The Last Champion: Book 4 of The Last War Series

by Nick Webb

  “No!”

  “He’s just there.” Chuck turned and ran down the corridor, holstering his pistol as he moved. “C’mon, Dad. Help me get him up.”

  Someone broke past him and ran toward Chuck and the quivering galley worker.

  Lily.

  “Protein bar!” she yelled—apparently her way of saying, “I’m coming to help!”

  Fine. Idealistic kid. Mattis ground his teeth, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and took a step toward Chuck to help as well.

  A terrific explosion rocked the ship, the bulkheads warping and twisting, cracking from the strain. Mattis was thrown off his feet, landing heavily on the deck, his rifle sliding across the deck. The Stennis pitched violently, artificial gravity going haywire as it tried in vain to compensate for the movement. Rhino suits clanged against each other behind him and the people they’d saved wailed in confusion and pain.

  Mattis looked Chuck in the eye, Jack in his arms, as the bulkheads around him gave way, buckling inward as gravity crushed them down through a jagged crack that had ripped apart in the shuttle bay deck.

  Metal screamed as it bent and swallowed Chuck, baby Jack, Lily, and the screaming galley worker whole.

  Chapter Eighty

  Shuttle Bay

  USS Stennis

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  “No!”

  The word came out in a strangled gasp, stifled by panic and intense gravity. Mattis staggered to his feet, staring at the collapsed, twisted metal that blocked off the crack in the floor. “Chuck! CHUCK!”

  “Sir,” said Sampson, practically filling the corridor in her heavy suit. “We have to go.”

  Not yet. Not until Chuck was onboard. “Corporal, clear this debris. Chuck is—there’s a civilian trapped behind there.” Jack was there too. He didn’t want to think about that. And the other guy, and Lily… “Four civilians.”

  Sampson stared at him impassively. “We don’t have the time,” she said. “We have to get out of here. This ship could—”

  “Corporal!” barked Mattis, fighting to keep the edge of desperation out of his voice. “I gave you a direct order: clear this debris!”

  She hesitated for the briefest moment. “Aye aye, sir.” Moving up to the twisted and cracked bulkheads, hooking her massive metal fists under a bent girder and lifting, her suit strained, hydraulic engines whining loudly as they gave their best. But her suit was damaged, apparently, and it whined in protest at the weight it was asked to lift. The debris rose about a foot, revealing a crushed arm down below the deck, bloodied, twisted, and broken. Chuck’s arm. Pinned down by a steel beam.

  “Chuck!” Mattis crouched, unable to see further. “Hey, champ, I’m here. I’m here.” He looked to Sampson. “Higher. Lift it higher.”

  Groaning, she did so, raising the metal, causing an ominous creak-groan to echo throughout the bay.

  But there was still far too much weight and debris to get through.

  Mattis lay down on his belly and squirmed forward under a steel girder, underneath the lifted debris, inching down toward Chuck, hooking his feet on some twisted metal to keep from falling in. His son was facedown on the deck below, left arm shattered, curled up around Jack.

  Nearby, the galley worker lay dead, bleeding profusely from his open chest. Lily was nowhere to be seen, perhaps thrown by the explosion.

  He couldn’t hear crying. “Chuck,” said Mattis, crawling forward on his elbows. “Hey.”

  Slowly, groggily, as though he’d taken a whack to the head, Chuck turned to face him. “Hey, Dad.”

  Mattis breathed a little easier, even as the metal strained above him, threatening to descend and crush him instantly. “Okay, hold tight, son. We’re going to get you out of there.”

  “Okay,” said Chuck. He turned to face Mattis, twisting his arm in the process, but he didn’t even seem to feel whatever damage he was doing. “Here, take Jack.”

  The baby wasn’t moving. Wasn’t crying. Mattis stretched out and grabbed him, taking him in his arms.

  “Corpsmen!” shouted Mattis over his shoulder, squirming backward and away from Chuck, back out into the corridor. “Need a corpsman over here!”

  He came up to his feet, cradling Jack in his arms. The baby was so pale; he didn’t have a mark on him, but obviously something was wrong. Then Mattis saw the beginnings of a purple bruise on the back of his head.

  “Can’t hold this forever,” said Sampson, her suit continuing to protest. “Maxing out the hydraulics like this is murder on the batteries; I can swap out for one of the others, but this place is going to blow!”

  A woman with corpsman insignia ran up to them from the shuttles, casting a critical eye on Jack. “Dammit,” she muttered, jabbing him with a small instrument. “He’s not breathing. That looks like a massive concussion. Here…”

  Mattis held him out for her. “Okay,” he said. “Just-just do what you need to do. He has a heart condition, though—I…” He tried to drag the details back to memory but a combination of time and panic made it impossible. “I don’t know the specifics.”

  “Okay,” said the corpsman, pulling out a small cylinder with a needle tip on it. “Military injectors aren’t designed to work with children, so… we’re going to have to get a little quick and dirty here.” She carefully aligned the device to Jack’s tiny arm, then slid it in, leaving a substantial amount of the needle on the outside. She depressed the plunger, then yanked the thing out before it was finished, the device spraying a fair amount of its fluid onto the deck. “That’s about a quarter of a dose.”

  Helpless. Mattis felt utterly helpless as the doctor touched two fingers to Jack’s chest, pressing sternly and rhythmically. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t…

  Jack shuddered as though freezing cold and then, with a tone that was truly ear piercing, began crying.

  “Lungs are good,” observed the corpsman, dryly. She scanned baby Jack again with her medical device. “And I don’t see any heart condition, Admiral. Kid looks fine to me, other than the concussion. But the drugs should handle that. He should be fine if we can get him to sickbay on the Caernarvon, stat.”

  Mattis handed Jack to her. “I’m going in after Chuck,” he said.

  “Sir,” said Sampson, her suit beeping a loud warning that even he could hear. “I’m about out of juice here. Be very quick, or I’m going to lose my grip—”

  He stopped listening, dropping down onto his belly again and, once more, crawling back under the debris.

  Chuck didn’t look so good. His face was pale, his mangled arm trembling as though a minor shock was passing through it, and his breathing was shallow. His eyes carried the same glassy look that the prisoners had, but his was born of a head injury, rather than… whatever their problem was.

  “Listen son,” said Mattis, fighting to keep his voice strong. “We gotta get you out of here.”

  Chuck stared at him with a faint smile on his lips. “Hey, Dad. If I don’t get out of this, tell Elroy I love him, okay?”

  “Fuck that,” spat Mattis. “You can tell him yourself.” He extended his arms to Chuck, taking his good arm in both of his.

  Sampson’s hydraulics whimpered in final protest. “Hurry!” she shouted.

  “Okay,” said Chuck. “I gotcha.”

  “Hey,” called Mattis over his shoulder. “Someone out there, get ready to pull me out. I’ve got Chuck, we’re going to pull us both out.” He felt two thick, metal hands grab his ankles. “On three. One, two, three—”

  The Rhino behind him pulled. Mattis held onto Chuck’s hand as tightly as he could.

  Something pulled in his shoulder. The injury he’d sustained on the Caernarvon, the one he’d been covering with painkillers, finally gave out. His arm popped out of its socket again, and Mattis felt the tendons tear apart, his whole joint splitting like an old backpack.

  He shrieked in pain and lost his grip on Chuck’s hand.

&nb
sp; The Rhino pulled him all the way out. “Where’s the civilian?” he asked.

  Pain. Pain all over every part of his arm. His whole right arm went numb, fingers tingling, the shoulder joint swelling up as he watched.

  The shuttle bay comm came to life again. “Tick tock, Mattis. Time’s almost up. And you’re still alive, my old friend.”

  Old. Friend.

  Sampson’s suit flashed a series of red lights, and then wheezed pathetically as its power gave out. She slumped, dropping the metal down with the hiss of failing hydraulics, then the suit opened up like a flower from behind. She stepped out, woozy and wearing nothing but a skin-tight suit covered in plugs and cables, which popped out one by one.

  “Corporal,” said Mattis through gritted teeth, pointing to another Rhino, “lift that debris. Take her place. I’m going in there again. I’m going to get Chuck.”

  “Sir, we’re out of time.” Kluger shook his head. “The expended suit’s blocking the way now. By the time we clear it—”

  “I gave you an order!”

  Spectre laughed over the comm. “Well if that didn’t kill you, surely this will.”

  Sampson, looking so much smaller outside of her suit—she was barely five foot two and built like a twig—shook her head. “Sir, he’s gone.”

  “No, he’s not, he’s under there—”

  “He’s gone, sir,” said the other Rhino. “Sampson’s suit’s out of power. Your arm is shot. This ship’s reactors are going to detonate any second. Your choice is to die here, with all these people who we came here to save, or save their lives in Chuck’s name. Either way, you can’t save him.”

  A voice called up through the debris. Mattis dropped to his knees to hear it.

  “Dad. Dad, can you hear me?”

  He stretched his head down through a small opening in the debris. “Son? We’re coming. Just hold on.”

  “Dad, no. I heard him. I heard Spectre. If you don’t get out, you’re all dead. Everyone you saved. All of them. Dead. So forget about me and get the hell out of here.”

  “Son, I—”

  “Dad. I’ll be fine. Lily’s here. We’ll find another way out, I promise. Now go take care of your grandson, you old codger!”

  A Rhino grabbed him from behind, his huge metal hands taking hold of Mattis around the chest, locking together in a vice. The massive Rhino picked him up and bodily carried him toward the waiting shuttle.

  “Put me down!” he roared. “I’ll have you at court-martial for this!”

  Not even a father’s rage could compete with the steel hands of a Rhino suit.

  “I’m sorry,” said the Rhino, putting him into the shuttle and physically blocking the exit with his armored bulk. “Captain Spears’s orders.”

  “No!” Mattis thumped his fist on the Rhino’s chest plate. “We have to go back! We can’t just leave him there!”

  The shuttle’s door hissed closed, sealing the airlock and dividing the small ship from the Stennis.

  Sampson disappeared into the other shuttle, the Aerostar having already launched, then her voice came over the radio. “All elements aboard. We are go for launch.”

  The shuttles soared out of the bay, and not a moment too soon. From one of the other walls, another violent explosion ripped through the bay. Apparently Spectre had figured out how to selectively detonate the Stennis’s self-destruct charges, choosing the ones near the shuttle bay, trying vainly to kill them or trap them in.

  Trapped like Chuck. His only son. Who he was now leaving to his certain death.

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Below Shuttle Bay

  USS Stennis

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  Pain.

  His left arm burned as though it had been plunged into hot metal, and yet, a dizzy fog kept the pain distant to him. It was there, present, and it hurt, but … overwhelmingly he just felt calm and secure and comfortable. Good. At peace.

  Jack was okay. His dad was okay. Everything was going to be okay.

  Explosion after explosion rocked the bay above him, and the oxygen seemed to be sucked out of the space he’d fallen into as heat radiated down.

  Lily appeared through the smoke like a ghost, seemingly unaffected by the heat.

  “Lily!” said Chuck.

  “Protein bar,” said Lily, moving up to him, staring down in confusion. “Why are you here?”

  That was a difficult question to answer. “Well, Lily, I’m here for my kid. Because that’s what humans do. You serve your baby and protect him at all costs.”

  “Serve?”

  “Yeah, serve. You put others before yourself.” Chuck coughed, the acrid smoke stinging his lungs.

  “Serve,” she repeated. “Put others before yourself.”

  He didn’t know if she was just repeating what he said or if she was taking it in. “This ship,” said Chuck, barely able to breathe, “is bad. This is a bad ship, Lily. It’s doing bad things. It’s going to destroy that planet out there. And when it does, lots of people will die. We have to destroy it.”

  “Ship must be destroyed,” said Lily.

  He shifted his arm, the limb mangled. There was only one way. One way for a ship this size. “I need you to destroy this ship,” he said.

  “Destroy the ship,” echoed Lily.

  “Get to the reactor room,” said Chuck, “and destroy the ship. Do you know what I’m asking you to do?”

  “Reactor room,” said Lily, and without another word, she stood up and left.

  Chuck lay back and closed his eyes, unsure of what was about to happen. Deep within the ship, a vibrating pulse grew, shaking the ship to its beams.

  “Goodbye, Elroy. Goodbye, Jack.” He opened his eyes and peered out the hole to the bay above, and caught a twinkling of stars beyond. “Goodbye, dad.”

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Reactor Room

  USS Stennis

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  Ship must be destroyed.

  That was what the kind man said. Lily knew that good people do what they are told. It’s what her makers taught her. What they beat into her. They hurt her when she did not do as they said. But the kind man never beat her. He … served her.

  She strode through the air-dirt that hurt her eyes. Stepped over the glowing orange metal that burned her feet. And made her way down toward a place she did not understand, but— knew on some level. Some instinctive part of her that drew her toward her goal.

  And then, rising up through the smoke, was a sign in writing she could read. They hadn’t taught her to read, but she was smart, and she learned anyway.

  REACTOR ROOM

  Ship must be destroyed.

  The door was closed and, unlike other doors, would not open when she got close. But that would not stop her. She walked up to the thick doors and slammed her fist into the metal. Again and again. Soon it buckled, and Lily was able to dig her fingers into the doors. Despite groaning loudly in protest—crying out like the tiny baby human—she ripped them clean off.

  Reactor room.

  Cautiously, Lily crept forward. Ship must be destroyed. But how?

  Things died when their hearts died. She knew that because of the baby human. His heart had been dying, before the awkward man cured it. But stopped hearts killed the humans. Ships have hearts, too? How would she ever find such a thing?

  But then she saw it. At the heart of the reactor room. The ship’s heart. Glowing blue. White metal. Warning signs telling of danger. Air-dirt wasn’t so bad in here. This was a strange place to be, in the ship-heart. But the ship-heart needed to be broken.

  It was already hurt. Like baby-heart had been. It leaked. It crackled. Its weakness was weakening the ship. It was vulnerable.

  Ship must be destroyed.

  She advanced toward it, raising her fists. A single punch would go right through; the metal strained with the effort of holding
back the light within. Just a single punch…

  “Stop,” said a voice, carrying with it a strange authority that compelled her to halt.

  A man. A human man, but not a human man, limped toward her from the side of the room. He had a uniform on and the nametag: CMDR PITT.

  “Identify yourself,” said the man.

  “Lily.”

  The man scowled, wiping a streak of blood away from his mouth with the back of his hand. “No, you dumb beast. Your identification. Maxgainz technicians gave you a designation. What is it?”

  “I am Lily.”

  Man was confused. He looked angry. Like Reardon-human when Reardon-human yelling at wheel-human and awkward-human. “Are you defective?” he spat. “Blasted thing. Get out of here, the portal is nearly opened. We have but mere seconds until everything we have worked for is complete. Then we can go back into the future, get what we need, and return again, this time to victory. And peace. You want peace?”

  Everything … we have worked for. Lily knew what she was working for. Ship must be destroyed. “This is a bad ship,” she said, turning back toward the ship-heart. “It must be destroyed.”

  For a brief moment, the human man seemed to understand. He fumbled at his belt, reaching for a strange device; a four-pronged weapon that crackled with a strange energy. He raised it, pointing it at Lily, and she knew this was very bad. She sensed this device. It would hurt her.

  No hurt. Lily raised up her fist and, with a roar, drove her fist through the outer containment wall.

  The room disappeared in a bright flash of light that swallowed everything around it.

  And there was nothing left.

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Bridge

  HMS Caernarvon

  Gas Giant Erebus

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector