The Last War: Book 1 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  “And it’s aiming at us,” said Commander Pitt.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bridge

  USS Midway

  “We need to get out of here right now,” said Mattis. “Mister Lynch, status on that scaffold?”

  “Sir,” said Lynch, “we’re still attached. Damage control teams report that they’ve successfully uncoupled scaffold two and are making their way over to scaffold three.”

  They’d unhooked two in a few minutes. That was far, far too slow. “No,” said Mattis. “Have our teams return to the ship immediately. We’ll do this the quick way. Helm, ready all engines ahead.”

  “Uhh,” said the helmsman, a fresh-faced kid who couldn’t possibly be any more than a year or two out of the academy. “Sir?”

  Nobody moved. Mattis’s anger swelled. “Do it!” he roared.

  “C-Charging engines, sir!”

  “Belay that,” said Malmsteen, seeming to find his voice at exactly the wrong time. “I’m in command here, not Admiral Mattis. And we haven’t exhausted our diplomatic options. Commander Lynch, hail those ships again. We can talk our way out of this.”

  No. No, they couldn’t.

  Malmsteen’s in charge, Malmsteen’s in charge, Malmsteen’s in charge… The more he said it to himself, the less credible it sounded in his mind’s ear. Malmsteen’s an idiot.

  Commander Pitt moved beside him, dropping his voice so that only Mattis could hear. “Admiral, look…this is Malmsteen’s first real battle. Mine too. You’re doing it right, but…I know what you’re thinking, and the helmsman knows it too. We can’t just force ourselves away from the moorings. They’re dug in deep in the ship’s hull. We’ll tear ourselves apart.”

  Was there a problem in human history firepower couldn’t solve? “Open fire with our main guns,” said Mattis. “Blast that crap off. Don’t have to get all of it, just enough that we can pull away.”

  “We can’t,” said Pitt, shaking his head. “Those guns don’t have the depression to hit our own hull. By design, Admiral.”

  Good point. Fortunately, they had smaller weapons. “Engage point-defense on the scaffold, then. The autocannons should take care of it nicely.”

  “We can’t,” said Lynch, again, his tone exasperated, still trying to keep his voice down. “The ship’s computers won’t let us fire on our own hull.”

  When had they made that change? Probably part of the refit, bringing the Midway up to modern standards. Modern ships. Always too cautious. “So,” said Mattis, feeling like he was talking to a child. “Override them!”

  “That’ll take hours,” said Pitt. “Our systems are just not designed for—”

  “Strike craft? Can they hit it?”

  “The next wave isn’t out for four minutes, and then they’ll need to land and rearm…assuming, of course, they can even get their missiles to lock on the scaffolding, which, given that it isn’t a hot target, isn’t guaranteed. Their guns aren’t powerful enough, and the missiles’s warheads won’t detonate that close to the hull.”

  Nothing would work.

  “Captain,” said Lynch, turning to Malmsteen. “I’m reading a massive buildup of energy around the lead ship, and they’re pulling in the mass closer to their hull.”

  “They’re loading their gun,” said Mattis. “We have to get out of here. Right now.”

  “Hail them again,” said Malmsteen.

  It hadn’t worked the first three times, it wouldn’t work now.

  Options. There had to be a way… None of their own guns would work; they were all too smart, too new. They needed something either old school, too old to care if it was being shot at by itself, or they needed some other kind of gun. Guns that wouldn’t care about shooting their hull.

  Lightbulb. Mattis touched his ear. “Shao, you still on the line?”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  “I’m about to make your day.” He picked the cigar out of his breast pocket and chomped down on it. “You still carrying those ten-inch cannons? The ones that couldn’t penetrate our hull during the battle, but heavily damaged all our outsides?”

  “If you’re here to remind me of past defeats, Admiral, this is not a good time—”

  “Believe me, I’m not.” Mattis ran his tongue over the back of the cigar. “Captain Shao, hear this: Our undocking procedure is fucked up. We’re stuck on the scaffolding. On my authority, I need you to open fire on the USS Midway with your ten inches, targeting the scaffolds until we’re free. How copy?”

  “Oh, that’ll be my pleasure,” said Shao, a little too quickly, and he could sense that, perhaps, it really was. “You know how to make a woman happy, Admiral.” She switched languages to Chinese, which, strangely, his earpiece translated almost instantly. “Bring the guns online, target the scaffolding pinning the USS Midway! Free our comrades!”

  The ship began to shake, a pounding reverberating through the bridge like distant rain on a tin roof. Every monitor linked to external cameras lit up, glowing an angry yellow. The Fuqing rained fire down on them, blasting away the scaffolding, each shell a fiery streak leaping through space that burst against the hull in a way that was both familiar and, strangely, more terrifying.

  The barrage ceased. “Midway,” said Shao in his ear, “you are now clear. I hope it was good for you, too.”

  Flirting? In the middle of a pitched battle? “Seems like your shells stung a bit more than I remember,” said Mattis. “Have you been giving them upgrades on the sly?”

  “Oh,” said Shao, “of course. I just assumed you would have upgraded your hull to match.”

  Well, no time to consider it. They were scorched, cooked, but they were free. The tangled, blasted remains of the scaffolding hung limply in space.

  “The lead ship is preparing to fire,” said Lynch, staring at his monitor. “The mass has been fully loaded within the ship!”

  “Clear moorings!” shouted Mattis. “All engines full ahead! Now!”

  And then, with a white flash, the hostile ship fired.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lt. Patricia “Guano” Corrick’s Warbird

  44km from Friendship Station

  Two versus forty. There was just no way…but in the heat of the moment, Guano had nothing to think about but the next second ahead of her.

  All they had to do was last for six minutes. Three hundred sixty seconds. No worries.

  Spinning and turning, like a swarm of angry hornets, the hostile craft descended. They were thin and angular, covered in sharp spines and protrusions, asymmetrical and oddly shaped as though grown from crystals.

  “Bravo-2,” said Roadie in her ear, “break on my mark. Three, two, one… Mark.”

  She cut her engines and yanked back on the stick. The Warbird pitched upward, spinning on its axis, the g-forces crushing her into her seat. She heard Flatline grunting, gasping behind her until the craft leveled out, its nose pointed to the enemies. Silver engine wash streamed over their craft.

  “Weapons free,” said Roadie. “Engage at will. Light ‘em up.”

  She thumbed the master-arm switch to live. The hum of her weapons-lock radar filled the cockpit, but there were so many fighters. “Which one do I shoot?” she asked, eyes flicking between dozens of identical craft.

  “Doesn’t matter!” shouted Flatline. “Just fire!”

  Good tone, solid lock. She squeezed the trigger, her Warbird’s airframe shuddering briefly as the missile leapt off its railings and darted toward the enemy, a white plume behind it. “Fox three,” she said, almost a fraction of a second too late. “Missile away.”

  “Fox three,” said Roadie, as a single missile flew away from his craft.

  She switched targets and shot again, loosing another missile on her right side. “Fox three,” she called, “missiles away. They’re going in, they’re going in…”

  Her twin missiles continued to accelerate, each a little yellow dot on their radar. Silver engine exhaust splattered against their canopy, and through the mist, she saw an
angry golden flash as her first missile detonated against the hull of the enemy fighter. The strange craft, its surface splintered like shattered glass, broke into a dozen fractured pieces, spilling atmosphere as secondary explosions engulfed it, blasting the fragile-seeming craft into millions of pieces. Barely a second later, her second missile hit home, blasting another bandit into shards.

  “Splash one,” she said, a sudden surge of excitement rushing through her. “Splash two.”

  “Good hits, good hits,” said Roadie. “Swing and a miss for me, no joy.” One miss for him, and two hits for her. Good.

  The swarm of ships, undeterred by the loss of two of their kin, descended on them. Red streaks of fire leapt from the spines on their front and sides, bursts of hyper-accelerated mass. Guano kicked out with her left foot, flooring the rudder and opening the throttle, pulling out of her own engine wash and into clear space.

  Something struck the rear of her ship, screaming as it tore through her hull and out the side.

  “We’re hit,” said Flatline, his voice tight. “Dammit, they clipped the starboard side of the hull.”

  The craft still maneuvered. Still flew. “I’m good in the front,” said Guano.

  “Looks like it missed everything,” said Flatline. “Good in the back. ECM active, guns are ready.”

  Guano alternated her feet, fishtailing the ship back and forth as red streaks zipped past her cockpit. There were so many. “Ready for another couple of shots?” she asked.

  “Damn straight,” said Flatline. “When we’re winchester on long-range weapons, bring them into guns range. I wanna punch them on the nose.”

  Guano spun again, and pointed her nose toward two more fighters. Flatline locked them up and she squeezed the trigger. “Fox three.” Once again a missile leapt out, but this time, the engine spluttered out after barely a second, the missile tumbling end over end uselessly. She saw a smoking hole on one side as it fell; the missile had been damaged when her ship had been raked by enemy fire. They were lucky it hadn’t exploded.

  One left. This would be the last of their radar-guided missiles. After that, they would have to close to dogfight range. “Fox three,” she said, “winchester on long-range missiles.”

  “Acknowledged,” said Roadie, “fox three, fox three, fox three.” A ripple-fire; he was dumping all his remaining long-ranged missiles at once, obviously confident.

  Or desperate.

  The missiles streaked out, all four of them, but this time, the hostile craft were not easy prey. They fired their red streaks, high-velocity masses clipping the missiles, defeating each of them in turn. They burst into yellow flashes, too far away from their targets, each futilely spraying shrapnel in every direction, too little, too far away.

  Well, shit, she thought.

  “Well, shit,” said Flatline.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” said Roadie. There was the briefest pause, then he spoke again. “Bravo-2, close to dogfighting range. Engage, engage, engage.”

  “Tally,” said Guano, hoping it wasn’t the last radio transmission she ever sent. “Going in.”

  She opened her fighter’s throttle and roared toward the hostile ships, Roadie on her wing, and in the back seat, she could hear Flatline’s breathing pick up.

  “You okay back there?” she asked tepidly.

  “Yeah,” said Flatline, his voice shaky. “L-Let’s do this. Let’s go.”

  The red streams of the enemy fighters spun in a corkscrew as they drew closer and closer.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bridge

  USS Midway

  The lead hostile ship fired and, almost faster than the human eye could see, its massive payload streaked across open space, splintering and breaking apart from the forces exerted on it, forming thousands of tinier missiles that bombarded Friendship Station all at once.

  A deafening howl stole every sound, tonnes of metal dragging on tonnes of metal as Friendship Station came apart, millions of pieces of debris scraping across the Midway’s hull. The blast wave of her erupting reactors tilted the ship on its side, and everyone was flung into the far wall.

  Mattis landed on something softer than he expected—something squishy and human, not hard steel like a bulkhead—and then Ramirez landed on top of him, blasting the air from his lungs. Entirely by instinct, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight.

  The lights went out, plunging the entire room into utter darkness for a terrifying second, blacker than space outside, and then slowly, flickering, groaning, emergency power came on.

  Artificial gravity reasserted itself over inertia and everyone slid off the wall, down to the ground.

  “You okay?” asked Mattis, forcing air into his lungs. He was too old for those kinds of maneuvers, far too old… The wheeze in his lungs was unbecoming.

  “Yeah,” said Ramirez. She was white as a sheet, her hands shaking, and blood ran freely from her crown, framing her face in red. “I think. I feel kind of dizzy. What happened?”

  “We got blown up,” said Mattis simply.

  “Damage report,” groaned Commander Pitt, but nobody was close enough to their stations to comply.

  Mattis, harnessing the stubbornness that had carried him this far in his career, dragged himself up to his feet. As he did, Ramirez looked past him, to whatever he’d hit on the way down.

  Captain Malmsteen, his neck twisted at a horrid angle, almost completely around on his shoulders, the skin broken, blood pouring from the tears and forming a pool on the corner of the bulkhead.

  “Don’t look,” said Mattis. He offered his hand to Ramirez, an offer he retracted when he saw it was covered in blood. So was his back. Wet. Damp. The other hand was clean. He offered her that instead.

  Shakily, Ramirez pulled herself up. For a civilian, she was doing very well.

  “Back to your posts,” said Mattis, addressing the bridge with as much strength as he could muster, far less than he wanted and needed. “I want a damage report, just something. Doesn’t have to be perfect.” He stumbled over to Lynch’s console, grabbed it, and touched the ship’s intercom. “Corpsman to the bridge. Multiple casualties.”

  Nobody responded. They were probably inundated with casualty reports.

  Lynch dragged himself up to his console, and Mattis stepped aside. The guy’s arm was clearly broken. It hung at a twisted angle, giving him a second elbow. His skin was white as a ghost. Shock.

  “We’ve lost hull integrity in several sections,” said Lynch, his words slurring together. “Damage repair crews are…dealing with it.”

  “Friendship Station?” asked Mattis, although he knew the answer.

  “Gone.” Lynch shook his head, dazed, and kept reading. “The, uh…the outer docking arm detached and hit the rear of the ship. We’re down to maneuvering thrusters only, no sublight propulsion. One of our long-range radars is out, but the other’s fine. We’ll lose some target fidelity, but we’re not blind.”

  Without engines, they were stuck here—but if he hadn’t powered down the Z-drive, the whole thing might have gone critical. Probably would have. “Okay,” he said, taking stock of their options. “So we’re boxing. We can’t shift our feet. One eye’s swollen shut. We can dodge, a little, but… we’re bleeding. Backed into the corner of the ring. Can we hit back?”

  “Weapons are operational,” said Lynch. “More or less. Some of our point defense cannons are damaged, but the screen will hold. Guns, missiles, torpedoes…all good to go, Admiral.”

  He hated stressing an injured man, but he had to. “Commander Lynch, select a target and open up on them. Everything we got, don’t be shy.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Lynch, obviously struggling. “Punching in the targets now. They’re…all around us.”

  “Good,” said Mattis. “That simplifies things.” He took a deep breath. There was a certain advantage in being outnumbered: the ability to fire freely without hitting their allies. “Mister Pitt, status on the Fuqing?”

  “They’re
engaging, sir,” said Commander Pitt, “but they, too, have suffered damage. They are transmitting firing solutions for us.”

  “Good. Use them.”

  “Weapons ready, sir,” said Lynch.

  Beaten, bloody, but still standing, the Midway wasn’t out of this fight yet. “Fire.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lt. Patricia “Guano” Corrick’s Warbird

  39km from Friendship Station

  The hostile fighters descended on her, their weapons flashing angrily, sending red streaks across space, each one a piercing lance trying to blow her to pieces.

  Not today. “Guns, guns, guns!” She squeezed the trigger, strafing one of the fighters, her cannon rounds blasting huge holes in its upper structure. The craft belched smoke, drifting lazily past her cockpit.

  Behind her, Flatline opened up, his rear quad-cannon sending shells streaking across space, finishing the craft in a fiery explosion. Her ship’s computer played a generic explosion sound behind her as a situational awareness cue.

  “Got him,” said Flatline, energy surging into his voice. “I nailed him!”

  Three down in just a few minutes. “Nice shot,” said Guano, pulling the ship around. Debris plinked off the hull, deflected by the thick plating.

  “Yeah,” said Flatline. “But we got hit before. Cost a missile, and there’s damage to the hull.”

  He needed to stop complaining. “I know,” she said, swinging her nose around. She pulled to the starboard, a nimble enemy fighter pulling out of her guns arc just in time.

  “We’ve used our long-range missiles,” said Flatline. He really needed to stop complaining. “And we’ve got less than a thousand rounds of ammunition for two sets of guns. Even with a computer guiding the rounds, and the short-range missiles we have left, there isn’t enough ammo to go around.”