Maddox stiffened. “Am I under arrest?”
“You will be if you fail to obey orders,” Kinshasa said. “Worse for your people, I will have to open fire on Starship Victory.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Valerie snapped. “We’ve been operating on special instructions from Lord High Admiral Cook. Don’t you realize that we’ve just arrived from ‘C’ Quadrant? Victory was instrumental in defeating the New Men’s invasion armada, freeing Fifth Fleet.”
“Is one of your officers suggesting that you defy a legal order?” Kinshasa asked Maddox.
Valerie’s outburst helped to calm Maddox. “The lieutenant is correct,” he said. “We are operating under special instructions. They supersede any orders that you may have—”
“Captain Maddox,” Kinshasa said, interrupting him. “I am under direct orders from High Command and those orders concern you and your starship. Pluto Station is the first line of defense of the Solar System. You will comply with the instruction, or I will order the battleships to attack.”
The commodore’s hostility baffled Maddox. This didn’t make any sense.
“You continue to hesitate,” Kinshasa said. “Let me ask you a question, sir. Did you swear an oath to Star Watch or not?”
Maddox bowed his head. The pressure of the last few weeks had diminished his inner reserves. He had strained with everything in him to reach the Solar System. Upon arrival, he had relaxed for the moment. Maybe that’s why Commodore Kinshasa’s orders had upset him like this. It was time to play the game as he always did. He needed to figure out why she had such bizarre orders.
The captain settled himself, looking up with his normal composure. “You’ve surprised me, Commodore,” he said in an urbane manner. “This is… quite unexpected. As the lieutenant indicated, we expected a hero’s welcome for our efforts.”
Kinshasa eyed him as if she couldn’t decide if this was ridicule or not.
“Yes, I suppose this must be a surprise,” the commodore conceded. “The orders came through twenty-eight hours ago. They passed every security procedure. The orders surprised us, I’ll admit. It’s why we double and triple-checked them. They are quite genuine. Now, you must shut down all ship systems at once. Failure to comply will force us into a situation neither of us desires.”
“Of course,” Maddox said. “Now that I realize you’re acting under specific orders, I must comply. The orders came twenty-eight hours ago, you say?”
“I’m glad you understand, Captain. I must also inform you that until you are safely in quarantine, you must keep a direct and open channel with Pluto Command. Failure to comply will result in a full-scale attack sequence. Do you understand me?”
“I do.”
“Very well, put Lieutenant Noonan on screen.”
“Just a moment,” Maddox said. He moved to the comm-board and tapped the panel, cutting communications with Pluto Command.
Valerie sat up, surprised. She’d been following the exchange closely.
“It appears the enemy has managed to send Pluto Command false orders,” Maddox said.
“Kinshasa said they triple-checked the orders, sir.”
“The instructions are too pat,” Maddox said. “Think about it. They originated twenty-eight hours ago. How long does it take a message to travel from Earth to Pluto?”
“I’m more concerned about what we’re going to do with ten hostile battleships? They’ll begin warning their laser batteries soon.”
Maddox grew thoughtful. “Is this an attempt to stop Star Watch Command from learning about the doomsday machine or is it meant to destroy my starship?”
“Tell the commodore our information,” Valerie suggested. “She can relay the message to Earth.”
“No,” Maddox said, looking at the screen, studying the ten battleships. “I don’t want to wait that long. If the orders came twenty-eight hours ago, might it imply the doomsday machine will be here soon?”
“Why do you think that, sir?”
“Galyan,” Maddox said, turning around.
“Here, Captain,” Galyan said, from his favorite location on the bridge.
“Get ready to engage the star drive. You’re going to transfer us beside Luna Base.”
“I don’t recommend that, sir,” Valerie said. “Luna Base has some of Star Watch’s heaviest laser batteries. They might open up on us while we’re still in the grip of Jump Lag.”
“That’s an excellent point,” Maddox said. “Therefore, I want you to rig an automated message. Use the nuclear missile timer to do it.”
The captain referred to the common tactic of sending a nuclear device through a Laumer-Point first during a combat jump. It would detonate against any defenders waiting by the jump entry. The lag didn’t effect spring-driven devices.
Valerie stood up. “I’ll get right on it, sir.”
Maddox tapped the comm, bringing an angry Kinshasa back online.
“I’m sorry for the temporary blackout,” the captain said.
“Did you deliberately shut off your communications?” the commodore asked.
“No,” Maddox lied.
Kinshasa glared at him. “Captain, you must immediately begin an emergency shut-down procedure. Until you comply, the battleships will continue their approach. You have ninety seconds to obey. Then, the warships shall begin to fire.”
“Commodore, we still have combat damage from the fight in the Tannish System. I can’t turn off the anti-matter engines in that time. I request that you give me—” Maddox glanced at Valerie.
She showed him four fingers.
“I request that you give me five minutes,” Maddox said.
“Out of the question,” Kinshasa snapped.
“Four minutes then.”
“Captain—”
“Please, Commodore, I implore you.”
Kinshasa eyed him distrustfully. “Very well, four minutes, Captain, and not a minute more.”
“Thank you,” Maddox said, bowing crisply at the waist.
Four minutes later, the starship made the final leap, leaving Pluto and appearing several thousand kilometers from the weapons-bristling Moon.
Valerie’s auto-message worked. Luna Defense stood down just as they readied to fire on the starship.
Thirty seconds after shaking off the final Jump Lag, Maddox found himself speaking to Lord High Admiral Cook on the main screen. The big man was red-faced with thick white hair, wearing a white dress uniform.
“Sir,” Maddox said. “Pluto Command said they received a direct message from headquarters to quarantine me, is that correct?”
“What are you talking about?” the admiral asked.
“This is critical, sir. Did such a message originate in your office?”
“Captain, is this some sort of joke?”
“No, sir,” Maddox said. “I think we may have infiltration agents embedded in headquarters or the enemy has figured out a way to send seemingly legitimate orders to distant posts. Some of our people may be compromised.”
The admiral swore angrily, fixing Maddox with a steely gaze. “What do you mean specifically?”
Maddox gave him a quick rundown of what had just happened by the Pluto Laumer-Point.
Cook laughed bitterly. “You’re a troublemaker, son. It follows you like a flock of vultures. But enough of that. I’ll look into those false orders soon enough. Tell me what happened out there on the rim of ‘C’ Quadrant. Did we beat the enemy fleet? What happened to Fletcher? Is he still alive?”
Maddox highlighted the important details as quickly as he could.
During the speech, Valerie piloted the starship closer to Earth.
“Thank God Admiral Fletcher is still alive,” Cook said with relief. “I congratulate you, Captain. You succeeded marvelously. Half the Fifth Fleet is coming home. This is wonderful news, simply wonderful. You beat the New Men. I’m amazed, sir. It seems that Brigadier O’Hara was right about you all along.”
“There’s more, sir,” Maddox said. In a broad outli
ne, he spoke about the doomsday machine and its magnetic storm method of transfer.
“Hold it, Captain,” the admiral said. The older man had leathery features. They’d grimly fixed onto Maddox. “I want you down here on the double. This is a face-to-face conversation. By the way, how is Professor Ludendorff? You brought him with you, yes?”
Maddox hesitated. That seemed like an odd question to ask at a moment like this. “I have him in stasis, sir. He mutinied against us—”
“What?” Cook asked, with worry in his eyes. “Professor Ludendorff is in stasis?”
“Yes, sir,” Maddox said.
Cook appeared shocked.
“Sir, once you hear—”
“No more,” Cook said, raising a big hand. “I don’t want… I want you in Geneva on the double, Captain. Bring the professor with you.”
“What about the rest of the professor’s team, sir?”
“They’re in—never mind. They must be. Yes, bring them down, too. I can’t believe this.”
“I’m going to let—”
“That will be all, Captain. Not another word, do you understand me?”
The admiral’s look told Maddox the other finally understood what it meant with Pluto Command receiving false instructions. If the enemy could send manufactured orders, could he tap into regular communications?
Maddox wondered about that. Earth must still be rife with enemy espionage attacks. The New Men had a long-distance transfer pyramid. The star cruisers appearing in the Xerxes System had proven that. Even though Star Watch had Victory, the enemy had a faster method of travel. The New Men would exploit whatever advantages they possessed.
“Yes, sir,” Maddox said, “I understand.”
“I imagine you’ve already written a full report of all these activities.”
“No, sir, I have not.” Maddox hated writing reports, always putting them off until the last minute.
Cook eyed him. “Get here on the double, Captain. I’m giving you emergency clearance. If this—blast it! Get down here now, Maddox. Cook out.”
***
Sergeant Riker helped Maddox load the stasis tubes into the shuttle’s cargo hold, the tubes holding Ludendorff, Villars and the archeologists. Maddox did not intend to thaw them out first. There wasn’t time, and he wasn’t going to risk it.
“You’re in charge of Victory while I’m gone,” Maddox told Valerie in the hangar bay. “I’d like to let you have some leave on Earth before we’re on the clock again, but I’m not sure that’s an option.”
“I’m fine, sir,” Valerie said. “I doubt this is a time for a vacation anyway. The doomsday machine could turn up any minute. I’ll be ready, sir.”
“You’re staying up here, too,” Maddox told Riker.
The sergeant nodded reluctantly. He was probably the most homesick of the crew.
“Ready?” Maddox asked Keith.
“Aye-aye, sir,” the ace said.
The two boarded the shuttle and strapped in. Riker and Valerie hurried out of the hangar bay. Soon, the giant bay doors opened. The shuttle lifted off the deck and drifted toward space.
“The Earth looks lovely, doesn’t she, sir?” Keith said from the pilot seat.
Maddox sat beside the ace, staring at the blue-green planet.
The shuttle began the plunge. Maddox spied Australia and New Zealand. Neither of the landmasses had much cloud cover. There was a big storm brewing over Tasmania, though.
“Feels as if I’ve been gone forever,” Maddox said, surprised at the pang in his chest upon seeing Earth.
“Aye,” Keith said. He manipulated his panel. The shuttle began its flight for Europe and the Geneva Spaceport.
They passed Star Watch laser satellites, spied big battleships in low orbit and saw heavy lifters heading to waiting space haulers at a Lagrange point.
Maddox’s fingertips tingled in anticipation of the coming meeting. Should he have said anything about Strand? Maybe it was better to have kept quiet about that. If the chief of Nerva Security could slip back and forth, Strand or his proxy could probably intercept laser messages from Victory to Star Watch Headquarters.
The shuttle began to shake as it entered the stratosphere. Maddox glanced at the pilot. That shouldn’t be happening.
“Not to worry, sir,” Keith said. He tapped the board.
Instead of eliminating the shaking, it got worse. Suddenly, an explosion in one of the rear engine ports caused the shuttle to plummet even faster.
“What just happened?” Maddox shouted.
“Damned if I know, sir,” Keith said between clenched teeth. “Hang on. This could get rough.” Keith swerved sharply and aimed them almost straight down. At the same time, the shuttle twisted and began to buck and heave.
“What are you doing?” Maddox shouted.
“Saving our lives, sir! Now kindly shut up and let me pilot. We’re under attack.”
Maddox was thrust forward, to the side and back, but finally managed to grip the straps crisscrossing his body. “How do you know this isn’t an engine malfunction?”
“Because I checked those babies myself, sir, before we left the starship. They were dandy.” The ace cursed profoundly then.
Maddox saw it on the pilot’s board. The heat on the skin of the shuttle rose dramatically.
“We’re going down too fast,” the captain said.
Keith snarled something about a microwave beam striking the craft. He twisted the shuttle. The bulkheads shook. Screaming sounds from outside added to the confusion.
“Need some missiles,” Keith said. “Okay. This is going to get really rough now, sir. Get ready. Three, two, one…here we go.”
Maddox gritted his teeth as the ace took the shuttle through even more intense maneuvers. They corkscrewed, flipped, slid sideways and burned through the thickening atmosphere.
Then, Star Watch interceptors joined them. They were sleek, ultra-fast atmospheric fighters that looked like giant wasps. Keith flipped on the radio and garbled something to the pilots. Seconds later, missiles blasted from the interceptor under-bays, disappearing as they zoomed down to the surface.
It told Maddox Star Watch was still on his side, just as the microwave beam attack told him the enemy was definitely up to something sinister.
Soon, Keith leveled out. The shaking stopped, so did the sounds of shrieking wind. They were over the Pacific Ocean, heading northeast toward Hawaii.
Maddox released his death grip on the straps, finding his fingers stiff from the intensity of the strain.
“You said microwave beams?” the captain asked.
“Aye, sir,” Keith said. “That’s my best bet. We should be okay now, I think.”
“Someone on Earth—”
“That’s right,” Keith said, as he adjusted their flight path. “Someone down there wanted to make our deaths look accidental. They beamed a microwave ray at the engine port, burning it out. They tried to do the same thing to the other one, but I wouldn’t let them.”
“That’s why you practiced that insanity?” Maddox asked.
Keith laughed. “Any time they can hit a fighter I’m flying, when I know what’s going on, I deserve to die. They didn’t realize who piloted our shuttle. You’re lucky I came, sir,” the ace said with a grin. “Without me beside you, you’d be a goner.”
“Indeed,” Maddox said. “And the interceptor missiles…?”
“I was tracking the enemy as he tried to beam us. I gave the coordinates to the interceptors.”
Maddox found it amazing Keith had been doing all that while he—the captain—had been hanging on for his life.
The rest of the flight proved uneventful. Keith took them over Central America, the Atlantic Ocean and brought the shuttle down in Geneva Spaceport in the Alps Mountain Range.
Maddox watched several hovers rush out of a terminal building. There was something off about them. He wasn’t sure what, but he felt it in his gut.
“Let’s not go over there,” Maddox said, pointing at the h
overs. “Head to the terminal over there,” he said, pointing at a large, square building in the distance.
Keith glanced at the captain, giving him a look that said the others were expecting them at the first location.
“Something feels wrong about this,” Maddox said. He’d been doing some heavy thinking during the flight. The enemy wasn’t going to let them reach the Lord High Admiral so easily. The Pluto Command quarantine and the microwave attack showed that.
“Got it, sir,” Keith said. He turned the shuttle, using repeller rays to float them to the new destination.
In seconds, a hard-faced man in space marine greens appeared on the screen. “Where are you headed?” the marine asked.
“You can send the hovers away,” Maddox said. “We don’t need them.”
The grim-faced marine hesitated just a moment. Then, he shook his head. “Sorry, Captain, I can’t do that. You’re under emergency orders. I have to take you in myself. I’m supposed to guard you and your packages.”
Maddox tapped his board, making the man’s image disappear. He called Cook’s office. A secretary answered. Before she could speak, the screen went blank.
“What the heck?” Keith asked. He’d been watching the exchange.
Maddox made a quick check. Someone used ultra-advanced jamming equipment against the shuttle.
“It appears the attack against us isn’t over,” Maddox said. “The enemy must want us dead pretty badly if they’re willing to burn an asset embedded in Star Watch space marines.”
The captain unbuckled. In three strides, he reached the weapons locker, opening it.
“The hovers have speeded up,” Keith said. “They’re not going to let us get away, sir.”
Maddox turned toward the ace. A premonition of greater danger touched the captain. The marines coming to escort them weren’t going to stop in the face of a grenade launcher. If he simply took them all out, though, without the enemy first showing his hand, there might be hell to pay.
He was playing with the end of the world at stake. Who was his hidden foe? It couldn’t be Strand himself, right? The man was far away in space. It might be Strand’s second-in-command then. It was possible Kane had returned to Earth. Or had some other New Man gotten here, sent by the space pyramid in New Men territory?
The Lost Destroyer (Lost Starship Series Book 3) Page 26
