The Lost Starship

by Vaughn Heppner

  ***

  Twelve hours later, Valerie sat in the wardroom with Ensign Maker. The ship hurdled through Remington Three toward the next Laumer-Point, which would take them into the Loki System.

  The two of them waited on Captain Maddox. Keith’s lip was healing quickly, but the back of his right hand still looked bad. How dare the captain strike the man or the bottle he had been holding? An inch the other way and Maddox might have broken bones.

  The hatch opened, and the captain ducked through. He looked striking in his uniform and cap, and he wore a regulation sidearm.

  Valerie stood at attention while Keith kept sitting. The captain waited. Belatedly, the pilot rose to his feet, although he didn’t come to full attention. The man lacked military manners.

  “Please,” Maddox said. “Sit down.”

  Keith practically dropped into his chair. Valerie sat with decorum, putting her folded hands on the table. She knew that bad manners drove out good, and she was determined that wouldn’t happen to her.

  Maddox strode to the head of the table, sitting, regarding them. “I’ll make this brief. Until we reach the alien sentinel, entering the Loki System is going to be the most dangerous aspect of our mission. As you know, no one has ever managed to escape off Loki Prime. There’s a reason for that. An SWS monitor guards the main jump point while heavily armed orbitals watch the surface for any technological activity. If they detect a problem, they launch missiles onto the planet. Because of its thick cloud cover, lasers can’t penetrate from space to the surface. A few of the orbitals do have laser cannons, though. Those are for shuttles or other vehicles attempting to land on the surface or trying to leave.

  “Now, the Lord High Admiral has provided me with security clearance codes for the orbitals. I doubt any other ship has arrived from Earth to program a new security system into place. Even so, this is going to be tricky, and it could take expert flying. Any questions so far?”

  “I have one,” Keith said, raising his hand.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Are we taking the scout down onto the surface?”

  “Negative,” Maddox said. “We’ll use the flitter.”

  “Your speedster isn’t rated for vacuum flight, sir,” Valerie said. “I looked it up on the ship’s computer.”

  “This is a modified flitter,” Maddox told her.

  “While you’re on the surface, what are my duties here, sir?” Valerie asked.

  “To wait by the controls for my signal,” Maddox said. “It’s unlikely, but you may have to enter the atmosphere to pick us up.”

  “May I ask why you think that, sir?” she said.

  “How far I can climb out of the atmosphere will depend on the weight of my passengers.”

  “Do you expect any danger while on the planet, sir?”

  “Considerable danger,” Maddox said. “Murderers, rapists and other criminals are all serving life sentences on Loki Prime. The flitter will represent their only chance of escape. We don’t know the conditions down there, but I expect trouble.”

  “I checked the regulations, sir,” Valerie said. “I found that it’s forbidden to take firearms down onto the planet.”

  Maddox scrutinized her. “You do realize that we’re headed to Loki Prime in order to break people out of a prison planet? Technically, that’s unlawful. I’m proceeding upon the direct orders of Lord High Admiral Cook. One could argue that he has no right to order me into a seemingly lawless action. Yet, he has because of the enemy’s infiltration into our organizations. You do see that, yes?”

  “I-I suppose so, sir,” Valerie stammered.

  “Your answer is evasive,” Maddox said. “As an officer that follows the regulations, is it yes, or is it no?”

  Valerie tried to squirm away from answering. “The Lord High Admiral is trying to save us,” she said.

  “By breaking the law?” asked Maddox.

  Valerie opened her mouth to answer but found that she didn’t know what to say.

  “Lieutenant,” Maddox said, “I believe you’re now experiencing a common failing among all of us. To wit, that our theories have a terrible tendency to crash against reality. In such an instance, one should employ judgment to make a calculated choice. The trouble is that, at times, your judgment will fail you, just as it has me in several instances. Then you must dust yourself off and begin anew, attempting to learn from the experience.”

  “Are these new procedures, sir?”

  “We can speak about procedures later,” Maddox said. “Right now, we shall concentrate on the mission. The rescue of Doctor Dana Rich takes priority. Without her, it’s doubtful we can reach the alien star system or have any real chance of gaining entrance onto the sentinel. Here is the last known picture of her.”

  Maddox aimed a hand-unit at a wall. A photo appeared of a dark-haired woman. The hair shined with conditioner and reached well beyond her shoulders. She had dark eyes and a deep brown complexion, giving her an exotic appearance. Her smile indicated cynicism, while her brow showed high intelligence.

  “She has an Indian and Cherokee background,” Maddox said.

  “I thought Cherokees were Indians,” Keith said.

  “Not that kind,” Maddox said. “I mean a citizen of India.”

  “Doctor Rich was born on Earth?” Valerie asked.

  “Yes, in Bombay,” Maddox said. “She hasn’t been to Earth for over twenty years, however. She emigrated to Brahma.”

  “How old is she?” Valerie asked.

  “The file didn’t say. She’s highly intelligent, capable and considered very dangerous. She’s a clone thief, having broken into Rigel’s Social Syndicate highest-level holding cells.”

  “They must have been important clones,” Valerie said.

  “Of the ruling syndic himself,” Maddox said. “He and his cronies control the Social Syndicate.”

  Valerie shook her head. She’d never heard of them.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” the captain said. “I have a locator—”

  Valerie laughed. “I don’t see how this will be difficult, then. Oh. Please excuse my interruption, sir.”

  “Finish your thought, Lieutenant.”

  Valerie fidgeted before saying, “Can’t you fix Doctor Rich’s location, fly down, spray the area with a knockout gas and pick up her inert form?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Maddox said.

  Valerie glanced at Keith before turning back to Maddox. “Am I missing something, sir?”

  “As I was going to say,” Maddox told her, “I have a locator to help me find Sergeant Riker. He’s my assistant in Star Watch Intelligence. He has already been sent to Loki Prime with the task of finding the good doctor. After picking him up, I hope to proceed quickly on the ground to her.”

  “Your sergeant, sir?” Valerie asked.

  “Yes. He’s a good man.”

  “Brave, too,” she said. “He agreed to drop alone onto the prison planet?”

  “No. He was sentenced to Loki Prime for killing Caius Nerva, Octavian Nerva’s heir.”

  “Why would your sergeant kill the heir to the richest man on Earth?” Valerie asked.

  “I’m sure he’ll enjoy telling you the story, provided we make it back alive.” Maddox checked a chronometer. “We have forty minutes until we reach the jump point. This time, we’ll use our cloaking device and go in with silent running. We must be ready for any eventuality.”

  He eyed them before picking up the clicker, bringing up another picture. This one had a timetable on it. “Let’s go over our operational details,” Maddox said.

  They did for some time. As the captain neared the conclusion, and despite her reluctance to do so, Valerie found herself impressed with him. Maddox made excellent plans.

  Soon, the captain stood. “That’s it, then. We’re about to make history—the first to break anyone out from the deadliest prison planet in the Commonwealth.”

  -14-

  SWS Scout Geronimo moved silently through the Loki System. The cloak
kept the ship hidden from the masses of sensors sweeping the areas between the planets. Each satellite-beacon did so with automated regularity.

  Since exiting their Laumer-Point, they’d drifted, using their initial velocity to move. There was a reason for tiptoeing through the void—complications—even more than Maddox had anticipated.

  There were four planets in the system. At the center was an F spectral class star, a blue-white fireball twenty percent larger than the Sun. The nearest world was a rare chthonian planet. It was odd for several reasons. Firstly, once it had been a gas giant like Jupiter, which made it strange because the planet was in the inner system. It was rare for Jovian worlds to be so close to a star. Secondly, the proximity to the star had a drastic effect on the gas giant. Through time and gravity, the star had stripped away the gas giant’s atmosphere and outer planetary layers. All that remained was the world’s rocky core. In many respects, the chthonian planet now resembled a terrestrial one.

  A Class 1 Laumer-Point existed between the star and the chthonian planet. It was the main entrance into the Loki System—the Geronimo had entered elsewhere. A Star Watch monitor waited to guard the jump point.

  Monitors were slow ships, designed to slug it out toe-to-toe with other heavies, using powerful beams. Their deflector shields were often as strong as a battleship’s. Some, like the Archangel out there, had warfare pods attached.

  Upon spying the monitor with passive sensors, Lieutenant Noonan had spotted the Archangel’s pod. A quick computer match had told her it contained drones. That gave the monitor the ability to launch missiles. The heavy would likely use that tactic against any starship able to outrun it, staying out of beam range.

  Of course, because the monitor remained near the Class 1 Laumer-Point, it could strike other vessels while their crews experienced Jump Lag coming through, making unwanted starships easy targets.

  The SWS monitor had a distinct shape: perfectly round except for the attached warfare pod. Every inch of space on that vessel was devoted to its massive engines to supply the beam power and deflector shields. If Geronimo tried to fight Archangel, the monitor would swat it out of existence within the first minute. The trick was keeping far away from the monitor and its long-range beams. The scout was a flea compared to the giant fighting ship.

  Archangel’s beam range was almost one hundred thousand kilometers. Because of laser dissipation, the closer one approached the warship, the stronger the beams burned. Fortunately, for the crew, according to the operational plan, Geronimo wouldn’t remotely approach the monitor.

  The system’s second planet was Loki Prime, the prison world and target for their venture. It orbited the star at a greater range than Earth did the Sun. Because this star was larger and hotter, it made the prison planet a sauna, carpeted with dense and dangerous plant-life.

  Geronimo had entered the system through a Class 3 tramline, the backdoor so to speak. The chthonian planet orbited the star at a Venus-like orbit. The Class 3 tramline was close to the system’s third plant, a gas giant in a Jupiter-like orbit. That meant over one billion kilometers had originally separated the scout from the monitor.

  The distance gave them a wide margin of safety from the monitor. It was a slow ship. That meant Archangel would have to accelerate for days to reach the gas giant. Geronimo could be long gone by then, as it was faster than the monitor. However, if the slugger-ship launched seeker drones…that would be a different matter. The scout would have to retreat fast to the outer system Laumer-Point if it saw the monitor launching drones.

  The star system’s fourth planet was a distant Pluto-like object, of no apparent worth or interest to the present venture.

  Even so, if Archangel or its heavy missiles didn’t unduly trouble Maddox—he had been briefed on the monitor and its Laumer-Point guarding mission—the dark beacons littered throughout the inner system most certainly did. One could as easily call the beacons satellites. Even though they orbited the F-class star, the sensor satellites were small, little bigger than Maddox’s flitter. The appellation “dark” meant they were constructed of stealth material, making them difficult to spot. There were over one hundred satellite-beacons orbiting the void between Loki Prime and the other planets on either side of it.

  The danger was this: if a beacon registered the Geronimo, and the scout failed to give the correct security clearance, the sensor satellite would activate the nearest drones.

  Like the star-orbiting satellites, masses of drones moved around the nuclear fireball. These weren’t heavy drones as Archangel carried, and that was a relief. These were smaller but carried nuclear warheads just the same.

  If a beacon’s automated sequences decided the scout was an intruder, it would send a radio signal to the drones nearest the Geronimo. The missiles would thereupon accelerate at their ship, attempting to destroy it.

  In essence, the Commonwealth of Planets had turned the majority of the void around Loki Prime into a mobile minefield, constantly searching and seeking to destroy the unwanted.

  Still, all those factors—the SWS monitor and the space minefield—didn’t trouble Maddox too much. The Lord High Admiral’s computer disc had explained the exact situation. The real trouble was the extra destroyer on patrol around Loki Prime. The starship and its designation clinched it.

  Fifteen hours ago, the lieutenant had turned to Maddox in shock. “Sir, that’s the Saint Petersburg out there.”

  A week ago, in the Solar System near Earth, the same destroyer had tried to beam them out of existence. What was it doing here, and maybe as importantly, how had it beaten them to the Loki System?

  Maddox had brought up the destroyer’s specs. The warship had two medium laser batteries and fifteen point-defense cannons. Each of those cannons fired bigger shells than the Geronimo’s two guns. The vessel had reflective armor plates, and at a moment’s notice, it could raise a deflector shield. The destroyer had a regular crew of forty-seven officers and ratings. It also happened to be one of the new fast models able to outrun the Geronimo. Unlike the massively round monitor, the destroyer was long like the proverbial cigar-shaped starship. It also contained sensor pods to strengthen its ability to sniff out hidden foes.

  The Saint Petersburg could outpace and outfight the scout. First, despite its extra sensor pod, it had to find Geronimo. And that might not be as easy as the destroyer commander believed.

  As Maddox sat in the wardroom thinking, he watched an image slaved to the scout’s sensors. The destroyer presently slid behind Loki Prime. The opposing vessel wasn’t in Low Loki Orbit, but it could reach there quickly enough.

  Drumming his fingers on the table, Maddox wondered if he should attempt sending a computer virus against the satellite-beacons. Maybe he could capture several, force them to fire drones at the destroyer. Of course, that might alert the Archangel’s commander. Still…

  Which of Geronimo’s crew had the knowledge to attempt such a delicate task? If Doctor Dana Rich were aboard, maybe she could try it with a high chance of success. The Commonwealth authorities must have known desperate people trying to free their friends from the prison planet would try something like that someday. There would be rigorous safety precautions and security clearances to overcome.

  Maddox shook his head. Trying to capture satellite-beacons through computer viruses would likely backfire on them. He had to slip onto the planet and sneak away with his volunteers. He had to do that while Saint Petersburg patrolled the area.

  The destroyer’s officers and crew must believe they were doing their duty. It was the orders from above that would be suspect. The New Men must have infiltrated someone into Star Watch High Command.

  How do we defeat an enemy with better ships and a superior intelligence service? What’s their weakness?

  If they were still human, they had weaknesses, right?

  An intercom buzzed. Valerie spoke through it. “Captain, if you could come to the bridge please.”

  Maddox headed there. The lieutenant liked to refer to the cont
rol room as the bridge. She was pure navy.

  Entering the chamber, Maddox asked, “What seems to be the problem, Lieutenant?”

  “Sir,” she said. “It’s time to make a course correction. Saint Petersburg is behind Loki Prime, and we’re soon exiting our optimum time of opportunity.”

  She meant their velocity and heading. It was easier in terms of fuel and likelihood of remaining hidden to make corrections out here rather than when they were close to the planet. It would take them longer to reach Loki Prime if they braked now, but that couldn’t be helped.

  “Ensign?” asked Maddox. “Are you ready?”

  “Do you really think this will work?” Keith asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Maddox said. “Engage.”

  Keith glanced at Valerie before he turned on the special system. Instead of braking normally with fusion-generated thrust, he turned on the stealth system, dumping gravity waves.

  The vessel shook, enough so Maddox grabbed his instrument panel. The others did likewise. A strained sound came from the engine room, where the massive gravity generator worked.

  “How much longer are we going to do this?” Keith asked. “It’s shaking our scout apart.”

  “Thirty seconds longer,” Valerie answered, studying her board.

  The shaking worsened and so did the noise.

  “I don’t know how this will fool anyone out there?” Keith shouted.

  “Steady as she goes,” Maddox said, even as his body trembled from the ship-wide vibration.

  “Get ready to shut down the stealth propulsion system,” Valerie said. “Three, two, one…shut it down.”

  Keith tapped the controls. The shaking quit and the noise rapidly dwindled to normal. The pilot looked up with a grin on his face. “Nothing to it,” he said.

  A light flashed on Valerie’s board. She studied it, tapped some controls and swallowed uneasily. “A beacon noticed us, sir,” she said.

  “Is it demanding our security clearance?” Maddox asked.