The Lost Earth (Lost Starship Series Book 7)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Maybe not,” Maddox said. “But do not think he hasn’t planned for the eventuality. We’ve done our share for the moment. Now, it’s time to let others shine. Mr. Maker, if you would turn this ship around and get started, I would appreciate it.”

  Keith nodded as his hands trembled. “Yes, sir, Captain.”

  The ancient Destroyer thus turned away from the Laumer Point. It did not engage the ion storm and special portal. Instead, under regular power, the fifty-kilometer-long killing machine began accelerating away.

  Meanwhile, the Swarm ships suffering Jump Lag began waking up.

  -12-

  Now began a bitter and highly uneven struggle. The next to attack the Laumer Point area were the Juggernauts.

  The five heavy spaceships—the largest vessels after the Destroyer—moved in from an area five hundred and fifty thousand kilometers away. They moved fast, and they warmed up their weapons enroute.

  Soon, the Juggernauts began launching missiles and firing their beams. They killed the Swarm vessels trying to shrug off Jump Lag.

  As before, more Swarm jump ships entered the Alpha Centauri System and some exited the system as well. By now, several clots of Swarm jump ships twenty vessels strong had staked out areas far away from the battle zone. They were obviously the eyes of the Swarm, reporting to Swarm High Command in the Epsilon 5 System.

  The bugs now sent through powerful nuclear devices. They detonated, and because the Juggernauts had to come in closer to fire their weapons, the hard radiation struck their vessels.

  Even so, the Juggernaut shields held.

  The bugs sent more nuclear devices through, forcing the Juggernauts to back off.

  Eleven minutes later, the bugs switched again. Now, they sent heavy squadrons through. Four hundred and fifty-three Swarm heavies came through the Laumer Point.

  However, the tactic had been rather obvious. The Lord High Admiral had ordered Star Watch nuclear devices into the region. Those detonated, destroying the enemy ships.

  Afterward, the bugs went back to the cat and mouse game. Sometimes they sent through nuclear devices. Sometimes they sent war vessels.

  That began a shift in the battle as some Swarm vessels finally survived long enough to begin operating.

  The first time that happened, the Juggernauts attacked harder, boring in closer and closer, using their powerful missiles and beams. The awakened Swarm ships came out to fight, trying to buy time for their side. The fight seesawed until the Swarm stopped sending reinforcements through the wormhole and sent through more nuclear devices. That caught one of the Juggernauts too near the Laumer Point. The Juggernaut’s shield collapsed and the hull cracked from the nuclear blasts.

  This time, the Swarm High Command timed it right. They poured ships through the Laumer Point into the debris-laden zone. The debris had thickened considerably and now acted like shielding particles. Because of that, the Juggernauts couldn’t kill fast enough. More of the Swarm heavies woke up. They battled savagely, recklessly and fearlessly.

  Finally, after more than twelve and a half hours of constant battle, the Swarm achieved their first kill, destroying the Juggernaut with the cracked hull.

  By this time, the Swarm had taken 9,623 ship losses. It was a staggering ratio, the greatest of the battle so far by many magnitudes.

  Perhaps if humanity had fought a different kind of alien, the losses would have been too much for the enemy. But these were Swarm soldiers and crews. They’d been bred to die for the Imperium. Instead of showing fear and hesitation, the Swarm chugged more warships into the Alpha Centauri System.

  The invading fleet still had approximately 50,000 vessels to complete their mission. Even so, not even the Swarm could continue to take 9,623 to 1 ship losses and hope to win.

  This phase ended as the four remaining and battered Juggernauts pulled out of the battle zone and headed away.

  ***

  Star Watch moved in with Conqueror-class battleships. The New Men brought their cone of battle, using almost every surviving star cruiser.

  It was a war of attrition fought in a unique and brutal manner. The Swarm kept pouring ships through the Laumer Point. The New Men and humans closed in upon the Jump Lagged vessels, battering them with disrupter beams. It was a cauldron of destruction as the New Men and humans came within 40,000 kilometers of the Laumer Point.

  The combined beams of the cone of battle and the teams of beams used by the Conqueror-class battleships shredded a monstrous number of Swarm vessels. In the annals of human history, no enemy had ever tried to force such a small pass in the face of such determined defense.

  “They’re wearing us down by heating our beams too long,” Lord Drakos declared.

  If that was the Swarm strategy, it finally started working. The New Men and the old could only destroy so many vessels in a certain amount of time. As some of the star cruisers overheated, as some of the battleships retreated due to malfunctions of various sorts, more and more Swarm vessels remained intact long enough to fire back.

  Two hours after engaging the third line, the Swarm finally had enough vessels to push the cone of battle and the battleships back. That allowed the arriving Swarm ships to survive en masse.

  Within another half hour, the Swarm had three thousand sluggish warships moving against the cone of battle and 82 percent of the Alliance battleships that had started the Alpha Centauri fight.

  “Retreat,” the Lord High Admiral ordered. “Retreat across Alpha Centauri. We did what we could. We slaughtered the Swarm. I count over 15,000 enemy wrecks. Now, we have to move back and prepare for the next phase.”

  It was an admission of amazing generalship and planning, and—ultimately—defeat. The humans, new and old, had simply not destroyed enough Swarm vessels yet. Despite the lopsided victory at the Laumer Point, humanity was going to lose the Battle for Earth if this kept up.

  -13-

  Sergeant Riker was in his quarters aboard Victory. The starship was near Proxima Centauri, the red dwarf of the triple-star system.

  Riker had watched the ongoing battle for quite some time. Everybody on the ship had been watching, including Galyan. In fact, the Adok AI had watched with absorbing interest. The little holoimage had not said a word since then.

  In any case, Riker had returned to his quarters. He’d felt uneasy, had been feeling uneasy ever since the start of his bad dreams.

  Riker sat at his desk, debating whether he should write to his nieces. They’d fled Tau Ceti along with millions of other displaced persons. The war with the Swarm had seen great misery so far. In actual numbers, it was almost as bad as the New Men invasion. Tau Ceti had been a heavily settled star system. Those who had remained in the system were now dead, hundreds of millions of people. Fewer people had been able to flee elsewhere. If one also added in the annihilation to Tau Ceti property and industry…

  Riker shook his head. He pushed the notepaper away. He did not feel like writing a letter. He could not write a letter. He felt wrung out, faded, even.

  The sergeant nodded. Yes, that was the correct word. He felt faded, as if he was passing away like a bad hologram. It almost seemed as if he’d been stretched thinner and thinner. If this kept up, soon, he would simply fade away.

  Riker pushed his chair back, stood, and remained frozen for three seconds. He slumped back onto the chair and grunted as if someone had punched him in the gut. The air went out of him. His eyelids fluttered. All at once, he began to shiver and shake. It continued to worsen until it became uncontrollable. He vaulted backward out of and over the chair, foaming at the mouth as he twisted on the floor.

  The feeling worsened as he broke out in a cold sweat. Agony twisted his stomach until it felt as if his guts were on fire.

  Riker contorted. Fear bubbled through him, but a knot of stubbornness survived the first wave. That stubbornness forced him to roll onto his belly. The mulish part of his nature got him up onto his hands and knees. He crawled for the hatch and realized that he would never make it. Switchin
g direction, he headed for the nightstand.

  The second wave of nausea struck. He did not shake this time. He did not foam at the mouth. Terror nearly swamped him, but he hung on. He realized what he had to do or everything that he’d worked his entire professional life to protect would burn up along with everything else.

  “No,” Riker grunted. “Not going to happen.”

  From on the floor, he reached the nightstand and began to shake it. Finally, his communicator fell off. With trembling fingers, he pressed the correct buttons. Nothing happened. He pressed again, and again, and—

  “Sergeant Riker,” Galyan said. The little Adok holoimage stood in his room. “What is wrong with you?”

  Riker tried several times to form the words. It was so hard to do.

  “Sergeant?” asked Galyan.

  “It’s here,” Riker whispered.

  “If you are referring to the Swarm Fleet—”

  “No,” Riker said hoarsely. “It’s here.”

  “Could you mean the Ska?”

  “Yes. Tell…tell Ludendorff it’s time.”

  Galyan disappeared.

  Riker could not hold on any longer. He crumpled fully onto the floor and thankfully passed out.

  -14-

  “Sir,” Valerie said from her station on the Destroyer’s bridge. “I have a high priority message from Galyan.”

  “Put it on the screen,” Maddox said.

  “I would, sir, but Galyan said this is for your ears only.”

  Maddox stared at Valerie for several seconds as if he didn’t want to take the call. He had a bad feeling that this had something to do with the twisting in his guts that had started approximately ten minutes ago. He could not shake the feeling—

  “Captain?” asked Valerie. “Are you well?”

  Maddox snapped out of it, standing. “Yes, his message—”

  “I can patch it through to a pair of headphones, sir.”

  “Good,” Maddox said, sitting. He took a pair of headphones, slipping them onto his head. “Galyan,” he said.

  “Captain,” Galyan said. “You must come immediately. I cannot open the professor’s door. I cannot materialize in his chamber, either.”

  “We happen to be in the middle of a losing battle, Galyan. I’m getting ready to run interference for the fleet. If the Destroyer can’t slow down the Swarm advance, too many Star Watch ships won’t have time to get through the wormhole to the Solar System. So if you don’t mind—”

  “Riker believes the Ska has arrived, sir. As per your instructions—”

  “What? You’re sure?”

  “Positively, sir,” Galyan said.

  Maddox sat frozen in thought. The Ska had arrived at the worst possible instant. It must have come in the other Destroyer. If the Ska leagued with the Swarm—black disaster threatened, an end to any hope to save the Solar System.

  Maddox glared at the floor, thinking furiously. When hope flickered like a candle in a hurricane, one had to grasp at the impossible. He’d had premonition about Ludendorff and the Builders. Could he stake everything on that premonition?

  What choice do I have? We’re out of options.

  Maddox sat up as he raised his head. Bitter determination burned in his eyes. His mouth was dry and the words came hard. His chest actually ached.

  “I’m on my way, Galyan. We’ll be there shortly.”

  “Yes—” Galyan said.

  Maddox didn’t hear anymore as he tore off the headphones. “Mr. Maker,” he said crisply, “plot an immediate jump to Victory.”

  “Sir?” Keith asked. “I thought we were heading for the Swarm.”

  “There’s been a change in plans,” Maddox said. “You will plot a star-drive jump to Victory. It is in the vicinity of Proxima Centauri.”

  “I know where it is, sir,” Keith said in a dubious tone. He waited, but Maddox said no more. Thus, the ace began to plot the jump.

  “Sir,” Valerie said. “The Lord High Admiral is on the line.”

  Maddox studied her. Had she just called Cook? It seemed more than possible.

  “Put him on the main screen,” Maddox said.

  A second later, the Lord High Admiral appeared on the screen.

  “Captain Maddox,” Cook said, without any greeting. “A foreign Destroyer has just appeared near Alpha Centauri A. We’re attempting to hail it, but so far, the vessel has refused to respond. I thought you might know if this—”

  “It’s the Ska, sir. It’s here, with the second Destroyer from the null space. It must have followed us.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Cook said. The admiral seemed to diminish, to find it difficult to speak the next words. “Will the Ska attack us, do you think?”

  “Without a doubt,” Maddox said in his crisp manner.

  Admiral Cook looked away. When he looked back, he seemed to have become suddenly decrepit, the life drained from his face.

  “It’s over,” the Lord High Admiral said listlessly. “Star Watch is in full retreat with the Swarm coming after us. If that Destroyer attacks, it’s going to finish whatever chance we have—”

  “I have an idea, sir,” Maddox said, interrupting.

  The aged Cook peered at Maddox. “I don’t see what you can possibly do,” Cook grumbled.

  Maddox leaned forward as the intensity glowed from him. “I want you to listen to me, sir. This is critical. We have a chance. It’s as slender a thread as you can imagine, but it’s still a chance. You must get every ship you can out of Alpha Centauri and into the Solar System.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Some of our ships have the star drive,” Maddox said. “They must use it and flee. The rest have to race to the Laumer Point and hope they have time.”

  “Captain…” Cook said.

  “We’ve lost Alpha Centauri,” Maddox said. “The enemy Destroyer means you have to forget everything we planned. My Destroyer is good for several beams, maybe. That wouldn’t be enough to take on the new Destroyer. The enemy Destroyer will undoubtedly help the Swarm. That means we cannot possibly—”

  “I understand that,” Cook practically cried out. “We’re doomed.”

  “No, sir. Not yet,” Maddox said. “I have a plan—”

  “What plan?”

  “I can’t tell you now,” Maddox said as he stared intently at the Lord High Admiral. “We’re facing a being unlike anything you’ve ever conceived. It has…supernatural powers, for want of a better word. It can eavesdrop on minds, I believe.”

  Cook blinked several times as if trying to comprehend what Maddox hinted at.

  “You have to give me something, Captain.”

  “This is like one of my missions, sir. Spur of the moment you must order whatever ships can to escape this star system. If you don’t, it’s likely Star Watch will lose every warship here.”

  The despair of the situation beat strongly on the Lord High Admiral’s face. Yet, like a drunken bum sleeping on the street, he would move because the cop had a nightstick and he knew this cop would use it.

  “I’ll give the order,” Cook said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Maddox nodded, and the connection cut out a moment later.

  A terrible sense of grimness welled up in Maddox. He’d made some hopefully shrewd guesses about Ludendorff and the Fisher planet. Still, these were guesses. It was more than possible he’d guessed wrong. But there was a possibility he’d guessed right, and if so, then heaven help him for what he was about to do.

  ***

  Maddox sat in his command chair as his gut seethed, his face a frozen mask. The others kept watching him out of the corners of their eyes. At this point, Maddox did not dare to think concretely about his plan. As he’d told Cook, the Ska had what appeared to be supernatural powers. The alien creature might still be in shock due to the journey, but once the Ska fully woke from its—

  “Why is this taking so long?” Maddox asked curtly.

  “We’ve strained this ancient machine b
eyond its limits,” Andros said. “One can’t just snap his fingers and make a wish. The battle taxed every system in the ship. We’re repairing what we can, but…”

  Maddox stood as something animal-like rose to the surface. The beast looked out of his eyes as he said in a quietly intense voice, “Get us to Victory now, Andros.”

  The Kai-Kaus Chief Technician grew pale. So did several others on the bridge. Whatever arguments they might have marshaled died inside them. Maddox took his seat again. In another seven minutes, an ion storm began to rage around the Destroyer.

  Maddox sat forward, gripping the chair rests with his fingers. This could be the countdown for the human race. Pieces of a puzzle began to tumble in his mind, things he’d known but hadn’t allowed himself to put together.

  I’ve been acting on intuition, he realized. When he’d stood before the mural on the Fisher world—that was when the process had begun. Some of the things Ludendorff had told him back then had seemed off. How could the star boil away a planet’s oceans and the planet yet retain an atmosphere? Why would the Ska destroy the Fishers who had supposedly worshiped it? The white beams they’d used hadn’t been a representation but a real thing. The idea that Strand and he had been there at a dig two hundred years ago didn’t match up with Ludendorff’s history.

  Maddox rubbed his head. He had a feeling there were gaps in his memory. Things had happened on the Fisher world. Things had happened to him, but had also most certainly happened to Ludendorff. The professor had never properly accounted for having run off ahead of him.

  Now, Maddox believed he knew why that had happened. He also realized why he’d given Ludendorff the strange orders several days ago.

  As the ion storm raged around them, as Keith readied the controls, Maddox began shaking his head. If this worked how he thought it might, he was going to be the most hated man in the Commonwealth. He couldn’t worry about that, though. He had to save the human race. He had to destroy the Ska while it was possible.

  The nonsense about picking up Strand’s old notes—no, Maddox realized that had been a dodge, which he should have recognized then. The captain laughed bleakly. This time he had a feeling that not even Ludendorff understood the entire picture.