nothing. Guano groaned and headed back to sickbay.
Chapter Eight
Earth, Low Orbit
USS Midway
Bridge
Well, ain’t that a kick in the teeth. Mattis glowered as the final stages of the ship’s launch were undertaken and, soon, the ship would hopefully be ready to head out and find the smuggler, Rearden.
Or fight.
The idea of losing his command after this mission was buried under the more immediate insult: an uninvited ‘guest’ aboard his ship. The prospect rankled him more than he cared to admit. To soothe the burn of these thoughts, he dove into the details, reviewing the personnel file of the stranger; one Doctor Jacoby Brooks, a medical doctor with twenty-five years of service to the day, with a specialization in dietary nutrition.
Nutrition. That finding actually mollified him somewhat. Perhaps it was simply for the crew’s needs. Some fleet-wide change he was unaware of. Why else would they need a dietitian aboard?
Quite the mystery, but one that did not lend itself a great deal of urgency. Whatever Admiral Fischer’s reasoning for bringing aboard the good doctor would be revealed in the fullness of time. No doubt.
Still, worries tugged at him. He knew his biases—people tended to think everything was about them, but he couldn’t help it. Was he under some kind of undisclosed probation? Was the doctor here to spy on him?
Or was he just being paranoid? It wasn’t unreasonable to think that—
“Sir?” asked Lynch, with a tone which suggested that he had asked more than once.
The bridge crew were staring. “Sorry,” Mattis said, apologetically. How crazy he must have looked in those brief moments. “What was the question?”
“Not a question,” said Lynch. “Doctor Brooks would like permission to enter the bridge.”
At the main doorway to the Midway’s central core, its beating heart of operations, was a tall, rakishly thin man with dark skin and a wide, genuine smile. “Apologies for the intrusion, Admiral Mattis,” he said, a vague Chicagoan accent overlaying an educated British, leading to quite a pleasant cadence. “I thought I should introduce myself to you properly.”
“Of course,” said Mattis, standing and gesturing to his ready room. “Permission granted. Let’s have a chat.”
The two of them walked to Mattis’s ready room. Mattis sat behind his desk, gesturing toward the spare seat. “Please.”
Doctor Brooks sat. “Thank you once again, Admiral, for having me aboard.”
“Of course.” Mattis folded his hands in front of him and leaned forward slightly. “My question, of course, is why. Is there a problem with my m
edical staff that I should know about?”
Doctor Brooks’s confusion seemed genuine. “No, sir. None that I’ve been made aware of.”
“Okay,” said Mattis, “then forgive me, Doctor, because I’m not sure exactly why you’re here.”
Doctor Brooks seemed to visibly stiffen slightly, his face tightening. “Well, as you know, meals aboard Navy assets are provided by various subcontractors and private corporations. These include not just your standard rations, but also dietary supplements and various other nutritional aids. There’s been a … concern about some of these supplements, so I’m simply here to verify that there’s no widespread issue.” Doctor Brooks smiled widely, a huge smile like a half-moon. “I was supposed to conduct this survey aboard the USS Alexander Hamilton but your arrival signaled the perfect chance for me to get started a month earlier. I won’t get in your way, Admiral. I promise.”
Any danger to the ship’s food was a danger to the crew. Mattis’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the nature of this concern?”
Doctor Brooks’s smile faded completely, his levity replaced by a dour seriousness. “Some time ago, one of your pilots, Lieutenant Corrick, reported that she passed out after a combat operation.” He’d heard as much himself, and ordered his CAG to get to the bottom of it. “And yet, weeks later, she remains off the flight roster but is still part of the crew. Current theory about the incident is that it was hypoxia caused by a faulty oxygen supply unit in her ship, but Admiral Fischer feels that it is prudent to investigate all possible angles. Given that I was partially responsible for the initial formulas for the supplements, nobody in the galaxy is in a better position to rule out some kind of allergic or biochemical reaction than I. I’m not here to prove any working theory, Admiral, simply to exclude potential causes, as unlikely as they might be.”
That seemed almost reasonable. “Still,” said Mattis, “I would have appreciated a little more notice.”
The Last Dawn: Book 3 of The Last War Series Page 4