The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9)

by Vaughn Heppner

  Maddox realized the prisoner was trying to break the tangle strands through sheer willpower. The New Man kept straining, and the black tangle strands actually shifted. Incredibly, two strands broke.

  Maddox had never seen that happen before.

  “Quick,” he told a marine. “Give me a hypo.”

  The New Man exhaled as droplets of sweat dotted his face. “Release me. It’s the only hope. You’re dooming everyone if you don’t do exactly as I say.”

  Maddox accepted a hypo from a marine. He knelt beside the bound New Man.

  “This is your final warning,” the New Man said.

  Without commenting, Maddox pressed the hypo against the golden skin, listening as compressed air shot a knockout drug into the superman’s bloodstream.

  It took longer than it should have. Finally, the New Man’s eyelids fluttered and he fell unconscious. It was time to do this the hard way.

  -41-

  The problem was that the hard way took time—time to inject the New Man with the right drug, not too much and not too little. Then, the questioning started.

  After two hours of grueling almost useless work, Maddox realized this was going to take far longer than he expected. He called in Riker, explained the situation and had the sergeant take over.

  Stepping outside, Maddox thought furiously. He had several problems that all needed his immediate attention. He had to break down the New Man, rescue Dana and the Moltke’s space marines from Captain Nard and all the while keep the brigadier from interfering.

  The New Man was going to take time. Riker knew interrogation techniques, but against a superior New Man, the sergeant would likely come up short.

  Maybe he could use Ludendorff on a limited basis. The professor would have the mental agility to ask the right questions and to know how to handle a New Man. Maddox would have to keep Intelligence operatives in the chamber while Ludendorff interrogated in order to keep an eye on the Methuselah Man. That might hinder some of the professor’s trickery.

  Whatever he did, it would be a risk using Ludendorff.

  Maddox rubbed his jaw. He had too many irons in the fire. He needed help; he couldn’t manage them all himself in a short amount of time.

  He decided he would use the professor on this limited, provisional basis. He would trust that the Methuselah Man had regained his full senses, but he would also watch him carefully, using a variety of people, including Galyan.

  Now, what about Captain Nard and Dana?

  Maddox rubbed his jaw some more.

  If Nard was like Jard, his triplet, he was brutal, but knew how to obey commands. Would Nard go berserk like Jard had in the corridor when he believed the Draegar was dead?

  That seemed probable.

  Well, he had to keep the deaths of Draegar 1 and 3 secret, then. He didn’t want Nard going crazy. There was no telling what the Bosks would do under that condition. Dana might never recover from any brutality at their hands.

  Now, it was true that Captain Nard had kept Dana a prisoner for a long time. But it would seem—

  Maddox’s gaze tightened. A New Man had been floating in the stellar debris. That obviously meant that at least one New Man had been aboard the Q-ships. Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Did that mean then that if one New Man—?

  “There are more of them,” Maddox said quietly. It was the logical deduction. Now, it made better sense why Nard had tried to set up a fight. A New Man might have shown up instead of the captain. The New Man would assume he could defeat Captain Maddox, and thereby hold him hostage and gain the release of the Bernard Shaw.

  Maddox had thought he’d been playing Nard, but it was possible the Bosk captain had been playing him. If there were at least one more New Man in the mix, would the Bernard Shaw draw other New-Man-crewed vessels here?

  Maddox eyed the hatch to the Interrogation Chamber. He needed to get back there and break this New Man fast. He had to find out what they were dealing with. Not only might more New Men show up, but Spacer ships were still orbiting Usan I, waiting for something.

  “Galyan,” Maddox said.

  The holoimage appeared.

  Maddox relayed some of his thinking to the AI. Then, he said, “I’m giving you and Valerie the Nard problem.”

  “Captain?” asked Galyan.

  “I still want you to watch Ludendorff. But you need to figure out a way of freeing Dana from Captain Nard.”

  “How?”

  “That’s your problem now,” Maddox said. “Do it. Have Valerie help you. Know, though, that more New Men could be aboard the Bernard Shaw.”

  “That seems obvious,” Galyan said. “We found the one among the debris and therefore—”

  “Get to work,” Maddox said. “We no longer have the luxury of excess time.”

  “I understand, sir. You can count on me.” With that, Galyan disappeared.

  That left the brigadier. Maddox frowned. He had a method of internment, but he didn’t want to use it on the Iron Lady. He would have medical personnel examine her while keeping her under sedation for…how long?

  They could start with one day, no more than three, though. Maddox exhaled. It was a crude method, and he would have to answer to her later. But he didn’t see what else he could do.

  Maddox made a call and gave instructions. By that time, he’d become antsy. He was wasting time out here when he should be interrogating the New Man.

  Could the others do their jobs?

  He couldn’t worry about that now. He had to break the New Man.

  Maddox headed for the hatch, half-believing that he could hear the ticking of the clock as time wound down on the Human Race.

  -42-

  Tars Womack the Dominant resisted the interrogation with cunning, stubbornness and fierce pride. Womack began with lies and switched to half-truths as the serum befuddled his superior intellect and as exhaustion robbed him of his energetic defense.

  Maddox asked questions for hours on end. Ludendorff took over in the company of two Intelligence operatives and uncovered more in a shorter amount of time than the captain had been able to achieve. Riker tried his hand a second time after the professor left the room, panting. Unfortunately, the sergeant got absolutely nowhere with Womack. Riker did keep the New Man occupied, however, giving the superman no time to rest and regain his equilibrium.

  In a real sense, they besieged his mind, hammering it with serum, questions and exhaustion. A few times, they shocked him with electricity. That retarded the process, as Womack derived strength from the pain.

  “The pain restores his senses,” Ludendorff replied in another room as they strategized. “We must forgo it.”

  After that, they relied on the truth serum alone. They gave Womack repeated injections over the next three days. The New Man resisted, but his strength began to ebb after the second day. After debating it with himself, Maddox gave a new order. They would keep the New Man awake until he broke or died from exhaustion.

  “It is inhumane treatment,” Galyan said in a side room.

  The AI had been giving a report on the progress with Captain Nard. Unfortunately, there was little. Nard had grown increasingly insistent, bringing Dana to the screen and slapping her in front of Valerie.

  The lieutenant had given orders to destroy the Bernard Shaw. It was only as the disrupter cannon glowed with power that Nard backed down.

  According to Galyan, Valerie would have shattered the shield and blown the generators in the ship.

  “She might have caused the ship’s destruction,” Maddox said.

  “Naturally, I pointed that out to her,” Galyan said. “Valerie was seething with rage. She feels that Dana has been abused far too much. She wants to kill her tormenters, fixating on Captain Nard.”

  “On no account is Valerie to do that again,” Maddox said. “If you can’t free Dana, at least keep Nard occupied. Once Womack breaks, we’ll know more about life aboard the Q-ship and how to rescue Dana.”

  “Breaks, sir?” Galyan asked.

/>   Maddox explained his plan, which was how Galyan had come to learn about the order of breaking Womack or killing him in the process.

  “Your plan is inhumane,” the AI repeated.

  “You’re looking at this the wrong way,” Maddox told Galyan. “Soon, the Swarm will figure out exactly how to use the nexuses. Once they do, and they send their invasion fleets, it will mean the death of the Human Race. Given such circumstances, Womack won’t get any mercy from me. Remember, he’s holding back. He can stop this at any time by telling us what we need to know.”

  “We are not barbarians,” Galyan said, “but civilized beings.”

  “That may be,” Maddox said. “But we’re desperate. I know you remember the last time the Swarm invaded. We barely won. Next time, they’ll use even more warships. Given double or triple the warships, they’ll wipe us out.”

  “Why do you believe Womack has the answers to stop such a vast assault?” Galyan asked.

  “That was the Q-ships’ objective when Ludendorff acted as their cat’s paw. They wanted Victory and…something else in order to complete the mission. I need to know what that something else was.”

  “Suppose you are right. You should immediately inform the Lord High Admiral about the situation. Admiral Cook can then confer with the Emperor of the New Men. Together, the two can arrive at a solution, and likely faster than we can.”

  Maddox examined the yellow-colored drink in his hand. It was a stimulant so he could renew his interrogation. He was so tired his bones ached. He couldn’t understand how Womack kept resisting their efforts. He wouldn’t have lasted this long if their roles had been reversed. The idea that New Men were that far superior…

  Maddox looked up. “First, I don’t believe the Lord High Admiral and the Emperor would do better.”

  “That could be a vain conceit on your part, sir.”

  Maddox shook his head. “We’re about to face Swarm numbers on such a gargantuan scale that normal ways aren’t going to work against them. We beat them last time because a few people had the right answers and we followed those answers ruthlessly.

  “Do you mean the Destroyers you uncovered?”

  “That was part of it, certainly, but I mean Ludendorff with the soul weapon. This isn’t a matter of mankind, new and old, all pushing together in the same direction. We can’t out-produce the Swarm industrially or outfight them with our limited numbers. In fact, there is no way we can face the Imperium on equal footing, setting our society against theirs, and hope to win.”

  Galyan stood silently as if computing the statements. Finally, he said, “I loathe the Swarm, as I have more reason to hate them than anyone. They obliterated my species, leaving me alone in the universe.”

  “I know.”

  “But if we have to resort to such heinous techniques to survive—killing a man by remorseless questioning—do we even deserve to survive?”

  “Of course we do,” Maddox said.

  “You said that without thinking about it.”

  “There’s nothing to contemplate. It’s them or us. I’m for us, no matter if it means wiping out all the Swarm in the universe.”

  “That is an illogical argument, as you are not now seeking the Imperium’s demise, just a way to foil them from using the hyper-spatial tubes to reach us.”

  Once more, Maddox examined the drink before regarding Galyan. It surprised him, but he found squeezing the truth out of Womack to be a demoralizing process. It was an ugly, barbaric method as Galyan had suggested. Yet, what else could he do? He would not stop looking for a way to save humanity until he was dead.

  “You never made your real point as to why we are engaging in this ugly process,” Galyan said.

  “No, I suppose I didn’t,” Maddox said. He drained the yellow liquid, waiting for the stimulant to begin its work.

  “I would like to hear your reason,” Galyan said.

  Maddox inhaled as he set down the glass. “We beat the Swarm last time because we had a few people with the right answers.”

  “They were geniuses?” asked Galyan.

  “That’s one name for them. I call them Strand and Ludendorff and the Builders behind them. The Methuselah Men created the New Men. The Methuselah Men also gave humanity many of its technologies that allowed us to fight the Swarm. Most importantly, the Builders through Ludendorff gave us the soul weapon that drove the Ska into a star. The expanding star destroyed enough Swarm vessels that we could defeat the tiny remnant afterward. One man with the right answer was the critical difference.”

  “Your gaining the Destroyers also critically helped.”

  “Without the soul weapon, not even the Destroyers would have been enough.”

  Once more, Galyan stood still, no doubt computing the argument. Finally, “You speak about the Builders—the first cause. They also built the androids that have threatened the Commonwealth for years.”

  “Yes,” Maddox said.

  Galyan’s eyelids fluttered before he said, “I am also a product of their advanced technologies.”

  Maddox nodded. Thousands of years ago, a Builder had aided the Adoks against the Swarm. Galyan’s people had lost in the end, but Galyan had gained immortality of sorts, and humanity had gained Starship Victory.

  “Here’s the answer for my ruthlessness against the New Man,” Maddox said, wondering if he was explaining it to himself. “I believe Womack holds critical information. Does his information originate with Strand? I think that’s possible.”

  “If you are correct,” Galyan said, “that would be yet another Builder-derived first cause.”

  “Yes.”

  “There is something I do not understand. If the New Men—in Womack—could destroy or block various Swarm nexuses, why have they bothered here with us? Why haven’t they already begun the great task?”

  With a surge, Maddox stood. He felt the stimulant working as the fog lifted from his mind. “I don’t know the answer to that, but I sure as Hell aim to find out.”

  “Thank you for your explanation,” Galyan said. “Now, I would like to reiterate our problem with Nard. You have given us instructions regarding the Bosk captain, but the tension between us is tightening to an intense degree. I do not know how much longer Valerie can occupy the Bosk.”

  The stimulant quickened Maddox’s thinking. “Don’t occupy him, then. Solve the problem by rescuing Dana.”

  “That could result in Dana’s death. Besides, you told me that Womack would give us—”

  “Forget about Womack. Take the right risk and free Dana. Get it done, Galyan.”

  “Remember how I said the pressure is getting to Valerie?”

  “She can handle it,” Maddox said.

  Galyan eyed the captain and pondered the statement. “I understand, and I only have one other comment to make. The Spacer ships are still in orbit around Usan I. They have not attempted to communicate with us, but they’re scanning us constantly as if waiting for a sign.”

  Maddox’s eyes glittered. It felt as if a noose tightened around his throat. There were too many problems at once.

  “The first one who finds what he’s looking for will have the edge,” the captain said. “The Spacers are waiting for something, a sign perhaps, as you suggest. That’s partly what’s driving me. I have to discover Womack’s truth before the Spacers get what they want and make their move against us.”

  “You believe more Spacer ships are en route to the Usan System?” Galyan asked.

  “I don’t discount it,” Maddox said. “Now, get out of my way. I have a job to do.”

  -43-

  One hundred and twenty-seven million kilometers away from Victory, twelve, cloaked Spacer vessels maintained an orbit high above Usan I, a small, hot, rocky Mercury-like planet.

  Inside the Scarlet Tulip, the saucer-shaped flotilla flagship, in a highly charged and sealed chamber, Mako 21 floated naked in a sensory deprivation casket. She’d been floating in the sluggish liquid for 53 hours already, attempting one of the most unique experienc
es a modified Spacer could achieve.

  Through the chamber’s Wi-Fi connection, the casket and thus Mako were linked to an immense Meditation Machine. The machine had many peculiar features, including a carefully calibrated set of Usan III crystals and a half-alive cyborg computer, with the human brain tissues soaked in a prince’s ransom’s worth of varth elixir. The cost of such a Cy-computer and machine was astronomical. To date, since the uncanny invention of the Meditation Machine, twenty-eight had been built. Only twenty-six still remained, with one more presently under construction.

  The Meditation Machine—the concept and production of them—was a Spacer secret. It had several functions and one great purpose. Mako 21 presently attempted to utilize that purpose.

  With her interior modifications amplified by the chamber’s Wi-Fi connections, she engaged the Cy-computer, this one named Harmonious Benevolence. This augmented her mental strength and transduction projection ability. Using the newfound force, Mako emitted her thoughts through the Usan III crystals.

  It was like an atom charging through a circular accelerator, building up speed.

  Such a process took energy, infinitely more than Mako could give and much more than a single saucer-ship could supply. The Spacers had developed radiant energy—RE for short. Radiant energy was unique, taking many individually modified Spacers distilling their combined electrical projections through a RE amplifier.

  Each flotilla saucer ship generated RE and beamed it at the Scarlet Tulip. RE did not store well, having an incredibly short half-life. Thus, the other eleven vessels continued to beam RE at Mako’s ship in order to supply her with the needed power.

  An ethereal glow soon enveloped the Scarlet Tulip to such a degree that it seemed as if Mako’s ship shifted into a different reality, as if it was no longer fully there.

  That wasn’t altogether an illusion, even if it wasn’t exactly what occurred.

  Supercharged with RE, Mako’s thoughts intensified and strengthened, building power as she groaned inside the casket.