“Meaning what?” Maddox asked.
O’Hara told him how the New Men had sabotaged the collapsium-armored star base guarding the Ember-Caria Tramline. Then, a decoy fleet had entered the inner system. Fletcher had taken the bait, rushing to save Caria Prime. That had left the Lamia-Caria Tramline open. How the New Men had known the fleet had left was one of several maddening questions that no one knew the answer to.
“Fletcher fought a stubborn battle,” O’Hara said. “But it took the sacrifice of Commander Musgrave to really hurt the enemy. Musgrave blew his antimatter core, using it like a shape-charged grenade.”
“We have antimatter engines?”
“Yes, we do. They’re new. In any case, Musgrave exploded his as the two fleets merged. The star cruisers were at almost point blank range. The antimatter blast knocked down many enemy shields.”
“Interesting,” Maddox said. “Yes. I could see how that would work.”
“Fletcher pounced on the opportunity. His ships poured fire at the stricken vessels, and seven star cruisers were destroyed.”
“Seven…” Maddox said, nodding.
“The enemy annihilated thirty-eight of our capital ships,” O’Hara said. “They also obliterated dozens of destroyers and twelve troop transports.”
“That’s a lot of dead space marines.”
“It would have been, but Fletcher had turned the transports into decoys.”
“I see,” Maddox said. “And I find this amazing. Two points, though. One, I still want to rescue Meta. I know how to do it. Two, you said thirty-eight capital ships were destroyed. That still leaves thirty-six.”
“Exactly,” O’Hara said. “Those thirty-six capital ships are traveling between Caria 323 and the Tannish Systems.”
“I’m not sure I understand what that’s supposed to mean.”
“It means Fletcher took a gamble,” O’Hara said. “He raced out-system with the remainder of his fleet. In a few more months, he will reach the Tannish System.”
“He’s traveling at sub-light speeds?” Maddox asked.
“Yes.”
Maddox thought about that. “The New Men will be waiting for him at Tannish. They’ll annihilate the rest of the Fifth Fleet.”
“Yes.”
“Unless someone does something to aid Fletcher’s remnants,” Maddox said.
The Iron Lady folded her hands on the desktop. “We are, naturally, rushing envoys to the Wahhabi Caliphate, the Spacers and the Windsor League. We are requesting an immediate alliance with the first two, followed by their main fleets, and we are urging the Windsor League to hurry with their promised reinforcements.”
Maddox shook his head. “You’ll never gather a large enough fleet in that timeframe. Three to four months isn’t long enough for our envoys to convince the sheiks and rush the Wahhabi warships to Tannish in time. Unless… I just thought of something.”
“Yes?” O’Hara asked.
“The New Men might see Fletcher’s situation as an opportunity.”
“In what way?”
“To lure more of our warships into a bad tactical situation,” Maddox said. “Maybe that’s why they allowed Fletcher to escape Caria in the first place.”
“You raise an interesting point,” O’Hara said. “I would also like to point out that the Lord High Admiral has suggested the same thing.”
“There’s something else that bothers me,” Maddox said. “How do you know any of this? If Fletcher sent a message to ships in the Tannish System, that would have taken several months. Assuming the message traveled at light speed from the Fifth Fleet. Then those Tannish System ships receiving Fletcher’s signals would have to use jump routes to rush to Earth. When did the battle happen, and how do you know about it?”
“Do you recall Commander Kris Guderian of the Osprey?”
“Of course,” Maddox said, “a good Patrol officer. I met her coming in from the Beyond aboard Victory.”
“After the battle, Guderian used the Caria-Lamia Tramline, slipping through. As you say, she has a Patrol vessel, a frigate with a cloaking device. She slipped past star cruisers waiting in the Lamia System and raced back to Earth.”
“No,” Maddox said. “I doubt she slipped past the New Men. It makes more sense that the enemy let her through.”
“The Lord High Admiral agrees with you,” O’Hara said. “The New Men’s arrogance may have helped to give us our opportunity. As you’ve suggested, Lord High Admiral Cook thinks the enemy wants to lure more of our ships out into “C” Quadrant so the New Men can ambush them. Thus, it’s quite possible the enemy is hoping we send a rescue fleet to the Tannish System.”
“Are we sending a rescue fleet?” Maddox asked.
The Iron Lady looked down at her hands. She seemed to deflate, and her age showed. She’d taken some of the Methuselah Treatment in the past. Although she seemed a spry sixty, she was in her nineties.
Maddox turned away, waiting for O’Hara to regain her composure. Soon, he heard the Iron Lady clear her throat, and regarded her once more.
With her head thrust forward and a vital energy radiating from her eyes, O’Hara began to speak. “We cannot afford to lose those thirty-six capital ships. But we face a grave dilemma. We don’t dare allow too many more warships to leave the Solar System. If we should lose Earth to a surprise enemy raid—it is doubtful the Commonwealth would recover from such a blow.”
“I don’t understand that. If we need Fletcher’s ships to win the war, we must gather everything and go to Tannish and save them.”
“Let us be clear about something, Captain. The New Men are smarter than we are. They can outmaneuver us almost at will. That means we cannot accept normal calculated risks.”
“Then we’ve already lost the war.”
“No!” O’Hara said, with her eyes shining. “We have a particular vessel, if you’ll recall. It’s old, over six thousand years old.”
“You mean Victory.”
“Precisely,” O’Hara said. “It is the key to saving the Fifth Fleet.”
“Our scientists have had over ten months to go over the ancient vessel,” Maddox said. “Doctor Dana Rich is among them. You’re suggesting they’ve discovered something useful?”
“You haven’t heard?” O’Hara asked.
“Heard what, ma’am?”
“This isn’t a time for games, Captain. What have you heard about Victory? It’s important I know.”
Maddox shrugged. “The ship is in the Oort cloud somewhere, protected by a taskforce. After that, I haven’t heard a thing.”
“Firstly,” O’Hara said, “it’s guarded by the Home Fleet, not just a taskforce. Victory is the single greatest hope our side has. Without those ancient alien weapons, I believe humanity is doomed.”
“Then it’s good for us I brought it back from the Beyond.”
“No, not yet it isn’t.” O’Hara frowned, and she seemed to choose her words with care. “There’s a security blackout in the Oort cloud over Victory. For the last ten months, no one out there has returned to Earth except for the original crew.”
“That’s one of the reasons we have to find Meta,” Maddox said.
O’Hara blinked rapidly, looking confused. “What? Meta. No! Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said?”
“The New Men’s secret service has her. The most likely reason for that is to discover all they can about Victory.”
“Pay attention, Captain.”
“I know how to recover Meta,” Maddox said earnestly. “But we have to move now before it’s too late.”
O’Hara sighed. “Very well, what’s your great insight, Captain?”
Maddox told the Iron Lady about his encounter with the large man and the red-haired woman in the Dempsey Tower lobby yesterday.
“That man is named Mr. Kane,” Maddox said. “He’s the one who engineered Meta’s kidnapping, and he still has her. I also think he’s been genetically altered.”
“Yes, yes,” O’Hara said impatiently.<
br />
“Ma’am, the red-haired woman was Susan Love, the fashion model. I knew I’d seen her somewhere before. Find her and she can lead us to Kane. Then we’ll free Meta.”
It took O’Hara three seconds. “Right,” she said. The Iron Lady pressed an intercom button, giving orders for an Intelligence team to pick up Susan Love discreetly.
“There,” O’Hara said, as she looked up. “Are you satisfied?”
“For now,” Maddox said.
“You’re willing to hear how we can save the human race from defeat and possible extinction?”
“I’m at your command, ma’am.”
“As I was saying, Victory may be our only hope. I don’t see the caliphate coming to its senses any time soon. The Spacers are thinking about leaving their part of the Orion Arm.”
“That’s a serious option for them?” Maddox asked.
“For all your intelligence, Captain, I don’t think you comprehend the gravity of the New Men. There have been reports of nuclear bombardments. Not just a warhead or two on military installations, but a saturation attack that ignited the planetary atmosphere, annihilating an entire population.”
“Genocide,” Maddox whispered.
“Who knows what the New Men have done to other captured populations. We are not sanguine concerning the results. This is possibly a species war, the New Men against the old.”
Maddox felt uneasy. If he were part New Man would that automatically make him the enemy? Why did the New Men go to these extreme lengths? What had caused them to attack in the first place? There were no reports of their existence before their attacks started.
“Captain Maddox,” O’Hara said, speaking gravely. “Those of us who know the truth about Victory have become more astounded by the week at how you managed to bring the ancient super-ship to the Solar System.”
“I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean,” Maddox said.
“Let me state it plainly. Victory is haunted. It’s a death ship. The scientists working on it have become frightened. Many refuse to return to it.”
“Haunted, ma’am, is that what you just said?”
“This is no joke,” O’Hara replied. “It’s an interstellar emergency.”
“I’m not sure what you mean by calling Victory a death ship.”
O’Hara shook her head. “It’s an alien vessel, the biggest military machine anyone has ever built. According to your report, the aliens built the ship and others like it to face the Swarm.”
“That’s what the alien AI told me,” Maddox said.
“Well, the ancient starship has hidden safeguards that keep surprising the scientists. Some of those surprises have been lethal.”
“The AI has been killing scientists?” Maddox asked.
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Have you thought about dismantling Victory?” Maddox asked.
“Oh, we’ve thought about everything, believe me. Doctor Rich has warned us that dismantling the vessel could be dangerous. It might set off hidden explosives.”
“Ma’am?”
“If we attempt something like that, Victory might self-destruct. That would take its ancient secrets to the grave.”
“That would be a disaster for us,” Maddox said.
“Precisely.”
“What technologies have you managed to uncover so far?”
“Nothing,” O’Hara said.
“In ten months you haven’t learned a thing?”
“The starship hides its secrets well,” O’Hara said.
“Surely, others are developing a neutron beam. Since we know it is possible now, it’s simply a matter of uncovering the processes.”
“Captain, let me tell you a secret. This is what Doctor Rich has reported. The alien technologies are far in advance of our sciences. It’s like cavemen operating a radio. We can turn it on and off and speak to others with another radio. But we have absolutely no idea how to replicate a radio because the technology is so far beyond what we know.”
“So what do we know?” Maddox asked.
“In terms of the analogy, how to rub two sticks together and make a fire.”
Maddox scrunched his brow. “It sounds as if we’re years away from duplicating Victory’s neutron beam.”
“Years away from that or any other alien advancement,” O’Hara said. “The only thing we’ve learned is how to perfect our latest tin cans.”
“I’ve never heard of those.”
“And now isn’t the time to go into it,” O’Hara said, “other than to say we learned how to fold space for extremely short hops.”
“I take it that has something to do with Victory’s star drive.”
O’Hara sat back in astonishment. “You came to that conclusion with very few clues, Captain. I’m impressed.”
Maddox said nothing.
“Very well,” O’Hara said. “I’ll get to the point. Victory is a bust for us, so far. We had hoped to pirate the ship’s alien technologies. We aren’t going to do that soon enough to defeat the New Men.”
“So we’re back to square one?”
“Not exactly,” O’Hara said. “We have the starship, and it possesses the various systems. You used the neutron beam against the New Men and destroyed a star cruiser. Just as impressively, you fought off three star cruisers for a time. The ancient starship is a marvel.”
“But your scientists believe it’s haunted.”
O’Hara’s nostrils flared. “Do you remember that Professor Ludendorff spoke about certain people having the right requirements to board the ship?”
“I read his notes. He did say something about that.”
“We understand now what he meant. Doctor Rich agrees with the assessment. It has to do with the starship allowing certain people to survive while aboard. Those without the right requirements, the ship eliminates when it gets the opportunity. It’s why your team survived the voyage from the Beyond.”
“Interesting,” Maddox said.
“No, it’s maddening. We need Victory now more than ever. It’s also clear that under our present circumstances we’re not going to get the starship’s cooperation.”
“You brought me in because you want me to go to the Oort cloud to talk to the AI?”
O’Hara laughed dryly. “If only it were that easy. No, Captain, I want you to return to Victory as its commander.”
“Excuse me?” Maddox asked.
O’Hara searched his face. “Doctor Rich explained it best. Our scientists have been unable to unravel the starship’s secrets. It does not appear they will do so any time soon. Instead, we need a genius, someone who can make intuitive leaps of logic. Obviously, Professor Ludendorff is that man. We would never have acquired the super-ship without his notes, without his instructions.”
“So ask Ludendorff what do to,” Maddox said. “Dragoon him into the project.”
“Precisely,” O’Hara said. “That will be your task, Captain. You are to find Professor Ludendorff.”
“I thought you said you wanted me to command Victory.”
“The two tasks are not exclusive of each other,” the Iron Lady said.
“Perhaps you’d better explain that.”
“It’s very simple,” O’Hara said. “Star Watch, the Commonwealth, maybe humanity as a whole, needs Admiral Fletcher’s thirty-six capital ships. We dare not take our Home Fleet out to save them. Instead, we need a commando ship to do that.”
“Victory?” Maddox asked.
“Yes,” O’Hara said. “But the alien super-ship cannot defeat the New Men unless some of its greater technologies are in operative condition. We’ve cleaned up and patched Victory as best we can. Now, we need Professor Ludendorff to figure out the rest.”
“Wait a minute,” Maddox said. “Are you suggesting I’m supposed to be in the Tannish System within the next few months, to help Fletcher defeat the enemy invasion fleet?”
“Exactly,” O’Hara said, “except you have less than three months to do it in.”
&
nbsp; “But before I head to Tannish,” Maddox said, “I’m supposed to pick up Ludendorff. Then, he’s supposed to figure out how to use the destabilizer, for instance.”
“Yes.”
“Who will be my crew?” Maddox asked.
“The same people who went with you out into the Beyond, plus some space marines and specialists who have similar mental faculties.”
“Where is Professor Ludendorff?”
“Ah, that’s the rub, Captain. He is on Wolf Prime.”
“Where is that?” Maddox asked.
“Behind enemy lines, I’m afraid.”
“Do you mean Wolf Prime is on the rim of “C” Quadrant?”
“I do,” O’Hara said.
“Why is Ludendorff way out there? Doesn’t he know there’s a war on?”
“I don’t know what he knows about the war,” O’Hara said. “We’ve discovered he went to Wolf Prime to study alien artifacts.”
“More alien artifacts?” Maddox asked.
“Not as you’re thinking,” O’Hara said. “In any case, Victory’s star drive should allow you to sneak through enemy occupied systems.”
“I’m supposed to do this with a crippled starship?”
“Captain, this is a difficult assignment. I realize that. This is an emergency, however. The Lord High Admiral and his Strategy Council doesn’t see any other way of rescuing Fletcher’s capital ships. Without those, it’s doubtful we’ll win this war.”
Maddox stared at her. “You’re not telling me everything.”
“Even if true, there would be a reason for that. But that’s not important right now. Do you accept the assignment?”
Maddox was surprised. “Yes, of course I do.”
The Iron Lady tried to hide her relief, but it was visible just the same.
“Why shouldn’t I accept?” Maddox asked.
“Well…” O’Hara looked away. “The scientists turned on the alien AI once too often. It had been waiting for the right moment. It took over. Well, it took over most of the ship’s systems. There has, in fact, been a standoff in the Oort cloud for the past month. The Home Fleet is facing off the alien starship. We don’t want to destroy it, because we need the ancient ship. You have to try for Ludendorff. But captain, if it looks as if the New Men are going to capture the starship…”
The Lost Command (Lost Starship Series Book 2) Page 12