The Lost Artifact

by Vaughn Heppner

  The enemy laser stopped beaming Maddox’s shuttle’s nearly ruptured hull.

  “We have to attack,” Maddox said. “Turn us around.”

  “It will take time to decelerate,” Meta said.

  “Right,” Maddox said. His fingers blurred across his weapon’s board.

  He launched all their antimissile rockets, sending them at the enemy vessel. The squat enemy ship blew up Keith’s secret drone. The laser switched from the exploding drone and targeted the next one.

  “This is no good,” Meta said. “The ship outclasses both shuttles.”

  Maddox bit his lower lip. This was intensely frustrating.

  The comm board began to blink again. He tapped the panel but didn’t see any image. Across the screen appeared the words: DON’T WORRY. YOU HAVE A FRIEND.

  “What’s that mean?” Meta asked, as she glanced at the screen.

  Maddox tapped his board, once more linking it with the outer back scope. An escape pod ejected from the squat enemy vessel. Seconds later, the pod’s thruster propelled it faster as it moved sideways, away from the ship.

  As that happened, the enemy vessel retargeted Maddox’s shuttle. The heavy reappeared on the upper left portion of the screen.

  “Surrender, Captain,” Chem said.

  “I will,” Maddox said. “You have to stop firing, though.”

  “Explode all your missiles as a sign of good faith,” the heavy said.

  Maddox stared at the heavy. He didn’t see a way out of this one. What had the message meant: DON’T WORRY, YOU HAVE A FRIEND?

  “Yes,” Maddox said. He tapped a control. A pulse went out. A second later, the antimissiles detonated.

  The heavy grinned nastily, showing off horse-sized teeth. “Let me see your women. I want to see my prize.”

  “What?” Maddox asked.

  “Your women,” Chem said. “I’m going to—”

  At that moment, the comm signal severed. On Maddox’s screen, the squat enemy vessel simply exploded. One second it was there, the next, armored hull, pieces of bio-matter, spent fuel, water and all kinds of debris exploded outward.

  “What did you do?” Meta asked.

  Maddox shook his head. Then, he tapped his board. The blast heat from the explosion wasn’t enough to hurt them, as it hadn’t been a thermonuclear explosion. Thus, there were no gamma or x-rays to worry about. Neither was there an EMP coming for them.

  What had just happened?

  “Captain,” Keith said over the comm. “How did you pull that one off?”

  Maddox sent a comm signal to the accelerating escape pod. A second later, Yen Cho peered at him from the screen.

  “Hello, Captain,” Yen Cho said. “Did you appreciate my gift?”

  Maddox nodded slowly.

  “Perhaps I should explain,” Yen Cho said. “Strand took me prisoner some time ago. His people controlled the attack craft just now. But they weren’t as clever as the clone. You do know that a clone of Strand is behind all this, don’t you?”

  Maddox said nothing. Yen Cho the android. It had been quite some time since he’d seen the construct.

  “In any case, the attack leader became sloppy,” Yen Cho said. “I managed to escape my confinement, sabotage the ship and escape in a pod. Now, I could use a hand, as otherwise, I’m stranded out here.”

  “Rotate your pod and begin decelerating,” Maddox said crisply. “Victory should be back soon. I’ll have them pick you up after I debark. I do appreciate your help. It’s fortunate for us you happened to be on that vessel.”

  “No, Captain Maddox, it was fortunate for me that you are here. I am grateful for the diversion your shuttles provided.”

  “We are both fortunate.”

  Yen Cho seemed to think about that. “Yes,” he said. “That is so.”

  -35-

  Victory reappeared shortly. The shuttles landed in the hangar bay. Afterward, Valerie sent a shuttle to pick up Yen Cho.

  Marines in combat suits trained their weapons on the android as he entered the shuttle’s cargo bay. He did not question the need for their presence. Soon enough, the rescue shuttle landed and the armored marines escorted Yen Cho to a holding cell.

  During the rescue action, Valerie formally relinquished command to Maddox. She also gave a verbal report of the battle with the cloaked vessel and the piece of debris that had apparently escaped through a Laumer Point.

  With all these threads tangling at once, Maddox decided to hold a briefing. It was time to thrash through a few of the actions and decide, if they could, what they possibly implied.

  In an hour, they assembled. Captain Maddox sat at the head of the large conference table. Beside him to the right were Meta, Riker and Keith, with Andros Crank at the other end of the table. Valerie was beside him on the left, with a spot for Galyan and then Finlay the mercenary pilot. Maddox included her because she was familiar with this region of space and the Tristano System in particular.

  Maddox had Valerie repeat her report. Afterward, Keith told the others about the combat with the squat fold-vessel from the asteroid. Lastly, Galyan reported about what they knew concerning the troubles on Smade’s Asteroid.

  “It is chaos over there,” the little holoimage said. “According to my latest intercepts, poison gas is flooding the interior levels.

  Finlay gasped, turning white at the news.

  “Do you have any idea who pumped the gas into the life-support systems?” Maddox asked her.

  “No,” Finlay whispered. “It sounds horrible. Who would do such a thing?”

  “The android might be able to tell us,” Valerie said dryly.

  “I’ll interrogate Yen Cho soon enough,” Maddox said. “As to who might do it, the obvious culprit would be the clone of Strand.”

  “That is my belief as well,” Galyan said. “Strand the original is notoriously callous regarding human life. He might have caused such mass death and destruction to cover his actions while on the asteroid.”

  “Agreed,” Maddox said.

  “What about the android?” Valerie said. “Yen Cho helped us in the past, but that doesn’t mean I trust him now.”

  “All true,” Maddox said. “Clearly, he didn’t help us out of any sense of altruism. Like you, I suspect the timing of his appearance.”

  “His appearance and rescue does seem to bend the laws of probability,” Galyan said. “I suggest we examine his ethics to determine the reason for his actions.”

  “Explain that,” Maddox said.

  “Is Yen Cho coldblooded enough to engineer an attack and then callously sabotage his own people and vessel while he flees?” Galyan asked.

  “He’s an android,” Riker said. “It’s not a matter of cold blood for them. It’s a matter of logic.”

  Maddox nodded. “The question arises, if Yen Cho engineered the situation, does he expect us to believe him at face value?”

  “That is an astute question,” Galyan said. “I suggest you ask him.”

  “He’s an android,” Riker repeated. “His face isn’t going to give away anything.”

  “Quite true,” Galyan said. “But his statements might.”

  “We’ll shelve the idea for now,” Maddox said, as he turned to Valerie. “I would like your thoughts, Lieutenant, regarding the debris that went through the Laumer Point.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that for some time,” Valerie said. “I don’t know what the debris was, but I know it must be important. Laumer Points don’t simply activate by accident so a piece of supposed debris can transfer. That was planned.”

  “Galyan?” Maddox said.

  “I concur with Valerie,” Galyan said. “It would seem that the innocent piece of debris was the most valuable thing aboard the cloaked vessel. I wonder if it was so important that the clone sacrificed himself to shield its escape.”

  Maddox slapped the table and pointed at Galyan. “I should have thought of that. Yes. That lets us know something about what escaped.”

  “I do not unde
rstand,” Galyan said. “You are suggesting it is living.”

  “Not necessarily biological,” Maddox said. “It is of Builder construction. Let me amend that. It’s most probability of Builder construction.”

  “Which is why the clone possibly acted as a decoy to let it escape?” Galyan asked.

  “No,” Maddox said. “I don’t believe a clone of Strand would act as a decoy to save anyone except possibly for the real Strand. However, a Builder device might have forced the clone into a certain course of action.”

  “That implies that the piece of debris possessed intelligence,” Galyan said.

  “Right,” Maddox said. “We have to track it. We have to do it faster rather than slower. I’m not sure that either Keith or I could survive a fold or a jump right now. We need…maybe another twenty-four hours.”

  “I don’t think we should put you in a shuttle again, sir,” Valerie said. “How do we really know what’s going on at Smade’s Asteroid. Those could all be fake messages. If that’s true, more fold-ships could be waiting for you to enter a shuttle while we go elsewhere.”

  “There is another point to consider,” Andros Crank said. “If it’s a Builder device, I’m thinking the captain is right. We have to reach it as quickly as possible. While the piece of debris is small, it might have waiting equipment on the other side of the Laumer Point.”

  “We’ll begin maximum acceleration for the Laumer Point,” Maddox said. “The lieutenant is correct. Now isn’t the time to leave anyone behind. We should investigate Smade’s Asteroid just to be sure of the reports and to lend a hand to any survivors. Unfortunately, we don’t have time for that, as we now have another emergency. We must see if the debris is indeed Builder tech.”

  “Could that be why Yen Cho is here?” Meta asked.

  The others looked at her.

  “Yen Cho was on the asteroid,” Meta said. “Could he be coordinating with Strand or with the possible piece of Builder debris?”

  “That’s a good point,” Maddox said. “What was Yen Cho doing on Smade’s Asteroid? I think it’s time I had a talk with the android.”

  “Do you expect to get any truth from it, sir?” Riker asked.

  Maddox glanced at Galyan before he regarded his sergeant. “Maybe not the truth,” the captain said. “But we can begin to analyze what he says and doesn’t say. It will give us something to do while Victory accelerates for the Laumer Point.”

  On that note, the captain dismissed the others.

  -36-

  To Maddox’s disgust, he found himself tired out after the meeting. He wasn’t used to his body betraying him like this. Usually, he could push through any normal fatigue or demand that his body perform better and faster.

  Today, as he walked down a corridor, he yawned, and his mind blurred. He was simply too tired to interrogate the android. With Yen Cho, he wanted to be at his sharpest, not having to stumble through the interrogation because he was too stubborn to take a rest.

  Thus, Maddox changed direction and went to his quarters. He took a nap, expecting to get up in a half hour.

  Sometime later, Meta shook him awake.

  Maddox sat up groggily. He hardly felt any better. Did he even get any sleep?

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  “You slept for three hours,” Meta said. “I’ve never seen you nap for more than one before.”

  Maddox was dumbfounded. He climbed out of bed and felt momentarily light-headed. That was wrong, all wrong. He needed a physical. Maybe there was something off with him. If so, he needed to find out what.

  Meta accompanied him to medical. Doctor Lister gave him a physical. Afterward, she picked up a brain scanner, clicked it on and set it before his head. She studied the readings and became agitated.

  “What is it, Doctor?” Maddox asked.

  With the brain scanner aimed at his scalp, she continued to study the readings. “It appears as if there’s—I’d call it a neuron deficiency.”

  She clicked off the scanner and set it on a stand. Lister kept flicking her lower lip and finally looked at Maddox.

  “This must have something to do with the operation,” she said. “I wasn’t able to extract all the control fibers, remember?”

  “Does the scanner show the fibers having any effect on my brain?” Maddox asked.

  “Not that I can detect, and that bothers me.”

  “Meta,” the captain said, turning to his wife.

  She lowered a magazine as she sat in a chair to the side.

  “Are you carrying a weapon?” Maddox asked.

  Meta raised her blonde eyebrows before shaking her head. “Should I get one?”

  “At once,” Maddox said.

  Throwing the magazine onto a side table, Meta jumped up and ran out of the examining room.

  “Do you mind telling me what this was about?” Lister asked.

  “A moment, Doctor,” Maddox said. “Galyan,” the captain said into the air.

  The Adok holoimage appeared a second later.

  “Find Riker,” the captain said. “Tell him to bring a sidearm and hurry to medical. He’s going to be my bodyguard for a time.”

  “Yes, sir,” the holoimage said, disappearing.

  Maddox drew a long-barreled gun from inside his jacket. This one wasn’t a beam weapon, but a regular slugthrower noted for its accuracy.

  If Lister appeared surprised by the second order and the gun, she didn’t show it. Had she known he’d been carrying a sidearm during the physical?

  “Shall I call Security?” the doctor asked. “Would you like a marine guard to come?”

  “Most certainly not,” Maddox said.

  Lister took her time, finally saying, “I must admit that I’m perplexed by your actions, sir.”

  Maddox studied the doctor closely, deciding she wasn’t an android or a Spacer agent. He had become…anxious was the wrong word. He didn’t know the correct word. The point was that there were far too many strange events occurring one right after another. He was beginning to believe that none of those events had occurred by accident, including his foreign tiredness and the strangeness of the brain scan.

  “Sit beside me, please,” the captain said.

  He shoved a chair against the far wall, sat down and kept his long-barreled gun aimed at the door.

  “Really, Captain, are you expecting assassins?”

  “Listen carefully,” Maddox said, turning to stare at the doctor. “You must sit down and shut up. I need to concentrate and I’m finding that extraordinarily difficult.”

  Cowed, Lister set a chair beside him and mutely took a seat.

  After a minute of silence, Maddox put the gun on his lap. He kept a keen eye on the door, however.

  “I do not believe the nerve fibers, the ones you failed to extract from my brain, have caused the diminishment of my neural connections.”

  Lister glanced at him in wonderment. It seemed to take an effort of will for her to speak. “That doesn’t make sense,” she finally said. “What, then, has caused, the diminishment, as you put it?”

  The question seemed to upset the captain, although it would have been difficult to tell by his bearing. Instead, in a robotic fashion, Maddox picked up his gun, stood and turned toward Lister. He brought the handle of the gun down hard against Lister’s forehead. The handle made an audible thump against her skull. She fell off the chair and collapsed onto the floor, out cold.

  “I hope I didn’t miscalculate,” Maddox told the unconscious doctor.

  As Maddox finished speaking, a woman with short red hair opened the door. She did not stare in astonishment at the fallen doctor. She did not look at the gun in Maddox’s grip. Instead, she stared directly into Maddox’s eyes.

  “Listen to me,” the woman said intently.

  Maddox began to smile, but found to his surprise that he lowered his gun so the barrel pointed at the floor. After that, he craned his neck forward so he could better listen to the woman.

  That was strange. The captai
n tried to form words but couldn’t quite get them out.

  “No,” the woman said. “You mustn’t try to speak. You must listen to what I’m going to tell you. Are you listening, Captain Maddox?”

  It seemed as if wheels turned in his mind. Those wheels shifted the tracks of his thoughts onto a different course. Instead of resisting her words, Maddox nodded.

  “I’m here to help you,” she said. “I’m here to help Star Watch.”

  That seemed incredible, and yet, she seemed like the most trustworthy person in the universe to him.

  “You captured an android, didn’t you?” she asked.

  Maddox nodded.

  “What is the android’s name?”

  “Yen Cho,” Maddox said.

  “The Yen Cho?” she asked.

  Once more, Maddox nodded.

  “This is very important,” the woman said. “You must kill him.”

  Maddox stared at her in bewilderment.

  “I am from Brigadier O’Hara’s office,” she said.

  “N-N-No,” Maddox stammered. “That. Isn’t. True.”

  “You will believe whatever I tell you,” the woman said. Her eyes seemed to expand, then.

  This time, Maddox tried to resist. He would not believe her. He would…

  The woman’s eyes expanded until they were all Maddox could see. That turned wheels in his mind, made it impossible to resist.

  “No,” he whispered.

  He could no longer see the whites of her eyes, just the pupils. They seemed to expand, as well.

  That produced a horrible headache. Maddox felt nauseous. He bent over and vomited.

  “Believe what I say,” the woman intoned. “I am from Brigadier O’Hara’s office.”

  Maddox could only see darkness now. He heard the words, but he wasn’t going to believe them. That created worse pain in his mind, searing agony. He didn’t want to, but a cry tore from his lips. His strength drained away with the cry. He fell to his knees and then collapsed onto his hands. The long-barreled gun had clunked onto the floor beside him. He could hear it, but he couldn’t see it.

  “Do not fight me, Captain,” the woman said. “You will die if you fight me.”