The Last Champion: Book 4 of The Last War Series

by Nick Webb

  He tapped some commands into the engineering console. Time to make his getaway. The engines roared into overdrive, the power shunted to a dish on the front of the ship, and a beam lanced down into the dark, swirling atmosphere of the gas giant Erebus. Soon, he’d have his portal, just like he did at the gas giant Lyx a few weeks back.

  “Now, Mister Mattis. What am I going to do about you?”

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Bridge

  USS Warrior

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  What was he going to do?

  The Avenir ship began to engage, shooting fiery streaks across space at the Warrior. Mattis ground his teeth. “Evasive maneuvers,” he said. Almost immediately, the ship began to move beneath him, the nimble frigate easily able to slip out of the way of the incoming fire, even in its damaged state.

  Still. That didn’t matter in the long term. Mattis stared impotently at the monitor, trying to come up with some kind of solution. Something that might tip the scales. Give him an edge. He couldn’t fire back, not yet. He couldn’t risk Jack.

  Interestingly enough, the Stennis wasn’t firing at him either, even though—he presumed—it had no reason not to. Maybe its weapons systems were damaged somehow. Or Spectre didn’t control the entire ship. Maybe the crew had figured out they might be shooting at a friendly.

  It didn’t make sense, but he had no time to think it over.

  “Detecting an energy spike on the Stennis,” said Calaway. He squinted at his screen. “Not sure what it means.”

  Mattis had seen many strange energy spikes from Avenir ships, and with a single glance he identified it. This was the same type they had encountered at the gas giant Lyx, in the Pinegar system, right before the Midway had been destroyed.

  Spectre was opening a portal to the future again.

  “Warrior to Caernarvon, Aerostar. This is Warrior actual.”

  “Ah,” said Captain Spears, her tone patient. “Was hoping you’d have some kind of idea as to what we should do about these kidnapping ruffians out there. We’re reading a huge energy spike from the Stennis.”

  “Correct,” said Mattis. He reached up with his left hand, rubbing his right shoulder. The damn thing was really starting to sting. “They’re opening a portal to the future, right at the center of Erebus. We’ve seen it before. Last time it happened a whole bunch of angry ships came through. And when the portal closed, the entire planet blew. If that happens, Vellini is toast. Its orbit is close enough that the debris field from Erebus will rain down and vaporize everything on it, including the billion people living there.” He stared at the readouts, frowning curiously. “There is something different this time, however. There’s a strange reading. Are they running their reactor without coolant? I’m reading a hell of a lot of heat build up around their core.”

  “I’m seeing it too,” said Spears. “And I’m seeing escape pod launches. Smart cookie, forcing the crew out of there before they get baked, and he can make a clean getaway.”

  “Okay,” said Mattis. “We have to find a way to disable that ship. Without firing on it and without firing near it. We don’t want to hit those escape pods. Or my grandson.”

  Spears’ voice took on a hard edge. “But Jack, if it looks like that portal is anywhere close to being opened, I’m left with no choice but to destroy that ship, kids or no kids—even if it’s your grandson. I can’t risk a billion people. You know that.”

  Silence. Then, a voice joined their conversation. “Uhh, sorry to interrupt—this is Reardon on the Aerostar. We, uh … have an idea.”

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Cockpit

  The Aerostar

  Open space

  “And what idea would that be, Mr. Reardon? Talk fast. I’ve got a planet and a grandson to save here.” Mattis’s voice came over the comm-link, booming like a cannon—like he was right there in the cabin. He must have been channeling his no-nonsense Admiral’s voice.

  Reardon covered the receiver with a hand and leaned back to Smith. “Ok, what’s the plan?”

  Both Sammy and Smith looked at him slack-jawed. “What the hell, bro? You eavesdrop on a US Admiral and a Captain and offer to give them a totally-awesome-can’t-possibly-fail-plan, and you’re just talking out your ass?”

  Smith shrugged. “In his defense, he always talks out his ass.”

  Reardon smiled and shot his finger guns at them. “Kidding! Well, only half kidding.”

  “Good God,” breathed Smith.

  “I mean, what’s the plan for convincing Mattis that my plan is a good plan?”

  “What the hell is your plan?” countered Smith.

  Mattis’s voice boomed over the comm again. “Reardon? It’s now or never. What do you have?”

  “Ok, here goes nothing…” he mumbled. “Ok, Admiral, hear me out. You can’t fire on that ship cause of your grandkid and all. And you can’t just send a boarding craft over cause you’ll get shot out of the sky the second you leave your shuttle bay. And by my count, magic transporter beams are still a few centuries off. What that leaves you is …” he paused for effect, “me.”

  “You? How the hell can you get us over there?”

  “Well, it turns out … I’m a smuggler, ya know? And smugglers, well, see, we have to operate in a lot of … less-than-ideal situations. Sometimes we need to fly sight unseen, if you catch my drift.”

  “I don’t. Your point, Mr. Reardon. Preferably before we all die,” said Mattis.

  “The Aerostar, Admiral, is the finest smuggling vessel in the whole galaxy. And not just because of her good-looking crew. It’s because of her hull. Well, also because of her good-looking crew, but that’s beside the p—”

  “What the hell can your pink hull do for us?”

  “It’s not pink. It’s—never mind. The point is, it’s coated with an electromagnetic dampening material. When I’ve got the sucker engaged, any radar or laser or what have you that hits the hull will be completely absorbed. Uh … except for a pink laser—then they’d see us. But … they don’t make pink lasers.” He covered the receiver again and whispered back to Smith, “do they make pink lasers?”

  “No.”

  He uncovered the receiver. “So what I’m saying is, Admiral, we can land you a boarding party on that ship.”

  Mattis paused. “Can’t they just look out the window and see you trying to board?”

  “Well, there’s that. But, by freak coincidence, just look around you, Admiral. We’re smack dab in the middle of the Tiberius Nebula. Lots of it’s, well, pink. We’ll just approach the ship from, uh, the pink direction.”

  On the other end of the line he could hear Mattis engaged in a muttered conversation with some British-Indian sounding bloke. Was that Lieutenant Modi?

  “Oh, and Admiral, I forgot to tell you. When Chuck left the Aerostar, I, uh, slapped a … thing on his back. A little listening device—”

  “That he usually leaves on cats!” interjected Sammy.

  “Shush,” Reardon held up a finger to his brother. “A little device that we can use to track him once we get aboard. Should be a cinch to find him once we’re there. Does that sweeten the deal?”

  After a few more seconds, the Admiral’s voice boomed through the cabin again. “Fine. It’s all we’ve got, and we have no time. Get your ass on the Warrior’s shuttle bay deck. Now.”

  That was enough for Sammy. He pushed the Aerostar’s navigational controls forward and the ship shot ahead toward the still smoking, scarred starship. “Hey! I’m the captain, I didn’t say go yet,” said Reardon.

  “Hey, it’s why you hired me! I can anticipate your orders.”

  “I hired you because I needed someone to babysit the Z-Space drive while I took naps.”

  Sammy smirked. “You hired me because you got lost down in the guest quarters. Twice.”

  “That was … just shut up. Get us to that shuttle bay.”

  Smith shook his head. “H
ow the hell are the two of you still alive?”

  Chapter Seventy

  Corridor

  USS Warrior

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  Mattis left the bridge in Calaway’s hands. He strapped on his space suit as he walked, snatching a rifle from the armor and heading down to the shuttle bay where, hopefully, the Aerostar would be waiting for him. And hopefully, Reardon’s little tricks would work.

  That was a lot of hope.

  Once there, he would deal with this himself. They knew where the kids were, and Jack was bound to be there somewhere. He was going to save them. And his son. And his grandson. And then he was going to shoot this goddamn clone of Spectre in the face. And their missing pilot, Corrick. And everything else.

  Time to shine. Time to … gallivant.

  Mattis clipped on his helmet and checked his rifle. The last time had worked out okay, but this time he would do better.

  His communicator chirped. He routed the signal through his helmet with a touch of a key. “Mattis here.”

  “It’s Martha.” Ramirez’s voice came through soft and gentle, and definitely more than welcome. “Jack. Captain Spears said I should call you. Apparently you’re about to go and do something very foolish.”

  He couldn’t help but smile at that. “That sounds like how she would describe it. It’s alright. These gallivanting activities always turn out fine for me. I’ll be okay.”

  Ramirez’s voice betrayed her skepticism. “I know,” she said, a faint crack in her voice. “I just… I just wanted to—” She clicked her tongue, and something in her tone changed. Her reporter’s voice came out. “I just wanted to tell you that I’ve been thinking. Whoever is doing this, they obviously wanted Chuck’s baby specifically. Word around the ship is that they used one of your pilots to do it.”

  “That’s classified,” said Mattis, frowning slightly.

  “I’m a reporter. Nothing’s too classified for me.”

  Fair point. “Okay,” said Mattis, stepping into the hangar bay. A squad of Marines and Rhinos were there, waiting for him. “So … what?”

  “So,” said Ramirez, “my theory is that someone knew that if they threatened me into not talking to you, that’s exactly what I’d do. When I made my broadcast, that’s exactly what happened. Someone sent me a message warning me not to broadcast it, and to not involve you.” She sighed into the line. “Stupid. Anyway, the thing is, it’s possible that that’s what’s happening now. They don’t want Chuck, they don’t want Chuck’s kid… they want you. And they’re using baby Jack to get you over there.”

  A fair point, but when walking into a trap, a legitimate tactic was to ramp up the aggression and assault their positions as forcefully as possible to get through it and put them on the defensive. Besides. Even if there wasn’t a way he could just justify this to himself, he couldn’t leave Jack in their hands.

  “Maybe,” was all he said.

  “Just… be careful.”

  Despite it all, Mattis couldn’t help but smile. “I will.”

  There was a brief moment of quiet. His shoulder continued to burn, but he ignored it.

  “Good luck, Jack.”

  “Thanks, Martha.” The line went dead, just as he strode into the shuttle bay.

  The Aerostar still wasn’t there. Mattis nodded to the Rhinos and Marines gathered in on the deck. His backup.

  He was ready. But he was flying blind. Martha was right. He had no idea what he was getting into. He needed information. He needed the final piece to the puzzle.

  And there was only one person who had that.

  He handed his rifle off to a Marine and headed for the door. “Make the final preparations. I’ll be right back.”

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Brig

  USS Warrior

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  Despite all the destruction around him, the brig was relatively intact, such that only a single marine needed to stand guard.

  “Dismissed,” Mattis said. The man saluted, and stepped out into the hallway, leaving him staring at two of the occupied cells before him.

  In one stood the thing Chuck had called Lily. Thing. Goddammit, he had to stop thinking of them as things. Chuck had proven that Lily was not a thing, but a person. A ruined, corrupted person, perhaps, but a person nonetheless.

  In the other cell sat the future-human mutant he’d found in the escape pod in the Pinegar system. Cross-legged. Staring straight ahead, not looking at him, or at anything in particular. He supposed that if the thing—the person—ever made it out of the cell, it would rip anyone it found limb from limb as payback for the torture it had endured at the hands of the late Captain Flint.

  “Chuck. Protein bar,” said Lily. Mattis approached her cell. “Protein bar,” she repeated.

  “You’re friends with my son,” said Mattis.

  Lily paused, looking as if she was considering it. “Friends. Yes. Friends.”

  “So you do know English?”

  “Friends. Yes. Speak.”

  He approached the bars separating them and grabbed onto one. “Tell me. Are you from the future? Can you tell me what the hell is going on? Who is Spectre?”

  “No.”

  “No?” He grabbed an adjacent bar and leaned in with his face between them. “You won’t tell me who Spectre is? You know your life is in my hands right now? Tell me. Tell me!”

  He was yelling, and he had to force himself to close his mouth and clench his teeth. Anger would solve nothing. But the thought of his little grandson in the hands of that wretched man made him seethe.

  “Chuck,” she said, looking at him askance. “Chuck kind. Friend. Hero.”

  The choice of words was unexpected. Hero. She thought of his son as a hero.

  Why?

  But deep inside, he knew exactly why. “He treated you well. When they found you, they kept you in the box. But when Chuck came, he treated you … like a person. Like a friend?”

  She nodded vigorously. “Friend. Hero.”

  He mirrored her nod. “He’s a hero alright. My little champion.” He’d called him that for years, when Chuck was younger. Champ. When had he stopped?

  “Lily. Chuck is my son. I have a lot to learn from him. He’s good. He’s a friend. He’s a hero. And right now, I need you to trust me, and tell me what I need to know.” He forced a kind smile he honestly did not feel. “Please,” he added.

  “Tell you. Yes. I’ll tell you all.”

  “Good,” he said, breathing easier. “Who is Spectre? Are you from the future? Can you tell me what his plans are?”

  She shook her head. “No. Created in … dark place. Lab. Max … max … max?”

  His stomach clenched. “Maxgainz?”

  “Yes.”

  Dammit. “So, you’re not from the future? You were created in a Maxgainz lab?”

  “Yes.”

  So this detour was for nothing. He needed to get over to the Stennis with his assault force as fast as possible, then.

  “But him. He future.”

  She was pointing. Mattis followed her line of sight, and it rested on the other mutant, which sat still, its only movement a slowly heaving chest and occasional ripple of terrifyingly large muscle.

  He nodded, and stepped over to the other cell. “Hello,” he began.

  It didn’t look at him.

  Dammit! What the hell would Chuck say to this thing? He chided himself. Well, first of all, old man, he sure as hell wouldn’t call it a thing. He’d treat it like a fucking human, you dimwit.

  He tried hard to smile, as sincerely as possible. “Look. I’m sorry. They treated you very, very badly, and I could have stopped them, but I didn’t. I’m…” he paused, searching for the words, “so very sorry.”

  It—he—was looking at him. Straight in the eyes.

  “I’m going to get you out of here. I’ll do my best to r
eturn you home, if that’s where you want to go.”

  The mutant cocked his head, almost like a dog.

  “You can trust me. I will protect you. I will do my very best to help you. But … I need to know some things. Can you help me?”

  Very, very slowly, it moved its head. Up and down. A nod?

  “Okay. Okay. You’re from the future? You traveledd here through the time rift created at the core of that gas giant?”

  Again, a single nod of its massive, grotesque head. It stared straight at him.

  “Is Specter in the future too?”

  Another nod.

  “Are there … many of him?”

  Another nod.

  Good Lord. A future where the entire human race is controlled by an army of Spectres.

  “Can you … can you tell me what his plans are? Why he’s taken the children? Why he’s corrupted my grandson with some virus? Why he’s now attempting to go to the future on the Stennis?”

  It stood up. Mattis took a step back on reflex, but forced himself to be calm.

  “Freedom,” it said. It spoke. It actually spoke.

  “Spectre wants … freedom?”

  Its head moved, this time back and forth. It pointed to the bars. “Freedom,” it repeated. The meaning was clear.

  Well, go big or go home, I suppose. He cleared his throat. “Release security lock on brig cell B, authorization Mattis omega one.”

  A click.

  The mutant smiled, and reached forward to push the cell door open.

  Mattis stepped forward into the cell with the creature. The person? Taking an enormous risk, swallowing hard, he held out a hand.

  The creature looked at it, then lifted his own to grasp it.

  It gripped hard. Mattis smiled and tried not to cry out.