Treasure of the Silver Star

by Michael Angel

  “She won’t let me log her in or scan her. Captain Cavendish is here, he vouches for her.”

  Ruger chewed at a fingernail apprehensively. He took a deep breath, smoothed back his thinning hair, and straightened his shirt. His mind was full with questions. Cavendish was another one of his special team of captains. Had he done something to warrant a security audit?

  “Let ‘em in,” he said. Sindal buzzed the door open, admitting the two people.

  Cavendish was built like a stout beer barrel. However, his gaze and his salute were on point. More importantly, he was one of Ruger’s fanatics. The Terran Home Guard might have been a backwater post for officers no one had any use for in the regular military, but Ruger had done the best he could with the material at hand.

  He had dug out the few captains he figured had the ability to follow his commands. Then he brought them under his sway. Polished them to his standards of obedience. These officers in turn sensed their only possible salvation, albeit a slim one, was in performing up to Ruger’s demanding standards. Their Fleet Commander had been a rising star long ago. It was possible that he could be so again. So they rode his coattails with the automatic, unthinking devotion of a school of remoras attached to their favorite shark.

  “Commander,” Cavendish said respectfully. Ruger nodded, watching the motions of Cavendish’s companion. The Security Council agent was as petite as Ruger was large. She wore the dark suit of her office like a shield. Under her left arm she held a thin scale-leather valise.

  She seated herself in front of his desk without waiting for an invitation. After a moment, Cavendish followed suit. She unclipped her valise, and then flicked a switch inside. The light hum it created told Ruger that a sophisticated jammer was at work.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve seen a member of the Security Corps,” Ruger ventured.

  “Twenty-five years and seven months, to be exact,” she said. Her teeth were small and very white. “And as far as everyone in your staff is concerned, you still haven’t seen me.”

  Ruger considered. He sensed opportunity here. He kept quiet, and paid rapt attention as the woman went on.

  “My name is Circe. You should know that I am not from the Security Council’s main body. I am part of the Internal Affairs department.” Ruger’s breath stopped for a second, and his face turned a shade of white. Circe obviously liked the effect. “I see you remember us, Commander Ruger. It’s a long way from the front lines, but never too far back, as they say.”

  “I remember,” he whispered. “I suppose I should be grateful for your services.”

  “As well you should be. We’ve been keeping an eye on you for quite some time, Commander. Captain Cavendish has provided us with very detailed information about you.”

  Ruger shot a glance at Cavendish. The man winced under Ruger’s hostile stare. Circe pulled a sheaf of papers from her valise. To Ruger’s surprise, she turned and gave them to Cavendish.

  “This is the official case record on your Commander,” she said to Cavendish, though she didn’t take her eyes off of Ruger. “You’ll find out the full details of his Colonial debacle. You’ll also find out how we were able to shunt him aside into this gold-plated refuse pile for officer candidates. Take particular note that he wouldn’t accept our deal unless he had direct command powers over one Benjamin Samuel Drake. If he was to go down, so was Drake.”

  Ruger forced himself to hold in his temper. “Why are you doing this? What do you want?”

  Circe ticked off the reasons on her fingers. “First: I am updating my field agent at the same time I am exposing him to your view because he is to be our liaison between our offices. It will be easier for him to make full reports on you if he can speak with you openly. Second: what I want, Commander, is to help the Terran government close the final chapter on the last Interstellar War. One way or another.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Circe leaned back into her chair. “Let me tell you a story, Commander. A story which dates back to the last five years of the War.”

  “This is way before our time, Circe.”

  “Patience, Commander. As you know, the battles of that year made it look like the balance of force had swung against Terra. Our line at Epsilon had finally been broken. It looked like we were going to be overwhelmed in two years.” Circe steepled her fingers as if in deep thought. “We had a breakthrough from an unlikely source. One that could not only reverse our losses, but also end the war within a week.”

  “What are you talking about? Get to the point.”

  “I am talking about Project Sargasso. And what I am about to tell you is known to less than ten of our top people in the Internal Affairs department.” Circe took a breath and continued. “Project Sargasso had originally been a secret archeological dig at a planet out on the Galactic Rim. The dig had discovered the ruins of a technologically advanced alien civilization.”

  “I had never heard of anything like this,” Cavendish interjected. “We’ve actually found…”

  “Yes. The first evidence that there have been intelligent species other than ours. I’ll spare you the archaeological reports. What caught the military’s attention was the fact that the team found a functioning artifact, something of immense and terrible power. We immediately took over the project, sent our best technologists in, and began to develop it. We soon saw its potential.”

  The room had fallen silent. Ruger was aware of the sound of his own heart beating. He forced himself to slow down his breathing.

  “What was it?” he asked.

  “They called it the Sargasso engine.” Circe leaned forward and continued, her eyes bright and intense. “We don’t know all of what it can do. Only that it has something to do with matter transmission.”

  “That’s a parlor trick,” Ruger said skeptically. “Using a fusion plant’s power to move pencils or paperweights across a room.”

  “Not to this alien civilization. We’re talking much larger objects, moved over interstellar distances.”

  Ruger shut his jaw with snap.

  “You’ve never heard about this because we turned the war around in the last year, just as the project was nearing completion. But the Sargasso engine never went into service.”

  “Why not?”

  “Apparently, the people we had working at the lab had an attack of conscience. They tried to destroy our new weapon. They managed to erase almost all the records we had on the engine. To this day, we don’t know where the original archeological site was. But we do know that it hasn’t been destroyed.”

  “No one was sent to search?”

  “No one believed that the engine existed,” Circe snapped. “It was a fairy tale, a snipe hunt.” She leaned forward in her chair. “Until a certain civilian located a derelict on an asteroid in the Kuiper Belt. An asteroid that’s not supposed to exist.

  “I urged headquarters to send a ship out there to investigate, but it was too late. And to make matters worse, one of your ships was out there, and they heard and saw everything that the civilians did.”

  Ruger steepled his fingers. “So. What do you want, Circe?”

  “Here is what the government wants. We have been ordered to preserve peace. Therefore, you must destroy the asteroid site and anyone who has come into contact with it. We must ensure that nobody can ever get their hands on the engine.”

  Ruger did not miss the nuance. “That’s what the government wants. I asked what you wanted.”

  “If no one gets the engine, fine. If, however, an opportunity existed to retrieve it, why, so much the better.”

  Ruger’s face took on an ambivalent expression. “I think my people would do their best, say, with a little sweetener.”

  Circe reached into her valise a final time. She slid a document across Ruger’s desk.

  “Oh, but we at the Security Council pride ourselves on our generosity. Should you succeed, this offer is for you and any officers you choose. Full reinstatement into the regular military. As line officers in a
ny unit you desire.”

  The flame that had burned steadily in Ruger’s heart leapt into full brilliance. Cavendish’s eyes had also lit up like a magnesium strobe. Almost absentmindedly, Ruger called up the personnel list of the Ranger.

  The whistle-blowing engineer. The medtech who, like Drake, had been assigned the blame for someone else’s mistake. The navtech...

  Yes. What that officer had done to Ruger’s family made him sick.

  And Benjamin Drake himself, a grand accident just waiting to happen. It was fitting that since Drake had been the one to derail Ruger’s destiny, he should be the one to put it back on track.

  “Captain Cavendish,” Ruger said, “call my other squadron commanders.” He smiled at Circe. “There’s a job to be done.”

  Chapter Nine

  Jupiter hung at ten o’ clock. The red spot glared balefully at them like a stellar Cyclops.

  Although she was moving fast, the Ranger was still traveling at sublight speed. The busy trade routes of the inner solar system were behind, and so were the last of the inter-system Chandrakasar gates. As the new navtech, Sebastiàn set the ship on a direct course for the site in the Kuiper Belt. He hesitated before setting the speed. It took him a moment to locate the comm switch on the ancient navigation console.

  “Ferra, this is Sebastiàn.”

  The reply was instant. “Ferra here. What, do you need more juice?”

  “Maybe. I want to know how much more you can give me.”

  Drake listened in from the captain’s chair. This should be interesting.

  “Give you? Shoot, give me two minutes, I can kick us up to point eighty-eight C.”

  That made Sebastiàn pause. ‘C’ was shorthand for the speed of light. And the number that the engineer quoted would blow the hatches off of anything he’d piloted to that point.

  “Are you sure that’s safe for a ship as old as ours? Most modern ships can’t put on that speed in less than five minutes.”

  “Not many modern ships can upgrade the way we can, kid.”

  “Besides,” Kincaid chimed in from the bridge sidebar, “who said that we could do that speed ‘safely’?”

  “Right,” Sebastiàn breathed. “Well, we don’t need to break any speed records today. But I am curious. Let’s shoot for point five C, on my mark.”

  “Ready when you are.”

  “Mark.”

  Tally, who had been watching the exchange from a seat on the bridge, gasped as she felt a sharp tug. For a moment she felt disoriented, as if her stomach was traveling a half-second behind her body. The feeling passed. She noticed that Sebastiàn looked similarly astonished.

  “Half speed reached, Captain.” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “ETA at the Kuiper Belt in twelve hours, twenty minutes.”

  Drake gestured at the navtech console. “What do you think, Lieutenant?”

  “Much better than I would have thought, sir. The controls are simple, but logically laid out. And this ship...she doesn’t have much in the way of endurance, but she handles very well.”

  “Then hold your course.” Drake got out of his chair. “You have the conn, Lieutenant.”

  Sebastiàn grinned. “Yes, sir!”

  Drake escorted Tally down the main service corridor. They had to duck under a low hanging beam now and then.

  “I hope your quarters are tolerable,” he observed.

  “They’re small, but I’ll have to manage,” she acknowledged. “Frankly, I don’t know how you people recruit anybody who’s over five feet tall.”

  Drake nodded weary agreement. “The Terran Home Guard is devoted to equality. We make sure that shorter people have ways to be uniquely uncomfortable.”

  “That I believe.” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “What kind of name is ‘Terran Home Guard’, anyway? It sounds more like a deodorant than a branch of the military.”

  “Well, that’s one of the nicer things I’ve heard said about us,” Drake observed dryly. “Some folks call us mercenaries, despite the uniforms. I suppose that we’re each here thanks to an act of mercy. So that we wouldn’t be drummed out of the service.”

  Tally felt her cheeks grow warm. For one of the few times in her life, she realized that what she had just said could have been taken as an insult. It bothered her, because she wanted to be liked by this man.

  “I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s all right,” he said, cutting her off. “It is the truth, after all. But no matter the truth, you are stuck with us for the duration. And I really will have to press you into service with us. After that last battle, I’ve got eleven crewmen left.”

  “I’m sure that I could take over the position for communications and sensors,” she ventured. “Just don’t expect me to salute, or call you ‘sir’.”

  “Offer accepted,” Drake replied, with a smile. Then, looking acutely uncomfortable, he added, “If you’re serious about joining the crew, then perhaps you’d like to meet me at my quarters at 1900 hours? For supper, I mean.”

  She bathed him in her trademark high-wattage smile. “I’d like that, Captain.”

  * * *

  Ruger clasped his thick, powerful hands behind his back and walked to the front of the room. The images of his three captains flickered silently before him, alert and confident that they could carry out whatever orders he had for them.

  Time was of the essence. Each of his junior officers was already on board their respective ships, attending his conference in spectral, holographic form. Video teleconferencing was an old technology, but it was still a useful tool in times like these. He cleared his throat, and his voice fairly boomed over the transmitter.

  “I take it that you understand the mission and its ramifications for the Terran government?”

  A few words of affirmation in return.

  “Good. Then let me be plain with all of you. This is the last chance we are ever going to have to get out of this minor league outfit and resume our careers.” He leaned forward, fingertips spread wide on the table. “So you will follow my orders to their logical conclusion, or I will find others who will. Is that clear?”

  They nodded. Ruger stood back, looked at them critically in turn. Captain Cavendish was a detail-oriented man, unimaginative but obedient. He could probably be depended on so long as he was pointed in the right direction. Captain Sindal was good; she was a woman who knew how to get the maximum performance out of her crew, and she didn’t mind the names they called her behind her back. His final officer, Captain Mackall, looked and acted like a common street hood. But the man had a streak of ruthlessness that Ruger valued.

  “Captain Mackall, you’re already in the outer solar system, so you’re going to be taking point in this operation,” Ruger instructed. “How much lead time can you give me on intercepting the Ranger?”

  Ruger knew that Mackall had the oldest, slowest ship of the group, but any extra margin was welcome. He wanted to see just how motivated Mackall was. And besides, no matter the shortcomings of the man’s vessel, it could still outgun Drake’s patrol ship.

  “I should be able to intercept the Ranger fifteen minutes earlier than your main task force,” Mackall replied. “We’ll cripple Drake’s ship and await your arrival.”

  Ruger nodded. That was faster than he expected. Mackall was going to push the limit on this one. A good sign.

  “Excellent. One more thing: normally, a zealous attitude will impress me. Nothing, however, is going to redeem you if you don’t leave enough of the Ranger for me to have some prisoners to interrogate.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  * * *

  Tally stepped through the door to Drake’s quarters, carrying a bottle of champagne. She had her hair done up in a bun, and she’d switched to a blouse that had a delicate touch of lace at the wrists. It was a token attempt at formality, but in Drake’s eyes, it made her all the more stunning.

  “I’m impressed,” Drake gulped, after a moment. “There was no need to dress up.”

  “Allow me
some leeway in being your official ‘observer’,” she replied. Tally offered him the bottle. “And if you’re impressed now, you might want to take a look at this.”

  Drake held the champagne up to the light. He squinted at the label. “Lunar Colony, 2450. Now, this is the sort of archeology that I can appreciate.”

  “Only the best for a starship captain.” Tally seated herself with surprising grace, eyeing the food with no small surprise of her own. Drake had already set out plates with slices of a steaming beef roast and a side of bright red and blue Martian vegetables. “And I see that I brought the right vintage. I didn’t know the Home Guard ate so well.”

  “Not normally,” Drake demurred. “But when we can trade up for a few luxuries of life, we do so. There are times that I try not to look too closely at where the galley’s food budget is spent.”

  With that, Drake removed the wire cage from the bottle and pulled the cork out with a pop. He poured two glasses of champagne, carefully watching to make sure the foam didn’t spill over.

  “Here’s to the success of our mission,” said Tally, raising her glass to Drake. They touched their glasses together, and drank to the toast. Tally was silent for a few moments after that, as if embarrassed about it all.

  Together they dug into the repast. Silence reigned for a while as Tally enjoyed the repast and Drake let the heady feeling of the champagne do its work, easing the tension in his forehead, his back. Tally toyed with a flower of red broccoli as she spoke again.

  “I was wondering about that weird jolt I felt when we increased speed. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like that before, and I don’t think your new navtech has, either.”

  “Not surprising,” Drake agreed. “Tell me, how old do you think this ship is?”

  She laughed at that. “Benjamin, I’m a poor judge of anything that’s not already a wreck. But I’d say fifteen, twenty years, easy.”

  “Try sixty.”

  She put her fork down. “You’re kidding!”

  “I had Ferra brief Sebastiàn on our weapons setup. Newer ships have swivel mounts which can fire a missile in any direction. We can’t. Instead, we use old fashioned pneumatic tubes, four in front, one in back, and a pair of anti-missile lasers to ward off anything incoming.”