The Lost (The Maauro Chronicles Book 3)

by Edward McKeown

  “Intriguing,” Maauro said, “and it causes me to reassess my thoughts on the technological level of this society.”

  “Yeah,” Dusko said. “A nuclear conflict maybe five hundred years ago and the cities are that intact? Okara Prime was blasted by the Conchirri only ninety years ago and it looks worse than this already. What did these people build with?”

  “This implies this society was at least equal and probably more advanced than the Confederacy,” Maauro said.

  “Except for stardrive,” I added. “If these people had been out among the stars we’d have run into them, or found some evidence before this.”

  “Remember the Voit-Veru,” Olivia cautioned. “No one knew they were there.”

  “True,” I conceded, “but they were on the other side of a nebula. Also a star-faring race would have had buoys, accelerators, deep space stations and navigation aids in the outer system. We’ve seen nothing.”

  “Could have crashed or been deactivated,” Dusko said. “It’s been centuries.”

  “Possible,” I said. “But you’d think something would still be up, even if not operational. They were master builders. No, I think they just didn’t go out to the outer system. There’s no reason to head for deep space unless you’re going to a warp entry point. Everything I see tells me these folks were confined to this system, unable to get away from each other and at each other’s throats. Whether they were two species or it was a civil war I don’t know.”

  “My preliminary analysis,” Maauro said, “is that this world was attacked with NCBO.”

  “The unholy trinity,” Olivia said, “Nuclear, chemical, and biological. God, they had it all. It must have felt like the apocalypse.”

  “We’re talking about casualties into the billions,” I said. “Two planets close by each other, genocidal warfare between two species?”

  “Possible, but unlikely,” Maauro said. “That two species would develop with sufficient similar levels of technology to battle on such nearly equal terms, each able to hit the other’s homeworld, the odds are astronomical. More probably this was a conflict between a mother world and a colony.”

  “Civil war, fratricide,” I responded, “a particular level of evil to extinguish your own kind.”

  “You humans seem prone to it,” Dusko said. “Get ten humans in a room and you have ten religions, four different skin tones and eleven opinions on any subject. You’re a fractious bunch.”

  “It is rather true,” Maauro said with an apologetic air. “Humans vary more in appearance and socio-religious organization than any other species.”

  “We organize pretty well when it comes to kicking the asses of annoying aliens,” Olivia nettled.

  “True enough,” Maauro said. “Let us hope that the next need to do so is far in the future.”

  “But you doubt it,” Dusko said.

  “There was a large scale die off of life,” Maauro said, returning to the topic at hand, “though with no nuclear winter. There is evidence of later beam and kinetic weapon fire on many buildings in cities. This implies a massive ground invasion.”

  “Bodies lying about?” I asked.

  “Not after so long,” she responded. “They would have long since completely decomposed or been buried naturally. Even most soft-skinned vehicles would have decayed by now. I am detecting some large AFV’s—”

  “What?” Dusko said.

  “Tanks, APC, missile and artillery launchers,” Olivia supplied.

  “Most of these too are badly deteriorated, but because of the material they were made from they are still recognizable.”

  “Life?” Dusko asked.

  “Scattered life signs, either herd animals, or small groups of sentients in the area below us. This section of the world was roughly treated, population does not seem to have recovered much,” Maauro replied.

  We continued to close, passing over the dead night side of the world. Our orbit had not taken us within range of the lit section of the northern continent. We would catch that on the next orbit.

  “Coming over the terminator into daylight,” I said. “I am kicking our velocity down, entering the highest orbit I can and still get a good ground view.”

  “You are cautious?” Maauro said.

  “I’ve seen some very old weapon systems that were still dangerous,” I replied, giving her a grin.

  She nodded. “Sound thinking, though I am doubtful we will find anything capable of firing on us in orbit.”

  “Look,” Olivia said.

  The screen showed a devastated city at the edge of an ocean, its center cored out either by a nuke, or chunk of rock hitting at high velocity. But toward the coast in the broad bay, a surface ship was moving. No, multiple surface ships.

  “A fishing village or a small port,” Maauro said with a trace of excitement in her voice. “Indications of significant electrical power in the area of the city near the coast.”

  “Is that ship on fire?” Olivia asked, pointing at the plume of smoke as the scanner zoomed in slightly.

  A memory clicked into place for me. “More likely a fossil fuel, coal or something else that burns and operates a reciprocating engine. The smaller vessels look to be sail-powered.”

  Maauro panned the scanner over the city. “Wrik can you lower our orbit? The resolution is not enough for me to see the beings who operate the ships.”

  I worked the controls dropping and slowing Stardust further. Meanwhile Maauro had taken control of the scanner and was zooming in on various points below us.

  “Interesting,” she said. “There are signs of habitation and recovery, spreading out from this landing point. However there are no roads, or rather they are completely overgrown and broken up, outside of this port. Nor did we see signs of other than perhaps small bands of beings further into this continent.”

  “Meaning that it’s being resettled from a site that was less damaged, or more recovered, on the other side of this ocean.” I finished. “This is a colony. That explains why we didn’t see anything further inland. All these small ships are coming out to greet the big one, well it’s like when one of our starships puts in at a new colony. It’s a big holiday, a huge event for the colony. Probably it’s bringing in more colonists too.”

  “Only now are they resettling this area?” Dusko said.

  “Remember the die off,” Maauro said. “The only reason that Confed worlds hit during the war recovered so fast, is that there were outside forces to come to their relief. On Vania the population was annihilated.”

  The image on screen froze and zoomed on a building in bright sunlight. We saw a cart being pulled by a being. As we watched, it stopped to rest and looked up. The image stabilized and Maauro froze it.

  The porter had taken off his hat and wiped his brow in a very human gesture, but the face of the humanoid alien below was a rough duplicate of the alien body from the lifeboat.

  “Bingo,” I said, “ a Seddonese.”

  “We found them,” Olivia breathed, her eyes wide.

  “Yes,” Maauro agreed. “He is of the same species as the corpse. Now that we are lower, let’s look at those ships. The screen flashed back to the vessels in a dizzying flash and we were looking at images of the natives that became clearer every moment. As they wore clothes and hats, from above they looked like humans until one could see the dark green skin with its varying shades of fine feathery hair.

  “I see no signs of humans in the area,” Maauro said, “but it will be difficult to pick them out save visually. Body temperature and mass of these natives are similar to humans. Our sensors are not made for such delicate work.”

  “Maauro,” I asked. “What do you estimate for a population in that city?”

  “Somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 beings. It would depend how many are occupying the old structures where we cannot see them. Clearly the city was made for ove
r a million. Many of its buildings must, however well-built they were originally, be uninhabitable, at least without extensive restoration.”

  We were overtaking the colony below and passing beyond them.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked. “Slow to a geosynch orbit or keep moving?”

  “Continue moving, I think,” Maauro replied. “Alter orbit to take us over the most brightly lit area, in daylight. That should be the seat of whatever government and power there is on this world.”

  I nodded and began to set up the course change. “We should get landing prep under way.”

  “I’ll check the planetary supplies, bio-filters and the like,” Dusko said. “We shouldn’t need much, if anything, since humans must have lived with these people.”

  “I’ll check weapons,” Olivia said. They both left quickly.

  “Maauro,” I said, turning to her. “We’ll have to detach the Sinner II but it gives us options we can either leave Stardust in orbit and fly down in the bomber.”

  “Yes…” she paused. “That is odd.”

  The image on screen blurred again. Now we were looking down at an island off the coast. I could see devastated ships rotting by the piers of a base or small city. But Maauro focused on something largely buried in the sand.

  “Is that a body?” I wondered. In the sand was a shape, with what looked like four limbs, one of those seemed to be in fragments.

  “No,” she said. “Look at the scale. It is over thirty meters tall.”

  “A statue then,” I hazarded, “the local Colossus of Rhodes, perhaps?”

  Maauro stared at the screen as if willing it to provide greater clarity and pierce the covering shroud of sand. “Perhaps,” she said.

  Chapter 16

  We cruised over the northern latitudes, seeing cities that were occupied by only small percentages of their former populations, and some newer and lower-built towns. There were trains of a sort and road traffic, though the highway system was crude at best.

  Once we hit a radiation spike in a destroyed city. Maauro and I examined the scans.

  “This is incongruous,” she said. “This small city was struck with a nuclear weapon once, but it seems to have relatively high and fresh radiation.”

  “An old site uncovered?” I hazarded. “Some old weapon or power source that detonated lately?”

  “Possible, though unlikely. Another explanation would be a recently destroyed modern ship.”

  “Can you see any sign of Isadora?” I demanded.

  “No, but the center of the city is a mass of fallen metal and building material from the fall of some giant towers. Anything could be under it.”

  We drifted further north on the next pass. This time we could see evidence of a local war from our height with recently burned cities and towns Corpses appeared occasionally in the streets.

  “I also see evidence of evacuations,” Maauro said. “There are trails of abandoned goods, sometimes of vehicles and transports that were overtaken by what was pursuing them.

  “In terms of your Earthly history,” Maauro continued. “This area resembles Europe or North America in the period between 1850 and 1900, complicated by the fact that there are huge disparities in population and technological levels.”

  “That would be similar to Earth’s overall history at that point as well,” Olivia said. “Most of the planet was a thousand or more years behind the technological leaders.”

  “Even more so,” Maauro said. “These people know of many things that were possible from before. Even if they do not know how to do them, they know of flight, both in atmosphere and space. If not from legends, or surviving old records of their own, but from the presence of humans among them and the recent visit of Bexlaw.”

  “Assuming there are still humans,” Dusko said.

  “Even if there weren’t, there would be bones, artifacts and legends,” I said.

  “We haven’t seen a live human,” Olivia added.

  “It it is difficult at this height to tell,” Maauro added. “In clothes and unless we catch one looking up, they are too similar to tell apart. If there are humans, they would be a very small percentage of the population, records indicate that there were only about 250 humans aboard New Hope. Not all of them would have been of breeding age, some likely would have died without issue. Five hundred years is not a long time for population increase, even assuming there were no local hostile factors.”

  “If it is like Earth at that period of time,” Olivia said, “then warfare is likely constant and we have seen some evidence of that. They almost certainly do not have a central government, so lots of small regional wars.”

  I stood up. “I think our best move it to take the Sinner down and leave Stardust up here with Olivia and Dusko aboard, at least until we have some idea what is waiting us. We’ll check out the city I designated as Alpha, it’s the furthest north one that we have seen that looks to have been recently attacked. Maybe we can find out what is going on.”

  Olivia immediately looked like she might protest, but I held my hand up. “Bexlaw’s ship didn’t come back and we haven’t seen it. Nor have we picked up the radiation from its engines. Either it was destroyed, or it’s hidden and either way that means trouble. Having you up here means options.”

  Olivia subsided but looked unhappy, mostly at the chance for missing some excitement.

  “We’ll mind the store,” Dusko said.

  Sinner II kicked free of Stardust’s green and gold hull. I spun the bomber on her axis and lined up on the planet below. I looked over the dark green nose of the ship as we angled downward at the scarred and mysterious world below. Maauro sat in the second seat alongside me. Her small frame barely filled the standard ejection seat. The cockpit of the bomber was surprisingly tight for all the capacious weapons bay. The Solari must have been cramped when they used it.

  “No reaction to our orbital approach on any system,” Maauro said, her hands poised over the weapons and ECM panel.

  “Good,” I said. “I like quiet trips. Wouldn’t want this ship to go the way of the original Sinner.”

  “Me neither,” Maauro said, waving her left arm, replacement for the one severed in the loss of my original ship. “I’m well out of warranty.”

  I fingered a virtual switch. “Com check, Stardust.”

  “5 by 5,” Dusko responded with his usual economy of speech.

  “Good luck,” Olivia added.

  “Thanks. We’re entering the thermal zone. Communications blackout in 145 seconds.”

  As if to confirm me, the heat shield slid up over the canopy, blocking our view of the cherry glow spreading on Sinner II’s nose. We wouldn’t be able to effectively maneuver in reentry, but Maauro could still use our ECM and weapons. We bumped and slewed as the fighter struggled through the planet’s cloak of atmosphere. I had plotted our course so we would enter over ocean, less chance of anyone attacking us from the sea. As the bumping subsided, the canopy shield slid open. I could see perfectly well through my screen and other instruments, but, like most pilots, I preferred to have my eyes on the sky.

  I tilted the nose down and could see white clouds scudding below us across a vast dark-blue sea. The planet, we opted to call it Seddon after the mention made in the lifeboat’s records, was not as sea-covered as the Voit-Veru world but it had oceans in abundance.

  “No vessels or other contacts,” Maauro said, “nothing but a wide and deep ocean.”

  “Sinner to Stardust,” I called, “reestablishing communication.”

  “We read you.” Dusko said, sounding bored.

  “We’ll keep you posted, as we go,” I said. “Automatics will relay all our scan and vid.”

  “S.O.P” he replied.

  Yeah, I thought, easy for you to be blasé, you’re still in orbit.

  “We’re stable at mach 2.5,” I replied. “I’
ll go subsonic well before the coast. I don’t want a sonic boom— could scare the locals.”

  Seventeen minutes later I slowed to about three hundred knots and dropped below the cloud deck. It had been sunny at sea, but we’d crossed a cold front and the clouds were heavy with rain and only about five hundred meters up. I slowed further so we could see objects on the ground better. This area however was devoid of any significant habitation beyond blasted and abandoned cities from centuries ago.

  “We’re crossing onto the continent down below where we saw lights,” I reported. “We can check out that dead city, then work out way up toward the occupied areas.”

  “Okay, Wrik.” This time it was Olivia. “Stay nimble.”

  I goosed the speed and decided to climb back over the cloud deck just as the clouds let loose their burden of rain. After an hour’s travel we were approaching the city that had caught our eye from orbit. I nosed down as Maauro activated the weapon suite. We dropped through the cloud deck and saw a medium size city below us. It was less filled with sky-climbing towers than most.

  “Hey,” I said. “Some of those buildings past the towers, they’re made of stone or wood—”

  “Yes,” Maauro said. “Likely that means more recent manufacture. This town was reoccupied until recently.” Her voice ended on a grim note. “Wrik there are decomposed bodies in the streets. Skeletons. I also see blast and fire damage in the sections of recent construction.”

  “That’s a stockade there,” I said, pointing. “It looks like it was hit by a tornado, that’s not blast damage.”

  “No,” Maauro said. “It looks more like it was trampled.”

  I stared at her, but before I could ask more, Maauro said. “Let us land and examine the area.”

  I looked down at the dead city and the more recently destroyed village that had sat snug alongside it. Reluctance filled me.

  “What happened here,” she added, “was not very recent. Months, I judge.”

  Maauro’s instincts were usually sound. I sighed. “Ok.”