The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “I will burn out?” asked Maddox.

  “That’s not bad,” Ludendorff said. “Yes. It will be a form of burn out. The procedure will add decades to your apparent age, but not right away. First, you will go to the Throne World in secret as a practically real New Man. Once there, you will help to rescue Strand.”

  “And if I decline your offer?”

  Ludendorff gave him a sinister smile. “You have fallen for my trap, Captain. Thinking yourself clever, you have given me the tool to coerce you.”

  Maddox waited, disliking the professor’s glee.

  “Notice,” Ludendorff said. With both hands, he held up the slate. On it, a shuttle in a hangar bay exploded. A woman ran away from it, shouting a warning.

  “That is your wife,” Ludendorff said. “It was a clever ruse on your part, but it wasn’t clever enough.”

  The professor tapped the slate. It showed the shuttle violently exploding, sending hull pieces against the bulkheads and causing the vessel to lift and crash against the deck.

  “People lost their lives in that little episode, Captain.”

  Maddox did not watch the slate too closely. He didn’t want to see Riker. He didn’t want to appear too needy. Instead, he shrugged.

  “What do I care?” Maddox asked. “You’re killing me. I’m still killing some of yours.”

  Ludendorff’s eyes glowed with hatred as he leaned near Maddox. “Just like you killed part of me with your…your soul weapon.”

  “Not me,” Maddox said calmly, “but the ancient Builder who programmed your mind.”

  “No! Don’t try to deny that it was your monomania…your monomania…”

  The crazed look left Ludendorff’s eyes. He blinked several times, rubbing his forehead.

  Maddox noticed the trio of Bosks once more conferring together in their strange manner. What had really happened on the small rocky world? Did Ludendorff command them, or was there something more subtle at work?

  It occurred to Maddox that maybe Strand’s planning had gone much more deeply than they’d even believed last voyage.

  “What’s going on?” Ludendorff said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “You don’t seem like yourself, Professor. Even your regular speech patterns are off. Why is that?”

  Ludendorff scowled.

  The three Bosks stiffened. They definitely reached out, grabbing each other’s hands and whispering with each other.

  “How can you say such a thing?” Ludendorff demanded.

  One of the Bosks cleared his throat. The professor’s reaction was swift and surprising. He whirled around to face the Bosks.

  “Sire,” the speaker said. “You know the low animal cunning of Captain Maddox. He is a trickster who searches for a man’s weak points.”

  “But I don’t have any weak points,” Ludendorff said.

  The speaker bowed his head in a deferential manner. “Are you strong in every avenue of thought, Sire?”

  The professor rubbed his jaw as if considering the question. “What are you suggesting?”

  “We make no suggestions, Sire. We simply await your orders to alter him.”

  “Yes…yes…” Ludendorff said. “I will give that order. Yet, there was something I wanted to show him first. I wanted him to see…”

  “His wife, perhaps, Sire?” the speaker said.

  “Yes!” Ludendorff said, clapping his hands. “I wanted him to see the futility of trying to best the greatest man in the universe.”

  The professor spoke into a sleeve. “Bring the woman in.”

  A few seconds passed. Finally, a hatch opened. Meta entered. She wore a dancer’s scanty garb, with bits of silk dangling from her lovely hips. She glared at Ludendorff, and jerked her shoulder at the guard who pushed her forward.

  The guard wore a facemask and his uniform seemed rumpled and ill-fitting.

  Maddox observed the pair, noting the looseness of the manacles around Meta’s wrists. He noticed, too, that the guard had a bionic arm, just one, though, not both.

  “Meta was once your good friend, Professor,” Maddox said.

  Ludendorff was grinning as he looked at Meta. “Eh?” the professor asked. “What’s that? What did you say?”

  “She was your friend on many missions,” Maddox said.

  “So?” Ludendorff asked. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

  “It’s nothing,” Maddox said. “I made a miscalculation. I thought you were going to make her dance for us, and that made me angry.”

  Ludendorff peered at Maddox, and finally understanding donned. “Ah. You don’t want the marines to watch her dance. That’s why you suggest she do so. You must know that I tend to order the opposite of whatever you desire. Yes, yes, I see what you’re doing.”

  The professor whirled around to face the marines. “You two. Go! Get your friends. I want all of you to watch Meta do a strip tease for us while the captain is bound and helpless.”

  “No!” Maddox cried.

  “Yes,” Ludendorff said, rubbing his hands. “This is going to be a performance to remember.”

  -29-

  The two armored marines clanked out of the hatch, closing it behind them.

  Maddox tried to signal Riker, using his eyes to point out the professor’s pendant. Would the sergeant realize Ludendorff had a personal force field on?

  “I’m going to humiliate you, my boy,” the professor said. “The marines are going to do more than just watch, you know?”

  “What happened to you?” Maddox asked. “Where’s Doctor Dana Rich?”

  “Eh? What do you mean by that?”

  “Have you forgotten about Dana, your love?”

  The speaker of the three Bosks once more cleared his throat.

  It took the professor longer to turn and regard the man again. “What is it this time?” Ludendorff asked.

  “You look pale, Excellency,” the speaker said. “Perhaps it is time…”

  “Time, time, yes time for what?”

  “For your injection, Excellency,” the speaker said.

  Ludendorff glanced at Maddox.

  “Don’t you see, Professor?” Maddox said, actually saying these things for Meta and Riker’s benefit. “The Bosks are using you. They’re your keepers. They must be Strand’s agents. That’s what driving you to these actions—these Bosk scientists. Kill them, Ludendorff, or you’ll never be master of yourself again.”

  Ludendorff frowned. “No…that doesn’t sound right.”

  “The captain is clever at using words to confuse his foes,” the speaker said. “Ignore him.”

  “Listen to me,” Maddox told Ludendorff. “I know your personal force field makes you believe you’re invulnerable to any threat. But the Bosks are controlling you. Kill them, and you’ll be free.”

  “The ravings of a madman will not sway his Excellency,” the speaker told Maddox.

  The other two Bosks jerked at the speaker’s robe. He turned to them. One of the others glanced at the guard with Meta. The speaker also glanced at the guard.

  “Kill those three now!” Maddox shouted.

  “You’re raving,” Ludendorff said. “I’m not going to kill anyone.”

  Meta tore her wrists free of the manacles and charged the professor.

  At the same time, the guard whirled around, facing the three Bosks. His drawn stunner spat three times in quick succession. Each shot struck a thin Bosk in the chest, causing each strange human to shriek and stumble backward, tangling his feet and tripping so he fell.

  Meta veered away from a startled Ludendorff and charged the three fallen Bosks.

  “Stop!” Ludendorff shouted. “I order you to stop what you’re doing.”

  The guard—Riker—turned the stunner on Ludendorff, firing, but to no effect as blots of force appeared centimeters from the professor’s clothes.

  “Kill the three!” Maddox shouted. “That’s the key to this.”

  Riker turned back to the Bosks, and he reset his stunn
er, likely to a higher setting.

  “No,” Ludendorff said. “Stop. I need them. I order you to stop.”

  “You don’t need them,” Maddox said, as calmly as he could. “They’ve done something to your mind, Professor. They’re the ones forcing you to rescue Strand.”

  “That’s not true,” Ludendorff said.

  Meta reached the Bosks. Riker had shot the speaker first. That one groaned as he pushed off the floor. Meta slid down, tackling him. She wrapped her arms around his head and twisted more violently than seemed natural or even possible.

  Necks bones shattered loudly.

  “No!” Ludendorff shouted.

  Meta released the jerking, thrashing speaker, scrambling to the second Bosk.

  Ludendorff pressed a button on his belt. A horrible sub-sonic sound caused Maddox to arch back in pain. The debilitating noise rose in pitch.

  Maddox groaned.

  Meta grabbed the second Bosk’s head as she’d done the first, and she strove even as the noise struck her.

  His neck bones cracked as well.

  It was the last thing Maddox saw as the terrible noise emanating from Ludendorff’s belt rendered him unconscious.

  -30-

  Professor Ludendorff stared at a bulkhead, his mind throbbing intensely. Images flashed before his inner eye, images he didn’t want to remember. With a groan, Ludendorff tore his gaze from the bulkhead. He rubbed his forehead, turning back to the mayhem spread out before him.

  Draegar 3, The Orator, was dead. Even more terrible, Draegar 1, The Primary, was also dead. Only Draegar 2, the Designer, lay groaning in pain, still alive but barely conscious as he lay on the floor.

  The glorious Meta lay nearby, snoring softly, her scanty garments in delightful disarray. The masked guard—that was Treggason Riker, he believed, Maddox’s trusty sergeant—was also unconscious, as was Maddox, still secured to the metal chair.

  Ludendorff had purposefully overloaded their auditory senses, rendering them insensible. Draegar 2, the Designer, had been hurt, but not as badly as the others were.

  Ludendorff took several lurching steps toward the infernal Captain Maddox. The half-breed might have just ruined everything. He should slay the captain and be done with it. He would slay him. He would…

  Ludendorff bit his lower lip, pausing in his lurching advance. The captain had spoken a troubling name, a magic spell perhaps. Why else did his mind throb so painfully? Why did he see this woman of utter delight in his inner vision?

  The professor stood motionless, trying to understand what had just happened. Draegar 1 and 3 were dead.

  “Dead,” Ludendorff said. That mattered, but he couldn’t quite understand why.

  The professor rubbed his jaw. He heard noise, a pounding at the hatch.

  “Go away,” he said.

  That didn’t help. The pounding continued.

  Finally, a comm unit pulsed in his pocket. He dug it out, clicking it.

  A hard-faced man with a dagger tattoo on his forehead regarded him. It was Jard the Commander, the leader of his space marines.

  “Master,” Jard growled. “You have locked the hatch. Your guards cannot reach you. Should they break in?”

  Ludendorff stared at Jard.

  “Master, are you—?”

  “Do not question me,” Ludendorff said, interrupting the commander.

  Jard’s eyes narrowed. “You are right,” he said, although it didn’t sound as if he meant it.

  “I must…” Ludendorff grew wary. There was something wrong here. He couldn’t pinpoint it, and that was amazing. He was the greatest man in the universe. Yet now he must use cunning, low animal cunning like the infernal Captain Maddox. Otherwise, something bad was going to happen to him.

  “Commander Jard, are you concerned about me?” Ludendorff let his voice drip with mockery.

  “You sent the guards away, Master. That was unusual.”

  “Yes, I sent them away to get others. Have they gathered the others?”

  “Yes, Master. Will you let all of them rape the woman?”

  “Do you wish for dibs, Commander?”

  Jard’s face seemed to glow with desire. “I have seen the woman. Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes. I want her, Master.”

  “Then, you shall have her.”

  “I want her first. I do not wish for the others to mount her before I do.”

  “Then, order your men away.”

  Jard studied him closely. “Are you well, Master?”

  “What did I say about questioning me?”

  “Master, I want to—” Jard’s features shifted. “May I speak to the Orator?”

  “He is conferring with his brothers and they will speak with me. After we have completed our plan, you shall receive the woman and speak with the Orator.”

  Jard examined Ludendorff over the tiny comm screen. “Your eyes are bloodshot, Master.”

  “I will—”

  Ludendorff remembered that he’d slept under a strange machine a day ago. Draegar 2, the Designer, had given him a pill at those times. The pill helped him sleep. While he slept—

  “I must sleep soon,” Ludendorff said. “The Orator says I must…nap in thirty-eight minutes.”

  At last, the suspicion left Jard’s eyes. “Did the Orator suggest to you that I wanted the woman?”

  “He did. It was why I locked the door.”

  “Is this another of your jokes, Master?”

  “It is. Do you like it?”

  “I do. And I want the woman.”

  “You will have her first.”

  The commander grinned hotly. “I anticipate the woman in…in thirty-five minutes. Jard out, Master.”

  “The hatch will be open then,” Ludendorff said.

  The tiny screen had already winked off. Thoughtfully, the professor pocketed the comm. He looked up and froze in shock as he found Maddox staring at him.

  “What did you do this time, Professor? How did you get yourself in this fix?”

  “Don’t you dare question me. I’m the Master. I’m the greatest man in existence.” Ludendorff rubbed his head. Why did it keep throbbing like this?

  Maddox took in the dead and the unconscious, and he nodded within the confines of the neck shackle.

  Ludendorff rubbed his head for a long moment before looking up. “You spoke about a woman earlier.”

  Maddox gave him a searching glance before the half-breed’s features turned into the calm mask that Ludendorff envied at times.

  “Do you know the woman’s name?” Ludendorff asked.

  “Doctor Dana Rich.”

  “Yes. Yes! I know that name. Who is she?”

  “Your companion.”

  “What?”

  “She was with you during the Swarm invasion.”

  “You lie,” Ludendorff said, but without real conviction.

  “Where did you go after leaving Earth?”

  “Go?” Ludendorff asked.

  “You talked about a small rocky world. You called the people Bosks. How did you find the world? Did you go directly to it after the Swarm invasion ended?”

  Ludendorff frowned, the ache once more intensifying in his head. “I… I don’t remember exactly.”

  “That’s odd, isn’t it?”

  “Why is it odd?”

  “Because you have the greatest memory in existence,” Maddox said.

  “That’s true, that’s true, I do, or I did. Why can’t I remember the woman then?”

  “Did the Bosks help you after the Swarm invasion?”

  Ludendorff looked at Maddox blankly, finally nodding. “I think they did. I think that’s what happened.”

  “Do you remember why you went there?”

  The pain spiked between the professor’s eyes. He clutched his head with both hands and cried out in pain. “I want it to stop,” he said. “Make it stop.”

  “I can.”

  “Liar!”

  “Stop thinking about the Bosks,” Maddox s
aid. “Stop thinking about Doctor Dana Rich, how beautiful she is and how much you enjoy making love to her.”

  Ludendorff’s mouth opened as he looked up. “I made love to her?”

  “You’re the best in the universe at doing it. You trained Dana to match your sexual prowess.”

  Ludendorff blinked wildly, and he grew faint. “I do have sex, marvelous sex, intense and passionate like only a few have ever achieved. Yet…I haven’t made love in, in—”

  He looked up in astonishment. “I can’t remember how long it’s been.”

  “I do.”

  “How is that possible? You’re my enemy.”

  “I’m not. I’m your friend. We’ve often worked together and achieved astounding results. Think about it carefully, Professor, and you’ll realize I’m right.”

  A sly look stole over Ludendorff. “Why have I locked you in the chair then?”

  “Because we feud sometimes,” Maddox said. “This time, though…”

  “What? Say it? Or are you afraid of what I’ll do to you if you tell me the truth?”

  “Clearly, the Bosks did something to your mind, and I’m beginning to suspect why and how that happened.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “There’s that word again. It’s not. I’m good at untangling mysteries. You know that.”

  “In a low sort of way, you are,” Ludendorff insisted.

  “True. But sex is often a lowbrow affair, is it not?”

  “For your kind, perhaps, but not for me,” Ludendorff said. “For me, it is a gloriously profound act.”

  “When was the last time you did it?”

  “You claimed to know.”

  “I do know. It was before the Builder programming took over in your mind.”

  Ludendorff blinked and couldn’t seem to stop.

  “After the Ska died,” Maddox said, “you wanted to kill me. Meta told me what happened. I don’t think you’ve ever forgiven her for stopping you.”

  Ludendorff turned and looked at Meta lying unconscious on the floor. She was an incredibly beautiful woman, but not the right dusky color as his Dana.

  “That’s why you wanted to humiliate her with the space marines,” Maddox said. “You were going to let the…where did you find your space marines?”

  Ludendorff winced with pain, rubbing his forehead as he if could rub out a spot there.