Why am I seeing this?
Maddox pondered that as Keith piloted the Destroyer toward the new opening. Maybe the Builders or Builder who had manufactured the safeguard—if he was right about that—had used hidden methods on the Fisher world.
The stone mural—it was as if Maddox saw for the first time the full range of pictures on the mural. Something had kept his mind from seeing everything back then.
A terrible sense of awe caused goosebumps to pimple his arms. The Ska was, possibly, the most terrible life form in the galaxy. The Builders had known that. According to the stone mural, the Builders had constructed a weapon that no one should ever wield except under the direst circumstances.
This was one of those moments.
Maddox balled his fingers into fists, squeezing, hating the Builders, but hating the Ska even more. He did not like the idea of anyone using him. Maybe no one had exactly. Maybe this was an ancient Builder failsafe against the horror of the Ska. That failsafe must have been programmed into Ludendorff’s mind a long time ago. The programming was why Ludendorff had insisted they go to the Fisher world first.
The question, the real question, was would he have enough time to implement the ancient weapon before the Ska began rampaging among the sheep of humanity?
-15-
Maddox sprinted down the corridors of Starship Victory. A terrible sense of lateness added urgency to his haste.
Galyan floated beside him.
Outside the starship, the vast Destroyer waited inertly, its crew as baffled as those aboard the ancient Adok vessel.
“The Lord High Admiral wants to speak to you,” Galyan said.
“Is the fleet leaving Alpha Centauri?”
“No, Captain,” Galyan said. “That is what the Lord High Admiral would like to—”
“If they don’t leave at once, they’re all dead. I already told him that. Why’s he bothering me about it now?”
“How can you say such a thing?” Galyan asked.
“History tells me I’m right.”
“Earth history? Adok history?”
“No,” Maddox panted. “Fisher history, the real story, not the cock and bull tale Ludendorff tried to sell us before.”
“Captain, I am not following your logic. Normally—Captain, are you listening to me?”
Maddox could barely hear Galyan speak. It was like a tinny noise down a long tube. The sense of evil he’d been feeling before had grown exponentially. The sense had become smothering, demanding more and more of his attention.
“Mite,” a dark voice called in his mind. “Mite, can you hear me?”
Maddox blocked the voice by concentrating on mathematical formulas. He did his multiplication tables, running through them starting with 1 x 1 = 1.
The darkness in his mind increased, making it harder to think. Yet, he had to think, he had to block the Ska for just a little longer.
A sob of effort escaped Maddox’s throat. That caused the holoimage to stare at him in consternation. The alien AI lips opened, and presumably, the being spoke. Maddox did not hear any words now.
“I am coming for you, mite,” the dark voice said. “I am going to devour your soul and make you mine. I am going to feast forever and ever on your species.”
“Which one?” Maddox managed to ask.
“What? I do not understand.”
Greater awareness grew in Maddox as the Ska slackened its concentration against him as it pondered the strange question.
Maddox squeezed his eyes shut and focused his thoughts as he’d never done. He opened his eyes and sprinted until he reached the professor’s closed laboratory hatch.
“Open up, Ludendorff!” the captain shouted. “It’s me, Maddox.”
Nothing happened.
“It is as I told you,” Galyan said.
Maddox hammered against the hatch. “You old goat!” he shouted. “Don’t you realize it’s time? I’m here. I want it now.”
Still, nothing happened.
At the edge of his consciousness, Maddox could feel the Ska gathering itself. He believed it might still be on the other Destroyer. The bizarrely alien creature was waking up after the slumber of its journey from the null space. If Maddox didn’t get to the weapon in time…
“This is why you were made, Ludendorff!” Maddox shouted. “You always thought it was to help mankind on its long journey upward in civilization. Maybe that was part of it, I don’t know. But I’m beginning to believe that the real reason was to act as one of the fail-safes against the Ska. How do you fight a spiritual entity, or whatever the Ska really is? We don’t have the weapons to face it. But I think the Builders stumbled onto a weapon. I think they used the weapon in the Fisher System. The weapon destroyed everything, though. That’s the real story. That’s what happened. The Ska wasn’t going to destroy its slaves because the creature never made a deal with the Fishers. The aliens used the weapon and forced the bizarre entity into the star, and that did something to the Ska, something nothing else can do. But the Fishers paid for the weapon with their lives, with their entire civilization. I know that’s what going to happen here. If the Ska had taken longer to show up, that’s what would have happened to Earth. But now we have a chance, Ludendorff. If you can just open the damn hatch and quit sulking about this—”
The hatch clicked. It began to open.
Maddox grabbed the edge and flung it open. Ludendorff stood before him in rumpled clothes. The Methuselah Man stank. He probably hadn’t showered for days on end. He had bags under his red-rimmed eyes.
Maddox forced Ludendorff stumbling backward into the laboratory. It was a mess, with objects and devices strewn everywhere. Dana sat on a chair with her head resting on folded arms on a counter. She snored softly.
How long had she been working overtime helping the mad Professor Ludendorff?
“The voice,” Ludendorff said, as he clutched his head. “It won’t stop rattling off theorems, vectors and licker codes. It won’t stop. I hate it. I’m the professor. What did the Builder do to me?”
Maddox looked around the nearly trashed chamber. He spotted a gleaming metal object with two prongs curving up. It had handgrips for two hands. The thing looked heavy. It appeared a man used the handgrips to hold it up so the flattened ends of the prongs would rest against his forehead.
“Is that it?” Maddox asked.
Ludendorff moved slowly as his eyes blinked owlishly. “I do not understand. No one can know about this.”
Maddox strode toward the silvery gleaming device on the counter.
“No!” Ludendorff shouted, rushing to block the captain’s way.
Maddox shoved Ludendorff aside so the Methuselah Man stumbled, crashing against a table and falling to the floor. There, Ludendorff began to weep softly.
As Maddox approached the strange machine, he saw “Strand’s” open notebook. Curious, Maddox paused by the book. In the pages were silvery symbols scribbled in a way that made his chest ache. He realized that he recognized those as Builder symbols. It occurred to Maddox that Strand had never written the book. A Builder had. That’s what Ludendorff had gone to get at the Fisher world. Maybe Ludendorff really believed in his heart that Strand had written the book. Maddox knew now the Builder who had made the first device for the Fishers had left instructions for making the terrible tool a second time.
“Captain,” Galyan said. “I do not understand what is going on.”
Maddox faced Galyan. The captain wondered if he could live with himself once this was done. Well, if he couldn’t, that didn’t mean the rest of the crew felt the same way.
“Listen to me closely, Galyan,” the captain said. “You have to be ready to use the star drive and take us to the Solar System. Tell Keith he has to move the Destroyer there now, going to…Pluto. Tell him to go to Pluto. Send a message to the Lord High Admiral. If he hasn’t already, he is to order every ship that can to jump to Earth, to the Solar System. If he doesn’t to that now, those ships are going to disintegrate in the next hour.�
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“That is a fantastic message, Captain. How can it be true?”
“If you don’t do it, Galyan—”
Maddox stopped talking as the Ska resumed its spiritual attack against him, blocking everything else from the captain’s senses.
-16-
The next few seconds were among the most grueling in Maddox’s existence. A power struck him that seemed to hurtle him backward in time and space. He tumbled like paper in a sandstorm, the particles rasping against him.
Maddox saw the world around him in his memories. He saw a large arm holding him. He felt the beat of his mother’s heart close to his. They were on a space hauler. Maddox had no idea how he knew that. His mother was in third class together with a group of ruffians. The ruffians kept eyeing her. Maddox could read their intentions on their faces. He struggled against his mother’s arm, and realized with shock that he was just a baby. He could not talk. He could only coo or cry. Right now, Maddox began to cry in rage because he couldn’t hurt those who threatened his mother.
Finally, the thinnest ruffian with the wickedest grin stood up and approached her.
“Set down the mewling brat,” the ruffian said. “I’m horny,” he said, rubbing his groin and swaying his hips suggestively.
Maddox’s mother set him down. She did it so very gently. Then she approached the ruffian with a sultry smile, pushing herself against him.
“That’s what I’m talking about, bitch,” the ruffian said. He grabbed the back of her head roughly—his eyes widened. He looked down at her and shoved her away so she stumbled.
“What did you do to me?” he shouted. The ruffian rubbed his side. “What did you do?”
Maddox’s mother held up a small needle. A drip of something green glistened on the tip.
The ruffian stared at her as drool began running from his moist mouth. “What the—?” he said, stumbling backward until he struck a bulkhead. The ruffian slid down, beginning to make gagging noises.
“What did you do to him?” a bigger ruffian demanded.
“The same thing I’ll do to you if you mess with me,” she said.
The bigger ruffian glanced at his friend. That one had started convulsing. The bigger ruffian scowled, advancing a step at Maddox’s mother.
“You can die just like him,” she said. “Or you can keep away from me and live. It’s your choice. I don’t really care, because I’ve already been to hell and back. One more killing won’t make any difference to me.”
The bigger ruffian muttered darkly. Then he turned to the hatch, banging on it, demanding a medic.
In Maddox’s memory, his mother scooped him up, rocking him gently back and forth, cooing to him, telling him that she loved her little man.
The word “love” acted like a tonic on Captain Maddox in the here and now. The memory faded and he realized he stood frozen in Ludendorff’s laboratory aboard Starship Victory. The Ska attacked him. It strove to feed off him by creating terror—
Maddox rubbed his eyes until he saw splotches before his vision. During that moment, he saw the Builder machine on the counter. He staggered for it—
“No, Captain,” the Ska said, “you shall never reach the object.”
Maddox rubbed his eyes as hard as before. He saw the thing and stubbornly took another step. He lunged at the machine, touching the cool metallic surface.
“What is that?” the Ska asked.
Maddox gripped the handles, grunted as he picked it up, and shoved his forehead against the two flattened pieces of the curved prongs.
As he did, the Builder machine began to purr with power.
“You slug,” the Ska said. “You won’t get away as easily as that.”
The machine’s purring increased its intensity. The machine built up Maddox’s mind and it altered his reality. He sensed a monstrous evil behind him.
The captain turned and saw a roiling dark cloud that had to be the Ska. It wasn’t fluffy, but oily and sticky and full of malice and dark desires. It hated physical life for reasons that Maddox could not understand.
“Maybe you can see me,” the Ska said. “But I can also clearly see you. This is much better, you filthy little beast. I am going to toy with you for an eon.”
As the black cloud spoke, an oily tendril grew from it. The tendril had glistening suckers on the end. Those suckers did not drain blood; they drained the soul from a person in a process that should not work. It would create soul agony in the prey.
Rage built in Maddox. He aimed the Builder machine at the thing, and a beam of purest light emitted from it. The beam struck the oily tendril—and the cloud writhed with agony.
“How did you do that?” the Ska asked.
Maddox didn’t know, although he felt great weariness. In that moment, he realized that he powered the machine with something critical from himself. If he gave too much of his self to the machine, it would twist and torment him as much as if the Ska gained ascension over him.
In spite of that knowledge, maybe because he was still angry at what the ruffian had tried to do to his mother, Maddox aimed the Builder machine at the black cloud.
“It’s time for you to suffer,” Maddox said. He beamed a thick pure light at the cloud. He beamed it long and hard. His heart raced. His soul-energy diminished at a fantastic rate, but that allowed him to sear the dark cloud, to hammer it—
The Ska fled from the Builder machine that shot rays of soul light. It fled as it howled in agony. There was only one way it knew to heal itself, and that was inside a hot star.
-17-
The unbelievably ancient Ska veered away from Proxima Centauri, as the red dwarf was much too cool for what it needed. Instead, the Ska fled toward the closest hot star, Alpha Centauri A. This particular star had 1.1 times the mass of the Sun and it shined 1.519 times as brightly.
The strange creature from another dimension moved with uncanny speed as it traveled, just a little slower than the speed of thought. It sped past the star’s atmosphere, which was composed of four parts: the heliosphere, corona, transition region and the chromosphere. Surprisingly, the chromosphere, transition region and corona were much hotter than the surface of the star.
After exiting the star’s atmosphere, the Ska sped through the photosphere, the convective zone, the tachocline, the radiative zone and finally entered the incredible and soothing core of Alpha Centauri A.
Here, through nuclear fusion, the star produced its energy through a series of steps called the proton-proton chain. The process converted hydrogen to helium and slowly but remorselessly devoured the star’s massive amount of hydrogen fuel.
As the Ska swam through the heated core, it soaked up the tiny amount of a mysterious substance produced under these intense conditions. In many ways, these unknown particles had neutrino-like properties. They also had a governing effect upon the star, and that was critical to what was about to happen.
For the Ska did not simply soak itself in these mysterious particles, the bizarre creature absorbed the substances. It was as if these particles ceased to exist. That began a strange and harrowing reaction within the heart of the star. Unlike the normal energy created by the proton-proton chain that took such an incredibly long time to go from the center to the outer edge of the star, this Ska-induced process abruptly affected the natural fusion reactor.
Without the neutrino-like particles, and for reasons unknown to human, Swarm and other scientists—although certain Builders could have explained it to a sufficiently intelligent species—the star of Alpha Centauri A expanded. The star did this in a moment instead of slowly as a red giant would have done in its evolutionary changes over time.
With the star’s rapid expansion came a vast outpouring of stellar radiation and blazing heat and plasma. The radiation along with the heat scorched everything within one hundred AUs or a little over three times Neptune’s orbit from the Sun.
That meant that almost everything in the inner and outer system burned up into cinders or into nonexistence. In that moment,
the several billion human inhabitants of the Alpha Centauri System ceased to exist. The planets heated and killed their people. The space habitats disappeared, turned red hot or received such massive doses of radiation that everyone died. Perhaps a few deep miners survived for the moment. Almost every one of them would die a lingering radiation-poisoned death.
The expanding star did not spare the remaining spaceships of Star Watch that had failed to fleet, the Wahhabi survivors or the Windsor League vessels that made up the Alliance Fleet. Those ships in the star system vaporized under the hellish conditions of the expanding star. Although the New Men had paid heed to Maddox’s warning—all the star cruisers had already jumped to the Solar System—none of the civilian vessels in the system survived.
The Spacers that had arrived with the Ska from the null region in the second Destroyer, including the Visionary, all gained their mental freedom as the wounded Ska journeyed to the star. However, the intense heat from the expanding star boiled away the neutroium armor. It took a little longer than other vessels, although the heat cooked and killed the crew long before the ancient vessel altogether ceased to exist.
The large majority of the Swarm Fleet did not escape damage, either, even though most of the vessels were farther away from Alpha Centauri A than the human ships.
Perhaps two-thirds of the remaining Swarm ships broke apart under the intense heat and lashing radiation. Half of the rest received terrible doses of radiation. Fortunately for the Swarm creatures, they could take much more radiation than a human and live. Unfortunately for those creatures, that meant a terrible lingering death full of agonizing pain.
However, a group of Swarm ships escaped the dreadful destruction. Those ships, including the command vessel and most of the jump ships, were behind a huge gas giant at the moment of the expansion.
Thus, as the heat and radiation annihilated everything around them, these vessels escaped the mass death as the gas giant sheltered them from the expanding star. The gout of heat and radiation from the abrupt expansion that slaughtered so many did not last long.
The Lost Earth (Lost Starship Series Book 7) Page 31