The Lost Starship

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Ah,” Maddox said, intrigued.

  “The situation was something you might have excelled at,” Dana said. “It was a spymaster’s affair. How much do you know about the Social Syndicate philosophy?”

  “Almost nothing,” Maddox admitted.

  “The key facet to understand for my story is that there are two major branches of thought. The first is known as the Maxim school of thought while the second is the Limited. I won’t go into the philosophical differences between them. To an outsider they might not seem important. To many Social Syndicates, they are critical. The Rigel rulers and military are Maxim in belief. That being said, not all the Syndicate’s subjects adhere to those doctrines.”

  “And…” Maddox said.

  Dana grinned. “You wish me to get to the point. Very well, my task was to infiltrate certain clone centers. I was part of the team that planned to break into the most heavily guarded sanctuary in the Oikumene: that is, the syndic’s personnel clone garden, where his clones and those of his immediate cronies lived. Our idea was simple and elegant.

  “I cracked the security codes, and we herded the poor clones into a waiting spaceship. With them, we fled to a secret center in the stars. The Brahman secret service wasn’t nice. They wanted to stop a war, after all. You can understand that, I’m sure.”

  “Yes,” Maddox said.

  “The clones underwent intensive retraining,” Dana said.

  “Brainwashing, you mean,” Maddox said.

  “I prefer my term. In any case, instead of the Maxim beliefs, the clones become Limited in outlook. After a certain length of time, the Brahman secret service released the first clones back onto Rigel.”

  “I think I can guess the rest,” Maddox said. “The clones gathered a following and started a political rebellion.”

  “That’s right,” Dana said. “It was the germ of a possible civil war. It didn’t get that far. But it gave the syndic’s people a headache they most certainly didn’t want.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “The hegemon sent representatives to the syndic and they signed a non-aggression treaty. The Rigel Navy would from now on help patrol the tramlines leading to our star system. That was the overt wording. The secret clause was very clear. The syndic would make certain that no more raiders kidnapped or pirated our people.”

  “What about the other clones you’d stolen and continued to retrain?”

  “You have to ask?” Dana said. “You’re in Intelligence. You should know what we did.”

  “The Star Watch doesn’t play quite so rough as those on Brahma,” Maddox said.

  “About that, I don’t believe you for a moment,” Dana said. “Anyway, the other clones continue to live in seclusion. That’s in case the syndic changes his mind about us. They’re the Sword of Damocles permanently hanging over his head.”

  Maddox knew the ancient Greek legend of Damocles. A man had complained to a king about how wonderful life was for the ruler because of the power he wielded. The king let his friend live like a monarch for a day. The only caveat was the man had a sword that dangled by a thread above his head. If the thread snapped…that would obviously end the good life. And that was the punch line of the tale, the Sword of Damocles. The king told the man he had power, but he always had to fear the assassin’s knife.

  “You tell an interesting story,” Maddox said. “I fail to see, though, what it has to do with our current situation.”

  “That’s because I’m not finished. Not so long ago, the Star Watch stopped a Brahman ship. The problem for me was despite the treaty between Brahma and Rigel, the syndic had declared me a criminal. And that’s how the Star Watch officers treated me. I happened to be on the vessel they stopped.”

  “Wait a minute,” Maddox said. “I don’t understand. Didn’t you belong to the Brahman secret service?”

  Dana shook her head. “I’ve never been much of a joiner. I’d worked as an independent contractor. The syndic’s people were ruthless. They saw the loophole and used it. The Brahman secret service had paid me well, but they didn’t use any back channels to help me with the Star Watch. So, I hate them as much as the Star Watch for what happened next.”

  “What did happen?” Maddox asked.

  Dana blinked several times before sighing. “It would have been worse if the Star Watch handed me over to the syndic. A clause in Star Watch rules didn’t permit them to give me to a judicial system that has the death penalty. That was something, I suppose. Instead, the oh-so noble Star Watch held a kangaroo court. Afterward, they dropped me onto Loki Prime, where they intended I rot forever.”

  “Until they sent me to come and get you,” Maddox said.

  “Because you needed my skills,” Dana said.

  Maddox clasped his hands behind his back. He nodded solemnly. “I can understand your anger. You helped your people, and they turned their back on you. Yes, that is ingratitude of the worst sort. I wonder, though, have you ever thought about the clones?”

  “What about them?”

  “You set them up for failure. You must have realized they never had a chance. The syndic’s hitmen would eventually find them. They were ciphers in the game of nations.”

  “Your point is what, exactly?” Dana asked.

  “The very thing you hold against the Star Watch, you did to the clones.”

  “You’re saying I’m not a nice person?”

  “I’m not a nice person,” Maddox said. “You and I cut corners. But we get things done. That’s why the brigadier chose me and told me to get you.”

  “Are you saying we’re no different than the New Men?”

  “No,” Maddox said. “I’m not saying that at all. I suppose our end-goals are what matters.”

  “The ends justify the means?” Dana asked.

  “The New Men are attacking the Oikumene with all its various faults,” Maddox said. “We have peaceful worlds and those like the Social Syndicate with its illegal clones. None of that matters to the New Men. It would appear they plan to exterminate us or install a master-slave relationship of them over all of us. To protect your people, you played dirty with the Social Syndicate. The clones were caught in the middle. I’m not saying you did right by them, but it’s not as bad as what the New Men plan to do with us.”

  “The clones originally lived to supply body-parts to the Social Syndicate leadership as they aged,” Dana said. “I helped give the clones something more.”

  “That’s one way to look at it.” Maddox brightened. “Maybe that’s how you should think about the Star Watch.”

  “They didn’t give me something more,” Dana said. ‘They stuck me on Loki Prime.”

  “No. They gave you life instead of death. That’s what the syndic would have done to you. Then, the head of the Star Watch sent me to come and get you. I took you off Loki Prime. What I really want to know is if you’re going to remain on my side for the long haul.”

  “Even if I tell you I am, will you trust me completely?”

  “I think you already know the answer,” Maddox said. “I’m a spymaster before I’m a starship captain. Maybe if we hang together long enough, I’ll become more of a captain than a spymaster, and then I’ll trust you implicitly.”

  Dana snorted. “Okay. Fair enough, Captain. Yes. I’m going to fulfill my oath, at least long enough for me to pull you out of your own Loki Prime. Then we’ll be even.”

  “I’ll accept that,” Maddox said. “Let’s shake on it.”

  Doctor Rich thrust out her right hand. They shook, and then they got to work on the AI system.

  -40-

  Sergeant Treggason Riker paused as he walked through a cleared corridor toward the bridge. The starship’s jump alarm had just sounded.

  Riker knelt and then decided his old joints could use all the rest he could give them. He sat down on the deck. A second later, the combination of jump sensations, then quiet and finally, disorienting colors and noises slammed down on his head. He hated jumping, but he was fiercely g
lad the doctor, Meta and the indomitable Captain Maddox had restarted the AI and convinced it to pilot the starship for a time.

  Unlike Lieutenant Noonan, the sergeant didn’t care how they managed such a feat. He had learned a long time ago not to question Captain Maddox.

  With the jump completed—the others would need time to recalibrate a host of things before they jumped again—Riker climbed to his feet. His left knee popped and pain flared. Ever since Loki Prime, he’d never quite been the same. That had been a screw-up all right: dropped onto the worst prison planet in the Commonwealth. Only Maddox’s flair for doing the impossible had saved his old hide.

  As the sergeant limped for the bridge, Riker recalled the first time he’d seen Maddox do the incredible. They had stalked a supposed cat thief, a veritable spider of a man. Interestingly, they had nailed the suspect at a Nerva laboratory.

  The sergeant knew himself to be very old school. An Intelligence operative solved cases through diligence, hard work and asking endless questions and data searches. Eventually, somewhere, the criminal made a mistake. Often, that mistake was bragging about his deed to the wrong person.

  That person was usually his girlfriend. It was a tried and true fact. The thief knew the importance of silence, so he kept his mouth shut for weeks, maybe even months. Finally, though, he had to tell someone. He’d committed a fantastic heist, and no one knew how splendid he was. So, one day, the thief would set his girl on his knee and say, “Honey, what I’m about to tell you has to stay just between you and me.”

  “Of course,” she always said, “I won’t tell a soul, darling.”

  “I’ll have to kill you if you do,” the thief would often say.

  “Cross my heart and hope to die if I squeak a word, my love.”

  Satisfied with the reply, the thief would tell his woman exactly what he’d done. She’d laugh with delight, hug him and they would go to the bedroom and seal their love for each other.

  Time would pass, and the woman would simmer with pride about her man. Finally, her pride would boil over. She’d pull aside her best friend, and say, “You can’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. It will mean my man’s death if you speak a word about this.”

  “You can count on me,” the girlfriend would say. “I won’t tell anyone, not even my husband.”

  Satisfied, the woman would explain her man’s daring exploit.

  The new informant would keep the secret for maybe an entire day. Finally, at night, she’d turn on her pillow and whisper, “You should hear what I know. It’s too bad I promised never to tell anyone.”

  “What is it?” the husband would ask sleepily.

  “I can’t say.”

  “Come on. You have me curious. Tell me already.”

  “Do you promise never to tell anyone?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I promise already,” the husband would say. He’d hear the story, be duly impressed at the daring and tell his buddies at work about it the next day.

  Finally, with his ear to the ground, asking his questions and making data searches, Riker would hear a tidbit. Over the course of several days of footwork and questioning, he’d follow the story to its source. Then, they would catch the thief because the man had to tell someone about his feat.

  That was old school Intelligence work, and Captain Maddox knew very little about it. The lean man with his unnatural quickness and athletic prowess must consider himself a lion or leopard in disguise.

  Riker recalled that time in the Nerva laboratory at night in the Black Forest in Germany. Maddox had a theory the cat thief would strike that night, and he’d been right. They had chased the man through the building. The thief had raced to a window with his climbing gear still on. Using suction cups, the thief had scaled away outside on the wall.

  Maddox sprinted to the window. Riker remembered his lungs aching as he ran to keep up. That hadn’t compared to the astonishment he felt as the captain climbed out the window and began scaling after the thief.

  Oh, yes, Riker remembered. He raced to the window and stuck his head and shoulders out. First, he looked down, and didn’t see anything in the flooded lights there, five stories away. A trickle of grit struck the back of his head. He looked up, and Riker remembered his mouth dropping open in amazement. Maddox scaled the brick building using his fingers and toes. The captain must have believed himself half-lizard. Riker had thought so at the time.

  Anyway, despite the ache in his lungs, Riker raced for the stairs leading to the roof. He clumped up them and burst through the door. The cat thief lay dead by his rotors, shot through the back by Captain Maddox. The Star Watch officer had barely made it in time as the thief tried to fly away, but Maddox had caught him through an act of bizarre daring.

  That’s when Riker had known Maddox wasn’t normal. Maybe he should have asked for a transfer right then.

  The old man shrugged as he continued down the starship corridor. The officers running the Star Watch had certainly picked the right agent for the task of reaching the alien vessel. Now, they were going to try to get this machine home again. The New Men needed stopping. Riker wasn’t sure the starship would be enough, not after all the things he’d seen. The New Men were a race of Captain Maddox’s plus. How could humanity keep such a group down?

  “Sergeant on the bridge,” Riker said.

  Lieutenant Noonan turned from where she sat. The lass smiled at him. “Come in, Sergeant. Please, come in.”

  Riker did. He liked Valerie and appreciated the way she did things by the book. The lieutenant didn’t toss outlandish surprises in your face the way a soldier would heave grenades. Maddox was always exploding one wild maneuver after another at him.

  It’s a wonder I’m still alive. Imagine, dropped onto Loki Prime and canoeing for my life from crazy-eyed prisoners.

  Riker still had nightmares about that, waking up coughing and spluttering.

  “Is the starship still on course?” Riker asked.

  “Come stand here,” Valerie said, indicating a spot near her view-screen.

  He did, and he enjoyed the scent of her perfume. The lieutenant put on just enough. She also kept her uniform crisp and military. Riker did the same thing with his uniform. He liked things orderly.

  “Do you see that star there?” Valerie asked. She used a thin metal rod to point at the screen. The tip tapped a yellowish object surrounded by a cluster of other stars.

  “I see it,” Riker told her.

  “The AI sensed radiation and other background indicators that would seem to mean an advanced society. I’ve been checking for radio waves. Personally, I think I’ve found what we’re looking for. The captain hopes I’m right, but he hasn’t admitted I am.”

  “Are you right?” Riker asked. “I mean really?”

  “I’d give myself an eighty-five percent probability,” Valerie said.

  “Why doesn’t the captain agree, then?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” Valerie said. “You’ve been with him the longest. I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Riker thought about that. He began piecing together past events. A thought dawned on him. “You know, there’s something about the New Men that troubles the captain.”

  “The New Men trouble me,” Valerie said.

  “It’s more than their superiority—” Riker snapped the finger of his regular hand. He never snapped his bionic fingers. Even after all this time, he was careful with the bionic hand. He had accidently petted a dog too hard once, and the poor creature had yelped with pain, running away with its tail between its legs. After that, Riker was cautious with the bionic arm and hand.

  “What were you saying?” Valerie asked.

  Riker hesitated. He almost said, “I’m going to tell you a secret, but you have to promise never to say a word of this to anyone else.” He knew that Valerie would never be able to keep it secret. In time, she would tell someone. If a man wanted to keep something quiet, he couldn’t tell anyone.

  “It’s nothing,” Riker said.
/>   Valerie looked up at him. “Sergeant, please, I can keep my mouth shut.”

  He remained silent.

  “You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”

  “No. I’m afraid not,” Riker said.

  She smiled at him. “You’re a good man, Sergeant. Captain Maddox is lucky to have you.”

  “You should tell him that.”

  “I will.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Riker said, and he chuckled softly.

  They both watched the stars for a time.

  “Do you think we’ll make it the star system?” Riker asked.

  “It’s fifteen light years away,” Valerie said. “That’s five more jumps. We’re not going to try anything higher than three light years at a time just now. So yes, we should reach there in two or three days.”

  “That’s not leaving us much food in the storeroom.”

  “No,” Valerie said quietly.

  “Do you trust the AI?”

  Lieutenant Noonan shook her head. “I most certainly do not. But it’s teaching us the ship systems. I can already perform most of my duties on my own. Soon, we can turn it off for good.”

  Riker was glad to hear it. He continued studying the stars. Three more days at the most, if this ancient vessel held together, and they would be in a new star system. What would it hold? Would the sentients there be human, and would they have the needed tools to help effect greater repairs to the starship? He hoped so.

  They had to get this vessel home before the Great Space War started with the New Men. Would the enemy hold back long enough? Would Captain Maddox bring them home through sheer force of will?