The Last Dawn: Book 3 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  Smith considered mentioning the hours of tedium and short and senseless bursts of danger his job entailed, before simply nodding. “It’s a perk.”

  Then he headed down the ladder and began making his way through the Aerostar’s debatably-organized lower decks in search of Reardon.

  Time to suit up.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Four Lightyears from Earth

  USS Midway

  Sickbay

  Lieutenant Patricia “Guano” Corrick’s bed

  Guano hated being in this bed almost as much as she hated the faint sound of music from the bed on the other side of the bulkhead behind her.

  It was possibly the worst kind of music she had ever heard. Her taste was eclectic, even totally bizarre, but whatever that guy was playing was just awful. It was just noise. Noise that came through with something that resembled a beat, accompanied by untuned violins.

  She thumped her fists against the bulkhead. “Hey!” she roared. “Turn it down!”

  “The nurse said I can listen to the music at a reasonable volume,” replied the man, like clockwork, his voice muffled by the steel wall between them.

  “You—you just increased it!”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did!”

  “No, I did not.”

  Guano groaned and jammed her pillow over her face. “Just kill me now,” she muttered. “Please. Just do it. Just put a bullet in me. I don’t want to live anymore.”

  “Hmm,” said a strange, deep voice she hadn’t heard before. “Should I note down suicidal intentions on your chart now?”

  Slowly, Guano peeled the pillow off her face. Some thin, almost gaunt-looking guy was there, wearing a doctor’s uniform and carrying a briefcase which swelled slightly as though packed full of junk. “Unless you think it’ll get me discharged faster,” she said. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Doctor Jacoby Brooks,” he said, moving up to her bed and folding his hands behind his back. “I’m a medical doctor assigned to your case by the Department of Defense.”

  Guano grimaced slightly and propped herself up on her elbows. “I told Roadie—I mean, Major Yousuf—and everyone,” she said. “I feel fine.”

  “I think I’ll be the judge of that,” said Doctor Brooks, with obvious patience. “I understand my presence here is an unwelcome disruption, but trust me when I say, I only want what’s best for you and the crew.”

  Guano, in a manner she knew would be seen as pouty, slumped back in her bed. “Right.”

  Doctor Brooks seemed to consider a moment, looking her up and down. “So you’re not feeling any different than usual?”

  “Apart from a case of being in bed too long, no. I’m feeling fine. Itching to get spaceborn again if you know what I mean.” She folded her arms and glared at the wall. “I’m a pilot, Doctor. A bird. I’m not meant to be caged.”

  “I actually do know what you mean,” said Brooks, “I used to race civvie snubs before I went to medical school. One time I broke my leg after a bad landing, and I was out for a year. That was what got me interested in medicine.”

  Oh yeah. Sure. Guano made a face. “Nice bed-side manner, doc. Mmm. I’m guessing this is where you lie to me to try and bond with me, because we have a shared common interest?”

  Brooks raised an eyebrow, looking down at her with genuine surprise. “You know,” he said, idly tapping his finger on his forearm, “it doesn’t really work that way. See, if I wanted to lie to you, I wouldn’t pick something so easy to disprove. What would a doctor know about racing snubs? Well, they might know, for starters, that if you deploy your flaps too late as you come in for a skid after a six point lap, well, you hit the ground real hard and break your legs … but if you deploy them too early, well, you stall, hit the ground, and break your legs. This much is pretty self explanatory, really.” He casually put his leg up on the side of her bed and started rolling up his pants, revealing a lighter patch of skin—scar tissue—running up his leg. “But there’s a lot they won’t know, and simply can’t know, because it’s not openly publicized information and it generally takes a fair bit of experience before you discover it on your own. For example, that if you have a surgical pin in your leg, as one might do when they have a serious break in their leg, then when you reach higher altitude, they tend to ache a bit. Why? Well, scar tissue is a lot less elastic than regular tissue, so as the pressure changes, scar tissue balloons while normal resists, causing soreness. They call it—”

  “The Reminder,” said Guano, saying the words before he could. “To always put your flaps down.”

  “A little pain you can ever get rid of.” Brooks put his leg down. “Guess that means you have to trust me now, right?”

  Sulking, Guano didn’t answer right away. “I guess,” she said, finally.

  “Okay.” Brooks clicked his tongue. “So, Lieutenant Corrick … tell me about what happened to you.”

  “Just like that, huh?” asked Guano, suspicion building within her again. “You just want me to open up to you about this … thing?”

  “No need to rush it,” said Brooks, casually pulling out a tablet and tapping it a few times—no doubt turning on the voice-to-text transcription. “How about an easier question. Why don’t you tell me about your childhood.” He held up a finger. “And, full disclosure, I’m choosing this question because it’s stereotypical and you expect it. No other reason.”

  No way. “How about you?” she asked, pointedly. “What don’t you tell me about your childhood?”

  “Sure,” said Brooks, beaming. He reached over and pulled up a chair. “Well, I was born and raised in New Orleans. The French quarter is a lovely place to grow up, if you don’t mind the occasional mugging and gang beat-down, which I guess you could say gave me a thicker skin when it came to recalcitrant patients who won’t talk to me.”

  Guano snorted. “Mmm.”

  There was a brief moment of silence. Brooks kept smiling, looking away, as though recalling a fond memory. “Did you know I went to West Point?”

  “No,” said Guano, blinking. “You were a cross-commission?”

  “That’s right. Straight out of the Army academy into the Navy. Not exactly a standard career path, but it was very … illuminating.” His tone became wistful. “Lots of good memories there. I loved the academy. The whole place is seeped in the history of America, just soaked in it … in the grand ballroom there is a series of portraits of generals of The American Revolution. Among them is Benedict Arnold—turned face inward. Arnold is no longer publicly acknowledged as a former Commandant of West Point due to his plan to surrender the fort to the British during the American Revolution.”

  “Bit harsh,” said Guano. “I mean … he was the Commandant, like it or not.”

  “More toward the not than anything else. Arnold planned to sell the fort to the British, and when he fully defected, was inducted into the British army under the rank of Brigadier General.”

  Guano laughed. “Well, okay. Guess he was a bit of a bastard then.”

  Brooks chuckled, low and genuinely. “Fine way of putting it.” He cleared his throat. “But I’m not here to talk to you about ancient history.”

  “I guess not,” said Guano, and she settled back in her bed once again. “I … I just know that this is difficult to talk about, yeah? I haven’t even spoken to Flatline about it. Not properly. I mean, he knows, but I just … I just don’t know what to say about it. I feel like a real freak, you know?”

  Brooks cocked an eyebrow. “Well, I’m a half-Puerto Rican, half-Scottish medical doctor, West Point graduate in the Navy, born and raised in Chicago but now living in space, with a series of titanium pins in my legs from a wildly misspent youth. Hardly compares to your strange fugue state, but … I mean, I think there’s a bit of common ground there.”

  Guano stared. “How did you know about that?”

  “Major Yousuf reached out to me.” Brooks smiled. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

  Th
e guy genuinely reminded her of Flatline, her gunner and battle buddy for years. That stupid grin he had, the weird smile—maybe that was why they picked him to talk to her? Did it really matter? Slowly, her suspicions melted away, and she started talking.

  “I described it once like listening to Celtic music while stoned. It’s like … it’s like when you’ve been running on adrenaline for, say, a full day and just don’t care anymore. Time seems to slow down, like I’m feeling things before my senses can even process them. It’s ‘being in the zone’ more than anything I’ve ever felt, and I’ve been a pilot for my whole life—my dad let me take the controls of his freighter when I was five. Anyway, fear shuts down, worries melt away, and everything moves on autopilot. My hands adjust the controls, my feet brush the pedals, I do about a thousand things a second and I barely even remember them.”

  Brooks considered. “Sounds like Highway Hypnosis,” he said. “It’s a well documented medical phenomenon. Back before most cars were self-driving, piloting them long distances caused the drivers go into autopilot and just kind of act without thinking, and when they arrive at their destination they don’t remember how they got there.”

  “Sounds similar to what happens to me,” said Guano. “I do remember things, but it’s like someone else did it. Like I’m being guided by … something.”

  “Mmm.” Brooks looked down to his tablet, considering a moment. “You wanna know a fun fact about Highway Hypnosis?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was the leading cause of falling asleep at the wheel, and automobile accidents.” The levity slowly evaporated from his voice. “It kills.”

  Damn. “Well,” said Guano, “you better fix me, doc. I like living. It’s basically all I do.”

  “Looking at your piloting record, you do seem to have a fine track record of not dying.”

  “Not dying is what any good pilot does.” She reached out and grabbed his elbow. “Fix me, Doc. I’d like to go on not dying.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Brooks, tapping his tablet. “Anyway. I’ve arranged a little surprise for you.” A wide smile returned to his face as he lifted his briefcase up onto the edge of his bed. “Here’s a flight suit. Helmet’s in the corridor. Go get changed out of your hospital gown and let’s go and see your abilities first hand, shall we?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sol System

  Ganymede Station

  Former site of the Ark Project

  Smith stared with both organic and mechanical eyes at the perfectly normal, standard-issue white spacesuits, and actually sighed. “Look, I’ll be honest, I’m surprised you actually got me out here on this bucket of bolts without any explosions or Z-space mishaps. But … these look far too … normal for Harry Reardon.”

  “See? That’s the trick. The normal-looking suits are a distraction. They’ll be expecting something outlandish from old Harry Reardon, and when confronted with normal, they’ll choke, and that’s when I shoot.”

  “Really?”

  Reardon pulled a smile that he probably thought of as roguish and shot finger-guns at him. “Gotcha!”

  Smith didn’t bother emoting. “Brilliant.”

  The smuggler laughed. “You know what else is brilliant?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Your mom last night.”

  He shook his head. “Reardon, we don’t have time for this. Your brother is bringing us in to land as we speak.”

  Reardon’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have time for this. I, on the other, hand have all the time in the world, because I work for no one and have no deadlines to meet.”

  Smith raised an eyebrow. “How does the imminent destruction of everything humanity knows and loves sound for a deadline to you?”

  “Overblown,” he replied. “But … actually probably, uh, accurate. Oh, shit, that’s right, I was trying not to think about the dead planet. Thanks.”

  “No problem,” Smith said as he stepped gingerly into one of the suits, still examining them for some trick or upgrade or abnormality.

  “Shit, it’s just a vacuum suit, man,” Reardon said, laughing. “Also,” he continued, the laugh suddenly gone, “just so you know, I’m not doing this because you asked and certainly not because you threatened me.”

  “I didn’t threat—”

  “I’m here because I want to be. Because I choose to be.”

  Smith rolled his eyes. “I believe you.”

  “Seriously, end of the world? I couldn’t care less, as long as there’s somewhere left with fuel and food.”

  “And medical supplies for Sammy?” Smith asked, less than half paying attention.

  “Yeah. That.” That seemed to steal some of the bluster from Reardon, whose tone changed to something surprisingly … serious. “I mean, the kid spends his life in that damn chair, and … you know, those things cause pressure sores. Ulcers. Normally pain is the body’s way of telling us that something’s wrong, but if he can’t feel it, then he doesn’t know, you know? So you gotta get meds for it. And most places … most places don’t stock that kind of shit. Especially the further out from Earth you go.”

  There was a short time of surprisingly blissful silence as Reardon seemed to mentally check himself. He’d been complaining of boredom, not just a few days ago. Now boredom was preferable….

  “But,” Reardon began again. “You hearing me? All that shit aside, Harry Reardon does nothing for free. Those meds ain’t cheap.”

  Smith sealed on his helmet. “You’re a strong, independent criminal who don’t need no authority, yes.”

  “Entrepreneur,” Reardon replied with all the integrity of a used-car salesman. “Whereas all in all, you my friend, are just another brick in the wall.”

  Smith was in the middle of pointedly linking the hideously dated reference to the hideously dated decor when Sammy’s voice rang out through the intercom. “Touchdown in three, bro!”

  Could Sammy sound more like an archetypical surfer from Hawaii? Smith had never been to Hawaii but the kid sounded, to his ear, just like what they would sound like. “Helmet, Reardon.”

  “Two!”

  “Harry Reardon laughs at the vacuum of space!” said Reardon, hands on hips.

  “One!”

  “Hard to laugh while you asphyxiate,” said Smith, dryly.

  “Aaand zero!” Sammy’s countdown cut off Reardon’s undoubtedly stellar comeback.

  “Thank you, Sammy,” Smith said into the mic pinned under his collar.

  “We good to go?” Reardon’s voice came through his helmet’s speakers, for the moment. “Can we go?”

  “Airlock is cycling. Good luck!”

  Smith was glad to be aboard, but as he stepped out of the airlock and onto Ganymede, he realized the truth.

  Reardon was talking so much because he was nervous.

  Not much made the guy nervous.

  Something about sifting through the ruins of a devastating alien-not-alien attack for clues left by a criminal mastermind with influence in nearly all major world governments was getting to him. And frankly, as he surveyed the ruined landscape, it was unsettling to Smith too.

  With that thought rattling in his head, they made their way out to what remained of Ganymede Station.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Four Lightyears from Earth

  USS Midway

  Bridge

  “Mister Lynch, set course for Zenith.”

  The hours ticked by as the Midway sailed effortlessly through Z-space, her newly augmented engines purring like a happy, warm kitten. Mattis received frequent updates from Modi, at first every ten minutes and transitioning to hourly, but as time came and went, nothing seemed to go wrong.

  It was nice to have a win every now and again. A new system which didn’t play up and merely enhanced their combat capabilities significantly with no downsides. Mattis and the bridge crew started to chat as their shift dragged on.

  Modi and Lynch were bickering about something so inane and stupid that he could barel
y even bring himself to follow along, drifting in and out of the conversation as they went back and forth.

  “No no no,” said Lynch. “I’m telling you. I don’t care if you’re a vegetarian. Southern smoked ribs transcend the labels of mortal men. They just melt in your mouth. Juicy and delicious. They are joy personified in food.”

  “I told you I’m not vegetarian,” said Modi, defensively. “I just don’t each much meat.”

  “That’s being a dang vegetarian.”

  “That’s not eating a lot of meat. It’s not strictly vegetarian. And I eat fish sometimes. And … boiled eggs.”

  “Boiled eggs? Aww, hell no.” Lynch, unmoved, continued to press his point. “Trust me. When we head back—Smokey Joes in San Antonio. The best place to eat in the whole of the South. So good you will literally die. And the live band.…”

  “It is clear that you literally do not know the definition of the word literally.” Modi scowled. “And a live band? That sounds like a bar. I do not enjoy bars.”

  Lynch tapped a few buttons on the engineering console to make a few minor adjustments to the Z-drive. “It serves bar food,” he clarified. “And alcohol. And has a band. But it’s not a bar.”

  “That is the definition of a bar, my vocabulary-challenged friend.”

  Mattis tuned out the argument for a bit, and then, finally, he sent Modi down to the engine room for no other reason other than to get him out of their collective hair.

  “So sir,” asked Lynch, leaning back against his console casually, “I was meaning to ask you. This whole thing with, uhh…” he suddenly seemed a bit flustered. “Your son. Chuck.”

  He felt the smallest little twinge of mild frustration building within him, for reasons he could not adequately explain. “Sure,” he said. “What about him?”

  “Well,” said Lynch, “I’m big into whistleblower protection. Think the law should be watching out for people like him, more than it already does. The fact he’s back to living on basic income isn’t great, you know? The guy did what he felt was right, and because of that, he and his family are being made to suffer. That just ain’t right. Gets me all riled up whenever I think about it…” His Texan accent suddenly came on so strong Mattis could barely understand him. “Seeming like most of those laws were all hat, no cattle.”