Valerie stood up. “Take out that Q-ship. Fire!”
Sub-lieutenant Stimson tapped his board. The disrupter and neutron beams no longer hit the last Q-ship’s shield. Instead, they both fired on the original Q-ship. The beams licked through the hull and swept through the vessel, smashing down living quarters, storage areas, engine compartments and the special coils making up the tri-weapon Galyan had detected. Something about those coils erupted with violent force. They exploded, beginning a chain-reaction throughout the Q-ship.
At that point, the freighter-like ship blew apart in a titanic blast. The blast shredded the sister Q-ship beside it, destroying the vessel. It did so without starting another chain-reaction blast, though. The first wave explosion struck the powerful shield of the last Q-ship.
The shield went red, brown, black, and barely held on.
The strange blast-wave reached the Missile Cruiser Defiant, destroying it as the sleek vessel simply crumpled under the assault.
The Moltke’s shield had just shimmered into existence. The shield took the brunt of the wave-blast, going down in the end, but absorbing enough that the heavy armor stopped any further damage to the battleship and its crew inside.
Victory’s shields proved more powerful, which surprised no one.
Valerie had slumped back into the command chair. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. Under her orders, two Q-ships and a Star Watch missile cruiser had ceased to exist. She would be court-martialed for this. Without knowing it, she groaned, feeling sick at heart.
“Lieutenant,” Andros said.
Valerie was blinking in disbelief at the main screen.
“Lieutenant,” Andros said again.
Turning slowly as if her neck was rusted, she looked at the Chief Technician. He was worried. “What is it now?” she asked.
“The Laumer Point,” he said. “I’m detecting gravity waves where none were before.”
“Meaning what?” she said, sounding groggy.
“I suspect cloaked vessels have just come out of the Laumer Point,” Andros said. “They wouldn’t have arrived cloaked, of course, due to Jump Lag, but we must not have noticed them appearing. They’re cloaked now. I’m counting twelve separate gravity fields.”
“He means Spacer saucer ships have arrived, Valerie,” Galyan said.
“Where are they?” she asked Andros.
“I just said,” Andros told her. “They’ve come out of the nearby Laumer Point. That’s near the system’s first planet.”
Valerie stared at the main screen. She’d just destroyed three friendly vessels, ruining her career and killing however many innocent people. And now the Spacers were back, with twelve cloaked saucer ships? Could these twelve take out a Q-ship, the Moltke and Victory?
“Galyan,” Valerie said. “I need to talk to the captain.”
-35-
Maddox had decided on a bold move. During the short battle, he, Ludendorff, Riker and Meta had rushed through the battleship’s corridors. Maddox and Ludendorff guided an anti-gravity sled with a suited and subdued O’Hara on it. Riker and Meta guided a second sled with a bound and gagged Draegar 2 on it.
The four of them wore medical garb, complete with surgical masks. They hurried toward a hangar bay, a special one, which according to Ludendorff held two Moltke fold-fighters.
The combat klaxons no longer sounded in the corridors. The commodore had come on the intra-ship comm system, explaining to the crew what had just occurred.
“If anyone has spotted Captain Maddox or Professor Ludendorff, contact the bridge at once,” the commodore added. “Consider the two dangerous. If anyone knows the whereabouts of Commander Jard, I want to know immediately. Commander, if you’re hearing this message, please report to the bridge at once.”
Commodore Tam Tancred said more, but nothing further pertaining to Maddox and his team.
The commodore was a relatively young woman according to the brief Maddox had read on her before arriving on the Moltke. She was an up and coming star, the reason she had become a commodore at such a young age and why she commanded a battleship, even if it was an older Bismarck-class.
The four of them continued to race down the corridors, passing various people. None of the crew gave them an extra glance. The disguises were doing their job. The Moltke had just been in battle. It made sense that people were hurt, possibly dying, needing medical attention.
“Here comes the hard part,” Maddox said, as they approached the hangar-bay hatch. “Let me do the talking,” he told professor.
Ludendorff had taken to brooding again, and did not answer or acknowledge that he’d heard the captain.
“If you want to see Dana again…” Maddox said.
Ludendorff looked up sharply. “We may have just killed Dana. Two Q-ships no longer exist. The odds are that Dana was aboard one of the two.”
“Maybe,” Maddox said. “Maybe she wasn’t aboard any of the Q-ships. As you pointed out before, much of what we believe is speculation.”
Ludendorff grunted, and he didn’t seem quite as distraught as he had seconds before.
The hatch slid open as they reached it, and the four of them pushed their anti-gravity sleds through toward one of the fold-fighters. Incredibly, only a few personnel were in the special hangar-bay. None of them were MPs or Star Watch marines.
“Can you fly a fold-fighter?” Maddox asked.
“If I must,” the Methuselah Man said.
“Let’s do this,” Maddox said.
The four of them brought their sleds to the nearest tin can. Maddox punched in a code, but the hatch remained shut.
“You there,” the captain shouted at a man. “Come here.”
A tech came running.
“Open this,” Maddox told him.
The thin man stepped back in alarm.
Maddox drew a gun and poked the tech in the stomach. “I can kill you if you want to display your patriotism and bravery for everyone. It’s all the same to me. One of your fellows can do the smart deed for me. You’ll be my example.”
“No,” the tech whispered. “Don’t shoot me. I’ll open the fighter.”
Maddox indicated the hatch.
With a few swift taps, the tech complied.
As the hatch slid open, Maddox used the handle of his gun and struck the tech a sharp blow on the back and base of his neck. The poor sod crumbled to the deck.
“Was that really necessary?” Meta asked.
“It wasn’t for us,” Maddox said, “but for him. Now, he can point to the bruise and show he stood up to us.”
“You should have struck him on the forward part of his body then,” Ludendorff said. “A brave man has scars on his chest and face. A coward has scars on his back and neck.”
“Climb aboard,” Maddox said dryly. “We can debate the ethics of my actions later.”
They hurried in, securing the prisoners in a side compartment. The rest of them piled into the small piloting chamber.
“What if they don’t open the main hangar-bay hatch?” Ludendorff said.
“Why would that matter?” Maddox asked. “We have a fold-fighter. We’re not even going to lift-off, but fold directly to Victory.”
Ludendorff stiffened. “May I point out that Victory likely has its shields up? The shields will have to come down before I can do that.”
Maddox snapped his fingers. “Piece of cake.”
Ludendorff frowned and began shaking his head. “I am not a daredevil like your fool of an ace. If I perform such a maneuver, I will have shown that my skills are superior. I do not think you wish me to crush his ego like that.”
“If you can’t do it,” Maddox said. “Tell me now.”
“Of course I can do it.”
“Then lay in the coordinates.”
“But I have a few reservations,” Ludendorff added. “A single miscalculation could see us fold into Victory’s hull.”
“Don’t miscalculate,” Maddox said.
“Might I suggest we simply fly to the starship
?”
Maddox ruminated a moment, and nodded. “Maybe that would be wiser. Fold out of here and appear behind Victory in relation to the rest of the flotilla.”
“You mean the Moltke?”
“That will work,” Maddox said.
“This way, you don’t have call Victory and give away our position to the commodore or the last Q-ship.”
“Can the last Q-ship hurt us anymore?” Maddox asked. “They just had the tri-gun, right?”
“Wrong,” Ludendorff said. “The Q-beam was their deadliest weapon. The last ship is far from powerless, especially in relation to a fold-fighter.”
“I hate to interrupt the jawing,” Riker said. “But we have company coming. I suggest whatever we’re going to do, we do it now.”
Maddox and Ludendorff looked up at Riker’s side screen. Moltke MPs raced into the hangar bay. Others followed dragging a portable flamer.
“Any time you’re ready, Professor,” Maddox said.
Ludendorff manipulated his board. The tin can’s engines purred as the small vessel began to shake.
“Better hurry,” Riker said. “According to my sensor, the Moltke’s shield generators have just come online. If the shield comes up—”
“Blast it!” Ludendorff said, hitting the piloting board. “Someone is using an override code. I’m not going to be able to fold. This is insufferable. Someone is outthinking me.”
Maddox figured it must be this Tam Tancred. She would have the override code readily available on the bridge. He’d hoped to move so fast that she wouldn’t have thought of it in time.
“Right,” the captain said. “Now we do this the hard way.”
Riker looked at him abashed. “The four of us are going to storm the bridge?”
“What?” Maddox asked. “Don’t be ridiculous. No. I have something else in mind, a distasteful procedure.” He shook his head sharply like a lion shaking water off its paw.
“The portable flamer is almost ready,” Riker said, staring at his side screen. “They’ll burn us if we try to come out and charge them.”
Maddox gulped air, holding it and letting it out slowly. Then he stood and hurried toward the hatch.
-36-
Forty-five minutes later, Maddox finished his explanation as he stood on the bridge of the Moltke. Five burly military police guarded him, with drawn guns aimed at his back. He’d traded the fold-fighter’s safe passage to Victory by giving himself into the commodore’s custody.
Commodore Tam Tancred eyed him curiously from her command chair. She’d been absorbing the tale without objections or comments but with lively interest.
The commodore was a small woman with a buzz cut and a hawk-like stare. She made swift movements when she jerked her hand or turned her head. Otherwise, she held herself motionless. She now slid out of her chair and circled Maddox and the MPs. She had a shapely ass, indicating hours on a treadmill and possibly doing lunges or weighted squats. Her features were too pinched to be called good-looking, but she was slender like a rapier and her uniform was sharply creased and so clean it was shiny.
After completing a circuit, she stopped before the captain, although a ways from him. She must have never dealt with a New Man before. Maddox was only half New Man, but he still had astonishing reflexes and speed. He could attack, and probably grab and turn her before any of the MPs fired their guns. But she clearly didn’t know that, surely thinking her distance from him was enough for her safety.
“This fantastic tale you spout—”
“Is the truth,” Maddox said, interrupting her. “Brigadier O’Hara has been brainwashed. I believe by the bronze-colored Bosk now in Victory’s custody.”
“I know you killed the other two,” she said. “We found their corpses where your people hid them. You broke their necks. That strikes me as a passionate killing. Yet, you do not seem like the demonstrative sort. From everything I’ve heard about you, you’re supposed to be the ultimate realist, which indicates little emotion. Thus, you did not personally kill the other two.”
That seemed like false logic, but the commodore might be more amenable to him if he pretended to be impressed with her deductive skills.
“Meta killed them,” Maddox said.
“Meta is your wife?”
Maddox nodded.
“You may be interested to know that the last Q-ship’s captain called,” Tam said. “He demanded the return of the Draegar. If he hadn’t called before you made your offer, I wouldn’t even be talking with you. He did not request this, you understand, but demanded it quite insistently.”
“You’ve never heard of the Draegar before this?”
“I’ve seen the three people you and the Q-ship’s captain call the Draegar. That I’ve never heard those three supposed techs called that before and now discover their importance…”
“That proves my testimony,” Maddox said.
“Indeed it does not,” Tam said. “But it lends credence to the idea that I have not been informed of all the facts. Ludendorff fled with your people. You also took O’Hara without my realizing it. I am aware that she went to the Tau Ceti Station alone, as I commanded the Moltke then, too. I admit that I’m stunned to discover you’ve amazingly subdued all the Bosk space marines on my battleship, and without any of us noticing. That was a skilled feat.”
The commodore frowned, which put a vertical line between her eyes, and she spoke with a new, complaining tone. “I never liked having the Bosks here. I never understood why my regular marines had to go aboard their Q-ships. Now, most of my marines are dead, killed by your people’s savage attack. I suppose my remaining marines have already gone under the Bosk mind conditioning on the last Q-ship, if what you’ve been saying is true.”
“Commodore, how familiar are you with the Methuselah Men?”
“What’s your point?”
“Strand and Ludendorff are cagy, slippery, brilliant and fantastically egotistical. Whenever they’re involved in a problem, it leads to a convoluted situation. Our present dilemma is nothing compared to some earlier adventures. You’re a straightforward Star Watch officer. I respect that. Intelligence operations that include Methuselah Men and New Men…” Maddox shook his head. “They’re always messy.”
“I’ve yet to see direct evidence that New Men are involved in any of this,” the commodore said. “It is true that to a degree you have their physiology.”
Maddox stiffened.
She noticed, cataloging that. “What do you suggest I do now?”
“Essentially what you’re already doing,” Maddox said. “Regain control of your battleship by keeping the Bosk marines and techs under guard and preferably in the brig.”
“There are too many of them for the brig.”
“Whatever you do, keep them secured, tied up if you have to. Events are going to shake themselves loose soon enough. Spacers are out there. New Men might be hiding in the last Q-ship. It’s possible Doctor Dana Rich—”
“Who?”
“She’s the professor’s woman.”
The commodore nodded thoughtfully.
“Work with me,” Maddox said. “Maybe we can free your last space marines. Maybe, if they’ve undergone conditioning, we can break the enemy’s hold over their minds.”
“If my last space marines are brainwashed, I would be foolish to give them freedom of movement on the Moltke.”
“Agreed,” Maddox said.
“Or,” Tam said, “I could put you in the brig or trade you for Brigadier O’Hara. I didn’t realize you had her when I agreed to your terms. In that sense, you were not forthcoming with me.”
“I admit to some desperation earlier.”
“You deceived me.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“But I would,” Tam said, “and I’m holding the ace card—you, the leader for your side. Once I exchange you for O’Hara, I can go home and report to the Lord High Admiral.”
“Maybe,” Maddox said. “But suppose everything I’ve said is true,
especially that the brigadier has been brainwashed. Once she returns here, she might countermand your orders and make you do something foolish again.”
Tam turned away.
“The brigadier already made you exchange your marines for Bosk marines,” Maddox said, slipping in his argument like a knifeman putting a blade between his foe’s ribs.
Tam regarded him coldly. “Victory destroyed two allied Q-ships and a Star Watch missile cruiser. That is the real crime here. I demand O’Hara and the officer responsible for firing on the Q-ship. Once I have them, you shall go free.”
“Forget it,” Maddox said.
Tam’s features twitched as if the captain had slapped her across the face. She took a step toward him.
The MPs grew more alert.
“I will not negotiate regarding Brigadier O’Hara,” the commodore said. “I demand you return her at once. If you refuse, the military police will take you to the brig. There…there you can rot until we return to Earth.”
“I can give you the brigadier, I suppose.”
“That’s more like it. I also want the officer responsible for firing on the Q-ship and thus, in effect, destroying the Defiant.”
“I’ll trade the brigadier for me,” Maddox said. “But under no circumstances will I hand over one of my people to you.”
“You most certainly will if you hope to regain your freedom.”
“My honor means more to me,” Maddox said.
“What are you even saying?”
“The officer in question acted under my direct orders. I need no scapegoat nor do I make any apologies for what she did. After all of this is over, I’ll explain what happened to the Lord High Admiral and accept whatever punishment he deems fit.”
The faintest of frowns touched the commodore’s lips. “They say you’re a notorious liar.”
“They also say I’m a strict man of my word.”
“That’s what a liar would say.”
“Commodore Tancred, the Swarm have begun their second round of invasions into Human Space. Soon, hundreds of thousands of Imperial warships will be here. They will crush humanity out of existence and burn our planets to the bedrock. That is a fact. You know I fought to stop them before. You know I’ve done more than anyone else to give humanity a fighting chance against the bugs.”
The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9) Page 19
