The Last Champion: Book 4 of The Last War Series

by Nick Webb

  Stammering just a little, Bratta nodded his head. “F-fine. I will. No worries at all. Top form.”

  Smith caught his eye. “I’m going with you,” he said, a firm edge to his tone that brooked no debate. “We have no idea what they’re up to. Even if there are answers there about Jovian’s connection to the missing kids and Chuck’s son and Zombie Pitt and all the rest of the shit going down. To find them, you’re going to need someone handy with a gun, especially if things go tits up. And I have multiple implants which should be useful, should the situation arise.”

  “And you’re going to need fake documents,” said Reardon, grinning like a hunting cat. “And there ain’t nobody in the galaxy who’s better at coming up with convincing fakes than me. Sammy can help.”

  “Help?” Sammy snorted. “Yeah. Help. You mean, do all the work while you take all the credit. Right?”

  Reardon held his chest with both hands as if mortally wounded. “Bro. You cut me. You cut me deep.”

  Chuck coughed. “What about Lily?”

  The mutant? Bratta frowned. “What about her?”

  “I think I’m making progress with her,” said Chuck. “Maybe she could have a part in the mission.”

  “No,” said Reardon.

  “Absolutely not,” said Sammy.

  “Definitely not,” said Bratta.

  Chuck folded his arms defiantly. Interesting. Even though the mutant woman had most likely had all traces of humanity stripped out of her by the creeps at Maxgainz, Admiral Mattis’s son still thought of her as a person. Something that science said she most definitely was not. Her DNA was all wrong.

  Sammy sighed. “Right, well, Chuck—Lily can stay here and watch the ship. And you watch her. I’ll maintain communications and keep my fingers on the gun turrets in case we need them—and…” he looked to Chuck. “Maybe you can help me with that.”

  “Okay,” said Chuck. He looked a little left out.

  Reardon spat out his toothpick and put in another one. That seemed distinctly unsanitary on a spaceship. “A’right,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “Let’s do this thing.”

  Weapons were handed out. Bratta had his shocksticks but he took a pistol reluctantly. Melee weapons were not his speciality. It was a shame his dart launcher wasn’t ready. Next time… next time.

  A fake, plastic-looking ID card was thrust into his hand with his picture on it. No name, just a barcode and a picture. That was okay. The data would be inside it. He squinted, examining the image of himself. His pictures never looked anything like him.

  It would be fine, it would have to be.

  Twenty minutes later, the Aerostar docked at the airlock to the shipyards, and Bratta and Smith lined up at the hatch, ready to depart.

  The loading ramp lowered. Smith confidently strode down it, his steps measured, relaxed and even, just like he owned the place. Like he was mildly frustrated that he was late for some meeting, and that his boss was going to yell at him for it. The perfect employee.

  Bratta took one step forward and stumbled, nearly falling flat on his face. Half jogging, he stumbled down the loading ramp.

  Smith glared at him but, fortunately, said nothing.

  Two private security guards stood at the other side of the airlock, rifles held comfortably in their hands, wearing black uniforms with military-style helmets. No insignia or markings to be seen. Concerning.

  “Identification,” said the guard.

  Smith handed his over, practically oozing frustration and boredom.

  The guard swiped it through a reader. “Thank you, Mister Kade. Welcome aboard.”

  Kade. Kade was a strange name… Bratta didn’t recognize the origin.

  “Identification,” demanded the guard, watching him carefully.

  Fumbling slightly, Bratta turned over his card. Upside down. He rightened it sheepishly.

  The guard scanned it. “Welcome aboard, Mister…” He hesitated, squinted, peering closely at the card. “I’m sorry, how do I pronounce this?”

  Bratta’s chest tightened. The card didn’t have his fake name written on it, he had no idea what word the guy was even looking at.

  Think, think…

  “Just pronounce it like it’s spelled,” he said, doing his best to appear offended. “C’mon, it can’t be that hard.”

  The guard, obviously not wanting to be seen as racially insensitive, hesitated. “Uhh… Purushottam-Narasimhan.”

  Of course Reardon’s documents would be Indian names. Of course they would be.

  “Close enough,” said Bratta, taking the card and, with a huff, stepped past the guard and into the airlock, which began its cycle. As the atmosphere moved from the docking port to the inside of the station, Bratta breathed deeply. That could have gone really wrong.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” he angrily whispered, knowing that Reardon would hear him.

  “It’s easy,” said Reardon. “Purushottam-Narasimhan. Like you said. It’s pronounced just like it’s spelled.”

  “Do I look Indian to you?” Bratta sighed. “I guess I could be adopted…”

  The airlock completed its cycle and the doors opened, letting them in. Smith stepped onto the crowded, spacious mezzanine, and Bratta followed.

  “Okay,” said Smith, looking over his shoulder at him. “Where now?”

  There were guards and people everywhere—workers and janitorial services and food servers heading to their noon shifts. Dozens of doors led off the central mezzanine of the station’s center and Bratta couldn’t help but feel his eyes be drawn to a door nearby with a symbol on it. Teeth biting into a planet. “There,” he said. “Or somewhere like it.”

  “Roger,” said Smith, heading in, Bratta close on his heels.

  If I die here, Jeannie will kill me…

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Patricia “Guano” Corrick’s J-88

  USS Stennis

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  Land. Refuel. Check systems. Re-arm. Have a too-hot cup of coffee with too much sugar from a thermos. Guano practiced combat landings far more often than she had ever thought she would have to execute them, and was glad for that training now.

  With her lips tingling from the heat of the drink, her ship’s computer spat out information. The Stennis retrieved the breaching pod, transferred some crew to the Caernarvon, executed a Z-Space translation, and then the signal came to launch again. With Roadie at their head, Guano and her flight relaunched, their J-88’s leaping back into space.

  The ship had spat them out farther into the Vellini solar system, this time near one of the gas giants. Rather than the black of space, her flight found themselves inside a blue-red tinged region full of ionized gas that seemed luminescent all around their vessels, bathed in the hues of excited electrons that accelerated in the intense magnetic field of Erebus. So thinly spread was this gas that it would have no effect on the operation of their craft, save for the beautiful luminescence which, to Guano’s eyes, vaguely resembled the dawn sky with twilight behind.

  But the planet itself was, oddly enough, dark and forbidding. Deep orange, gray, and red clouds billowed up into dirty, Earth-sized storms. Like Jupiter, but more like its evil twin brother.

  Directly in front of them was a network of metal trusses stretching out over a kilometer of space, upon which hung dozens of ships, both large and small. The station itself was only half-built. Scaffolding encased most of it, and the colorful sheen from the excited nebula gas glinted off the new metal.

  “Neat,” said Flatline, his head seemingly on a swivel, checking out everything.

  It definitely was pretty. “So boss,” Guano said, glancing over her shoulder at Roadie’s spacecraft, the ship lit up blue-red by the glow of the nebula. “What are we doing here?”

  “Standard sweep and clear.” Roadie’s voice was calm and professional, something it usually only was when shit was really going down. “Engage targets as they appear in
and around the station. Simple. Wait for further instruction from up top.”

  The ships all signaled their acknowledgement. The flight sailed toward the shipyards, while behind them, the Caernarvon and Stennis maneuvered into a striking formation.

  “Hey Guano,” said Flatline behind her. “Any idea why the Forgotten split their forces like this? Why two hidden stations? Wasn’t Jovian Anchor enough for them?”

  That thought bounced around her head for a bit. “You’re right,” she said, trying to piece it together while also flying the ship. “They had the Jovian Anchor, but they were also building this new behemoth. The latter thing is obviously more valuable. But they put decoys at the station and—and a skeleton force to defend it. Why would they do that? Wouldn’t it be better to pool their defenses here?”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” said Flatline. “Also, when the hell did the Forgotten get the funds and wherewithal to build a fucking state-of-the-art space station? Shit doesn’t add up.” There was a brief pause where she expected him to continue, but instead he checked his instruments. “Hey. We’re out of formation. Why are we drifting?”

  Drifting? Guano looked to the left. The formation was a significant distance away from them and the shipyards was no longer in her crosshairs.

  “Guano,” said Roadie, aggravation creeping in. “Get back in formation.”

  “Hey!” Flatline thumped on the back of her chair. “Guano! Pay attention! Get back in formation. Get back—”

  She pulled the control stick to the right. A bright yellow flower burst on the starboard side of her ship; a shower of sparks leapt up across the hull as a billion angry bees stung her ship. Then another burst. And another.

  Anti-fighter gunfire.

  Flatline shrieked in panic, stammering something unintelligible. She didn’t have the time to unravel what he was trying to say. Guano threw the ship from left to right and opened the throttle.

  “All ships, all ships,” she said, grunting and straining from the g-forces. “Be advised: trespass, trespass, trespass, unknown gun platform.” More shells burst silently all around her, discharging their deadly barrages in volleys, each one spraying shrapnel out in all directions, creating expanding spheres of death that threatened to envelop her.

  Through the deadly maelstrom, Guano’s ship danced. Twisting and pivoting and dodging, using her speed and maneuverability to sail through the barrage.

  “All ships, this is Roadie,” an edge of triumph in his voice. “I have eyeball on the gun platform. It’s a great big sucker, bearing 001 mark 003. Jutting off one of the gantries, disguised as a construction crane.”

  “I see it,” said his gunner, Frost. “Oh jeez, it’s really big! Damn. Disguising guns as construction equipment. Smart fuckers.”

  It was big, angry, and it was targeting her, out in open space with no cover. They should have been dead. They should have been blown to bits with the first volley. But somehow, her training—and her battle fugue—had pulled her through.

  A combination of intense focus and g-forces made everything go fuzzy until a clipped, British voice cut through the haze in her mind.

  “All strike craft, be advised, bulldog, bulldog, bulldog.” The Caernarvon was firing anti-ship missiles at the gun platform. A volley of silver streams flew past Guano’s ship, alarmingly close, their engines glowing a fiery red and leaving shimmering exhaust trails, shining white ribbons against the red hues of the planetary nebula, and a field of bursting stars set against the blue.

  Everything went fuzzy again, until the missiles impacted the gun platform and everything was still for a moment. Guano’s ship drifted through space, tumbling end over end, until she leveled out her wings and looked back toward the space station.

  For a brief moment, the fading bursts of gunfire and missile exhausts painted an American flag in space before it faded away, leaving only spinning debris and gas trails.

  “Holy shit,” said Flatline, his voice squeaking. “I feel like I should be singing about the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Did… did you position us deliberately to see that?”

  “Would you believe me if I said that I didn’t?”

  The ship shuddered slightly and Guano’s cockpit was filled with chirping and wailing alarms. Her radar lit up with contacts—enemy strike craft. This time, she knew, they wouldn’t be decoys. The gun platform burned in space, its fuel and ammunition reserves igniting, but the Forgotten were far from defeated.

  “Roadie—Guano. I’m seeing a lot of bogeys over there. Suggest we flag them as bandits and tally.”

  Roadie’s reply came through swiftly. “Negative, negative. Guano, be advised, smoke is coming from your starboard engine. All other craft break and engage, weapons free.”

  Being left behind in a battle rankled her. “I can still fight.”

  “Negative. Guano, RTB and put it back. You did good.”

  “Fine,” she said, and turned her ship back toward the Stennis and increasing the throttle as high as she dared, letting her damaged ship slowly accelerate away from the debris field.

  “Might as well dump our ammo,” said Flatline, with a bit of bitterness. “In case we have to come down hard.”

  Good idea. She tilted the nose away from the Stennis and held down the trigger on her guns until they ran dry, then jettisoned her missiles. “Clear your delinker,” she said to Flatline. Automatic guns kept a tiny amount of ammo in their internals which would also need to be dumped.

  Flatline fired the shortest burst, no more than ten rounds. The tiny stream flew out like a pinkie finger, drifting lazily toward the station and the swarm of strike craft zipping around it.

  They traveled for nearly thirty seconds, drifting lazily through space, before the tiny burst struck an incoming ship, each round flashing and bursting so far away she could barely see them. The ship exploded.

  “Were you aiming for that thing?” asked Guano, incredulously.

  “Would you believe I actually was?” Flatline sounded even more skeptical than she felt.

  Guano smiled to herself and idly touched one of the ship’s screens, intending to begin the landing procedure, but something caught her eye in the system logs. A transmission receipt, dated a few minutes ago. A narrowband, microburst transmission that didn’t have a clear recipient.

  She’d sent through a transmission to some unknown party and hadn’t even remembered doing it.

  A voice screamed in the back of her mind that this was not normal, but for some reason, it was barely more than a distant whisper now.

  “You okay?” asked Flatline.

  “Yeah,” said Guano, despite her best efforts to say otherwise. “Just peachy.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Bridge

  HMS Caernavron

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  Mattis, space suit retrieved and returned to the Caernarvon, watched the unfurling space battle with a mixture of adrenaline-fueled energy and helpless frustration.

  It certainly looked like the Forgotten were far more well-funded than he’d thought. Too well-funded. There had to be an outside player, using the Forgotten as a cloak.

  Pitt went into quarantine. Standard procedure. He tried to quell the burning need within him to talk—not just debrief Pitt, but actually talk to him—and focus on the mission at hand.

  “How are the Rhinos holding up?” he asked Commander Blackburn, eyes fixed on her console.

  “They’re doing fine. There were two injuries, both of which are being treated now. As for the others, well, they’re still getting out of their suits. Dismounting from Rhino hardware takes a long time, since the suits are hardwired into their nervous system. Can’t be rushed.”

  That made sense. He’d seen how bulky they were in flesh. Just getting out of his damaged space suit had been hard enough. “I can imagine,” said Mattis, diplomatically, “that the stereotypical Rhino attitude may also… complicate things.”

 
; “And by that you mean they have more issues than National Geographic.”

  He couldn’t help but think of Cho and how they were not all like that. Something Lynch had once said rattled around inside his head. Humans are tribalistic hypocrites who judge their enemies by their actions but themselves by their intentions. The Rhinos were a necessary part of shipboard operations.

  With that to consider, Mattis said nothing and turned his attention to the Captain’s chair where Spears sat, one leg over the other, teacup perched in her hand. “Anything I can do, Captain?”

  Spears didn’t take her eyes off the main viewscreen as she sipped her drink, watching as missile barrages flew out from the Caernarvon, striking a gun battery that was giving their combined fighter wing some trouble. “No, thank you Admiral Mattis,” she said, eyeing the battle cautiously. “So far, so good.”

  “Any sign of the ship that escaped from Jovian Anchor?”

  “None yet.” She turned back to regard him. “I assure you, Jack, my crew is working on it. And they’re more than capable. I know this is tough being the spectator, but I don’t have time to be your tour guide.”

  He strained a smile. “Sorry. Understood.” He leaned back in his seat and tried hard to bite his tongue. God he hated feeling useless.

  “The station is launching strike craft,” said Blackwood, turning to Spears.

  “How nice for them,” she replied, eyes fixed on the screen. “Have the Stennis’s fighters engage while pulling back our own. Have them use their long range missiles to pick off anything that gets close and let the Stennis’s ships lure them out. Let’s be the lance to their knife.”

  Mattis bit his tongue, trying to keep his suggestion inside his mouth. The British fighters had much better short range heat-seeking missiles and more powerful armor and guns; they would be better off in close quarters than the fast—but frail—J-88’s.

  It wasn’t his ship, it wasn’t his decision.

  “Aye aye, Captain,” said Blackwood. “Pulling them back.”