“I do know,” said Smith, “but I can’t do this on my own, and it’s important. I wouldn’t be asking if I could do it by myself. I need your help, Chuck.”
Chuck debated all the various ways he could get out of doing this, including simply hanging up, insisting that Smith try something or someone else, or just … lying. But instead, he sighed long and loud into the microphone and, moving out of his bedroom and into the living room, tried to forget that what he was doing was a breach of his bail conditions.
“Fine,” said Chuck, grimacing internally and externally. “I’ll call you back.”
He hung up and then spent a few minutes pacing about his living room, trying to find some kind of plan. He couldn’t do it in person; everyone knew his face. He’d have to use a friend or an old acquaintance. But which number to call, which number … there was no point calling his office, they would have that monitored. It would have to be a personal number. He scrolled through his list of old work contacts, searching….
And then he found her. Sherry Franco. The secretary who’d joined only a few days before he was fired. Perfect.
Before he realized what he was doing, and forgetting it was three AM, Chuck tapped the call button.
“Hello?” said a tired sounding woman on the end.
Well, fortunately, Chuck had a line fresh for this one. “Terribly sorry to get you out of bed,” he said, putting on his best fake accent. “But a jolly good morning to you, old bean! My name is—” he thought of a fake, British-sounding name. “James Pendleton the Third, Esquire, with the British Ministry of Defense, and I’m terribly curious about something of import, my good woman. I need to know where the good American whig, Senator Pitt, is at this moment and I would be just chuffed to bits if I could get him on the line. Chop chop.”
There was a long, pronounced moment of silence on the other end of the line.
“What?”
Oh God, she wasn’t falling for it. No way forward now but to commit.
“I’m James Pendleton the Third, Esquire. House of Lords. British Parliament. Ministry of Defense.” said Chuck, stressing his words to accent perfect British frustration, “and I need to speak to Senator Pitt right now. Can you please tell me where he is?”
The response down the line was slurred and vague. “He’s … on vacation. In, uhh, the Losagar system. I can take a message if you like.” She paused and he could hear the faint sound of scratching. “Who is this again?”
The Losagar system was a luxurious resort designed to cater only to the mega-rich. It was totally believable. “James Pendleton the Third,” said Chuck, now eager to get away from the call without arousing too much suspicion. “Please let him know I called. Thank you for your time, mum. Goodbye.” He hung up.
Done. Mission complete. Chuck paced across his living room as he sent Smith a text message.
Losagar system. Holiday.
Never, ever, call me again.
“Chuck!” came an urgent voice from the bedroom.
Now what.
“Elroy?” said Chuck, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Jack.”
Chuck ran to the nursery. Elroy was sitting in the rocking chair, Jack on his lap. The baby rested against the man’s abdomen, eyes open, very pale, but lethargic.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know. When I woke up and heard you talking, I just came in here on a whim to check on him, and found him like this.”
“Fever?”
Elroy touched Jack’s forehead. “Maybe? But … look at him.”
Jack wasn’t crying. Just … pale, and staring at the wall.
“Ok. If he’s not fine by morning, we’re going to the hospital.”
And as the word hospital crossed his lips, he realized he’d far prefer to be back in jail than in a hospital with his kid, sick. “Don’t worry,” he told Elroy, but more to himself, “he’ll be fine. He’ll be just fine.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Zenith, High Orbit
USS Midway
Admiral Mattis’s Ready Room
Mattis examined the set of numbers Spectre had given him with a skeptical, cautious eye, trying to pry out their secrets with sheer force of will. His earpiece chirped but he reached up and turned it off. No time for distractions. Lynch would have to handle it.
“What’s at these coordinates?” he asked, trying to mentally map them to the digital map he had displayed on his desk. It was just an empty piece of space; nothing of particular interest. Something had to be there … but what?
“Does it matter?” asked Spectre, plaintively.
Mattis affixed a firm stare on the portly British man. “Yes,” he said, firmly. “Your bargaining position here is extremely dubious. You’re aboard this ship, in this room, on my grace alone. You promised me answers. Not more secrets.”
“I promised you answers eventually,” said Spectre, a slow, knowing smile spreading across his face. “Everything will be revealed in due time.”
Mattis glowered. “With a word I could have my marines put you out the airlock.”
“With a word you would lose any chance, any hope, of finding any solution to the attacker that killed hundreds of thousands of people and then vanished. Tell me, Admiral Mattis, do you think whatever power did this is satisfied now, ready to slink into the darkness of space and never return?”
Of course not. And he knew it was true. Spectre was playing games—after being expressly told not to play games—but Mattis knew he couldn’t afford to let the man go inspect the outer hull without a spacesuit. Not yet, at any rate. “Tell me more about this weapon,” he said. “The effect we’re seeing—fires raging across a whole planet—are inconsistent with what our witness tells us happened. They reported that the whole crust rippled and lifted up, then was dropped. Not … this.”
“A planet is a curious thing,” said Spectre, the smile disappearing from his face. “I’m no geologist, but my ship’s sensors were studying Zenith as you approached. What we found was this: any planet with indigenous plant life, as Zenith has, typically possesses a thick coal bed. Zenith’s stretched across the whole of the southern continent. The staggeringly vast amount of energy required to lift the continental crust of a whole Earth-like planet—one hundred and ninety billion tonnes of mass, give or take—immediately ignited this layer of high-energy, flammable material, causing the fires which enveloped that continent.
“The fuel, heat, and air fed through the mutinous cracks in the surface led to wildfires that will rage there until you and I are long dead.” Spectre leaned back in his chair, face somber. “Strangely enough we have seen this kind of thing before. During Earth’s early primeval history, trees evolved an organic polymer called lignin, which let them grow tall and high. Yet it could not be broken down by the bacteria and fungi of the time, so when those trees eventually fell over and died, they formed a belt of coal across Earth. During the Permian period, a chain of volcanic eruptions in Siberia triggered the ignition of Siberia’s coal belt. Carbon and atmospheric gasses flooded Earth, and in the oceans and on the lands, plants, animals, and almost all forms of life—ninety percent or more—were extinguished. They call this period of time…” Spectre took a sombre breath. “The Great Dying.”
“And now,” said Mattis, “someone has visited the same upon Zenith.”
There was a brief moment of quiet as the two of them digested this news. “It takes a lot,” said Spectre, gravely, “to rattle someone like me, Admiral.”
“I can see that.”
Spectre looked away for a moment and Mattis wondered, for a split second, if he was listening to some radio transmission only he could hear. Then he looked back to Mattis. “I know what they’re after,” said Spectre, “and I’m happy to guide you towards the next attack, but any further information is for the President’s eyes only. You can talk to her if you like, I’ll talk to her, we can work something out … but if we want to stop the next attack, Admiral, we need to get moving.”
>
“How soon?” asked Mattis. “It will take some time to contact the President and arrange a meeting to discuss this. And fleet command has taken a dim view of my unapproved contacts with the President recently.”
“Sooner rather than later would be better,” said Spectre, with seemingly genuine sincerity. “Lives hang in the balance.”
Mattis took a deep breath and considered, but then the door chimed.
“Excuse me, Admiral,” said Modi, from the other side. “You asked to be informed if there was any issue with the engines.”
“Come in,” said Mattis, his chest tightening. “What do you have for me, Modi?”
Commander Modi poked his head around the corner of the door frame. “Well sir,” he said, “we are detecting an issue with the fuel mix. Some kind of strange gravity distortions; we don’t quite know what purpose they serve. They’re increasing efficiency all right, but it’s…” Modi’s voice drifted, shrugged away some obviously confusing thought. “It requires more study.”
Mattis’s eyes flicked to Spectre, then back to Modi. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said. “So they aren’t as perfect as we thought, but they work.” He paused. “I’ll send you some coordinates. Let’s find out what these things can really do.”
He stood, Spectre stood after him, and then the three of them walked into the bridge. Modi kept going, heading back to Engineering.
“Get the ship ready to execute a Z-space translation,” said Mattis, when the bridge was resealed. “Coordinates should be on my desk.”
Lynch went straight to work. “Aye sir, no worries.” He paused. “This is nearby. Only a few minutes jump with our new engines.”
Mattis moved over behind Lynch. “Modi said—”
“Modi talks too much,” grumbled Lynch, tapping away at his console. “The engines are fine. They’re basically smack bang centre in their operating parameters, but because there’s a mite of difference, well, now we all have to panic.” Lynch groaned softly as though in pain. “That damn robot is a technological hypochondriac who is freaking out because his goddamn mind can’t process the idea that there might, very well, be some kind of physics effect he doesn’t quite understand right at this moment.”
“I did ask him to come to me with anything he had,” said Mattis. “It wasn’t exactly his fault.”
“Still,” said Lynch, tapping at keys. “Okay. We’re ready to commence Z-space translation.”
“Do it,” said Mattis.
Once again the ship was bathed in rainbow hues and leapt into the strange unreality that was Z-space. Once again, nothing disastrous happened. The Midway sailed smoothly toward its destination, the mysterious coordinates given by Spectre. Mattis slid into the CO’s chair and waited.
True to Lynch’s word, the ship cruised for only a few minutes, and then the computer signaled they were approaching the Z-space coordinates which would translate them back into real-space.
“Sir,” said Lynch, glancing over his shoulder. “We are ready to—” He stopped, eyes widening. “Hey!” he roared, wheeling around, eyes widening. “What the fuck are you doing?”
It took Mattis a second to realize Lynch was looking over his shoulder. At Spectre. Who stood, his hand guiltily positioned over one of the unused terminals.
“Just performing some calculations,” said Spectre, smiling sheepishly. His British accent crisp and clean. “Nothing more.”
Mattis rose out of his chair in fury, but as he did so, the ship translated out of Z-space and into the real world.
“Contact,” shouted someone. “One RCS contact matching the future-human ship, bearing zero-zero-one mark zero-zero-eight. Dead ahead!” The officer stopped. “And … sir. There’s a rogue planet here. A planet without a star.”
Rogue planets. Whole worlds perpetually shrouded in night, drifting silently through the inky void of space, frozen dead worlds for the most part … occasionally populated by smugglers, illegal and unsavory entertainment establishments, and explorers who liked the idea of claiming their very own world to themselves, one which would be almost impossible for strangers to ever find.
And military black-ops units.
But there was no more time to think about it. “Sound general quarters,” said Mattis, and then pointed to one of his marines. “Scramble the alert five fighters and launch all wings. Lynch, get me what we know about that rogue planet. And officer of the deck?” He pointed to Spectre, who was still hovering near the terminal, “if that man touches anything, shoot him in the head.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Zenith, High Orbit
USS Midway
Pilot’s Ready Room
“The conquering queen returns!” laughed Guano as she burst into the ready room, still dressed in her medical gown, bare ass remarkably chilly in the processed atmosphere of a starship.
Stunned silence. Everyone stared at her. They didn’t cheer. They didn’t react more than the occasional grimace.
Roadie just stared at her, wide eyed. Behind him, projected on the wall, was a massive presentation which boldly proclaimed, in thick letters:
Military Suicide Prevention
“One Loss Hurts Us All”
Pain isn’t always obvious, know the S.I.G.N.S:
- S.aying they want to die or to kill oneself
- I.ndicating hopelessness or having no reason to live
- G.etting into excessive drugs or alcohol
- “N.o way out”
- S.leeping too much, or too little
“Uhh,” said Guano, blinking as she took in the slide’s content. “I didn’t realize there was a briefing.”
“What are you doing out of bed?” asked Roadie, his tone edged in worry. At that moment he seemed more like a concerned friend than a CO. He took a step toward her. “Are you feeling okay? Do you know where you are?”
“I’m fine,” she said, eyes flicking to all the pilots and crew around her. “I just wanted a drink, that’s all.”
“A drink,” said Roadie, his concerned tone suddenly slathered over a layer of really pissed off as though evaluating her quickly and realizing she was being a dumbass. “No, I think not. Rather, I see you’re here to contribute to the lecture today.”
Slowly, it began to dawn on her that, perhaps, this might not have been a good idea. “Actually, you know what, I might just head back to sickbay and think about what I’ve done, yeah?”
“Guano…” groaned Roadie, his teeth grinding together. There was a very brief moment where he seemed to consider, trying to decide if she really was sick or just being a tool so he could either let her go or berate her. He chose the latter option. “I’m actually—no, fuck it. Fuck it! I’m actually glad you’re here. Just the person I wanted to see.” He marched up to her, clicking off his laser pointer, his voice transitioning from polite officer giving a health and safety lecture to the much less formal angry CAG berating one of his pilots. “Dipshit! You are the fucking reason people kill themselves, you know that?” He swung his hand over the gathered audience. “Here we all are, having a polite, boring-as-shit mandatory lesson in how you shouldn’t hang yourself like a dumb, idiotic, inbred hunk of meat and in waltzes—” he jabbed a finger at her. “You! Got anything to say for yourself, huh?”
“Uhh,” said Guano, awkwardly pulling the back of her gown around behind her to try and hide her exposed backside. “No sir.”
“You’re goddamn right you have nothing to say!” roared Roadie, a vein above his eye pulsing wildly. “You’re a comprehensive disgrace, showing up here when you’re supposed to be un-fucking yourself in sickbay and interrupting my perfectly boring presentation!”
The CAG only got mad when his people were endangering themselves or not performing to their best. A little guilt flickered through her. She wasn’t really meant to be here after all. “Sorry sir,” said Guano, arms firmly by her sides. “No excuse.”
“Good,” said Roadie, taking in a few deep breaths and seeming to calm right down. The angry act eva
porated and, very briefly, was replaced by a look of concern once more. “Now since you’re here … have a seat and listen.”
That was Roadie-speak for you’re forgiven, this time. Guano sheepishly slid into a spare chair.
Roadie paused and then turned back to his presentation. “So,” he said, his tone returning to professional officer levels. “As I was saying, a profound change in sleeping patterns can be a sign of depression and self-harming thoughts. None of these elements are problematic in the specific case; instead, what we are doing here is looking at the big picture. The whole spectrum of the mental health of one of your fellow pilots. These things are subtle and.…”
Guano, slowly but surely, stopped paying attention.
“Fancy seeing you here,” whispered Doctor Brooks, right beside her.
“Shit,” said Guano, a little too loud.
Roadie affixed a dagger-stare upon her, and she shrank back slightly until he resumed his lecture.
She leaned towards Brooks. “What are you doing here?” she hissed. “I thought you went off to check on my medical file. This is for pilots and crew!”
“Well,” whispered Doctor Brooks, “I definitely will look into that, but as you know, I’m here to observe the flight crew and make sure that your issues are not systemic in the air group.” That made sense. “It requires me to assess how the standard mental health programs are being presented by senior officers.”
“Okay, okay,” said Guano, waving a hand dismissively. “I get it. I get it.” She folded her arms and settled in to listening to the remainder of Roadie’s speech. “Jeez. Boring presentations make me wanna kill myself.”
Brooks snickered quietly under his breath, and went to say something, but then the red light of general quarters flooded through the room, followed by the wail of a klaxon.
The Last Dawn: Book 3 of The Last War Series Page 12