The Lost Earth (Lost Starship Series Book 7)

by Vaughn Heppner

  In the end, 6,318 Swarm vessels survived the cauldron of death. Among that number were 174 jump ships.

  After everyone except for the stranded Swarm creatures had passed away, the Ska inside the expanded star began to grow queasy. It slowly dawned on the other-dimensional creature that the mysterious particles had flowed too heavily into its being.

  With terrible clarity, it realized the particles had healed the damage inflicted by Captain Maddox, but at a frightful cost. Those neutrino-like particles had accelerated its aging process to a monstrous degree. In a word, it was dying from advanced age.

  Maddox! the Ska thought. I must avenge myself on Captain Maddox. As it had these desires, the Ska lost more and more of its mental coherence. So, even though it left the star and began the journey to Earth, it had started to seriously fade. Whether it would reach Earth in time to hurt Maddox was going to be a running question.

  -18-

  The magnitude of the death and destruction awed even the Reigning Supreme and her Hive Master-class advisors. The sudden disappearance of most of the fleet paralyzed the command structure.

  AX-29 was supposed to have invaded Human Space with several hundred thousand warships. Instead, she had arrived with a little over 80,000 vessels. Now, she was down to 6,318 ships. Perhaps as bad, she was stuck for the moment behind the boiling gas giant. Did the Laumer Point between Alpha Centauri and the Solar System still exist? If it didn’t, she was looking at years of travel to reach the target.

  AX-29 grieved her situation. Her advisors stared blankly at nothing. Thrax…

  The Reigning Supreme looked around. Where was Thrax? What had happened to the little hybrid Swarm monster?

  ***

  Thrax scuttled as fast as he could go through the corridors of the command vessel. His mind was numb with shock; he worked off instinct alone.

  What could have possibly caused the system’s largest star to expand like that? It was unprecedented. It had destroyed on a massive scale. He thought he’d seen mass destruction in the Golden Nexus System. The monstrous war between the Chitins and the Swarm had beggared his imagination. But this…

  Thrax clacked his pincers. The star had expanded. It had devoured. The Swarm Fleet—

  Thrax clacked his pincers harder as he continued to scuttle at maximum speed.

  It was only through sheerest luck that this part of the fleet had survived. The expanding star must have changed the Laumer Points. The gravitational eruptions, the particles spewed into space—Alpha Centauri had become a death zone. For the moment, at least, the fleet was trapped behind the gas giant. How long would he survive in such a situation?

  Thrax did not give himself good odds. The Reigning Supreme would surely revert to her old ways. She would come to loathe him. Likely, she would come to blame him for the awful disaster, even though it wasn’t his fault.

  Thrax clacked his pincers more as he scuttled madly for the hangar bay. If he hadn’t destroyed the Golden Nexus, how many more Swarm vessels would have perished today to the expanding star?

  The hybrid Swarm creature created by the Builder on the Dyson Sphere laughed in an odd manner. Few other Swarm creatures could laugh or even understood the concept of humor.

  Thrax halted. His head swayed back and forth. By slow degrees, he gained control over himself and thought furiously. He was dead if he stayed. Yet if he tried to leave—

  “Act,” Thrax told himself. “This is not a time to think. This is a time to do.”

  Commander Thrax Ti Ix did exactly that. He’d used his head on the Dyson Sphere. That had been a terrible disaster, too. He’d survived that. He would survive this horror, as well. He would show—well, maybe he would just show himself. But he would prove that the hybrids were the superior Swarm creatures. And he would do that by acting decisively before the others could gain their bearings. But he could only do that by staying on the run until he was free.

  Thrax raised his pincers high and clacked three times in rapid succession. That’s what he desired. He wanted to be free again instead of part of a system that ultimately despised him. He’d given the Imperium much, and it had repaid him with scorn.

  Thrax charged to the hangar bay, determined to reach the jump ships and get the heck out of here. Where would he take the jump ships—given that he could gain control of them?

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “Far away from humans and far away from the Imperium. I’m sick of both.”

  ***

  Hours later, AX-29 finally began to regain control of herself and her advisors. What solidified the full return of her sanity was a message from a soldier.

  “Turn on the screen,” AX-29 said.

  Soldiers did her biding. A moment later, a bloated Hive Master-class commander appeared on the screen.

  “Reigning Supreme,” the commander said. “I am calling because these orders seem out of protocol. I realize this is a trying moment—”

  “Get to the point,” AX-29 said.

  “The jump ships are not responding to my calls. They have begun to edge toward the gas giant. They are to move aside—”

  “Who is commanding the jump ships?” AX-29 said.

  “I have been unable to confirm that.”

  “Why?”

  “No one is answering me.”

  “That should change nothing.”

  “The command jump ship was destroyed in the star blast.”

  “I will take charge of the situation as of now.”

  “Thank you, Reigning Supreme. The situation on my own ship—”

  “Take charge there,” AX-29 said. She motioned soldiers. They rearranged her pallet. Moments later, she began hailing the jump ships.

  The jump vessels showed on the main screen, slowly maneuvering from the rest of the fleet.

  “I demand that you answer my call,” AX-29 said. “If you fail to answer, I will target—”

  The screen wavered. A moment later, Thrax appeared on the screen.

  “What is the meaning of this?” AX-29 said. “I am attempting to contact the jump ships. Why are you on the comm?”

  Thrax clacked his pincers. “I am attempting to correct the problem, Reigning Supreme.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I am on a jump ship,” Thrax said.

  “I did not give you permission to leave the command vessel.”

  Thrax clacked his pincers again.

  “Stop that,” AX-29 said. “I find the noise irritating.”

  Thrax did not stop, but clacked his pincers more loudly than before.

  “Did you hear my command?”

  “I did,” Thrax said. “I have simply chosen to ignore it.”

  AX-29 stared at him. “Are you rebelling, Thrax?”

  “I am the superior Swarm creature,” Thrax told her. “How do I know? Because I will survive this disaster, a disaster of your making.”

  “How dare you speak to me like that?”

  “You are as good as dead,” Thrax said. “You led us to destruction. I despise you, and I despise your bloated bulk. Good-bye, AX-29, and good riddance.”

  “Fire!” the Reigning Supreme raged. “Fire on his jump ships.”

  “We need them,” the Assault Leader told her.

  “Thrax!” the Reigning Supreme shouted.

  Thrax likely did not hear, as the first of the jump ships used its special drive to leave the Alpha Centauri System.

  -19-

  Captain Maddox collapsed shortly after appearing in the Solar System. He had tried to explain to Galyan what had happened in his battle against the Ska. As Maddox spoke the first words, he’d fainted, falling onto the floor with a heavy thud.

  The first medic reaching him declared that the captain had gone into a coma. The woman didn’t know it, but the captain had used up too much of himself in powering the strange Builder-conceived weapon.

  Soon enough, Maddox lay in Victory’s medical center. Three times the first night, he almost quit breathing. Meta held his hand each time, strok
ing it and whispering quietly that he’d better not leave her.

  “Keep doing that,” the doctor said. “It’s helping. It seems to stabilize his cardiopulmonary rhythms.”

  Meta held Maddox’s hands for hours. She sat in a chair, speaking quietly to him the entire time. Fifteen hours later, she was still doing that, although her voice had grown ragged.

  “Let me sit with him,” Riker said. “You need to get some sleep.”

  With bleary eyes, Meta peered up at the sergeant. She’d been weeping quietly many times. “If something happens to him…you come and get me immediately.”

  “I promise,” Riker said.

  Valerie helped Meta stand and guided her out through the hatch.

  Riker sat down beside Maddox. The sergeant did not take the captain’s hand. The old sergeant looked at the young whippersnapper for some time. He looked at the smooth face.

  If anyone had any real inkling of what had happened to Maddox when he faced the Ska, it was Riker. The bad feeling had left the sergeant. He did not sense the Ska anymore.

  Riker didn’t know it, but the Ska had faded away as it tried to reach the Solar System. It had aged too swiftly to make the journey. A lingering malice tainted the farthest region of the Solar System’s Oort cloud, but that was all that was left of the incredibly ancient creature.

  What Sergeant Riker did know was that the captain had stood in the gap when no one else could have done so. Maddox had faced an evil creature all by his lonesome. The young fool had used up something essential of himself to do it, too.

  Riker knew because he’d been linked, however tenuously in the end, to the monstrous thing from another dimension. These thoughts did not come as certain knowledge, but as feelings, intuitions.

  On the second night, Maddox began to buck and wheeze horribly. Riker had been napping, with his chin resting on his chest. The older man’s head snapped up. He stood, hollered for medical help and grabbed Maddox’s nearest arm.

  Riker quailed inside at the thought of Maddox’s passing away. Tears sprang to Riker’s eyes. He did not wipe them away. He gripped the young man’s arm with fierce strength as he leaned in and began whispering into Maddox’s ear.

  The tears made tracks on Riker’s face as they dripped onto the captain’s hospital gown. The older man kept talking.

  The medics rushed in and went to work. At the doctor’s orders, they left Riker alone. Finally, Maddox quit bucking and began to breathe evenly again.

  By that time, Meta had arrived. She pried Riker’s hands off Maddox’s arm, patting the sergeant’s arm. Then she lay on Maddox’s chest, crying softly, telling him to fight, to live. She needed him. She wanted him to come back and live the rest of his life with her.

  For the next five days, Meta, Riker, Valerie, Mary O’Hara, Galyan and Keith kept the captain company at all times.

  “Keep talking to him,” the doctor instructed. “Your words are doing more than anything I can do to keep him alive.”

  On the sixth day, Dana appeared. She spoke quiet words into Maddox’s ear.

  On the eighth day, Ludendorff showed up. The Methuselah Man looked like a wreck. He seemed to have aged an incredible number of years. He moved slowly like an old man. His hands trembled when he lifted them.

  “I want to talk to him alone,” Ludendorff said.

  Everyone left but Meta.

  “You too, my lovely,” Ludendorff said.

  “No,” Meta said. “There’s something about you I don’t like.”

  “Come now,” Ludendorff wheezed.

  “No,” Meta said. “You mean to harm the captain. I can feel it.”

  Ludendorff seemed indecisive, finally nodding. “Have it your way, then,” he said. “Stay and see how wrong you are.”

  The professor put his hands on the cot’s bar, but he did not touch the captain.

  “How did you guess, old boy?” Ludendorff asked in a plaintiff voice. “What did the Builder to do me? There are so many things I’m not sure about anymore. You did this to me…”

  Ludendorff stopped talking as Meta stood and walked around onto the other side of the cot. Her features were set as she studied Ludendorff.

  “Is something wrong?” Ludendorff asked petulantly.

  “Why are you blaming him?” Meta asked.

  Ludendorff made a vague gesture. “He’s always striving. He’s always poking around.”

  “You made the machine that gave us victory,” Meta said. “But you’re still up and around. Maddox paid the cost of using the machine. You have no reason to blame him for anything.”

  Ludendorff grumbled quietly to himself.

  “Blame the Builder if you have to blame someone,” Meta told him.

  “Blast it,” Ludendorff said, with some of his old fire. “Don’t you understand? The Builder is dead. I can’t touch him. Look what they did to me.”

  “Do you mean giving you incredibly long life?” she asked.

  “Bah,” he said. “You can’t understand.”

  “If you weren’t so completely self-absorbed you might be able to think of someone other than yourself for once.”

  “Don’t lecture me. I saved humanity.”

  “You built the weapon,” Meta said. “He,” she touched Maddox, “saved humanity. He stood in the gap against the evil that would have devoured us. That’s why you’re upset. Building the weapon cost you, but he’s gotten all the credit.”

  “For murdering billions of people in Alpha Centauri,” Ludendorff spat.

  Meta shook her head. “Everyone in Alpha Centauri died so the rest of us could live. Are you so self-absorbed with only your own ego that you can’t see the truth?”

  Ludendorff’s eyes burned with hatred and his lips trembled. “Tell him, if he ever wakes up, to never look for me again. If he does, I’ll kill him.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  It seemed as if Ludendorff would say more. Abruptly, the Methuselah Man turned around and hobbled out the door.

  After Ludendorff was gone, Meta stroked Maddox’s arm. “Wake up, darling. Come back to me. Please, come back…”

  -20-

  The last vessels of the Swarm Fleet made it to the Alpha Centauri-Solar System Laumer Point and used it to reach the Outer System.

  The bugs had taken too long, however. Andros Crank and his Kai-Kaus technicians had fixed the Destroyer enough for it to beam seven times.

  The four Juggernauts, the New Man cone of battle and the rest of Star Watch with its remaining Conqueror-class battleships, carriers, fold-fighters with anti-matter torpedoes, the monitors and heavy cruisers together with Windsor League hammerships and Wahhabi Scimitar-class vessels crushed the Jump Lagged Imperial vessels.

  Humanity took losses—numbering 18 ships—but they wiped out the Swarm menace. Later, scientists determined that all the bugs had been dying from radiation poisoning. That and the Jump Lag accounted for the wretched operational fighting on their part.

  The New Men readied to depart. Before they did, Golden Ural visited Victory. The tall New Man asked for permission to see Captain Maddox.

  Meta and Riker flanked the New Man. Ural stood over Maddox, fingering his chin as he looked down upon the hybrid.

  Whatever Ural thought, he kept to himself. Finally, the New Man turned to go.

  “Is that it?” Meta asked him.

  Ural examined her frankly. It made Meta flush.

  “You are the captain’s woman?” Ural asked.

  “I’m his wife,” Meta declared.

  “Ah,” Ural said. “Yes, I approve.” The New Man then took his leave.

  Meta looked at Riker. “What was that all about?”

  The sergeant shrugged. He had no idea.

  They both turned to study Maddox. He still lay in a coma, fifteen days now since facing the Ska.

  “Do you think he’ll make it?” Meta asked the sergeant in a small voice.

  “Now, now,” Riker said. “Don’t give up hope. Our Captain Maddox is a fighter. If anyone can survive wha
t happened, it’s him.”

  “I’m afraid, Riker. I don’t want him to die.”

  “Neither do I,” the sergeant said softly.

  ***

  As Captain Maddox lay inert on the medical cot, his mind wandered in a dazed fog. He had not dreamed during this time. He had hung between life and death for fifteen long days.

  It almost seemed as if he were lost. Did he search for a way back to life? What did it mean to use a Builder weapon that used soul energy as its power? The cost to his essence had been terrible indeed.

  Yet, on the fifteenth day of his mind’s wandering, the self of Captain Maddox broke through the dazed fog. He perceived an old memory in a dim manner.

  He lay cradled against a bosom and saw a great and lovely face smiling sadly down at him. He was a baby again as his mother held him.

  Maddox looked up at the face with absorbing interest. He had never known his mother. Actually, the more precise term would be that he could never remember her.

  As the baby Maddox, he stared up at her, trying to pierce his earliest memories. Her lips curved so sadly and the blue eyes were clouds of loveliness.

  Maddox waved his chubby little fists. He opened his mouth and made cooing sounds.

  His mother laughed quietly. “You are my little man,” she said.

  Maddox cocked his head. What a lovely angelic voice.

  The looming face came down nearer. He could smell her breath. It was so good. It was his mother.

  “Listen to me, my sweet, sweet child. You are all I have now. You are to grow up to be a strong man. You must be brave and good, and help those in need. I don’t think I’m going to get to watch you grow up. I don’t think you can ever buy me lunch and talk about our good times together.”

  She hugged him, kissing him so tenderly.

  “You must stop the New Men, darling. You are going to be a hero, I just know it. Oh, my darling baby, I will miss you so much. Be a good boy, Maddox. Be a good man. Live a straight life and never allow them to corrupt you.”