Ensign Maker joined in, gales of pent-up terror erupting as he howled with joy.
Maddox felt the maddening elation grip him as well. It bubbled, threatening release. Finally, he swallowed it down. Turning his head, he waited, letting the other two enjoy their well-earned moment of relief.
They were here, heading away from the red giant. What would the ancient star system show them? He was eager to find out.
Now comes the hard part. I have to convince Doctor Rich to help us. Either that, or I have to drug her with truth serum and see if I can get useful data out of her.
***
Like a newborn chick, Geronimo burst out of the shell of what remained of the comet. It was a sick scout in too many ways. Most of the crew suffered from the radiation treatments.
Maddox felt the effects the least. Meta was in a similar condition. Riker and Doctor Rich were the sickest.
The Star Watch spaceship was in poor repair. The gravity generator had become inoperable. The antigravity pods limped along, and the cloaking device refused to respond. They lacked ship’s cannons of any kind. They didn’t even have a missile or a mine to their name.
“We made it to the star system,” Maddox said, “but we’re in no condition to do anything.”
He sat beside Lieutenant Noonan as she wheezed on the robo-doctor.
“What’s it…” she coughed weakly. “What’s it like out here?” she whispered.
Maddox used a portable holo-unit. With a control, he clicked it on. The box hummed and an image of the star system spread out before them. Valerie raised her head, examining it.
Maddox did likewise. It was surreal. Little red dots showed the position of drifting space hulks, wrecks from an ancient war. Humanity might have fought with chariots at that time, the charioteers hurling javelins at each other. There wasn’t a mere thousand or ten thousand wrecks. It was more like fifty thousand drifting hulks.
“Incredible,” Valerie whispered. “It’s a graveyard of starships.”
Maddox nodded. Fifty thousand odd spaceships drifting from a war fought so long ago that all memory of the reasons had vanished with the alien races. Had it been two alien species fighting each other? Maybe it had been two subspecies like the New Men and old humanity struggling for dominance and existence.
From one end of the star system to the other, the hulks drifted, orbiting the monstrous red giant.
“Where are the planets?” Valerie asked.
“The professor’s notes told the truth,” Maddox said. “There’re aren’t any planets left, just thickened asteroid globules showing what once must have been worlds.”
“No gas giants either?” she asked.
“Gases in thick profusion and nickel-iron asteroids,” Maddox said, “but not planets. Whatever weapons the aliens used, planet busters seem to be among them.”
Valerie tore her gaze from the holoimage to stare at Maddox. “Is there any sign of the sentinel?”
The captain felt a growing numbness in his heart. He shook his head.
“What? You mean there never was one?” Valerie asked.
“If it’s here, the sentinel is hidden.”
“Sneaking up on us?” she asked.
Maddox stared at her. “I don’t like to think of that.”
Swallowing audibly, Valerie asked, “Is there any sign the Saint Petersburg followed us down the wormhole?”
“None,” Maddox said. “If they did, the red giant’s photosphere overloaded their deflector shields and annihilated the destroyer.”
“If there’s no sentinel…” Valerie said.
Just then, the scout’s interior alarms rang. The ship’s intercom came online. Ensign Maker spoke between bouts of coughing. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have company. The alien sentinel is barreling straight for our ship.”
***
“We’re back to square one,” Maddox said. “Now, you’re in the fire with us, Doctor. If you want to live, you’re going to have to help us board the alien ship.”
Dana Rich lay in her cot in her former quarters. She wheezed with phlegm lodged in her lungs. She was sick with fever, but the robo-doctor had given her a seventy percent chance of recovery.
With red eyes, Dana chuckled throatily. “I’m sick of disappointment, Captain. I don’t like defeat either. Your sergeant broke something inside me when he used the stunner on its high setting. It makes me feel good watching you suffer with anxiety.”
“You have a fever,” he said. “Provided we survive the sentinel, you will recover.”
“I don’t think you’re hearing me. I don’t want to get better.”
“To spite me?” he asked.
“Maybe you are hearing me after all,” Dana said.
“Doctor, the sentinel is coming fast.” Maddox pointed at the holoimage.
The sentinel was big, and it generated powerful deflector shields. The alien starship had two broad disc-shaped areas and it bristled with weaponry. It had already blasted the Geronimo with harsh sensor sweeps.
“Do you have any final words, Captain?” Dana asked. “Our end is fast approaching.”
“You used to have fire, Doctor. Are the New Men that much better than you that you’re afraid to try to compete against them?”
She gave him a weary smile. “I enjoy watching you flail, seeking to find a way to unlock me. You have no idea. Maybe I should prolong your agony. Send your sergeant here. Let me stun him as many times as he stunned me. Then I’ll tell you what you must do.”
Maddox rose from his stool. Putting his hands behind his back, he began to pace. He didn’t know how to proceed. He wouldn’t sell out his people. He wouldn’t hand over his authority. Was his life over then?
Halting, he peered at Doctor Rich. She’d propped up onto one elbow with a smile on her face. She watched him with avid delight.
“I need your help,” he told her. “I’ve said that from the beginning.”
“You think that’s what I want to hear?”
They stared at each other. He saw pride. He saw a wounded person, a genius and someone incredibly bitter.
I’m about to die. The sentinel will swat us out of existence. What does such a lonely, bitter person want to hear? Does she hate me because Riker and I defeated her?
Maddox moved to the stool. Picking it up, he set it just before her cot. He sat and put a hand on her arm. She jerked away, scowling at him.
“I’m different,” Maddox said. “My mother escaped from the Beyond to the Oikumene. I have some of the qualities of the New Men. I fear that half of me belongs to them.”
The scowl eased from her features. She looked at him with interest. “You’re the spawn of a New Man?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible. I want to capture one of them and test his DNA, matching it against mine.”
“Do the others realize this about you?” Dana asked.
Maddox shook his head.
“You think knowing this about you will sway me?” she scoffed.
“I have no idea,” he said. “I felt like telling you, like telling someone.”
“Why?”
“If we succeed, think of the enjoyment you could gain by holding that over me.”
Dana Rich blinked several times. “I’m not your friend, Captain.”
“I don’t think you have any friends, Doctor.”
“You’re right!” she snarled. “I’m alone. We’re all alone.”
With the outburst, bitterness seemed to flow from her as if from a broken dam. Hate twisted her features. Her eyes radiated something profoundly troubling. She panted, and she worked her mouth with silent rage.
Maddox watched the performance. This woman had been deeply hurt. The amount of suffering awed him.
Finally, her features grew less rigid and twisted. The intensity pouring from her became normal anger. The pants turned to wheezing for air as her lungs bubbled with phlegm. She coughed for a long time before finally closing her eyes.
In time, her breathing evened out.
> Maddox rose silently from the stool. He had no more ideas about what to do. With a leaden step, he moved toward the hatch.
“I’ll do it,” she said behind him.
Maddox turned, surprised at what he heard.
“It has nothing to do with you or your silly secret. This has everything to do with me. I’m Doctor Dana Rich, and I’m going to give humanity its fighting shot at your uncles.”
“What do you need?” Maddox said.
“Help me up to medical. I’ll dial the robo-doctor and give myself the needed shots. Then, you and I are going to the control room. Let us see if I have the magic you’re looking for.”
-31-
Captain Maddox didn’t like it.
In medical, Doctor Rich had injected herself with massive doses of stimulants. Her eyes burned with feverish intensity. Now, she sat in the control room, her fingers blurring across a computer console.
The woman didn’t talk. She hunched over her board, twitching instead of moving. Muttered comments drifted from her, but no one knew what she said.
This lasted for hours. During this time, the sentinel approached in what seemed like serene majesty. The starship didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Where could the scout go? Yet, how did the sentinel know they were trapped?
Maddox must have asked Valerie the question.
Doctor Rich quit tapping. She straightened and swiveled around. “What did you say?” she asked.
With a helpless gesture, Maddox said, “How does the sentinel know we can’t escape the star system?”
“It has no idea,” Dana said.
“Then why doesn’t it rush after us?” Maddox asked.
Dana’s eyelids flickered several times. It made it seem as if her brain flipped the question hundreds of times in several seconds, attempting to decipher the answer.
“Why are you bothering me with your nonsense?” Dana asked angrily. “I’m trying to work. Your chatter disrupts my thought process. Worse, your inane ideas clutter my mind with trivia. Leave, please. Let me work in peace.”
Maddox inclined his head. Without glancing at Valerie—the lieutenant would know what to do if the doctor went berserk—he left the control room, softly closing the hatch behind him. Under different circumstances, the doctor’s behavior might have bothered him. He recognized a genius at work, though. They could be inordinately touchy.
Riker and Keith slept, exhausted from days of effort. Noises came out of the engine room. Meta must be tinkering. On impulse, Maddox headed there.
Most of the journey, he’d avoid the Rouen Colony woman. She troubled him because he loved—er, liked—the sound of her voice too much. He enjoyed her face, the eyes especially, and he fully appreciated her womanly form. That did not change the troubling fact that she had stunned him several days ago.
Ducking his head, Maddox entered the large compartment. Meta wore coveralls with a Star Watch logo on the upper front pocket. She had a belt of jangling tools around her waist.
From where she worked, Meta gave him a half-glance. She wore a hat with a protruding bill. The long hair was tucked out of sight. The burn on her cheek had almost healed. Despite it, Maddox found it difficult to tear his eyes from her features.
With a magnetic wrench, she tightened a fitting. Lowering the tool, she faced him. “Is something wrong, Captain?”
He shook his head. Today, he felt different. He decided this once to act on his impulses.
“Why the stare-down?” Meta asked.
“Procedure,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Time has compressed my energy toward a single goal,” he said. “Now, Doctor Rich attempts to create a tech spell against the approaching monster. My presence hindered her, so she asked me to leave. I now find myself with a surfeit of time on my hands.”
“How about you use regular words,” she said.
“I like what I see,” he said.
She frowned, and hooked the tool onto her belt. With a swift unlatching, she removed the belt and set it on a panel.
“Don’t you know it’s impolite to stare?” she asked.
“So stop looking at me,” he told her.
“I mean you staring at me.”
“Ah,” he said.
She cracked her knuckles. “Lieutenant Noonan has told me that in the Star Watch it’s wrong for a senior officer to use his rank to his advantage.”
“Then what use is rank?” Maddox asked.
“Do you know something? On the planet—I mean Loki Prime. You beat me because I’d been infected with a million spores and germs. It weakened me. Now, I’m stronger and quicker.”
“I see.”
“If we sparred again, you would lose.”
Maddox glanced at the ceiling. The past few months have moved with startling speed. He’d been so busy with the prize that he’d forgotten about life, his in particular. He finally admitted it to himself. He liked Meta. It was more than her beauty. She was different from regular people. He felt an affinity for her, and he liked her bluntness.
He looked at her again, letting his eyes lock with hers.
Her head swayed a fraction, and she frowned. Perhaps not even realizing she did it, she buttoned her coveralls all the way closed. The top two had been undone.
“Would you like to freshen up?” he asked.
“What for?” she said.
“To look more presentable,” he said.
“How dare you say that?”
“Ah.”
Her chin lifted. “You’re a conceited ass, Captain. You think far too much of yourself.”
“In that case, you should be pleased. I’m thinking of you right now,” and he took a step closer.
“It’s time we retested our sparing skills,” Meta told him.
“You’re right,” Maddox said. “I’ve been contemplating a new hold. I call it, ‘a hug.’”
Meta rushed him and threw a right cross at his chin. Maddox caught her fist with his hand. If she had been a woman from a 1 G world, he could have twisted her arm into a submission hold. With Meta that proved impossible. Using her considerable strength, she shoved the hand, and he staggered back, forced to relinquish his grip.
“You’re quick as a snake,” Meta said, “and you’re stronger than you look. Why is that?”
“Lack of cigarettes,” Maddox said. “And I train daily. Now, it’s my turn to ask something. Why do you have a hair-trigger temper?”
“That’s your fault. I don’t care for your cockiness, the way you come in here and start—”
Maddox moved then, and he was fast. He darted close, touched her chin with his fingers and brushed his lips against hers. Anticipating her reaction, he shifted his head, sidestepping away from a delayed swing.
From the distance of several steps, he grinned at her. “You’re tasteful,” he said.
She touched her lips as she stared at the floor. Finally, she looked up. “Don’t ever try that again.”
He said nothing.
“If you do try,” she said, “you won’t like what happens.”
Like an old-style courtier, Maddox made a flourish with his hand and bowed at the waist. Straightening, he said, “Good day, Meta. Please, carry on.”
Afterward, he headed for the hatch. He expected her to call out. It didn’t happen. Instead, before he could duck his head and exit into the corridor, he heard her bang a tool against a bulkhead. He grinned to himself.
Maddox had wanted to do that for some time. With the sentinel coming, the odds of them getting out alive were no good. He might as well enjoy what could be his last moments of life.
***
Twenty hours later, Maddox inclined his head to Doctor Rich. Everyone met in the wardroom. Valerie had whispered to him earlier that Dana had worked herself to exhaustion at the computer.
The doctor sat at the other end of the table. She had dark circles under her eyes, and the flesh on her face seemed to sag. Maddox knew she’d taken another massive dosage of stimulants. Ac
cording to Valerie, the doctor had admitted to her that she—Dana—knew a special mixture to goad her mind to furious outbursts of activity. Clearly, the witch’s brew of chemicals cost the owner.
Maddox looked around the table. Meta wouldn’t meet his gaze. The Rouen Colony woman had her arms crossed before her breasts. She seemed intent on letting everyone know that she was ignoring the captain. Maddox found himself more intrigued with her than ever.
Let the chase begin.
No. He didn’t have time to indulge now. That would be for later when they won.
Keith Maker grinned. Sergeant Riker kept kneading his one good eye. The old man had just woken up. Valerie sat straight, seeming the perfect Star Watch officer in her crisp uniform.
The others wore their uniforms, but they didn’t keep them as sharp as Lieutenant Noonan did hers. Maddox decided his uniform could use pressing. These past weeks, he’d become too lax about dress codes.
Doctor Rich cleared her throat, giving him a meaningful glance.
“Doctor,” Maddox said. “You’ve been hard at work. Would you like to discuss your findings with us?”
“Thank you, Captain Maddox,” Dana said. “You are correct. These past hours, I have reanalyzed the alien sentinel. During our voyage into the Beyond over the last three months I have been replaying in my mind many of the arguments I had with Professor Ludendorff. He was a frightfully intelligent person, with stunning insights. Without him, our original expedition would never have reached this strange system. We spent weeks studying various wrecks. We also analyzed rubble, searching for technical or civilizational clues, anything to help us understand the sentinel. Near the end of our stay, the professor believed he had found the ticket.”
Dana shook her head. “I rebelled at the professor’s idea. It seemed like a suicide mission. Convincing several key crewmembers, we took over the professor’s ship and escaped the star system. Eventually, he regained control. As I said, Ludendorff was the opposite of the absent-minded professor. He was brilliant with theoretical ideas and their practical application. I should have foreseen that and marooned him somewhere. Eventually, that’s what he did to me.”
Doctor Rich sighed. “In any case, I have probed the approaching sentinel. I wish I could tell you I’ve discovered something new and amazing. That is not the case. I am down to trying the professor’s plan, as I can think of no other way to gaining entrance onto the sentinel. At this point, I don’t see any other way of surviving the killing machine.”
The Lost Starship Page 28