“They’re getting ready to fire,” said Lynch, his tone charged. “Looks like they haven’t started yet. They probably weren’t expecting us to get here so fast—so we got the drop on the sons of bitches.” Lynch bought up the tactical section of his command console. “Getting ready to engage.”
They could thank their special Chinese engines for that little bit of luck. But they couldn’t play their card just yet. “Hold fire,” said Mattis. “Ready strike craft for launch and open the hangar bay doors, but don’t launch them yet. Prepare torpedoes for launch.”
Lynch stared at him over his shoulder, wide-eyed. As did the rest of the bridge crew.
“We aren’t shooting?”
“Wait for it,” said Mattis, checking his watch. “Hold steady.…”
The future-human ship began to turn. It had felt the sting of their nukes already wouldn’t ignore them a second time—Mattis knew that.
He was counting on it.
“Sir?” asked Lynch, worriedly, as the future-human ship continued to slowly spin toward them, its whole body opening up like a flower once more, revealing the ominous rows of missile batteries within.
“Steady,” said Mattis. “Steady…”
“Sir,” said Lynch, suddenly snapping his attention back to his console. “A ship is moving out from behind the shadow of the gas giant!” He stared at his instruments. “And another, and another. Designating Skunks Beta through Juliet—no, through Kilo.” His tone wavered. “That’s—that’s ten ships, sir. And I’m not reading any transponders on them. No radar, nothing … not even any navigation lights.”
“I know,” said Mattis, letting the edges of his mouth curl up in a little smile. “If they did that, then the future-human ship would detect them as well.” He touched his radio. “Admiral Fischer, please inform your ships to power on and engage at their discretion.”
The future-human ship completed its turn, still far too distant away to fire, but it was beginning its slow advance towards them, fixated on the Midway. Behind it, a US Naval fleet flickered to life, powering on their systems and moving to engage.
“Mister Lynch,” said Mattis, staring intently at the monitor showing the future-human ship. “Fire at will.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Pinegar System
Gas Giant Lyx
USS Midway
Bridge
Gunfire leapt out from the Midway, a barrage of streaks against space that lit up the hull with bright lights as they darted toward their target. Though seemingly fast, the projectiles would take some time to reach their target, given the distances between them.
But their trap had been sprung. Mattis watched with grim satisfaction as their fleet powered up, the ship’s computers flagging them from Skunk to their actual names: ten frigates, lead by their old battle comrade, USS Alexander Hamilton.
“Hail the Hamilton,” he said. “I want to talk to Captain Katarina Abramova directly.”
“Midway to Alexander Hamilton actual,” said their communications officer. “Midway actual requesting to speak to Alexander Hamilton actual on a secure line.”
There was a brief pause. As Mattis watched, their first volley of shots went wide; the future-humans were using their device to deflect them, exactly as he had anticipated.
“Abramova here,” came the thickly accented Russian, down the line. “What is a nice looking man like you doing in a place like this, mmm?”
Mattis couldn’t help but smile. “Good to see you again, Captain. I’d offer to buy you a drink, but you’re Russian; I’m afraid you would put me to shame in front of my crew.”
“Such is the gift, and the curse, of being Russian.” Abramova’s voice was lighthearted. “Admiral, we are all Americans here, we can drink together when this is done. I’ll go easy on you.”
“You’ll have to.”
A brief pause as another wave of gunfire went out from the Midway—they had plenty of shells, might as well try it.
“What can I do for you, Jack?” asked Abramova. “Admiral Fischer was remarkably non-specific about our purpose here. I barely had time to scramble the task force after our resupply at the depot. The Jovian Logistics goons took their merry time on the restock.”
That was good. He appreciated her discretion. “Well, you come in at exactly the right time. You see the future-human ship that’s just floating between you and me? It’s presenting its nice fat backside to you; and while we don’t have the specs for that ship on-hand, if know anything about armor, it’s always stronger at the front weaker at the rear. I’m giving you a prime shot here, so … if you can, say, blow it up, I’d greatly appreciate it.”
“Ahh, Admiral Jack Mattis you really know how to woo a girl.” Her tone changed as though speaking to someone else. “Commander Bourne, engage that target and destroy it. Relay the same command to the rest of the fleet.”
Their second barrage went wide, just as the first one did, but then the rest of the fleet—all those blue dots—fired simultaneously, and a massive storm of explosives and steel leapt across the stars, streaking unerringly toward the future-human ship.
Exactly as Mattis predicted, the future-humans didn’t swerve or in any way attempt to avoid the secondary barrage. It sailed in and then, just like the Midway’s rounds, all the shells were deflected.
“Draw the fleet together,” said Mattis, drumming his fingers on the arm rest of the command chair. “We want to get this blasted ship between us. Pen them in.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Lynch, grinning like a wild man. “I like that plan.”
Mattis raised an eyebrow expectedly. “No witty Texas-ism for me to try and unravel?”
“I’m saving them, is all,” said Lynch. “Don’t you worry.”
He wasn’t worried about that. But as he turned his attention back to the future-human ship, other concerns of their own came through. “I was kind of hoping they wouldn’t chase just us,” said Mattis, watching the ship bear straight toward them, unerringly, its missile bays ready to fire. “Prepare to launch strike craft. Ignore the future-human ship; we already know they can’t hurt it. Instead, target its missiles. That’s their game plan. Let’s head it off before it starts.”
“Sir,” said Lynch, frowning darkly as he looked over his console, “I … I’m getting some really weird readouts from that planet.”
“Little busy right now,” said Mattis, as another volley of fire went out—with both ships accelerating toward each other, the distance had been closed quite rapidly. The wave of fire didn’t quite get deflected enough; the shells bounced off the frontal armor of the ship, nearly half exploding in bright flashes before dying in the cold emptiness of vacuum.
Mattis knew that at that angle, they were unlikely to penetrate, but more worrying was how close the ship was getting. They would be in missile range soon… “Switch to flechette anti-missile,” he said. “And ready torpedoes.”
“They’re ready sir,” said Lynch. “We’re waiting on the fleet.”
“Midway, Hamilton,” said Abramova. “We are thirty seconds away from torpedo launch.”
Thirty seconds. Mattis mentally counted down the seconds. “Fire when ready,” he said.
And then the future-human ship fired, a blossom of its missiles bursting out in a wide spray, all of them turning toward the Midway, bearing down on them, each missile leaving a fiery red trail behind it.
“Belay that.” They needed a better way of dealing with those missiles. “Lynch, adjust the warheads on the torpedoes. Have them detonate in between us and the enemy ship. Use the blast to destroy them.”
“But sir,” said Lynch, “without an atmosphere, there won’t be a shockwave. There’ll just be a flash of heat and energy.…”
His mind churned at a thousand miles a second. “Doing that last time turned half their missiles into duds, and the two nuke hits really hurt them. Maybe the missiles’ electronics aren’t rad-hardened. It might be a weakness of their technology.”
“That might wel
l be it,” said Lynch. “Hitting missiles with nukes is crazy, because everyone protects against it, so they didn’t protect against it. Firing!”
“Torpedoes away,” said Abramova. “Full spread.”
The radar screen got extremely cluttered. Ten frigates, each firing two torpedoes, their ordnance a bright blue cloud angrily racing toward the rear of the future-human ship. The Midway’s own torpedoes raced out toward the incoming missiles.
Silence, as three sets of ordnance moved in space. “Spin up point defense anyway,” said Mattis, his voice quiet. “And fire the main guns at those missiles. Take down as many as we can before our torpedoes get there. We’re likely only going to get one volley, so make it count.”
“Firing,” said Lynch, and the quiet hum of the guns filled the room.
Splashes. Bright lights in space. A billion glinting shards shredded some of the missiles, dooming them to oblivion.
“Impact in thirty seconds,” said Abramova. “Twenty nine, twenty eight…”
The Midway’s torpedoes intersected with the oncoming missiles, and every camera went white.
“Status report,” said Mattis. “Tell me we got ’em.”
Lynch spent a second staring at the radar screen. “Yup,” he said, a triumphant edge to his voice. “We got ’em. Scope’s clean. All vampires are trashed.”
Slowly, the external cameras returned their vision, just in time to see the massive barrage of torpedoes, one by one, slam into the rear of the enemy ship. Once again the screen went white, washed out by energy in almost every spectrum.
And then, as it faded, Mattis expected it would be difficult to determine the effect from their front-on perspective. He needn't have worried. The future-human ship was a rapidly expanding cloud of gas, debris, and secondary explosions; little sparks against the black void.
“Skunk Alpha is trashed,” said Lynch, proudly. “They are super dead. Great plan, sir.”
A cheer went up from the bridge as the elated crew watched flaming pieces of debris tumble end over end in the nothingness.
Mattis relaxed into his chair, his back aching. He realized he’d been sitting up straight, ram-rod straight, for … well. For too long. Not as young as he used to be.
“Uhh,” said Lynch, blinking in surprise. “Admiral, those readings from the moon.…”
Now was a good time. “Give it to me straight, Lynch. What the hell’s going on over there?”
Lynch shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t know,” he said. “It—it just makes no sense. The amount of energy I’m seeing is massive … beyond that which even the future-human ship can use. It’s like that but turned up to a billion. Like we were looking at—”
A flash of blue light cut him off, and the strange moon cracked, broke apart as several sections of the crust lifted up, just like what had happened at Zenith, and then imploded; pulled into itself by some kind of horrible force, the pieces of it tumbling and fragmenting towards the glowing center.
“Oh my god,” said Mattis, staring in horror at the display. “That’s.…”
“That’s impossible,” said Lynch. “Fuck me.”
The pieces of the moon shrank away to nothing and all that remained was a swirling vortex, barely the size of Earth’s Alaska, hovering in space … and behind it, the gas giant, seemingly oblivious to the loss of its moon.
“What the hell just happened?” asked Mattis, but nobody had an answer.
Chapter Forty-Four
Losagar System
Planet Waywell, High Orbit
The Aerostar
Harry Reardon washed his hands in the small sink in his quarters, flicked them dry, then made sure he was composed.
Serendipity … gone.
Some of his best friends had lived there. It was impossible to believe they had all been killed. Smugglers always had a way; they always managed to find some way to survive. Those slimy bastards would have gotten away … definitely would have gotten away.
For sure.
He opened the door and stepped out into the main area. Smith was there, waiting for him.
“Sorry,” he said, “call of nature.”
“Well, you should have let it go to voicemail.” Smith tapped on his tablet, then turned the device around to show Reardon. It was a list of system names. “I have that contact of mine on the line. He found us something we can use. Senator Pitt’s itinerary for the last five years.”
Reardon let out a low whistle, sitting opposite him. “Who’s this mysterious contact you keep calling?” he asked.
Smith just gave a wry smile. “Can’t reveal that,” he said. “The poor guy’s in enough trouble already.”
“I can hear you, you know,” said a voice on the other end of the line. “Just stop talking about me, okay? I’m not exactly thrilled that you got me up in the middle of the night—again—to go on one of your errands. I had to find one of Pitt’s assistants who doesn’t know my face and sweet-talk the information out of them. It wasn’t easy.”
“I know,” said Smith. “But just relax, okay? We’re going to sort this out.”
There was a brief moment of pause, and then the voice dropped to a whisper. “I gotta go.” A green light on the tablet’s screen turned red.
Smith lay the tablet down. “Sorry,” he said. “My contact is a little … skittish right now.”
He could see that. “Senator Pitt’s a powerful man,” he said. “And his son … I guess he’s pretty powerful too, although I don’t know if zombies are, you know, powerful or not.’
“They are,” said Smith. “Typically.”
Reardon blinked skeptically. “You … have a lot of experience with zombies?”
“I have a lot of experience with a broad amount of things,” he said. “You know that.”
“Yeah, but, zombies.”
“That experience come from old films,” said Smith, a little smile that carried just an edge of shit-eating-ness on his face. “So, you know.…”
Reardon groaned. “Okay. Anyway. That aside … what’s all this mean? Senator Pitt, other Pitt dead but not dead, the alien attacks that aren’t alien … what ties them all together?”
Smith opened the timeline of Pitt’s travels and, together, the two of them dove into its contents.
As a raw, unfiltered file there was just so much raw stuff there that Reardon started to get a headache. It showed every last meeting that he’d been to, every Z-space trip he’d made, every planet and system and asteroid he’d visited and the full list of every settled place he’d put his boots on.
But the more disheartened and overwhelmed Reardon got, the more confident Smith seemed to get. His prosthetic eye darted around, drinking in information from the tablet, seeming eager to acquire more.
Eventually, Reardon went and got coffee for the two of them, and checked in on Sammy. When he got back, Smith was grinning like a triumphant little kid who had just solved the puzzle.
“What?” he asked, sliding into his seat.
“Figured it out,” said Smith, showing him the tablet. “Here. Every place Pitt has been, right?” He tapped the tablet. The list shrank considerably. “Now cross-referenced with everywhere that the future-humans have attacked.” Smith mockingly waggled a finger. “But we’re not done yet, because … some of these places aren’t exactly open ports of travel, you know? Like Serendipity.”
“Lovely place,” said Reardon, forcing his tone to be wistful and almost completely failing. “Ahh, memories of gambling away the earnings from a good job.”
“Shame they all died,” said Smith.
Reardon grimaced despite himself. “Looks like their luck ran out. Hazards of the gambling life, I suppose.”
“Right. Well, unfortunately for Pitt, in order for him to have been there, he could only come at certain times. So we can narrow that down even further. And what do you know…” He tapped again. The list shank down to just a few places. “Pretty much six months before a place gets hit, right on the dot, Pitt visits it. Combined
with every place Spectre has been during that time … and I bet he’s there too.”
“Okay,” said Reardon. “So you’re saying … we can guess where he’s going to hit next?”
“Exactly.”
“Where?”
Before he could answer, Sammy’s voice cut over the conversation. “Harry! John! The radar’s screaming about some fighters who are heading right toward us!”
“Fighters?” Harry stared. “What?”
“There’s some kind of black fighters—hard to get a good radar fix. Coming in fast.”
Reardon stood, tilting his head up to talk. “What does it matter if they’re black?” he asked.
“It doesn’t, you idiot! They’re just colored black!” Sammy groaned. “Fine, fine. They’re … ebony.”
“Made out of wood?” said Reardon, patiently, but thumbed towards Smith indicating they get down to the two rail gun turrets.
“No, they’re just … wait, are you fucking with me?”
“I would never.” Reardon pointed down a hatch that had opened up at the touch of a button that was labeled, ‘More Pew Pew’.
“What have I told you about fucking with me?” Sammy was shouting over the comm.
“To not do it.” Reardon took a seat in a firing turret, indicating the other to Smith, and flipped power to the controls.
“Listen, Harold, I told you—”
“Calm down, cupcake. We’re in the turrets. Now let’s show these bastards what happens when you go up against the Reardon brothers.”
Smith tried to power on his turret electronics. Nothing. “Uh … Reardon? When’s the last time you had these things serviced?”
When was it again? Recently? Reardon pulled at his control stick. Nothing. “Well … shit.”
The Last Dawn: Book 3 of The Last War Series Page 19