Once O’Hara had a firm grip of the handle, she flicked her wrist, hurling the steaming liquid at him. Ludendorff must have anticipated the motion, because he was already dodging as she flung the coffee. Some stained his suit, and he noticeably winced as a few hot droplets struck his cheek.
Before he could fully recover, O’Hara backhanded the cup against his head, although not hard enough to break the cup. Ludendorff staggered backward just the same. The Iron Lady rushed him as she dropped the cup. But Ludendorff slipped to one side even as he stumbled back. He also stuck out a foot, and O’Hara’s left foot struck it. She went sprawling onto the floor with a thudding crash.
She lay there, panting from the exertion.
Chair legs scraped across the deck plates.
She looked up and saw that Ludendorff had turned the chair to face her new location. He was sitting, sipping his own coffee, obviously trying to pretend his head didn’t throb from the strike.
“Would you like to continue this farce?” Ludendorff asked in an altered voice. “Or would you like to act like a civilized person?”
O’Hara sat up, noticed she was near a bulkhead, slid across the floor until she rested her back against the wall.
“I realize you have studied the best Star Watch personal combat techniques,” Ludendorff said, his voice returning to normal. “But I am the clear expert in such matters, knowing vastly more than you. In truth, you are a child compared to my advanced skills.”
“Why did the New Men ambush me?”
“Does it matter?”
“Very much,” she said.
“I don’t agree. Thus, I won’t answer. Do you wish to continue the meeting or should we adjourn and go our separate ways?”
“Adjourn,” she said.
Ludendorff set down the cup, stood, bowed his head and made to go.
O’Hara almost let him. “Wait,” she said.
Ludendorff raised his left eyebrow.
“I… I…need to talk to you.”
“Oh,” he said, sitting down again.
“But I don’t know if I can trust you.”
“What’s to know?” he said. “You were in my power and you still possess your free will. I haven’t tampered with you. In fact, no one tampered with you.”
“Did the New Men wish to do so?”
“I rule here,” Ludendorff said, his voice hardening for just a moment.
“Then why?” O’Hara said. “I don’t understand why the New Men drugged me.”
“I am the Methuselah Man.”
“Meaning that your motives are above my puny understanding?” O’Hara asked.
“You mean that as a joke, but you are precisely correct.”
O’Hara thought about that and about the New Men and their actions. “I’m sorry, Professor. I must conclude that you did something to me while I was unconscious.”
“You’re right. I healed you.”
“That you did something nefarious to my mind,” O’Hara amended.
“Think what you like,” he said with a wave of his left hand. “It doesn’t matter to me. Now, why did you beg to see me?”
“Why did you need the New Men to help you capture me?”
Ludendorff sighed as he crossed his legs. “Brigadier, you have a decision to make. I will have to leave soon. As you pointed out earlier, I do not wish to remain in the vicinity with the Moltke drawing near. If you wish to speak to me about other matters, now is your opportunity.”
She studied the old scoundrel. She still felt the same way about him as ever. Could he have deceived her in some fashion? He was playing an angle. The professor always did, and he often told mistruths. This was maddening. She should have never come alone. Yet, the stakes had led her to do this, to take a gamble with the arrogant old Methuselah Man.
“Very well,” O’Hara said. “It’s time we talked.”
“I’m listening,” Ludendorff said.
“I could use a cup of coffee first,” she said, “and something to eat.”
“Yes,” he said. “Come with me. I could use a bite to eat, too.”
-3-
O’Hara ate much more than she expected. It would appear that she’d been famished.
After wiping the corner of her mouth with a napkin, she took a moment to look around. The bulkheads were different here. The air was clean—pure. The food dispenser—
She turned to Ludendorff. He sat across the table from her, having eaten a wedge of lettuce with blue cheese dressing and bacon bits.
It was a small galley.
“This is part of your ship,” she said.
He set down his knife and fork, pushing the empty plate from him.
“Are we still in the station?” O’Hara asked.
“Of course,” he said.
“But this is part of your ship,” she said.
“No.”
“It has to—”
“I had this place installed inside the station,” Ludendorff said, interrupting.
“Oh.”
“I’m not kidnapping you, Brigadier. I gave you my word that you would be safe.”
“You still haven’t explained about the New Men.”
Ludendorff glanced up at the ceiling as if in exasperation.
“But I’m no longer interested in them,” O’Hara lied. “We have a short time. We must talk before you flee from the Moltke.”
“Please,” he said. “I’m immune to your petty insults.”
“I see. You’re too mighty to flee from a Bismarck-class battleship?”
“Mighty,” he said, as if tasting the word. “Yes. That would be correct. I am too mighty to fear your lone battleship.”
O’Hara wondered if that was true. With Ludendorff…maybe, but maybe it was his constant arrogance speaking.
She cleared her throat. He was going to leave soon. That was the point. Thus, she should use her remaining time wisely.
“I’m not sure how much you know,” she began.
“Rest assured, more than you.”
“Oh. So you know about Admiral Fletcher’s latest battle?”
“Tell me how you perceive it.”
She paused for a half-beat before saying sharply, “A Swarm fleet appeared.”
“Another one?” he asked.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Please, continue.”
“What do you mean ‘another one?’ Has the Swarm appeared somewhere else?”
“Admiral Fletcher fought a battle,” he prompted.
O’Hara glanced at her empty plate. Ludendorff had asked if another Swarm fleet had appeared. He surely could not have meant another from the original invasion fleet of 80,000 Swarm warships several years ago. Could a different Swarm fleet have attacked the New Men? Was that why two New Men had been here with the Methuselah Man?
She cleared her throat, regarding the cunning charlatan. All the while, Ludendorff watched her closely.
“I’ll be brief,” O’Hara said. “Less than three months ago, a hyper-spatial tube appeared a quarter of a light-year away from the Hydras System.”
“Indeed,” Ludendorff said, seeming intrigued.
“Our long-range Builder Scanner on Pluto spied the invasion fleet,” O’Hara said, “but it was at the extreme limit of the device. According to it, five thousand Swarm warships were heading from the tube’s exit-point to the Hydras System. I’m not sure if you know, but Star Watch annexed the Hydras System after the war with the New Men.”
“I’m familiar with the Hydras System,” Ludendorff said dryly. “Approximately fifteen million people inhabit it. Most are of Greek descent.”
“That’s right. We spotted the five thousand warships and decided to send the Grand Fleet against it. This time, we didn’t use any Destroyers. We kept those near Earth in case the five thousand ships were a Swarm feint to outmaneuver us.”
“That was a logical deduction,” Ludendorff said.
“The Commonwealth doesn’t own five thousand spaceships even if one in
cludes most haulers. But five thousand ships is a measly number for a Swarm Invasion Fleet.”
“Why are you stating the obvious?”
O’Hara shook her head. “I’m happy to report that Admiral Fletcher rose to the occasion. He took the bulk of the Grand Fleet and rushed to the Hydras System, reaching it before the enemy. He mined the outer system just as we did here in Tau Ceti. There wasn’t as much dust and debris there as here, but the Swarm ships fell easy prey to Fletcher’s massed missile assaults. That astounded the admiral to such a degree that he changed the operational plan. He openly approached the remaining enemy vessels with the Grand Fleet, and he butchered the Swarm ships with…with pathetic ease. That bordered on the fantastic.”
O’Hara had a frozen half-smile. “Toward the end of the butchery, Fletcher had a stroke of genius, using space marines to board several of the final enemy vessels. He captured all but two of them. Those two blew up, taking the marines with them. Fletcher’s surviving marines captured Swarm royalty. That may well have been the turning point of the war for us. He brought the Swarm captives back to Earth.”
O’Hara laughed sharply. “Our scientists have studied the Swarm and finally hacked their bizarre language. Do you know what we discovered after long interrogations?”
Ludendorff shook his head. For once, he didn’t seem like someone who knows everything.
Once more, O’Hara laughed sharply.
“The five thousand ships were science vessels. Oh, they had a few laser cannons per ship, but that was due to regular Swarm design, not for any real military purpose. The five thousand vessels were like one of our Patrol ships. Instead of sending a single scout ship to check something out, the Swarm Imperium sent out five thousand vessels. Those scout ships went to a distant silver pyramid. I mean distant from the borders of the Imperium.”
“By silver pyramid, you mean a Builder nexus,” Ludendorff said quietly.
“Right,” O’Hara said. “According to what we learned, that particular nexus was approximately four thousand light-years from the Hydras System.”
“Was?” Ludendorff asked.
“I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is that the Swarm Patrol Fleet—to use our terminology—went to the distant nexus. There, the Swarm scientists studied it in detail. What we didn’t know until we interrogated their royalty was that the first time the Swarm invaded with their eighty thousand warships, Thrax Ti Ix had created the hyper-spatial tube for the Imperium by manipulating a nexus. Apparently, Thrax did not pass along this information to the War Masters, to anyone in the Imperium. Well, the Patrol scientists stumbled onto the secret of creating a hyper-spatial tube. The tube shot out to the Hydras System four thousand, one hundred and nineteen light-years. From what we’ve been able to discover, the hyper-spatial tube entry point sucked in the Swarm Patrol Fleet. It did not suck in the scientists aboard the nexus. Those Swarm creatures remained at the fringe of the Imperium inside the nexus.”
“By Swarm creatures, you mean their scientists,” Ludendorff murmured.
“Weren’t you listening? That’s what I just said.”
“The alien scientists,” Ludendorff said, ignoring the interruption, “now know how to create a hyper-spatial tube. Once they return to the Imperium, others will know as well.”
“Yes,” O’Hara said hoarsely.
A hyper-spatial tube was the unique creation of a Builder nexus. The Builders were ancient beings of vast intellect, mostly long gone from this part of the galaxy. With a hyper-spatial tube, a ship or a fleet could cross thousands of light-years in an instant. It had allowed the Swarm Imperium to send ships all the way to Human Space twice already. The first invasion had cost humanity several, formerly populated star systems, including the Alpha Centauri System 4.3 light-years from Earth.
The brigadier had squeezed her fingers into fists, pressing her fists against the table. “Do you understand what this all means? Fletcher thought he’d won another glorious victory. It was important that we won the battle, certainly, but—”
O’Hara rubbed her forehead before glaring at the professor. “To the Imperium, losing five thousand ships was like us losing a single Patrol vessel. They weren’t even military vessels.”
“I was listening. I understand the situation.”
“The attack against the Hydras System was a warning,” O’Hara said. “We used our Grand Fleet to demolish a tiny enemy probe. The Imperium could just as easily have sent hundreds of thousands of warships down the hyper-spatial tube, not a mere eighty thousand like their first invasion attempt that we barely defeated.”
“That does constitute a problem,” Ludendorff said.
O’Hara gave a strangled laugh. “‘Problem?’ Hundreds of thousands of Imperial warships means the end of the human race.”
“I take it Fletcher took losses during the latest battle.”
O’Hara blinked, thrown off by the statement. “Forty-seven ships,” she finally said, “half of them destroyer-class or smaller. The admiral thought it was a glorious victory. In the end, it was a staggering defeat, if one thinks of it in attrition terms. If we lost one ship to their ten thousand, we would still go down to certain defeat.”
“Yes,” Ludendorff said. “The New Men did much better in terms of ratios, but in essence, they had similar results.”
“The Swarm Imperium attacked the New Men?” O’Hara asked.
“Indeed.”
“And?”
“I just told you,” Ludendorff said. “The New Men annihilated the enemy vessels just as Admiral Fletcher destroyed the five thousand.”
O’Hara stared hungrily at the professor, hungry for information.
“Oh, very well,” he said, sounding exasperated. “Ten thousand Imperial vessels appeared in the Throne World System.”
“No,” O’Hara whispered.
“Oh, yes,” Ludendorff said. “Fortunately, the Emperor led the attack, using all the tricks the New Men had prepared for Admiral Fletcher—if Fletcher had been foolish enough to take the Grand Fleet to the Throne World before this Imperium business all started.”
“Was it an Imperial science-team probe?” O’Hara asked.
“Yes, although a considerably larger one than Fletcher faced.”
“Did the New Men take losses?”
“I am not at liberty to say,” Ludendorff replied.
O’Hara snapped her fingers. “That’s why New Men were here. They wanted help, but they’re too arrogant to ask us ordinary humans directly. Are you their intermediary?”
“By no means,” Ludendorff said.
“Then, why were New Men here?” O’Hara demanded. “Why did they dart me?”
Ludendorff drummed his fingers on the table as he studied her. “I doubt you would believe the truth. Thus, I am hesitant to say.”
“Try me.”
Ludendorff looked away. Abruptly, he stood. “Follow me, please,” he said.
O’Hara rose and then had a second thought. “I want a weapon first.”
“There’s no need. You are quite safe, my dear, as I’m here.”
“The New Men showed up once already. They attacked me, remember?”
“Yes. I half expected their attempt. It was the reason I took such delicate precautions. You should be grateful I did so.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come,” Ludendorff said, “I’ll show you. I think it’s the only way you’ll believe me.”
O’Hara was deeply suspicious, but she nodded in the end, following Ludendorff out of the galley.
-4-
In disbelief, O’Hara stared at two dead New Men. Each lay on an operating table with his head sawn open at the top. Dangling wires protruded from each exposed brain.
“That’s disgusting,” O’Hara whispered. “Aren’t you as savvy as Strand?”
Ludendorff seemed shocked by the comment and then offended. “Do you think I attempted to install obedience devices in them? That I attempted and failed, killing them during the process?
”
“Didn’t you?”
“Certainly not. I exposed their shame, nothing more.”
“Wait, what? I don’t understand.”
“They are quite dead. Don’t you agree?”
O’Hara frowned at the professor before stepping closer and pressing a forefinger against each…corpse. Each was quite cold, quite dead indeed. This wasn’t a sham.
The brigadier moved to a head, bending down and examining a wire. Her stomach twisted with revulsion. She hated overt mind control like this.
“Are these the same two that ambushed me?” she asked.
“Of course,” Ludendorff said.
“And you killed them?”
“Not right away,” he said. “I felled them just as they reached you.”
“How?”
“Please, do not try to pry all my secrets from me.”
“Then, you…you saw me walking the corridors?”
“Naturally.”
“And you saw them?”
“Not at first. They wore stealth suits for a time. I had to wait until they revealed themselves before I moved.”
“I was bait to lure them?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he said.
“And this is why you agreed to meet with me here?”
Ludendorff smiled. “Brigadier, I think it’s time to remind you of a painful truth. I am far superior to you. I am superior to the New Men, but not as much as I am superior to you.”
“What’s your point?” O’Hara snapped.
“Quite simply, that there are subtle games afoot that you fail to understand. Fortunately, I have helped humanity all along the line. These two New Men do not represent the Emperor or the interests of the majority of the New Men.”
“Whose interests did they represent?”
“I thought you’d see it immediately,” Ludendorff said. “My mistake. Sometimes, I expect too much from others.”
“Just tell me,” O’Hara hissed.
“These are or were Strand’s creatures, of course.”
O’Hara looked at them again. “What was their goal?”
“Why, to gain Strand’s freedom, of course.”
“You’ve lost me. What does any of this have to do with the Swarm invasions?”
The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9) Page 2