The Lost Intelligence (Lost Starship Series Book 12)

by Vaughn Heppner

  Andros was back at his station and had already strengthened Victory’s shield. The black-hull shrapnel pieces never made it to the starship. The antimatter fireball consumed the hull pieces before they flew ten thousand kilometers. The shock of heat, EMP and hard radiation struck the starship’s shield, turning it pink, red and darker brown.

  “Compensating,” Andros said, as he manipulated his board. “The shield is holding, sir.”

  Maddox sat dumbfounded in his chair, with Commodore Jasken’s former fear reactions now becoming perfectly clear. The Bosk had known the fusion cannon was rigged. He’d known he was going to die by suicide. Yet, how could his cargo be that precious? Wouldn’t the Bosk want to trade the knowledge of the cargo for his life?

  No. Clearly, the explosion out there proved that Jasken and maybe the others had been willing to give their lives to hide the secret.

  Stokes might know what this was about. Maybe Galyan had learned. But for now, Maddox was perplexed.

  “This is awful,” Valerie said. “We destroyed a Star Watch vessel.”

  Maddox faced her. “No. They self-destructed.”

  “Yes, because we fired on them.”

  “We told them what we were going to do.” Maddox scowled, angry with himself for having to explain it to Valerie.

  The captain turned back to the main screen. What was the correct course now? Part of him wanted to head straight for Jarnevon, the Bosk Homeworld. He realized he could not. He needed to get back to Earth and report this. Maybe it would be wisest to report first to Stokes. Maybe then, he could learn what was going on.

  ***

  Victory initiated a star-drive jump, leaving the Tau Ceti System.

  Two and a half hours later, a small stealth corvette moved from its location in the thickest dust particles in the Tau Ceti System. It had been here watching, and it had recorded everything.

  With its passive scanners drinking in data from all directions, the stealth craft accelerated for the nearest Laumer Point.

  The vessel’s captain had to reach Earth as fast as he could. This was priority news, as the action here could jeopardize the entire project. This would also be an excellent opportunity for getting rid of Maddox. He had to get this information to Becker as quickly as he could.

  -7-

  Victory reached Earth orbit, but it turned out that Brigadier Stokes had no interest in speaking to anyone from the starship. Worse, Andros’s ancient Adok computer repairs moved at a crawl. The only bright point was the detection of energy deep inside the last two cylinders. It could mean Galyan was alive in there, his personality, engrams and memories still viable.

  Maddox, Meta, Andros and the others all clung to that hope. The captain had to set that aside for now, however. He had a decision to make and finally came to his conclusion. Instead of secretly reporting to Stokes about the Lolis II, he wrote a report and logged it through regular, official channels.

  It was all very frustrating, and there was an air of unreality to the whole thing. Maddox decided to deal with the problem directly and went downstairs to Geneva, attempting to speak to the new Lord High Admiral.

  That didn’t work, as old man Fletcher was too busy to see him.

  Maddox left headquarters, and his neck started itching almost immediately. He took a different turn on a city sidewalk. Instead of heading back to the spaceport and his waiting shuttle, he headed deeper into Geneva.

  The reason for his itch quickly became apparent. Maddox concentrated and realized he’d only half-noticed a spy-stick watching him from the sky. It was a tiny aerial device. Usually they worked in triplets. He decided to ditch the stick through the normal means, switching routes here, ducking through stores or shops there and keeping out of any surveillance cameras placed throughout the city.

  He felt a “tail” twenty minutes later. The reflection from a shop window showed him that a human tracker—an athletic man dressed as a tourist—was following him. Likely, that meant there were others working with the tracker. Was the tracker part of an Intelligence team or some Bosk organization?

  Maddox set a trap for his tracker, moving to a bad part of town and sprinting ahead, dashing into a dingy alley and rousting a drunk. He took the half-asleep man’s ragged coat and hat, stuffing the newly injected sleeper into a bin. He’d also stuffed a few credit notes into the drunk’s pockets. Likely, the man would buy more drugs or drink with the credits—

  Maddox let his mind go blank as he shivered against a wall, the dirty hat crammed low on his head as he sat with the filthy coat around him and hugged himself. He let himself become the derelict. It was funny, but some folks thought that in the modern Space-Age world, there shouldn’t be any bums. That was not how human nature operated, though. Give people a choice, and some choose to throw their lives away with drugs, drink or dissolution.

  Hurried footsteps told Maddox the tracker was in the alley. The captain continued shivering as he watched the shoed feet walk toward him. Finally, the tracker stopped.

  “Hey, you bum, did you see anyone come this way?”

  Maddox kept shivering, holding his threadbare, dirty coat around him.

  The tracker kicked one of Maddox’s feet. “I asked you a—”

  Maddox looked up as the astonished, tourist-disguised agent reached for a gun under his jacket. Something had given Maddox away. The agent seemed Earth-normal: clean, well-trained, and slow as hell. He took his time fumbling out the silenced pistol.

  Time seemed to halt for Maddox. There was so much he wanted to know. The agent was slow but just fast enough to skip back as Maddox tried to trip him. The agent would not stop, but kept dragging out the weapon.

  With lightning speed, Maddox drew his blaster and fired.

  The agent grunted, releasing his silenced gun. He crumpled to the ground with a thud, dead.

  Maddox launched himself at the man, felt the body and grabbed a wallet. Then, he was up and moving, taking the dirty hat and coat with him. He stuffed that in a garbage bin two blocks later.

  He kept waiting for sirens to go off. That had been an Intelligence operative, or a man impersonating one. As he walked fast, Maddox studied the wallet, the ID. This was a Star Watch operative all right.

  Why would the man have tried to murder him then?

  “Maddox!”

  The captain whirled around, ready to draw his blaster and fire a second time. He saw Stokes step out from a doorway. The brigadier must be under deep cover: he wasn’t smoking a stimstick. Stokes was middle-sized, had a goatee and a rabbit’s ease of blending in. He wore a hat and coat like any tourist.

  Maddox reached him, and they walked together, with Stokes turning into a narrow alley.

  “Did you just have an operative try to assassinate me?” Maddox asked.

  “No. Why would you think that?”

  Maddox gave Stokes a quick rundown of what had happened.

  “It’s worse than I thought,” Stokes said after listening “It’s already started. What did you find in Tau Ceti?”

  Maddox stared at him in disbelief.

  “If you made a regular channel report,” Stokes said, “it’s already gone.” The brigadier snapped his fingers. “Vanished into thin air, as they used to say.”

  A cold feeling settled upon Maddox. He told Stokes the story in the shortest amount of words and time possible. “Does that make sense to you?” he finished.

  “Galyan is out?” Stokes asked.

  Maddox nodded curtly.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe Andros can still repair him.”

  “Maybe,” Maddox snapped.

  Stokes eyed him anew. “Did you hear or learn anything about Nostradamus?”

  “The old-world prophet?” asked Maddox.

  “No, the name I told you about,” Stokes said.

  “No. Should I have heard?”

  “I was hoping… It doesn’t matter now. They must already know what happened out there.”

  “Who must already know?” asked Maddox.

&nb
sp; Stokes gave him a weary look. “There’s a conspiracy afoot. I don’t know the ramifications yet, but it has to do with this Nostradamus.”

  “And Bosks?” asked Maddox.

  “Maybe, but I don’t know. Fletcher is already changing Star Watch, including Intelligence. He’s started compartmentalizing everything. He says it’s so we all march together in the legion as one.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Stokes halted and looked up at Maddox. “It means you’d better watch yourself. I took a terrible chance using the Builder comm device to contact you earlier. I didn’t log my use.”

  “I can change my log on Victory easily enough. Unless you’re trying to set me up.”

  “No…” Stokes said. “I just know that all my instincts are telling me something bad has happened. Your grandmother once told me to trust those gut feelings. I’ve seen too many Bosks lately, and I kept hearing the word Nostradamus whispered. It’s a code word; I’d stake my reputation on that. Captain, watch your back. I don’t think they like you much.”

  “Who doesn’t like me?”

  “Whoever is behind all this. If you were ever going to do one of your di-far miracles, this is the time for it.”

  Maddox nodded stiffly.

  “It’s a new day, a new Lord High Admiral,” Stokes said. “Maybe this is a Lisa Meyers job, but somehow, I don’t think so.”

  Maddox’s neck began to itch. “The spy-sticks are back. We’d better split up. I hope you’re on the level, Brigadier. I can’t work against everyone.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Maddox started in one direction, Stokes in the other. It was time to get back to Victory and do some hard thinking.

  If ever he needed Galyan, and Ludendorff, too, this was the time.

  -8-

  Lord High Admiral Fletcher was hunched over his desk in his office at Geneva. He’d changed in a dramatically short time. He had a gaunt appearance. There was no getting around that. But he’d filled out since wasting away at his house in Maui.

  Fletcher wore a white uniform, had thin, dyed black hair, and must have gained thirty pounds already. He was tall and no longer stooped, but sometimes he collapsed into bed at night. Others considered him rail thin, but his capacity for work approached the phenomenal.

  His veined hand scribbled with a computer stylus on a large slate. His eyes shone as he wrote. He was making changes, by George. He was going to make sure that no New Man, Swarm bug, android, or Methuselah Man or Woman was going to infiltrate his Star Watch. There would be checks and balances, over-watches, guards, political commissars, several competing Intelligence organizations, Space Marines ready to roll, guardian warships and a team dedicated to outthinking the alien enemies.

  Fletcher sat back as sweat glistened on his face. He trembled, breathing heavily. He needed to remember to eat and drink and take his medications. He had to keep healthy. He’d come to realize that no one else had his vision for what mankind could do. United in one purposeful group, like a trained legion, humanity would wipe the stars of all competitors.

  Nostradamus would keep helping, of course. According to the reports, Nostradamus would continue growing in sophistication and predictive power. Let Lisa Meyers attempt to screw with humanity. Let the Swarm bugs start their next set of invasions. And as for the New Men…

  Fletcher grinned as he rubbed his big, veined hands together. His great hope and joy would be in outsmarting the golden-skinned New Men and retrieving all those weeping women the enemy had kidnapped so many years ago already. He would bring them all home, and in doing so, he would wipe away the worst stain to his name as a field commander.

  Oh, he often thought about that. Yes, he even dreamed about it at night. And in the mornings when it was hard to drag himself out of bed, he thought about it then, too.

  “What’s this?” he said in a raspy voice. He noticed a red light on his desk. It kept blinking. How long had it been doing that?

  He pressed a button.

  “There’s an officer to see you,” his secretary said.

  “If it’s Captain Maddox, I already told you—”

  “No, Admiral,” the woman said. “It’s Captain Becker.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Becker, sir,” she said. “He says it’s urgent.”

  “Do I know a Becker?”

  “You’ve seen him twice before, sir,” his secretary said, sounding worried.

  It was the worry in her voice that moved Fletcher. He forgot things these days. It was troubling. He had to hide it better.

  “Yes, yes, Captain Becker. Send the young man in. I’d be delighted to see him.”

  Fletcher threw down the stylus and concentrated so he wouldn’t scowl. He folded his long arms and felt the ribs under his sweat-dampened shirt. What in blazes did this Becker want with him? He’d actually seen—

  The door opened. A small pallid man in a black Intelligence uniform entered. He was narrow-shouldered, but there was something immensely powerful surrounding him, an aura of terrible purpose.

  Fletcher looked up into the man’s eyes. They radiated intensity, and positively swirled with dark powers.

  “Yes?” Fletcher asked.

  “Sir,” the secretary said, who towered behind the small captain. “This is the man—”

  Becker raised a hand, and she ceased speaking as sharply as if he’d punched her in the gut.

  The secretary was a tall, older gray-haired lady, who still possessed much of her youthful slenderness and beauty. She wore a conservative knee-length dress with low heels. She doted on the Lord High Admiral and had summoned security more than once.

  “I’ll speak with him alone,” Becker said softly.

  “Of course,” the secretary said. “I meant no disrespect.”

  “None taken,” Becker said, turning, staring at her.

  She touched her hair, smiling shyly before retreating.

  Becker walked through the door, shutting it behind him.

  “Do I know you?” Fletcher asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Becker said.

  “I feel I should know you. Ms. Livy thinks so, too.”

  Becker sat in a chair. “Lord High Admiral, we have a problem.”

  “It is because I don’t remember you?” Fletcher touched his forehead. “I feel a dull throb. It hurts, and the pain is growing. I don’t know how, but I think you’re causing that.”

  “You’re fine,” Becker said, staring fixedly at the bigger, older man. “There is no pain.”

  “Well, how about that,” Fletcher said, smiling. “The pain just vanished. And…” He peered closely at Becker. “I have a vague recollection of you. You’re some kind of doctor, or miracle-worker. Am I right?”

  “Not this time, I’m afraid. I’m Captain Becker. I work in Star Watch Intelligence.”

  “It’s not going to be a single, monolithic organization much longer,” Fletcher said. “That’s too easy to infiltrate. I want competing Intelligence agencies watching each other. One of them will be the Political Division. They’ll run the military police and possibly have commissars on the starships.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Becker said.

  “You’re in Intelligence. Would you like to run the Political Division?”

  “I’m only a captain.”

  “I could raise you in rank.”

  The slightest of smirks appeared on Becker’s lips. “Thank you, Lord High Admiral. But I’m afraid I must decline the offer.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s too bad, as you’d be perfect. For one thing, I have implicit trust in your reliability.”

  “You honor me, sir.”

  “I feel I should reward you. I feel you’ve greatly helped me and helped humanity through Star Watch.”

  Becker cleared his throat.

  “Ah,” Fletcher said. “Sorry. You wanted to tell me something important.”

  “Sir, you put me in charge of security regarding…Nostradamus.”

  “I did?” Fletcher’s eyelid
s fluttered. “Yes, yes, of course, I did. How is that going?”

  “Overall, we’re making progress. But there’s been a hitch.”

  “I don’t like hearing that.”

  “Sir, Nostradamus is the greatest predictive equipment in the galaxy.”

  “And, it’s ultra-top secret,” Fletcher said. “No one must ever learn about it.”

  Becker nodded. “I knew you would understand. May I say, sir, that you have an intuitive grasp of the topic?”

  “You flatter me, young man, and I do not need flattering. I need time to implement the changes to Star Watch that will cause us to act in unison like a legion under command. We will march over every obstacle that threatens humanity.”

  “A splendid plan, sir. It makes sense.”

  “Thank you,” Fletcher said.

  “But as I was starting to say…” Becker’s eyes shone, truly shone, and something seemed to pass from him to Fletcher.

  It caused the Lord High Admiral to straighten rigidly. He did not blink. He did not breathe. He did not move in the slightest.

  Becker lurched to his feet, keeping his gaze fixed on the admiral. The small captain put his extremely pale hands on the far edge of the desk. He leaned toward the admiral. Despite his diminutive size, there was a dangerously predatory aspect to his stare and posture.

  “Star Watch needs data,” Becker said in a reverberating voice, one filled with power. “We must learn about our enemies and potential enemies. In this instance, we must learn everything we can about the Erills.”

  “Huh?” Fletcher said, as drool dribbled down his chin.

  “Read the secret Intelligence report about them, Admiral. You must send the only man possible who can study them. Captain Maddox must walk the City of Pyramids and take some of the ancient alien equipment. He must return with that equipment to Earth. In that way, our best analysts can calculate the Erills’ next possible moves.”

  “Through Nostradamus?” asked Fletcher.

  “You must never mention that name to others.”