“Will do, Admiral.”
“Very good. Dismissed.”
Lynch bit his lower lip. “Um. Sir, there was one more thing that I was supposed to tell you.”
Not good. “Proceed, Commander.”
“Well, sir, it’s just…” He held out a tablet with a response from the fleet on it. “GBC News wants an interview. Apparently details of the battle have leaked out, and people are panicking. To calm everyone down, they want an interview with you, just, you know, to reassure the public that this is being taken care of. They’re paying fleet HQ top dollar, and since we already have one of GBC’s representatives on board, HQ figured it would be…easier.”
Ramirez. He had to give an interview with Martha. Mattis stiffened his back. Not again. “I’m not going to talk to her.”
Lynch squinted. “You rabbiting from a reporter, sir? After all that’s happened?”
It was different. “Reporters and I, Lynch, we have…history.”
Lynch leaned back in his chair, looking past him. “So I heard, you know, through the grapevine. But, unfortunately, HQ demanded, sir. So I think you’re going to have to get through it somehow.”
Great. Just great. “When’s the interview?”
“Uh, now, sir.” Lynch pointed over his shoulder.
Mattis twisted in his chair. Behind him, a film crew with cameras stood in the corner, their arms full of equipment. He hadn’t noticed them come in. “On the bridge?”
“It’s, uh, dramatic. It evokes a feeling of power and authority. And that the situation is well under control.”
Well, that would explain why the whole bridge had been cleaned. “Don’t suppose,” he said, turning back toward Lynch, “there’s any way I can order you to get me out of this?”
“Sorry, sir,” said Lynch, shrugging helplessly.
“Right. Well, at least make sure someone brings me coffee. Black and bitter, like my soul.”
“Aye aye, sir. I’ll make it happen.”
It took the crew several minutes to set up. Assembling a light here, placing a microphone there, and endlessly testing the camera. At any other time, in any other place, it would have been less infuriating. This was his work office. His command seat. His ship was essentially helpless while he spoke to reporters, and he was itching to chase down the rest of the alien fleet.
His eagerness was tempered by the realities of his situation. The smart play here was to wait for reinforcements and repairs. They had pushed their luck. Too much, and they would break. Having a pair of frigates at their side, even if they were small, would be extremely useful. More targets to shoot at, more guns to shoot back. Those little frigates were fast, too. Maneuverability counted.
Didn’t mean he liked it at all.
Finally, Ramirez’s team were ready, and she pulled up a chair opposite him, a too-bright light shining in his face.
“Okay,” said Ramirez, smiling her reporter smile. “Just try to answer the questions as naturally as you can, Admiral Mattis.”
Yes, this is totally natural. “Of course.”
“Okay.” Ramirez held up her fingers. “Uplink is good? Good. Okay. We’re live in five, four, three, two…” She cleared her throat and almost became another person.
“Good evening. I’m here on the bridge of the USS Midway, a United States warship, and I’m joined tonight by the Commanding Officer of that ship, Admiral Jack Mattis.”
A red light blinked on the camera that was pointed at him. He squinted in the glare, trying—less than successfully—to smile.
“Admiral Mattis, what can you tell us about the situation out here?”
What could he tell her? He didn’t want to spread rumors that he couldn’t verify, but he’d given a few press interviews in his time. He had two strategies to avoid giving out information. No Comment his way through it, which was a dick move, or just give indirect non-answers.
“Miss Ramirez, as you well know, this is a very difficult and unusual situation out here in border space.”
“Certainly,” said Ramirez, her face locked into reporter mode. “Although we’re looking for something a little more specific.” She knew what he was doing. “What can you tell us about Friendship Station?”
“Well,” said Mattis, “as I’m sure you’re aware, that station is no more.”
“A tragic loss of life,” said Ramirez. “It went down with all hands, is that correct?”
“That hasn’t yet been confirmed,” said Mattis.
Ramirez would know a dodge when she saw one, but for reasons unknown to him, let it slide. “And what can you tell me about the force that attacked it?”
“They’re certainly unlike anything we’ve seen before.”
“In what way?”
The heat from the light made him sweat. Was it normally that bright?
Ramirez was trying to make him say they were aliens, but he wasn’t falling for it. “Well, we haven’t encountered those ships before, in any service on Earth.”
“Do you think they’re from Earth?”
Ah, now they were getting closer.
“Their origin is unclear at this time.”
Ramirez blinked, affixing him with a deathly glare that melted away the instant the camera flicked back to her. “How would you describe the battle at Friendship Station?”
“We took what the defense gave us, and responded to their play accordingly.”
“So this is a game to you?”
Mattis folded his hands in front of him, giving her a thin smile. “Chess grew out of war. Almost every game we play is essentially ritualized combat. War is a game, Miss Ramirez. We play to win.”
“But—”
Mattis cleared his throat. “Miss Ramirez, I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t give vital information to reporters, lest the whole GBC network start printing it everywhere they can. This is an active combat zone and—”
“Thank you very much for your time,” said Ramirez, cutting him off with a smile, her teeth ever so slightly clenched. “That was Admiral Mattis, Commanding Officer of the USS Midway. I’m Martha Ramirez from GBC News, good night.”
The light, mercifully, flicked off.
“What the hell was that?” hissed Ramirez. “You’re being a jerk. Do you really think the people of Earth are going to see that interview and go, oh, that Jack Mattis guy, he’s so great!”
“What?” asked Mattis. “You can’t honestly expect me to go on national TV and tell the world that there are aliens attacking border stations, do you? After what happened last time?”
“Yes! Yes, I do, Jack! The public has a right to know this!” She affixed a withering stare to his face. “I know I was out of line during the war, but I was young and I needed a story. That little titbit got my foot in the door—”
“And put my crew at risk,” said Mattis. “Dammit Martha, you should have known better. If you’re going to describe a ship as heavily damaged, the damn reds are going to hunt it down to finish it—”
“That didn’t happen!”
“That time.” Mattis folded his arms. “But damned if they didn’t try. I won’t make the same mistake. Not again. Too much is at stake.”
“Well,” said Ramirez, shaking her head, “you should have said something. Everyone’s blaming the Chinese.”
“It wasn’t the Chinese,” said Mattis.
Ramirez stood and put her hands on her hips. “I know that, you know that, and you needed to tell the galaxy that. You could have just said it wasn’t the Chinese, Jack. That’s all you had to do.” Without another word, she stormed off the bridge.
That could have gone better. Mattis sat back in his chair as the film crew awkwardly packed up the lights and cameras around him.
“Admiral,” said Lynch, when he had a moment. “The Hamilton and the Revere are dropping out of Z-space. The Somerset is expected in the next few minutes.”
“Good,” said Mattis.
Now they had a fleet again.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
B
ridge
USS Midway
Now there were three of them. The Revere and the Hamilton were sleek, fast frigates—tiny ships bristling with guns. The Somerset, however, was a squat, fat pig of a ship that was designed for only one purpose: getting equipment to where it was needed. As tempting as it was to keep that ship with them, she was barely armed and couldn’t keep up with the faster warships. Once her supplies were transferred off, she would depart.
“Admiral,” said Lynch. “Captain Katarina Abramova of the Hamilton, Captain Michael Fisher of the Revere, and Captain Caitlin Salt of the Somerset are all on the line.”
The Midway was popular today. “Patch me through,” he said, adjusting his earpiece.
“Well, well, well,” said a woman with a thick Russian accent. Must be Abramova. “Guess who’s the most popular man in space right now?”
Mattis blinked. “Surely you can’t mean me.”
“She ain’t talking about me,” said a man whom he presumed was Fisher. “Everyone’s talking about you, Admiral. Admiral Mattis and the Midway, the lone ship out on the edge fighting the alien menace. Or the red Chinese menace—some disagreement on that point.”
“Well,” said Mattis, “you should know we were, at one stage, a massive ultra-modern space station and the Chinese flagship. Admiral Yim stepped out of that ship onto Friendship Station, and it was the last thing he ever did. Captain Shao took command of the Fuqing, and she’s a bunch of free-floating atoms right now.”
“Nice pep talk,” said another woman with a clipped English accent. Captain Salt. “I feel so inspired.”
“Just being realistic about the situation,” said Mattis. “There’s a lot of death out here and not much glory.”
Salt spoke up. “It seems unlikely that the loss of the Fuqing is in any way your fault.”
“You can delegate authority, but not responsibility.” Mattis sighed. “I have my share of the blame, I suppose.”
“Well, fortunately for you, I’m not here to judge you. I’m simply here to drop off some new toys, and then I’m off.”
Abramova spoke up again. “So Admiral,” she said, “they really are aliens?”
He nibbled on his lower lip. “We don’t know what they are. All we know is what we’ve sent you. We’ve been unable to board their ships and investigate them, and our lone victory evaporated, so we don’t have anything left of it.”
“Very well,” said Abramova. She sounded vaguely disappointed. What stories had they been telling her? Been telling the population of Earth?
He felt vaguely bad. He probably should have treated Ramirez’s interview with a little more gravity. She had called for openness. Maybe that was wise. Maybe…
Maybe he just felt bad for upsetting her. He’d been a dick. It was the news scoop of the millennium, and he’d shat on it for her.
“Admiral?” asked Abramova.
“Sorry,” he said, “I was, uh, taking a report. Say again?”
“I was asking if the Z-space tracking you’ve been using is accurate.”
This was an annoying question. “It has proved effective so far. It allowed us to follow and destroy a light cruiser.”
“A man after my own heart,” said Salt. “Amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics.”
Spoken just like the CO of a supply ship. Mattis was about to contribute more, but his comm flashed. “Excuse me, Captains, my chief of engineering wants to speak to me. Hold please.” He switched channels. “Very important call, Modi.”
“Very important information, Admiral.”
Mattis was coming to see that Modi’s way of speaking was something that required getting used to. “Concerning?”
“The position of the enemy fleet,” he said. “According to Lynch’s predictions, the fleet should be well ahead of where they are. But instead, they are behind.”
“They’re…slow?” He didn’t want to repeat this conversation. “Hang on.” With a switch, he merged the two calls. “Ladies, gentlemen, Commander Modi, the chief of engineering on the Midway.”
“Greetings,” said Modi. Was he the alien that everyone was talking about? Who said greetings?
“Mister Modi, please relay to the good captains what you just told me.”
“The position of the enemy fleet,” he said, in exactly the same tone he used earlier. “According to Lynch’s predictions, the fleet should be well ahead of where they are. But instead, they are behind.”
“What Mister Modi is trying to say,” said Mattis, “is that our predictions about the enemy fleet were wrong. We’ve just discovered that their top speed is slower than anticipated.”
A brief moment of silence as the group digested that.
“Good news, I take it,” said Fisher.
“Seems like,” said Mattis. “Means we can wait for more reinforcements before they get too far away for us to track.”
“Speaking theoretically,” said Modi, his voice flat, “it’s possible that this is a side effect of the energy drain that Earth had a problem with while trying to develop cloaking tech. It might be effecting their engines.”
“Cloaking technology?” said Abramova, Fisher, and Salt at the same time.
Mattis scowled. “It was in the briefing I sent through,” he said.
“No, it wasn’t,” said Fisher.
Mattis saw Lynch trying to catch his eye, frantically. “Excuse me again, Captains. Modi, please bring the captains up to speed with what we’ve learned.” He muted the connection. “Yes, Lynch?”
“Admiral. The enemy fleet has changed course.”
“To?” asked Mattis.
Lynch didn’t say anything for a moment. He might have been afraid to, as though speaking the words would make them real.
“Earth.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Bridge
USS Midway
The four ships leapt into Z-space, stressing their engines to the maximum, trying to make up for lost time.
Earth.
The cradle of humanity. The home of everything his species had built. Every king, every tyrant, every doctor, every scientist was there. Every father, mother, every child. For good or bad, Earth was everything.
“Damn,” Mattis said, for the thousandth time since Lynch had told him. “Damn.”
The Somerset fell behind, unable to catch up. Salt had pledged her ship to the fight, even though it was essentially a freighter with a single light cannon on it for plinking at bothersome asteroids. Still, the quiet, reserved Englishwoman’s courage was not lacking. She had pushed her engines to the limit, but pluck and courage could only account for so much.
Four ships became three. The remainder sped on, steel arrows in space, racing toward Earth.
“Sir,” said Commander Pitt. “Due mainly to some creative overwork of their engines, the frigates USS Spearway and USS Able report that they will probably be able to rendezvous with us before we arrive at Earth. Unless their engines give out.”
Always a risk when pushing their hardware. “If they make it, they make it. We could really use them. If not, we’ll manage.”
Lynch shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “And how exactly are we going to manage this, sir? Best case scenario, we are five ships. There are eleven of them, and they’ve likely rearmed their mass driver by now.”
That was a problem. “We’ll fight until we can’t fight anymore. Worst case scenario, we’ll just have to hope we soften them up enough that Goalkeeper can finish the job.”
Lynch didn’t seem convinced. “Goalkeeper hasn’t been tested. There’s a reason why there are still ships protecting Earth.”
The reasons behind that were more complicated than a simple untested weapons system—said reasons were geopolitical in nature—but he didn’t need to go into it. “I know. But I’m not trusting the lives of our whole species to an automated defense network, you hear me? Fancy guns and torpedoes and missiles, all run automatically. To alleviate…diplomatic pressures. That’s a great way of saying, h
ave our entire world defended by a thing we don’t even know works.”
“No argument from me, sir,” said Lynch. “I don’t trust that thing as far as I can throw it, and given how much it weighs that’s not very far at all. When it comes to a brawl, I’d trust my fists before anything else.”
That was basically how he felt. He returned his attention to the readouts in front of him. Analyzing the capabilities of the Revere and the Hamilton, running the plays over and over in his head. They would drop out of Z-space as close to the enemy fleet as they could. Launch as many of their strike craft as they could. Try to target the alien fleet with focused fire, as they had before, and have their strike craft attack their engines.
And then, eventually, be overwhelmed.
There were ships guarding Earth. And there was Goalkeeper. But none of those elements could be counted upon. The political situation on Earth was tense. The Sino-American War was twenty years past, but relics of history remained, and there was no way to be sure that the ships in orbit would stand beside one another and put their own lives on the line, that they would view the ships of competing nations as allies, and that nobody would try to exploit the situation for their own gain. Because no nation would ever do that. No way.
“Admiral,” said Commander Pitt. “We’re receiving a communication from Earth.”
Direct? Well, that would be refreshing. “Who is it?”
Commander Pitt’s face was a mixture of excitement, worry, and anticipation. “The President of the United States would like to speak to you.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Senator Pitt’s Quarters
USS Midway
What a joke. This whole thing was a joke. This mission, this ship, this commander. An unfunny joke.
The Last War: Book 1 of The Last War Series Page 15