The Lost Earth (Lost Starship Series Book 7)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Yes,” she said. “How can I aide you, my mate?”

  He told her Dana’s problem.

  His mate’s eyelids flickered faster than Galyan’s had ever done. She accessed an immense goldmine of data. She processed, crosschecked—

  “Driving Force Galyan,” she said. “I may have a solution.”

  “Tell me,” he whispered.

  She did.

  Galyan closed his eyes afterward. He did not want to say this. He wanted to remain in this moment for the rest of his existence. How could Captain Maddox and Meta have asked him to do this?

  “Because they do not understand,” Galyan whispered.

  “What is that, love?” his mate asked.

  “Dematerialize mate program,” Galyan whispered in the softest voice he’d ever uttered.

  After that, Galyan remained rooted to his spot on the bridge. Time passed. It seemed like an age. He debated deleting himself for good. Why should he suffer like this? Why should he torture himself with the loneliness of existence?

  “Because I am Driving Force Galyan,” he said. “I am the last of the Adoks. I must show the universe the greatness of my people, the greatness of my love. I will help my family. We will stop the Swarm. I will not allow the bugs to destroy any more species. That I vow as the last acting commander of my people.”

  He still felt achingly alone. Yet, he had a burning purpose. If Galyan could hate, he hated the Swarm with an undying rage.

  He opened his eyes. The bridge still existed. He was the only one on it. With great sorrow, Galyan disappeared from his inner bridge. He went to bring Captain Maddox the answer to the problem.

  -31-

  Two days later, Doctor Dana Rich slowly woke up, disoriented. She opened her eyes but couldn’t see a thing. Slowly, a ceiling above came into focus. She frowned. This was—

  “Starship Victory,” she said softly.

  Doctor Rich was dark skinned with intensely brown eyes. She had beautiful dark hair and exquisite features. She had grown up on the Indian world of Brahma. She’d been a university student there when she first met Professor Ludendorff. He had been unlike any man she’d met before or since. He had a great breadth of mind. That was important to her—

  Mind. Dana touched her head. Slowly, she sat up, looking around. This was her quarters aboard the starship. She remembered—

  Dana’s eyes widened. She remembered last voyage. She recalled that she had been injured. She had lost use of some of her intellect—she touched her open mouth. She’d lost some of her razor-sharp abilities. Ludendorff had tried everything to restore her mind. The professor had stayed at her side…

  She smiled. Many people thought that Professor Ludendorff was a selfish prick. While that was true on many occasions, he could also be wonderful and protecting. He was a good man, at least some of the time he was.

  It was at that point that Dana recalled what had happened to her in the last two days. It had proven painful and exhausting. She felt exhausted. Yet, Galyan had restored her full mental capabilities to her.

  “Thank you, Galyan,” she said softly.

  The holoimage appeared in her quarters. “You are welcome, Dana,” Galyan said.

  The doctor pulled up the blanket to cover her breasts. “Is my room bugged?”

  “Of course, Dana,” Galyan said.

  “I don’t like that.”

  “It is for your own protection.”

  “I don’t need protecting. I can take care of myself.”

  Galyan stood there as if he didn’t know what to say.

  “No,” she said. “I’m sorry. You just helped me. Thank you indeed, Galyan. I appreciate it.”

  “You are part of my family.”

  “Yes,” she said. “And you’re part of mine.”

  She reached out to touch him. Her hand passed through his holoimage. She jerked her hand back. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I understand why you did that,” Galyan said sadly. “I will go so you can dress. The professor will be overjoyed to hear you are better. None of us knew whether the process would work or not.”

  She nodded as she stared at him.

  “What is wrong, Dana?”

  “Galyan, I…” She didn’t know what to say. She wondered in that moment what it was like being Driving Force Galyan. She supposed none of them would ever know. Had the Builders been cruel to give the Adoks deification technology? It was more than possible.

  “Wait a minute,” Dana said. “The others need me restored, don’t they?”

  “Yes,” Galyan said.

  Dana thought about that. “Couldn’t they have tried this before?”

  “Dana…” Galyan said hesitantly. “I would not say anything under normal conditions, but finding your cure was costly.”

  “How so?”

  Galyan said nothing.

  “To whom was it costly?” she asked. “To Maddox?”

  Galyan shook his head.

  She scowled.

  “I would not have said anything,” Galyan told her, “except that my probability psych program has detected anger on your part toward them. I wish to dampen that.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because your cure proved costly…to me,” he added in a small voice.

  “Costly to you, Galyan?” Dana asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “And I cannot explain it. Or maybe I don’t want to explain it. Please, Dana, I beg you—”

  “No, Galyan,” she said. “I don’t ever want you to beg me. By your Adok arts, you restored my full mind to me. I am grateful for that. I will help the others in order to repay, in part, whatever this cost you.”

  “Thank you, Dana.”

  “What exactly am I supposed to do?”

  Galyan explained the problem.

  “Destroyers?” she asked. “Why would we possibly want to get those horrors?”

  “Did I not tell you?” Galyan asked. “The Swarm has reached Human Space.”

  Dana stared at him. “I did not realize,” she whispered. “Yes, of course. Go tell the professor. I will have to eat, walk around a bit. Then, I will be ready to get started with Riker. The Swarm,” she said softly. “It has finally happened.”

  -32-

  Sergeant Riker lay on a couch. He was in a dimly lit room with Doctor Rich. She’d used her specialist techniques to calm his mind and put him in a reflective state.

  “This will hardly hurt at all,” she said softly.

  Riker felt like opening his eyes, but refrained because he didn’t quite feel strongly enough about it.

  “I—oh,” Dana said. “I forgot about your bionic arm.”

  Riker could hear her fabric rustle as she moved around him. A small stab of pain flared against his real shoulder.

  Even so, the sergeant kept his eyes closed. He felt greater contentment than he had in a while. He tried to remember when he’d felt this good. Not since the last time he’d he worked at home in his garden. He loved planting trees in particular.

  He’d heard a saying once that had stuck with him for life. An old man who plants a tree whose shade he will never use is the primary component of civilization.

  Riker saw himself as imminently civilized. He loved his society, his culture. He manned the borders in order to keep invaders at bay. Those invaders could be aliens like the Swarm. They could be New Men spies or simply those who broke the rules of civilization. Such would have to face men like him. Barbarians broke the accepted rules. Barbarians spat on the culture. The best way to deal with barbarians was to keep them outside civilization’s borders. Once the barbarians were inside the gates in large numbers, the civilization was likely doomed.

  The Swarm were inside the borders and in fantastic numbers. Because Riker loved his nieces, his blood and heritage—the bounty of his father, grandfather and great grandfather and beyond, and his mother and grandmothers—he would fight with all his might. The Swarm thought to eradicate what Riker had received as a gift with a duty to pass it on to his bl
ood.

  On the couch, in the dimly lit room, Riker moved his head from side to side. The good feeling was beginning to evaporate.

  “Relax,” Dana whispered in his ear. “You must stay calm, Sergeant.”

  “Duty,” he whispered.

  “You will do your duty by remaining calm, by relaxing.”

  “How can this be?” Riker asked gruffly.

  “You are the spy for our side,” Dana whispered.

  Riker frowned while he kept his eyes closed.

  “The enemy has thought to use you by infiltrating you,” Dana said.

  “The barbarian is inside the gate?”

  There was silence until—“Yes, Sergeant,” a feminine voice whispered in his ear. “But you can turn the spy if you remain calm.”

  A hard grin slid onto the sergeant’s face. He would turn the spy and use the barbarian against others of his kind. They would not destroy Riker’s civilization. It was uniquely his, built by many generations. His ancestors had passed on duties and privileges to him won through their sweat and toil. He would not be the weak link that broke the great chain. He would rise to the task. He would do so because he was proud of his lineage, of those who had gone on before him. Any who thought to steal his heritage from him—

  Riker made a growling noise in the back of his throat. He would grind into dust any who thought to trick or overpower him. He would prove to be a good son of his ancestors. He would not let his birthright go because others thought he had too much privilege.

  In his heart, Riker spat on such fools and knaves. He manned the border. He would remain vigilant until he was dead.

  “Riker,” the soft voice said.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Why are you so tense?”

  “I will fight to the end,” Riker said.

  “That is good,” the voice whispered. “You are a soldier. It is a soldier’s duty to fight.”

  “It is a man’s duty to protect his loved ones.”

  “That is true. But now you must relax.”

  “Are you asking me to shirk my duty?”

  “No, Sergeant,” the soft voice said. “I am asking you to do the hardest thing of all.”

  “What is that?”

  “You must face a monster that can crush you with a thought.”

  “Do I have to go alone?”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “I…am afraid,” Riker admitted. “I am too weak.”

  “No, Sergeant,” the soft voice said. “Being afraid isn’t wrong. Listening to your fears is the problem. I want you to listen to your courage.”

  “I will,” he said.

  “Then you must relax and go inward. There in the depths is a monster that seeks to withhold knowledge of the weapon we need to destroy it.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Relax, Sergeant Riker. You are going to use your mind, will and memories to defeat a monster greater than any man.”

  Riker squirmed on the couch. This sounded frightening. And yet, for the sake of his nieces, he would do this thing.

  “I’m ready,” Riker said.

  “Then let us delve deeply into your subconscious.”

  -33-

  Baffled rage consumed him. A trick, a monstrous trick by the computing people had lured him into this place. He had brought three of the hard material machines with him to investigate and annihilate. Instead, terrible darkness filled this void and battled his every effort to escape.

  Worse, he felt tired and sleepy. What caused such a thing? It made no sense. He had never known sleepiness like this except for the long journey through the seemingly infinite void to get to this exciting realm of endless matter.

  Stars had surrounded his kind, and planets full of juicy tastes. They had multiplied the hard material machines and built clickers to run them.

  He had ranged through the small dark realm so unlike the material world of stars, planets and juicy treats of hot emotions. Letting the hard material machines devour others brought joy because the prey’s terror and hopelessness warmed him so beautifully. That had been the source of his power: endless fear and terror radiating into them had caused each of his brothers to puff up with energy.

  They were the Ska, the eaters of fear, the feasters upon hopelessness magnified into mindless terror. Oh, he had gobbled so many of these puny flesh and blood races. He had warmed himself on the heat of their psychic emanations.

  Oh, how wonderful, oh, how powerful it had become. Now, though, he had slipped into an inconceivable trap of darkness.

  The computing people had done this to him.

  He Who Could Kill with Speed—the Elder Ska—had known something approaching sorrow. It would take endless ages before he perished in this draining null place. He would linger for time upon time. If he could have used that time to find a means of escape…

  No! A great and final sleepiness had settled over him. His awareness shrank. He almost woke up again when the third hard material machine blew up. The clickers in it had attempted a jump.

  If he could have, the Elder Ska would have tormented the clickers an eon for destroying their machine. Instead, he lost his awareness and fell back to sleep.

  Ages slipped away. Eons and eons later, something sharp and lively entered the dark realm.

  The Elder Ska began to awaken. He saw the alien starship and felt the pulsating life within it. Even more amazing, there appeared an opening that could possibility be a way out of the trap.

  The life forms in the starship acted faster than he could. They moved to the opening, passing through it, vanishing—

  The Elder Ska wailed in misery. The opening vanished with the tasty morsels of flesh and blood, taking their hot emotions with them. That was almost too much to accept. He debated ending his existence.

  Instead, he forced a split, and with the renewed energy of youth, he struggled to understand about the opening.

  One part of the split tried to wriggle through. Pain, searing agony almost blasted it apart. Before the other ended, a spark of his once vast force latched onto a passing Spacer vessel. He found the most modified among the crew and entered into the creature.

  That hurt so much and that confined him. But he had a plan. If he could get the prey to go back into the null realm, he could reunite with his brother and reemerge later whole and powerful again.

  It was a good plan. It would have worked. But the creature known as Sergeant Riker—

  ***

  In the dimly lit room aboard Starship Victory, Riker bolted upright on the couch. The sergeant’s eyes flew open and he howled as if he was a demented soul burning in Hell.

  Dana fell off her chair in fright.

  Riker continued to howl.

  Galyan appeared.

  That made Riker berserk. He stood, grabbed the couch and grunted as he raised it over his head. He was going to beat the surprised Dana Rich to death.

  The hatch opened and Maddox and Meta rushed in. Riker hurled the couch at Meta. She tried to dodge, but the couch caught her, hurling her against a bulkhead.

  Maddox shouted as he moved into a flying kick, hitting Riker against the chest so the sergeant tumbled off his feet, rolling across the floor.

  Maddox landed on his feet like a cat. Riker shook his head, snarled as if he’d gone mad and jumped up. He charged Maddox.

  The captain sidestepped the bionic arm, stretched out a foot and tripped Riker. The sergeant crashed headlong against a bulkhead.

  The old sergeant didn’t seem to feel it, though. He spun around, popped to his feet and charged again. Like a professional matador, Maddox once more moved aside.

  “I’ll kill you, morsel!” Riker shouted.

  Maybe he would have, but at that moment, Professor Ludendorff poked his head into the room. The Methuselah Man raised a gun and fired a heavy dart against the sergeant’s chest.

  Riker looked down at the dart. Maddox looked and so did Ludendorff. The sergeant plucked the dart out of his chest, laughed like a pr
edator—his eyes fluttered until, like an axed tree, Riker fell headlong onto the floor, out cold.

  -34-

  Several days later, Maddox held a meeting in the conference chamber.

  Meta was there with a cast around her torso. The hurled couch had broken several ribs. It might have done more, but Meta had tough muscles and stronger bones. She used an accelerated bone therapy drug. The ribs should knit together perfectly within another week. She had complained to Maddox about a sore back, but no one else knew about that.

  An apologetic Sergeant Riker sat beside Meta.

  He’d just come out of a stasis tube. Dana had run a battery of tests on his mental state. There was a small anomaly that she couldn’t understand or explain. Otherwise, Riker seemed mentally fit. That one unknown, however, had most of them concerned.

  Dana sat beside the sergeant. She seemed like her old self, confident, healthy and wearing her white lab coat.

  The professor sat at the opposite end of the table from Maddox. At Ludendorff’s left side was Galyan, who stood. The Kai-Kaus Chief Technician Andros Crank sat beside the holoimage. Andros was a stout and rather short man with blunt fingers and unusually long gray hair. The Chief Technician seldom said much, but he had observant gray eyes that seemed to miss nothing.

  Finally, Valerie sat between Andros and Captain Maddox at the head of the table.

  The captain cleared his throat. “We’ve had an interesting few days, to say the least. We’ve also delved into the sergeant’s memories to get at the Ska ego-fragment that tried to use him.”

  Sergeant Riker looked around with a hint of wariness at the corners of his eyes. He seemed a little like a cornered beast watching the net-handlers whispering among themselves.

  “Today,” Maddox continued, “I’m hoping to pool our thoughts and observations in order to figure out what the Ska fears.”

  “It obviously fears remaining trapped in the null region,” Dana said promptly.

  Maddox nodded. “No doubt about that, Doctor. Thank you. Do you have any idea if it fears a particular weapon?”

  Dana shook her head.