The Lost Tech

by Vaughn Heppner

  The 82 G. Eridani System was twenty light-years from Earth and eight and a half light-years from Alpha Sigma 9. The 82 G. Eridani System had a main sequence star with a stellar classification G6 V. The star was slightly smaller and less massive than the Sun, and marginally dimmer in luminosity. It was a high-velocity star—moving more quickly than average—and was thus a member of Population II. None of that should matter to the problem. The system’s asteroid belt was located 740-820 million kilometers from the star, about the distance Jupiter was from the Sun. The second terrestrial planet, Olmsted, was a cold world with approximately 650 million people, mostly of Scandinavian and Russian ancestry. There were a few defensive satellites orbiting Olmsted along with a Star Watch Bismarck-class battleship.

  She hadn’t learned yet why there were no escorts or destroyers with it. She hadn’t yet contacted the battleship, nor had it contacted her, which was odd, come to think of it.

  Despite its nearness to Earth, 82 G. Eridani was considered a backwater system, providing plenty of fur trappers, miners and beer distillers and some of the best chess players in Human Space, but that was about it.

  There were supposed to be several more missing asteroids. Should she call the battleship? The distance would mean delayed messaging. Perhaps the battleship’s captain hadn’t wanted to mess with that. Perhaps its sensor operator had already told the battleship captain that the Bombay was a Star Watch science vessel.

  “This is weird,” Kris said aloud.

  She hunched over the science board and began using the ultra-powerful sensor array. She hunted with radar, thermal imaging, radiation detection—all kinds of sensors. At no point did she discover anything that might indicate an asteroid or explain a missing asteroid.

  “Wait,” she whispered. What was this? It was a faint electrical pulse.

  Her fingers flew across the panel. The faint pulse matched what the battleship probe had detected several weeks ago. It came from two million kilometers away, and it—

  Her panel beeped as the sensors detected an asteroid that hadn’t been there a second ago.

  Kris’s eyes bugged outward as she cursed with amazement. The asteroid did not slowly move about the belt as the others did. This sucker moved in a straight line, traveling at—

  “This can’t be right,” she whispered.

  The asteroid was traveling at 25 percent light-speed. Its diameter was… Kris manipulated faster, starting to feel sick. According to the sensors, the asteroid’s diameter was 510 kilometers.

  What the hell? The 510 kilometers was familiar. Why was that? She ran a quick check. No… This was Asteroid Theta A/18 of the 82 G. Eridani System Main Asteroid Belt. It was, in fact, the largest of the belt and the first one missing.

  “Where’s it going?” Kris muttered.

  She made some calculations—her skin went cold. The damned racing asteroid was heading for a direct collision where the terrestrial planet Olmstead would be in…2.185 hours. Kris blinked repeatedly, her breathing rapid. The heavy asteroid was traveling 75,000 kilometers per second, one-quarter light-speed. That should be flatly impossible. How could it be doing that?

  It disappeared for a time. During that time, it accelerated to one-quarter light-speed.

  Kris sat back, dazed at the idea.

  Her sensor board began to beep again. She snapped forward and checked. The weird electrical signal showed again, but at a different location. There was a slight wavering in space, and suddenly Asteroid Theta C/22 appeared.

  “This has to wrong. It’s impossible, flat impossible,” she said. Yet, I’m seeing it; the sensors are seeing it.

  She ran the numbers, and, of course, they came up the same. The smaller asteroid was traveling at 25 percent light-speed, and it was on a direct collision course for Olmstead.

  The breath went out of Kris as she remembered one of her high school science lessons. The asteroid that was thought to have killed the dinosaurs on Earth had been a mere ten kilometers in diameter. It hadn’t been 510 kilometers in diameter, and it certainly had not been traveling at one-quarter light-speed. The dinosaur-killing asteroid had not been traveling even close to that.

  “Annihilation,” Kris said in a dull voice. “If these monsters hit Olmstead—”

  She closed her eyes, thinking it through. If the Theta C/22 Asteroid hit, it would deeply crack the planet. If the Theta A/18 Asteroid hit soon thereafter…it would shatter the cracked planet into chunks, pieces, with masses of debris.

  She opened her eyes as the import of what she saw slammed home with interest. The two zooming asteroids were on a direct collision course with Olmstead. That meant someone or something had aimed the 25 percent light-speed traveling asteroids, which indicated deliberate action and high technology, much higher technology than Star Watch possessed.

  In a daze, Kris rose, heading to the piloting board. It was time to make the call to Olmstead’s orbiting battleship.

  -6-

  The feeling that she had been through this before was strong to the point of déjà vu. That had been years ago when Betty Artemis had been her pilot aboard the Osprey. Then, a Destroyer of the Nameless Ones had sliced and diced the planet of New Arabia with an amazingly huge beam. Now—Kris had no idea who or what was doing this evil.

  Kris had just gotten off the comm with the captain of the Koniggratz, a stern old man with the last name of Joseph. The Koniggratz was a Bismarck-class battleship and was already charging away from Olmstead to intercept the first asteroid.

  That was a joke, though. Captain Joseph planned to use nuclear-tipped missiles against the thing. If there were a dozen battleships and they reached the asteroid as far away from Olmstead as possible, maybe they could hammer it with nukes and alter its course just enough to nudge it away from a collision. But one battleship as the asteroid neared Olmstead…forget about it.

  Kris was recording everything she could. Star Watch had to learn about this. Who would do such a thing? Who had the technology to try?

  Kris shook her head. She had no idea. It was happening, though. That was the point.

  Time seemed to slow down and yet speed up at the same time. Kris moved slowly about the bridge, trying to dredge up something she could do to save the 650 million inhabitants of Olmstead. She could just imagine the panic in the slushy streets. She moaned in sympathy for them, and she was surprised to discover that her cheeks were wet.

  Who could blame her, though? This was the death of a planet and millions upon millions of innocent people. It was one thing to see soldiers die in battle. It was another having millions of innocent victims perish.

  The clock to Armageddon ticked down for the planet of Olmstead. And Kris had a panoramic view as she sat on the bridge of the Bombay.

  Of course, just as the Koniggratz launched its first missile, another asteroid appeared—another hurtling mass of doom.

  Kris recorded everything she was witnessing.

  A Koniggratz missile reached Theta A/18, detonating against it. Debris blew off the asteroid from a tiny fraction of the mass, and it did nothing to change the monster’s collision course.

  Three more missiles reached Theta A/18, and there was the tiniest deviation to the asteroid’s flight.

  Now, five missiles roared at the asteroid together—Kris was laugh-crying. Maybe this would work. Maybe she was about to witness a miracle. Maybe—

  Laser beams speared out from the asteroid. The hot beams struck each missile in turn, melting and slagging them, rendering the nuclear warheads inert. The junk slammed against the asteroidal surface, but still did not change the asteroid’s course.

  “Lasers?” asked Kris, dumbfounded. “From an asteroid?”

  She rushed to the nearer science board and studied what she could of Theta A/18. She found more hidden laser batteries just under the surface.

  She went cold. This was deliberate murder, mass murder of 650 million inhabitants. The launcher of the asteroid—

  “Yes, someone fired or launched the asteroid at Olmstead,
” she said aloud to herself.

  Kris swallowed and silently vowed to get this data to Star Watch. She was more than awed and terrified. She was beginning to get angry.

  For the next quarter-hour, she worked efficiently and quickly, recording, sending out packets and buoys to make sure someone in Star Watch received the data.

  “Aha,” she said a little later. Maybe Commodore Smits and perhaps the warden of the Alpha Sigma 9 military prison had nothing to do with Spengler and Corporal Johan. Maybe the villains behind the zooming, laser-armed asteroids were behind the attempt on her life. If so, however, why had they used such losers?

  Kris stared at the sensor screen. She wasn’t seeing this in real time, but several minutes later. The distance to Olmstead and the speed of light mandated that.

  Asteroid Theta A/18 sped for Olmstead, neared it and then struck the upper stratosphere. The friction made the plunging giant asteroid red-hot. That lasted a short time as the huge mass of stone, ores and other matter slammed at 25 percent light-speed—75,000 kilometers per second—against the larger object of Olmstead with a diameter of 12,860 kilometers.

  A/18 hit, and a terrific explosion rocked the planet and created instant cracks that went kilometers deep and kept splintering. The hot mantle spurted up all over the planet. The lava continued to surge and poured across the shaking surface.

  Asteroid Theta C/22 struck next, zooming down and hammering the planet. The planetary cracks deepened and lengthened. It was doubtful anyone was alive on Olmstead, meaning that 650 million people had just died.

  Olmstead would soon no longer be one mass, one planet, as yet another asteroid hit, this one with a 231-kilometer diameter.

  “No,” Kris whispered.

  The final asteroid slamming against Olmstead did it, breaking the planetary mass into pieces. There were five big ones and a host of smaller pieces and then debris, masses of debris beginning to spread outward.

  She’d just witnessed the death, the destruction of a planet by giant asteroids traveling far faster than was possible without artificial help. How could such masses have gained such velocity in such a relatively short time and without any visible thrusters on any of them?

  “Why?” Kris whispered. Why had these hidden foes done it? What purpose could it serve?

  Kris wiped away tears. She had no idea, but she knew that she must, absolutely must get this data to Star Watch Headquarters on Earth.

  That meant—

  Her science board began to beep. It was hard to focus on it, but she began manipulating… “No,” she whispered. “This can’t be happening.”

  Faint electronic signals or readings pulsed near the Koniggratz, the Bismarck-class battleship. It was far enough away that none of the debris or planetary chunks had hit it.

  Was another asteroid about to appear from nowhere, smashing against the Star Watch vessel? Kris was starting to expect it—when the battleship slid out of sight. The front section disappeared first…as if it entered a different realm or reality. The process went fast, and then the Koniggratz was gone.

  Kris’s fingers flew over the sensor panel as she tried to pick up some semblance of a reason—

  Her board beeped again, as the same electronic signals pulsed and then vanished. They came from where the battleship had just disappeared.

  Kris sat back, frowning, trying to understand— “Of course,” she said. “I’m an idiot. It’s obvious what that is.”

  The electrical pulses showed an opening of some kind that appeared and disappeared. When it opened, a battleship disappeared, or an asteroid appeared. The previous signals that the probe had found several weeks ago were the openings as the asteroids vanished into whatever realm or place they did. In that realm, apparently, asteroids accelerated to 25 percent light-speed and were then spat back out, carefully aimed.

  “A planet killer,” she whispered. “I’ve seen the operations of a planet killer.”

  Kris sat bolt upright. Why had the people, aliens, whoever operated the hidden thing, made the battleship disappear? One obvious reason was to keep any knowledge about the planetary destruction a secret.

  “Shit,” Kris said. If they took the Koniggratz, why won’t they take the Bombay?

  Kris stood, turned and stumbled to the piloting board. She had to get out of here, fast. Plopping onto the seat, she set a course and engaged the engine, turning the Bombay and heading out-system. As a small science frigate, the Bombay did not have a star drive, but used a Laumer Drive and Laumer Points.

  She could go farther out and use a Laumer Point that would take her to Earth after a few hops, or she could head to the nearest Laumer Point and get out of the star system as fast as possible. It would take her longer to reach Earth using that star-line route. So which choice should she make?

  She sat there, thinking, thinking—

  The science board began to beep. Kris turned her head toward it. She didn’t want to check it because she had a good idea what it meant.

  “Dammit Kris, you’re in Star Watch,” she told herself.

  She jumped up on unsteady legs and went to the science board. The faint signals were all around the Bombay. She spat an oath and spun on her heels. Then she broke into a sprint.

  She raced through the corridors, pain knifing her side and her breath ragged. She wasn’t in any kind of shape, not after four months in a military-prison cell.

  She turned a corner, ran and crashed against an emergency hatch. Frantic, wondering if it was already too late, she opened the hatch, grabbed the bar and thrust her legs through the opening. She slid a short way, plopping into a tiny lifeboat, an escape pod. She threw herself at the seat, strapped in and pulled a lever. The pod ejected, slamming her back against the seat. The pod sailed for several kilometers before Kris caught her breath. She was praying silently, asking God for mercy.

  “Please let me live. Please let me live.”

  It occurred to her a few seconds later that she hadn’t warned the others on the Bombay. Johan was in the brig, the engineer was in the engine area and the computer tech was probably in his room watching porn. She should have warned them. Was it too late? If she radioed the Bombay, would the hidden aliens pick that up and find her?

  Kris sat there indecisive. Finally, she switched on a passive sensor, studying her surroundings. She looked, looked more, and realized with sick dread that she did not see the Bombay even though she was searching the correct area.

  Might she have slipped into the strange realm instead of the Bombay and that was why she couldn’t find the frigate?

  With the passive sensors, she studied where the planet Olmstead should be. Her stomach tightened as she spied the broken chunks that had recently been a planet. She was still in the 82 G. Eridani System. But that must mean the aliens—or whoever—had taken the Bombay through the opening and into their realm. That meant she was stranded in a dead star system. The only person that knew she was here was Commodore Smits, and whom was he going to tell if he didn’t have to?

  Had she just made the worst decision of her career, her life?

  Kris looked around the tiny pod. Her prison cell on Alpha Sigma 9 had been bigger than this.

  “Stay calm,” she whispered.

  She tried, but groaned, closing her eyes. She had priceless data for Star Watch. But would anyone come looking to find her before the strange aliens with their secret super-weapon struck again and destroyed another populated world?

  It looked like she still had her rotten luck and that she had changed essentially nothing about her life.

  -7-

  THREE MONTHS LATER IN THE NEAR BEYOND

  Fifty-nine light-years from the bubble of territory known as Human Space was the Haven System. In Commonwealth and Star Watch terms, the system was in the Beyond.

  With the active exploration by the Patrol Arm of Star Watch, the Spacers and even the New Men of the Throne World, much of the Near Beyond was mapped and well known. That included the notorious Haven System.

  The noto
riety came from the dwarf planet Tortuga, which orbited the main sequence star at roughly 442,000,000 kilometers. In Solar System terms, that put it in the Asteroid Belt region.

  Tortuga was notorious for several reasons, one being the asteroidal-debris cloud that orbited the dwarf planet in a puzzling maze up to four hundred thousand kilometers from the surface. The dense and shifting mass of debris clouds, rocks and asteroids made it dangerous for any ship or shuttle to reach Tortuga from space. The wrecked and demolished ships and shuttles that had tried and failed to negotiate the maze orbited the pirate lair with the rest of the debris, possibly as a reminder to others to leave the dwarf planet’s denizens in peace. As an aside, those living on Tortuga—or a small minority, at least—knew the secret to negotiating the orbiting maze. That minority made its living hauling people and goods through the ever-shifting mass.

  That was the second reason for Tortuga’s notoriety: the space pirates and shady dealers who used the dwarf planet as a stronghold and clearing house.

  A group called the Brethren ran Tortuga, patterned no doubt from the historical “Brethren of the Coast” who had used the Haitian isle of Tortuga in the Pre-Space days of Earth during the Age of Piracy. The Brethren was a loose coalition of pirate captains, former privateers, as well as Spacer, New Men and Star Watch renegades and others who wanted to live beyond anyone else’s strictures.

  The Brethren sold many fascinating and unusual items and had as many interesting and unusual customers. Respectable merchants occasionally sought out Tortuga or brought ransom to free kidnap victims. The reason why Star Watch, the New Men and others left the Brethren in peace was partly due to the dense asteroidal-debris maze surrounding the dwarf planet and partly because of the heavily armed and strategically placed satellites circling Tortuga’s near-orbital space behind the debris cloud.

  As Professor Ludendorff had pointed out to Captain Maddox several days ago, Star Watch could certainly send the Grand Fleet to burn each asteroid and debris cloud out of the way. But the cost in time and money would bring small strategic rewards. Not that Maddox had asked for an explanation, but the good professor had given it anyway. Ludendorff had also pointed out that the same calculus held true for the main New Man Fleet.