The Last Champion: Book 4 of The Last War Series Page 2

  “Seems like a happy place,” he said, sliding onto a stool at a booth.

  Spears sat opposite him. “There’s a reason they call it drowning your sorrows. Someone who’s drinking alone at 0950 is not a person whose life is going in the right direction.”

  Suppose I’ll fit right in, then. Mattis squashed that thought as quickly as it appeared. Spending the rest of his days staring at the bottom of a stein just didn’t sit right with him. “No question,” he said, folding his hands.

  Spears went to the bar, chatted with the surly looking barkeep—an ugly, squat man whose eyes seemed too big for his head—and then returned with two tall glasses of a dark brown, almost black liquid, placing one in front of him and taking one for herself.

  “To the Midway,” she said, holding up her glass.

  “To the Midway,” he echoed. “May her bones rest amongst the stars for all eternity.” Mattis took a swig from his glass, the taste bitter but surprisingly palatable, the aftertaste smooth and almost pleasant. English beer turned out to be pretty good.

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  “You know… the old girl had four hundred and eighty days before her major refit. Even though she was outdated in many ways, she could have had another hundred years of service in her.”

  “The good always die young,” said Spears, nodding sympathetically. “Because life is cruel and without that cruelty, victory has no meaning. You won the day, Jack. Never forget that. Spectre is dead because of you. And humanity saved because of it.”

  At what cost, though? And was it worth it? “Thanks,” said Mattis, almost meaning it. “I thought you’d assumed I’d gone crazy.”

  “You are American,” said Spears, dryly. “You are crazy and always have been. Fortunately for you, I find crazy to be quite endearing.”

  Mattis smiled grimly. “The last Brit I knew ran her ship without core containment, irradiated herself and her crew without a single word of complaint, damn near cooked herself alive… then rammed her ship into the enemy to save us.”

  Spears only gave a very slight incline of her head. “Keep Calm and Carry On. Our way since the war. I knew Captain Salt, mostly by reputation and sharing a table at staff dinners. She was a top shelf Captain and I can only hope to be half the officer she was.”

  “Live twice as long and I’ll call it even.”

  The edge of Spears’s mouth turned down. “When did you get so grim, Jack?”

  He shrugged helplessly.

  “So,” asked Spears, an edge of forced joyfulness to her voice, as though determined to cheer him up. “The other lady in your life. How are you and Miss Ramirez working out?”

  The answer to that was that they were not and Mattis hadn’t seen her in long enough that whatever spark their reunion had kicked up had probably died right back down again. “It’s complicated,” he said.

  “Ooo.” Spears sipped at her drink. “Ouch.”

  “It’s fine,” said Mattis.

  “I hate that word. Fine. It means the opposite of its literal meaning; it means things are not fine, but they are tolerable.”

  “It’s… tolerable,” admitted Mattis. “We kind of knew long ago it would never work. I’ve got my work, and she’s got hers, and they often collide in unpleasant ways.”

  Spears tilted her head again, an old habit of hers that he was starting to get reacquainted with. “I saw her on the news this morning,” she said. “Running another story. Apparently the Forgotten raided a nursery on New Kentucky and stole a bunch of infants. The galaxy’s in uproar about it.”

  Stole infants? Mattis scowled darkly, but in confusion. He had crossed swords with the Forgotten—and, in fact, much as he didn’t like to admit it, had more in common with their causes than he would ever admit publicly—but regardless of their… armed disagreement… he would never have pegged them for literal kidnappers. All they cared about was making sure that veterans of the Sino-American war got the help and care they needed… what possible gain was there for them to do something like that?

  “That doesn’t sound like them—”

  But before he could voice his concerns, the bell on the door chimed again as it swung open, followed by a loud clatter and the shattering of breaking glass. Commander Oliver Modi stood in the doorway, a stack of portable computers in his arms, one of which had slid off the pile and broken into two pieces.

  “Admiral Mattis,” said Modi, completely and utterly oblivious to every eye in the bar being locked onto him, peering over the massive stack of computing equipment, a genuine excitement in his eyes. “I found a lead you might be very interested in.”

  Chapter Two

  Garden Lobby near Chuck and Elroy’s Apartment

  Georgetown, MD

  Earth

  “Sorry,” said the receptionist on the other end of the line. “The test results were quite clear. There’s just nothing to indicate anything wrong.”

  Chuck Mattis fumed as he paced the brown grass of Georgetown’s only public park, shaking his head, phone pressed up tightly against his ear. “That just can’t be right,” he said, echoing a variation of the same set of phrases he’d been saying to doctors all over the county. All over the country. All over the planet. “Jack’s heart has an issue. A congenital issue. He has sporadic cyanosis, usually when we take him out of hospital, and when we’re feeding him he gets all exhausted, like he’s too tired to cry. He sleeps too long and too easily, and sometimes he doesn’t cry when he should, like he’s just tuckered out even though he hasn’t done anything. There’s something wrong. I promise you.”

  “We couldn’t replicate those symptoms,” said the receptionist, her voice masked in professional patience. “I know it’s difficult for you at this time, but—”

  Chuck rolled his eyes at the wall, and then focused back on the call. “Fine,” he said, a little more snippy than intended. “No worries. Thank you for your time.”

  “Thank you for choosing Pacific Medical,” said the receptionist, promptly closing the link.

  Chuck sighed and put the phone against his forehead in frustration. Angel of Mercy, Seattle Pediatrics, Boston General, Presbyterian Hospital, Beijing Medical Centre, and now Pacific Medical. None of them had been able to find anything….

  Maybe he could call someone else. Maybe he could try more places in India…there was a lot of promising medical technology being developed there. It might be an idea. A potential. He scratched his chin, ready to start searching, but before he could, his phone flashed.

  A news alert. He skimmed it over, instantly sick to his stomach. An entire nursery of babies kidnapped on New Kentucky. Every parent’s worst nightmare. Who the hell would kidnap a bunch of infants? Immediately, his irrational parent’s brain went into overdrive, and he was half tempted to run home and make sure Jack was safely in his crib. He nearly jumped when his phone started buzzing.

  An incoming transmission from Elroy.

  “Hey,” he said, a tired, worn edge to his voice. “How’s it going?”

  The phone line crackled for just a moment, and Chuck thought he heard something, a voice on the other end, then it went dead.

  A glitch with the phone company? A faulty connection?

  Or something worse.

  A thousand panicked thoughts flew through his head all at once. He redialed. A robotic, recorded voice answered.

  “An error occurred with your connection. Please try again later.”

  Dammit.

  He knew it was impossible that whoever stole those babies had also stolen his son, putting a bullet in Elroy’s head in the process. It wasn’t rational.

  But the mess of his frustrations and despair and stress all conspired against him, and Chuck knew he had to get home now and see for himself. He jammed his phone into his pocket, ran the five blocks back to his apartment building, and dashed inside the lobby to the elevator, hammering the button up to his floor. Slowly, painfully slowly, the elevator began to hum and move.

  Slowly.

&nbs
p; The wait suddenly became unbearable. He felt like banging on the doors. Anything to speed the thing up…

  Then it arrived, the doors silently parting. The quick ride up to the apartment felt like an eternity. Then he was there.

  With shaking hands, he slid the keycard over the lock and ran inside.

  “Hey,” he called, “I rang, but—”

  The living room was empty.

  Chuck’s stomach rose up into his throat. He ran to the nursery and burst through the door.

  Jack was not in his crib.

  No….

  “Sorry,” said Elroy, stepping out from the kitchen, waggling his phone, its screen an ominous black. “I think my talky-thingie is busted.”

  Relief. “Hah,” said Chuck, managing a little smile. Elroy sometimes had weird names for technology. Real cute. His hands slowly stopped their tremble. Everything was okay…. “Where’s Jack?”

  Elroy thumbed back to the kitchen. “In his high chair. He won’t eat, but he won’t sleep either and won’t let me leave his sight. So I figured he could help me with dishes.” Elroy ducked his head back into the kitchen and Chuck joined him. Sure enough, there Jack was. Pale and lethargic, slumped over in his high chair. “No luck with the hospital?” asked Elroy, sliding his hands around him from behind, giving a little squeeze.

  Chuck melted back against him, sighing and tilting his head back. “No. Again.”

  Elroy sighed, resting up against his back. “We’ll find something. I know it.”

  Chuck knew it too. It just… was elusive. And he was impatient. “I know. I just… I just…”

  “Maybe try your friend again,” said Elroy. “Smith. You said he could help you.”

  He didn’t know if Smith could, but if anyone could it was the enigmatic CIA officer who he’d met in… unusual circumstances. That was to say, breaking into the same place at the same time. His old boss, Senator Pitt’s office. Since then they had teamed up to help investigate threats to humanity. Smith had proven himself extremely resourceful, and he had a prosthetic eye that was technology Chuck thought only existed in science fiction movies. The man had … connections.

  And now he wouldn’t pick up his phone. Which was ironic, because Chuck had told him never to call him again.

  “Okay,” said Chuck, reluctantly taking out his communicator. He tapped the key to dial Smith.

  Again, no response.

  From the kitchen Jack began to cry. There was… something about it, some subdued, pained edge to the normally shrill and loud cry that instantly caused alarm for them both. Without a word, Chuck and Elroy went together.

  Jack’s breathing was shallow, his lips tinged blue. Chuck picked him up, and as he did so, Jack seemed to recover, squirming and breathing normally.

  “Shit,” said Elroy, his tone a mixture of relief and concern. “What… what was that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Chuck, frustration building within him. “But I think we’re running out of options.”

  Elroy rubbed his face roughly, obviously as concerned as he was. “Yeah.” He sucked in breath. “There’s gotta be some option we haven’t tried yet. Some idea. Some…person. Anything.” The desperation in his voice grew. “There’s got to be, Chuck.”

  He felt the same way, but didn’t have anything in mind. Couldn’t see any other option.

  Chuck sighed, tapping a few keys on his communicator. “Okay. Well, lemme see if I can get hold of Smith again. I’ll keep calling until I get an answer—he’s gotta pick up sometime.”

  Chapter Three

  Studio

  GBC News

  Earth

  “…So our top story again tonight: nearly thirty infants are believed missing after a raid on a New Kentucky nursery. Interpol is investigating and we at the studio are hoping and praying for their safe return.” Ramirez carefully followed the TelePrompter scroll to the end of her segment. “Thank you for sharing the galaxy’s news with us at GBC News. I’m Martha Ramirez. Thank you and good night.”

  She waited, smiling into the camera, as nothing happened. Of course, behind the scenes, the production crew were adding in the visual effects, music, and flashy logos, but in the studio where Ramirez was recording, everything was a professional, almost deathly, quiet. Still, they would be recording her, so she continued to smile, her face frozen.

  Then the red light flicked off, signaled the recording was done, and finally Ramirez let her face relax. The studio broke into polite clapping.

  “That’s a wrap,” said her director, Chelsey. Not a smart woman, but when it came to making the news run on time, she knew what she was doing. “Good work, Martha.”

  Martha smiled her acknowledgement, pushed back her chair, and headed out toward her dressing room. She exchanged the mandatory courtesies with the crew, beelining to her dressing room door and sliding inside.

  Then, only then, did she relax. With a sigh she pulled the pins out of her hair, opened up her collar, and slid into her makeup chair, kicking off her heels as she did so. Okay… okay.

  Her communicator vibrated. It had been doing so all broadcast; she had pointedly ignored it, but the subtle vibration reminded her that anyone might be on the other end. It could be a rival network coming to poach her away for a ridiculous salary. It could be a fan wanting to let her know that her show had made their day.

  It could be Jack Mattis.

  Jack Mattis with a scoop, she firmly reminded herself. Admiral Jack Mattis. One of your contacts as a reporter. A professional lead who gives you inside information on the unique threat that humanity faces. Someone who is really helping your career take hold, and definitely not someone you want calling you for… other reasons.

  It helped to tell herself these things. Not much, but it helped.

  So with cautious calm, Ramirez pulled her communicator out from her hip pocket and flicked it open. It was an unknown number and had actually come in before the presentation was supposed to air.

  UNKNWN NMBR: Do not run the New Kentucky infant story. Replace now or disaster beyond your wildest imaginations will be visited upon you. Tell nobody of this. You have been warned.

  Damn. She groaned softly. The worst kind of fan…the crazy one. Frustrated, she hit delete. It had already run anyway. No sense crying over milk, spilt or otherwise. She blocked the number for good measure, adding it to a long and growing list of ‘special fans’.

  Ramirez gently leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes a moment. Dammit… this industry. Full of perverts and crazies on both sides of the screen. She rubbed her aching forehead, sighing.

  A knock on the door, frantic and pounding, nearly made her jump out of her skin. It stopped abruptly—locked door knob jiggling violently—before starting up again, more intense than ever. Ramirez emitted a strangled shriek and nearly collapsed backwards in her chair.

  The pounding came again, even more insistent. Gathering her wits, she took a deep breath and snatched up her purse. Within, she carefully withdrew the snubnose 10mm pistol within and clicked the safety off.

  “Who’s there?” she called, far more timidly than she meant to, cradling the pistol in both hands.

  No answer. More pounding. A crazed fan? How the hell did they get past security? Grateful she was out of her heels, Ramirez crept forward, hiding the weapon behind her back and, cautiously, opened the door with her left hand.

  It took her a moment to recognise who stood on the other side, disheveled, his face the color and shape of a ripe tomato. He’d been crying for hours. Or days.

  “Oh my God….” She muttered.

  Senator Pitt. A disgraced US Senator who hadn’t been heard of for nearly a year.

  “Uhh…” Ramirez stammered slightly, relaxing her grip on the pistol. “Senator Pitt…? How can I help you?”

  “You have to convince him,” said Senator Pitt, a thick crack in his voice. “You have to convince Admiral Mattis. You’re the only one who can.”

  Chapter Four

  Drunken Pigkeeper & Touchy Leech
Tavern

  Peterborough

  Great Britain

  Earth

  It was extremely unlike the stoic, implacable, almost humorless Modi to be so excited. Mattis scooted over to make room. His chief engineer slid into the booth next to him with a complete lack of ceremony, dumping the portable computers on the fine hardwood surface of the table.

  “Okay,” said Mattis, taking in the stock of still-buzzing computer equipment. “What are we looking at, Modi?”

  “Just a parallel cluster of nearly sixty-four thousand premium supercomputer processor chips working on a singular Z-Space translation problem,” he said, prying open the lid of one of the machines to reveal a crude old-fashioned LCD display. A series of numbers flew past, far too fast for Mattis to read. “This is the sixty-sixth permutation.”

  “This is England,” said Spears, politely. “So I’m going to need your solution in English, please.”

  Modi turned the device toward Mattis. “See this?”

  Mattis stared at the screen impassively. “All I see are a lot of numbers moving really fast.”

  “Yes,” said Modi, as though that were the point.

  Mattis, taking a slow, patient breath, looked directly at Modi. “Commander, please explain to me the meaning behind the numbers and why the good Captain Spears and I should care about them.”

  Modi turned the screen back toward himself. “Very well. These,” he said, jabbing a finger at the thing in triumph, “are Z-Space coordinates. More specifically, they are coordinates and a vector.”

  “Okay,” said Mattis, cautiously. “A vector toward what?”

  “Toward a gravitational eddy,” said Modi, snapping his fingers energetically. “Do you remember the Battle of Earth?”

  “Do I… remember?” Did he remember the battle where Commander Jeremy Pitt had been killed? Did he remember the battle where humans from the future came to destroy Earth, fought with the automated defense network Goalkeeper, and nearly extinguished their species? “Yes. Vividly.”