The Lost Artifact

by Vaughn Heppner

  “You’re returning command of the starship to me?” Valerie asked.

  “I just said I was.”

  Valerie stared at him for two seconds and seemed to reach a conclusion. “Then, you have to apologize for having that musclebound ape drag me off the bridge earlier in front of everyone.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Maddox said.

  Valerie shook her head. “Then I’m not going to acknowledge your orders. Get someone else to command the starship.”

  “Is this mutiny?” he asked.

  “Call it whatever you like,” she said. “You embarrassed me in front of everyone. What’s more, I was in the right. But you just bulled through as you always do. This time, I’d like to hear you say you’re sorry.”

  Maddox stared at her. He had no intention of saying—he slumped back and hit the bed. Seconds later, Meta shook him back awake.

  He hardly knew what had happened.

  “Can’t you say it?” Meta whispered to him.

  “Say what?” Maddox asked.

  From somewhere unseen, a person snorted.

  At that point, Maddox remembered. He sighed. He was so damn tired and kept fainting. Maybe Doctor Lister hadn’t done as good a job as she thought she’d done.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “What’s that?” Valerie asked.

  “I’m,” Maddox said as loudly as he could. “Sorry. Now, go kill the clone…if you can.”

  Valerie stood at precise attention. She made a perfect salute. “Yes, sir, you can bet your balls that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  -29-

  Valerie seethed as she rapped out orders on the bridge. Maddox had said he was sorry. She could hardly believe that had happened. Even harder to believe was how she’d stood up to him. It had been one of the most difficult things to say to him. Such a thing wasn’t covered by regulations. She had done what she felt was right, even though he had given her a direct order to resume command. Maybe as bad as that, she had been sure he would not say he was sorry.

  Yet Captain Maddox had. She could let go of that. She had let go of that. It was one of the reasons she seethed inside.

  As the bridge crew readied for the star-drive jump, it gave her a few seconds to contemplate the last hour.

  She’d worked tirelessly to get the starship ready for a fast combat jump. Because Maddox had apologized, she had put that behind her and totally focused on the mission at hand.

  It had felt good. She seethed because of what she’d just heard about Keith. He had gone into shock. She hadn’t wanted to, but she’d ordered him aboard a shuttle as well. Two shuttles were staying behind, with two strikefighters to guard them.

  She didn’t want one of the pirates at Smade’s Asteroid making a kidnapping attempt.

  Valerie seethed because she wanted payback from Strand, or the clone of Strand.

  A clone of the Methuselah Man Strand. That implied the real Strand’s hand. He had to be the most vengeful person she knew. He must have labored for years to set something like this up in case he ever died or faced imprisonment. It stood to reason, right? The clone—if it was Strand—had Builder tools, possibly a Builder ship. If the real Strand hadn’t used those things…it had to be because they were too dangerous to use normally.

  Valerie shook her head. Why did the real Strand care so much? Why did the Methuselah Man have to get back at everyone?

  Emotion. It came down to emotion. That was how the ancient Methuselah Man was wired. According to Captain Maddox, the real Strand wanted his clone to destabilize the Commonwealth of Planets.

  Valerie wondered why the real Strand wanted such a thing. Did he think such destabilization would create the conditions so he could escape the New Men? Could the real Strand have planned that far in advance?

  Valerie couldn’t see how. And yet, according to Maddox, this fake Strand, this clone, had amazingly predictive software and computers so he could do such a thing as lure Victory to the Tristano System…so Maddox would go undercover to the asteroid.

  What did the clone need Maddox to do back home?

  Valerie shook her head. It could be a whole slew of things. Would the clone want Maddox to assassinate Brigadier O’Hara, for instance?

  “Galyan,” Valerie said.

  The little holoimage stood beside the captain’s chair. He turned to her.

  The starship shuddered.

  “What was that?” Valerie shouted. She made a face at herself. She shouldn’t shout. The acting captain was supposed to remain calm so the rest of the bridge crew could draw from her calmness and remain even-tempered.

  “There was a…hiccup in the antimatter engines,” Andros said.

  “A hiccup?” Valerie asked.

  “It’s the best way I can describe it,” Andros said. “We need another few minutes to check the main lines before we can possibly jump.”

  She nodded.

  “Valerie,” Galyan said.

  She turned to the holoimage.

  “You spoke my name a few seconds ago.”

  “Oh, right,” she said. “I was going to ask you something. Now, I’ve forgotten what it was.”

  “You must be worried about Keith,” Galyan said. “Would you like me to check on his condition?”

  “No!” Valerie said, a little too loudly perhaps.

  Galyan seemed to study her.

  “I have to concentrate on the mission,” she explained. “I need to focus. If the captain thinks this is that critical, I cannot fail him.”

  “I have read many medical journals,” the holoimage said. “They agree that the human mind is a…funny instrument. It can hallucinate under many of the conditions Captain Maddox faced while under anesthesia during his surgery.”

  “You don’t think he really knows what’s going on?” Valerie asked, surprised.

  “He did know about the cloaked vessel,” Galyan said. “That is something in his favor. The rest of it…I am unsure. Do you fully trust the captain’s… certainty?”

  “He’s made remarkable guesses in the past,” Valerie said.

  “True. That is another point in his favor.”

  “Okay, Galyan, spit it out. I have a few minutes until Andros gives me the all clear. What’s really troubling you?”

  “Why is the captain so dead set on destroying the cloaked ship? I would think the better idea would be to capture it, to interrogate the clone and confiscate the Builder technology.”

  Valerie rubbed her chin. The little holoimage had a point. “Do you have any idea why Maddox might want to order the cloaked vessel’s destruction?”

  “I do. Strand fashioned the New Men. The New Men harmed the captain’s mother. Maybe without his realizing it, the captain holds Strand responsible for his mother’s death.”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Valerie said.

  “It is an elaborate theory,” Galyan admitted.

  Valerie cocked her head, finally nodding. “Strand once put post-hypnotic commands in Meta’s mind, remember?”

  “I do remember, Valerie.”

  “The captain’s story holds together is what I’m saying. Until I find a solid reason otherwise, I’m trusting the captain’s instincts.”

  “Even after what happened to Keith?”

  It took her two heartbeats, but Valerie nodded.

  “Interesting,” Galyan said.

  “Captain,” Andros said. “We’re ready. The engines are clear to jump.”

  Valerie nodded. She faced the main screen. They were going to jump into battle. They were leaving Maddox, Meta and Keith behind. She rubbed two of her fingers together.

  “Jump when ready,” she told helm.

  Then she anticipated the fight on the other side of the jump, and hoped she was good enough so the clone of Strand didn’t outsmart her and make her look like an idiot.

  -30-

  Despite Yen Cho’s lack of emotions, the android was uneasy as he waited inside the spaceship inside Smade’s Asteroid.


  His logic processors warned him this was an iffy mission. Still, he didn’t see that he had much of a choice. Someone, likely the clone Strand, had sabotaged the asteroid. As far as Yen Cho had been able to determine, the event that had started the mayhem had been Chang’s death.

  Had Strand engineered that?

  That seemed highly unlikely, and yet, there were many unlikely factors at work here. The probabilities of many of the events that had occurred…they had struck Yen Cho as impossible. That had also indicated what he’d long feared about Strand.

  The Methuselah Man was reckless. All the Methuselah Men over the centuries had been conceited, reckless humans that the wrong-headed faction of Builders had foisted upon the universe.

  While Yen Cho wasn’t a hardcore “Rising Sun” Builder sect advocate, he did have leanings in that direction.

  Many species throughout the centuries had believed that the Builders were a monolithic group. The truth was otherwise. The Builders had been just as fractured as humanity, with some sects completely at odds with the others. Many alien races were not like that. Humans and Builders were, to a fault.

  In any case, Strand was reckless. The original Strand, the one trapped on the Throne World, had set certain schemes into place. Some of those schemes would only begin if and when he was captured or slain. The Methuselah Man was incredibly vengeful.

  The clone had huge ideas, and he possessed fantastic technology. According to what Yen Cho had discovered, the clone had a Builder-made vessel and possibly a Builder-constructed robot of special design.

  Yen Cho intended on gaining both of those items. To achieve that, however—

  The rear hatch of the piloting chamber opened. A musclebound 2-G heavy lumbered in. He stank of sweat and fear, and of anger.

  “We do not move,” the heavy said. He name was Chem and he was a squad leader, thicker and stronger than the others under his command. Five other heavies followed Chem. Along the way, Yen Cho had picked up three techs. The techs were terrified of the monstrous soldiers.

  Yen Cho looked back at Chem. The heavy hadn’t been dosed with the hypo. To the android’s surprise, he’d found that logic had swayed the brute. The creature had actually sworn an oath to follow him.

  It had dawned on Yen Cho that the heavies were like overgrown dogs in search of a master. Still, some dogs could growl with impatience if they did not get their food fast enough. For Chem, right now, “food” was escape from the treacherous asteroid.

  “I am thinking,” Yen Cho said.

  “Or do you not really know how to pilot a spaceship?”

  “I told you I can pilot it. I do not lie.”

  “But we do not move. Think while you fly us from here.”

  “Do you want to live, Chem?”

  “Yes. I have said so.”

  “There is a Star Watch battleship out there.”

  “I know.”

  “I am figuring out how to make it let us leave the star system.”

  “That is impossible.”

  “Is it really, Chem? If that is so, we are doomed.”

  The heavy scowled thunderously. “Do not mock me.”

  “I do not,” Yen Cho said. “I am waiting—”

  The screen began to blink.

  The android faced it and began to manipulate the board. He watched the starship use its special jump mechanism, vanishing from view.

  “What happened?” Chem said. “Where did it go? There is no Laumer Point out there.”

  “The starship is coming back,” Yen Cho said, avoiding the question. “It has to come back.”

  “Why?”

  Yen Cho manipulated the controls. He brought up two shuttles and two strikefighters guarding them. All four vessels were quite some distance from the asteroid, farther than a spaceship could reach quickly.

  “I have been monitoring their communications,” Yen Cho explained. “The captain of the starship is out there in a shuttle.”

  “That is stupid of him.”

  “In this instance, I agree with you, but Captain Maddox did not have a choice in the matter. That he is there inclines me to believe that surgeons removed the control chip. He cannot fold or jump until his brain has rested for a time.”

  The android regarded the heavy behind him. “Do you know what is even better?”

  The huge soldier shook his rather small head.

  “This ship possesses a fold mechanism just like the fighter I saw earlier.”

  “Is that important?” Chem asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Yen Cho said. “It means that I am about to capture Captain Maddox. With him in my grasp…I will be able to dictate terms to the starship.”

  The heavy frowned, making him seem stupider than normal as he tried to follow the android’s reasoning.

  “Go,” Yen Cho told Chem. “Tell the others to strap in. We’re about to leave. Tell them to remain strapped in until I say otherwise. We are going to jump.”

  “Without a Laumer Point near?” Chem asked.

  “This is a fold vessel. Weren’t you listening?”

  The huge brute regarded the android. Chem finally nodded. “I will tell the others.”

  “Good,” Yen Cho said. “And make sure your combat suits are ready. You’re going to be raiding the largest shuttle.”

  “Does the shuttle have women? We lack women.”

  Yen Cho thought of Meta. He had never really cared for her. “Yes. The shuttle has women. You may keep the women if you do exactly as I say.”

  Chem smiled, showing horse-sized teeth. Then the heavy retreated to give the message.

  Yen Cho began to activate the controls. It was time to leave Smade’s Asteroid and ready this vessel to fight. So far, the plan was proceeding flawlessly.

  -31-

  Deeper in the Tristano System, Strand’s ghost-ship accelerated, heading as fast as it could for the nearest Laumer Point. Despite all its fantastic equipment, the vessel lacked an independent star-drive jump or even a fold mechanism.

  The hatch to the bridge opened.

  Strand whirled around. That let him know how keyed-up he was. The robot floated within, the hatch shutting behind it.

  “I have detected pre-jump pulses in our vicinity,” the robot said. “The starship should appear at any minute within two million kilometers of us.”

  The statement stunned Strand. He’d never heard of anyone detecting…pre-jump pulses. This was a new and incredible technology, one the robot had seen fit to keep from him before this.

  “If what you say is true,” Strand said, “we’re finished, dead.”

  “Not necessarily,” the robot said.

  Strand studied the Builder construct. He’d suspected a secret agenda on its part ever since he’d boarded the craft. How could something so marvelous, and without any detectable control mechanism installed, obey him all this time? Maybe because it had been faking obedience to him all this time.

  “Do you have a plan?” Strand asked.

  “Yes,” the robot said.

  The clone sagged with relief. Why had the little thing waited all this time to tell him an emergency plan?

  “How certain are you the starship will appear?” Strand asked.

  “The computer has not made a prediction of action. I detected pre-jump pulses. Did you not understand my original statement?”

  “I understood,” Strand muttered. “I simply don’t understand why you haven’t told me about these pre-jump pulses before this.”

  “It was never germane to any of our past situations.”

  “Fine,” Strand said. “So, what’s this secret weapon that can defeat the Adok starship?”

  “You are misinformed,” the robot said. “I said nothing about a secret weapon.”

  “But you just told me you have a plan.”

  “I did, and I do.”

  “Well?” Strand shouted. “What is your plan? You’d better tell me while there’s time to implement it.”

  Instead of answering, the robot simply hovered in pla
ce.

  “Have it your way,” Strand said. He whirled back to the control panel. The robot troubled him.

  Due to intense suspicion and heat on his neck, Strand spun around again. A slot had opened on the robot’s cone-shaped top section. A small nozzle protruded from the slot.

  Strand shouted with outrage. He slapped his chest, hitting an ancient piece of technology. It activated a personal force field around him. He did it just in time, too.

  A ray flickered from the robot’s nozzle, striking the clone’s force field. That part of the field quickly began to glow red.

  Strand saved his breath. He wanted to shout at the robot, telling it what a treacherous bastard he’d turned out to be. Instead, the clone drew the blaster, the one that had formerly been under his pillow. After the fold-fighters had left, he’d retrieved it from his quarters. Strand depressed the blaster’s trigger, and not a damn thing happened.

  “I took the precaution of deactivating your blaster,” the robot informed him, even as the little construct continued to beam him.

  “Why are you doing this?” Strand sobbed. “You’ll kill us both.”

  “On the contrary, you are the only one between the two of us who will die,” the robot said. “I told you I have a plan. I do. It does not involve you, however, as this ship will soon be terminated.”

  “It’s not a living ship, you idiot.”

  “You are wrong,” the robot said. “It is living, in a sense, at least. But that is not the point.”

  As the robot spoke, it continued to beam him. Strand saw the force field in front of him begin to turn purple. He stood, but that was all he managed to do. He felt a terrible lethargy overtake him.

  “The force field is interfering with your motor functions,” the robot said. “You can momentarily block my beam, but you cannot run away to a different part of the ship. I knew you would activate the force field. Thus, I have pre-activated certain ship functions.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”