Valerie gulped before giving the order. Keith piloted them. The starship entered the hyper-spatial tube twelve minutes later, leaving the Sagittarius Arm, hopefully for good.
The starship flashed down the tube, and a maelstrom of power emissions crackled against her feeble hull. Sections of battered hull-plating peeled away, but no one knew it yet. They were in the grip of Hyper-spatial Tube Lag.
Victory kept tunneling down the strange conduit, while the sides of the tube shook and shimmered, and things seemed in doubt. But not for long, as Victory ejected from the hyper-spatial tube, successfully making an incredibly long journey, arriving at the Sigma Draconis System in one, if severely battered, piece.
***
The star of Sigma Draconis was a main sequence dwarf with a 4.7 magnitude. The star system was 18.8 light-years from Earth and had one of the main warship building and repair yards of Star Watch.
The starship’s sudden appearance caused a stir in the Sigma Draconis high command. Three interceptor cruisers rushed out to confront Victory, while the main fleet recalled all its personnel on the main planet and the various shore-leave satellites.
Lieutenant Noonan was still the acting captain, and she conferred with Captain Shaw of the Bremen. He was the leader of the Sigma Draconis cruiser squadron.
Captain Shaw sent a long-range message to Admiral Hawes, the commanding officer of the Sigma Draconis repair yard. Soon, Shaw received the admiral’s reply, and he passed it on to Valerie.
Several hours later, the Sigma Draconis fleet went into a surprise war-game drill. It was a deception plan, with several of the fleet’s battleships soon reaching and guarding Victory.
Two days later, the ancient Adok starship entered a space dock. There, Star Watch workers began emergency repairs to the hull and the many barely-functioning ship’s systems.
A badly hurt Ludendorff continued to receive medical care, while Captain Maddox endured enforced rest and relaxation as his outer injuries healed.
Despite being in dock, and due to tight security, few knew about Victory’s presence in the Sigma Draconis System.
***
Twenty-seven minutes, on the dot, after Victory’s departure from the Sagittarius star system, the last nexus had detonated in yet another antimatter holocaust.
***
The reason Dana and Galyan had done the work with the nexus computer-core was that the professor had been under intensive care. Perhaps that was for the best for everyone. Later in the Sigma Draconis System, when Ludendorff heard what Dana and Galyan had done and after the professor went over their figures and calculations, he said they should have succeeded only twenty-three percent of the time. That meant, of course, that Victory had had a little better than a one in five chance of successfully completing the long-long-distance hyper-spatial tube journey.
In the end, the only utility to Ludendorff’s calculations was to assuage his bruised ego. When Dana attempted to point out they might not have tried to leave the nexus system if they had followed his advice, the professor waved that aside as not germane to the terrible chance she and the Adok AI had taken upon their ill-considered calculations.
“Next time,” Ludendorff said in his med-chamber, “leave such matters to the expert, me.”
Dana stared at him, finally shaking her head and walking out on Ludendorff. If she hadn’t done so, she knew she might have ended up saying something that she would have regretted later.
Dana knew that Ludendorff loved her after his own fashion, and she loved him. But he’d also taken her to that horrible Bosk homeworld and gotten her enslaved. Yes, the professor had gotten himself mentally enslaved, as well, and once he’d gained his freedom, he had done everything he could to rescue her. But still… she was beginning to wonder about their relationship. Yes, the sex was fantastic—but the professor’s ego was finally beginning to grate on her.
Maybe she needed a break from him in order to sort out her true feelings.
As the days passed in the repair yard in the Sigma Draconis System, Dana’s resolve to leave Ludendorff, for a time anyway, turned into a fixed purpose.
-109-
Maddox left the starship’s medical facility on the sixth day after Victory’s arrival in the Sigma Draconis System.
Gingerly, the captain began exercising the best he was able. His brain still hurt, but not like before.
On the eighth day after their arrival, a security team of space marines surprised Maddox in a Victory gym. He was hitting a heavy bag and had actually worked up a sweat.
Maddox lowered his wrapped hands, eyeing the five marines as they approached him. The marines were big boys with thick necks and scarred knuckles. These five would be excellent fighters, and they did not belong to Victory.
“You’re to come with us, sir,” said the oldest marine, maybe in his earliest thirties.
By this time, Maddox had recovered from the physical injuries incurred during the mission, the worst injury from the twenty-two meter fall inside the haunted nexus deep in the Sagittarius Arm. His excruciatingly painful headaches weren’t as frequent, but they often came at the worst times. If only Ghar-Yon-Tog hadn’t spoken directly into his mind after the monster’s awakening.
The truth was that a human brain wasn’t meant to endure that kind of trauma. He wondered if he would have headaches like this for the rest of his life. If so…he doubted that he would be much good as an Intelligence field agent or a starship captain.
“Are you from Earth?” Maddox asked the marines. They looked like they were from Earth.
“You’re to come with us, sir,” the same marine as before said in his same clipped way.
“How about answering my question first,” Maddox said.
The marine eyed his men and then looked at Maddox. “We can make this easy or we can make this hard, sir. Frankly, it makes no difference to me which way you want it.”
Maddox eyed the tough guy before saying, “Galyan.”
The holoimage did not appear.
“Galyan,” Maddox said again, looking around.
Once more, nothing happened.
That told Maddox what he needed to know. Still, it surprised him the Iron Lady’s protection detail would talk to him like this. Maybe this had something to do with him drawing his gun on O’Hara aboard the Moltke.
“Fine,” Maddox said. “Show me the way.”
The five marines surrounded him as they left the gym. They did not meet anyone in the corridors. That struck Maddox as odd. The starship should still be crowded.
As they marched through the empty corridors, Maddox’s head began to pound. It was sudden and it hurt like blazes, and it didn’t matter that he’d taken pills to dull the pain. His visual field narrowed and a touch of nausea made him wonder if he was going to throw up. He needed to rest after hitting the heavy bag. Maybe the stress of these marines added to his weakness.
Maddox had really begun to resent the headache and he despised the weakness in himself. He’d always been strong, ready for anything. To be crippled by headaches—
“Is something wrong with you?” the head marine asked him.
“No,” Maddox said.
“You look pale,” the marine said.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You a tough guy, Maddox?” the head marine asked.
“Tougher than you, at least,” the captain said.
The marine grinned at his men before saying to Maddox. “Let’s keep marching then.”
They marched the captain for another five minutes. Maddox began to wonder if that was to test him in some way. Finally, the five marines escorted him to the same gym where he’d been practicing with the heavy bag.
“Surprised?” the head marine asked him.
Maddox said nothing. The pulsating headache seemed to be debating whether it should give him a blackout or not. He’d been trying his damnest to ignore the pounding in his skull. His mouth tasted like bile.
One of the marines pressed a switch so the hatch op
ened. The head marine indicated that Maddox should go in first.
The captain drew a short breath through his nostrils. A long one would have made the headache worse. Then he strode past the marines and through the hatch. It didn’t surprise him that the marines did not follow him in or that the hatch closed behind him.
What did surprise Maddox was seeing the Lord High Admiral sitting behind a table someone must have set up while he’d been marching through the corridors. Maddox had expected Brigadier O’Hara to be waiting for him. Upon arriving in the Sigma Draconis System, Maddox had sent word to Earth for O’Hara to come immediately.
“Did O’Hara make it back to Earth?” Maddox asked worriedly.
From behind the table, the big, white-haired admiral in his white service uniform nodded solemnly. Cook then indicated with one of his huge hands that Maddox should sit on the chair before the table.
Maddox did so, soon asking. “Is Brigadier O’Hara well?”
“The brigadier has taken a leave of absence,” Cook said in his deep voice.
Maddox waited, still trying to ignore the pounding headache.
“What’s wrong with you?” Cook asked. “You looked…exhausted.”
“Nothing is wrong, sir.”
“Don’t lie to me, son. I detest that above everything.”
Maddox nodded slightly. “Yes, sir. My head hurts.”
“Has it been doing that much lately?”
“I think you already know it has been, sir.”
“That’s no answer.”
“My head has been hurting ever since I faced Ghar-Yon-Tog on the haunted nexus in the Sagittarius Arm.”
“Tell me about the incident.”
Maddox started the story.
Lord High Admiral Cook, the leader of Star Watch, listened attentively. Finally, after Maddox stopped talking, the big man made several notations in a small folder.
“Can you function with those headaches?” Cook asked.
“Yes,” Maddox said, maybe a little too quickly.
“You mean maybe,” Cook said.
“Yes,” Maddox said again.
The big old admiral with his mass of white hair leaned back in his chair as he fingered his leathery chin. “You could use an extended leave of absence yourself,” Cook said. “Do you want that?”
“No, sir.”
“You have some scores to settle, do you?”
“I’m thinking I do, sir.”
Cook studied him. “What makes you think that?”
“You’re here instead of Brigadier O’Hara,” Maddox said. “The Bosks used her, deceived her and took over her mind. I have Draegar 2.”
“You had the Bosk overlord. I have him now, son.”
Maddox said nothing.
Cook tapped his chin before saying, “Brigadier O’Hara might or might not have her normal mind back now. The Bosks tampered with her brain on the direct orders from a faction of New Men. According to the briefing I received, Lord Drakos runs that faction.”
“I assume you know Methuselah Man Strand created or modified the Bosk society for his purposes.”
“I do indeed,” Cook said. “My experts have been interrogating your people for some time now. I had them leave the starship without your knowledge. Under my orders, none of your people were to inform you what was happening.”
Maddox said nothing.
“By the way, Captain, you did an excellent job with the nexuses and against Ghar-Yon-Tog. Thank you for your exemplary service.”
Maddox dipped his head. “If you interrogated my people, you should already know about Nay-Yon-Yezleth and the Forbidden Planet.”
Cook gave him a mirthless smile.
“So you know?” Maddox asked.
“It is being taken care of, Captain. More, at this time, you do not need to know.”
“Yes, sir,” Maddox said in a clipped voice.
“Instead, if you can really handle those headaches, I want you to take care of the Bosks and catch Lord Drakos for me.”
“Take care of the Bosks, sir?” asked Maddox.
Cook eyed him for several seconds. “You’re right,” the Lord High Admiral finally said. “I want to nail more than a few New Men. Through the Bosks, they tricked O’Hara and took over her mind. I need to know how much they learned about Star Watch. I have a bad feeling that much of Star Watch Intelligence has been compromised. We went through terrible times in the past against the New Men Secret Service. I don’t want to go through that with them again.”
“Do you feel you can trust me, sir?” Maddox asked.
The big old admiral gave him a wintery grin. “I don’t have many choices, now do I, Captain? I’m willing to try you. If you succeed, I’ll know I can still trust you. If not…maybe it will be time for you to take a long rest.”
Maddox nodded flatly instead of showing any bitterness. O’Hara had always backed him and Cook had humored her. If the brigadier had left Star Watch Intelligence for good…
Bitterness tried to surface to the forefront of Maddox’s thoughts. That only made the headache worse.
“You’re not going to faint on me, are you?” Cook asked.
Maddox felt like it, but he didn’t. Instead—he wasn’t sure how—he stood up and tottered out of the chamber—the hatch opened for him.
He had to come up with a plan for catching Lord Drakos, and he’d better do it fast before his brain quit working for good.
-110-
Before Maddox could do anything of the kind, however, he staggered through the corridors, clenching his jaws so he didn’t scream at the agony of his excruciating headache. Somehow, he made it to his quarters, gingerly easing himself onto his bed, curling up and enduring.
He woke up later as Meta rubbed his forehead. He was on his back, and his head was in her lap as she sat cross-legged on the bed. He kept his eyes shut, as the light would hurt too much.
“You have to rest,” Meta said softly.
He knew she meant more than a few hours, more like weeks or months. “I can’t do that,” he said.
“Why can’t you? What did the Lord High Admiral say to you?”
“Brigadier O’Hara,” he said.
“Oh,” Meta said. “Did something bad happen to her?”
Maddox did not reply. He just lay there as Meta stroked his forehead, and he fell into a more restful slumber.
When he woke up, several hours had passed.
Meta rolled over to greet him. She must have heard a change in his breathing as she lay with him. “Are you feeling better?” she asked.
Maddox grunted. He felt minimally better, but that wasn’t saying much.
Meta waited.
Finally, as Maddox lay there, he said, “Brigadier O’Hara has taken a leave of absence from Intelligence. The Bosks, well, Lord Drakos’s brand of New Men, tapped her brain, so to speak. I guess the combined Draegar did it for Drakos.”
Maddox fell silent as he brooded.
“And…?” Meta finally asked.
The captain sat up in the dim lighting of their quarters. “I have an idea,” he said, with some of the old force returning to his voice.
“Is it a good idea?”
Maddox turned toward his wife. He could sense more than see the worry in her. He reached across the bed and took hold of a shoulder. “Thanks,” he said.
“For the forehead rub?” she asked.
“No, for what you did in the nexus. I was out of it, Meta. Ghar-Yon-Tog had won. I’d failed to stop him.”
“Failed?” Meta asked. “I don’t think you failed. You kept firing at him, and that damn missile kept inching closer. I…I talked to Galyan about it. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No.”
“Good. Galyan spoke to Dana about it. According to them, your initial action must have surprised the Old One. I no longer felt him in my mind as I waited for you to return out of the star gate. No one else felt Ghar Yon Tog’s mind anymore either. He…I don’t know, drew his mental focus back to the nexus that you
and the Spacer were in. You told me you fired rocket shells at him, right?”
“Right…” Maddox said slowly. “With his mind, or however he used his powers, Ghar-Yon-Tog stopped the rocket shells and he stopped the missile, and stopped the antimatter warhead from detonating. Mako 21 started resisting him around then.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Meta told him. “The point is that you attacked him at likely his most vulnerable moment. Later, you shot him with my beamer, burning his warty skin. You didn’t fail, love. You made possible everything else that happened afterward. None of us feels the Old One anymore. That has to mean he’s dead, kaput, finished.”
Maddox smiled faintly before he let go of Meta’s shoulder and turned away. Feeling better, a whole lot better, he climbed out of bed.
“What’s your plan, darling?”
“It may be nothing,” Maddox said. “First, I have to talk to the professor.”
“Ah…” Meta said.
“What’s that mean?” Maddox asked.
“Ludendorff is in a foul mood these days. Dana and he are taking a break from each other. He doesn’t want a trial separation—”
“I have to go,” Maddox said, interrupting. “If Ludendorff can’t do what I want…” With that, the captain grabbed his clothes, put them on and rushed out of their quarters.
***
“No!” Ludendorff said while shaking his head. “That’s out of the question.”
Maddox spoke to the professor in a reading room. Ludendorff lounged on a recliner, wearing a bathrobe and little else.
The professor had several casts—two of them on his legs—had gained some weight and sipped a yellow-colored drink through a short red straw. His face was puffier than usual and his mood was indeed foul, as Meta had suggested.
“You’re the only one practiced enough to succeed in doing it,” Maddox said.
“I’m never using the Builder stone again,” Ludendorff said. “You can take that to the bank.”
Maddox frowned, having never heard that expression before. “We need to know more about the Bosk operation and how Drakos’s New Men control it,” Maddox said.
“Then go about learning it the old-fashioned spy way,” Ludendorff told him.
The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9) Page 52