The Last War: Book 1 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  That seemed fair. They headed toward the core of the station, Operations and the CO’s ready room.

  “So,” he asked, “what flinty old warrior have the Chinese dragged out to man this…Friendship Station?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, and right as she did so, Admiral Yim stepped out of the CO’s ready room, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand and a tablet in the other.

  Mattis froze, hardly able to believe it. The man had barely changed in twenty years; he still had the same stubble on his chin, baby fluff, the same round face, the same tall and broad frame. The only difference was the gray that had crept in around his hairline.

  “Ah! Here he is,” said Ramirez. “Admiral Mattis, it’s my pleasure to introduce you to your counterpart, the CO of this station, Admiral Yim.”

  Admiral Yim.

  The man who’d killed his brother.

  Chapter Four

  Lt. Patricia “Guano” Corrick’s Warbird

  Guano stared at the flashing amber light on her fighter’s console in disbelief, half expecting it to disappear, like the whole thing had been a bad dream.

  Then she realized Flatline was screaming at her.

  “Hey! We need to get the fuck out of here! Wake up! Corrick, wake up!”

  Her hands wouldn’t move. Her feet wouldn’t move. All she could do was look at the blinking yellow light and the approaching green dots on her radar.

  Then, all of a sudden, everything started moving again.

  Guano opened the throttle with one hand, jamming the stick into her gut with the other. “Flares!” she shouted as the g-forces pressed her into her seat. “Chaff! Decoy them!”

  Flatline’s fingers thumped on the keys in the background. “Working. Break right! Turn and burn!”

  She yanked the stick to the right, the inertia tugging at her skin. She thumbed the radio button. “CAP 1-1 transmitting in the blind guard, we are buddy-spiked. Bearing 113 mark 201 from station. Abort, abort, abort. I say again: abort, abort, abort.”

  The Chinese said nothing. The amber light continued to flash. The three craft split up, like an opening hand getting ready to grab them. Crush them.

  What was she supposed to do? Fire back? The thought flashed into her head, her eyes falling on the master-arm switch that would move her missiles from safe to live.

  “CAP 1-1 transmitting in the blind guard, I say again, buddy-spike, buddy-spike. You are engaging a friendly craft. Acknowledge!”

  They didn’t.

  They couldn’t keep turning like this. Flatline was right; the Chinese fighters were able to accelerate better. She had to do something…

  She dumped another load of chaff and flipped her ship, drifting backward, her nose pointed to the closest Chinese vessel. She fishtailed, swinging her ship left and right, and flicked the master-arm switch. The hum of her weapons-lock radar filled her ears. Positive target on the main bird. But there were three of them. If she shot, the survivors would shoot back. That was no good.

  The Chinese could accelerate faster than she could, but her side-thrusters were more maneuverable. She could turn better. She needed to play to her strengths.

  Jamming her throttle to one side, she flung her ship perpendicular to them and accelerated, a maneuver called a reverse hook-stop. The spacecraft’s frame shook around them as the lateral forces strained the Warbird.

  Come on, hold together…

  The Chinese tried to turn with them, but their great acceleration was their undoing. They overshot, and in seconds, Guano’s nose was pointing toward their engines, the infrared-guided system locked on all three of them, humming eagerly.

  “Light them up,” said Flatline, gasping for air from the turning. “Shoot those motherfuckers!”

  She almost did. Her finger hovered over the fire button, but instead, she chose the radio. “Midway, CAP 1-1, be advised. We have been radar-locked by Chinese fighters. Have secured an advantageous firing position. Request permission to engage.”

  “Shoot them!” said Flatline urgently. Already the Chinese fighters were beginning to maneuver out of their perfect firing position. “Do ‘em!”

  The voice of Major Muhammad “Roadie” Yousuf, the Commander of the Air Group, her boss, came through on the line. “CAP 1-1, Midway: Priority alert, weapons safe, do not engage. I say again, you are not authorized to fire on any Chinese vessel at this time.”

  “Shit!” she spat. The Chinese fighters turned, repeating her maneuver exactly. Now they faced each other once again. “Midway, they’re still maneuvering for a shot. CAP 1-1 once again requests permission to engage.”

  “Hard pass on that engagement, CAP 1-1. Do not fire.”

  She ran her thumb over the fire button. So close. She could almost feel the missiles begging to leap off their racks and fly toward their targets…

  “This is bullshit,” said Flatline, and she couldn’t help but, at least a little, agree. So tempting.

  “CAP 1-1,” came Roadie’s voice, suddenly much more stern. “Make immediate heading to Midway and RTB. Switch master-arm to safe. Acknowledge, over.”

  The Chinese were right there, and she had a perfect shot, but…orders were orders. “Acknowledged, Midway, CAP 1-1 is RTB.” She tapped her master-arm switch, flicking it to safe, and broke off the attack. If the Chinese were going to shoot, they had ample opportunity, but as her craft pulled away, she could almost hear the three of them laughing at her back.

  Flatline let out a loud sigh that came across as more of a crackle over his microphone. “What the hell?”

  “Yeah,” said Guano, “how did a playful race come to that?”

  “Everyone’s on edge,” said Flatline.

  No kidding. Guano made the final turn through the black, the edge of the Midway appearing from behind the station.

  “CAP 1-1”, said Roadie. He sounded pissed. “You are clear to dock in the main fighter bay. Once complete, power down, and you and your gunner are to report to my ready room immediately.”

  “Shit,” said Flatline, his tone bitter. “Well, I hope you weren’t considering a long and proud career in the military either.”

  Chapter Five

  Friendship Station

  Mattis could barely feel the breath moving in his lungs. Time seemed to slow down. Yim, standing right there, coffee in hand, heading to a duty shift as though it was just an ordinary day. His chest was littered with a wall of medals.

  Yim smiled professionally and turned to face him. “Good evening, Admiral Mattis. Welcome to Friendship Station.”

  Bastard probably slept like a baby. Guilt free.

  Mattis’s mother had come home to two uniformed officers asking to come in, with a US Military car parked outside. As a military woman herself, she knew what that meant. The woman was gray, ancient, and had to be held up as she heard the news her firstborn son had been slaughtered in a meaningless death light years away from home.

  They never even had any remains to bury.

  “Admiral Mattis?” said Yim, his face scrunching up in confusion, eyes briefly flicking to Ramirez and then back to him. “Are you okay?”

  Mattis couldn’t look at him with anything other than hardness. Anger. Yim had been the commanding officer, and as always with the military, the buck stopped with the CO. This was his fault.

  Mattis forced words out. “My apologies,” he said, barely able to pass the sounds through his lips. “I was…thinking of something else.”

  “Happens to the best of us,” said Yim, somewhat unconvincingly. He turned to Ramirez. “What can I do for you both?”

  “Actually,” said Mattis, stealing the conversation back, “you did quite enough during the war.”

  “Jack!” hissed Ramirez.

  “Is that so?” asked Yim, sporting a slight, cold grin. “Have we met?”

  “No,” said Mattis, “not us. My brother knew you though. Lieutenant Commander Phillip Mattis. XO of the Saragossa.” He leaned forward, stressing the words. “Saragossa. You know that ship, don’t you?
I wonder which medal she earned you, huh?”

  “This one, since you asked specifically.” Yim pointed at his chest, to one of the medals. “Medal of Naval Achievement. Awarded for contributions in combat. The sinking of an American ship absolutely counted—the medal is difficult to earn—but truth be told, I’m not sure if it was the Saragossa that pushed me over the line.” Yim’s smile widened. “There were just so many.”

  “Who could ever truly know?” said Mattis, but he knew the truth. Yim’s cruiser had broken the Saragossa’s back, her reactors igniting in the cold depths of space. No survivors.

  “Your own breast is adorned with much metal,” said Yim. “I wonder how many Chinese widows you made, how many families you destroyed, how many graves your own hands have dug.”

  Mattis conjured the darkest glare he could. “Not enough.”

  Ramirez audibly gasped beside him. “Admiral Yim,” she said, a diplomatic air coming through like molten cheese. When the diplomat voice came out, she was always pissed. “Please accept my unreserved apologies for Admiral Mattis’s words. The truth is, the war is still fresh in the mind of our people, as I’m sure it is with your own.” She gestured around her, a faint, angry twitch to her fingers, the only emotion slipping through her mask. “This, after all, is the purpose of this station, to mend those old wounds. It is the ancient Chinese who said, A true warrior, like tea, shows his strength in hot water.”

  An interesting attempt to salvage a situation Mattis had no desire or intention to save. “Hot tea, is that what you were in when our ships had yours dead to rights, Admiral? You should thank your tea, or whatever it is that you Chinese do, that that ceasefire was called when it was, because the US forces were about to wipe you out of the sky.”

  Yim considered what he’d said, casually sipping his coffee. “Thank you for coming aboard, Admiral. I doubt we will ever speak again.” He turned his back on them both and headed toward the Operations room.

  “Prick,” muttered Mattis, too low for Yim to hear. Probably. Hopefully.

  Ramirez wheeled on him, all diplomatic pretense gone. She grabbed his arm and practically dragged him into a nearby room. “What the hell, Jack? Are you trying to start a war?”

  Guilt stabbed at him, but he squelched the feelings beneath a steel facade. “Sorry,” he said, unconvincing even to his ears.

  “Sorry doesn’t exactly cut it when there’s just so much at stake,” hissed Ramirez. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “It’s…my fault.” The confession alone hurt his chest to say. “I remember it like it was yesterday. The delivering personnel did the right thing. Professional. They skipped the euphemisms, just like they’re supposed to.” His tone turned blithe. “The manual is quite good. It tells you to be direct. Such things comfort nobody except the one delivering the news.”

  Ramirez’s hard expression softened a little. “Dammit, Jack. I know this is hard for you—”

  “No,” he said, a little harsher than he intended. “You don’t know.”

  A moment’s silence, and he knew he’d really hurt her.

  “Sorry,” he said, more genuinely. “Martha…”

  “It’s fine.”

  Fine. He hated that word. It was a word people said when something wasn’t fine. More silence.

  “Talk to me, Jack,” said Ramirez, softly closing the door.

  Where to start? What to say? He took a breath. “The…Casualty Notification Officer did a good job, you know. And that’s the absolute worst job in the military next to minesweeper. These poor bastards…they know their job is hopeless. They can’t make it better, but an untrained operator sure can make it worse, so they do what they can.”

  Ramirez managed a little smile. “It’s…interesting to me that you speak more about the procedures, the protocols, of this than the actual events.”

  “It’s just how I deal with things.”

  She crossed her arms. “Well, deal with it better.”

  There was the Martha he admired. Strong. He smiled back. “Yeah. I will.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure. Still, Yim’s lucky I didn’t put a round in his gut.”

  “This is his station.”

  “Sic Semper Tyrannis,” said Mattis.

  Ramirez glared at him, and then leaned forward, putting her forehead on his shoulder. “One of these days,” she said. “One of these days…”

  He wasn’t sure exactly what to do. The way she was standing, it just confused things. Made everything all fuzzy.

  A knock on the door broke the tension. “Hey,” came Senator Pitt’s voice from the other side. “Mattis? You in there?”

  Ugh. The two of them in a dark room… This was going to look weird. How to cover this up? How to pretend they were…?

  Almost immediately, Ramirez straightened her back, adjusted her hair, and pulled out her phone. “Sorry,” she called out to Pitt. “It’s me. Just taking an important call.”

  Not bad. Mattis raised a curious eyebrow.

  “Well,” said Pitt, “Mattis has one, too.”

  He was in no mood to talk to whoever Yim had tattled to. “Don’t care,” he said.

  “It’s from someone called Chuck,” said Pitt, sarcasm painting his every word. “Chuck Mattis. Ring a bell?”

  His son.

  “Okay, okay.” Mattis stepped over to the door and, with a groan, pulled it open a crack.

  Pitt, Shao, and the whole group were standing clustered around a phone with a blinking red light. Intersystem communications. Mattis pulled the door all the way open and took the phone.

  “Jack speaking,” he said.

  “Dad,” said Chuck’s voice, a slight tremor in it. “Thank god. I thought you were dead.”

  Why was everyone harping on about his age like this? He glared at Pitt momentarily. “I’m old, Chuck, but believe me, they will send someone to tell you when I finally bite it.”

  “Huh?”

  “Son, talk straight. What’s wrong?”

  The line distorted slightly. “Dad, turn on the news and see for yourself.”

  Chapter Six

  CAG’s Ready Room

  USS Midway

  The printer in the CAG’s ready room spat out paper nonstop, forming a massive pile of reports on Roadie’s desk. Guano wasn’t sure it was ever going to stop.

  “Now,” said Roadie, taking a deep breath and leaning over his desk, “perhaps you two irradiated, dopey, inbred, defective, bowlegged, ugly, clusterfucked, soup-sandwich, mutated, kitten-shitting, half-baked, slack-jawed, pathetic, muppet-faced worthless hunks of weak-minded, indiscreet, shit-dicked, nut-sucking, dimwitted, completely ass-backward, messed-up, sister-kissing, defective, similac-chugging, piddlyshit, senseless, ass-dragging, malformed, penguin-fucking, subnormal, numbskulled, imbecilic excuses for utterly useless space garbage will be so kind as to explain to me what the fuck got into those tiny hunks of gristle you call brains, or should I just shoot myself in the dick because the pain of hearing you speak will be less painful than trying to magic up the brainpower to comprehend whatever fuck-fuck game you shitbreathers were trying to play with our Chinese friends?”

  “No excuse, sir,” said Guano.

  He jammed a finger at her. “Do you want to start a war, dummy-number-one?”

  “Sir, no sir,” said Guano.

  The finger turned to her gunner. “What about you, dummy-number-two?”

  “Sir, no sir,” said Flatline.

  “So, neither of you drooling morons want a war,” said Yousuf, leaning so far forward she thought he might fall over. “Either of you got anything to say for yourself?”

  For a moment, neither of them said anything.

  Then Flatline finally spoke up. “You said defective twice, sir.”

  “Damn right I did! You know why? Because you two are the biggest pieces of absolutely stupid, dumb, empty-headed, flat-chested, dirt-eating—”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said Guano, although some part of her was curious just how long he
might have gone on. “It was my idea. We wanted to engage the Chinese fighters in a friendly…” Race would be a bad word to use. “Impromptu test of our spacecraft’s acceleration parameters when compared to our new allies’ craft, under battlefield conditions. And it got out of hand.”

  “Out of hand?” Roadie slammed his hand down on a stack of printouts, his fingers quickly buried under newly arriving paper. “Look at this shit! I have complaints pouring in from eight sectors. All official. Theirs and ours. You won’t believe who is signing these. The goddamn President is going to have her eyes on these reports, dumbo. Do you understand me? I have to write a letter about this to the President. Of. The. United. States.”

  It had gone that far? Guano risked a glance to Flatline. His jaw was hanging open.

  “Close your goddamn mouth, Wiley!” roared Roadie. “It’s not raining dicks!”

  “S-Sorry, sir.”

  “You will be.” Roadie took another long, deep breath, but instead of another torrent of abuse, his words came out much calmer, more measured. “You two legitimate fuckups will be assuming the duties of the cleaning staff of this good vessel with regard to the pilot’s ready room for a year, specifically by making sure that every single inch of this pig sty is clean enough for me to eat my breakfast on each and every duty shift, which you better believe I fully intend to do. Am I in any way unclear, wankers?”

  “No, sir,” they said in unison.

  “Good,” said Roadie. He closed his eyes for a moment, took another calming breath, and then, when he opened his eyes, his voice was back to normal. “They can really burn fast, can’t they?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Guano. “Fast. Faster than us. And they’re brave…fearless, really. They locked us up like they were saying, come get some.”

  Roadie seemed to digest that. “They were pushing the boundaries, but…that’s the behavior of someone who’s hurting. Scared. Frightened. Those who speak the loudest fear the most.” He tapped his finger on his desk. “Means they aren’t trying to start shit… They’re afraid we will.”