The Lost Swarm

by Vaughn Heppner

  “I cannot believe they can track us that easily.”

  “Their appearing here shows they can.”

  “Confound it, girl. Can’t you shut up for just a minute? I’m making delicate adjustments.”

  “You’re making my point. Keith is the pilot. Let the expert do his job so you can concentrate on yours.”

  Ludendorff looked up. “That’s not bad thinking—wait, is that how Maddox does it? Well, that’s how you think he does it. The captain is not as capable as you think. He’s a good faker, though, and good at making people think he can do anything.”

  “Why do you hate him so much?” Valerie asked. “Or is it simply jealously because he’s the di-far?”

  “He is a pain, my dear, nothing more.”

  “I’d say there’s a lot more. You hate him, and yet, I think you admire him, too.”

  “Bah!” Ludendorff shouted. “Even a genius needs some peace and quiet if he’s supposed to think this through. Now, shut up.”

  Valerie had a retort hot on her lips, but she realized her anger was getting the better of her. They were in a fix. If Drakos captured them—

  “There,” Ludendorff said, as he made the final adjustments. “That should do the trick. I’m going to do a David and kill two birds with one stone.”

  “A what?” she asked.

  “Never mind,” he grumbled. “Just get ready to jump. This is going to be delicate. I don’t think Drakos will look for us there right away either.”

  “You’re jumping to the Swarm base?”

  Ludendorff gave her a stricken look. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Maybe not. I’m for it. Should you alert Keith?”

  “Don’t worry about him so much. Worry about the situation. I find that the crew of Victory is far too sensitive about each other. A little more—”

  The darter jumped, and Ludendorff stopped talking, as both he and Valerie experienced mild Jump Lag.

  Valerie came out of it faster, raising her head groggily. It was hard on a body to fold and jump too fast without rest. She was many times younger than Ludendorff. He might have the ability to age longer more gracefully, but his old body could not shake off Jump Lag as a younger one could.

  She glanced at the slumped over Methuselah Man, and it struck her that Ludendorff had always been off the bridge when they jumped.

  Valerie surged out of her seat. She looked out the polarized window, and she saw three streaks. She frowned, trying to understand what the three glowing streaks could mean. The sensors hadn’t come back online yet. Mechanical devices also experienced Jump Lag. It wasn’t as bad as it used to be, but it was still there.

  Where had the old fool jumped to?

  Get him, girl, she told herself. Do it while you have a chance.

  Although groggy, she stumbled to him and almost threw him out of the chair. That might be a mistake, though. She reached into one of his jacket pockets and felt a small round disc. She pulled it out and debated pressing a button. There were several. Which one released the collar from her throat?

  Valerie bit her lower lip. She didn’t dare experiment just yet; as she might accidently incapacitate herself. What should she do, then?

  Ludendorff groaned, beginning to stir.

  Valerie realized there was nothing else she could do but make her move while she could. Intertwining her fingers, she raised her combined fists and struck the back of his neck as hard as she could. The Methuselah Man grunted as he pitched out of the chair. His forehead struck the piloting panel. Valerie struck again, hitting the base of his head this time.

  Ludendorff crumpled onto the deck, unconscious.

  An alarm began to wail. Valerie knew what it meant without looking. The three trails she’d seen through the window must have been the missile exhausts, the three weapons hunting for them. The missiles must have proximity sensors and had spotted the darter.

  Now, what was she supposed to do? Take care of the missile situation or make sure Ludendorff couldn’t do anything tricky? Normally, she would have dealt with the missile situation. Ludendorff had made her too angry over these last three weeks. If she died, so be it. She wasn’t going to let Ludendorff act like her lord and master anymore. She was getting rid of the collar.

  Taking Ludendorff’s belt from his pants, she put his hands behind his back and tied them as tightly as she could. She divested him of all his little tools, trinkets and gadgets after that, tossing them across the compartment. A flat little blaster she kept for herself. She could get her beamer back later.

  Finally, she studied the piloting board. The missiles had zeroed in on the darter, all right. This thing’s stealth field was obviously defective, as Ludendorff had suggested. It was an experimental vessel. Maybe they had done something wrong somewhere.

  Valerie allowed the computer to make its calculations, then she launched the first of three antimissiles. It sped away at the approaching bug missiles.

  Valerie recognized Swarm tech when she saw it. These had to be Thrax’s missiles from one of his ships that had escaped Alpha Centauri. Ship missiles must have supplied the missile base.

  Okay, okay, she had to think. There was no sign she could see showing a new Swarm colony world. The Luna-sized moon had a missile installation. The base was guarding something, but just what she did not know. Looking closer had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now—

  “We have to get out of here, pronto.”

  Valerie kept her feet tucked away from Ludendorff’s prone body that lay before the pilot board. She studied the board and then leaned over and studied sensors. There was no sign of nearby saucer-shaped ships or star cruisers. She did not see anything close except for the three missiles and their launching installation. Could the missile base be hiding the colony world? Why had the bugs built a base on the Luna-sized moon and not the Earth-sized moon?

  She shook her head.

  While she did, she saw something through the sensors that frightened the heck out of her. A beam—a heavy laser—rayed the darter’s antimissile, burning it out of existence.

  The heavy laser came from a turret that had appeared on the Luna-sized moon. The turret had risen from a metal platform in the ground, part of the platform having opened like a surface hangar bay door. The turret was part of the missile base.

  A warning whine told her the installation had target lock on the darter.

  “Forget it, Thrax,” she whispered. This time, she put her feet on Ludendorff’s prone body as her fingers blurred across the board. She wasn’t sure exactly how to do this, but she knew enough, setting in a star-drive jump, activating the engine—this was too soon to jump, for sure. Their bodies were still fighting off the other Jump Lags.

  “I’m sorry, Professor,” she said, glancing down at his inert form. She breathed deeply.

  The warning whine intensified. Another laser turret had appeared.

  Valerie pressed a button. The laser beamed, and the little darter, the Reynard, jumped a moment before the beam hit the ship.

  But something went wrong. She might have made a mistake, or the star-drive was too hot for them to successfully jump again so quickly. Also, Valerie had set the darter for a max jump, which might have strained the engine. Everything went dark, and that was the last thing Valerie remembered.

  -5-

  The last three weeks aboard Victory had been sober and filled with endless labor. The engineers and technicians worked around the clock trying to restore the two antimatter reactors. Andros had finally shuffled back to work. He had lost half his Kai-Kaus helpers, and that had pained him dearly. The remaining Kai-Kaus watched their Chief Technician closely, lest he overwork himself back into sickbay.

  They could have used Ludendorff, but he had gone, and the darter hadn’t made contact with them since slipping away. But then again, maybe it was good the professor had left. With Maddox out, and Valerie and Keith gone, command of the starship was up in the air.

  Galyan coordinated, and no one objected to anything the alien AI
suggested.

  Meta spent her time in medical, constantly at Maddox’s side. According to the chief medical officer, the captain was near death. The doctor had come to believe that Meta’s nearness, her lying next to the captain at times, stroking his cheeks at others, was all that was keeping him from slipping away.

  “I can’t understand it,” the chief medical officer said, a tall, lean man. “There’s nothing physically I can find wrong with him. It’s as if he lacks the willpower, or some other power I haven’t been able to decipher, that is causing him to give up on life.”

  “Ludendorff once called it a spiritual force,” Meta said.

  The doctor shook his head. “That isn’t in any medical book I’ve read. Maybe you’re right, but Ludendorff is gone.”

  “I know,” Meta said, resenting the professor more in this hour than ever before.

  Riker spelled Meta the few times she needed a rest. The older sergeant spoke to the captain then, always coming away hoarse from those times.

  The starship felt as if it were on a deathwatch, and they all hated that. Maybe the worst affected after Meta was Galyan, which seemed impossible. How could an AI feel so strongly? Whenever Galyan was around, he moped and drooped.

  Meta spoke to Galyan about it. “Look, you won’t help the captain like that.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Isn’t there something in your Adok medical logs that will help?”

  “I doubt it. I’ve checked all the file headings and they don’t say anything about a lack of spiritual will.”

  “Well, check more. Check everything. I know you love the captain. He’s your best friend.”

  “He is,” Galyan said.

  “Then save him.”

  “You will blame me if the captain dies?”

  “No, Galyan. Of course, I won’t blame you.”

  “Thank you, Meta. I would not want to continue if you truly thought like that. Out of all the people I call my friend, you are the kindest and sweetest.”

  Meta shook her head, perplexed. “I would have never become like that if I hadn’t married Maddox.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know. I just know it’s true.”

  “I would love to talk more, Meta. But I must retire to my memory banks. You are right. I could be working harder. I am going to work harder than I ever have before. I will save Captain Maddox yet.”

  The holoimage vanished.

  Meta wiped away a tear. How could a holoimage, an alien one at that, bring out the best in people? It truly was a mystery. She wished Doctor Dana Rich were here. Dana would know what to do.

  Why was Maddox slipping away? A firming resolve filled Meta’s chest. She began hurrying back to medical. She was not going to let her husband slide soundlessly into the dark night. She was going to force him back into life—

  Meta sprinted, fearing she might be too late.

  The doctor gave her a frightened look as she ran into Maddox’s room.

  “What is it?” Meta said. “Why do you look as if he’s dead?”

  “He’s not,” the doctor said. “But he’s going to be in an hour if you don’t do something.”

  “Leave the room,” Meta snapped.

  “I can’t leave at a time like this.”

  Meta rushed the doctor, manhandling him with her heavy-planet strength, and bodily threw him from the room, locking the hatch afterward. Then she turned back to her husband.

  He lay so still on the cot, hardly breathing, his skin looking waxy as if he was already dead.

  “No you don’t,” Meta said.

  She moved beside the cot and looked down at him with such longing and love that it caused the captain to stir.

  “That’s right,” Meta said, gripping the bedrail that Riker had bent three weeks ago. “Feel my love for you, husband. Let it fill you with strength. You mustn’t die, dearest. We love you so much. I love you with all my soul. I can’t live without you, darling. Oh, Maddox,” she sobbed.

  Meta thrust herself onto his chest. She gripped him fiercely, and she sobbed against his chest. “Maddox, don’t die. Fight whatever is killing you. Regain your strength. Oh, darling, don’t leave me alone in this cold world. Please, my love, fight to live. Fight with all your strength. I beg you, fight!”

  -6-

  Did Meta know what to do on some intuitive level? Had love forged a bond that let her sense things in Maddox that another would never know? Or had it simply been the doctor’s words, his medical scanners seeing that Maddox was dying.

  Whatever the case, something was happening to Maddox. His being, his self, was far away from his body. The spiritual wound first made by Maddox using the Builder weapon against the Ska those many years ago had bled even more of the special soul energy that used to bubble in abundance within the captain.

  He drifted, had been drifting these past three weeks. Most of the time, he sensed nothing. He simply rested from life, from the dash of one problem after another. It felt so gloriously good to rest, to just float along doing absolutely nothing at all. His life had been one adventure after another. His boundless energy had partly come for the need to act so he didn’t have to think too deeply about…about…

  Maddox drifted toward a dark abyss. He sensed it in this sleep universe. The abyss was cold and deep. It pulled him faster and faster toward it.

  He shivered in this limbo. The abyss was not pleasant, but dark and deep and never-ending. If he plunged down into the abyss, he would never see the light of life again. He would die and possibly come out on the other side to whatever awaited a person after death. Did he know for certain that anything was on the other side?

  God, Maddox said, the first word he’d thought in this realm since sinking into it.

  So…it would okay then to plunge into the dark abyss and die, leave the plane of existence that had become too difficult. The soul energy he used to have…he had very little left. Once it was gone, he would not have the willpower to live. Why not get it over with already? He was tired of doing, and he had rested enough. He wanted…he wanted…

  “Maddox, my love,” a feminine voice drifted to him.

  Maddox had the sense this voice and the feeling with it had been traveling to him for a long, long time.

  “Maddox, my darling, I love you. Please don’t leave me.”

  Maddox turned away from the abyss, the dark end of life. He bathed in the voice and the feeling of love that went with it. Oh, this was wonderful. How could he have forgotten this?

  “Wife,” Maddox said in the limbo realm.

  That was Meta calling to him. He recognized her, and he realized that if he plunged down into the dark abyss that he might never see his love again. That put such a terrible pain in his chest that he could hardly endure it.

  Without realizing it, Maddox drifted away from the abyss and back toward a great, diffuse light that meant life and breathing and pain and love and anguish and joy and—

  “I can’t,” Maddox said. “I can’t go back. I lack the strength.”

  “Maddox!” the sweet voice called with such urgency. There was a longing in her love. There was a tenderness and need, and the love enveloped Maddox. It filled with him a new resolve. With the resolve, he drifted farther away yet from the black abyss of death.

  Love, Meta loved him. He loved her. He could not bear to live without her. Once, he had been alone. He had been okay with being alone. Life seemed normal, and he had fierce competition to keep him occupied. That was enough—until he found Meta. And once he married her and learned how love grew…

  A resolve, something different from grim resolve, but a resolve bolstered by his love for Meta, and a willingness to fight harder for her than he had ever fought before gave him a greater power than he believed he possessed.

  He floated away from the abyss, breaking its drawing power. Maybe there would be a different day he would go over the edge and plunge into the abyss, but it would not be this day. Today, he would continue to fight
.

  The Maddox in this limbo realm frowned. There was a great fog bank ahead. It was different from the rest of the whiteness of this place.

  “Mother?” he asked.

  The fog brightened, and it beckoned.

  What would the fog have to do with his mother?

  Maddox’s eyes narrowed, at least he convinced of his eyes narrowing. Now that he was no longer obsessed with dying, he sensed other worries and fears swirling around him.

  Was the fog a trap? He didn’t think so. Maybe it was mere blockage trying to keep him from Meta. Maddox chuckled to himself. As if that was going to happen.

  Maddox lowered his head, as he conceived of it, and he charged like a stampeding bull at the bank of bright fog.

  -7-

  Maddox was a young boy in a school full of boys bigger than he was. This school wasn’t on Earth, but on Io, in Jupiter’s planetary system. He was ten, and he had almost forgotten about his time here. He’d been alone for a while already—the limbo dream realm—but that had begun to make no sense now that he was here again. This wasn’t just any school, but a place for rich men’s troubled sons. Who was paying for him to be there, and why didn’t he know the person’s name?

  There were only a few teachers, and they were older men quick to use a switch on anyone causing trouble in class or on the playground. Old Arbush kept order in the sleeping barracks. He’d been a Star Watch Space Marine, and knew something about keeping order, all right.

  Despite the supervision, Omar from Aden Satellite and Ivan the Terrible from Castillo were thirteen-year tyrants who made life hell for the rest of the boys, including Maddox. Omar and Ivan bullied them all, and that included at night while Arbush snored in his office. Lately, the two had become worse with their depredations as each showed the rest of the boys the hair sprouting on their chins.

  “We’re becoming men, you dolts,” Ivan told a pack of the younger kids, with Maddox standing in back. “That means you scum have to do exactly as we say, or you’ll wish you had.”

  Maddox had been a loner even then. Even at ten, the others could tell he wasn’t like them. He was tall and skinny and could do more pushups than even Ivan the Terrible could, although Ivan could bench press more.