The Lost Planet (Lost Starship Series Book 6)

by Vaughn Heppner

  Maddox’s wrists were numb where Darius had secured them together behind his back. His stretched shoulders ached and he panted from the endless running.

  Before leaving the kidnapping location, Darius had drawn an energy weapon and burned the corpse thoroughly. Then they had begun the trek into the depths.

  Maddox’s chest heaved and sweat dripped from his chin.

  “You are weak,” Darius said. “You tire too easily.”

  Maddox said nothing. This was a bitter lesson in the superiority of the New Men. He’d come to believe himself their equal in many categories. That belief had suffered several shocks today, or tonight.

  How long have I been a prisoner? And how much conditioning did I lose?

  “Left,” Darius said.

  Maddox turned left, entering an even narrower and lower tunnel. It was dark and smelly—

  Maddox halted, and he backed up.

  “Enough,” Darius said, his hand halting the captain’s retreat. “You must summon what courage you possess. It is only darkness and bad smells.”

  Maddox tried to calculate. He’d heard a soft grunt ahead of him. That indicated something living. Could he escape from Darius? He needed an edge to do so. If he failed to escape, he would eventually end up on Strand’s star cruiser. And the Methuselah Man would no doubt operate on his brain.

  Maddox inhaled, almost gagged on the stench, and then lowered his head and forced himself to move into the darkness. He heard the grunt again. It was an angry sound.

  “Did you hear that?” the second New Man asked Darius.

  Maddox ran into the darkness, with his senses straining. It widened in here like a cave. He tried to—Maddox threw himself onto his chest, sliding on the floor as something heavy swished overhead.

  A beam of light stabbed into the darkness. From the fungus-strewn floor, Maddox arched his neck, looking up. The light shone upon a huge and deformed Vendel cannibal. The thing had to stand ten feet tall—if it could stand all the way. It was grossly fat, and might weigh one thousand pounds or more.

  Darius shouted, running forward, unlimbering his blaster. He fired. A gout of seething energy burned into the savage’s shoulder.

  The mutated Vendel roared with hurt, the painful sound reverberating in the underground grotto. The savage roared once more, and it lurched at Darius.

  The New Man fired another gout, this one full in the thing’s face. The cannibal stumbled backward, crashing into boxes and piled junk. A horrible stink rose from the savage. It sat up, its face a ruin. One more time, Darius fired. The energy consumed much of the upper bulk, with smoke roiling from the fat.

  Maddox couldn’t breathe. The stench was too great. Iron fingers dug into his arms, hauling him upright from the floor.

  “You should have warned us,” Darius said.

  The other New Man grabbed Maddox’s free arm. Together, the golden-skinned supermen lifted the captain off his feet. The flashlight showed an open area. The New Men sprinted, carrying Maddox between them. Each step jolted his aching shoulders a little more. It was humiliating, and yet another nail in his belief that he could directly compete against the New Men on an evening footing.

  Finally, the two set him down. Darius opened the bonds securing his wrists. Dully, Maddox’s arms swung down to his sides. He steeled his face, determined that he would not betray the pain in his shoulders as the three of them hurried into a cleaner corridor. This one led steeply downward.

  Soon, his wrists began to throb as the feelings returned. He willed away the pain. It hardly helped, though. From time to time, Darius or the other New Man shoved him, making him stumble faster.

  Maddox no longer plotted. He used all his resources to keep up with the supermen. He wasn’t used to being the slowest. He was always the fastest, the best at whatever he did. The thought remorselessly turned his thinking to his birth. If his mother hadn’t escaped from the New Men facility, he would have been born with golden skin. The scientists would have injected his fetus with the New Men treatments.

  Maddox ground his teeth together. These two might be stronger and faster, but he would fight against them to the end.

  Maybe it was a proud and idle boast. But the captain clung to the thought just the same. He would defeat these two. He would not let them defeat him. Were they di-far? The race did not always go to the fastest, or the fight to the strongest.

  Even so, Maddox did not see what he could do in order to escape from them.

  Later, with his senses still reeling, Maddox realized that Pascal le Mort had been bringing him to Darius. Did that mean Strand had someone in the Raja’s court?

  Yes.

  It meant some Vendels were corrupt, Pascal, for instance. That meant one could bribe or corrupt other Vendels. That was a good thing to know.

  They exited a passage and entered a vast subterranean world. Maddox could sense the greater spatial volume although he could not see it. The sounds were different and the air stirred. The other New Man shined a path through towering funguses. Strange rustling sounds came from deeper in the reef-mash—that’s what Pascal had called the fungus before.

  Because they walked instead of sprinted, Maddox regained a modicum of energy. It was enough that he began cataloging what he saw. The tall fungus growths loomed above him on strange stalks, almost like prehistoric ferns.

  Had Darius discovered the ancient vaults down here? Did Strand know about and possess the long-distance Builder scanner. Did Strand know Starship Victory was coming to the planet? Surely, Ludendorff hadn’t told the other Methuselah Man. But if Ludendorff hadn’t, who had?

  “There,” Darius said.

  The flashlight focused on a large metal object. It looked like a landed strikefighter, the smallest of space-going craft. How could it have gotten down here? Maddox didn’t understand.

  Rough, strong hands gripped him. Darius once again wrenched an arm behind the captain’s back. Manacles appeared, were snapped onto that wrist first and then onto the other, securing him once more.

  “Climb,” Darius said, pushing Maddox against the craft.

  Maddox saw sunken steps built into the strikefighter. He put the toe of his right boot into one. As he climbed, with no way to steady himself, Darius pushed his back, keeping him from falling backward.

  A whine caused him to look up. An upper canopy rose.

  It was difficult, but Maddox climbed the rungs and slid his stomach over an upper edge, falling into a large cockpit.

  This was a two-seated strikefighter, a Throne World version.

  Maddox panted on the floor as Darius and the other climbed in. The second New Man slid into the front seat. Darius slid into the navigator’s seat.

  The canopy whined again as it lowered into place. The strikefighter purred with power. Heated, good-smelling air gushed into the small confines. Maddox shivered. He hadn’t realized until this moment how revolting the underground trek had been. This was a diseased world. The toxins that had mutated the Vendels seemed to have seeped down here as well.

  “Now what happens?” Maddox asked.

  Darius used the sole of a boot to tap the top of Maddox’s head. “You are my prisoner. Soon, you will belong to Strand. I would not give you such a fate. I’d rather kill you cleanly, giving you a battle death. But…that is the way of the universe. We do not all get what we want.”

  Maddox considered that as the other New Man went through a preflight checklist. Finally, the strikefighter hummed. Soon thereafter, it lurched off the subterranean floor.

  Maddox would have liked to sit up and see what transpired. Would the pilot fly through the subterranean realm? Could the strikefighter zip past Vendel anti-aircraft defenses?

  “The Raja’s people are alert to your treachery,” Maddox said. “As soon as they spot your craft—”

  Darius made a raspy sound. It took Maddox a second to realize the New Man had laughed.

  “Don’t you understand?” Darius asked. “We’re heading straight to space, straight to the star cruiser.
”

  Maddox scowled. He didn’t understand. He… “Is this a jumpfighter?”

  “We call it a fold-fighter,” Darius said. “Are you ready?” he asked the pilot.

  “Give me thirty seconds,” the pilot said.

  Maddox closed gritty eyes. His heart thudded with something akin to fear. This craft could fold space. That meant it would transfer from here, deep underground, to somewhere in near orbit. It could possibly fold or jump even farther. It was a clever idea, calling for precise and utterly confident fold-piloting.

  Leave it to the New Men to execute such a plan.

  Maddox wished he had a kill-pill to swallow. The idea of Strand planting control-fibers into his brain—

  The fighter whined louder, building up for the fold.

  -40-

  Driving Force Galyan fretted incessantly. The holoimage paced across an imitation of his old bridge. Frozen images of his ancient Adok companions held their poses.

  Six thousand years ago, give or take, he had battled a Swarm fleet in the Adok Home System. The horrible insects had destroyed the defensive armada and annihilated Galyan’s world. That had been the day of his transformation, his deification. He had failed his world, failed his friends and failed his mate.

  He did not want to fail again.

  This is where he went when he did not interact with the humans. It was not a real place like Victory’s bridge, but deep in the artificial intelligence Adok-Builder program. Galyan found solace here. He regrouped. He pondered and thought about the old days.

  If he had won the Adok-Swarm Battle, he would be long dead. He would not be thinking these thoughts. And yet, was he truly Galyan? He did not possess a spirit, did he? He had the Driving Force’s engrams, but he was a Builder AI program.

  The holoimage turned to one of the frozen Adoks. “Who am I really?” he asked the image.

  As Galyan waited for an answer, a blip appeared on the main bridge screen. He idly looked up at it.

  He had rerouted some of the AI program so he saw real data on the imaginary bridge screen. It was too bad his old frozen companions could not see these things. He could no longer recall their former names, and had given them new ones: Valerie, Keith, Riker—

  “No, no, that is not right,” Galyan said. “Why did I name them—?”

  The blip on the screen caught his attention again.

  In the real world, Galyan had set up a system that watched the entire planet. He’d begged Valerie, and she had permitted him to launch three probes. The probes were at precisely the right locations around the planet so that he had a full view of everything.

  He’d already informed Valerie of the battered Juggernaut. He’d also found a third such craft. This one seemed intact, and it waited. Maybe as they waited for the captain to appear, they should hunt down the Juggernauts and destroy them.

  Galyan slid toward the main screen. His ghostly fingers manipulated the air as he ran an analysis of the blip.

  This was odd. The blip had not been there several seconds ago. Galyan ran a lightning-fast diagnostic. There was nothing wrong with his instruments or the probes. The blip had just appeared.

  That meant it had jumped into position. Yet, the blip’s mass was wrong. It was the size of a strikefighter—

  “Correction,” Galyan said. “It is the size of a jumpfighter.”

  The little AI stared with shock. In an instant, he disappeared from the imaginary bridge and reappeared on Victory’s real bridge.

  “Valerie,” Galyan said, “I have discovered an enemy fold-fighter. Its specifications are nearly identical to a Throne World fold-fighter that Admiral Fletcher’s Grand Fleet faced.”

  “Show me,” Valerie snapped.

  Galyan put the blip on the main screen, superimposed against an image of Pandora II.

  “The object is on the other side of the planet,” Valerie said.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell me what’s inside the fighter?”

  “I detect three entities. They appear to be New Men.” Galyan spun around. “Valerie, I believe one of the entities is Captain Maddox.”

  Valerie stared at him open-mouthed.

  “This is interesting,” Galyan said. “It implies that the New Men are in the star system. Since we have seen no evidence of such a ship, that implies a cloaked vessel. The likeliest probability, given the various ramifications, is that Methuselah Man Strand has come in his cloaked star cruiser to investigate the derelict planet.”

  “Ramifications?” Valerie said. “Are you referring to the destroyed box?”

  “That and other factors,” Galyan said. “Would you like me to list them in descending order of importance?”

  “No,” Valerie said. “I think you’re right. One thing seems off, though. The fold-fighter is hardly moving.”

  “I suspect it is building up energy for another fold. Notice the various system planets. I suspect the cloaked star cruiser is behind Pandora III in relation to us. The vessel might also be hidden behind one of Pandora III’s moons.”

  “Can the jumpfighter fold that far?” Valerie asked.

  “Given the specifications of previous enemy fold-fighters—no.”

  “So if we leave the craft alone,” Valerie said, “we’ll probably find out if and where the cloaked star cruiser is hidden.”

  “That is logical. However, are you willing to throw away the captain’s life to find out?”

  Valerie didn’t hesitate. “I am not.”

  “You are being emotional about this,” Galyan said.

  “I don’t care. We’re not sacrificing each other.”

  “But the greater good—” Galyan stopped speaking as Lieutenant Noonan stared at him fixedly.

  “Are you willing to sacrifice the captain to find the hidden enemy vessel?” Valerie asked.

  “Of course not,” Galyan said. “Everyone knows I am beholden to the captain. I could never do such a thing. But that is me. I am not the acting commander of the Patrol’s best starship. I am not the one who must decide humanity’s future. Captain Maddox saved my life. I will always side with him over others, including the entirety of the human race. If you—”

  “Galyan,” Valerie said.

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up for a moment. Let me think.”

  “Yes, Valerie. I will shut up, as you say.”

  “Then stop talking.”

  “Oh. Yes.” With an effort of will, Galyan closed his holoimage mouth. Then he waited to see what Valerie would do next.

  ***

  Maddox lay on the floor of the fold-fighter’s cockpit, waiting for the other two to overcome their jump sickness. It surprised him the New Men hadn’t stolen or invented the needed injections.

  Maddox stared up through the canopy, seeing Sind above them. The planet looked silvery-healthy from up here. Would this be his last sight as a free-thinking person? Maybe he should attack Darius and get it over with. The New Man aimed a weapon at him, but Darius did not hold the gun with authority.

  The fold-fighter’s engine had been knocking. It began to smooth out now, building up energy for the next fold.

  A new idea blossomed in Maddox. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

  “I have a question,” Maddox said.

  “No,” Darius slurred.

  “Strand wants me as a prisoner.”

  Darius seemed to strain to focus on Maddox. A tight smile slid into place. “Not his prisoner,” the New Man said. “You will become his slave. You will tell him everything you know. His knowledge and thus his power will yet increase.”

  “Do you love Strand?”

  “Love?” Darius asked, his mouth twisting with distaste. “I hate him. He is a monster.”

  “Yet you serve him.”

  “I must. It is his will.”

  “What is your will?” Maddox asked.

  Darius’s mouth twisted once again. “I lack a will.”

  “That isn’t true. You fought through the underworld. You do have a will.�
��

  “In small matters, I do,” Darius said, “not in large.”

  “Would you like to be free?”

  Darius stared at Maddox, his eyes gleaming.

  “You are struggling to speak,” Maddox said.

  Darius raised the gun as if to fire. The gun-hand trembled. Slowly, the New Man lowered the weapon, although he kept it ready.

  “You are fortunate Strand guides my will,” Darius said. “My desire is to kill you.”

  “Because I ask painful questions?”

  For just a moment, Darius closed his eyes. When he opened them, they blazed with rage.

  Maddox shuddered at the ferocity of Darius’s emotions.

  The New Man trembled as he fought to raise the gun again. “I would kill you,” Darius said tightly. “I would kill you to save you and because I hate you.” Darius made an inarticulate howl.

  “The fighter will be ready to fold in thirty seconds,” the pilot said.

  Darius nodded miserably.

  Then a grim shadow fell upon them. Maddox looked up, and at first, he did not understand. Something blocked the planet’s reflected light. His eyes widened in understanding. That was Starship Victory. The vessel had appeared—it had jumped beside the fold-fighter.

  The small craft lurched.

  “What is occurring?” Darius said.

  “The foreign vessel—we are caught in a tractor beam,” the pilot said.

  Darius craned his head, looking up at the underbelly of Victory. He peered at Maddox, and he raised the gun one more time.

  “That is your starship,” the New Man said.

  “Yes,” Maddox said.

  “It has caught us in a tractor beam.”

  Maddox nodded.

  “I can fold out of danger,” the pilot said. “We have a seventy percent chance of destruction, but that gives us a thirty percent chance of success.”

  “I cannot let you regain your freedom,” Darius told Maddox.

  “My crew will kill you if you harm me,” Maddox said.

  Darius smiled evilly. “Good. I am weary of my slave life.”

  “We can operate on you and free you from Strand’s control,” Maddox said.