The Lost Starship

by Vaughn Heppner

  “I also don’t understand why you would tell someone like me.”

  “I’m getting to that,” O’Hara said. “I’ve been around for some time. That’s my point. I’ve seen these reports gather.”

  “What reports?” Maddox asked.

  “The special ones that have made us uneasy for the last two decades,” she said. “At first, they appeared random. Then, they coalesced into a pattern. We couldn’t see the pattern at the time, mind you, just feel it tightening around us.”

  “Us,” Maddox said, “as in the Commonwealth of Planets?”

  “No. Us as in the Oikumene. I have spoken with the top Windsor League intelligence people, although I haven’t had those conversations with my Wahhabi or Spacer counterparts. We now believe these hidden maneuvers were the work of the New Men. It is my belief that they were laying their groundwork.”

  “For an invasion?” asked Maddox.

  “We don’t know that part yet, but it’s possible. Let me rephrase. After the lieutenant’s story, I’d say it’s likely.”

  “By ‘we,’ you mean Star Watch Intelligence?”

  “No,” O’Hara said. “Several Windsor League officers, the highest ranks here and a few people above us.”

  “Clearly, the New Men have invaded the Oikumene,” Maddox said.

  “Are they invading? Are you sure?”

  “What do you call the conquest of Odin, Horace and Parthia?” Maddox asked.

  “It could be conquest. It could be extermination. It could be assimilation.”

  “What does the last part mean?”

  “Let me lay my cards on the table,” the brigadier said. “After much research, we believe the New Men are the result of genetic experiments. Nearly one hundred and sixty years ago, some colony ships from the Thomas Moore Society headed for deep space. They were peopled with utopians, those certain they could perfect humanity. Now, we can’t be sure, but the majority of us in the know believe the Thomas Moore Society colonists were the genesis to the New Men. Among the utopians was a group who wrote that the easiest way to achieve their dream was to modify man. Could they have gained the ascendency out there in the Beyond? Did they practice simple genetic selection or experiment with gene-splicing? Did they use the scientific techniques we have to produce better tomatoes or hybrid wheat and transform people?”

  “I have no idea,” Maddox said. “Why do the New Men have golden skin?”

  “Maybe as a mark of their superiority?” the brigadier said, “maybe because they settled a world with a hot star. I don’t know.”

  “What did you mean when you said assimilation earlier?”

  “Taking the conquered people and selecting those with superior genes for breeding. That is one idea. There are others more repugnant.”

  “Such as?” Maddox asked.

  O’Hara fixed her gaze on him. “Maybe they place a fertilized gene-modified egg into a captive woman’s uterus. The captive becomes a breeder for the New Men, a brood mother, if you will.”

  Maddox’s eyes widened. “Do you think that’s what happened to my mother?”

  The brigadier shrugged.

  “How can you be so calm about this?” he asked.

  “Please, Captain, use your intellect. Even though you’re our youngest, you’re also our best operative. Lately, however, you have become far too emotional. I want my former star officer to reappear for duty.”

  Maddox and the brigadier stared at each other for a long moment. She looked away first. Slowly, the truth dawned on him.

  “You’ve known about my mother for some time,” he said. “In fact, it’s likely you covered her trail in Brisbane.”

  “Likely?” the brigadier asked.

  “You did cover it.”

  She nodded. “Why did we do so?”

  “Because the trail led into the Beyond,” he said. “You wanted time to figure this out. That meant you couldn’t have people going about it half-cocked, giving away the game that you knew.”

  “Good. You’re thinking again. It’s about time.”

  “Where in the Beyond did the trail lead?” Maddox asked.

  “That we don’t know,” she said.

  “What do you know?”

  “After listening to Lieutenant Noonan’s story, it appears we didn’t prepare well enough. Oh, we have a far larger Fleet, given the level of peace before the invasion. It’s possible our enemy recognized our awareness. In fact, now I believe that is a certainty. We have battled their agents in secret, but they are impossibly clever. Yes, we’ve won a round or two, but they have outmaneuvered us time and again. Their abilities are terrifying. Some of us have begun to wonder if there’s any hope for humanity.”

  “I have two questions,” Maddox said. “Why have you let me run free until now, and why are you telling me this?”

  The brigadier smiled. “I’ve known about you a long time, Captain. I have championed your cause against some who seriously distrust you. We haven’t told you any of this because some among us fear you. Some doubt your loyalty, after yesterday’s story, more than ever. But this should be made clear to you. Until we actually capture a New Man and test his DNA, and then compare it to yours, we can’t know for certain that you have their blood.”

  “But—”

  “Your skin isn’t golden,” the brigadier said. “You have Caucasoid pigmentation and features. Yes, you have some heightened abilities. Does that mean you’re one of them?”

  “It means I’m a half-breed.”

  “I don’t like the term, Captain.”

  “Nevertheless—”

  “Don’t mistake a possibility for an actuality,” O’Hara said. “And even if you have half of their genetics, so what? Why does that make such a difference as far as your loyalty goes?”

  Maddox digested her words. “Tell me this then. Why did my mother’s trail lead into the Beyond? What was she running from?”

  “At this point, we simply don’t know. Therefore, you shouldn’t let possibilities bother you.”

  He wanted to grab at this hope. Maybe I’m not part New Man. Then reality, at least as he saw it, resettled in his heart. Yet, what other explanation is there? What has the highest probability? That I’m a half-breed: a genetic experiment that got away from the New Men.

  “You must put this behind you,” the brigadier said. “In reality, your origins don’t matter. It’s who you are now that counts.”

  Yes, who am I? Maddox decided to shelf the probing for the moment. Still, a cynical smile touched his lips as he looked at the brigadier. “On to the second question then,” he said. “Why tell these things now?”

  “My dear boy, isn’t it obvious? Yes, some will think you’re merely being clever, thinking four or five moves ahead of us. You’re telling me this to hide your tracks, taking a gamble with me.”

  Maddox felt his heart go cold. Despite her earlier words, it sounded as if O’Hara believed he really had New Men genetics.

  “I know you have a good heart and good intentions,” O’Hara said, “but more importantly, so does he.”

  “He?” asked Maddox. “Who is he?”

  A secret door slid open, startling Maddox. A large man with a red face and a white uniform stepped into the room.

  “Me,” Lord High Admiral Cook said. “I don’t think you’re a plant or a sleeper. I believe you’re just the man we need to give us an edge against the New Men before they begin their invasion in earnest.”

  -6-

  Maddox stared at the Lord High Admiral. He hadn’t expected this.

  The brigadier rose and began to move from her desk.

  “Stay seated,” Cook told her. “You, too, young man.”

  Maddox had belatedly shot to his feet. He paused for a second and then sat back down.

  The big man moved stiffly, as if he had bad knees. He probably did. Maddox wondered how old the Lord High Admiral was. Probably older than the brigadier.

  With a grunt and the creak of his chair, Cook settled himself. Apparently
satisfied with his position, the Lord High Admiral turned to him.

  “You’ve made this much easier for us, my boy. I appreciate that. I admit I had a reservation or two about you. Not anymore. You have my complete trust.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Maddox said.

  “No, no. I thank you. The New Men situation baffles me. How could three ships demolish an entire strengthened battle group like that? Oh, I grant you, the New Men had several edges. They caught von Gunther’s people gripped in Jump Lag. And that beam of theirs that cuts through shields is a real killer. It was all too brisk against armor too.”

  “May I ask a question, sir?” Maddox asked.

  “Son,” Cook said, “you can ask me all the questions you want, if you do it during the next half hour. That’s all the time I can spare—that you can spare. If we’re going to make this work, you’re going to have to leave fast.”

  The accelerated tempo and scope of these events shook Maddox. He needed time to adjust. No. He had run out of time, hadn’t he? He’d have to do his deep thinking later. Right now, he had to go with this and see where it led. The Lord High Admiral had said he could ask anything he wanted. Well, all right then.

  “Sir,” Maddox said, “do we have any idea of the number of starships the New Men possess.”

  “No idea at all,” Cook said. “Logically, though, we should have more vessels than they do. They started with a tinier base and can’t have anything close to our population levels. However, Admiral Fletcher’s suggestion of compiling one giant armada and rushing them seems too risky. They would surely learn of such a massive gathering. They might also take the opportunity to target our unprotected industrial planets and bomb us back into a primeval age.

  “My boy, because the stakes are so high, we’ve decided to use caution and approach this like an interstellar war. That means blocking key jump routes, guarding our most important systems and attacking their strategic lines and industrial bases. If you’re captured, you can tell them all this.”

  “I don’t plan on getting caught,” Maddox said.

  “Glad to hear it,” the Lord High Admiral said. “Naturally, we’ve sent Patrol scouts into the Beyond.”

  The Patrol arm of Star Watch went on the deep recon missions. They were the risk takers and they often traveled years at a time, searching new star systems, expanding the Commonwealth’s knowledge of the Beyond.

  “We have to learn more about the New Men,” Cook said. “I mean, actually learn something concrete about them. I don’t have much faith in those missions, though. Likely, we’ll never see those Patrol scouts again, which is a shame.”

  The Lord High Admiral’s jawline tightened. “Son, let me tell you, it’s no fun sending volunteers to their deaths. I don’t like it one bit. This isn’t a cold game to me, where people become counters to move across a board. This is a death struggle of competing races, winner take all. I believe that with all my heart.”

  The Lord High Admiral glanced at the brigadier. Then, he refocused on Maddox.

  The captain could feel the man’s force of will. The Lord High Admiral must have hooded some of it during the meeting yesterday. Not now. Those green eyes studied him with fierce intensity.

  “I’ve felt for some time that our enemy believes he’s superior to normal humans,” Cook said. “The people he uses as agents—” The Lord High Admiral waved his big hands. “We don’t have time for a history lesson. They didn’t have to move at this precise moment if they didn’t want to. That they did invade the Oikumene seems to indicate they feel they have enough resources to defeat us.”

  From her desk, O’Hara cleared her throat.

  “Not now, Brigadier,” Cook said. He focused on Maddox again. “We don’t know their politics. That’s her point. We don’t know their situation. Maybe they’re like the ancient Ostrogoths who fled before Attila the Hun’s grandfather. Maybe some truly wicked aliens are out there pushing the New Men into us. I doubt it, but we don’t know. We’re clueless about far too much. One thing we have an eyewitness to—Noonan and her lifeboat crew told us how three cruisers slaughtered a Star Watch battle group.”

  “Could they have planted that?” Maddox asked. “Could they have captured Noonan and given her false memories about what really happened?”

  “Sure they could have,” Cook said. “We have experts trying to deduce just that. Some believe that’s the actual case. It’s too hard for most of us to accept three ships doing what they did. Maybe in reality the battle was a slugfest with nearly even sides. The New Men won, captured Noonan and brainwashed her into thinking what she told us. There aren’t any mental marks or other evidence pointing to that, but anything is possible, I suppose.”

  Cook shrugged. “If that’s the case, though, we have much less to worry about. Then, when our main fleets engage, we’ll do much better than we thought we would. We’re fools if we hope Noonan’s evidence is wrong. These New Men are a menace beyond anything we expected. And that’s where you come in, Captain.”

  “I can’t see how one man can make much of a difference in this,” Maddox said.

  “Firstly,” Cook said. “You won’t be one man. You’ll be part of a team, a very unusual team, to be sure.”

  Maddox noticed the Lord High Admiral and the Iron Lady trading glances. Okay then.

  “How can one team make a difference in such a broad war?” he asked.

  “Right. That’s the question.” The Lord High Admiral’s nostrils flared. “You’re about to leave on a quixotic quest, Captain, maybe the craziest assignment anyone has ever gone on. We’re desperate. It’s more than possible that humanity is facing extinction. The New Men strike me as arrogant beyond anything we’ve faced before. The trouble is that their arrogance seems to be entirely backed by real ability. I think they are better than us at waging war and waging a secret spy contest. I think they’re doing unspeakable things to the populations on Odin, Horace and Parthia. I hope to the Lord in Heaven I’m wrong, but I have a bad feeling in my gut that I’m right.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” Maddox said. “That doesn’t answer the question, and my half hour is fast running out.”

  “You’re right.” Cook glanced at the brigadier. “You want me to tell him, don’t you?”

  “I couldn’t do it, sir,” she said.

  Maddox was surprised at the tone of her voice. The Iron Lady sounded weary, sad, as if… This will be a supremely difficult operation. That’s what they’re hinting at. She can’t give me the orders to do this because she fears for my life.

  For the first time, Captain Maddox felt himself blush. It was a strange sensation. Did Brigadier O’Hara have a motherly concern for him? Did she look at him as more than her star officer? She’d been aware of him since his birth, watching, maybe wondering about him.

  Lord High Admiral Cook cleared his throat.

  Maddox looked up.

  “I’m going to tell you a story,” Cook said. “It’s an old one. You may have heard rumors about it before. There is supposed to be a star system far out in the Beyond. It’s a smashed system, all the planets long ago turned into rubble. Whoever fought that ancient war used planet busters of unimaginable strength. According to the tale, hundreds, thousands of wrecked starships drift as useless hulks. Some believe that aliens battled there while our ancestors chased cave bears from their dens. We’ll probably never know the reasons for the conflict or what drove them to such desperate measures.”

  Cook leaned a little closer. “Among the asteroidal debris and dead ships is a working sentinel. It’s a huge vessel still seeking its ancient enemies. Even more importantly, this automated sentinel, this primeval Guardship, contains advanced weaponry beyond anything we have. If the Star Watch could gain this craft, and if it was better than the New Men’s starships, then maybe we could win the coming battles.”

  Maddox watched the old man as he spoke. Yes, during his many assignments he’d heard rumors of this sort. The story had wandered through the star lanes for a long time. He al
so knew that a few prospectors had searched for the destroyed system. The legend went that no one who hunted for the alien super-ship was ever heard from again.

  “If this star system is real and the sentinel is there,” Maddox said, “anyone attempting to board it would die.”

  “Not if the team doing it had the right personnel,” Cook said.

  “Who would these people be?” Maddox asked. “I don’t see how I possess any of the needed qualities.”

  “You would bring several elements to the table. First, you would be the team leader, guiding and prodding the others. Second, you’re a specialist at intrigue and subterfuge. Anyone able to pull this off would need such talents. Third, you’re a lethal survivalist. Fourth, if you win your way onto the sentinel, the brigadier and I believe you would be trustworthy as its commander. Lastly, we both think you would make an excellent starship captain.”

  “That’s a lot to carry on my shoulders,” Maddox said.

  “Come, come, my boy,” Brigadier O’Hara said. “You’re just the man to do it. If you can’t, I don’t know who can.”

  “Break onto an alien sentinel from a war six thousand years ago?” Maddox asked.

  “Yes,” Cook said. “It sounds mad. That we’re down to something like this shows the desperation of the hour. There’s something else you should know, too.”

  Maddox felt the back of his neck prickle. He had felt such stirrings before. It warned him that the old man had saved the worst for last.

  The Lord High Admiral scooted his chair around, bringing it closer so their knees almost touched. “Captain, this will be a dangerous mission for more reasons than its objective. After listening to Lieutenant Noonan’s tale, it seems our enemy has infiltrated our various organizations even more deeply than I’d believed. It’s taken me a long time to admit this.” He glanced at the brigadier before staring back at Maddox. “How can one accept such a bitter truth until the reality of it stares one in the face? It’s good the Iron Lady has been at the helm of Star Watch Intelligence all this time. She’s seen more clearly than any of us have.”