The lead enemy ship collided with a mine. There was a flash of some kind of energy in the high ultraviolet spectrum, and then a powerful, invisible force crushed the ship as though a giant had stepped on it from behind, leaving it a broken, crumpled hulk.
That seemed to get their attention. The remaining ships halted, blasting away at the approaching mines, slowly cutting their way through the encroaching swarm.
“That should stall them for a bit,” said Mattis. “But keep shooting. Whittle them down as much as we can.”
Nearly ten minutes later, three more of the ten future-human ships had been crushed like aluminum cans, and another had been heavily damaged, and the remaining five ships pulled out, seemingly unsure of what to do.
Would they retreat?
Unlikely. But if they didn’t retreat, fighting was all they had, and five to two was still no contest.
Time to give them what they came for.
“Hail the lead ship,” said Mattis. “Open channel, all frequencies, no encryption. Just send it out to all listeners.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Lynch. “Channel open.”
Mattis cleared his throat. “Attention enemy fleet, this is Admiral Jack Mattis of the USS Midway.” He paused for emphasis. “You want Spectre? He’s all yours.”
Slowly, inexorably, the future-human fleet stopped where they were, guns pointed menacingly toward them. That, he figured, was what would have to pass for a yes.
“Put that annoying British shit in a shuttle,” said Mattis to Lynch. “Go with him to the hangar bay. Make certain he gets onboard—automated pilot. No humans, no risk. Let’s finish this once and for all.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chrysalis, Low Orbit
USS Midway
Corridor
Spectre walked, dressed in a spacesuit, his legs draped in heavy chains. Marines and Commander Lynch lead him toward the hangar bay.
“Hey,” said Lynch, glaring at him. “You really are a peace of shit, bless your heart, ain’t you?”
He said nothing, just continued to stare down at his hands.
“I’ve always wondered about this,” said Lynch. “It seems some people are born right out of Satan’s asshole. They just … come out wrong, you know? You strike me as one of those people.”
Again, Spectre said nothing for a moment, then finally he spoke up. “You know they’re going to kill me, right?”
Lynch snorted. “You looking for sympathy from me, boy? You ain’t getting none. You caused everyone a great deal of trouble, and a lot of people—good people—died because of it. If I had my way I would have just shot you, but it’s nice that we had you as a bargaining chip.”
They had arrived at the shuttle, and the marines shoved him up the ramp.
“Yes,” said Spectre, glumly. “I suppose that is true.” He sat down on the bench outside the cockpit. Lynch stood over him. “If you know it, and I know it, can I have a final request?”
Lynch narrowed his eyes. “I’m not about to whip you up a steak, if that’s what you mean.”
“No final meals for me, thank you. No. There is one small detail which I believe you’ve overlooked.”
Lynch eyed him disbelievingly. “And that would be…?”
“My datapad. You really think those things out there are tracking me? As in, bodily? My person?”
Lynch demurred. “Well….”
“Fine. Believe what you will. Good day, Mr. Lynch.” He closed his eyes and leaned back against the bulkhead.
He heard Lynch swear, and moments later, he heard a thud from the floor.
“Burn in hell, you freak,” said Lynch, walking out the hatch. It closed behind him.
Specter cracked an eyelid and glanced at the floor.
The datapad.
“Thank you, Mr. Lynch.” He picked it up, and checked for any final messages from his research assistant, Janet Sizemore. There it was, and just in time.
Latest test more promising. Code attached.
He looked up from the message, and out the front viewport towards the advanced ship the autopilot was taking him to.
And smiled.
The shuttle groaned slightly as, presumably, the future-human ship’s gravity beam caught it and began dragging it in.
Finally, the slight tremor stopped and everything was still.
“We have arrived at our destination,” said the ship’s computer, in its smooth, polite, masculine voice. “Please disembark through the forward loading ramp.”
Spectre stood up, straightening his back. “Well, old chum, this is goodbye.” He reached out and touched the ship’s hull. “Thanks for the lift.”
A speaker mounted on the wall crackled. “This is good riddance to bad garbage,” came Lynch’s voice. “Adios, amigo.”
“Ta ta,” said Spectre, as the loading ramp at the back of the shuttle opened. “Goodbye, automated shuttle.”
The machine, somewhat predictably, said nothing. It just sat there waiting for him to leave.
So leave he did.
The hangar bay of the future-human ship was pressurized, as he expected, and there, waiting for him, were a pair of them. They were so … beautiful, in their own grotesque way; the pinnacle of human evolution, the absolute peak of humanity’s genetic potential. So strong and deceptively cunning.
“Ugly mother fuckers, ain’t they?” came Lynch’s voice from the tiny speaker. Obviously he could see … somehow.
“Haven’t I taught you anything?” said Spectre, over his shoulder, as he walked down toward the creatures. “Appearances aren’t everything.”
He walked down the ramp. Behind him, it rose up and sealed, and then the shuttle lifted off, engines roaring as it slid out of the hangar bay—the atmosphere being held in by artificial gravity, giving the automated US Navy shuttle a clear run out to the stars.
“Hello,” he said.
Almost as though on cue, the future-humans advanced on him, hands outstretched, their faces distorted in fury.
Spectre only smiled. He carefully turned the tablet around so it rested on his palm—a difficult task with his shacked hands—and then, swiping left a few times with his thumb, bought up the menu.
The future-humans, hissing loudly, stepped up to him, their faces enraged and twisted with fury. Hatred.
“Shh, shh,” said Spectre, touching the button labelled override. “No need for such incivility.”
The creatures stopped, frozen completely. For a brief moment they just stood there, then the anger left their faces and, suddenly calm, they relaxed completely.
He held up the shackles. “Remove these without harming me.”
The creature, obediently, reached toward him, took hold of the chain, and snapped it. A few links fell off, tinkering onto the ground.
“Stand aside,” said Spectre.
The creatures did so, moving away from him without complaint.
It actually worked. “Well now,” said Spectre, tapping idly at the buttons on his device as he wandered off toward the airlock that lead toward the ship’s bridge, “that was worth all the trouble it took to get here, wasn’t it?”
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chrysalis, Low Orbit
USS Midway
Bridge
Mattis watched the shuttle return with a grim sense of satisfaction.
“And they definitely took him?” he asked Lynch, for the second time, as the tiny ship pulled into the hangar bay.
“Absolutely sure. They didn’t look too pleased to see the guy, either—like they were going to just tear him to pieces the moment the shuttle left. Which it did. In a big hurry. Guess even computers get rattled sometimes.”
Well, that was something at least. “They haven’t left yet,” said Mattis, an air of caution creeping into his voice. “The hostile ships. They’re just … sitting there.”
“Sir,” said their communications officer. “We’re receiving a transmission from the enemy fleet. Audio and visual.”
Visual? This mi
ght be a chance to see inside the enemy vessels. He nodded his head. “Put it through. And patch in Abramova, too; I want her informed about what’s going on.” He paused. “And Modi, too, so we have his eyes on the internals. I want him to absorb as much as he can from what little, I’m sure, they’ll show us.”
The main monitor flickered and, upon it, appeared Spectre, flanked from behind by two future-humans. Immediately, his smug, arrogant face dashed any hope that he was genuinely a prisoner there.
“Good morning, Admiral Mattis,” he said, cheerfully.
Mattis frowned slightly despite himself. “You don’t look like you’re much of a prisoner over there,” he said. “They must be treating you very well.”
“Oh yes,” said Spectre. He raised up his hands to the camera, showing they had no shackles on them. “Very well.”
Anger built up inside him, threatening to spill over. A niggling worm whispered in his ear that he had been played, manipulated into standing in this very place and in this very situation. “Very well,” said Mattis, forcing himself to keep as calm as possible. “You’re obviously free. Why are you calling me? Just to gloat?”
Spectre shrugged playfully. “Oh, nothing so distasteful as that. Just a few loose ends to tidy up.” He clicked his tongue several times, as though thinking about some difficult problem. “Admiral, I’ll be frank with you; I want your ship. Hand it over to me, or I will destroy it.”
Matters raised an eyebrow. “Your bargaining posture seems fairly weak,” he said, “despite the lack of handcuffs. Assuming you have full control of the hostile fleet—well. We have our guns. We have the mines. The rest of the US Fleet knows we’re here—reinforcements are only a matter of time. Every second you spend here your position decays and mine strengthens. So … no.”
Spectre almost seemed to genuinely consider that, eyes flicking to something off screen for a moment, then back to the camera. “Tell me, Mister Mattis, is Mister Lynch listening to this conversation?”
Mattis and Lynch exchanged a brief glance. “You know he is.”
“And what, pray tell, did I say to him right before I stepped off his quaint little shuttle?”
There was a brief pause, and then Lynch spoke up, his voice strangely curious. “Appearances can be deceiving?”
“Exactly,” said Spectre, snapping his fingers. He casually drew a pistol, showing it to the camera, then he put it to the head of the grotesque mutant creature beside him. The creature—vaguely human—didn’t move, just stood there, and Spectre pulled the trigger.
Messy. Mattis didn’t blink. “So I’m guessing you’re running the show over there. What is this designed to prove? That you have total control of those … things?”
“You are a good guesser,” said Spectre, beaming widely. “In fact, this whole fleet is now mine. You see, in the future, the governments of the world decided that humans having free will was … inconvenient. A design flaw in the schematic of the species. So they fixed it. Biological impulse within all of them, a kind of natural computer if you will, turning them all into fearless, obedient, perfect puppets. And now I control the strings.”
Mattis wasn’t sure he believed even a single word of that, but Spectre’s display was … disturbing.
Modi’s voice came through his earpiece, static-y and tinny, as though the microphone was some distance away from his mouth. “Sir, I am receiving a very faint signal emanating from outside this system. It’s coming through on a military frequency, but it’s … low powered. Almost deliberately so. It doesn’t even have a message, just a faint pulse.”
He knew what it was. They called it a flashlight; an extremely weak signal focused in a narrow beam, designed to evade enemy detection disguised as background radiation. It could be used to send rudimentary Morse Code, but was more commonly used as a simple signal: We are here.
They had reinforcements en route. Nearby. What exactly they were… he couldn’t say. But it was something. Something reassuring.
Mattis had to stall them. “Why do you want my ship?” he asked. “You surely must be aware that this is a US Navy asset and quite expensive. I’m not going to turn it over to you because you say so.”
“Actually,” said Spectre, absently, “I could care less about your rusted, ancient, beaten-up piece of shit you call a ship. All I really want is the Chinese engine upgrade you so carelessly managed to mention, several times, when you were in my presence. If you could turn that over, I’m certain we could arrange for you and most of your crew to go free. Except Commander Lynch, of course. He and I … well.” Spectre chortled. “I have taken a personal dislike to him and I would greatly enjoy some private time with him to resolve our differences, if you’d be so obliged.”
Mattis snorted dismissively. “That isn’t going to be possible. I’ll never turn Lynch over to you, or any of my crew. I would rather die.”
“Oh come now,” said Spectre, smiling knowingly. “You and I are both aware that your ship is heavily damaged. I also know that your other ship is also heavily damaged. I know that you considered turning me over to your enemies to be your absolute last resort. And it has failed. Now you face the full might of this advanced fleet with me at its head, and I … well. I know too much about you. I’m too smart. I’m too, frankly, brilliant. You and I both know that there is only one way that this ends. I will have your ship. Your guns will damage my ships, your mines will whittle us down … but your advantage before was that the former crew of this ship did not want to harm Chrysalis. I, personally, don’t care much for that rock. In fact, I’ll more than happily bombard it from afar, well out of the reach of your guns, and your mines—mines which will just as surely attack any reinforcements you conjure up.
“Interesting, isn’t it, that your first line of defense would also be your undoing. A wall that keeps attackers out also keeps the defenders in. You’re not keeping me away with your Chinese-made relics … you’re keeping yourself exactly where I want you.”
Stall him. Keep stalling him. “Is that so?”
“Correct. You see, Admiral Jack Mattis, you may be able to dodge incoming fire easily enough, but an asteroid… well. They aren’t known for their agility, shall we say.” Spectre extended a hand, hovering it over some unseen console. “Do you need a demonstration of my willingness to do this?”
“No,” said Mattis, genuinely. “I believe you on that front.”
“Good,” said Spectre. “So it comes down to this. No tricks. There is nothing you can do about what is about to transpire, so let’s just … avoid all the bloodshed, yes? You give me what I want, and I will promise you—swear on my life—that I will let you and your crew, including Commander Lynch, free.”
“And what is that?” asked Mattis, glaring at the screen. “The new engines?”
“Specifically, yes,” said Spectre. “I would like them now … but, as discussed, I will allow you and your crew to disembark to Chrysalis before I take it.”
“No.”
Spectre smiled just a little. “Are you sure that’s wise?” There was a slight pause. “Is Captain Abramova of the Hamilton listening? Lovely little Russian thing, I’m sure you know who I mean. First generation immigrant—a pure patriot. So rare these days. I want to know if she can hear me.”
Something about the way Spectre was … describing … the XO of the Alexander Hamilton sent a cold chill down his spine. “No,” said Mattis, his tone guarded as he lied. “She is not.”
“Good,” said Spectre. “Because if she was, I’d ask her if she’d managed to stop for her scheduled resupply at the Jovian Logistics and Supply depot in the Aussie System. Let me just check if she did….” he tapped a button on his device.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, a wail of alarms, including the proximity alarm, filled the bridge. The radar operator’s voice shouted over the din. “Admiral Mattis, the USS Hamilton just … exploded.”
A wave of debris pelted the port side of the Midway, pieces of the former warship clanging off the armor plating a
nd bashing against the side of the ship, digging in deep. The ship rocked violently from the impact, then settled down to an ominous quiet.
Spectre’s finger hovered ominously over his device. “One of the advantages of being the kind of person that I am is that things often work out the way I want them to. Because I plan. I think ahead. More than you could ever, ever know. And consider, Admiral, there are two buttons on my little toy here. One was for the Hamilton. Care to guess which the other is for?” Spectre’s finger did a little wiggle.
Snarling, Mattis balled his fists and then, slowly, let them relax. Spectre was insane. A madman—he was many things, and a liar was not one of them.
There was no point sacrificing everything. Not yet. He just needed to buy them more time … something he couldn’t do if his ship was in pieces.
Mattis ran through a mental calculation. How long it would take to evacuate the ship versus engage Spectre’s fleet, potentially damaged or crippled.…
It was too much of a risk.
“No,” he said. “We accept your terms. Give us time to evacuate, and the Midway is yours.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chrysalis, Low Orbit
USS Midway
Bridge
“All hands, all hands, this is the Captain speaking. Abandon ship. I say again, all hands, abandon ship. This is not a drill.”
Mattis gave the command he, and every other commander, hoped to never give. The most dreaded, the most hated, command in the US Navy. “Commence evacuation proceedings immediately. All shuttles in the main hangar bay, prepare for emergency launch, and to receive personnel from sickbay and command staff. Escape pods and shuttles are to make their way to Chrysalis, where we will rendezvous and await pickup. I say again, this is Admiral Jack Mattis, CO of the USS Midway. All hands, abandon ship.”
He looked around the bridge, to the crew gathered there, and nodded firmly. “Take an escape pod,” he said. “Lynch, let’s head down to the shuttles.”
The Last Dawn: Book 3 of The Last War Series Page 26