The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “You know what’s happening at the other nexus? I assume we’re going to another nexus.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Ludendorff said. “I know far more than you can understand. Time is running out. Now speed up. For the love of humanity, get a move on or go home.”

  Maddox blinked inside his helmet.

  “Don’t trust him,” Meta said. “This is a trick. He’s been lying all along. His latest actions prove that.”

  Maddox considered that, and from what they’d seen— “Oh, Hell,” he said. “Hang on, Meta. Listen up,” he told the others. “Return to the shuttle. I’m getting Ludendorff myself.”

  “Sir?” the marine lieutenant asked.

  “No arguments—from anyone,” Maddox said. “Like the man said, let’s get a move on.”

  -69-

  As the marine sleds peeled away, their lone space-vehicle sped toward the professor.

  “How can you trust him?” Meta asked.

  “Who says I do?” Maddox replied.

  “But…you sent everyone away. You’re picking him up.”

  “We have Dana as a hostage in the shuttle,” Maddox said. “If you and I can’t contain the professor by ourselves—”

  “But we’re doing exactly as he suggested.”

  “What if he’s telling the truth?” Maddox asked.

  “You can’t believe that, not after what he just did.”

  “His explanation about why and what he did fits better with what I’ve seen of him the past week than the reverse.”

  “You mean it fits your pride better,” Meta said.

  “No,” Maddox said. “It fits what I know better.”

  “What if the nexus kept the real Ludendorff and sent out a robot replica in his place? That’s happened before with the professor, when we were in the Xerxes System.”

  “It did,” Maddox agreed, and it was a reasonable question, as the professor might say.

  The answer to Meta’s question was his gut. He’d been wondering how he could have been so wrong about the professor. The truth was that he hadn’t been wrong—if Ludendorff was telling the truth right now. If the professor was indeed telling the truth, the Methuselah Man was still on their side, and had acted like his old self, doing what he thought was best. “Don’t ask for permission; ask for forgiveness.” The professor knew that he—Maddox—would never have let him take the stone along. But Maddox could see how having the stone inside the nexus might have been the key to everything.

  Strand had always seemed to know more about nexuses and the Builders than Ludendorff had known. The polygonal stone would have been the equalizer between them. It probably gave the professor much more knowledge than Strand had. If Ludendorff had explained the stone correctly—

  Maddox felt his old power exuding through him. He’d been feeling off lately. Was that due to his loss of spiritual power against the Ska? Or was it simply that he’d become very tired?

  Why would he feel better now all of a sudden?

  In an instant Maddox knew. They were finally getting it done. If Ludendorff had accomplished his part, a hyper-spatial tube should appear soon. The professor had said it was five thousand light-years long. They would go deep into bug territory soon.

  Maddox grinned tightly. His goal was to save humanity. It had cost him far too much with the Ska. To have seen his sacrifices go down in vain, knowing the Swarm would take out humanity the moment the bugs could get their act together—

  That was it. That was what had changed things around for him these past few minutes. The Swarm held all the advantages. They had numbers, nexuses and willpower. Humanity was living on bug sufferance. If they could knock out the local nexuses, though, the bugs wouldn’t be able to reach them.

  Sure, the Swarm could send a fleet the hard way, but that wouldn’t be masses of hundred-thousand-warship fleets one right after another. Maybe it would mean one or two such fleets. That humanity might be able to defeat if they had enough advance warning. After all, they’d defeated an eighty thousand strong bug fleet invasion. They could possibly take out two more such fleets, yes, with warning, and if the bugs came one fleet at a time.

  First, though, they had to destroy the local nexuses. The thought that he was finally on mission invigorated him. He’d bulled through the dross and junk strewn in his path in order to get to the main event. Somehow, that calmed the pent-up energy in him that had been coming out as anger.

  It was time to straighten out the professor. If the Methuselah Man was in his sights down the barrel of a gun, he believed he could manage Ludendorff. It was when the professor went off on his own that the old bugger became truly dangerous. That all changed, however, if the nexus—meaning the Builder stone—had given him a robot or a clone instead of the real thing. In that case—

  “Let’s find out what he is,” the captain said.

  Once more, Maddox veered off course, zooming away from the ancient pyramid, heading straight for Ludendorff still rocketing off into space. Maddox gunned the vehicle, building up velocity.

  “We’re going to squeeze him in between us,” Maddox told Meta.

  “Should I shove the beamer against his back once he’s aboard?”

  “Good idea,” Maddox said. He didn’t think it was necessary for the professor, but he knew it would make Meta feel better.

  Soon, the space-sled approached Ludendorff. He waved to them and motioned that they hurry.

  Ninety-three seconds later, Maddox brought the sled even with Ludendorff.

  “Meta is going to drag you down to us,” Maddox said.

  “Good thinking,” Ludendorff said.

  Soon, by first grabbing a boot, Meta hauled the Methuselah Man to them, forcing him to squeeze between them. A few seconds later—

  “Ow,” Ludendorff said. “That hurts.”

  “Does it?” Meta asked in syrupy voice. “How does this feel?”

  The professor cried out in pain, twisting away from the beamer shoved even harder against his back.

  “I’ll force it through you,” Meta said, “if you try any more funny stuff.”

  “Please, dear girl,” the professor panted, “ease off, ease off, will you?”

  Ludendorff cried out again, no doubt because Meta increased the barrel pressure against him for a third time.

  “Captain, I beg you,” Ludendorff pleaded.

  “Don’t maim him, Meta,” Maddox said.

  “He makes me so angry,” she said.

  “Meta,” Maddox warned.

  The professor gasped a fourth time and then his breathing evened out. Maddox supposed Meta had given the beamer a final shove and then eased the pressure.

  “I’ll have a knot there for weeks,” Ludendorff complained.

  Maddox had already changed heading, gunning toward the nearest shuttle.

  “Faster, my boy, faster,” Ludendorff said. “The tube is going to appear in less than ten minutes. We have to be aboard Victory by then.”

  “We’re not going to make it then,” Meta said.

  “We’ll see about that,” Maddox said, trying to hail the first shuttle. He could barely get through, and it was difficult to understand the other person because of the jamming inference. Talking slowly and deliberately, Maddox gave the comm operator her instructions.

  “I understand,” the comm operator said at last.

  “The shuttle’s coming,” Maddox said. “That should shave off some time in our favor.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Ludendorff said.

  Maddox waited three seconds before saying, “You’d better start explaining, Professor. What’s going on? Where are we going in the hyper-spatial tube? And what can we expect on the other end? If I don’t like your answers, I’m aborting the hyper-spatial jump.”

  “You can’t do that, my boy.”

  “I can. And I will,” Maddox added, “unless you can convince me otherwise.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand,” Ludendorff said. “You’re still sore at me for my play.”

  �
�Professor, you’d better get to the point while we have options.”

  “Quite right, quite right,” Ludendorff said. “Well, here is the situation…”

  -70-

  Ludendorff began to explain what had happened to him inside the nexus. Afterward, he told them about the eleven star cruisers that had made the jump to the Deneb System two weeks ago.

  “After the Golden Nexus we entered,” Ludendorff said, “where the Chitins battled the Swarm, the Deneb nexus is the closest Swarm-territory pyramid to Human Space. We know now that the Golden Nexus exploded after eighty thousand Swarm warships went through its projected hyper-spatial tube. Why that nexus exploded, I don’t know. I have several theories—”

  “I’m not interested in theories,” Maddox said, interrupting. “I want facts. You were giving me those. Stay on track, Professor.”

  “I am on track,” Ludendorff said in a querulous tone. “Ow! What was that for?” he asked Meta. “You know the captain said to stop poking me with that thing.”

  “Listen to what he says then,” Meta told him.

  “I can’t concentrate if you keep—”

  “Professor,” Maddox warned.

  “Oh, very well, stick to the point—you are two of the most unimaginative people I know.”

  “An occupational hazard as an Intelligence operative,” Maddox said blandly.

  Ludendorff grumbled under his breath as the space-sled zoomed toward the nearing shuttle.

  “In any case,” the professor said, his voice smoothing out, “the eleven star cruisers reached the Deneb System two thousand six hundred light-years away.”

  He told them about the Swarm science ships at the Deneb System, the weeklong battle and how one star cruiser had remained behind while the remaining four used a hyper-spatial tube to reach two other nexuses in the Sagittarius Spiral Arm.

  By the time Ludendorff finished telling them about the nexuses destruction, Maddox had maneuvered onto the shuttle. Once they were secured, the shuttle accelerated toward the approaching starship.

  “Now, you must listen carefully,” Ludendorff said.

  They still wore their spacesuits although minus the helmets. Each of them clutched his or her helmet as they sat on a bench in a cargo hold.

  Maddox nodded. He was listening. The New Men had brought one hundred star cruisers to the joint defense against the original Swarm invasion. To lose eleven star cruisers destroying nexuses was a costly price for the New Men.

  “I received what you might refer to as a data dump from the nexus computer-core,” Ludendorff said. “I did not have time to receive the data the slow way. Thus, the nexus shoved a vast quantity of information into my mind. The stone helped to channel the informational mass. It’s an amazing device, by the way, a wonderful tool—”

  “I’m listening,” Maddox said sharply, interrupting once more.

  “Er…well, yes, the enhancer helped to channel the data—what I’m trying to tell you is that I learned amazing facts. One of the most critical was advanced knowledge about the Swarm and the Imperium in particular. The nexuses do much more than act like galactic freeways with their hyper-spatial tubes. They gather intelligence on the species in their vicinity. That, in Builder terms, is actually their most useful function.”

  “I don’t understand,” Maddox said. “The nexuses are spying on us?”

  “You’re wrong. You clearly do understand. That’s exactly what they do. The computer core in the nexuses is startling, amazing—how could it be anything else, once you think about it? A nexus creates a hyper-spatial tube. That is far beyond our science and understanding. How is such a thing even possible? By our sciences, it is not.”

  “Does the local nexus know anything about humanity?”

  Ludendorff chuckled. “It knows everything about us. Not that I learned what it knows. That would be far too much information for even my advanced brain to contain.

  Meta rolled her eyes.

  Ludendorff scowled at her, muttering, “Savage.”

  “What was that?” Meta demanded.

  “Forget it,” Maddox told her with a wave of a hand. He regarded Ludendorff. “You spoke about the Imperium as if you learned something important about it.”

  Ludendorff made a scoffing sound. “I learned many important facts. I’m still sorting them out. It might be years before I process everything shoved into my brain. Fortunately, the enhancer helped to bring two important points to my immediate attention. These are critical in our dealing with the Imperium, and critical to our present endeavor.”

  “I’m listening,” Maddox said with emphasis.

  “First,” the professor said in a lecturing voice, “the Imperium is not a monolithic empire. That is hyper-critical to us.”

  “In what way?” asked Maddox.

  “A myriad of ways,” Ludendorff said. “Consider. Until Commander Thrax Ti Ix reached the Imperial Queen, the Imperium did not use jump gates or possess a star drive. That meant, naturally, that the great Imperium used Not-As-Fast-As-Light—NAFAL—drives. Do you know what that means in an interstellar empire? It means that most star systems rule themselves. As one heads inward toward the galactic core, star systems are often closer together. That allows NAFAL drive ships to reach neighboring systems in a matter of years instead of decades.”

  “Right,” Maddox said. “I see what you mean. How can the bugs have an Imperium at all?”

  “Swarm genetic behavior patterns for one thing,” Ludendorff said. “Still, your question has merit. The bugs cannot have a monolithic empire such as we envision they have. Do you realize what has been happening? The Swarm Imperium is under vast turmoil as the Queen and her Hive Masters restructure the essence of the great Imperium. Given the size of the task, because of the size of the empire, that will take years, maybe even centuries.”

  “Which is why they haven’t rushed multiple invasion fleets at us yet,” Maddox said.

  “Precisely,” Ludendorff said. “You’re a keen one, Captain, much keener than your—”

  Maddox cleared his throat and shook his head.

  “Yes…” Ludendorff said. “I take your meaning. In any case, Commander Thrax appeared in the Imperium nearest to Human Space. The Builder’s Dyson Sphere was approximately halfway between our two political entities. You left the Dyson Sphere one way, and Thrax went the other. The commander surely had to travel inward to reach the Queen and the Imperial Planet, but he set a precedent. Thrax showed the bugs that our region of space is of deadly importance. It’s where they received FTL drives, among other things. I suspect they wonder what other marvels could come from this region if they invaded it in strength.”

  “That’s clear,” Meta said, “not.”

  “You didn’t let me finish,” Ludendorff said. “At the present time, the Imperium is like a kicked over ant colony. In other words, it is in turmoil as I said. But it is a special type of turmoil. They are reordering the Imperium to make it more efficient. Once that process is complete, we can expect a great leap forward in planned Swarm conquests.”

  “And that reordering will take the Swarm centuries?” Maddox asked.

  “At the most it will take that long,” Ludendorff said. “I think the more likely probability is a single century should suffice for the reordering. You must keep in mind, though, that even though the Imperium is in turmoil, it will still send out various invasion fleets. It is merely the size and rate of those fleets that will increase once the turmoil ceases.”

  “So you’re saying we’re going on a Deep Beyond mission in vain?” Meta asked. “That we don’t even need to be doing this because the bugs are already going to keep themselves busy for one hundred years?”

  “Didn’t you listen to what I said?” Ludendorff asked. “This is not a vain pursuit at all. Consider what’s happened. The Imperium has sent an invasion fleet and two science fleets into Human Space and the nearby regions, which includes the Throne World System. That is small potatoes to the Swarm compared to the vast fleets maneuvering in a
nd around the Imperium. Laumer Point tech is new to them. Star-drive ships are even more amazing. But the extent of their empire is immense. They have star systems in three or four different spiral arms. Can you really conceive of what that means?”

  Meta glanced at Maddox.

  The captain did not appear impressed.

  “That is another reason why I call you two unimaginative,” Ludendorff said. “Human Space is a tiny fraction of territory in the Orion Arm Spur. Ours isn’t even a full spiral arm, but a spur. The Imperium has star systems in the Orion Arm Spur, the Perseus Arm outside us, and the Sagittarius and Scutum-Crux Arms inside ours. That is an unbelievable stretch of territory. It’s mindboggling in extent. Only a tiny portion of the Imperium is close enough to Human Space that any nexus in or near their territory could reach us.”

  “Because of the five thousand light-year limit that a nexus can create a hyper-spatial tube?” asked Maddox.

  Ludendorff pointed at him, nodding.

  “That must still leave us lots of nexuses to destroy,” Maddox said.

  Ludendorff chuckled, shaking his head. “Not according to what I’ve learned,” the professor said. “For the near future—let us say for the next fifty years—we don’t have to worry about any Swarm invasions coming from the Perseus Spiral Arm.”

  “Why not?” asked Maddox.

  “Sheer distance,” the professor said. “I’m not talking about the distance from certain areas in the Perseus Arm to Human Space. I’m talking about the extent of bug territory in the Imperium. At present, the Perseus Arm Swarm are the most backward technologically speaking. Nor has the Queen sent any of her reordering fleets in that direction yet. Thus, for now, at least, we don’t have to worry about any nexuses in the Perseus Arm. That’s good because there are quite a few of them out there.”

  “Someone will have to go in time,” Maddox said.

  “Thirty years from now should be soon enough,” Ludendorff said. “That means you might be long dead by then, or surely retired from the service.”