The Lost Artifact

by Vaughn Heppner

  SF Books by Vaughn Heppner

  LOST STARSHIP SERIES:

  The Lost Starship

  The Lost Command

  The Lost Destroyer

  The Lost Colony

  The Lost Patrol

  The Lost Planet

  The Lost Earth

  The Lost Artifact

  THE A.I. SERIES:

  A.I. Destroyer

  The A.I. Gene

  A.I. Assault

  A.I. Battle Station

  EXTINCTION WARS SERIES:

  Assault Troopers

  Planet Strike

  Star Viking

  Fortress Earth

  Visit VaughnHeppner.com for more information

  The Lost Artifact

  (Lost Starship Series 8)

  by Vaughn Heppner

  Copyright © 2018 by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  -PROLOGUE-

  -1-

  Yen Cho—the oldest of the Yen Cho Series Androids and likely the oldest android, period, in Human Space—hunted an assassin in one of the most secure buildings in London in the England Sector of Earth.

  It was the Queen’s Tower, a gleaming skyscraper soaring over the rest of the city. The android was on the 101st floor, moving through a carpeted corridor. He wore a Star Watch Intelligence uniform but possessed a questionable pass.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, two Queen’s Tower security agents guarded the door he needed to get through at the end of the corridor.

  Yen Cho wore a disguise, a Captain Maddox faceplate with elongated legs, for this mission. He attempted to mimic the captain’s customary swagger and impatient stride. If the agents questioned him, though…

  Yen Cho ran through his parameters as he neared the two agents. One watched him closely. That agent used his left elbow to nudge his partner. The other looked up, seemed perplexed and grabbed a hand monitor hanging from his belt.

  Yen Cho did not like that.

  His logic processors churned at incredible speed and precision. One hundred and sixty-seven years ago, Yen Cho had gained Builder-grade upgrades, making him unique and possibly the most lethal of the androids.

  He increased his pace, as he was seven doors away from the guards.

  The second agent—a man with heavy sideburns—must have seen something he didn’t like on the hand monitor. He let the monitor drop, reached for his holstered sidearm and spoke rapidly to his partner.

  Yen Cho broke into a sprint. He could have drawn his own weapon. But it was a dart gun with special tranks and only contained a few shots. He could not afford to waste the darts on these two.

  The first agent froze, if only for a moment. All hominids had that tendency, which Yen Cho had hoped to engage. That gave him his chance, except for one unforeseen problem.

  The second agent must have been a speed-draw artist. He cleared a Churchill automatic from its holster, flicked off the safety with his thumb and pulled the trigger before Yen Cho could reach the man.

  Then, one of those quirks of fate gave Yen Cho a hand. The automatic must have jammed. It took a moment for the agent to realize that nothing had happened. Using two hands, he began to clear the misaligned bullet—

  That was all the margin Yen Cho needed. He reached them and punched the gun-wielding agent in the throat, crushing the human’s windpipe and bones with an exoskeleton-enhanced feature of his metallic frame.

  Yen Cho had a pseudo-skin covering, and thus appeared human to anyone without a scanner. But that made no difference to his incredible strength.

  As the second agent crumpled to the floor, the first agent finally came out of his funk. He swung at Yen Cho. That was a mistake. The android absorbed the strike against his face. It did not hurt. He only feared that it might damage the pseudo-skin, marring it and thus wrecking his disguise.

  Before the agent could recover from his mistake, Yen Cho grabbed the man’s head and twisted so the neck bones snapped. The man joined his compatriot in a heap on the floor.

  The android did not need to check a watch to see how much time he had left. His internal chronometer told him that he had less than seven minutes left—if his calculations were correct. And Yen Cho was quite certain they were.

  He used a key, unlocked the door and dragged the two corpses into a hallway. He stepped back outside, staring at the blood on the rug. There was nothing he could do now about the mess left there from the ruptured throat.

  “I say,” a woman called from deeper in the apartment. “Is everything all right? I was told no one would enter without my permission.”

  Yen Cho knew he was out of time. He shut the door, locked it and hurried down the corridor. Something warned him then. It wasn’t intuition, as androids did not possess such an ethereal function. It must have been the upgrades running through various scenarios.

  He knew that the woman was a highly skilled credit-thief. It seemed unlikely she would have called out as she did in an innocent manner. She must have done that to lull whoever had come in.

  Yen Cho threw himself onto the floor as he turned the corner. His assessment had been correct. The credit-thief hid behind a sofa with a spring-driven needler in her hand.

  She’d fired as soon as she had seen him, and several steel needles pin-cushioned the wall behind Yen Cho.

  “You’re fast,” the thief said. She had short red hair and what humans considered a pretty face.

  Yen Cho hadn’t expected her to keep her cool so well. As he scrambled up, a half-dozen steel needles pin-cushioned the pseudo-skin of his face.

  The android was aware of the strikes, of course, but he did not feel pain like a man would have. He moved fast, and the thief blanched as he charged her.

  She shot him again, in the torso this time, tearing his Star Watch Intelligence uniform.

  By that time, Yen Cho had gone over the sofa, grabbed the credit-thief and pinned her shoulders against the wall so her feet dangled above the floor.

  “You’re hurting me,” she said.

  Yen Cho regarded her with the steel needles embedded in his face.

  “Obviously, you’re an android,” she said.

  “Where is he?” Yen Cho asked in an imitation of Captain Maddox’s voice.

  She stared at him without replying.

  “You will talk to me,” he said.

  “Listen,” she said, not frightened yet, but seemingly considering if she should be.

  “I am out of time,” Yen Cho said. He threw her onto the floor, turned her over and put a knee on the small of her back.

  “Upstairs,” she gasped. “He’s upstairs.”

  “I know that. What floor and room?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes. He plans to assassinate the Lord High Admiral of Star Watch.”

  “You’re lying,” she said. “Everyone knows Admiral Cook saved humanity. He saved us all from the Swarm. Why would anyone want to kill him?”

  Yen Cho did not have time to debate. He had withdrawn a hypo from his kit. He pressed the end against the woman’s neck and with a hiss of injected air, gave her a full dosage. Afterward, he removed his knee from her back and stood up.

  She turned around groggily, blinking at him.

  “I know,” Yen Cho said. “It hurts. The pain will not go away until you are dead. If it is any comfort, you are going to die soon.”

  Terror widened her eyes. The fear should help the drug loosen her
tongue, which was why he’d told her.

  “Who…are…?” she whispered.

  “I am Captain Maddox.”

  “No. Disguise… You’re…android.”

  He pulled out an energizer and pressed it against her neck. It caused her body to heave upward with a massive jolt of electricity.

  She began talking, babbling as fast as she could concerning what she knew about the assassin.

  Yen Cho listened, his cybertronic brain recording everything.

  In 56 seconds, it was over. The credit-thief drummed her heels on the carpet as her seizure worsened. Half a minute later, air wheezed from the corpse as all the muscles relaxed.

  Yen Cho was already in the bathroom, using the mirror to pluck the steel needles from his face. He removed the ones from his torso as well. Could he reach the assassin in time?

  He ran through possibilities and saw that he had one chance. It was a risk, a big one considering the man’s location and the event that was taking place near Big Ben. Soon, the Lord High Admiral would give his speech.

  Yen Cho whirled around, moved back into the living room, passed the dead woman and came to a large window overlooking London. It was a long drop to the ground 101 floors below.

  Yen Cho smashed one side of the glass. He then yanked the windowpane inside. Some shards would have rained down. He hoped no one noticed. Without hesitation, the android climbed up to the window frame at the right side.

  He manipulated his hand. Spikes appeared at each fingertip and each toe. He had already kicked off his boots. Like a human fly, Yen Cho drove the finger and toe spikes into the outer wall of the gleaming Queen’s Tower. He scaled the outer wall as the wind whipped at his garments. This was seriously compromising his human disguise. He would have to discard the pseudo-skin soon and replace it with a new covering.

  The android’s right foot slipped and he almost lost his grip.

  “Concentrate,” he told himself.

  He did, and he climbed to the second highest floor. While clinging to the wall, he used his left foot and hammered the glass of another window. It was a tricky maneuver, but he made it into the room.

  It was empty. Good. He had less than thirty seconds left. Admiral Cook would soon come up on the podium. Given the assassin’s motives, he would want to kill the Lord High Admiral at the psychologically worst moment.

  The android ran through an empty corridor and slowed down as he neared the fated door. A hiccup in his logic processors came to Yen Cho as a moment of doubt. He shoved that aside. If he was correct, this could lead him to the greatest discovery of his long life. That was why he did this. He did not care about the Lord High Admiral or the unity of the Commonwealth of Planets.

  The Swarm Imperium was going to conquer Human Space. It was just a matter of when. The Imperium had sent one invasion fleet. Eventually, they would send a second, third and fourth, however many were needed.

  No. This was for a possibly greater prize, one that Yen Cho had secretly yearned to achieve almost since he had gained self-awareness.

  The android opened the door and slipped within. He moved soundlessly, and in seconds, he saw the assassin.

  He was a wizened old man hunched over a long-range beam rifle. A force screen shimmered in place of the window someone had taken out. The man’s ability to reach this location at this time was unbelievable considering the security that had gone into locking-down the city of London and the Queen’s Tower in particular.

  How did the assassin think he could get away with this? Surely, he wanted to live afterward.

  The android advanced upon the assassin. The other adjusted his big beam rifle. It was on a stand while a targeting computer made minute adjustments.

  Something must have alerted the assassin. He whirled around, and his eyes widened in astonishment.

  “Captain Maddox…how?”

  The android smiled. “Strand,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  The old man, who looked exactly like the Methuselah Man Strand, licked his lips. He seemed to be calculating madly.

  The android drew and fired the dart gun, putting three tranks into the man’s chest.

  The Strand lookalike blinked at the darts, looked up at the android, and faded into the influence of the tranks, wilting onto the hard floor.

  Yen Cho moved up and looked through the beam-rifle’s scope. He saw the podium down there. He saw the Iron Lady, the Lord High Admiral and Captain Maddox, all sitting in the front row of a vast crowd. If he wanted, Yen Cho could assassinate them all.

  Would that be what humans called ironic?

  The android’s internal chronometer told him he lacked the time for such thoughts and pauses. Taking out a hypo, he revived the man who looked like Strand.

  Yen Cho knew the real Methuselah Man was locked on the Throne World, a prisoner of the New Men. Who was this man and why was he here?

  As the Strand lookalike woke up, Yen Cho bent down and put a device on the man’s forehead. He then sat on the floor cross-legged beside the man. The interrogation would take fifteen minutes, and it would cause the lookalike much pain. But Yen Cho wanted data. If he was right about the reason for this Strand-looking assassin, this little talk could be the most important one of his exceedingly long life.

  What was funny about it, in a way, was that he—Yen Cho—had just done the Commonwealth a great service. They might or might not learn about the greater danger to the Commonwealth that this lookalike and his assassination plot represented.

  That, though, wasn’t the android’s concern.

  “Ready?” Yen Cho asked the man.

  “Please, don’t hurt me.”

  Yen Cho chuckled. Then, he began the intense process of extracting the assassin’s data.

  -2-

  In Galactic terms, Human Space was a tiny region several hundred light-years in circumference. Within the Patrol-charted area were several multi-star-system political bodies. The Commonwealth of Planets was the largest, containing hundreds of Earth-colonized worlds. Before the Swarm Invasion Fleet a year ago, the Commonwealth had been busy integrating planets from the Windsor League, the shattered Wahhabi Caliphate, the Chin Confederation and the Social Syndicate Worlds, among others.

  Since the alien invasion, since the billions of slain people lost in the Tau Ceti, Alpha Centauri and other star systems, since the hundreds of destroyed Star Watch and New Men warships and hundreds of thousands of dead service men and women, several severe political quakes had shaken the Commonwealth of Planets to its core.

  People were tired. People were scared, and people were hiding their money because the taxes to pay for such powerful space defenses had started to become too burdensome.

  Despite all this, there was a greater, hidden problem. While many of the quakes—the revolutions, the nationalist rebellions and the quantum leaps in incidences of piracy—seemed understandable, there were other problems with a different source, a calculated and possibly evilly premeditated source.

  Brigadier Mary O’Hara of Star Watch Intelligence had sensed this hidden hand. She’d pored over charts, graphs and secret reports indicating this veiled malignance, and she had lost far too many of her best agents in the oddest places.

  She finally asked the Lord High Admiral for the services of Starship Victory and for her favorite Intelligence officer to return to her stable of operatives. That officer, of course, was Captain Maddox.

  Brigadier O’Hara, aka, the Iron Lady of Star Watch Intelligence, summoned Maddox to her office in Geneva, Switzerland, Earth. She briefed him, listened to his thoughts, and then sent him on a secret mission to a No-Man’s-Space between the Chin Confederation and the former Social Syndicate Worlds.

  After Maddox left, O’Hara studied a different report, a troubling one that she hadn’t considered yet. That report led her to request the use of a special Builder communication device.

  Three days later, the Lord High Admiral granted her permission.

  Two and a half hours later, O’Hara spoke to th
e tall, urbane and golden-skinned Emperor of the New Men.

  The Emperor lived on the Throne World many hundreds of light-years away from Earth. Star Watch did not know the precise location of the planet. However, Star Watch did know that it was in the region of space commonly known as the Beyond.

  Quite simply, the Beyond meant beyond Human Space. More than one hundred and fifty years ago, the last two Methuselah Men—Strand and Professor Ludendorff—had started a colony world of genetically superior people, hoping to create a defender race of supermen for the rest of humanity.

  Things hadn’t quite worked out that way. The New Men were faster, smarter and stronger than the old, so that part was a success. Unfortunately for the rest of humanity, the New Men had understood their superiority over Homo sapiens humans. Seeing themselves as the rightful rulers due to genetic brilliance, the New Men had decided to subjugate those they considered as sub-men. Those sub-men had proven more stubborn than the New Men had expected, and the initial New Man invasion had been beaten back by ferocious and desperate fighting.

  Due to a number of strategic factors, the New Men had come in their star cruisers to help against the Swarm Invasion Fleet. With the climactic victory over the aliens, the star cruisers had departed Human Space and returned to their place in the Beyond. However fragilely, the uneasy peace between Star Watch and the New Men still held.

  One of the reasons that the Emperor of the New Men had agreed to help Star Watch was that Captain Maddox had given them a special captive, their genetic creator, as it were, the Methuselah Man Strand.

  Strand was also the reason for O’Hara’s special long-distance call. She had achieved the call through a unique Builder communication device, its duplicate on the Throne World.

  After O’Hara completed the pleasantries, she came to the point of the call.

  “I cannot pinpoint the exact reason, your Majesty,” O’Hara told the Emperor. “But I have a feeling that a Methuselah Man works against the Commonwealth.”

  The Emperor nodded. They spoke via screens. He seemed to nod, however, only out of a sense of common courtesy. In truth, the golden-skinned superman seemed bored with O’Hara.