The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9)

by Vaughn Heppner

  Ghar-Yon-Tog used her Spacer modifications, and lights began to snap on in the great chamber, revealing the enormous machines and various pieces of Builder medical-equipment in stark detail. The machines had odd shapes and unknown functions. Some moved slowly and some reacted instantly as power surged through them for the first time in eons.

  Using the anti-gravity meshes in her body, Mako drifted up to a vast machine with a small hatch. The hatch opened and Mako entered the control chamber.

  Like a sleepwalker, she began to press switches, using her modifications to help speed the process. She had waited so, so long for this day to arrive. Once more, the universe would know—

  Inside her helmet and beneath her goggles, Mako blinked wildly. She wasn’t Mako anymore. She was Ghar-Yon-Tog. She was the master tech of the galaxy. The Builders had tricked her—him—so long ago. Those bastard aliens had thought to gain his great and galactic core knowledge. He hadn’t given it to them. He had made them pay in a thousand ways for their treachery.

  Now—

  Through Mako 21, Ghar-Yon-Tog manipulated the mighty machine. An entire section of wall drew back, revealing a monstrous creature three times the greatest Earth whale that had ever swum the prehistoric seas. Behind a second wall, this one of glass, the slimy thing had great if lifeless-looking tentacles and a ring of monstrous closed eyes.

  As the glass parted and slid away into hidden recesses, a colossal robot moved from an even bigger alcove across the room. An intense buzzing sounded as it floated on anti-gravity processors while extending unbelievably huge robotic arms. Soon, it reached the cryo-sleeping monster, and with care, the robot arms encircled the vast Yon-Soth. Gently, as the buzzing noises increased, the robot withdrew the colossal thing. Frozen tentacles dragged on the floor even as the ring of eyes remained closed and the Old One continued in stasis sleep.

  Once more, the buzzing intensified, this time to an intolerable level. Within the control room, Mako winced painfully. The robot raised Ghar-Yon-Tog higher and slowly swiveled around. At the same time, an impossibly vast glass cylinder rose up from the opening floor. Once the cylinder reached its full height and halted, three great tubes lowered from the high ceiling and began pouring a yellow solution into the gigantic container.

  The process took time, Mako realized, but not too much. Finally, the robot arms moved the frozen bulk once more, gently sliding the interstellar monster so Ghar-Yon-Tog splashed into the solution. The great creature floated downward, his tentacles slowly following him.

  With its job complete, and the buzzing noises back to tolerable levels, the robot used its anti-gravity processors to put itself back into the gigantic alcove.

  Now, all through the enormous chamber, power surged through the revival machine as the time of awakening neared. After eons of sleep, after endless millennia of dreaming that had attempted to alter the living aliens of the fringe galaxy, Ghar-Yon-Tog was going to emerge whole again. The Spacer Nation had been an incredible find. Ghar-Yon-Tog doubted there was a more gullible assembly of fools than the mystic Spacers. Imagine the Visionaries believing they could leap millions of years ahead in evolutionary progress. That was unbounded folly, but useful folly nonetheless.

  “What was that?” Mako asked, as she sat in the revival control chamber.

  Ghar-Yon-Tog ignored her question. She had served her purpose. There might be another use for her—

  “What did you say?” Mako asked, newfound rage giving her greater ability to resist the alien invasion in her mind. “There never was a Transformer Chamber? That was a lie? We couldn’t become gods through fast evolutionary means? How dare you lie to us?”

  You are a gnat, the still dreaming Ghar-Yon-Tog told her.

  “I’ll show you want a gnat can do,” Mako said, collecting her transduction powers.

  You will do nothing of the kind. Sleep, little Spacer, until I need you again.

  As Mako attempted to rebel, using spurned rage, an over-powering sleepiness caused her eyelids to flicker with heaviness. She wanted to resist. She wanted the monstrous alien to pay for all his lies and deceits against the Spacer Nation. Most of all, she wanted to kill him because he had used and deceived her so badly. But instead of any of those things, Mako 21 fell forward in the control chamber, fast asleep.

  -99-

  In the Omega Nebula nexus several thousand light-years away, Captain Maddox felt the tug of gravity first as Ludendorff and he began to sink toward the corridor floor. They flew with the thruster pack toward a shimmering, towering black stone rectangle in what had been a non-gravity corridor.

  “What is that?” Maddox shouted.

  “That must be the star gate,” Ludendorff said. “And it appears we’ve entered a gravitational area of the nexus.”

  “Quick,” Maddox radioed the others. “Land, land. We have to land before the gravity increases and we crash against the floor.”

  The captain had guessed right. As the thruster-pack-propelled group zoomed closer to the star gate, the gravity increased dramatically. Maddox with his quicker reactions had already taken Ludendorff and himself lower than the others were.

  “Hurry,” Maddox radioed the others. “Hang on,” he told the professor. “This could get rough.”

  The two of them wobbled as they zoomed lower. With amazing dexterity and despite Ludendorff’s dead weight, the captain rotated them around and used all the thrust he could to slow their velocity.

  As it was, the two of them struck the floor hard, tumbling end over end, taking a fierce beating. At last, they came to a tangled halt.

  Maddox stirred slowly. He hurt all over. “Professor?” he said.

  There was no answer from the unmoving Ludendorff.

  Maddox carefully untangled and unhooked the professor from him. Afterward, he took off the shattered thruster pack. He hadn’t broken any bones, although his joints were stiff and some of his muscles throbbed painfully.

  He had no time to check on Ludendorff. They might have all already run out of time.

  Farther ahead in the corridor, Sergeant Riker crashed against the floor. Part of his thruster pack exploded off him, the rest remained as he tumbled endlessly, finally coming to a dead stop. The sergeant did not groan or twist. He, like Ludendorff, was either unconscious or dead.

  Meta crashed last, although she unhooked from her thruster pack while airborne. The heavy pack sailed ahead of her, hitting, bouncing, tumbling and sparking, going for quite a ways across the floor. Luckily, it missed the huge rectangular stone that seemed to be the star gate and it missed the humming power source as well. Even though Meta was wearing a spacesuit and its weighty helmet, she tucked and rolled, taking minimal damage from the crash landing.

  Maddox had already begun limp sprinting for the star gate. His left calf muscle hurt every time he set down that boot, but he could manage. The captain reached Meta as she climbed to her feet.

  “Impressive,” Maddox told her. “Are you ready?”

  She picked up her rocket-firing rifle. Maddox had his slung across his left space-suited shoulder.

  “Let’s do this,” Meta said.

  “Let’s do this,” Maddox agreed.

  Husband and wife—both of them stronger than normal humans, with spacesuits and rocket-propelled rifles—raced clumsily for the pulsating black stone star gate.

  “Is that the portal?” Meta asked.

  “We’re going to find out,” Maddox said. For once, he didn’t sprint ahead of her, as he babied his left calf muscle.

  The two ran for the star gate. A second later, something invisible struck, making both of them stagger.

  For Maddox, it challenged his will to keep himself running. Could this be Ghar-Yon-Tog’s dream will battling his?

  Meta had already begun to gasp. “I can’t keep going,” she whispered.

  Maddox grabbed one of her gloved hands. “Yes, you can. Come on.”

  “My head throbs. No…” Meta moaned. “He sees me. This is awful. I feel his eyes.”

 
; “Fight him.”

  “How?” Meta whimpered. “I want it to stop.”

  “Think of past injuries, how others hurt you, how you always wanted to get back at them.”

  “It’s not helping.”

  “Get mad, Meta. Get pissed, really pissed.”

  “Oh, Maddox, I want him to stop seeing me.”

  Maddox could feel his wife digging in, resisting the run. “Meta,” he said, yanking her, forcing her to keep up with him.

  “No,” she said, in a deeper voice, a dreadful voice. “No. This will not happen.”

  Maddox tried to yank his hand free, but Meta gripped fiercely, using her considerable strength, holding him, and holding him back.

  “Fight him, Meta. Everyone dies if we fail.”

  Meta tried. How did Maddox resist the awful Old One? The grim stare—

  Meta, she heard as from far away. The voice told her to shoot Maddox. The captain was evil.

  With tears in her eyes, using her love for Maddox to resist the inhuman monster, Meta lessened her handgrip.

  No! something said in her mind, and it hurt so much that she screamed.

  At the same time, Maddox pulled his hand free. His heard his wife’s scream over the comm link in his helmet, and it almost broke through his resolve. He could feel Ghar-Yon-Tog whispering in his mind, promising and threatening. Maddox’s neck shivered, and he wanted to listen to the promises and avoid the threats.

  But Maddox drummed up the prejudices of his youth, how he’d always had to stand alone. The others would try to force him to do what they wanted. But he said no and endured the insults and the fistfights with the bigger boys. He had endured and had bottled everything up in his heart.

  Now, Maddox poured out the scorn and hatred that had robbed him of a normal youth. He’d stood alone. He’d been an island, a rock that had resisted the waves of united peer pressure trying to make him submit. But he hadn’t submitted. He had fought back. He’d always fought back. So, although his mind throbbed with the intensity of Ghar-Yon-Tog’s demonic will and the terror behind it, Maddox limp-sprinted for the towering black stone. Sweat oozed from the strain and his gut tightened as if a bigger boy was going to kick him the stomach over and over again. Maddox clenched his jaw. He was almost to the towering flat stone.

  With a snarl, Maddox dove headfirst, lifting off his feet, aiming at the flat surface. His better sense told him he’d dash himself senseless doing that. Then he reached the stone—the star gate—and vanished from the Omega Nebula nexus.

  He was…somewhere else, a place without gravity. He tumbled end over end through a bizarre realm of…what the heck? He saw comets and strange sights that did not fully imprint upon his mind. The insidious whispering was gone. That must mean Ghar-Yon-Tog couldn’t touch his mind here.

  That was interesting. What was this place? How did a star gate operate?

  Maddox snarled again. The physics didn’t matter. Get ready, he told himself. The biggest fight is about to start. He drummed up rage. Show the alien monster he shouldn’t have screwed with the human race. Make him suffer.

  As the captain tumbled through the between realm, he saw a huge opening ahead. Through the opening and a farther arch—a vast entrance—he sighted exotic and impossibly gigantic machinery. He fell toward the opening and it seemed as if he fell through molasses or maybe it was a time warp. He didn’t know how to make sense of it. Maybe it was a last way for the dreaming, sleeping Ghar-Yon-Tog to influence reality. Was this another trick of the mind or was it really happening like this?

  Then, Maddox saw the vast tentacled monster in a yellow solution. It—

  Maddox remembered seeing a speeded film once, a nature show. In the film were bare winter trees with snow on the ground. The snow melted at a phenomenal rate, and grass sprouted. Then, buds appeared, leaves, and in no time, fruit that ripened and fell onto the ground. By that time, the leaves changed color and one by one dropped to the forest floor.

  That’s what it was like through the opening and the farther arch as the frozen space monster in the yellow solution became supple again and began twitching ugly tentacles.

  Abruptly, Maddox fell through the opening, and reality twisted around him. He staggered on his feet, stumbling toward an unbelievably huge archway.

  He looked back and saw a pulsating, towering black stone, the other end of the star gate. He was here, wherever here was, and it looked as if the Yon-Soth creature was beginning to wake up after eons of sleep in the Builder nexus.

  This was it. This was the final showdown.

  -100-

  Maddox felt insignificant and puny in this gargantuan place. He was like a mouse in a museum, a mouse scurrying past vast alien statues that represented who the heck knew what.

  But a mouse had teeth. It could bite. Maybe it wouldn’t be much of a bite, but Maddox would try to make his a rabid one.

  Sliding the rocket-rifle strap from his space-suited shoulder, gripping the weapon in both gloved hands, Maddox advanced toward the great arch that led to the gargantuan revival chamber.

  The ugly monster in the yellow solution stirred. Maddox did not think the thing was asleep anymore. Ghar-Yon-Tog had almost completed his awakening.

  Maddox had a glimmering then of what Ghar-Yon-Tog awake meant. While asleep, the creature had exhibited fantastic powers, however he generated such powers. Clearly, the Old One wasn’t mortal in the accepted sense of the word. The monster was from the primeval era of the universe. Had the laws of physics been different then?

  Maddox had studied a little ancient Greek history. In the beginning of Time, according to the Greeks, had been Father Sky and Mother Earth. Their brood had been giants, monsters of all kinds. They had been the firstborn. Was that super-sized creature stirring in the yellow solution like that? Was it a firstborn, with primal abilities that made a mockery of intelligent beings in this era?

  The Builders had kept it alive, Ludendorff said because it was an original tech to work galactic core machinery of some importance. Might that be true?

  Maddox shrugged. He didn’t care. This thing would destroy humanity. Maybe it would first usher in a nightmare world for the human race. With the powers that it had possessed while asleep and dreaming, there was no telling what Ghar-Yon-Tog the Great, the progenitor of a foul race of monsters, could do awake. Thus, the wisest course was to kill him before he could fully awaken. Maybe the Yon-Soth was groggy from his long slumber. Maybe this was the critical moment that gave Maddox the only opportunity to save humanity from Hell on Earth.

  With his heart resolved, Maddox limped through the great opening. A glance around failed to show him the Spacer anywhere. For all he knew, the Spacer was dead.

  Maddox’s heart was beating hard as he skidded to a halt. He was only partway to the glass container. That container was far larger than any football stadium.

  Maddox raised the heavy rifle and sighted down the scope—and he saw the most horrible thing possible. Ghar-Yon-Tog was far larger than any blue whale, Maddox estimated, three or four times larger. Whales had tiny eyes compared to their bulk. The same was true for Ghar-Yon-Tog.

  As Maddox sighted down the scope, the first of the Old One’s ring of eyes opened. Then more opened. They were red with yellow irises, and they radiated hellish intelligence. Worse, a thousand maybe even a million times worse, the first, and then the second and third, fourth and fifth eyes all fixed on him.

  As a sense of sick fear washed over the captain, he steeled himself and pulled the trigger. The first rocket shell popped out of the opening. The rear of the shell ignited and roared as the rocket sped the HEAT warhead at the great glass container holding the Old One.

  Maddox grinned tightly even as his heart raced, and he fired again and again. It felt awesome to shoot at the monster that had caused him so much grief and frankly, terror.

  Then, Maddox watched something horrible. The first rocket shell abruptly halted in midflight. The second and third shells also stopped. Each warhead blew up in turn, the
shrapnel flying through the gargantuan chamber and doing absolutely no harm as some of the metal pieces tinkled against the gigantic glass container.

  The mighty and demonic will of Ghar-Yon-Tog, a groggy will from eons of stasis sleep, fixed on Maddox.

  Maddox might have wilted and given up, but that wasn’t in his nature. He had come this far, and yes, maybe compared to Ghar-Yon-Tog he was at most a mouse. But couldn’t a mouse rush forward, get itself gulped and gnaw the monster’s innards while the mouse still had life?

  Maybe there was a touch of madness about Maddox here deep in the Sagittarius Spiral Arm. Maybe the haunted nexus tore away the calm, rational aspect of the Star Watch Intelligence operative. This was the elemental Maddox that he usually kept buried deep in his heart. He was going to die, but he was going to die with rage glinting in his eyes while charging the enemy.

  Maddox shook the heavy rifle at the monster. The action said, “I’m not done with you yet, Beast.” The captain tore out the empty magazine and inserted a fresh one. Then, as David had done against Goliath, Captain Maddox ran at the Old One. Maddox chambered the next rocket shell as he limp-sprinted closer. Could Ghar-Yon-Tog stop the rocket shells from close range? Maddox aimed to find out.

  The captain did something, then, all out of proportion to his power to hurt the awakening Great One. What could he truly hope to achieve? Maybe a glorious way to die—if battling insane odds really was glorious instead of just plain futile.

  What Maddox did was cause the Old One to concentrate all his awakened will on him. The very courage of the act might have worried Ghar-Yon-Tog. Or maybe it wasn’t that, but instead that the Old One had been asleep for eons. He was groggy now, prone to make an error he otherwise would never have made. For Ghar-Yon-Tog most certainly made an error in this moment.

  As the Old One fixed the entirety of his awakening will on puny Maddox racing at the glass container, Ghar-Yon-Tog inadvertently withdrew his former dreaming will that had tentacles of thought throughout various part of the Sagittarius and Orion Spiral Arms. That daunting will had included the Omega Nebula nexus several thousand light-years away.