The Lost Earth (Lost Starship Series Book 7)

by Vaughn Heppner

  As Maddox resumed his advance, he noticed that the stonework glittered in the light. The Fishers must have placed different kinds of rocks into the work. Had the red giant burned down here too? Had it changed the substances of the…gems, perhaps?

  “Where are you?” Maddox called over the comm in irritation.

  The captain swept his beam back and forth. Suddenly, he felt small as he realized the extent of the cavern. The ruined artwork towered two hundred meters, as high as his beam could travel.

  “Where are you?” Maddox called again.

  Ludendorff had fallen silent.

  Maddox’s grip tightened on the blaster. He passed the wave-like monuments. Before him in the wall were small round openings. They were not lined up in rows, but there was a pattern. The openings went higher and higher. What had the professor said before? The Fishers had been a cross between dolphins and squids. Squid-like creatures might have been able to squeeze into the narrow openings.

  What was inside the holes?

  Maddox was curious, but felt a strange reluctance to peek inside.

  Maddox halted. On impulse, he clicked off the flashlight. Darkness settled over the vast wall. Light shined from the now hidden cavern entrance in a diffuse and subdued manner.

  Something deeper in the cavern shined eerily. Maddox hadn’t noticed it before. Could Ludendorff have gone down there? Why hadn’t the professor answered his last call?

  Following his instinct, Maddox began trudging toward the faintly glowing something down there. It might be five hundred meters away. As he walked, a feeling of unease grew in Maddox. A strange pressure tightened on the back of his neck. Should they have brought Riker along?

  “Professor,” Maddox called over the comm. He waited for an answer. Could Ludendorff be in trouble? That had happened before.

  “Captain,” a scratchy noise sounded in his ears. Was that Ludendorff? “Help,” the scratchy voice said.

  “Damnit,” Maddox breathed. “Where are you?”

  “Down,” the voice said.

  Maddox’s stomach tightened. He switched on his flashlight, beaming it at the glowing thing. For just an instant, he thought he saw something distinct. It had several legs, tentacles maybe, and it scuttled away from the light, zipping into an opening and disappearing.

  Maddox stood frozen in shock. He couldn’t believe what he’d seen. The Fishers were long dead, an ancient race. Yet, that had been a squid-like creature. He had seen it.

  Ludendorff could be in trouble.

  Captain Maddox broke into a run, chasing after the glittery creature that should not exist.

  -18-

  Maddox hesitated before a rock opening. He detected a faint glowing substance on the edge of the black rock hole. Could the Fisher he’d seen—if that’s what it was—have brushed against the rock as it went into here?

  “That’s preposterous,” Maddox told himself. This was a dead world. The red giant had obliterated the ancient civilization and boiled away the oceans.

  “What did I see, then?” Maddox whispered to himself.

  He shivered in superstitious dread.

  The captain shook his head. Yet, he trusted his five senses. He was not like some men who could doubt what they had seen. He had seen a squid-like thing. It had not borne a suit. How did it breathe? How had it subsisted all this time? Why hadn’t Strand and Ludendorff run across the creatures the last time they had been here two hundred years ago? Or was that something else the professor had conveniently forgotten?

  With determination, Maddox ducked his helmeted head and poked inside. Using his flashlight, he saw that the way was tubular, narrow and smooth. He did not like the idea of entering such a place. If Fishers had squeezed through eons ago—with a silent oath, Maddox moved in. This was rash. He knew it. Sergeant Riker would have bitterly disapproved of him heading in. That thought did not bring a smile to Maddox’s face. The disquiet in his gut was growing. Despite that, he moved on his hands and knees through the narrow path.

  He had seen what he had seen. Humanity was in peril from the Swarm. The Destroyers were possibly the only way to defeat the massed might of the bug fleet. Thrax was no doubt along, hoping for revenge. If finding a way to defeat the entity in the null region meant crawling in a claustrophobically narrow tunnel, then that was what he would do.

  Maddox’s unease grew with the length of his passage. “Ludendorff,” he called over the comm.

  There was no answer.

  Using his chin, Maddox reset the comm. “Galyan, come in.”

  There was nothing but static in his ears.

  Changing the setting once more, Maddox said, “Keith.” He waited—

  “Captain?” Keith asked in a scratchy voice.

  “Are you still in the shuttle?”

  “Sir?” Keith asked. “I can’t hear you, mate. Can you move to a different location?”

  Maddox stopped crawling. That caused his gut to tighten worse than before. A horrible feeling of claustrophobia struck. He had no choice but to keep crawling.

  “Captain…” Keith said in a tiny voice, the volume fading away to nothing.

  The churning in Maddox’s stomach wasn’t as bad as long as he kept moving. He decided the feeling was a trap or a goad of some kind. How the glowing Fisher existed, he had no idea.

  His eyes narrowed. He had a blaster. He had light, and he had his wits. “I am Captain Maddox,” he told himself. That will have to be enough. “No,” he said. It would be more than enough.

  Maddox increased his crawling pace. He thought he could see something farther down. The desire to confront the glittery Fisher had begun to intensify.

  After another hundred meters, Maddox eased through another opening. This place let him stand. He used the flashlight. The beam went higher and higher. He turned it onto a wall—

  Maddox mouthed a silent exclamation. The beam played upon a monstrous mural. It showed Fishers as upright squid-like creatures wearing glittery garments. They advanced upon a dark cloud, beaming it with rays of light. The cloud emitted rays of its own that burned oceans and destroyed flying craft and fortress citadels.

  Maddox played the flashlight across the scene. For a moment, he seemed disoriented. The mural blurred—but that passed in seconds. His mind hurt some, but not enough to worry about it.

  The captain reexamined the mural. It showed the dark cloud entering the star, causing it to expand. The implications seemed staggering. Could the cloud represent the entity of the Nameless Ones? Did the cloud possess a weapon that could make a star expand? What force could resist a red giant burning the inner planets? No force Maddox knew. Had the Nameless Ones possessed greater weapons than mere neutroium-hulled Destroyers?

  We know so little, Maddox realized. This star system seemed to hold ancient secrets. What kind of titanic battles had raged here in the past?

  An impulse caused Maddox to turn to his left. He froze. There was no doubting what he saw this time. Twenty meters away, the glittery Fisher was watching him. The thing stood on squid-like tentacles. It regarded him with a row of eyes along the upper bulbous body. It seemed to be studying him.

  At that point, Maddox heard whistles and strange squeaking-like breathy sounds. He believed the Fisher was attempting to talk to him.

  “Is this a sacred fane?” Maddox asked.

  The Fisher did not stop talking. Maybe it hadn’t heard him.

  Maddox repeated the question.

  The Fisher made louder, urgent-sounding noises. It raised a tentacle, and it waved as if it were trying to get Maddox to follow it.

  The captain realized his tongue had gone dry. He had begun trembling. He did not like that. He was beginning to believe the thing over there was a ghost. That nearly unnerved him.

  Maddox raised the blaster. Maybe he should fire and be done with it.

  The Fisher stopped waving. It seemed to be waiting.

  The urge to fire beat in Maddox’s brain. This could not be happening. This was impossible. “Stop it,” Maddox tol
d himself. If it was a delusion…

  With a decisive move, the captain holstered the blaster. He couldn’t tell if the thing was hostile or not. The waving seemed to indicate he should follow. If he failed this mission, the human race was likely dead or left to a few scrabbling worlds. If ever there was a time to take crazy risks, this was it. He took a step toward the creature.

  The glittery Fisher turned and headed down a ramp. Captain Maddox followed.

  -19-

  Aboard Starship Victory, Sergeant Riker lay on his cot in his quarters. He was stretched out with his hands on his chest and his eyes shut in apparent slumber. Before the start of the voyage, Star Watch techs had given him a new bionic arm and hand and energized them.

  Abruptly, Riker’s eyes flew open and he stared at the ceiling. He sat up. A vast feeling of wrongness filled him. Swinging off the bed, he stood, went to the hatch and tried it.

  Locked.

  Riker tilted his head, wondering why he felt this way and what caused it. Something about the planet down there... Something—

  “Captain Maddox,” Riker whispered.

  He tried the hatch again. It was just as locked as before.

  How did he know—? A chill swept over the sergeant. This had something to do with the ego-fragment. While it hadn’t seeped into his soul and possessed him, it could whisper to him occasionally and try to convince him of things. Did that mean it had survived, or had the touch of the ego-fragment done something to his mind and senses?

  Riker did not know. He decided to incline toward the latter view. Otherwise, it was too much. But that wasn’t the point right now.

  So what was the point?

  Riker made a fist with his bionic hand. He was the captain’s right-hand man. In the end, he was supposed to keep the captain out of trouble or save the man from his rashest decisions. That’s what this was about. The captain was in danger and quite possibly needed help.

  For reasons Riker could not explain, he was the only one who could help Maddox now.

  “Right,” Riker growled.

  He raised his fisted bionic hand and began to hammer on the hatch. It made a terrible din as he hammered the metal. If he had to, he would batter his way out of confinement.

  It did not come to that, however. Riker had not thought it would. While he had found and dismantled all the listening devices in his cabin, there would be some just outside his quarters.

  “Sergeant Riker,” a robotic voice said behind him.

  The sergeant quit hammering the hatch and turned around. Galyan regarded him quizzically.

  “You have to listen to me,” Riker said.

  “First, you must stop denting your hatch.”

  “I have stopped.”

  “Yes,” Galyan said. “That is true. I am listening, Riker.”

  “The captain’s in danger.”

  “Indeed,” Galyan said. “How do you know this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You are spouting a partial falsehood. Remember, I can monitor your bodily functions. They have shown me the signs of a liar.”

  “Partial liar, I think you said. I spoke the truth. I don’t know, but I have my suspicions. Yet, does that matter if I’m right?”

  “No, I suppose it would not.”

  “I have to help Maddox.”

  Galyan shook his head. “I doubt that is the correct procedure. It is more probable that you wish to stop him.”

  “Galyan, it’s me, Sergeant Riker. I’ve always helped the captain. I want to do that now.”

  “I must ask Valerie. She is in charge while the captain is away.”

  “Then ask,” Riker said. “The longer you wait, the more likely it is that Maddox will die.”

  “What is endangering him?”

  Riker only hesitated a second. “I don’t know.”

  “Now you are indeed lying. You do know.”

  “I won’t say.”

  “I give it a high probability that Valerie will not agree to this supposed rescue attempt unless you tell us what is threating the captain.”

  “A Fisher ghost,” Riker said.

  “A supernatural ghost or a holoimage?” asked Galyan.

  “I’m done talking,” Riker said. “You get me Valerie’s answer. If it’s the wrong one, I’m busting out of here and taking a shuttle down to the planet anyway.”

  Galyan disappeared.

  -20-

  On the planet, Maddox continued to follow the glittery Fisher. He’d tried reaching Ludendorff, Keith and the ship in that order with his helmet comm. He had failed each time.

  During the process, he’d moved farther into the hollowed-out wall and deeper into the sandy planet. Maddox hadn’t seen any more murals in that time. Instead, he saw incredibly high ceilings. Finally, he realized these weren’t ceilings, but simply other paths. When the Fishers had chiseled the structure, it had been filled with water. Ocean water would have filled this place, allowing one to swim in any direction.

  Maddox glanced over his shoulder. How was he supposed to find his way back once this was over? The captain halted. He clicked his flashlight on and off several times. The Fisher ahead of him stopped and turned around.

  “This is as far as I go,” Maddox said.

  The Fisher used a tentacle to wave the captain onward.

  Maddox shook his helmeted head. “Sorry, no. Either explain what you want or I’m going back. It’s time for me to report in.”

  The Fisher waved more urgently.

  Maddox continued to shake his head. “If you’re a ghost, you must understand me. If you’re not a ghost, I have no idea what you could be.”

  The Fisher seemed frantic now. It waved the tentacle. It whistled and made the squeaking breathy noises.

  Maddox concentrated on the thing. Thus, he did not detect the spaceman until the last minute. He began to whirl around when a gun of sorts jabbed against his back. Maddox almost grabbed the gun. He noticed two other spacemen behind the first. All three wore crinkly spacesuits with helmets and dark visors. All three had weapons aimed at him.

  Using his chin, Maddox clicked an outer speaker. “Who are you?”

  The last spaceman pointed in the direction the Fisher had wanted Maddox to go.

  “Who are you?” Maddox repeated.

  “If you don’t go,” the last spaceman said, using a distorter to garble his voice, “we will burn you down and leave your body.”

  Maddox glanced at the Fisher. It was gone. Finally, the captain shrugged, heading in the direction the spaceman pointed. He wondered who these men were. One thing seemed clear. They were real people, not ghosts. He also wondered if the Fisher had been trying to warn him, or if the ghostly thing had been trying to distract him so the three could sneak up on him.

  In the end, it probably didn’t matter.

  ***

  The three spacemen with their guns forced Maddox down a string of narrow corridors. At last, they came to a big circular area. In the middle of the area was a large dome-like stone building. It must have taken the Fishers quite some time to chisel that out of the volcanic rock.

  There was a small circular opening into the dome. Maddox approached it. The spacemen had flashlights, and those beams played upon the stone. Gruesome images adorned it. With chisel-like knives, Fishers put creatures to death on what appeared to be altars. Was this some sort of sacrificial chamber, then?

  Maddox wondered why the spacemen hadn’t taken his blaster. That would prove to be a mistake on their part. He hadn’t tried to draw it yet. Maybe they had a scrambler aimed at the blaster. He didn’t want to try for it and be burned down in the process.

  “In there,” the same spaceman as before told him.

  “Why?” Maddox asked.

  “Go! No more questions.”

  Maddox faced fully around, regarding the three. He attempted to determine who they represented. The spacesuits were unlike any that he’d seen before. Could the spacemen control the missile-mines out there?

  “Are yo
u human?” Maddox asked.

  “Inside.”

  “Why won’t you tell me who you are?”

  “Go,” the spaceman said. “Your questions will be answered in there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Let us burn him and be done with it,” a different spaceman said.

  “If he won’t go inside, we will burn him,” the first one said.

  Maddox calculated his chances, found them wanting and thus turned around and faced the dome.

  “Wait,” one of them said.

  Maddox faced them again.

  “Put your blaster on the deck.”

  Deck? Maddox wondered to himself. Oh. He thought he understood then. It left him feeling chagrined. He should have realized this from the first. It likely answered the question of the Fisher.

  Slowly, Maddox removed the blaster and set it on the stone floor. Then, he faced the small opening, pushing through to see who was waiting for him inside the dome.

  -21-

  Maddox had to shove against resistance, a membrane of some kind, before pushing through into the dome. Immediately, bright light surrounded him. He staggered into an area with several goggle-wearing guards with guns pointed at him. Two other Spacers worked a large boxlike instrument on a tripod. It hummed with power and possessed several blinking lights. The last Spacer sat on a large folding chair. She had white hair and wrinkled skin, and wore a polar bear garment. Like the others, she wore goggles. Like the others, she did not use any breathing equipment or wear any kind of spacesuit.

  Maddox removed his rebreather helmet, giving the old woman a slight head bow. “We meet again, Visionary,” he told her.

  “Captain Maddox,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I am unsurprised the Methuselah Man led you to this barren planet. Where is Professor Ludendorff, by the way?”

  Maddox shrugged.

  “We know he is down here. My guards almost captured him once. Don’t you find it interesting that he did nothing to help you? Instead, he saved his own skin. That is the nature of the selfish creatures. He and Strand are the last. Once they’re gone, the Spacer Nation shall rejoice.”