Last Man Out (Poor Man's Fight Book 5)

by Elliott Kay

  Naomi’s eyes slid sideways to look at her. “Did you actually do all of your own work on my assignments?”

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, Brent. I couldn’t tell you anything.” Alicia stopped cold in her tracks to get it out. Marines from First Platoon hustled past carrying weapons and gear across the hangar bay. She needed to keep up, but this was more important—even if it got her reamed.

  Brent had plenty of his own tasks to handle, too. He blinked in surprise at Alicia’s apology, glancing left and right like they always did to make sure they weren’t drawing attention. “Okay,” he said. “Um. Now?”

  “Now I don’t even have time to start,” she grumbled.

  Hurried people with urgent tasks swarmed the hangar bay. With the ship already in FTL, vac suits and combat gear had replaced all the dress uniforms. The corvette St. Catherine sat in the middle of the bay for load-up and launch, with Beowulf’s shuttles waiting to slide into their own spots. Marines rushed to load them up. Half the deck crew pitched in, if only to get the jarheads out of their way so they could finish readying for launch and setting the hangar to battle stations.

  Alicia would be on one shuttle with First Platoon. Brent would be on another with Second. She didn’t want to lose her chance.

  “I still don’t know what I can say. Admiral Branch looked at me and muttered something about cats and bags and walked off with those Fleet people. And Ambassador Young just nodded and flashed his fingers like this.” She held up her index and middle fingers in a V. “What does that even mean?”

  “I dunno. I don’t speak ambassador,” said Brent.

  She looked to her shuttle. The lieutenant hadn’t seen her yet, but it was only a matter of time. “I’ve been carrying this around forever. And I hated not telling you.”

  Brent made a face. “Okay. You had a bunch of ‘training missions’ you couldn’t talk about. It turns out I’m a marine, too. I knew what that meant. Did you have an affair with an alien?”

  “What? No!”

  “Then what do I care if you couldn’t tell me some state secret bullshit?”

  Her jaw dropped. She waved to the middle of the hangar bay, now lacking any alien visitors. “That was kind of a big deal, Brent. Did you see anyone else get called out by a giant space birdman with—wait, are you fucking with me?”

  “Little bit, yeah.”

  “God damn it,” she sighed. “I’ve been carrying this around for years.”

  “Probably not supposed to tell me details like that,” he said.

  Alicia frowned. His lack of anger or suspicion sank in with relief, but then he had to layer that relief with annoyance. “Go babysit your morons in Second,” she grumbled, already back in motion.

  “Love you,” he said as they passed.

  “Love you, too.”

  She was nearly at Shuttle One before Lieutenant Torres appeared. He stopped halfway down the gangway, slipping around the line of deck hands and marines passing boxes of power cells for their weapons. “Miss Wong, are you all set?” he asked.

  “Good to go. How can I help? Need another hand in the line here?”

  “Stow your gear at your seat and then check for comms traffic. Make sure nobody sent any new orders in the last few minutes. Then see if the squad leaders have done a combat load check on all their guys. Two of them are new at this.”

  “Yes—er, right,” Alicia corrected. She wasn’t supposed to call him “sir” anymore. One more thing to remember.

  Nobody sat in the rows of chairs running the length of the shuttle’s interior. Everyone had a job to do. Alicia squeezed past a couple of marines at the aft end of the shuttle to get to her chair. She racked her laser rifle in its harness and set her backpack in the rig behind the chair.

  In most of her combat deployments, Alicia hadn’t carried a backpack at all. Almost none of her engagements during the war involved concern about resupply. Her experience tended toward raids and defensive actions. The Archangel Navy almost never tried to take and hold ground outside its own territory. Nobody knew what to expect this time.

  She supposed that might explain the extra stacks of power cells for everyone’s laser weapons near her chair. A familiar crewman worked to secure the cases against the bulkhead. He wore a little more in the way of personal gear of his own than when she’d first met him, including a combat jacket and leg protection. “Hey there, Mendez,” she said. “You coming with us?”

  “No way. No, ma’am,” he said, correcting himself once he’d glanced back at her. “I’m on shuttle training all week. Bo’sun Chambers says it’s still this week, so here I am. I’m not on the shuttle crew, though.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Alicia. “Once things get crazy I’m sure you’ll find something to do.”

  “You think it’ll get crazy?”

  “I hope not. But we haven’t heard anything different from the old man.”

  * * *

  “We’ve been using the flag bridge mostly as a training room since this patrol began,” said Admiral Branch. “It’s not identical to the command bridge, but it’s got all the same stations. Seemed silly to let it go to waste.”

  He guided Khatri and her command staff through the passageways at a brisk walk, satisfied now that everyone was fitted out with borrowed vac suits. Everyone had a helmet ready to go. The Fleet visitors hardly looked any different now from Beowulf’s crew.

  “Will it take any time to convert back to full operation?” asked Khatri.

  “We’re already on that, ma’am,” said Commander Hernandez. She walked one step behind the two admirals. “Most of it is done. The outgoing watch section is on hand to get your staff oriented to systems.”

  “They’ll stick around in case things go to hell, too,” added Branch. “The back-up systems aren’t only for training.”

  “Of course. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Khatri.

  “Yeah, I’d rather not go through that shit again,” Branch muttered.

  Unlike other operational spaces in the ship, the flag bridge presented a setting of measured serenity. Heads turned at the call of “Admiral on the bridge,” but only a handful of personnel stood. Most stayed at their positions. At a word from Khatri, her staff fanned out to the astrogation and communications centers. Branch escorted her over to her chair, promptly vacated by another Archangel officer.

  “Admiral Khatri, Chaplain Corleissen,” said Branch.

  “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” said Corleissen with a warm smile. “I’m not sure of the etiquette for passing a training post to a functioning command, but the bridge is yours.”

  “Thank you.” Khatri raised one eyebrow. “I’m not used to seeing a chaplain in the chair. Aren’t you a designated non-combatant?”

  “A non-combatant can still steer a ship out of danger, ma’am. If the enemy won’t let me do that we’ll have an unpleasant conversation about it.”

  Branch grinned. “We like to keep a deep bench on this team. Chaplain, you’re relieved.”

  “Thank you, sir. Ma’am.” The chaplain stepped away.

  “Aw, hell,” Branch remembered. “Shit. Hold on, I’m gonna need somethin’ to say.”

  Admiral Khatri looked up from perusing the chair’s controls. “Excuse me?”

  “We’re zoomin’ off toward some crisis. Probably combat. Everybody’s getting ready. I’m supposed to say something encouraging to the crew. It’s a ‘best practices’ thing.”

  “The Naval College of Archangel handed this down a few months ago,” Commander Hernandez added helpfully.

  Branch jerked his thumb at his ops boss. “Yeah, what she said. Anyway, you got anything good?” he asked the chaplain.

  “’Greater love hath no man,’ maybe?” Corleissen suggested.

  “Yeah, that’s good. Always a chunk of the crew that loves Bible stuff.”

  Khatri looked to Hernandez. “Bible stuff?” she asked under her breath.

  “Catholicism is really more of a cultural heritage tha
n a societal practice, ma’am,” the ops boss explained quietly. “Plenty of us go to church, but religious zeal is mostly a stereotype.”

  Branch keyed the mic on the chair, then flicked it off with a frown. “Isn’t that kinda grim?” he asked the chaplain.

  “It’s inspirational. It offers resolve.”

  “That’s fair.” Branch took a breath to consider his words. He flicked the mic on.

  “All hands, this is the captain. By now you all know where we’re headed. This isn’t a drill. We’re on our way to aid a Union planet under attack by an unknown alien force. We don’t know how ugly this could get. What matters is our obligation to our brothers and sisters, whatever planet they’re on. A lot of bad press out there has people doubting our loyalties. We’ll put that to rest today. The Bible tells us, ‘Greater love hath no man or something.’ So let’s do it. Captain out.” He flicked off the mic.

  Chaplain Corleissen sighed. “God damn it, Todd.”

  “Oh, whatever. Everyone who cares can fill in the rest. I’ve got battle prep shit to do.”

  Hernandez glanced to the visiting admiral with her lips pressed tightly together. “The Navy also has a strong tradition of interstellar blasphemy, ma’am.”

  “And loose standards of military etiquette, I see,” said Khatri.

  “Might have somethin’ to do with how the head of the Navy treats the chain of command like a game of hopscotch,” Branch muttered back. “People can complain about that the day she stops winning wars, y’know? Anyway, we better figure out how to win this one.”

  * * *

  “I don’t recall appointing you to my command staff, Malone.” Dylan turned her scowl back to the wall screens. “You’re not part of my intelligence section, either. You’re an informant. Not a very good one, either, if you sent all that material off-planet rather than bringing it in.”

  “I’m sorry, did you already have a list of recommendations from your command staff and your intelligence section?” Tanner looked around the room. Faces lit up by display screens stared at chaos and mounting losses. Some spoke urgently to troops under fire. Others tried in vain to reach disconnected units. “Do you have a meeting scheduled?”

  “You’ve given us a target. That’s all we need. I still have air units, including two corvettes. We can end this from orbit.”

  “The Noonies and the Kroks couldn’t,” said Tanner. “Even if that door is wide open, the cave is too deep and too winding for a missile blast to make it all the way through. Not unless those corvettes are packing nukes. You got any of those?”

  She didn’t answer. He wasn’t surprised. Only the Fleet and a few of the more ridiculous system militias had such weapons. They weren’t worth the trouble, even for ship combat.

  “If you drop a corvette strike on that canyon it’s only going to tell the bad guys you know where they came from. They’ll work harder to finish this fast. And you’ve got all your guys up and fighting already, right?” Tanner stepped closer, looking at Dylan rather than the screens. “This hasn’t even been going on that long and look where we are.”

  “My people are in it now. They’re fighting back,” said Dylan.

  “How long until help gets here? If that shuttle gets to Qin Kai and if the Fleet is ready to go, how long until they show up? Four hours at the earliest? Five?”

  He thought she’d come back at him with another insult. Or ignore him, or have him thrown out. Instead, her eyes narrowed. “Depends how soon that shuttle can jump to FTL,” she said. “And how far into the system they go before dropping out again. Five is too generous. More like six if we’re lucky. And we don’t know how much they’ll send.”

  Tanner pointed to the digital map of the city on the wall screen. Checkpoints flashed in red. Icons identified fires and blackouts. “Six hours of this.”

  “I get your point,” Dylan grunted. “It’s still a gamble with forces I don’t have to lose.”

  “I can do it with one squad if they’re good.”

  “You? What makes you think you’d be going?”

  “I’m the only one who knows his way around.”

  “No, you don’t. You only saw a limited part of the base. You said so yourself.”

  “It’s more than any of your guys have seen. I know the target. You’re short on guys and I’m qualified.”

  Dylan crossed her arms over her chest. “Every gun I send out is a gun I don’t have to defend the city,” she said. “This is already taking all we’ve got.”

  Rather than press further, Tanner waited. Her tone had shifted. The reflexive objections were gone. She was thinking. He’d been there once or twice.

  “Major, we’ve got the Rapier passing over us now,” announced a voice. “Point-to-point laser signals connected… oh my god.”

  The wall screens blinked first with a visual of a corvette passing under the clouds. Another screen split off to carry the corvette’s communications. The ship’s crew didn’t bother with face-to-face video. They had more important images to share.

  The city sat near a coastline, gone dark from one end to another but for the orange and red glow that flooded its streets. Lava spewed into the air from cracks all throughout the urban landscape. Tall buildings buckled and collapsed into the flood, some quickly, others with a slow but unavoidable death. Even those few buildings to remain upright still burned with fires rushing through their interiors.

  “Base, this is Rapier. We flew over Southpoint. It’s gone. Can you see this? Please confirm!”

  “How is that possible?” Dylan breathed.

  “What’s…how many people…?” Tanner asked.

  “Seven hundred thousand. My god.” Dylan blinked away her shock. “Give me audio. Rapier, base. We confirm.”

  The ship’s crewman was already speaking. “…more trouble incoming. We’ve got at least ten starships overhead now. Identity unknown. Destroyer and cruiser-sized. We can barely touch them with an active scan, but they aren’t human.”

  “The Minoans had ships of their own,” said Tanner. “Maybe they’ve had these in hiding?”

  “Damn it, if they’ve got guns on us from orbit we are completely fucked,” Dylan seethed. “Why haven’t they hit the corvettes yet?”

  “Unidentified aircraft,” called out another specialist. She stood from her seat, looking back to Dylan and Conroy to make sure she’d be noticed. “We’ve got unidentified aircraft coming out of the mountains to the northwest. Tracking is spotty but confirmed. At least a dozen.”

  “Are they headed here?” Conroy interrupted, walking over to her.

  “No. They’re headed up.”

  Spotty, grainy composite images appeared on a new inset screen in the wall. Though the vessels shared a similar aesthetic with the boat-shaped aircraft already seen in action, these were fully enclosed. Within seconds, the vessels disappeared into clouds filled with ash, but estimated trajectories outlined the spread of their paths.

  “Those aren’t carrying troops,” said Dylan. “They’re carrying crew. Rapier! Rapier, this is base. Those ships may be unmanned. We see crew transports heading for them. Engage and destroy as—”

  A wide yellow ray of light cut through the corvette. The screen carrying Rapier’s laser communications link went blank. Audio from the ship died with the same speed, ending with a sharp rush of static descending into silence.

  Tanner looked away. He clenched his fists, forcing himself to keep his eyes open and pointed at the computer consoles and the people all around. Nobody here wore a vac suit. Nothing bore any symbol of Archangel.

  He didn’t feel the lurch of deck plates under his feet. Didn’t think of how cold space could be or catch himself gasping for air that wasn’t there. Didn’t shake. Didn’t see Morales or any of the rest when he blinked.

  He kept his eyes open rather than take chances. Not until this moment passed and he could latch onto the next.

  “Was that ground fire or something from orbit?” came Dylan’s cold voice.

  “Ground fir
e, major,” said another specialist. “We’ve got a rough position.”

  “Then it’s not from those ships. Yet.” Dylan turned to Tanner. “One squad?”

  “And a ride out there, yes,” said Tanner. “The faster the better.”

  “You might be a guide, but I’m not putting you in charge. Are you going to follow orders and work with my people?”

  “I want to get out of this alive with everyone else, don’t I?”

  “Yes or no.”

  “Yeah.”

  Dylan turned to her lieutenant. “Ellis, I need a squad from Bunker security with full combat load. Get them out in the lobby and ready to load up on the Vanguard in three minutes. Juntasa, let’s get Malone his weapon back and find him some more ammo.”

  The woman with the sergeant’s stripes and the sniper rifle disappeared through the command center’s exit. Conroy passed along Dylan’s other order with a nod to a specialist. “Fighting in the city is picking up,” he noted as he turned back.

  “The insurgents should be pitching in if they weren’t already,” said Tanner. “They’ll focus on defending civilians. That’s the deal.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said Dylan. “Ellis, send word out to treat the insurgents as friendly for the duration. Put everything we’ve got into holding our ground. If our other corvette turns up, get them low to the ground and put them on close air support.”

  “You’ve got it,” said Conroy.

  “We’re likely to lose communications as soon as we take off. Don’t wait on me for any judgment calls. And if Geisler turns up, hog tie him and lock him in a closet.” With that, Dylan turned to leave.

  Tanner walked beside her, his eyebrows raised with surprise. “You’re coming with?”

  “Like you said, I’m short on qualified people. Conroy can run a holding action as well as I can. I’m not sending anyone out on a mission I wouldn’t take myself. Even if it’s suicide.”

  “Huh.”

  Her eyes slid sideways to look at him. “What? Didn’t you come here looking for soldiers?”

  “I figured this would be as close as I could get,” said Tanner.