“Sir,” a comm tech said. “There’s an incoming message from the New Man.”
Maddox nodded.
Don Del Franco appeared on the main screen, eying the captain in a superior way. “You’re making a wise choice surrendering the Bernard Shaw, Captain. We have the stronger force, although it was always possible that you might have damaged one of our vessels if we fought.”
Maddox had already decided on his ploy against the egotistical New Man. He would act the part of a sullen and sulking commander, as that would be what Franco expected from him. He thus stared tight-faced at the New Man.
“Come now, Captain,” Del Franco said in a paternalistic way. “You’re acting like a subhuman. You’re superior to such stunted stock to indulge in this emotionalism. You must not brood like a cretin, but learn to accept reality as it is. According to my brief on you, you are usually more sanguine. Can my truthful comments about you earlier have upset you to such a degree?”
Maddox shook his head sharply.
Del Franco laughed. “You’re so transparent, Captain. You wish to ape your betters. That is clear and perfectly understandable. Or maybe I’m reading this wrong. Could you be seething because you’re only ranked third in such a small flotilla? Perhaps you understand that your genetic heritage is far superior to the sub-men set above you.”
“You have something of mine,” Maddox said.
“Oh?”
“The Sulla 7,” Maddox snapped.
Del Franco lofted dark eyebrows. “What does that even mean?”
“Don’t lie,” Maddox said. “I know you captured the Nerva hauler from the Spacers. They stole it from us, filled with Usan crystals and varth elixir.”
“Captain, your logic is flawed. We took nothing from you.”
“I didn’t say you took it from us. I said it is ours.”
“Don’t you know the fundamental rule of the universe?” Del Franco asked. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
“Meaning?”
“Quite simply, when we encountered the Spacers, they possessed the Sulla 7. We took it from them, using a basic axiom of life. The predator takes from the prey. If you wish for compensation regarding the Sulla 7, you must take it up with the foolhardy Spacers—providing they survive their unaccustomed daring in nearing us as they’re doing.”
“So you don’t deny—”
“Captain!” Del Franco said. “I grow weary of your insulting tone. But that is a secondary issue. I wish to know why no one aboard the Bernard Shaw is answering our hails.”
“It isn’t my ship anymore,” Maddox said sullenly. “Thus, I have no idea.”
Don Del Franco’s dark eyes glittered with malice. “Have a care, Captain. I am not a subhuman who takes well to having anything thrown in my teeth. There are supposed to be Dominants aboard the vessel. I demand an immediate explanation as to their whereabouts.”
“I’m already giving you the ship,” Maddox said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“Giving us the ship was due to fear, reasonable fear, as we possess the superior vessels. You were and are acting in your own enlightened self-interest. I suggest you continue doing so before I become angry with you. Where are the Dominants?”
“I don’t know,” Maddox grumbled.
Del Franco shook his head. “I do not wish to activate my disrupter cannons. But if you maintain this mulish—”
“The Dominants are asleep on the Q-ship,” Maddox said.
Suspicion grew on Del Franco’s golden features. “Why are they asleep?”
“Because we used their paranoia against them,” Maddox said. “They held Doctor Dana Rich, and we wanted her back.”
Del Franco stared through the main screen at Maddox. “That does not make sense. Are you suggesting that you outthought Dominants?”
“Yes.”
After a moment, Del Franco began to nod, as if he’d figured something out. “You’re being coy with me, Captain. You’re trying to maintain airs. I know you have succeeded several times against Throne World Dominants—”
“You and I are supposed to be allies,” Maddox said, interrupting. “But you haven’t treated us as allies. Know, sir, that I am recording this and will bring it up for arbitration.”
Del Franco scoffed. “Don’t you understand that I’m not a signer of that ridiculous accord? That means I’m not bound by the unholy agreement between the Commonwealth and the Throne World.”
“That isn’t what Tars Womack told me.”
Del Franco stiffened.
Maddox grinned at the New Man as if he’d scored a point in a complex game.
“Womack is on your ship?” Del Franco demanded.
“He’s my captive,” Maddox boasted.
Del Franco turned to someone off screen on his bridge.
“Now,” Maddox said.
Valerie stared at a control on her panel. She raised a trembling hand. With a swift move, she brought her hand down and tapped the control.
That sent a pulse from Victory to the Bernard Shaw. The Q-ship presently drifted between the five star cruisers, meaning it was much closer to them than to Victory or the Moltke.
On the main screen, Del Franco turned to Maddox. “What just happened? Why did you send an impulse to the—”
At that moment, the stacked antimatter warheads crammed aboard the Bernard Shaw detonated in one fantastic explosion. The detonation vaporized the Q-ship and all the sleeping Bosks aboard. There hadn’t been enough time to take them off. Thus, the Bosks perished just as the vessel itself ceased to exist.
The antimatter explosion grew as heat and x-rays and gamma rays, along with a giant EMP, radiated in every direction. The combined destructive force hit the five star cruisers. The powerful shields winked out against the incandescent fury of the incredible antimatter annihilation. The heavy armor proved just as effective as the shields—melting and vaporizing to nothingness. That left the bulkheads, the water coils, engines, storage compartments, people and other sundry items aboard each vessel. They were destroyed or dead in seconds. There were no survivors, although there were particles of debris that spewed outward at high velocity.
It was a brutal sneak attack committed with underhanded deception. The Bosks and New Men alike perished.
Maddox derived no joy from the annihilation. He had seen it as the logical answer, however. He had to get on with the mission and destroy Swarm nexuses. If he didn’t get to it quickly enough, nothing was going to matter.
Extreme need had brought about extreme action.
Victory and the Moltke had maneuvered beforehand in such a way as to put more distance between the star cruisers and them. At this point, the Spacer ships were closer to the detonated Q-ship than the Star Watch vessels were.
The annihilating blast dissipated in strength as it continued to expand. That blast now hit the Spacer shields, darkening each of them. The distance was just enough that none of the twelve shields went down.
The shields of Victory and Moltke also darkened, although not to the same degree as the saucer-shaped vessels, which had had been closer to the original detonation site.
“Accelerate,” Maddox told Helm. “Warm up the disrupter and neutron cannons,” he told Weapons. “Valerie, tell Tancred to ram down the Spacers’ throats. We’re going to take them out before their shields can dissipate the energies blackening them.”
Amid the aftermath of the cruel antimatter blast, the two Star Watch vessels began accelerating at the twelve weaker Spacer ships. The sensors on all the warships showed whiteout. It would take time for the sensors to “see” again. During that time, Maddox and Tancred drove at the known locations of the Spacer ships.
“Are we sure the Spacers were going to help the New Men?” Valerie asked.
“We’ve been over that,” Maddox said. “We can’t be one hundred percent sure what they were trying to do. But this is the wrong time to worry about niceties. We should have already started on our mission, yet here we are in the Usan System. That’s going
to end now.”
“I know all that,” Valerie said.
“Then do your task,” Maddox said, sternly. “Leave the thinking to me.”
An unpleasant silence filled the bridge.
Maddox brooded on his command chair. He’d murdered innocent Bosks. He knew that, and it bothered him. The New Men—they were Lord Drakos’s kinsmen. Maybe he’d struck with an under-the-belt blow against them, but all was fair in love and war.
So why did he feel guilty?
Maddox shook his head. As he did, he happened to notice a tight-lipped Lieutenant Noonan. Maddox sighed. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so rough with her a moment ago. He used to be that way all the time, but he’d changed his manner, at least to a degree, in order for smoother functioning. It hadn’t really been that much of a rebuke, but—
Damnit. He hated this sort of thing. Still, it was good for him to bend occasionally if it helped crew morale. It didn’t help, however, that he hated doing this.
“Lieutenant,” Maddox said in a gruff voice.
Valerie barely looked up at him.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did a second ago,” Maddox told her. “I’m…I’m sorry.”
Valerie nodded, and she looked at him.
He gave her a nod, and he tried to tell her with that nod that he really was sorry he’d said what he had in the tone he’d used.
“I’m fine, sir,” Valerie said, her voice telling him that she really was. “We’re in the middle of battle. I understand.”
Maddox nodded again, in appreciation. He’d made the correct morale decision. That was good. Maybe it was even wise.
The captain sat up, looked at the main screen, saw that the whiteout was dissipating, and knew it was time to kill the Spacers.
-51-
The Bismarck-class battleship and Victory hit the twelve saucer-shaped vessels head-on. The Moltke was an older vessel, but it had been designed and constructed for exactly this type of fight. It had heavy shields, heavy armor and upgraded cannons. It was made to slug it out with similar kinds of warships.
Each saucer-shaped vessel had a bulbous core and a thin outer ring like the planet Saturn. They had much weaker hull armor and shields of maybe half the strength of Moltke’s. Those shields were still black and slowly turning purple in areas as the dissipating process began.
The same was true for Victory and the Moltke’s shields, that they slowly dissipated the horrible blocked energies. Their shields were quite a bit stronger, however. They hadn’t gone as dark, and thus dissipated more easily and more rapidly. The two Star Watch vessels were heavier and stronger, the Spacer ships were quicker and more nimble.
As Maddox leaned forward on his command chair, he wondered about the Spacer plan, why they’d jumped near the Bernard Shaw. The only thing that made sense was that Mako and Del Franco had been in collusion against him.
“When have Spacers and New Men ever acted in concert?” Ludendorff was asking. “I can’t think of a time. They are like cats and dogs, natural enemies.”
“That’s not true,” Valerie said. “In Detroit, my dad had a pit bull and a Siamese cat that loved each other, Hank and Daisy Mae. You couldn’t tear them apart, not even at suppertime.”
“That’s an unnatural exception,” Ludendorff said, not missing a beat. “But exceptions often prove the point. You remember the strangeness of the affair because you recognized even then that cat and dogs should hate each other.”
“I’ve never thought that,” Valerie said, stubbornly.
Ludendorff waved his right hand. “My point remains the same: Spacers and New Men have seldom to never mixed. Can anyone think of a time they’ve done so?”
“I can,” Maddox said.
“Where?” asked Ludendorff.
“Here in the Usan System.”
“No, no,” Ludendorff said. “You’re missing my point. We don’t really know why the Spacers jumped so near the Q-ship.”
“What if they wanted payback against the New Men?” Valerie asked.
“Yes, that’s my point,” Ludendorff said. “Don Del Franco as much as admitted to us earlier that Mako was right. The New Men had taken the Nerva hauler.”
“That actually proves my point,” Maddox said, as the two Star Watch warships remorselessly closed to pointblank range against the Spacers. “They were acting together against us.”
“My boy, you’re thinking with your emotions, as Del Franco suggested. You seldom do so—”
“Galyan,” Maddox said, interrupting. “Target Mako’s ship first.”
“I am picking up strange readings, sir,” Galyan said. “It is from Mako’s ship. She appears to have unique equipment aboard her vessel.”
“Captain,” Ludendorff said. “Perhaps we can bargain with the Spacers.”
“There’s no more time for that,” Maddox said. “The Spacers robbed Usan III and abused people with mind control. I’m putting a stop to that once and for all.”
“But if you’re mistaken about their intent—”
“Fire,” Maddox said, speaking over Ludendorff.
Galyan looked at the captain in a questioning way.
“Fire!” Maddox repeated, as he pounded his armrest.
The starship’s antimatter engines purred with power, and a yellow disrupter beam shot out of the terrible cannon. A second later, the neutron beam lashed out at a secondary target.
Commodore Tancred followed the captain’s example as the Moltke’s heavy beams began to churn.
Now began a true slaughter only minutes after the annihilation of the five star cruisers. The Spacer shields were weak and went down at almost the first touch of the Star Watch beams.
“Why aren’t they firing back?” Ludendorff wondered aloud.
“Keep firing, Galyan,” Maddox said. “We’re striking while the iron’s hot.”
Finally, a different saucer-shaped ship winked away as its star drive mechanism engaged. Another followed the first.
“Don’t let any more get away,” Maddox said.
Five saucer-shaped vessels had already become molten debris. There had been two heavy explosions. With others, chunks and plates of broken metal hull and bulkheads drifted aimlessly in the stellar darkness.
The other Spacer ships engaged their star drives as the Moltke and Victory continued to lash out with their heavy beams. Two more enemy vessels crumbled under the intense assault, breaking apart as interior explosions ripped through the expanding debris.
During that time, the rest of the Spacer vessels winked away, each using a star-drive jump to flee the carnage.
Galyan scanned a widening area, but none of the Spacer ships appeared in the zones. It was more than likely they had made light-year jumps, getting far away from the murderous Star Watch warships.
Maddox sank back, relieved. The burden of command and the risk of all these lives under him had kept him tense throughout the proceedings. He’d risked everything against the New Men, hoping to trick them with the Bernard Shaw’s detonation, and it had worked.
The Spacers had thrown a wrinkle into his plan. But by doing so, they’d handed him a golden opportunity. He’d exploited the opportunity ruthlessly, destroying seven enemy saucer-ships. He hadn’t expected that.
Five had gotten away, but he’d nailed seven of the troublemakers.
“That was too easy,” Ludendorff said from his panel.
“Easy?” Maddox asked, stung by the words. “That wasn’t easy.”
The captain stopped talking as his gut churned. He’d murdered innocents today in order to win. He’d done so because he had to win. He had the answer to the Swarm problem, which meant he had to save his people so he could save Human Space.
“I smell a rat,” Ludendorff declared. “The Spacer move… It had a hidden motive that we’re not seeing.”
Maddox refused to respond.
“I am picking up a distress beacon,” Galyan said.
Maddox couldn’t help himself. He traded glances with the professor. Ludendor
ff gave him a look that said, “Here it is, the hidden motive.”
“Where’s the signal coming from?” Maddox asked.
“From the debris of Mako’s flagship,” Galyan said. “I am detecting a life-pod, sir.”
“I tell you,” Ludendorff said, “that was far too easy. The Spacer vessels had no reason to jump so near the Bernard Shaw.”
“What do you suggest I do?” Maddox asked, beginning to wonder if the professor was right.
Ludendorff thought about it before looking up. “Under no circumstances should you rescue the life-pod.”
“Are you suggesting the Spacers knew we would attack them?” Maddox asked. “No. It would have to be more than that. Do you think they knew we would detonate the Q-ship and thus came close enough so their shields took a near overload? The idea seems farfetched—why would Mako allow seven of her ships to perish?”
“I’m making no such assumptions,” Ludendorff said. “I’m simply acknowledging that this easy slaughter, these back to back amazingly stunning victories, are against the odds to a stark degree.”
“The two victories derived from the same Bernard Shaw detonation,” Galyan pointed out.
“I know all that,” Ludendorff said. “I’m suspicious. I’m sensing…a hidden hand attempting to maneuver us in ways we don’t understand. I cannot give you a concrete reason as to why I feel this, but the life-pod definitely proves my point.”
Maddox recalled his meetings with the old Visionary years ago. The ancient woman had claimed to possess the ability to see into the future. Could Spacers really see into the future, at least some of the time? If they could, could they have set up a diabolical plan to plant Mako on their starship? Instead of having a hidden android, they would have a hidden Spacer, as it were.
“Should I hail the life-pod?” Valerie asked.
Maddox eyed Ludendorff. The Methuselah Man had gained fantastic insights by using the Builder artifact. Might the professor have a point about this two-stage battle being far too easy? He’d seldom won so handily before.
Why had the Spacers jumped so near the Bernard Shaw? Now that he thought about it—
The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9) Page 27
