The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “What?” she said.

  “I have already scanned the fold-fighter, Valerie. It is inert, motionless. I have also scanned the interior, detecting the captain, Meta, Riker and Keith.”

  “Roger that,” Valerie said grimly. “Weapons, target the missiles first. We’re going to take them out while we can.”

  The bridge crew started working smoothly as the last vestiges of Jump Lag slogged from the machines and the people. The ship’s great antimatter engines began to thrum. Then, the deadly disrupter cannon beamed the first Spacer missile zooming around Victory toward the drifting fold-fighter. The deadly ray burned down one missile after another. It almost seemed as if the Spacers wanted them to do this.

  “Lieutenant,” Andros said from his board. “I’m detecting more gravity waves.”

  “Be more specific,” Valerie said.

  “The gravity waves are all around us,” Andros said in astonishment. “I count…four more cloaked vessels. Nine saucer ships are enough to destroy us if we fight them head to head.”

  “I didn’t ask for your recommendation,” Valerie snapped. “I don’t want you trying to slip your opinions in. I just want facts.”

  Andros nodded.

  “Valerie,” the holoimage said. “We cannot abandon the captain to the Spacers.”

  “Don’t you start, Galyan,” Valerie warned. “I know my job.”

  “I trust you to do the right thing, Valerie,” Galyan said.

  Lieutenant Noonan glanced at the little holoimage. He looked worried. Why did she keep forgetting that the alien AI had genuine emotions? Maddox, Meta, Riker and Keith were most of the holoimage’s family.

  “Don’t fret, Galyan,” she told him. “I have no intention of letting the Spacers kill the captain.”

  “Thank you, Valerie.”

  “No!” Andros said, as the Chief Technician studied his board. “This is bad. The enemy—”

  “Are they using dampener rays against us?” the lieutenant asked.

  “They are,” Andros said. “The Spacers are making sure we can’t jump out of danger. In my opinion, they mean to destroy us and are targeting the fold-fighter as a ploy.”

  Valerie bent her head in thought. Once more, Andros had given his unasked for opinion. She would deal with that at the proper time. But he had a point. She mentally juggled options and came to a swift conclusion. She would not let nine Spacer saucer ships defeat her or kill the captain, and Keith Maker.

  “How many fold-fighters do we have in the hangar bay?” Valerie asked.

  “Five,” Galyan said.

  “Right,” Valerie said, her features becoming even sterner than before.

  She decided to attempt a deadly tactic. It could work, but it could also backfire and possibly destroy Victory. She didn’t see any other way of defeating nine saucer ships, though. They couldn’t run. What other choice did she have? None that she could see.

  “Galyan,” Valerie said breathlessly, “instruct the pilots to arm with antimatter missiles.”

  “Antimatter?” asked Andros. “The enemy is only three hundred thousand kilometers away. We don’t—do we want to launch antimatter missiles that close to us?”

  Valerie slammed a fist against an armrest. “The Spacers want to fight. Okay. We’ll fight nine of them at once, but we’re going to play hardball. Do you have a better idea that has us winning, Chief Technician?”

  Andros Crank turned pale, his lips moved soundlessly and finally, he shook his head.

  “What about the captain, Valerie?” Galyan asked. “Do we leave him to his fate?”

  She stared at Galyan. “No! One of the fold-fighters is going to collect the captain. Make it the last member of the squadron. He will not arm with an antimatter missile. Only after the pilot has returned the captain and others to Victory, will he arm with a missile and join in the attack. One way or another,” she added, “we have to destroy nine Spacer ships.”

  On the main screen, the five visible saucer-shaped vessels continued to pound Victory’s shield with their ultra-white beams. The ancient Adok starship lashed out with both the disrupter and older neutron beam. One after another, Spacer missiles heading toward the drifting fold-fighter blew up.

  “Are any of the cloaked ships trying to work behind us for a shot at the captain?” Valerie asked.

  “Two,” Galyan said.

  Valerie glanced at the weapons officer, a newer member of the team, a small young man with pinched features and dark hair. He looked nervous, not like Smith-Fowler who had been with them when they had gone into the deep Beyond. There was no doubt the new officer had a right to be nervous. This was a critical moment, his first under intense pressure. Galyan would be better at targeting, even if the captain didn’t always like having the AI handle such key tasks. Even Maddox had Galyan fire sometimes. If she failed today, the captain, Keith and maybe everyone aboard Victory would die. This was a hardnosed moment, and she’d better make the right decision.

  “Galyan,” she said, “take over targeting and firing.”

  The weapons officer glanced at her sharply.

  “You will only do so for the moment,” Valerie added, deliberately not meeting the officer’s dark gaze.

  The holoimage nodded. “It is done, Valerie. I have control.”

  “Target the enemy ship nearest our crippled fold-fighter,” she said. “Let’s see if we can destroy one and chase away the other.”

  Precious seconds ticked away as nothing happened.

  “Well?” Valerie demanded.

  “Pinpointing the exact position of the cloaked ship is harder when targeting for a kill shot,” Galyan said.

  “Fire anyway,” Valerie said.

  “I wish to show the Spacers how exceedingly dangerous our starship is,” Galyan explained. “I want to do so with a direct hit the first time. That will surely make the others nervous.”

  “I don’t want excuses,” Valerie said. “I want obedience.”

  Galyan glanced at her in surprise. “You are acting more like the captain every day, Valerie.”

  “Fire the damned beams,” Valerie shouted, wondering if she’d made a mistake taking fire control away from the weapon’s officer.

  Galyan’s features closed up.

  Valerie couldn’t believe this. The captain never seemed to have this kind of trouble. “I don’t mean to yell at you, Galyan. I just want you to hurry before the captain dies.”

  “Yes, Valerie. I understand. I am firing…now.”

  On the main screen, a yellow disrupter beam flashed out at seemingly nothing. Suddenly, the beam struck a hidden object. The object shimmered and appeared—a Spacer saucer vessel with a shield already turning purple and heading for black.

  “Nail them, Galyan,” Valerie said, as she hunched forward.

  The other saucer-shaped vessels de-cloaked, pouring more ultra-white beams at Victory. That did not help the one under attack, but it considerably weakened the starship’s shield.

  “Use the neutron beam as well,” Valerie said. “Destroy it.”

  Seconds later, the purple neutron beam struck the same saucer-shaped vessel. Its shield turned black and suddenly collapsed.

  The two beams from Victory struck the Spacer armor.

  “That plating won’t last long,” Valerie said. It was something they had all learned from experience.

  “If it is the same kind of plating as the last time we faced Spacers,” Galyan said. “They may have improved their armor, although I am not detecting that.”

  Abruptly, the disrupter beam smashed through the armor and dug into the saucer ship’s interior. It did deadly damage, destroying all sorts of systems and killing people. Other Spacers outside the direct beam or the nearby heat no doubt died from heavy radiation poisoning. Then, the disrupter beam struck the main engine. Four second later, the saucer-shaped ship blew apart, sending armor, innards, water vapor and people parts in all directions.

  “Target the next ship,” Valerie shouted, knowing she should speak cal
mly but unable to achieve it.

  “Our shield is badly weakening,” Andros warned her. “We can’t withstand much more of this.”

  Valerie checked the readings. The shield did not have separate red areas anymore. With eight ultra-white beams striking, the entire shield had turned deep purple. Some areas had begun to turn black. If the Spacers were clever—

  “The enemy missiles are changing heading,” Galyan said.

  Valerie ground her teeth together. The enemy was smart. “They’re going to try to slip the missiles through our weakened shield,” Valerie said, speaking before anyone could tell her. That was one way to keep the others from giving her unsolicited advice.

  “You are correct,” Galyan said.

  Valerie was already biting a knuckle, worrying about the missiles. She’d gotten cocky. Victory could defeat six saucer ships coming at them normally, without Jump Lag given the enemy a head start. The five had gotten solid hits against the starship, and now there were eight enemy vessels. That was too many to defeat.

  “Where are my fold-fighters?” she shouted.

  Even as she asked, Andros tapped his board, saying, “If you’ll look at Screen B, Lieutenant.”

  She did.

  On the screen, four specks winked into view. The fold-fighter pilots had taken special injections, and they had each been selected partly because they could shake off Jump Lag faster than others.

  Four antimatter missiles launched. The big missiles accelerated hard, zooming at nearby enemy vessels a mere three hundred thousand kilometers away and closing to Victory.

  Two of the ultra-white beams stopped striking Victory’s blackened shield and speared at the fold-fighters.

  That was a mistake. They should have targeted the missiles. Each of the fold-fighters winked out, folding elsewhere. Those two beams thus speared into nothingness.

  The antimatter missiles fanned out, heading in different directions as each one targeted a different enemy ship.

  “Our shield will collapse in seconds,” Andros said.

  “Detonate the missiles now,” Valerie said. “Wash the area with antimatter pulses.”

  “This close to Victory?” asked Andros.

  Four enemy beams speared at the big antimatter missiles.

  “Our shield won’t protect us from the radiation wave,” Andros said.

  “Do it!” Valerie shouted.

  The weapon’s officer must have belatedly realized that he still had control of the missiles. The small man tapped his board.

  Even as the enemy beams touched the missiles, four violent antimatter explosions ripped through nearby space. The warheads blasted hard radiation in all directions, sending out massive EMPs, heat and gamma and x-rays.

  True to Andros’s prediction, the gamma and x-rays struck Victory’s blackened shield, overloading the gravely weakened electromagnetic defense. The entire shield collapsed. The x-rays, gamma rays and other radiation struck the heavy armor and the ablative foam behind it. Some ship systems went down immediately. Many people took heavy doses of radiation, some of them lethal levels that caused them to keel over dead.

  On the bridge, some of the equipment burned out, flashed and smoked. Klaxons wailed and alerts blinked on and off.

  “What’s happening out there, Galyan?” Valerie asked. She swallowed an anti-radiation pill, hating the big thing. The bridge was a sealed area, one of the hardest to hit, but the readings showed they were not immune this time.

  “I cannot tell yet,” the holoimage said. “My sensors are only seeing white. The antimatter warheads ignited too close to us. If the Spacers recover first…”

  Valerie’s gut clenched. Surely, some of the Spacer ships had been destroyed. A few had been too close to the antimatter explosions to survive. A few farther away might have lost their shields. Others might have taken no damage.

  She bit her lower lip with worry. She hadn’t known what else to do. How else could Victory defeat nine enemy saucer vessels? Had she just doomed the starship? Believing that was possible was an awful feeling. What about Keith and the others? Had the designated fold-fighter rescued them before the antimatter blasts had washed through their area?

  Valerie leaned forward, waiting, hating this part of space battle. The whiteout was already lessening. Once they could see again, what would they find?

  -21-

  Captain Maddox and the others, including a wounded Keith Maker, sat out the antimatter blasts inside a special container compartment in one of Victory’s hangar bays.

  The designated fold-fighter had reached them in time, bringing them back to a hangar bay. The fighter had not retrieved the drifting, almost destroyed fold-fighter, though. Even though that tin can had been the last to receive the already dissipating antimatter waves, they had been enough to shred the vessel into many different parts.

  There were many emergency compartments throughout the starship. As Maddox waited in his, seething inside, he wondered how many of the crew had escaped the radiation poisoning.

  Finally, an all-clear signal flashed over the hatch.

  Maddox donned a radiation suit.

  “Is it wise going out there so soon?” Meta asked from a steel bench.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Maddox secured the helmet, went through the lock and stepped into the hangar bay. Some of the personnel who hadn’t reached a container were sitting on the deck, gasping, looking pained; a few seemed to be in agony.

  The captain clenched his jaw. He couldn’t directly help the hurting right now, as he had other pressing business. Then, he saw radiation-suited medical people hurrying to the rad-poisoned.

  Good.

  Maddox spun on his heel and hurried for an exit. In moments, he broke into a sprint, his radiation suit crinkling as he ran.

  He witnessed the effects of ship-wide radiation poisoning. Some of the most heavily saturated personnel lay gasping on their backs, seeming as if they would die. Maddox yearned to stop and help, but he was the captain. He was responsible for the entire ship, the entire crew. Were Spacers getting ready to board and capture his starship? Did he have any healthy space marines to help him repel boarders?

  One thing surprised him, and he found it strange that it daunted him. Usually, Galyan would have appeared to greet him. That the holoimage hadn’t done so told him the situation must be dire.

  Finally, after a hard run that left him gasping and sweaty, Maddox entered the bridge.

  Medical people were already giving injections against heavy rad poisoning. Presumably, the bridge crew had already taken their anti-radiation pills. Technicians under Andros’s guidance were presently working on inoperative screens.

  “Lieutenant Noonan,” Maddox said through a helmet speaker. “Report.”

  The captain’s chair swiveled around and a haggard-looking Valerie Noonan regarded him. “Captain?” she asked. “Is that you? Are you alive?”

  Maddox twisted the helmet, taking it off, revealing his sweaty features.

  “Captain,” Galyan said. “It is good to see that you are alive.”

  “Yes,” Valerie said. “How are the others, sir?”

  “Keith should be fine,” Maddox said dryly.

  “Should, sir?” Valerie asked.

  Although it went against the grain to explain anything at the moment, Maddox told her about Keith and that they had ridden out the antimatter blast in an emergency container.

  “Thank you,” Valerie said.

  Maddox motioned abruptly, and Valerie scrambled out of his chair, making room for him.

  “Galyan,” he said. “Why aren’t the Spacers boarding us?”

  “I feel that I should make the report, sir,” Valerie said.

  Maddox did not look at her. He’d asked the AI. “Galyan,” he said.

  The holoimage glanced from Valerie to Maddox. “I believe the lieutenant made the correct tactical decision regarding the antimatter missiles.”

  “First,” Maddox said. “I do not recall asking anything about that. Second
, I will be the judge of that, not you. Simply give the report I asked for, Galyan.”

  “Yes, Captain,” the AI said. “The Spacers are not boarding because they are no longer near the starship.”

  “None of them are?” asked Maddox.

  “We destroyed one saucer ship under Valerie’s direction,” Galyan said. “The antimatter blasts appear to have destroyed two more. The rest are gone.”

  “Gone where?” Maddox asked.

  “I have not yet been able to determine that, sir. It would appear they have cloaked or used a star-drive jump of their own devising to flee the Usan System.”

  Maddox frowned, and he swiveled the chair toward Valerie. “How many saucer ships did you face?”

  “Nine, sir,” Valerie said, standing at rigid attention.

  “Nine?” Maddox asked.

  Valerie nodded stiffly.

  “Against nine…you did well to chase them off.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Valerie said, staring off into the distance.

  “Perhaps you made the best tactical decision possible, given the difficult circumstances.”

  Valerie said nothing.

  “At ease, Lieutenant.”

  Valerie spread her feet and put her hands behind her back, her posture still rigid.

  Maddox had a dilemma. It galled him to see so many dead and injured crewmembers. Those came from the antimatter explosions. However, under ordinary circumstances, the shield would have held against those blasts. That meant the eight enemy vessels had gravely weakened the shield. Without the antimatter explosions, however—

  Maddox nodded as he regarded Valerie anew. “I appreciate your decision, Lieutenant. It must have been a hard one. I believe you saved us. Thank you.”

  Valerie opened her mouth in astonishment. She closed it quickly and looked forward again.

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” Maddox said.

  Valerie began to speak, going over her decisions and the order of the events.

  Maddox watched her and observed the others as Valerie spoke. Clearly, the weapons officer felt slighted, possibly demeaned by her decision to have Galyan do the targeting. He would have to think about that one. Otherwise, Valerie had done well. She could be so prickly at times. He noticed that she was under considerable strain and probably had taken too many rads.