The Lost Planet (Lost Starship Series Book 6)

by Vaughn Heppner

  Strand debated with himself. “Communications, contact Dem Darius. Instruct him to return to the Argo.”

  “Master,” the communications officer asked, “will you desire Darius to shut down the Juggernaut before he leaves?”

  “Is that not self-evident?”

  “Not to me, Master.”

  “That is because you are inferior to me.”

  “Yes, Master,” the communications officer said, waiting.

  Strand sighed. “Inform Darius he is to shut down…” The Methuselah Man reconsidered. “Correction. Instruct Darius to await further orders. He will remain near the jump point on the Juggernaut. If the starship reappears, tell him he must await my orders before he reengages in battle.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  Turning, putting a hand on his bad thigh, Strand limped for the exit. It was time to revisit the android Rose.

  ***

  Strand had been busy since capturing the android. He had decided to trust Rose after a fashion. If Ludendorff was traveling to this Junkyard Planet, he would too.

  Rose had spoken about a need for haste. Strand doubted that anyone among the human races could travel as quickly as he could if he put his mind to it. For one thing, Strand knew that he was the master of the Nexuses. No one knew as much about the Builder pyramids—no one among humans—as he did.

  Strand had used his star drive and used selected jump points to reach a Nexus unknown to Star Watch or the New Men. With it, he’d used a hyper-spatial tube to leap far ahead of Ludendorff.

  Given Rose’s data, Strand had a good idea of the professor’s route. The old bounder would use the elongated Einstein-Rosen Bridge—that had seemed obvious. The Rull and their annoying relics would prove too troublesome otherwise.

  Strand doubted any Rull yet lived. He’d captured one long ago. He’d extracted interesting information from the creature. It had been a laborious process, but well worth the effort. The Rull had died, of course. It had tried many permutations in order to keep its knowledge from him. That had been the first of the creature’s many mistakes.

  Several days ago, Strand had given Darius precise instructions. He had also loaned the New Man several of his brain-scrubbed colleagues. The Juggernaut had proven a tough nut to crack. Only Darius remained of the team he’d sent. That had been enough, though, to activate the ancient vessel so Darius could pilot the giant spheroid near the wormhole exit and wait for Victory to appear.

  It had been a good plan. Actually, it had seemed foolproof.

  Strand shook his head. Foolproof, what an interesting term. Nothing in this life was foolproof. Fools could wreck anything. The universe was a fantastic representation of that.

  If Victory had slipped out of this little trap…it was unlikely that the professor would realize he was behind it. Ludendorff had never traveled as much as he—Strand—had. He knew far more about the Beyond than the old bounder did. Still, Ludendorff was a slippery devil. If he could finally eliminate him…that would make the rest of his plans much easier to implement.

  Strand stepped off the turbo-lift and began limping down a corridor. The android was troublesome because she had been so accurate about everything so far. This meant Rose had deep knowledge. Could she be wiser and more slippery than Ludendorff was?

  The ancient Methuselah Man made a wheezing sound that rose and fell in rhythm, the sound of him laughing at his own joke. No one was as slippery as Professor Ludendorff.

  Besides, Rose was his captive. Strand would never give the android the slightest chance of escaping. He should have already destroyed her…except, she kept giving him interesting tidbits of data. Breaking onto the Juggernaut had simply been the latest and most impressive.

  He should kill her. It was possible he was making a mistake by letting her live this long.

  “It’s a risk,” Strand said to himself in a wheezy voice.

  So be it. He accepted the risk because he would extract a fantastic advantage from the android.

  Strand smiled as he headed for the screening chamber. It was time to apply a little pressure, time to remind the android that she lived at his sufferance…

  ***

  Strand activated the wall screen.

  Rose stood at attention in her cell with her eyes closed. She wore the same reddish garb and cape as before. She did not seem miserable. In fact, she looked like a store manikin. She did not even appear alive.

  Strand activated communications between her cell and the screen.

  Instantly, the android opened her eyes. That changed everything, as she began to breathe and do the other tiny things that made people and animals seem alive.

  For a reason he couldn’t catalog, that peeved Strand. He recognized his dislike for anyone with independent willpower aboard his star cruiser. That was part of the disquiet. But there was more to it than that.

  “Is the Star Watch vessel destroyed?” Rose asked.

  “What if I told you it was?” Strand asked.

  Rose did not reply.

  “Well?” Strand asked sharply.

  “You are stating postulates,” she said. “I doubt, therefore, that you are interested in my answer.”

  “You would do well to refrain from making any judgments concerning my statements.”

  “I see,” Rose said. “Victory slipped out of your grasp. That has made you…peevish.”

  Strand kept his features immobile. Was it a coincidence that she used the same term he’d been thinking a short time ago? Bah. He dismissed the idea that she could read his thoughts as being a fantasy.

  “You have laid down a card, as it were,” Rose said. “It is possible Ludendorff will surmise your hand by that card. If you will recall, I cautioned you against the Juggernaut assassination attempt.”

  “You did,” Strand conceded. “But I do not believe the professor knows I had a hand in the attack.”

  “What makes you so certain?”

  “The probabilities of that are too low, for one thing.”

  “Has he used this route before?”

  “Come, now,” Strand said. “You know he has. So have I. I suspect you already knew that. Why try to deceive me into thinking you don’t know?”

  “I grow weary of my confinement,” Rose said. “I could aid you better if I had greater access—”

  Strand couldn’t help it. He laughed at her.

  “You are a supremely suspicious man,” Rose declared.

  “It is one of the keys to my longevity.”

  “No doubt true,” Rose said.

  Strand shook his head. “I cannot guarantee your safe conduct if you continue to make judgmental statements regarding my words.”

  “You have a rare sensitivity to such things,” Rose said.

  With an effort of will, Strand kept from making another threat. He realized she was mocking him. If one made too many threats without doing something, further threats became less meaningful. How could he hurt the android in such a way that she would feel pain but not turn against him?

  It was an interesting dilemma.

  “Can you function as well without arms?” Strand asked.

  Rose did not reply right away. Finally, she nodded. “I take your point. I will refrain from antagonizing you further. My recommendation is to travel as fast as possible to the Junkyard Planet. I have detected your interest in the Rull Juggernaut. There might be one or two more in existence. Would you not like to own those?”

  “I would,” Strand said roughly.

  “Then I suggest we travel while we can,” Rose said. “I will also point out that there are more powerful artifacts on the planet than Rull Juggernauts.”

  That whetted Strand’s interest. It also made him suspicious. “Why haven’t the androids availed themselves of these artifacts?”

  “But we have,” Rose said.

  “Such as…?”

  Rose smiled. “You may remove my arms if you wish. I would not like that. But that will not turn me garrulous. Instead, I would realize my destruction was
imminent. Then, I would deactivate my sensory inputs, as I would assume you would soon begin torturing me.”

  “I am not foolish.”

  “I am willing to work with you, Methuselah Man, but not if the outcome is my obvious destruction. If you hope to gain some of the valuable objects on the planet, you will have to release me. Otherwise, you will have to find them the old-fashioned way, searching like anyone else.”

  “Tell me this,” Strand said. “Does the planet possess spaceborne sentinels?”

  “Of course,” Rose said.

  “Can you deactivate them?”

  “I have codes that will let your ship slip past them. Before I give you the codes, I will need my freedom.”

  Strand pursed his lips as he studied her. Rose calmly stared back at him. He found that irritating. Finally, however, he smiled.

  “Soon,” he said. “Soon you and I shall walk together on the artifact planet. I give you my word.”

  “That satisfies me,” Rose said. She closed her eyes.

  “But…” Strand said.

  She opened them.

  “I would also like to know what happened to Starship Victory.”

  Rose shrugged, shutting her eyes once more.

  That more than irritated the Methuselah Man. It caused him to make a mental note that he would make the android suffer for her passive insolence when the time came…

  Strand turned off the wall screen. He stood and began massaging his sore thigh. He’d missed his first strike at Ludendorff. The next attempt would be more deadly, and it would succeed. On that Strand silently vowed.

  -22-

  “Sir?” Galyan said. “Do you hear me, Captain?”

  “I do,” Maddox said. “But I can’t see anything.”

  “I think I can rectify that.”

  A moment later, the little AI glowed with light. Nothing on the bridge was working. All power had ceased except for Galyan.

  What had caused the lack of sound?

  “How are you able to glow?” Maddox asked.

  “To pass the time while in the Solar System, I worked out various emergency procedures. This is one of many.”

  “That isn’t what I meant,” Maddox said. “That you’re glowing indicates you have energy. The bridge lacks all power.”

  “You are right, sir,” Galyan said. “The air is beginning to grow stale as well. I will begin working on that at once.”

  “Galyan,” Maddox said. But it was too late. The holoimage had left.

  It meant pitch-darkness again, as Galyan had been the only source of light.

  “Can anyone hear me?” Maddox asked.

  No one answered.

  The captain moved slowly, finally reaching Valerie’s station. She was slumped over her panel. Maddox shook her, but she did not waken.

  Had the others received some sort of jump shock? Were they in some sort of sidereal universe? Why could he function while the others had been rendered unconscious?

  The captain straightened, testing the air. It did seem a little stale as Galyan had suggested. He negotiated in the darkness, finally reaching the exit hatch. It would not open.

  He tried a manual override, but that didn’t make any difference.

  A small part of Maddox wanted to panic. He suppressed the impulse. Instead, he began to think. Had Ludendorff known about the Rull Juggernaut waiting for them? What purpose would keeping quiet about that have served the Methuselah Man?

  Maddox shook his head. He couldn’t fathom a purpose. Ludendorff could be exceedingly devious, but this seemed too out-of-bounds for even the professor.

  Galyan reappeared. “Captain, I cannot—oh, there you are.”

  The glowing holoimage floated to him.

  “You are I are the only two people awake on the ship, sir.”

  “That’s interesting, no doubt,” Maddox said. “How do we reverse this process?”

  “I believe we must exit the—I am not sure what to call this place, sir. Is this hyperspace? Is this a shift in time and space? I am referring to a different dimension, I suppose, a side pocket if you will.”

  “I don’t—”

  “We must recreate the situation just before we jumped,” Galyan said.

  “Are the engines working?”

  “Barely,” Galyan said.

  Maddox scratched his scalp, soon saying, “I doubt we can recreate the situation. The tractor beams had locked onto us. That must be the difference that caused the present situation.”

  “I believe you are right, sir. How does knowing this help us?”

  “Is Ludendorff awake?” Maddox asked.

  “He is unconscious like everyone else. Why do you suppose you are awake, sir?”

  “First we would have to know why the others are unconscious,” Maddox said, reluctant to admit his theory that it was due to his New Man characteristics. “Perhaps my speeded metabolism has something to do with my present consciousness.”

  “Eureka!” Galyan shouted.

  “What does that mean and why are you shouting?”

  “Eureka is a term, sir. Archimedes was the first human to say it.”

  “Who?” asked Maddox.

  “Archimedes was a Greek scientist, sir. He lived in the ancient city of Syracuse, in Sicily. His king or tyrant believed the goldsmiths were cheating him. The tyrant gave the smiths gold, and they fashioned a crown for him. The tyrant believed the smiths had switched some lead with the gold. The tyrant wanted Archimedes to tell him if that was true or not.”

  “I don’t see how that has any bearing on—”

  “One day,” Galyan said in his excitement, “Archimedes took a bath. He noticed that as he sat in the water, it rose. The idea came to him then. If he took an amount of gold and put it in water, it would lift a certain height. If he took the tyrant’s crown and put it in water, and the water raised higher or lower than the correct height, that would mean the goldsmith had indeed cheated Syracuse’s ruler. As the idea came to him, Archimedes shouted, ‘Eureka!’”

  “Do you know what happened to the starship?” Maddox asked dryly.

  “I studied Earth history while orbiting your home planet. I—”

  “Galyan.”

  “Yes, Captain. I believe I do know what happened to Victory. The tractor beams held us, but they did not do so perfectly. If they had achieved a lock, we would have either pulled the Juggernaut with us or been torn in two as we jumped. Neither of those events occurred—”

  “A slingshot effect,” Maddox said, interrupting. “We built up star-drive power, but did not move. More power built up and finally, we tore lose, catapulted like a stone from a slingshot.”

  “Yes, I understand your analogy,” Galyan said. “That is the process by which we moved into this…shadow realm. This place seems to devour energy, both the ship’s energy and that of the various individuals. I suspect one of us will soon succumb to the constant energy-drain. After a time, the other will also fall asleep. Then it will simply be a matter of time until all energy is gone from the ship and our bodies.”

  “We must escape from the shadow realm,” Maddox said.

  “I find that to be an excellent suggestion. But how do we achieve such a miracle?”

  Maddox stood by the closed hatch. If the AI didn’t know the answer—

  The captain snapped his fingers. “You’re glowing.”

  “Do you want me to dim myself, sir? My glow is causing a prodigious drain to the little energy the ship possesses.”

  “No. I want you to reroute the energy to the ship’s sensors. Then, I want you to turn on Valerie’s screen so we can see what’s outside.”

  “Darkness, sir,” Galyan said.

  “That is what you surmise. Let us see if that is correct. Can you reroute the energy?”

  “Give me a few seconds. There,” Galyan said, as he grew dimmer. “I have done it. If you will go to her station…”

  It had become dark except for a small blinking light at Valerie’s station. The captain soon stood beside
her. He tapped her board and began to scan—

  Maddox stopped in shock. He could not believe what he saw. It was massive, according to his sensors, the hull constructed of neutroium. It was fifty kilometers long and—

  The captain shivered as he realized he viewed a Destroyer of the Nameless Ones. Then he saw another of the terrifyingly ancient war-machines.

  “Sir,” Galyan said in a soft voice. “My processors are weakening. What do you see?”

  Maddox could hardly believe that Galyan did not see this. Then the captain spied a distant source of light. From here, it looked like a pinhole in the universe. But because there was universal darkness, the light was magnificent.

  “Galyan, can you reroute power to the thrusters?”

  “I am losing coherence, sir.”

  “You are Driving Force Galyan. You once fought for your world. I want you to fight for humanity. Hold it together and give me impulse power. I need it immediately.”

  “I. Am. Trying. There… You have a modicum of power, sir.”

  Valerie’s panel went dark. Now, a light blinked on the helmsman’s board.

  Maddox went there. He sat at the helm and inched the ancient Adok vessel toward the point of light. It was hard to know how much time passed. Galyan no longer spoke. The pilot board grew dimmer. Yet, still Victory headed for the pin-dot of light.

  Something eerie had happened to the starship. The near lock, the slingshot effect—

  “No,” Maddox said in a raw voice. He jerked upright, realizing he’d been dozing. If he fell asleep, he doubted any of them would wake up on this side of life. He didn’t know if there was an afterlife. It seemed more than possible. He certainly believed in the Creator. But the captain wasn’t ready to find out if there was another life after this one. Not today.

  Grimly, Maddox forced himself to stay awake, but he could feel his strength and determination draining away. He began to shiver. But he held his lonely post, refusing to give up. If he surrendered to his tiredness, he would never find his father. He would never avenge his mother. He must do those things before he died. He also wanted to protect humanity from the Swarm, from Commander Thrax Ti Ix. That bastard of a preying mantis was not going to defeat him or cause mankind’s extinction.