The Lost Swarm

by Vaughn Heppner

  The floating Erill python no longer mocked, but watched him closely. How are you doing that? No hard material creature has ever been able to do that here.

  “It’s a mystery,” Maddox said.

  I sense Builder thoughts and ways in you. Are you connected to the lost Builders?

  “I suppose I must be.”

  I want clear answers. Answer me, or—

  Maddox laughed. “Or what?”

  The python began drifting faster at him, and it coiled tight as it did. I can still devour you. You will find it quite unpleasant.

  A symbol appeared in Maddox’s mind. It was a strange symbol and glowed with faint power.

  Do not think that, the Erill commanded. As it did, the python gained speed.

  Maddox reached out with his free hand and grabbed the floating symbol. It had once belonged to a Builder. It was hot, and it made him gasp. With sure knowledge, a flooding of it, Maddox threw the symbol at his sword arm. He made a fist with his other hand and repeatedly banged the symbol into his translucent steel-flesh as if at a forge striking real steel on an anvil.

  No! the Erill shouted. It uncoiled and flew at the captain. Like an arrow, the entity from another realm, one that had haunted this ancient city of pyramids for well over six thousand years, sped faster yet. The python-thing opened its fanged mouth, and it expanded at an exponential rate. Like a shark, the Erill opened its mouth wide and attempted to swallow Maddox as a great fish had Jonah.

  Maddox shouted in an alien tongue, the words twisting in his mouth so they burned like fire. The sword arm burst into flames, and he thrust deep into the Erill’s soul, or whatever made up its reality.

  The Erill screamed as the flame-sword bit deep into its substance. Maddox continued to chant the odd words that burned like fire on his lips. Then a torrent of fiery power or soul energy flooded his being through his sword-arm. Maddox bellowed in agony and yet it was glorious and deeply fulfilling. He did not know, and then he did. He wounded the Erill, and that substance was exactly the life essence his body craved.

  With the fire sword embedded in the creature’s soft inner tissue, the power continued to flow into Maddox’s depleted body. It was like a desert sucking up rainwater. The dryness was so deep that the desert just soaked up more and more. So it was for Captain Maddox in this bizarre realm.

  The Erill struggled and thrashed to free itself. You are a thing: a material creature. This is not possible. I cannot cease. I do not want to cease. I have devoured so many you cannot conceive of it. I am but a portion of what I once was. Stop, Captain Maddox, and I will give you the desires of your heart.

  “Die and I will be happy.”

  You do not understand the nature of the bargain. You must trade me something I desire. Oh, oh, oh, I see that you do understand. You are mocking me. Know then—

  A scream of something insubstantial and yet real rolled against Maddox’s id. It expelled him from the spongy dream-state where he must have imagined all this. His id soared like an eagle higher and higher yet. He sensed the floating symbol that had aided him. It was the personal glyph of the Builder which Galyan and he had slain in the Builder Dyson Sphere. The symbol meant—

  Before Maddox could grasp the meaning, his eyes flew open, the eyes of his real flesh-and-blood body. Smoke poured in the cabin, and the klaxon was blaring. Something dreadful was going to happen, but Maddox couldn’t figure out what that was.

  -10-

  Maddox rose from the deck coughing, his eyes watering. Flames danced in the cabin. Meta and Riker were on the deck, twitching although otherwise unconscious.

  Maddox leapt to an emergency station, pulling out a red fire-retardant unit. He hosed foam onto the flames, the sound loud in his ears. The air conditioning unit tried to draw out the smoke, but there was too much to handle.

  Maddox’s mind coped perfectly, however. He’d already put a breathing mask over his face, pulling pure air into his lungs. In seconds, he had emergency breathing masks on Meta and Riker. He whirled around, his thoughts working at lightning speed. The pilot board still functioned, even though it must be over one hundred and twenty degrees in the cabin.

  Maddox moved to the board, scanning—he saw it almost instantly. The darter had skipped, almost back into space. An emergency sensor had indicated an approaching missile. An override autopilot had changed the darter’s course, turning it back down toward the planet. The little scout ship had gone down at too steep an angle. Now, the nose of the craft had become red hot and some things inside the ship were bursting into fire.

  Maddox fought the controls even as he knew he needed to strap down his wife and sergeant. He bared his teeth as his fingers blurred and neurons fired in his mind.

  “Galyan, Galyan, can you hear me?”

  There was no answer.

  That meant Victory must have been out of communicator range, otherwise the holoimage would have appeared in order to assess the situation in here.

  With his uniform sleeve, Maddox wiped the sweat pouring from his face. This was glorious. He was battling for life, and he could feel everything within him working again. If anything, his mind and body was working better than it used to. He might even have an excess of soul energy or life essence.

  Had he really found the Erill? Did such alien entities exist down there on the ancient planet?

  The darter shook and more emergency klaxons began to blare.

  “Mayday, mayday,” Maddox said into the com. “If you can hear me, Lieutenant Noonan, get the ace into a tin can to pick us up. I’m going to try—”

  Maddox slammed the piloting panel with an open hand. He didn’t want to break anything, and he had a feeling that he was stronger than he used to be, so he hadn’t hit the board with a fist. Faster than he ever had, remembering every procedure, Maddox set a small fold course, energized the unit and—

  For a moment, he seemed to blank out. It was Jump Lag or Fold Lag. The little darter had folded out of the planet’s atmosphere but hadn’t lost its velocity. The Reynard moved back toward the planet, but the beginning upper atmosphere was over two hundred thousand kilometers away. There was no moon, but he saw a hundred pinpricks on the sensor board.

  Those were lurker missiles out there. They had zeroed in on the darter with their Orion drives activating with nuclear explosions. In that moment, Maddox realized these missiles—they also seemed to act like mines—couldn’t be over six thousand years old. Wouldn’t the half-life of the nuclear fuel—

  He spied the lurker missile factory. It looked like a black asteroid. But according to the readings on his board, it was even now producing more lurker missiles to replace those that had detonated.

  How many more folds did the darter have in it? Maddox studied the board—and he recognized black disaster in the making. He had made the fold. He had avoided a burning death—even now, the cabin was rapidly cooling—but something had blown inside the darter’s main engine core. The darter had velocity, but that was it. There was no more motive power.

  Maddox lowered his head like a bull, his brows furrowed as he thought furiously. Victory had clearly jumped away earlier. He had been out when Meta had learned the mission’s parameters. Could he recall anything he’d heard while unconscious?

  Maddox fanned through his memories, but defeating the Erill hadn’t given him new powers. It had just replenished his soul energy. He brimmed with it right now. It felt tremendous to be alive, and he could understand ideas that used to baffle him.

  He shook his head. Surviving this damned planet and the last Erills down there in the city of pyramids—

  Meta groaned as she stirred on the deck.

  “Don’t move,” Maddox said. “You must have smoke damage to your lungs.”

  Meta raised her head off the deck and peered at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she looked sick. A second later, she collapsed back onto the deck.

  Maddox gritted his teeth, grinding his back molars together. He was going to survive this place. Meta and Riker deserved to live. H
e owed a lot of people, including the Iron Lady. It was time to start paying back his friends and family. First, though—

  “Mayday, mayday, can anyone hear me?”

  “I hear you, Captain Maddox.”

  The captain whirled around in his seat. “Galyan, you Adok devil. Victory must have jumped back here.”

  “That is correct, sir. I see my prognosis was correct. The planet, a sculpture down there, I believe, provided you with a cure.”

  “There was no sculpture.”

  “A small error, I see.”

  “A huge error, Galyan. You almost made sure Meta, Riker and I were devoured by alien demons.”

  “Excuse me, sir, but this is a poor time for humor. The starship will make one more fold. You were not in the position we saw earlier. Luckily for you, sir, Valerie was taking precautions, and wanted to make sure you were okay. You were joking about the space demons, were you not, sir?”

  “No,” Maddox said.

  The AI holoimage swallowed visibly. “Sir, I do not understand. I am so sorry, Captain Maddox—”

  “No harm, no foul,” Maddox said, working to control his emotions. He wasn’t angry, but full of life, full of energy. That was thanks to Galyan and to—could he call it fate?

  “What happened, sir, if you do not mind me asking?”

  “Is the Reynard in the hangar bay?”

  “I understand, sir. You want me to stop talking about space demons until the proper moment.”

  “Right. Now let’s do this.”

  -11-

  “I do not know how I could have gotten it so wrong,” Galyan said. “Perhaps my memory files were corrupted. I am very sorry—”

  “Galyan,” Maddox said, interrupting. “If you say sorry one more time… No more, do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Galyan said.

  Maddox stood at the head of the conference table, having retold the story to a healed Meta and Riker, and to Galyan, Valerie and Keith. Andros was upstairs on the bridge, using long-range sensors to observe the second planet and the masses of lurker missiles. Victory was outside the weaker sensor range of the hidden asteroid factory that did more than just create the Orion-drive weapons. It also acted as the lurker missile director.

  “Is this a haunted star system?” Valerie asked. “It sure feels haunted.”

  Maddox had trouble keeping still. He positively brimmed with energy. He was back, but with more energy and verve than ever before. He had been standing, finding it difficult to sit still.

  “Ska-like aliens inhabit the system,” Maddox said.

  “The second planet,” Galyan corrected.

  “They’re dying,” Maddox said. “Or many of them have perished since they first came through a gate. If Ludendorff were awake, he might be able to tell us more.”

  “Are you going to wake him now, sir?” Valerie asked.

  Maddox chewed on that, nodding shortly. “But we’re not going to wait here for the professor to revive. It’s time I called the Lord High Admiral and found what we’re supposed to do about the Swarm colony world. I imagine we’re gathering forces and have already sent them.”

  “I can tell you that, sir,” Valerie said.

  “Oh?” asked Maddox. “You’ve spoken to the Lord High Admiral?”

  “Two times while you were incapacitated. I should have—”

  Maddox waved that aside. “No recriminations please. I’ve been out of it, sleeping most of the time. I’m grateful for everything all of you have been doing. This is a good time for an update. If you will, Lieutenant.”

  “There’s not much to tell. A fleet is heading for the Beyond, as you surmised. The Throne World is sending a flotilla. We’re going to join them as the people on Pluto attempt to pinpoint the enemy’s position and count warships.”

  “The Builder Scanner,” Maddox said. “Yes, this will be just like the original Swarm Invasion. With the Builder Scanner and the long-range Builder com devices, we can coordinate and hopefully hit them when they’re unsuspecting.”

  “And hit the main base, the new Swarm colony world,” Valerie said. “That’s what Pluto is attempting to discover. If Lord Drakos has already reached Commander Thrax, the New Man might be able to warn them about the scanner. But even knowing about the scanner, I don’t see how they can avoid its power.”

  “Neither do I, provided the colony world is in the Mira System. But let’s not get complacent. This pyramid-city system is enough to give me nightmares for the rest of my life. I don’t know how to go down and destroy the rest of the Erills. I got lucky against the Erill that came up. Maybe being in space, or in near-orbital space, weakened it. For all we know, being on the surface strengthens the Erills.”

  “I recommend that you wake Professor Ludendorff and get his opinion on the Erills,” Galyan said. “I feel simply awful sending you down to—”

  “Don’t say it, Galyan,” Valerie warned.

  The Adok holoimage fell silent.

  Maddox slapped his chest with both hands. It felt wonderful to be awake and have all his strength back. Now, he could deal with problems the way he used to. He hadn’t felt this good since first facing the Ska in the Alpha Centauri System.

  Drakos had made his move, bringing Commander Thrax Ti Ix back into the scheme of things. Maddox scanned his inner circle of friends. Finally, they were going to finish the Swarm War for good and—

  Maddox squinted. He was going to find out if Drakos was his father, and if not, who was. This time, he wasn’t going to take silence for an answer.

  -12-

  Maddox paced back and forth as he smacked a fist into a waiting palm. He was in a gym, but he hadn’t started lifting. He opened and closed his hands, wondering what was wrong with him.

  There was no one else in here with him. He’d decided to wait several days before he tackled Ludendorff. He had started to wonder if something might be a little off with him. This was a test, you could say. His innards seethed with the desire to do something strenuous. The last two nights, he had only slept for an hour each time.

  Maddox smacked a fist into his palm again. If anything, he had too much energy. He could hardly keep still. What had his body, or spirit, or soul, or whatever it had been, absorbed from the Erill?

  Maddox hopped up and down as if he was skipping rope, but there was no rope. He just needed to move. He—

  Maddox shouted with frustration. Could he have too much energy? He was beginning to wonder. Valerie had called it a haunted star system. Had killing the Erill, grabbing its life essence, done something to him?

  “Okay, okay,” Maddox said. He breathed deeply and expelled the air in a rush. He began hopping up and down again.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. He wasn’t going to become a freak because he had taken too much of the Erill into his being. Many called him a half-breed. Maddox hated the term. He was, he was—Maddox shook his head. This was starting to get annoying. He wanted to lift, but here he—

  “Sir.”

  Maddox whirled around as he took on a combat stance.

  Galyan drifted back, alarmed.

  “Oh,” Maddox said, standing normally. “It’s you. What is it, Galyan?”

  “Meta suggested I check up on you.”

  “Why?”

  “Pardon, sir?”

  “Why would—did she tell you about my sleepless nights?”

  “She told Sergeant Riker. He told me, sir, wondering if I had an Adok remedy for you.”

  “Do you?”

  “You seem agitated, sir. I notice you cannot hold still. Many New Men have similar problems.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Maddox snapped.

  “Sir, I am your friend. I do not mean to imply anything wrong with you. I dearly want to help. I feel responsible for what—”

  “What did I say about you saying sorry too many times?”

  “I know,” Galyan said. “And yet, it was my suggestion that led to this.”

  Maddox snorted. “You’re looking at this th
e wrong way. You’ve alerted us to a nearby danger, the Erills in the city of pyramids. In alerting us, you also gave me the means to restore my energy. Only now, it appears I have too much. Is that ironic?”

  “It is most certainly ironic, Captain.”

  Maddox smiled faintly.

  “Ah. That was a rhetorical question,” Galyan said. “I wish I knew when a person asked a real question and when it was rhetorical.”

  “Voice inflection is critical.”

  “Thank you, sir. I will remember that. I do have a suggestion for you.”

  “Oh?” asked Maddox.

  “As you know, I have studied much Earth history since joining the crew. Some of your ancient peoples practiced martial arts. They often had to reach heightened mental states in order to perform their greatest combat feats. Meditation often helped in this. Some were called Zen masters. Later, the term Way of the Pilgrim or Pilgrim Calm became—”

  “And…?” Maddox asked impatiently, wishing the AI would get to the point.

  “Meditation, sir; you must practice meditation in order to reach a heightened state of calm. Once there, perhaps you will be able to control your excess energy and sit still or maybe even sleep at night. It is self-calming, gaining self-control.”

  “You’re saying I lack self-control?”

  “To a degree, sir, yes,” Galyan said. “You have the power but now you have too much energy, more than you know how to handle. Learning the Way of the Pilgrim might help you become yourself again.”

  Maddox blinked rapidly, finally realizing he had to do something. He was going crazy with this seething, tumbling excess of energy.

  “Explain this Way of the Pilgrim in detail,” Maddox said.

  “Of course, sir,” Galyan said.

  The AI began explaining, looking up details as he delved deeper into the subject.

  Finally, Maddox began to breathe deeply, attempting to calm himself, to rest, to gain peace as he attempted this Pilgrim Calm. During the process, Galyan departed. Maddox hardly noticed. As he mediated, succeeding for short bursts of time to gain the Way, the butterflies, the churning in his gut and the twitching in his muscles departed. That brought such blessed relief and encouragement that he continued trying.