The Lost Starship

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Could you be more specific?” Meta asked.

  “You’ve given me raw data. I want your assessment of them. What do you feel here?” Maddox asked, tapping his chest.

  “Haven’t thought too about it much,” she admitted. Unconsciously sticking out her lower lip, Meta began to ponder the captain’s question. She shrugged shortly. “They’re tough, really tough, and they struck me as men who will do anything to succeed. A lot of people think they have what it takes to win.” She shook her head. “Most people are wrong. They have scruples. Things they would never do. Most people get scared too. Those two—they didn’t have any problem torturing, killing, whatever they needed. Yes. Now that I’m thinking about it, they treated us as something lower. They acted superior—arrogantly, but without the stupidity most arrogant people have.”

  “You’ve had a lot of contact with arrogant people?” Maddox asked.

  “You mean besides on Loki Prime?” she asked.

  Maddox nodded.

  “You’d better believe it. Starting with the foremen on the Rouen Colony—” Meta stopped talking. How much should she give away concerning her past? Despite his youth, the captain was clever. He didn’t need to know too much about her.

  “You were saying?” Maddox prodded.

  Meta shrugged.

  Maddox seemed to shift tactics. It was a subtle thing, but observable to with someone of her training.

  “Aren’t you grateful that I took you off Loki Prime?” he asked.

  “Of course I am.” She smiled again to show him just how grateful.

  “Then help me with this. I’m trying to stop the worst menace to ever hit the Commonwealth.”

  “So you keep telling us.”

  “Why would I lie to you?” Maddox asked.

  “Since I know so little about you,” she said, “I have no idea. I can think of plenty of reasons, though.”

  “Don’t you trust your instincts?” Maddox asked.

  Meta most certainly did. She had become an excellent judge of character. In her line of work, it had been critical. She nodded.

  “What do your instincts tell you about me?” Maddox asked.

  She frowned, wondering where the man was trying to take this.

  Maddox crossed his arms, leaning against a bulkhead, waiting.

  “You’re sure of yourself,” Meta said. “Is that what you want to hear?” All men were egotists, so she knew that he did.

  He said nothing, just grinned at her.

  That upset her enough that she wanted to give him a rude gesture and tell him a Rouen Colony curse. Instead, she studied the lean man. There couldn’t be an ounce of fat on his frame. Did he have denser muscles just as she did? How could he have beaten her in hand-to-hand combat before? She remembered his strength but more his speed. Some of his determination leaked through his eyes, she noticed. This one would go through a force screen by sheer willpower to get to his prize. She reconsidered his actions on Loki Prime. He had faced overwhelming obstacles and had overcome them all.

  “You have a purpose,” she said. “No. You’re driven.” Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Something haunts you.”

  The grin remained, but the force drained from it. For a moment, Maddox seemed uncomfortable. Then the discomfort vanished, as if rejected by the owner.

  “Why are you asking me about yourself?” she said.

  “You’ve had the rare privilege of meeting the New Men and surviving to tell of it. Lieutenant Noonan did likewise, facing them as part of a Star Watch battle group. Three enemy cruisers annihilated the substantially larger Star Watch force.”

  “Why should I care?” Meta asked.

  “What if the New Man spoke truthfully down there?” Maddox said. “What if they think of regular humans as beasts? Not only that, but they have the firepower to take us down and then wipe us out as a species.”

  “Why would they ‘wipe us out?’ What’s their gain in that?”

  “Don’t know,” Maddox said. “I simply find it curious that once the New Men conquer a star system, no one hears anything from the captured planets again. What are the invaders doing to the population that they want to hide?”

  “You think these New Men are exterminating the populations?” Meta asked.

  “I think these highly dangerous invaders have far too many advantages over my tribe—the Star Watch. I think we need an equalizer, especially if my guesses about them are correct. Think about that for a minute. If I’m right about them, that could impact you personally much sooner than you’d like.”

  “You’re trying to scare me,” Meta said. “Okay, I’m shaking. So, why don’t you get to your point?”

  “You don’t scare easily, and that might be bad for you.”

  “I don’t know how,” Meta said.

  “Suppose you’re getting ready to drink a cup of poison,” Maddox said, “and someone tells you about it. All you do is shrug. You’re not afraid of poison. Well, after drinking the cup, you die. In that instance, it would have been wise to be frightened of the cup.”

  “I already told you I was scared.”

  “Here’s my point. We need your strength, Meta, your mechanical skills. I want you to join us of your own free will and convince Doctor Rich to do the same thing.”

  “To find this ancient starship you talked about?” she asked.

  “Exactly,” he said. “I’m not hiding my intentions.”

  Really? Then down there on the planet why did you look at me the way you did? Yes, you are hiding some of your intentions, Captain.

  “I haven’t convinced you,” he said. “Therefore, you should think about this: You owe me your life, Meta.”

  She bristled.

  “I took you off Loki Prime,” he said.

  “As part of our deal,” she said. “You got off too.”

  “It doesn’t matter why I did it. No one was ever going to free you from a lifetime of horror down there. I did. Me, gallant Captain Maddox. Now, you need to pay me back by helping this mission succeed.”

  She scowled. Did he really only want her help getting the lost ship?

  “Think about it,” he said. “You have some free time in here, I mean. Use it wisely.” With that, Maddox straightened and took his leave.

  After the hatch shut, Meta stared at it. Finally, she lay back down. As the man said, she had some serious thinking to do.

  -23-

  Captain Maddox raised his head, realizing his chin had been resting on his chest. He must have fallen asleep as he sat in the pilot’s chair. Then, he recalled why he’d opened his eyes. Doctor Rich had spoken elatedly.

  He swiveled around on his seat. Dana and he were the only ones in the control room. Why hadn’t she tried for his gun, seeing as he’d fallen asleep? There were two possibilities. The first, she didn’t think he really slept, or she feared he’d wake up before she could subdue him. The second, she had become so engrossed in her work that she hadn’t noticed him sleeping. He was more inclined toward the second view.

  “What is it?” Maddox asked.

  Dana didn’t respond. She sat at her station, her fingers flying over the controls. She chortled quietly, almost evilly, to herself.

  Maddox stood, approaching her. Still, she didn’t notice him. He had no idea what the screen meant. Lines of code flashed before his eyes.

  “Doctor!” he said.

  Her shoulders stiffened. She looked up and then back at him.

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “Exactly what you asked for,” she said. “I’m inside the satellite-beacon’s master menu. I’ve just shut down its comm-links.”

  Maddox checked a chronometer. In twelve hours, the beacon would have informed the monitor. Dana had worked even faster than he’d expected.

  “You did it then?” he asked.

  She turned back to her panel and continued to tap.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m guessing you’re going to want the beacon to fire up some drones
for us,” Dana said. “We need to knock out the destroyer, right?”

  Maddox stepped to Lieutenant Noonan’s station. Valerie was getting some well-deserved rest. At speed, the destroyer was accelerating toward the system’s gas giant in its Jupiter-like orbit. That was nearly eight hundred thousand kilometers away. The Class 3 Laumer-Point was near the gas giant. No doubt, the destroyer raced there to block their exit from the star system.

  There were three jump points in this star system: the Class 1 near the chthonian planet, the rock core orbiting closest to the sun. There was the Class 3 by the distant gas giant. And there was an unstable Laumer-Point situated between Loki Prime and the gas giant, about where the Solar System’s asteroid belt would be.

  Unstable tramlines were dangerous to use. Sliding down an unstable wormhole was like running between giant, chomping teeth. The tramline could contort, crushing the starship in it. That happened one out of every three to five times, depending on the instability of the tramline. It made using such a route a game of Venusian Roulette.

  When the Saint Petersburg first accelerated away from Loki Prime toward the outer system, Maddox had finally felt the situation was safe enough to turn the fusion engines back on. They hadn’t used the regular thrust, but turned on the gravity wave generator—and began recharging the batteries. Just as before, the gravity waves had shaken Geronimo for its short duration, but each time it had given them a little more velocity.

  Ensign Maker had complained about the process. The pilot had been right, too. At this rate, it would take the scout weeks of drifting to reach the gas giant and the Class 3 entry point.

  In the control room, Maddox grunted.

  This time, Dana noticed. “What is it?” she asked.

  Pointing at the lieutenant’s view screen, Maddox said, “Archangel has just begun heavy acceleration away from its position near the chthonian planet.”

  The massive round starship would take time to build a descent velocity. It was like watching an elephant starting to move, knowing it would trot and then lumber at speed.

  Dana got up and checked the screen for herself. The starship had an immensely long exhaust tail, making it easy to spot. She traded glances with Maddox. “Why do you think the monitor is doing that?” she asked.

  Maddox checked something on the lieutenant’s board. “Hmm, it’s like I thought. There’s been a lot of radio traffic between the destroyer and the monitor.”

  “Do you think they’ve been talking about us?” Dana asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe Archangel is coming to help Saint Petersburg search for us,” Dana suggested.

  “Seems unlikely they’d leave the Class 1 Laumer-Point unguarded,” Maddox said. “But let’s say it’s true. Why haven’t the one hundred satellite-beacons gone to high alert? If both the monitor and the destroyer are searching for us, that would be the best move.”

  Maddox glanced at the screen. One hundred dark, automated satellite-beacons orbited between the chthonian planet and halfway to the gas giant. Maybe a thousand drones orbited in the same zone. The scout passed through a belt of sleeping missiles. At any time, one of them might activate and accelerate at them.

  Dana laughed with what sounded like relief.

  Maddox frowned at her.

  “You’re right,” Dana said. “That’s what the monitor commander would do: put the space beacons onto high alert. Where is Archangel headed?”

  Maddox fiddled with the board. “Given their present heading, it looks as if they’re chasing the Saint Petersburg. Seems crazy, though,” he said, “the huge monitor will never catch a sleek runner like the destroyer.”

  Dana clapped her hands together. “The New Men on the destroyer must have overplayed their hand. They made the monitor commander suspicious.” She frowned. “That means my computer hacking went for nothing. I’ve been wasting time.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions. We don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Now that I’m in the space beacon,” Dana said, “do you want me to—?”

  Maddox’s instruments blared a warning.

  “What is it?” Dana shouted.

  With his guts twisting, Maddox told her, “Archangel must have just sent a high pulse signal. Satellite-beacons are switching to combat alert.”

  “So they are joining forces against us,” Dana said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But you just told me that’s what the monitor commander would do if they leagued together.”

  “You’re right. I said that,” Maddox admitted. “But the beacons nearest Loki Prime should have gone onto combat alert then. That was our last known position, right? That’s not happening. Instead, the automated satellites nearest the Saint Petersburg are switching to a combat setting. Why just there, I wonder?”

  “Oh. Yes. That is different.”

  Maddox checked for further data before glancing at Doctor Rich. “The monitor’s commander must have upped the game. I bet he’s threatening the destroyer with annihilation from the drone-field.”

  “That might be less of a threat than you think,” Dana said.

  “Why? What haven’t you told me?”

  Her dark eyes become hooded. She seemed to be weighing something in her mind. “I suppose you’ll find out sooner or later. The beacons and drones are over fifteen years out of date, at least. I suspect the computer programs are pretty ancient too.”

  “Okay…” he said.

  “Hacking into the beacon was child’s play. If I can do it, some genius New Man shouldn’t have any problem neutralizing the minefield.”

  “Maybe,” Maddox said. “Old weapons can kill just like new ones. Besides, the fact that the monitor commander is heading for the destroyer shows me the New Men aren’t invincible. They can make mistakes. Remember, we beat them on Loki Prime.”

  “We did not,” Dana said. “That’s wishful thinking, something I thought you were above. I’ll have to reevaluate my opinion about you.”

  Maddox snorted softly.

  Dana turned away from the screen and faced him. “The truth is we barely managed to escape from one New Man and his assault-rifle ally.”

  “That’s what I just said,” Maddox told her. “We beat them.”

  “Beating them means we would have captured the invader for interrogation.”

  “Wrong,” Maddox said. “He attempted to impose his will on us. We thwarted his will and imposed our own.”

  “You mean your will, which was capturing me.”

  “Freeing you,” Maddox said. “I freed you from captivity.”

  “Mister,” Dana asked, “do you take me for an idiot?”

  “The opposite,” Maddox said. “Your quick suppression of the space beacon proves we need you.”

  “As I told you,” Dana said. “The auto-beacon and its program were old. Your pilot probably could have done it if he put his mind to it.” She yawned. “I’m exhausted. I’ve been working on this ever since we boarded. The stims I took are finally wearing off. I need sleep.”

  Maddox took out his control unit out. “Very well. I’ll escort you to your quarters.”

  Dana waited a half-beat before nodding. Then she headed for the hatch and Maddox followed.

  He knew she plotted against them. It was obvious, and she was cunning, maybe more than he was. How could he convince her to join the mission? Without her knowledge and hacking skills, they were never going to gain entrance into the alien sentinel. There had to be a way to sway her, but he was at a loss as to what it might be.

  ***

  Space battles within a star system’s vast expanse were often long-term affairs that went on for days instead of hours. AIs, computers and combat techs measured velocities, acceleration rates, beam ranges, cones of firing probabilities and braking speeds. The situation often became a chess game between professionals. Many times, the losing crew knew hours ahead of time that they were going to die as death remorselessly closed in on them.

  As Captain Maddo
x, the lieutenant and the ensign watched from the control room—with the scout inching toward its Laumer-Point near the gas giant—they had a front row seat to the engagement between the monitor and the destroyer.

  Archangel’s commander had put the satellite-beacons on high alert. The next step would be targeting the destroyer with the nearest drones. It seemed that Archangel’s commander would have to know without a doubt that the destroyer had turned rogue before actively trying to annihilate the vessel. That decision wouldn’t be made lightly.

  Maddox dearly wanted to know what the monitor’s commander knew. He would have to break radio silence and come into the open to ask, though. It was very probable the monitor commander would not believe him. The greater mission was too important for Maddox to risk coming out of the dark.

  “Why is the destroyer still heading for our jump-point near the gas giant?” Valerie asked. The lieutenant had taken a long-deserved nap and appeared refreshed. “The Saint Petersburg can’t use that wormhole.”

  Maddox had been wondering the same thing. Given the monitor’s new actions, the destroyer should have already headed for a different Laumer-Point to attempt to escape the star system. He didn’t like the mystery.

  “What do your sensors show?” Maddox asked.

  “Nothing extraordinary,” Valerie said. “Ah. The monitor is sending a message to Saint Petersburg.”

  “Isn’t there any way we can tap into it?” Keith asked. He’d napped too. It had made his eyes puffier and him crankier.

  Neither Maddox nor Valerie answered the ensign.

  “Well?” Keith asked. “Can’t we listen in?”

  “Not unless we want to use active systems,” Maddox told him. “That would probably give us away. It’s better for us to remain hidden.”

  “Jolly good,” Keith said shortly, in a grumpy voice. He stood. “I’m hungry. Anyone care to join me?”

  Maddox’s stomach grumbled. He could use a break. Besides, a few minutes away couldn’t hurt. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  They exited the control room and moved down the corridor to the galley, a small area with a table and benches. Maddox picked a freeze-dried packet of tuna salad. Keith picked hamburger patties with broccoli.