The Lost Swarm

by Vaughn Heppner

  Could Thrax have learned about his secret agent planted on Pluto, in the heart of his enemy’s battle net? Oh, he had paid dearly to gain the agent. He had sold a thing that had taken him great effort to acquire. He did not, frankly, totally trust the agent to tell the truth all the time. He did believe the agent told the truth about the enemy fleet, the Allied Host.

  The agent had finally sent him data a day ago, sent through a long-range Builder com device. It had been a one-time occurrence, a special procedure in binary code that his device had barely picked up. It had been enough, though. The data had proven many of his assumptions correct. He had known himself as a great strategist. This data had been proof. Still, to finally attempt his plan…

  “Time to get this over with,” Drakos told himself. He’d spoken to Nar Falcon, who would run the Builder Teleportor if needed to give Thrax a lesson or two. Just as they had caused nuclear meltdowns on the colony world—a naked New Man teleported into the heart of an attack saucer could cause the warship to explode from a core meltdown.

  Drakos whirled around and marched for the hangar bay.

  ***

  The shuttle maneuvered through the mass of attack saucers. The four Juggernauts were behind the main formation. The twelve star cruisers were on the left flank.

  The entire Joint Fleet moved through a system’s Oort cloud to reach a special wormhole that did not need Laumer Point Engines to open. That point swirled five hundred thousand kilometers away. Once through it, they would be only four jumps from the Gomez System.

  The shuttle pilot pointed through a polarized window. The center attack saucer was Thrax’s flagship. It was the most protected vessel in the fleet.

  As the shuttle headed for the flagship, as hangar bay doors began opening over there, Drakos realized he hadn’t studied Thrax’s psychology as much as he might have. Frankly, he hadn’t thought it worth the effort. The bug lord had made the expected moves each time. Did that mean Thrax was more subtle than Drakos realized? That Thrax had acted predictably until this moment…

  I don’t think he’s outmaneuvered me, Drakos told himself.

  The superior shook his head. There was no use worrying about it now. If Thrax had outmaneuvered him somehow, he would not live to see a new day—unless Nar Falcon came through and Thrax changed his mind after witnessing several exploding attack-saucers. In any case, Drakos vowed that he would never allow himself to be in this type of situation again. If Thrax had outthought and outmaneuvered him, or if one of his underlings had done it, Drakos would kill as many of his foes as he could. The willingness to die gloriously in combat was one of the hallmarks of a hero.

  That’s what I am, Drakos told himself. I am the hero of heroes. They will sing tales of my heroism for centuries to come.

  Satisfied with himself, Drakos sat back. Whatever happened, he would win either a hero’s death or a strategist’s correct guess. How could it be any better than that?

  ***

  Drakos walked proudly through the attack saucer’s humid, soggy-decked corridors. He and his men wore their combat suits. Heavy blasters hung on their hips. It was much hotter in here than he liked, though.

  Drakos shrugged as the group turned a corner.

  “Sire,” the chief of security said.

  “Easy,” Drakos said. “I see them.”

  Ten big soldier bugs hefted heavy rifles in their pincers. The bugs stood before what appeared to be a thick hatch, waiting for them.

  Drakos led his escort toward the soldier bugs, halting in front of them. He did not ask about Thrax. He was showing the bugs and his men that he did not care. He was above worry. He was the warlord of space, and his calm was a reaction to his greatness.

  The hatch slid open, and the soldier bugs scuttled aside. Supremacy Thrax glistened as if someone had rubbed his exoskeleton with oil. His mandibles moved, and the translator box on his thorax blinked.

  “Welcome, Ally,” the box said for Thrax. “Won’t you enter?”

  “Wait here,” Drakos told his escort.

  The soldier bugs did not follow him into the chamber. The security team also waited outside.

  The hatch slid shut, sealing the two commanders in the chamber. Drakos looked around. This was a small room and had the same spongy deck as the corridor. There were screens on the bulkheads and little else.

  “I often view the stars from this chamber,” Thrax said.

  Drakos dipped his head.

  The giant mantis-type bug stared at him. “You show great courage for a mammal. Last time, you refused to be parted from your guards.”

  “We are confirmed allies,” Drakos said.

  “And you must realize that I can squash all of you just as easily as I can squash you here alone in this chamber.”

  Drakos hid his outrage, speaking softly. “I realize we are about to win a glorious battle together. I realize that if we stick together, we can both achieve what we want.”

  “That is code for something. What are you trying to tell me?”

  “I have learned that Professor Ludendorff is coming to us.” The agent on Pluto had told Drakos that.

  Thrax clacked his pincers. “How is it possible you know this?”

  “Good question, Supremacy. Do you mind if I take some time to really explain it?”

  “I insist you do,” Thrax said.

  Drakos spread his feet wide and put his right hand on the butt of his holstered blaster. He told Thrax about the Builder Scanner, how Star Watch and the Throne World had used it before to defeat the Conquering War-Fleet 1,021.

  “That explains so much,” Thrax said. “We did not know.”

  Drakos talked about the long-range Builder com devices, and Thrax clacked his pincers.

  “While the Imperium has great numbers,” Thrax said, “humans are masters of high technology.”

  “Yes and no,” Drakos said. “My point in telling you all this is to let you know that I have an agent on Pluto.”

  “The home to this Builder Scanner,” Thrax said. “Yet…why wait until now to tell me? Is their fleet so big that we cannot win?”

  “On the contrary, Supremacy, I have a technological item that I can use once. It is very old and fragile. And I will have to install it in one of the Juggernauts. We must both know the Juggernaut will never survive the weapon’s use.”

  “What kind of weapon?”

  “A deflection or a shadowy kind, which means it is not strictly a weapon.”

  Thereupon, Drakos told Thrax in detail what the ancient device did and how he planned to use it. Soon, Thrax was bobbing up and down as he clicked his pincers.

  “That is clever, Lord Drakos. We will win a resounding, crushing victory. They will never expect it.”

  Drakos grinned, realizing that Thrax understood very well how important this first battle would be.

  -8-

  The Gomez System was like the Tau Ceti System in many ways. It possessed a G-class star but with only 88 percent the Sun’s mass. It had four planets instead of five, one in the habitable belt, and it had a thicker debris disk.

  The Gomez System had fifteen times as much cometary and asteroidal material orbiting its star as the Sun possessed in the Solar System. It also had far more dust and gaseous clouds drifting through various parts of the system. The planets and asteroids suffered far more impact events, making life here far harder to maintain—not that any living creatures presently inhabited the system.

  During the First Swarm Invasion, the Conquering War-Fleet 1,021 had entered the Tau Ceti Oort cloud through strict velocity, having traveled six months to reach the system. Star Watch and the New Men had been able to build a massive missile belt to meet the 80,000 Swarm warships. There, it had simply been mass meeting mass, with the Conquering War-Fleet 1,021 finally smashing all resistance or forcing it to flee, but at a bloody cost to itself.

  In the Gomez System, things were not quite that easy. The enemy Joint Fleet had star-drive jump vessels that had occasionally used Laumer Points to aid their
journey. The Gomez System possessed many Laumer Points. Why that was so, no human or Swarm creature knew. Perhaps the Builders could have said, but they hadn’t left any records that humanity had discovered on the topic.

  In this sort of plan, decisions were based off probable actions. Admiral Byron and Golden Ural had set aside the Lord High Admiral’s idea of a missile belt. While the two commanders were fairly certain which route the Joint Fleet would use entering the Gomez System, if they guessed wrong, all those pre-placed missiles would be useless in the fight. It would be far wiser, each commander had agreed, to keep the missiles in the warships carrying them. In this way, if the Joint Fleet acted in an unpredictable manner, the Allied ships could re-maneuver into a new combat position and bring those missiles into play.

  The Herford-class supply ships had brought extra missiles. Those missiles the supply ships had emptied in three prearranged locations. Two of those clumps waited outside probable Laumer Point exits by one million kilometers. The last clump waited near a probable Laumer Point the Joint Fleet would likely use as it left the Gomez System and headed for the Commonwealth.

  Admiral Byron positioned most of his vessels behind the second planet, a terrestrial body near the two likely entry Laumer Points. He kept the fifteen Bismarck-class battleships near the star, as these heavies each had star-drive jump capabilities.

  Golden Ural positioned his seventeen star cruisers near the third planet. The star cruisers would form a small cone of battle, using the classic New Man formation.

  Victory waited with the Star Watch battleships.

  The Joint Fleet possessed more ships and greater tonnage. Most of the enemy’s warships were smaller than the Star Watch vessels. The four Juggernauts made a huge difference. Without them, Star Watch and Ural’s vessels had greater tonnage and firepower. With them, Lord Drakos and Commander Thrax had become far more dangerous.

  According to the latest message from the Lord High Admiral, the Joint Fleet was only hours away from using Laumer Point one and/or two to enter the Gomez System. If the enemy used either route, this was going to be a slaughter as the Allied ships hit them while in the grip of Jump Lag.

  -9-

  Drakos made the final adjustments to the alien unit installed in the selected Juggernaut. He worked like a common laborer, with mind-controlled dominants aiding him.

  The chamber was vast inside the Juggernaut. Huge cylinders whirred with power, causing the very air to vibrate.

  The control unit looked like a giant cube with swirling colors on all sides. Cables ran like spider-webs from the cube to the cylinders. The cube began to pulse, and the swirling energies in the cylinders whirled faster and faster.

  Drakos had discovered the cube and cylinders stashed in one of the Methuselah Man Strand clone stations. The clone had told him how to use the alien devices. Now, Drakos was about to learn if the clone had lied or not. He was relatively certain the clone had spoken truthfully, as the Strand had given up the information under supreme duress. Yet, could the Strand have also added a wrong touch here and there, so the unit exploded against his tormenter?

  Drakos rather doubted it, but one could never know until the actual event took place. It was funny. He would have used the surprise later, as he hadn’t expected the secret agent on Pluto to come through and give him exact and thus important data. Obtaining the agent had been an expensive gamble, one that had paid off gloriously in the end.

  This would be a matter of timing. It would likely succeed because Drakos knew about a limitation regarding the Builder Scanner. The great device always looked at objects from its present location, from a single viewpoint. That seemed obvious, but it could be critical. If the Builder Scanner looked at the Gomez System, it would do so as if looking from the Solar System. Thus, if a ship were behind a planet, the scanner would not see it unless the operator zoomed in behind the planet in relation to its position on Pluto.

  What was the old saying? For a want of a horseshoe, a kingdom was lost. Would the operators in Pluto recognize that they needed to look behind the gas giant?

  “I won’t give them enough time to think about it,” Drakos said.

  “Lord?” a dominant asked.

  Drakos shook his head. Then, he examined the complex machinery. Everything seemed to be in order. He couldn’t stay here to run it. The mind-controlled dominants wouldn’t know enough about what to do if he left any of them. The alien machinery would have to work on its own, or his plan would fail.

  He’d already given the ship’s AI orders on how to fly the Juggernaut. There was nothing left to do.

  So…why didn’t he pack up and leave?

  It was the butterflies in his stomach stopping him. The anticipation of the coming battle had made his gut seethe. He seldom felt such sensations, such uncertainty that could bring gross defeat or glorious victory. How many times in his life would he face such a moment as this? Not too many, was the answer. Therefore, he savored this moment. He luxuriated in the butterflies churning in his gut.

  The mind-controlled dominants gathered in a group and waited silently. They might wonder what he was doing, but they would not ask because he’d ordered them not to. Still, he could feel their silent questions in their eyes.

  “Let’s go,” Drakos said. “We’re done here.”

  Without a word, they filed after him, heading for the lift that would take them to the hangar bay. It was time to get back to the Agamemnon. The first stage of the battle was about to begin.

  -10-

  Far away on Pluto, the Lord High Admiral was in the main nerve center of the Builder Scanner Operations Room.

  Commandant Konev issued orders. Her workers around the circular area each manipulated his or her board.

  The nerve center shuddered. Everyone sat bolt upright or stood very still. Three second later, the shuddering ceased. A few people glanced at their neighbors, while others went back to work. A moment later, the glancers started working again too.

  Konev stepped beside the Lord High Admiral. She didn’t turn to him or say anything. She simply stood there.

  “I know,” Cook said quietly. “We’re overusing the scanner. But I…don’t know how to explain it. I have to see. I have to know. I have this sense that Lord Drakos is up to something.”

  Konev glanced at the Lord High Admiral. She seemed astonished. “In my opinion, sir…”

  He nodded for her to finish the thought.

  “This Lord Drakos has been acting quite predictably. It’s been easier each time to find his Joint Fleet after every star-drive jump. I almost feel qualified to tell you exactly how he’ll reach the Commonwealth and which worlds he’ll attack first.”

  “He’ll attack none,” Cook said flatly. “As we’re going to destroy that nightmare today.”

  “Of course, Admiral. I quite agree. But that shudder we all felt is the engines overheating and the response to that. More cyclers came online, too many. We don’t want that to happen again.”

  “Are you saying we should shut down the scanner now and let it rest?”

  “For a few hours, anyway,” she said. “Days would be better.”

  “Days is out of the question.”

  “I realize that, sir. I’m just—”

  “Commandant,” an operative said urgently, interrupting her.

  Cook and Konev turned toward the operative. He pointed at the main screen. The two turned there.

  Cook felt drawn to the main screen. The big old man frowned as he walked closer. “What’s the idea, I wonder?”

  On the main screen, the Builder Scanner showed the Joint Fleet. It turned toward a gas giant. Before that, the fleet had been headed directly toward Laumer Point Two that would take it into the Gomez System.”

  “Does the maneuver seem odd to you?” Cook asked Konev.

  The commandant shook her head.

  “It’s odd to me,” Cook said. “I can’t find a reason for it. Perhaps the scanner should look behind the gas giant when the fleet goes behind it.”

/>   The commandant hesitated.

  “Or would that strain the cyclers too much?” Cook asked.

  “It might,” Konev said quietly.

  “The fleet is braking,” the operative said.

  “That’s even stranger,” Cook said. “Commandant—”

  She moved forward sharply, stepping beside Cook. “Sir,” she whispered. “Let’s wait a moment. I really don’t want to add more strain to the scanner. That shudder a few moments ago…”

  Cook nodded glumly. He couldn’t have explained to anyone why he felt this way. Was his worry about the battle overcoming his good sense? If Star Watch lost this fight—an inconceivable thing, really—or if the Patrol Fleet took heavy losses…

  Cook could swear he could feel the danger to the Commonwealth. Call it a hunch. Forces were swirling out there that hated, that yearned to devour humanity. The greater Imperial Swarm threat was gone for decades, hopefully. This was something else, something waiting and watching to strike. He had to build up Star Watch, not let it die by inches. They had to smash Lord Drakos and his bug allies.

  “There they go,” the operative said.

  The entire Joint Fleet maneuvered behind the gas giant. It made absolutely no sense. Was the Joint Fleet going to come to a stop back there? Would that imply Drakos or Thrax knew the Builder Scanner watched them? Drakos would know about the scanner’s existence. They had all agreed on that. He would have learned about it during the First Swarm War when he’d fought with the other New Men as allies. But would that mean he knew the Builder Scanner was watching his fleet now?

  Cook actually wrung his hands. The pre-battle jitters were driving him crazy.

  -11-

  Each vessel of the massed Joint Fleet began emergency braking once it was behind the gas giant in relation to the Builder Scanner on Pluto. Each vessel but for the selected Juggernaut. That giant warship continued on its course.

  The attack saucers, the star cruisers and the three Juggernauts used hard thrust, braking, doing everything in their power to bring the ships to a complete halt.