The Lost Colony (Lost Starship Series Book 4)

by Vaughn Heppner

  The eyes darted upward to look at him again. Maddox quickly faced forward before their gazes met. He’d just spied something most interesting and didn’t want the other knowing that he—Maddox—knew. It would be the captain’s hole card.

  Maddox gauged his options given the new facts. His choices had grown less than he’d believed. Clearly, the man marched him to a place of restraint, one that would limit the captain’s options even further.

  Just as Maddox readied himself to make another attempt at escape, the man halted, jerking the captain to an abrupt stop.

  Voices drifted up the corridor. Did the man not like that?

  Maddox inhaled, getting ready to shout for help.

  “No,” the squat man said. With amazing arm-strength, he threw Maddox against the wall while keeping hold of the elbow.

  The captain smashed against the hard surface, his face whipping against steel.

  The man ran forward, pushing a stunned Maddox, who almost tripped as his feet shuffled faster. Then it became too much. The captain did trip, beginning to fall, but the man easily held him up. That indicated greater than normal mass as well as power.

  There was a faint click behind the captain. A hatch slid up in front of him. The man pushed the captain into the chamber. It was a stainless steel kitchen with pots, pans and knives magnetized to the walls. With Maddox ahead of him, the man hurried down an aisle.

  This isn’t a spaceship. It’s—

  Maddox realized this must be a hotel or a casino’s underground kitchen area. They must still be in Shanghai, maybe even close to Woo Tower.

  The man headed for a pair of swinging doors. He was detouring around the voices. That seemed obvious.

  Maddox did not inhale this time. The man seemed attentive, able to catalog the signs. The captain practiced deception, seemingly keeping himself in the exact stunned state as seconds ago.

  Then, Maddox’s right arm whipped out in a lighting move. He ripped a knife from the wall, twisted in the man’s grip and stabbed with force. He expected the weapon to sink past the man’s ribs. Instead, the tip of the blade sank two inches before snapping off in Maddox’s hand. It left a small piece of steel lodged in the man’s flesh.

  The man did not cry out, although his eyes shined angrily. The fingers of his left hand tightened their grip.

  At the pain, Maddox’s air expelled from his lungs. It might have dropped him to his knees. With iron determination, as he attempted to ignore the agony, the captain slashed. Using the broken edge of the knife, he tried to blind his opponent.

  The man was faster than humanly possible. He ducked his head so Maddox slashed at the skull. The blade cut through pseudo-flesh, sparking against a titanium plate underneath.

  The creature was clearly an android.

  Maddox realized the knife would not help him. The android was too strong, too fast and too well armored against a kitchen utensil. He let go of the handle even as he realized this.

  The blade began to drop. The android’s head rose and Maddox grabbed at his service pistol tucked in the android’s belt—he’d seen the gun earlier, his hole card.

  The android must have spied the move at the last second. It released the bruised elbow and leaped back. Perhaps its logic centers reasoned it could move away faster than Maddox could grab the gun. If so, the AI running the android had not calculated for the captain’s phenomenal speed.

  The android jumped back and Maddox raised his pistol, using his thumb to click off the safety.

  “It’s time we talked,” Maddox said, finding it difficult to speak due to his throbbing left elbow.

  The android froze. Maybe its logic centers had overloaded at this failure.

  Maddox backed up several steps, increasing the distance between them. That would allow him fractionally more time to fire if the android unexpectedly attacked.

  The android’s face twitched with annoyance. That indicated an expensive AI processor. The user had bought the best, it would seem.

  “You are making a mistake,” the creature said.

  “Apparently,” the captain said.

  “You must come with me at once.”

  “I might do that. First, you must tell me where we would go?”

  “This is not germane at the moment.”

  “I most heartily disagree.”

  The android’s face twitched again. “I do not represent personal harm to you, Captain Maddox. I assure you of this.”

  “That’s a relief. You can’t imagine my—”

  “But I must insist that you lower the gun and continue with me,” the android said, interrupting.

  “And if I refuse?” Maddox asked.

  “I will have to take the weapon from you.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “Is it not obvious?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “In the ensuing struggle,” the android said, “I could injure you. My protocols do not allow that.”

  Maddox studied the creature, the long gash on its head that didn’t bleed. “You want me alive and unharmed, is that what you’re saying?”

  “I have already stated as such.”

  “Who would I see if I agreed to your proposal?”

  “It is supposed to be a surprise. Please, lower the pistol and come with me. Time is pressing.”

  Maddox took several more steps away and raised the pistol so the barrel poked up against his own throat.

  “What are you doing?” the android asked, sounding worried.

  “I’ve decided to commit suicide.”

  The android blinked excessively as if the processors threatened to overload.

  “Unless,” Maddox said, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Yes?”

  “You tell me who sent you and where you plan to take me.”

  “Are you attempting to coerce me?”

  “Maybe.”

  The android’s features hardened. “I will not succumb to coercion.”

  “Yet you expect that I will?”

  “Yes. You are…” The android paused.

  “I am what?”

  “Please, Captain, this is unseemly. I must return with you in my company. This is urgent, most urgent. You cannot conceive of the honor I am doing you.”

  Maddox decided he would receive no useful information from the android. He didn’t know how he could capture it in his present state. He needed a communicator. He needed Sergeant Riker. A neural net would surely do the trick. How to get his hands on one before the android left was the question.

  “I’m leaving,” Maddox said. “If you wait here, I’ll return shortly.”

  “You are coming with me. We must go down to the…”

  “Yes?”

  The android cocked its head as if hearing an internal dialogue.

  Abruptly, the android’s mouth opened a trifle wider than seemed natural.

  That made Maddox uneasy. He removed the pistol from his throat and moved even farther away.

  A sonic blast erupted from the android’s mouth. The horrible noise staggered Maddox, almost rendering him unconscious. The creature leaped, no doubt trying to catch him unawares.

  Maddox was a pistol marksman and able to think faster than others in such a situation. The creature was made of pseudo-flesh with titanium sheathing underneath. Maddox neither had the time to pump enough bullets into the thing nor they the penetrating power to smash the android into harmless smithereens. That meant he had only one option—the eyes. They were logically a weaker portal straight to the AI. But the leaps and bounds the thing made jiggled the eyes, making them a difficult target.

  These thoughts flashed though Maddox’s brain in less than a second of intuitive insight. Then, he pulled the trigger. A spark against the bridge of the nose told him he’d missed. Another shot ricocheted off the forehead, leaving a smear of what some might have mistaken for blood. The next bullet entered the eye, smashing its way into the delicate braincase. A second and third shot followed, doing even more damage.

>   The android lost its coordination. The eyelids fluttered madly while the body sailed limply, propelled by momentum.

  Maddox tried to dodge, but he was too late. The thing crashed against the captain, hurling him against a large refrigerator. The back of his skull slammed home with terrific force.

  Together, broken android and unconscious man crumpled onto the kitchen floor, the gun clattering away under a small space.

  -2-

  Maddox groaned as his head throbbed painfully. For a moment, he had no idea where he was or what had happened to him. Then, he remembered the android and their strange conversation.

  The captain unglued his eyes and found the construct on top of his chest. Maddox tried to push it off. That made his head throb even more painfully. For a second, his overloaded senses threatened to render him unconscious again.

  Maddox quit pushing, letting himself relax. There were faint voices coming from somewhere. Did people hurry here because they’d heard shots? That seemed likely. That would mean he hadn’t been unconscious long.

  I have to get out of here.

  Maddox grew more alert. He realized he felt something ominous approaching. The palms of his hands had become sweaty. The certainty that this android was only phase one of his attempted kidnapping came crashing down on Maddox.

  He squirmed underneath the android. That threatened his head once more. This time, he didn’t stop. Instead, his breathing grew labored as bit by bit, he slithered free of the android’s broken weight.

  Instead of resting, Maddox searched for his gun. He looked around—

  Heavy footsteps neared the outer door. Maddox raised himself by his arms, looking up. The hatch slid open and a second android entered the kitchen.

  Maddox lowered himself out of sight.

  This was a presumption, of course, of it being another android. Maddox didn’t know it was just by looking. What made him think so was that the one standing by the door looked exactly like the one that had forced him into the kitchen, even down to the Woo Tower uniform it was wearing.

  “Hello?” the new android said, sounding friendly. “Is anyone here?”

  Maddox slithered across the floor as he searched for his gun. Several rows of stainless steel counters hid him from the new android. Once the creature entered farther, it would surely see him.

  The captain reached his targeted counter and wriggled his arm under it. He strained to reach his gun in back.

  “I hear something,” the new android called out. “Please, show yourself. Time is limited.”

  Maddox strained harder so his fingertips brushed against the gun. If he did this wrong, he’d push the gun away from him.

  Footsteps struck the floor. The android approached.

  Gritting his teeth, Maddox used his fingertips to friction-move the gun close enough so he could pinch the barrel with his two longest fingers. Then, he pulled the weapon to him as he slid farther away from the counter.

  “What is this?” the android asked. “Why are you stretched out on the floor? Are you injured?”

  Maddox didn’t look at the construct yet. Instead, he pulled the gun the rest of the way, sat up, swiveled where he sat and finally regarded the new android with its quizzical expression.

  “Captain Maddox,” the second android said. “Did you harm the construct lying on the floor?”

  Maddox didn’t believe this android would prove any easier to deal with than the first. Thus, from a sitting position, he aimed and fired, emptying the rest of the magazine into the second android’s eyes. This one reacted in a similar manner as the first, crumpling where it stood, deactivating from the brain shots.

  As Maddox stood, he realized he’d overreacted. He was out of bullets and he didn’t have any more magazines on his person. If more androids showed up, he no longer had a method of dealing with them.

  It was time to get out of here.

  ***

  Soon, Maddox found himself wandering through dark hallways. He hadn’t used the slanting metal corridor the first android had taken him through. That seemed unwise even if it was the most direct path back to the surface and street. He was sure something would be guarding that way. Instead, he crept through narrower passageways, trying to find a different, hopefully unguarded exit.

  So far, the halls were empty and most of the doors locked. The open ones led into closets. The gun was back in its holster but useless for the moment without bullets. Maddox kept a short, sturdy cutting knife beside his right leg.

  He wrestled with the problem of why someone would send an android after him. Did it have anything to do with the smugglers he’d been playing cards with in Woo Tower?

  The captain suspected it might.

  If so, what did that tell him? The most logical answer was that someone off-planet wished to speak with him. That implied the enemy. Before the last voyage aboard Starship Victory, the enemy had been monolithic. Everyone on Earth had known them as the New Men. Since defeating the alien Destroyer, the New Men had fractured into the Throne World New Men, those with sympathies toward humanity and the New Men working closely with Strand. Strand was what Maddox had come to think of as a greater Methuselah Man. In the Commonwealth, the Methuselah People had taken longevity treatments, none of them older than several hundred years. Strand was something much older and more dangerous because the alien and unknown Builders were behind him.

  The situation had become increasingly complex.

  Professor Ludendorff was another of the greater Methuselah Men, lost in the Xerxes System with its mysterious silver pyramid.

  Maddox halted, cocking his head. He heard …

  There it was again. A man blew his nose. He doubted a woman would blow her nose that forcefully. Should he retreat or advance?

  The captain stood in the gloom, debating with himself.

  It had been some time since he and his crew had defeated the alien Destroyer. The vast ship had transported itself into the core of the Sun, where the terrific energies had obliterated the killing machine. Before that had happened, however, the deadly machine had annihilated the New Arabia System, the heart of the Wahhabi Caliphate along with the majority of the caliphate’s fleet.

  That had slashed regular humanity’s remaining space power by a quarter to a third. If nothing else, the Destroyer had done the Throne World’s work for them. Star Watch had halted the New Men’s invasion armada over two years ago now. The Commonwealth had taken staggering losses before that.

  Maddox lurched in the direction of the nose-blower. The sound indicated regular people, not more androids. The captain moved like a stalking tiger, with energy coiled in his limbs and cool concentration shining in his eyes.

  He wanted to be able to report to the Iron Lady more information than simply, “I evaded capture, Ma’am.”

  She would ask, “Yes, but what did you learn?”

  “Not to gulp tainted drinks,” would be a poor reply.

  The truth was the captain prided himself on his Intelligence work, believing himself to be Star Watch’s premier agent. He had considerable advantages—his dual heritage chief among them. That was the other reason he didn’t want to report back empty-handed. Even if he didn’t like to dwell on it, Maddox knew he was different. Despite everything he had done the past few years, too many people still distrusted his half-breed nature. One of his ways of compensating was by being better than anyone else.

  Thus, Maddox peered around a corner into a dim hallway. A light shined sixty feet away, illuminating a door in the corridor. A guard in a suit waited there. The man stood with his feet planted and his hands held in front of his body as if he meant to hold the position for some time. He stared at nothing in particular, although he swiveled his head from time to time, glancing both ways.

  Who was in the room that needed a guard? Was a meeting in progress or would one happen soon?

  Maddox stood undecided. Finally, he tucked the sharp part of the blade through his belt behind his back so it wouldn’t be visible to someone in front of h
im. He straightened his shoulders and rounded the corner in a long gait, swinging his arms like a man who had confidence in the situation.

  The guard noticed him, naturally. The man stiffened, shifted his head to the side and spoke rapidly, no doubt using a microphone pinned to his collar. Afterward, the guard reached inside his suit but hesitated pulling out a gun.

  That indication of uncertainty was interesting. Maddox hoped to get close enough to take the man’s gun.

  As the captain neared, the door opened. Three more men in suits stepped outside. Each was big, held himself with confidence and had the feel of being security. None of them had as of yet drawn a weapon.

  “Gentlemen,” Maddox said in a cheery voice. “I do hope I’m not late.”

  The guards glanced at each other. The one with a pinstripe suit stepped forward, clearing his throat.

  “I know who you are, Captain Maddox,” the man said in a deep voice. “You’re not welcome here.”

  Maddox grinned, saying, “Nonsense. I want to speak to your boss.”

  The man drew a small pistol, aiming it at Maddox’s belly. “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

  Maddox heard the certainty in the guard’s voice. He halted.

  “Turn around, Captain. You have no business being here.”

  Acting on a hunch, Maddox said, “I played cards with your boss, earlier. I came to collect my winnings.”

  The guard opened his mouth to reply.

  “You don’t think I’d let him cheat me, do you?” Maddox added.

  One of the other guards whispered to Mr. Pinstripe. He frowned, nodding, putting away his pistol.

  “Just a minute,” Pinstripe said. He reentered the room.

  Maddox began to walk closer.

  “Hey,” the original guard said. “You’re supposed to stay there.”

  Maddox spread his hands, shrugging as he did. “I just want my winnings. I’ll leave right after that.”

  The three men glowered, but none reached inside his coat to draw a weapon.

  Maddox neared the group as Pinstripe stepped back outside. The man’s head swayed just a little. His hand darted into his coat.