The Lost Earth (Lost Starship Series Book 7)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “You’re going to let me in to see him?”

  O’Hara nodded, walking toward a hatch a moment later.

  -8-

  Maddox entered the padded cell. Riker looked up from where he sat. His face twisted with dismay.

  “Sir…” Riker whispered. “No…”

  Maddox moved closer, reaching out, touching one of the sergeant’s straightjacketed shoulders. The captain let his arm drop to his side after that. He sat down, moving his legs into a cross-legged position.

  Riker turned away, shaking his head.

  “I hear you burned off your bionic hand, Sergeant,” Maddox said in a chiding tone. “That’s pretty awful aim, you know.”

  Slowly, Riker faced him. The fear no longer shined in his eyes. The twisted muscles of his face no longer strained.

  “The thing only whispers in my mind now,” Riker said in his gruff voice. “I no longer think it’s alive in me. I did at first. That was maddening, sir. I thought about…a terrible deed.”

  “A voice drove you to that?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” Riker said. “I wanted to kill its voice, its offer. I wanted to silence it before it could tempt you to a deed better left undone.”

  “You’re referring to the Destroyers in the null region?”

  The fear reappeared for a moment before vanishing again. Riker let his head droop before raising it once again.

  “I should have known the Iron Lady wouldn’t let it go,” Riker said. “I should have realized the desperation of the hour.”

  “You’re referring to the Swarm?”

  “I am, sir.”

  “How did you learn about their invasion?”

  “The Spacer told me.”

  “The man you slew?”

  Riker laughed bleakly. “I didn’t kill him. I burned him, that’s true. First, he stabbed himself with a knife, killing himself.”

  “Why?”

  “I suppose starting from the beginning is the best way to tell it. So that’s what I’ll do, sir, if you have the time.”

  Maddox nodded.

  Riker proceeded to tell his tale starting with his leaving the fire pit at the Sheraton Hotel in Kauai. He told of his fear, his panic, the flight up the stairs and the strange conversation in the condo’s living room.

  “Did you really go into a null region last voyage?” Riker asked.

  “We all did,” Maddox said matter-of-factly. “There’s a weird energy drain there. Everyone slept through it except for Galyan and me.”

  “Galyan knows about the Destroyers?”

  “No,” Maddox said. “Only I do.”

  “And you kept it to yourself, sir. That was wise of you.”

  “I had no idea this entity lived there. It told you the Builders fashioned a trap for it. There’s clearly more going on than we know.”

  “I’ll agree to that,” Riker said. “The problem as I see it is that the Builders are gone. No one can contend with this thing in the null region.”

  “You contended with it, Sergeant. You did rather well, all things considered.”

  Riker shook his head. “It miscalculated, that’s all. It grabbed my bionic hand. If the dying Spacer had grabbed my real hand, the ego-fragment would have invaded my soul with full force instead of only scratching it.”

  “Your soul, Sergeant?”

  “My mind then, if that makes you feel better.”

  Maddox let that pass. “You said you heard it speak in your mind?”

  Riker nodded.

  “The voice has fallen silent since then?”

  “I could feel it trying to remain in place,” Riker said. “I should have hidden somewhere. I may not have been thinking straight for a time.”

  Maddox tapped his chin.

  “Sir, I’m asking you for a favor. I’ve saved your hide a time or two. This is the moment I’m cashing in my chips. Don’t try for the Destroyers. They’re a lure to bring you back to the null region. Somehow, we slipped into it. We got away, too. That was pure luck, I’m thinking. I doubt we’ll have the same luck with this thing awake.”

  “What choice do we have?” Maddox asked. “The Swarm is here, and humanity is at stake.”

  “I realize that. But there has to be another way of defeating the Swarm.”

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “If we can’t think of a way, the New Men can surely think of something.”

  “We’ve beaten the New Men,” Maddox said testily. “We’re better than they are.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but I don’t believe that. Not man to man we aren’t.”

  Maddox frowned.

  “The professor might have an idea of what to do.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Maddox asked.

  “Then we’re going to have to release Strand and let him figure it out.”

  “That will never happen,” Maddox said.

  “Use the Juggernauts, then,” Riker said in a pleading tone.

  “The Spacer, or the thing in the Spacer, already said the Juggernauts won’t do it.”

  “Maybe it was lying. I mean, why would it tell us the truth if it wanted freedom?”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Maddox said. “And maybe the Destroyers really are the only way to save humanity from the Swarm.”

  “What about the waiting entity?” Riker shouted. “Don’t you realize it’s a horror? It could destroy us just as easily as the Swarm could.”

  “That’s a supposition on your part.”

  Riker began shaking his head frantically.

  “Stop that,” Maddox said. “I know when you’re pretending. You’re scared. I can appreciate that. The Spacer and this ego-fragment have badly frightened you. Yet, we’ve faced long odds before. We’re like the legendary sailor.”

  “Who?”

  “Odysseus,” Maddox said. “He had to sail between Scylla and Charybdis, the two a mere arrow shot away from each other. Each thing was on the opposite side of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Italy. Scylla was a six-headed sea monster and Charybdis a terrible whirlpool. They stand for no good choices in a situation. I don’t doubt this entity is evil. Maybe it was the driving force behind the Nameless Ones. Maybe that’s why they destroyed everything they found.”

  Maddox stopped talking as he regarded Riker more closely. “Did you happen to learn the Nameless Ones’ real name?”

  Riker shook his head.

  “I’m certain Ludendorff will want to join the expedition,” Maddox said.

  Riker groaned. “You haven’t really listened to what I’m saying. You think this is like all the other aliens we’ve faced before. It isn’t. The entity can enter us. It has terrible powers, and it’s purified evil. How do you fight something like that?”

  “I don’t know,” Maddox said, “yet. But I plan on figuring out a way. I’m di-far, remember?”

  The two men stared at each other.

  Maddox stood. Riker kept sitting. Maddox pulled out his monofilament knife. “I’m going to cut that hideous straightjacket off you.”

  “I might grab your knife and turn it on you,” Riker said.

  “Sergeant, I want your help.”

  Fear reentered the sergeant’s eyes. “I’m retiring, sir.”

  “The others need you, too.”

  “Please, sir, don’t use that card on me. I’m too old. I’m too beat up. This thing has mastered me.”

  “No, Sergeant, that it did not. You’ve told us everything. Now we know the real danger. Now, we have time to prepare for the entity. I want you along, Sergeant.”

  Riker licked his lips, seeming to consider the idea, and finally shaking his head.

  Maddox sighed and looked away. Then, he moved closer, lowering his head so his lips almost touched one of Riker’s ears. The captain pitched his voice low.

  “I need your help, Sergeant,” Maddox whispered.

  Riker stared up at Maddox. The fear was still there, but there was something else, too.

  “Very well,” the sergean
t said gruffly. “In that case…I’ll do it, sir. Count me in for this mission.”

  -9-

  “You’re making a dreadful mistake, Captain,” the Iron Lady said. “Normally, I am inclined to give you your head on these missions. In this instance…I believe you are letting emotions cloud your judgment.”

  Maddox glanced out the window, seeing the Congo jungles below. They were heading for a particularly deep old gold mine in South Africa.

  Maddox and O’Hara were the only two occupants in the passenger area of a supersonic shuttle. Two hours had passed since his talk with Riker.

  The sergeant hadn’t yet reached Victory in orbit. The doctors were still checking him. According to Valerie, to whom Maddox had just spoken to, Keith would take the sergeant up to the starship in another half hour.

  Maddox turned to O’Hara, who sat beside him. “Begging your pardon, Ma’am, I’m not the one being emotional about this.”

  “What’s wrong with trusting your emotions?” O’Hara said, changing course as she stared into the captain’s eyes. “I’ve long trusted mine. Shu 15 is dangerous, too dangerous to trust.”

  “People say the same thing about you and me.”

  O’Hara brushed that aside. “You barely defeated her once in order to regain control of your starship. I doubt Shu has forgotten the incident. She’s been in solitary confinement for quite some time. She must have learned to hate you by now.”

  Maddox shrugged. “I’ve studied her situation. If the confinement was so terrible, she could have given up her modifications at any time. That would undoubtedly have nullified her Spacer programming and removed the inner compulsions. I believe those were your conditions for her freedom. I realize Shu is loath to give them up. She earned her modifications through hard toil and they’re held in high esteem among the Spacers. Still, I doubt she holds any ill will toward me.”

  “She might consider her long confinement cruel.”

  “Do you think she believes that? Or is that what you’ve come to believe?”

  O’Hara tried a new avenue. “She tried to kill you before.”

  “So did Major Stokes. You don’t seem to have any problem keeping him on your staff.”

  “That’s different.”

  Maddox raised an eyebrow.

  “The Spacers are unhinged with their modifications, programming and compulsions,” O’Hara said. “We didn’t realize their mania before. We do now, though. There’s something fundamentally wrong with the entire race.”

  Maddox would agree that the Spacers had made some bad choices in the past. Even so, Shu had helped Victory’s crew in the end. The Spacer Nation was in hiding at present. No doubt, they were waiting somewhere in the near Beyond, watching events and making their strange judgments about what to do next.

  “Ma’am, whatever lies in the null region…” he trailed off.

  “What were you going to say?” O’Hara asked after a moment.

  “It just occurred to me. Does Star Watch have anything on file concerning null regions?”

  “I’ve already checked,” O’Hara said. “The answer is no.”

  “What about strange entities in relation to the Nameless Ones?”

  “Everything about the Nameless Ones and their Destroyers is a blank to us, Captain. Likely, because you’ve been in one of their vessels, you know more about the Nameless Ones than anyone else.”

  “Maybe Ludendorff knows something about them…”

  A predatory look appeared on the Iron Lady’s face. “Where is Ludendorff, by the way?”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Why would I ask you if I did?”

  “I can think of several reasons,” Maddox said.

  “In answer to your question, no,” she said, “I don’t know his present whereabouts, although we believe he is hidden somewhere in the Alpha Centurial System. Some of the Commonwealth’s best mental specialists are there. The last I could discover, the professor was still attempting to restore Doctor Rich’s full mental faculties.”

  “I wish him luck in that,” Maddox said.

  O’Hara made a face. “I feel sorry for Doctor Rich. What does she see in the egotistical Methuselah Man?”

  “I suspect Ludendorff loves her.”

  “Him?” O’Hara scoffed. “Do you truly believe that’s possible?”

  Maddox nodded.

  “Ludendorff is a charlatan of the first order,” O’Hara declared. “He imprinted himself on Dana when she was an impressionable young university student. Dana has never gotten over that. Now, she may have lost her brilliance because of following that old goat all over the galaxy.”

  “Dana loves the Methuselah Man. And I don’t believe it has anything to do with youthful imprinting.”

  “This time, you’re wrong, Captain.”

  Maddox rested his hands against his lean stomach. He wished Ludendorff luck with Dana. They would need the doctor before this was through. The mission sounded ominous indeed. What exactly had attacked Riker’s mind? What was an ego-fragment? Was the entity in the null region physical or gaseous, or were there such things as spirit beings? If the thing was a spirit, how had the Builders been able to trap it?

  The problem was they didn’t know enough about the entity. That the Builders had trapped it gave Maddox hope they could find a weapon against it.

  The pilot made an announcement over a loudspeaker. They would soon be landing.

  “Shu is going to want to come on your voyage,” O’Hara said.

  Maddox glanced sidelong at the Brigadier. “I may need her.”

  O’Hara shook her head.

  “What if the mission hinges on what Shu can do for us?” Maddox asked.

  “I’m not going to release Shu with her modifications intact,” O’Hara said in a firm voice. “I suppose you think you can whisk her out of confinement. Well, this time, I dare you to try. This time, I challenge you to use all of Victory’s alien technologies. But I should warn you first. If it appears you will succeed, I will have Shu shot.”

  “I have no plans on breaking her out,” Maddox said quietly.

  “I’m not always sure when to believe you.”

  Maddox smiled. “Ma’am, while it might not be polite, I have the same reservations about you.”

  It took a moment before O’Hara smiled back at him. “You’re not going to change my mind about Shu.”

  “Can you give me any inducement I can offer her?”

  “None,” O’Hara said.

  “Not even with humanity’s survival in the balance?”

  “Captain, it is because of the high stakes that I refuse to let her set foot on Victory. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

  Maddox absorbed that, wondering if he would have to break Shu out of her maximum-security prison after all. He—

  “What’s that?” Maddox asked, pointing out the window.

  In the distance, a large mushroom cloud bloomed into existence.

  “Emergency!” the pilot simultaneously shouted over the loudspeaker. “Buckle up.”

  Maddox instantly clicked his buckles into place. The Iron Lady had never taken hers off. That probably saved her from serious injury.

  The supersonic shuttle swerved violently. The G forces tugged at them harder and harder. The Iron Lady’s head slumped forward as she went unconscious. Her body lifted, but the straps held her into place.

  “This is going to get rough,” the pilot shouted over the speaker.

  Maddox gripped his armrests as the blast from the nuclear detonation struck the shuttle. As the shaking continued to worsen, Maddox wondered if they would flip…

  Finally, the shaking lessened. Maybe the shuttle had been far enough away from the blast to escape destruction.

  Several minutes later, the worst of it was over.

  “Pilot,” Maddox called.

  “Captain,” the pilot said over the loudspeaker.

  “Where did the bomb originate?”

  “My navigator is ch
ecking—it was the underground detention center, sir.”

  “Where Shu 15 was kept?”

  “Do you mean the secret Spacer prisoner, sir?”

  “Yes,” Maddox said.

  “That’s what I’m hearing, sir. The nuclear explosion appears to have originated underground. No one knows more than that at this point.”

  The timing of the explosion wasn’t a coincidence. Somebody hadn’t wanted him talking to Shu 15. He didn’t believe the Iron Lady had a hand in that. Could it have been the Lord High Admiral? No, he doubted that, too.

  The most likely person not wanting him to talk to Shu…was the entity stuck in the null region. But it was impossible for the entity to have engineered such a blast in a maximum-security prison. It was impossible for the entity to know he’d planned to talk to Shu.

  Even so, Maddox was convinced the entity had attacked the prison, destroying the entire complex…in order to hide something critical.

  Maddox’s eyes shone with interest. This was a puzzle, the kind of thing he lived to solve.

  Beside him, the Iron Lady groaned.

  That snapped Maddox back to the moment. “Find a medical center,” he told the pilot. “We need to get the Brigadier to one as quickly as possible.”

  -10-

  The answer to the deep prison destruction eluded Maddox.

  Three days of intense detective work brought the captain nothing concrete. Major Stokes led Star Watch’s Intelligence investigation, which was also coming up empty handed. The evidence might have been in the prison’s security systems. Those systems had all been destroyed, along with any backups.

  “It’s too thorough,” Maddox told his wife five days after the blast.

  They lay in bed together in his quarters aboard Victory. The starship neared the Laumer Point that led to the Alpha Centauri System. Maddox wanted to pick up Professor Ludendorff. Then, he would head into the Beyond where he had fought the first Juggernaut during their last voyage.

  It was strange, but Maddox had shown little interest in Star Watch’s efforts to build a vast coalition fleet to face the Swarm invaders. Few people knew about the Swarm yet. Maddox knew the Builder Scanner kept a constant eye on the enemy fleet’s doings. He knew the Lord High Admiral had already spoken to the Emperor of the New Men via long-range communicators. Maddox didn’t know the state of the negotiations, though.