The Lost Starship

by Vaughn Heppner

  Valerie could only nod.

  Captain Maddox led her away from the brutality, quickly merging into the crowd. Behind them, people stopped and stared at the fallen man. Valerie knew enough to realize the thug had been an expert at what he did. He could have been a professional hitman.

  “Who were they?” she asked breathlessly.

  “The enemy,” Maddox said.

  “What enemy?”

  He didn’t glance down at her. He kept moving his head unobtrusively, no doubt scanning the crowd.

  “For now,” Maddox said, “we shall call the enemy them.”

  “You can’t mean the New Men,” she said.

  Maddox winced slightly. “None of that please. Them. That’s what we’ll call the enemy in public.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Ah. I didn’t know you had a sense of humor. Thank you for informing me.”

  She frowned at him. “Are you making fun of me?” She didn’t let anyone make fun of her.

  “Lieutenant Noonan, I am not making fun of you. This is simply my way when I’m nervous.”

  She gave him a more careful study. He didn’t look nervous in the slightest.

  “This way,” he said.

  She didn’t need to ask. He had powerful fingers, and his grip hurt her elbow. There was a sense of urgency to him, too. Normally, no one guided her. It began to dawn on Valerie, however, that she had stepped into a seriously dangerous assignment. The Lord High Admiral had hinted in that regard. He had tried to warn her away from doing this. Well, he had pretended to. Valerie knew enough about dares to realize he had been goading her into going.

  I’m as good as any taxpayer. I am a taxpayer now. I didn’t run away from the New Men. I followed the orders of the best officer in our fleet. The Lord High Admiral asked me to do this because this is finally my chance to shine in the line of duty. I’m going to show them. I’m going to show them all what Tank Noonan’s daughter can do.

  “Do you see any more of the black leather jacket gang?” she asked.

  “No,” Maddox said. “They’ve dropped away. They’re watching us, though. They wonder what I’m doing here with you. They’re curious about what we’re going to do next.”

  “What are we going to do?” Valerie asked.

  Captain Maddox glanced down at her. He was handsome and maybe even younger than she was, and there a feeling of extreme competence in his bearing.

  “We’re going to do the unexpected,” he said.

  “Okay. What is that?”

  “Do you see that door over there?” Maddox asked, inclining his head to the right.

  She glanced at it, a utility door it seemed to her. “I see it.”

  “Good. Then turn around one hundred and eighty degrees from it and run,” he said, releasing her elbow as he broke into a sprint into the direction he’d just told her to go.

  -8-

  While panting, Lieutenant Noonan glared at Captain Maddox. She sat in the passenger seat of his flitter, a fast sportster with a bubble canopy. Below, the mall and the greater metropolis of Paris quickly faded from view as they climbed with unbelievable speed. She couldn’t even see the Eiffel Tower anymore.

  The engine hummed, but there was hardly any vibration. This was some craft, clearly a specialty machine approaching combat efficiency.

  After that harrowing sprint, Valerie was still sucking down air. Sweat prickled her face and neck.

  Maddox glanced at her and flicked yet another switch. A conditioning vent poured cooling air against her skin. She repositioned, opening a top button. Ah, the blowing air felt good.

  Valerie liked to stay in shape. Compared to Maddox, though, she was an out of shape slob. The captain seemed placid as he kept checking his instrument panel. He’d sprinted like a cheetah back there. Only as Valerie broke out of the mall, struggling to catch up to him in the parking lot, had she realized a sniper fired at them—not that she’d heard anything. The captain had thrown himself to the paving, and she’d seen something glittery break apart on the hard surface. Maddox had produced a long-barreled gun, snapping off several shots. Then he’d sprinted back, grabbed her and forced her to bend low as they wove through parked vehicles.

  She would have asked what was going on, but it was all she could do to keep her legs churning as he propelled her along. Finally, he’d holstered the weapon and pulled out a black unit, pressing buttons. She’d yelped when a flitter literally dropped out of the sky in front of them.

  Another of those glittery things broke apart against the machine’s canopy. Then they’d piled in. The flitter lifted before she clicked on her buckles. Now they headed north.

  “Who shot at us back there?” she said between gasps.

  “That’s a good question,” Maddox said. “I wish I knew.”

  “You must have an idea.”

  He glanced at her. “There are several possibilities.”

  She frowned at him. “I’d guess it was the same people who came for me in the mall.”

  “That’s loose thinking at best,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, stung. “That makes perfect sense. They tried to kidnap me in the mall. I saw what the sniper fired at you. It wasn’t bullets. Steel-jacketed rounds don’t break apart on paving or against armored glass. He shot darts. Something with knockout drugs would be my guess.”

  Maddox gave her another glance, this one more quizzical.

  “Did I say something stupid?” she asked, exasperated.

  “I didn’t expect someone like you to be so observant in these kinds of situations,” Maddox said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “A Star Watch lieutenant. What did you think I meant?”

  She said nothing.

  “Someone from Detroit perhaps?” he asked.

  Her face stiffened. “You listen to me—”

  “Save yourself the indignity,” Maddox said. “I meant no insult. I’m letting you know that I’ve read your file.”

  “Yeah?” she asked. “What does it say?”

  “For the most part it speaks about your competence in your chosen area of expertise.”

  “And the rest?”

  He grinned. “None of us are perfect, are we?”

  “If you think because my family lived on welfare that you’re better than us, you have another thing coming. “

  “That’s an interesting word.”

  She scowled. “What is? What are you talking about now?”

  “Better,” he said.

  “What about it?”

  “You asked if I think I’m better than you. That’s too broad of a question. I run faster, so that makes me a better runner. As a navigator in space, you would be better. You have to add a qualifier to your statement for it to make sense.”

  She debated remaining angry with him, but he had helped her in the mall. The thugs with the black leather jackets…who knew what they would have done to her.

  “You’re a slick operator,” she said. “I can see that.”

  “And you revert to your upbringing in times of stress,” Maddox said.

  “Maybe I do. Is that going to be a problem for you?”

  “Negative,” he said. “It makes your selection more reasonable.”

  “That still doesn’t answer my question. Who do you think shot at us back there?”

  “I’ve narrowed it down to two possibilities,” he said. “One, maybe the sniper belonged to the men trying to kidnap you. But then, why did they shoot at me?”

  “Who were they anyway?”

  “Yes. That’s a good question. Could our enemy have moved this quickly? I don’t like what that implies.”

  “What does it imply?” Valerie asked.

  “That they have operatives within the Star Watch,” Maddox said.

  “So, who shot at you?”

  “It could be the same people or one of the Methuselah People, a tycoon.”

  “Why would he or she come after
you?”

  “He no doubt believes I caused the death of his son. He wants revenge. Octavian Nerva has the money to hire the best.”

  “Octavian Nerva of Nerva Conglomerate?” she asked in shock.

  “The same,” Maddox said.

  “You have powerful enemies.”

  “Not half as powerful as those after you,” he replied.

  Valerie turned away, staring out of the canopy. They shot through clouds as they continued to fly north. This man helped me. Maybe he saved my life. I have to quit getting so mad so easily.

  Valerie realized her upbringing had made her ultra-competitive. One of her few friends had said she was prickly like a porcupine. “Make people like you,” her friend had suggested. “That will make things a lot easier for you. Besides, you’re beautiful. You should learn to use that to your advantage.”

  Well, life hadn’t been easy. Smiling at problems hadn’t helped her any. She’d had to lower her head and charge through her problems. Stubborn pride and hard work had been her secrets.

  “So what’s the plan now?” Valerie asked.

  “First. I need to know how much you know.”

  “Sure. We’re off on the wildest goose chase in the galaxy. We have to find a place that doesn’t exist and commandeer a warship that can do the impossible. Is that the same mission you’re on?”

  “If you feel that way, why did you agree to do this?”

  “Why did you?” she shot back.

  Maddox studied her before saying, “I believed your story about the battle with the three starships.”

  “And?” she asked.

  “And we need that alien sentinel if we’re going to defeat the invaders.”

  “You think the ancient ship exists?” Valerie asked.

  “Don’t you?” he asked.

  Valerie shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible, I suppose. It doesn’t seem very probable, though.”

  “If it doesn’t exist, how do we defeat the New Men?”

  “Oh, so we’re done calling them them?”

  “We’re in private, not in public.”

  Valerie closed the button she’d undone. “In my opinion, the New Men can’t be invincible. I don’t think anyone is. All you have to do is find their weak point and exploit it.”

  “I’ve heard worse theories. But what if our point turns out to be weaker than theirs?”

  She frowned. “They have a deadly beam. We should start researching like crazy, using what I recorded from the battle. In time, we’ll probably duplicate that beam. That will give us a weapon to bypass their shields. Until then, we play for time in order to do our research.”

  “And if they invade en masse before we’re ready?” Maddox asked.

  “Then that’s how we stop them,” Valerie said. “We hit them with mass, trading ten ships for one of theirs.”

  “What if they have too many ships to make the formula sustainable?”

  “I doubt they do. We must have a far larger population and industrial base.”

  “Hang on,” Maddox said.

  She glanced at him, not getting it.

  “Hang on,” he repeated. “We’re going to turn.”

  Oh. She grabbed an armrest and hunkered lower.

  Maddox banked the flitter, and he took them down fast.

  “Where are we headed?” she asked.

  “Scotland.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  Maddox nodded. “We have to get our pilot.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Keith Maker.”

  “Where in Scotland is he?” she asked.

  “At this time of the day,” Maddox said, cocking his head. He seemed to be thinking. “He should be in a pub in Glasgow, beginning his afternoon beer. He likes to take his time with those. Later in the evening, he’ll start on the whiskey shots.”

  “What kind of pilot is he?” Valerie asked. “The man sounds like a drunk.”

  “Indeed,” Maddox said.

  She gave him a dubious look. “You’re kidding me, right? We’re not really going to recruit a drunk for the mission.”

  “By recruit, you mean get him to voluntarily join us?”

  “What else would I mean?” she asked.

  “Ah. I see. No, we’re not going to recruit him.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. Then what are we going to do with a drunken pilot in a Glasgow pub?”

  “Kidnap him,” Maddox said.

  -9-

  Maddox let the flitter drop toward Glasgow. He’d taken himself off the traffic control net as they’d lifted from Paris. Because of an advanced anti-tracking device, the machine would be incognito for an hour, maybe two hours if he was lucky.

  Given enough flight time, there would be an anomaly somewhere. That would alert the planetary tracing system. A clock would begin ticking then: the countdown. At that point, it would only be a matter of time before the tracing system cracked his invisibility. He had to be gone from Earth before that happened, or it would jeopardize the entire mission.

  The kidnapping attack against Lieutenant Noonan deeply troubled him. The brigadier had suggested the New Men had infiltrated the Star Watch with agents. The strike against Noonan would seem to prove the enemy had burrowed much farther than he’d believed possible after leaving the Lord High Admiral. It made more sense now why Cook and O’Hara had set up the operation the way they had.

  Humanity was up against a deadly enemy. If the New Men were smarter than people, as regular humans were compared to chimpanzees, what chance did humanity have?

  Is humanity the old breed, the obsolete model? How do you defeat a superior foe? The New Men know us, but we don’t know them. Right now, our advantage appears to be numbers. Are they using the women on Odin, Horace and Parthia to breed vastly more soldiers? Will they outnumber us in twenty years?

  Maddox scowled. He needed to concentrate on the task before him. He’d read the personnel files in the brigadier’s office. It gave him a rundown on the candidates. He didn’t really know them yet. Their files helped him to know what to look for.

  Lieutenant Valerie Noonan clearly had issues. Who didn’t, though? He’d observed her in the mall dealing with the first kidnapper and the second. The woman knew how to handle herself in a tough spot, although she wasn’t a professional in that department. He had begun to take her measure during their conversation during the short flight.

  In his opinion, Lieutenant Noonan wanted acceptance. She keenly felt herself as the outsider. She also carried a two-ton chip on her shoulder. Maddox found it telling that she didn’t rely on her beauty. It told him she likely didn’t believe herself to be beautiful. The concept was preposterous, but there it was, blinking like a neon sign.

  From what he’d read, observed and heard from her own lips, he believed she must be an excellent navigator. She might prove to be a difficult companion in the scout, though. Valerie had not liked his running speed or his competence. It threatened her. He was certain anyone who could do something better than Valerie Noonan threatened her. Like most things in life, that had its good sides and its bad. She would not quit easily. Good. The mission would likely prove to be extraordinarily difficult. Quitters were not welcome.

  That brought him to Keith Maker. By the file, the drunkard was a quitter. He found the ace’s inclusion on the mission as highly questionable. The man’s brain patterns seemed as if they were the only qualifier.

  “Don’t crash us,” Valerie said, sounding worried.

  Maddox leaned to his left, looking down at the city. Individual buildings rapidly grew in size. It was one thing to fly a spaceship and another to pilot a flitter about to wreck.

  For Valerie’s sake, Maddox eased the rate of their descent. Then he continued to think.

  A few years ago, a painfully young Keith Maker had shot down six enemy strikefighters and five bombers, one more than he’d needed to become an ace. He’d fought in the Tau Ceti Conflict, a system-wide civil war. The Star Watch had quarantined the fighting to
Tau Ceti. The split on Earth, and on many colony worlds, as whom to back had threatened a larger rift in the Oikumene. Because of that, the Commonwealth Council had decided to let those on Tau Ceti settle the issue there.

  Before the quarantine, Keith Maker had joined the gas and asteroid miners rebelling against the Wallace Corporation. He’d been on the losing side. Not that Keith had been around at the end. Before that, the miner chiefs had grounded him. The reason was that he’d endangered his squadron with his drinking. The dividing line in Keith’s combat career had been his brother’s death, a fellow pilot and his wingman.

  Until that dreadful day, no one had flown better than Keith Maker could. Afterward, he became sloppy in every way.

  Before leaving the brigadier’s office, Maddox had commented negatively on the man, saying, “He strikes me as useless.”

  “No,” O’Hara said. “That’s not what our profilers say. You’re going to need a daredevil, likely in more places than we can estimate. If you can get Keith Maker working again, there will be no one better.”

  “And if I can’t get him working?”

  “Then you’re the wrong man for the mission,” O’Hara had told him.

  Maybe I am, at that, Maddox told himself. Just how many broken or cracked tools can this mission absorb?

  “What are you grinning about?” Valerie asked him.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re looking all serious as you plunge us to our deaths. Then you start grinning. What are you thinking?”

  That I’m as cracked as the rest of you.

  “The grin is the realization of how much I’m enjoying your company,” he said.

  “Ha-ha,” she said, “very funny.”

  Maddox braked, and he brought the flitter down onto a rundown parking pad. There was the good side of Glasgow and the bad. They were definitely in the latter. Most of the parked air-vehicles here were police cruisers and corporation meat-wagons that carried security personnel.

  “We’re going to move fast while we’re in Glasgow,” Maddox said.

  Frowning, Valerie stared outside at the dingy buildings.

  “Worried?” Maddox asked her.