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“We’ve been hit,” Valerie declared.
“What’s the damage?” Maddox asked.
“One minute, sir,” Valerie said, as her fingers roved over her panel, tapping fast.
“Galyan,” Maddox said. “Are any more missiles incoming?”
“Affirmative, sir,” the holoimage said. “I count seven more approaching. The nearest is…five hundred thousand kilometers and closing fast. The next is seven hundred thousand kilometers.”
“Why didn’t you detect them earlier?” Maddox asked.
“I can run a self-diagnostic to find out.”
“Will that harm your present efficiency?” Maddox asked.
“Possibly.”
“We’ll wait. Is the disrupter cannon ready?”
“No, sir,” Galyan said. “That will take time. But I can warm up my neutron cannon in seven seconds.”
“Do it,” Maddox said. “Lieutenant, I’m waiting on the damage report.”
“The collapsium armor held, sir,” Valerie said.
“Why did it take you so long to find out?”
“There’s an anomaly on the outer hull, sir.”
Maddox frowned. “What is it?”
Valerie shook her head. “I don’t know…”
“Should I go outside and check?” Galyan asked.
“Negative,” Maddox said, who appeared thoughtful. “Ready the neutron cannon. Target the third missile.”
“What about the second one, sir?” Galyan asked.
“We’re going to absorb its shot,” Maddox said. “Lieutenant, are the shields at full strength?”
“Yes, sir,” Valerie said. “There won’t be a burn-through this time.”
“There it goes!” Keith shouted. “I can see it.”
Maddox looked up at the main screen. Once more, a bright explosion appeared. From it, a purple neutron beam—what he thought must be a neutron beam—flashed the distance at the speed of light. It struck Victory’s screen, turning it red but no deeper color.
“Our neutron cannon is ready, sir,” Galyan said.
“Are you targeting the third missile?”
“Affirmative,” Galyan said.
“Fire at will,” Maddox said.
The ancient engines purred with power. A moment later, a purple beam lashed into the darkness. Galyan’s fantastic computing power targeted where the missile would be at the precise instant the speed-of-light ray reached the spot.
The missile exploded without energizing a beam.
“Good work, Galyan,” the captain said. “Keep knocking them down.”
Before Galyan could respond, a missile self-exploded from much farther away. It took the enemy beam longer to travel the greater distance and it stuck the shield with less power, but now all the missiles ignited, adding their beams to the same area of the shield.
The shield went from red to brown and started turning black.
“That can’t be a pure neutron beam,” Maddox said. “Otherwise, our shield would have stopped them already.”
“I agree with your analysis,” Galyan said. “This is a mystery. According to my sensors, those were indeed neutron beams.”
Maddox pondered that. “Have you found their launch point yet?”
“Negative,” Galyan said. “I—” The holoimage wavered, becoming fainter as its words faded away.
“Galyan,” Maddox said. “Don’t cut out on me now.”
Valerie hissed from her board, “That’s what it is. Sir,” she said, looking up, “the enemy landed some sort of computer damper on our hull with the first shot.”
“How is that possible with a beam?” Maddox asked. “A beam isn’t a material thing.”
Valerie shook her head helplessly.
“Second Lieutenant,” Maddox said. “You will initiate a star jump at the first possibility.”
“Manually, eh, mate?” Keith said, as he rubbed his fingers before his controls. “I’ve always wondered if I could do it. Yes, sir. Right away, sir. Still, you’ll have to give me several minutes.”
“Sir,” Valerie said. “I’m not sure we should—”
“Belay your verbal doubts,” Maddox said. “Give me an estimate on the cloaked missiles’ launch point. Who’s firing at us? Is this a New Men infiltration attack? If so, how did they know to be at the edge of the Tau Ceti System to ambush Victory?”
For the next few minutes, each crewmember worked at their task. A faint Galyan stood there the entire time, silently talking.
“Dana,” Maddox said into an armrest comm, “you’re our Adok expert. What’s wrong with Galyan?”
“I’m headed to the AI core to check,” Dana said through the intercom.
Maddox stared at the main screen. It showed the various planets of the Tau Ceti System as superimposed dots. Dotted lines showed the orbital paths. Far in the distance shined the system’s star. A secret enemy was attacking the starship. It would seem the enemy had made the assault in order to get to Galyan. That made sense. If one couldn’t knock out the starship directly, the second best thing would be to knock out the ancient artificial intelligence running the ship’s systems.
“Is Strand behind this?” the captain asked.
“The Methuselah Man faced us in a cloaked star cruiser before, sir,” Valerie said. “Strand had the gall to enter the Solar System while you faced the Destroyer.”
Maddox nodded. He had gone over the videos of the event many times. Strand and Ludendorff were two of a kind, the oldest Methuselah Men, far older than the young Methuselah People like the Lord High Admiral or even Octavian Nerva, who had died in the nuclear blast in Monte Carlo many months ago.
Over one hundred and sixty years ago, Strand had sent Thomas Moore Society colonists into the Beyond to set up a secret colony. There, they had genetically created the New Men. Strand had wanted to fashion Defenders of regular humanity, used only in a stellar emergency. He hadn’t wanted humanity to rely on the Defenders and become dependents. Unfortunately, the idea had backfired, with the New Men deciding they should rule instead of serving.
Many months ago in Star Watch Headquarters, the Ludendorff android had said that Strand had also given humanity longevity treatments. That had been the genesis of the Methuselah People.
Maddox pondered the idea of longevity. Long, long ago—nobody knew how long—Builders had done something to Strand and Ludendorff, making them nearly immortal and perhaps increasing their intelligence.
The point was that Strand had deep motives and fantastic abilities to do things nobody else could do except perhaps for Ludendorff. Was the key to understanding Strand the Builders? Star Watch knew so little about the ancient aliens.
Maddox made a mental note to talk to Dana about her discoveries in the Mid-Atlantic. At this point, he needed to concentrate on the main issue. Why had the cloaked missiles gone after Galyan?
“I wonder if our enemy realizes how small of a crew we have,” Maddox said.
Valerie looked up, stricken. “Are you suggesting the attack was planned in advance of our having arrived here?”
“Most definitely,” Maddox said. “Consider. Eliminating Galyan would cripple us. That would allow an enemy a much easier time boarding and controlling the starship. Reason suggests this was a preplanned maneuver.”
“If that’s true,” Valerie said, “then the Builder box double-crossed us.”
“At first blush I’d agree,” Maddox said. “But then why would the AI box have destroyed itself? If it was in league with our hidden attackers, it would have waited for pickup by them, would it not?”
A beep alerted Valerie. She turned to her panel, becoming absorbed with it. Soon, the lieutenant tapped furiously, her head swiveling as if reading various sources at once.
“Sir,” she said. “I’ve found the launch point.”
“Put it on the screen.”
A moment later, the stars vanished as she zoomed in on a particular area of space. There was a wavy zone like heat off a hot road. It
seemed to expand a moment like a hole in space, suddenly snapping shut. The heat-like waves reappeared. Soon, they faded away and it was just normal space again.
“What am I seeing?” Maddox asked. “Is that some kind of Laumer-Point?”
“I don’t see how, sir,” Valerie said. “We can’t detect Laumer-Points without a Laumer Drive, and then we have to be much closer to the anomaly in order to detect it.”
“Yet, the missiles came from somewhere,” Maddox said, “somewhere not in the Tau Ceti System.”
“I think that’s right, sir.”
Maddox contemplated the implications.
Faster than light travel normally involved the Laumer Drive, with Laumer-Points and tramlines. Most stars possessed wormholes that connected various systems. Delicate ship instrumentation found the precise entrance location. The special drive then allowed a ship to jump almost instantaneously between the two points, moving many light years along the tramline in the blink of an eye. Coming out of a Laumer-Point often strained the passengers, causing physical symptoms that ranged from mild, flu-like symptoms that passed quickly to more severe ones like vomiting, fainting and even death. Most computer systems—electrical, bio or phase—often shut down after a jump and took precious time to reboot. It meant that most warships coming out of a Laumer-Point were vulnerable to a swift enemy attack—if the enemy vessels were close enough. The cloaked missiles should have been visible when they came out of the anomaly, as the cloaking system should have malfunctioned for a few minutes, at least.
“If the anomaly isn’t a wormhole exit,” Maddox said, “could it have been what the Destroyer used to transfer from one spot to another?”
Valerie snapped her fingers. “No wonder it seemed familiar. Yes, that’s exactly right, sir. I think it was like the Destroyer’s drive.”
Maddox rubbed his chin. “Does that mean we’re facing someone with Destroyer technology?”
“We annihilated the missiles too easily for that to be true,” Valerie said.
“Yes,” Maddox said. “Still, it appears we have an enemy who can open a path between distant points, possibly from one star system to another. Maybe even more incredible is that the transfer does not induce Jump Lag, or they’ve found a way to thwart it. If that’s true, we’ve just witnessed a revolutionary tactic.”
“Star Watch sends nuclear missiles through Laumer-Points all the time,” Valerie said.
The lieutenant was right, as it was standard military procedure. Since crews and spaceships experienced Jump Lag coming out of a wormhole, the answer was to send through huge thermonuclear warheads with simple timers. The warheads exploded, annihilating any nearby enemies waiting for them.
“The beam-firing missiles were different from our jump-procedure thermonuclears,” Maddox said. “These selectively targeted our starship. Perhaps as interesting, they aimed at us from the other star system. Otherwise, we would have seen their exhaust plumes as they accelerated and targeted while in the Tau Ceti System.”
“How can the enemy track us from another star system?” Valerie asked. “That should be impossible.”
“Unless they could open a different window first and target us through it.”
“I’ve never heard of such technology,” Valerie said.
“Neither have I,” Maddox said.
“Are the New Men doing this?”
“We have no idea who attacked us,” Maddox said. “All we know is that they possess advanced cloaking, with neutron-beams and an unexplained transportation portal.”
“The implications of this, sir…” Valerie said. “It would be impossible for us to hit back at an enemy that can shoot from a different star system.”
“Get ready,” Keith chimed in. “I’ve manually set up the conditions. We’re going to use the star drive in: three, two, one—”
Maddox sat down.
“Now,” Keith said, activating the drive.
A moment later, Starship Victory transferred three light years away.
***
Maddox was the first to recover from Jump Lag. He didn’t wait for the others, but headed for an exit, hurrying down the corridor.
The Adok starship was huge and could have held thousands. Instead, there were merely six humans aboard. The nearly empty ship made for a lonely place.
The sensation caused Maddox to think of his mother. She’d fled from a genetic laboratory somewhere in the Beyond, carrying him in her womb. His father had been a New Man. Had he raped her? Had the haughty enemy scientists used artificial insemination?
I know so little about my origins. The New Men stole that from me.
Maddox frowned. Why did these questions about his parents keep bothering him? He had to push them aside. They didn’t matter. He had to find and free Ludendorff. This time, though, he wasn’t going to let the professor get the upper hand.
Maddox thought about the last voyage. Ludendorff had corrupted Galyan, taking control of the starship. Did that have any bearing on this latest attempt to fiddle with the AI?
Don’t accept coincidences. Rather, use them as signposts.
As Maddox considered the idea, he came to the AI core chamber.
The hatch was open and he heard sounds from within. Before he reached the hatch, Dana stepped outside. There were smudges on her face and scratches on her hands. Last voyage, the doctor had found a hidden computing chamber on the ship. Once they brought it online, it had given Galyan more of his original Driving Force personality and more tech abilities. Dana knew the alien starship and AI better than anyone in Star Watch.
“Well?” the captain asked.
“It was a clever attack,” Dana said, sounding tired. “By asking a mathematically impossible question, structuring it in such a way that Galyan had to answer, it put the AI into a thought-loop. In other words, the enemy directive kept Galyan thinking like a hamster on a wheel. That allowed the AI’s basic functions to continue, but dimmed him, you could say.”
“Is Galyan fixed?” Maddox asked.
“I am, Captain,” Galyan said, appearing outside the AI core. “Thank you for your quick work, Doctor. Now that I have observed and analyzed the question, I know how to defend against it and similar ruses. Unfortunately, by initiating the defense, adding a redundancy sequence, I will compute seven percent slower than before.”
Dana nodded as if all that seemed sensible.
“The structuring of the question was a highly advanced technique,” Galyan added.
Maddox’s eyes brightened. “By the technique, can you tell who made the assault?”
“That is an interesting angle of investigation,” Galyan said. “Let me ponder it.” The holoimage stood still, with only its eyelids fluttering.
“Why does he do that?” Maddox asked.
“I suspect it is an Adok adaptation,” Dana said, “allowing regular crewmembers to see that the AI is busy.”
“That’s interesting. It shows we had some similarities with the Adoks.”
“More than some,” Dana said. “In most ways, Adoks thought and acted similarly to humans. If that were not so, Galyan would not be able to communicate with us as effectively as he does.”
“But…I’ve seen reports concerning the AI. Its different modes of thought have made it difficult for our scientists to understand most of the ship’s secrets.”
“It’s a matter of degree,” Dana said. “I’ll give you an example. Great apes and human DNA have a ninety-eight point five percent similarity. Yet even that small variation—the one point five percent—makes for huge differences between apes and men. The same is true for the Adoks and us. As I said before, if we weren’t so similar, communication would be impossible between us, as we would have no common reference points.”
Before Maddox could ask more, the wall-comm buzzed. “Captain,” Valerie said. “Is Galyan back?”
“He is.”
“Then I suggest we hold a meeting, sir,” Valerie said. “Our new discovery could have changed the parameters of the mission.�
��
Maddox pursed his lips. He didn’t want a meeting, but it might be better to go ahead and use it to gauge the crew’s reactions to the latest event.
“Finish your diagnostic and recheck the damage to the collapsium armor. We’ll meet in an hour.”
***
They met in the briefing room around a large table. As Maddox had expected, Valerie wanted to abort the mission to race home to tell High Command about the portal missile attack.
“Negative,” he said.
“But if the New Men are doing this—”
“The New Men did not make the attack,” Maddox said.
Dana looked up. “How can you be certain?”
“We’ve seen how New Men attempt a takeover. They use commandos to board and storm.”
“They could have tried a different tactic this time,” Dana said.
Was he the only one who could see this?
“If the New Men had attacked,” Maddox said, “commandos would have appeared after the Galyan-dampening missiles struck. No. This was someone else with a different agenda. The exotic technology proves my hypothesis. I agree with the lieutenant that High Command must learn of this. Therefore, Lieutenant, you will make a data packet and beam the missile attack information to the approaching Star Watch vessels.”
“We’re no longer in the Tau Ceti System,” Valerie said quietly.
“We’ll jump back in order to relay the news,” Maddox said. “Afterward—Second Lieutenant, you will plot the fastest course to the Xerxes System.”
“Including regular Laumer-Points?” Keith asked.
Maddox nodded. “Doctor, I would like you to ready a briefing about what you found in the Mid-Atlantic. The professor’s holoimage told us he—it—operated from a Builder AI box. The Nexus in the Xerxes System is a Builder construct. I believe it’s time we understood the ancient aliens a little better.”
“You think the missiles could have been a Builder attack?” Valerie asked.
“No!” Dana said before Maddox could respond. “That’s impossible. The Builders were peaceful and would not initiate such a thing.”
The Lost Colony (Lost Starship Series Book 4) Page 17
