The Lost Swarm

by Vaughn Heppner

  “I’ve come here, for what purpose, I have no idea,” Maddox said. “I don’t know if it’s to stop a war or scratch a whim you have.”

  “You have come in order to learn who you really are,” Ural said cryptically.

  “Oh, is that all?” Maddox asked, an internal seething beginning in his body.

  A crooked smile twisted onto Ural’s face. “We know you, Captain. Our Intelligence service is the best in the galaxy. I run it, in fact.”

  “This I did not know. Have you always run it?”

  “Only for the last several years,” Ural said.

  “I see. You have Vint Diem then?”

  “Who?”

  Maddox frowned. “You won’t admit to it, eh?”

  “I am being candid with you, Captain. I have never heard of this Vint Diem.”

  “Let me refresh your memory then,” Maddox said. “A disguised New Man, the chief spy of the Emperor, gave me information about Drakos seeking Thrax in exchange for Vint Diem. The ex-Spacer was Drakos’s chief operative on Pandora in the Vega System. The Emperor’s spy and I spoke in the Carlota Casino. Does that ring a bell?”

  Ural stared at Maddox. “I run the Throne World Intelligence network. Here, in this tent, I am being candid with you, Captain. I’m about to prove that to your satisfaction. This New Man, this so-called spy, tricked you. He did not work for me, the Emperor or the Throne World, although his information concerning Drakos proved correct. I suggest to you that there was another player in the Great Game using the New Man for his or her own purposes. That would include gaining this Vint Diem. Why that was so, I have no idea.”

  Maddox was beginning to believe the tall New Man. But wouldn’t the Throne World’s Intelligence chief know about Drakos’s prime operative on Pandora? This wasn’t making sense, or Ural was lying.

  “Let us return to the primary issue for being here,” Ural said. “I know who you are.”

  “Fine,” Maddox said, shelving the subject of Vint Diem for the moment. “You know me.” He shrugged. “So what? I thought we came down to make a deal concerning Drakos and the teleportor.”

  “We did,” Ural said. “I’m also going to give you what you want more than anything else.”

  Despite everything, Maddox’s heart began to race. He thought he knew how to be calm. He did not. “Are you…?” he said in a husky voice.

  “Am I referring to your father?” Ural asked. “Yes. That I am.”

  “It’s you?” Maddox asked, involuntarily taking a step closer, his gloved fingers stiffening into claws, as it were.

  “Alas, I am not,” Ural said.

  Maddox stopped, and he frowned, confused. “It’s not you?”

  Ural shook his head.

  “Is it Drakos?” Maddox asked.

  “The Forces preserve us,” Ural said. “That is a frightful thought. No. He is not your father.”

  “But you know my father?”

  “Very well,” Ural said.

  Maddox breathed faster. Sweat stung his eyes. He wiped at his eyes savagely. He suddenly wanted to rip out Ural’s throat. The gloating bastard—

  “Why?” asked Maddox, his voice hoarse. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Admiration,” Ural said.

  Maddox scowled, not understanding.

  “You have overcome unbelievable disadvantages,” Ural said. “You have given of yourself to your people, and you’ve learned how to bounce back. You did well in stopping Drakos’s teleportation kamikaze assault, and—I like your style, Maddox. It reminds me of your father.”

  Maddox took three wooden steps closer to Ural. There was murder raging in his eyes as his heart thudded like drum beats in his chest. This arrogant son of a bitch—

  A knife appeared in Ural’s right hand.

  Maddox stopped short. “Do you think I care if I die down here?”

  “Do you want to die?” Ural asked, as if curious.

  “If I can slay anyone who hurt my mother, or who helped someone hurt my mother, I would gladly die a thousand times.”

  “A noble sentiment,” Ural said. “But it has nothing to do with me.”

  “You’re lying,” Maddox said with heat.

  Ural’s eyes glittered strangely, and his smile became sinister. “Your father helped your mother escape the Throne World. He fought and killed fellow superiors to do it. He stayed behind while she ran ahead, escaping into a ship. Your father slew seven superiors until others killed him. By then, it was too late. Your mother had fled, with you in her belly.”

  “That’s a lie,” Maddox hissed.

  “I do not lie,” Ural said.

  Maddox glared at the New Man. “Why would my father do that for her?”

  “For the best of reasons,” Ural said. “He loved her more than life.”

  “No!” Maddox shouted.

  “Oh, yes,” Ural said. “Your father loved your mother, Sandra O’Hara.”

  “O’Hara?” asked Maddox. “Is that any relation to Mary O’Hara?”

  “Of course,” Ural said. “Sandra was her daughter.”

  Maddox blinked until he rubbed tears welling in his eyes. “Mary O’Hara is my grandmother?”

  Ural nodded.

  Maddox looked away. That made so much sense. Mary O’Hara was his grandmother. He laughed, because if he hadn’t, he would have sobbed aloud. That, he would not do in the presence of Golden Ural.

  Finally, the captain faced Ural again. The New Man no longer held the knife. It was gone. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you look so much like your father,” Ural said, and there was emotion in his voice.

  The sound of the emotion shocked Maddox.

  “Your father was the most noble of us,” Ural said. “He was the best. I should have listened to him. I did not. But I will help his son. I must. My regret boils in me and has boiled in me for a long time.”

  “Why?” asked Maddox.

  “Because your father was my brother,” Ural said.

  Maddox stared at Ural. This was too much. It was coming too fast. “Your brother?” he whispered.

  “You are my nephew,” Ural said. “And I will tell you honestly. It’s the only way I know how to say it. I am proud of you, nephew. You would have made your father proud, so proud, so very proud. You are a man, my nephew, a superior in every way. It is an honor to have fought with you, Captain. And that is what and why I am here.”

  Maddox swallowed a hard lump down his throat. He refused to shed a tear, but he could not speak right now. At last, to find out his father had been a good man. His father had fought and died to save his mother, to give him a chance to live.

  Finally, Maddox found his voice. “Why did these others want to kill my mother?”

  “I have never learned, but I have tried, and I will continue to try. It is one of the reasons I agreed to run Intelligence. I desire to know and to hunt down those who remain.”

  “Does Drakos have anything to do with them?”

  Ural shook his head.

  “You are my uncle?” Maddox asked.

  Ural nodded, and he smiled.

  Maddox could hardly believe it. His feet moved on their own accord. He held out his right hand, wanting to and willing to shake a New Man’s hand.

  Ural slapped the hand aside and lunged forward, hugging Captain Maddox and slapping him hard on the back. Then, Ural released the captain and pushed him away. The tallest of New Men turned away, and he reached up to one of his eyes, wiping it with a gloved finger.

  When Ural faced him again, Maddox said, “Thank you, Uncle. I appreciate that you would tell me these things.”

  “I had to, Captain. You deserved it. You are a credit to your mother and father.”

  “I need Drakos so I can help clear my grandmother.”

  “You can have him,” Ural said. “I will take the teleportor and the Agamemnon. I must also take the Juggernaut.”

  “Earth needs the Juggernaut. I’ll give you the colony world instead, together with the
Agamemnon.”

  Ural stared at him. “I’ll destroy the bugs for both our societies. Yes. You can have the Juggernaut. The Throne World has come out better from this campaign than Star Watch.”

  “True,” Maddox said.

  Ural smiled once more and nodded.

  Maddox smiled back, also nodding. Then, the two men took their leave as they donned their helmets. Each left the tent and headed to his shuttle, the respective vehicles racing up to their waiting starships.

  PART VI

  END GAME

  -1-

  Lord Drakos groaned. He felt awful, and he could not understand why. There was something that needed doing…but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what it was.

  Hadn’t he been in the midst of battle? He—

  Drakos groaned, wondering why he couldn’t open his eyes. Something was wrong. He knew it, but why, how, what?

  “Focus,” Drakos whispered to himself, with his eyes closed.

  He did just that, and he was a superior. Yes. He was shorter than average. His skin lacked the rich golden color of most superiors. But that didn’t matter. He had willpower. He had willpower in spades, greater than any superior alive. He would shape reality through his unconquerable will. He would refuse defeat. There would be setbacks, obviously. That was a principle of life. One couldn’t win every encounter. But what did he take away from a defeat? Ah…therein lay one of his true powers. Drakos would learn from his defeats. He would plan better next time. He would take his time, too, and build a web to trap his most hated, most hated…

  “Golden Ural,” Drakos whispered, with his eyes yet shut. He hated that smug, tall, richly golden superior. Ural was the Emperor’s cousin, could someday be Emperor if events moved in the wrong direction.

  “I won’t let that happen,” Drakos whispered.

  That brought him back to this odd dilemma. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he open his eyes? There was a reason. He knew there was.

  “I was fighting a battle,” Drakos said. “I must open my eyes and fix the—”

  Through sheer force of will, Drakos tore his eyelids open. For a moment, colors and textures swirled before him. It was quite odd and nearly inexplicable. The colors and textures swirled, rapidly coalescing into the bridge of the Agamemnon.

  Much better, much better indeed. Drakos sat on his command chair and his bridge personnel worked furiously.

  The main screen, where was it?

  As Drakos silently asked himself, the main screen literally appeared. On the main screen—ah, the attack saucers, those of Supremacy Thrax Ti Ix, used massed volleys, sending countless laser beams into the flanks of Bismarck-class battleships. The battleships fought more than just the bug saucers, but traded toe-to-toe beams with three mighty Juggernauts.

  Drakos’s proud smile slipped for just a moment. He thought the Juggernauts had exploded from antimatter detonations behind the second planet. Fold-fighter pilots had hammered the Juggernauts while under the influence of Jump Lag. Yet…that didn’t seem possible. The Juggernauts out there—

  “Damn it!” Drakos shouted.

  Starship Victory swooped as if from out from the void, beaming a Juggernaut. A fold-fighter also appeared, and a brash ace of a pilot shouted, bragging. A missile left the tin can and slammed home against the Juggernaut. The great twenty-kilometer-diameter vessel detonated.

  Drakos slammed a fist against a command chair armrest. “I’ve got more Juggernauts, Maddox. You can’t get them all.”

  Drakos began issuing orders and directing the fleet. The bugs listened to him, as they should. He was the greatest fleet admiral in history. His tactics proved intricate and just right for the situation. One enemy battleship after another burst apart under intense beam-fire.

  One of the bridge’s com officers was signaling him.

  “What?” Drakos demanded.

  The officer said Captain Maddox was on the com, begging to surrender.

  “Yes, put Maddox on the screen,” Drakos said.

  In an instant, the half-breed’s face appeared on the main screen. The hybrid sat proudly, but Drakos could see the worry lines in the captain’s face. Flames roared behind the man, while the captain manfully tried to ignore them, although he leaned forward as if to get away from the growing heat.

  Drakos laughed with appreciation. He had longed for this day, this time, this hour. “Captain Maddox,” he said in a stentorian voice.

  “Lord Drakos,” Maddox whispered, the words torn from his half-breed lips. “Please, I beg you, have mercy on my people.”

  Drakos sat forward. This was too good, too much, but oh so right. “I won’t accept platitudes, Captain. This is a moment of honesty. You don’t really care about your people. You’re desperate to save your half-breed hide, isn’t that so?”

  Maddox hung his head. He probably wasn’t used to such direct truth. It must churn his innards to hear this. The man was such a lickspittle, a cur. He had been a thorn in Drakos’s side for far too long.

  “I want to live,” Maddox whispered.

  “Speak up, half-breed. I can’t hear you.”

  Maddox looked up, and there were tears welling in his eyes. “Please, I want to live.”

  “As a slave?” asked Drakos.

  “If that is the price of living,” Maddox said, “then yes.”

  “You lost the battle.”

  Maddox hung his head again.

  “I am the greatest,” Drakos boasted. “There is no fleet commander like me.”

  That stung the captain so much that he rose from his command chair. “You never would have beaten us without your outside aid.”

  Drakos snarled. “You dare to fling that at me? That was part of my greatness. I know how to use spies, how to place them in the perfect location.”

  “The commandant at Pluto—”

  “Fool,” Drakos boasted, interrupting. “She had nothing to do with it. Don’t you understand what I did, what I purchased?”

  Maddox shook his head.

  “There was a single latent command in the Lord High Admiral. It was a little thing, put there by one of Lisa Meyers’ androids when she ran the Commonwealth’s Prime Minister. She was cunning, that one. Lisa Meyers knew Star Watch would study the Lord High Admiral carefully indeed and do everything they could to restore his mind to full capacity. They missed the latent command, though. That subconscious command was to try to restore Mary O’Hara to Intelligence. He didn’t need to succeed. He just had to get O’Hara onto the Pluto station.”

  “What you’re suggesting is impossible,” Maddox cried. “Neither Lisa Meyers nor you could have achieved such a miracle, plotting more than a year in advance.”

  “I’ve won the space battle, haven’t I?”

  “Not yet,” Maddox said through gritted teeth.

  “You poor pathetic half-breed,” Drakos said.

  Maddox stared at him with burning eyes.

  Drakos laughed with delight. “I purchased a favor from Lisa Meyers. I did it before the Methuselah Woman left to parts unknown.”

  “No,” Maddox said, shaking his head. “You don’t have the coinage she would want.”

  “Wrong again, half-breed,” Drakos gloated. “I gave Meyers the frequencies to Mary O’Hara’s mind. I gave the Methuselah Woman my greatest asset into Star Watch, won through my Bosk Draegars.”

  “Then, who sent you the message from Pluto?”

  Drakos laughed, and he baited the half-breed. “You won’t believe it, so why should I bother telling you?”

  “I know why,” Maddox snarled, “because none of it is true.”

  “This stings, doesn’t it?” Drakos gloated. “You’re enraged because deep inside you know I’m telling you the truth. On the Pluto station, Mary O’Hara spoke a one-time word to the Lord High Admiral. It was a one-use code word, one deeply embedded in his subconscious. Like a robot, unconsciously obeying the order, Cook sent me the critical message. I suspect this will start a chain-reaction in his mind of guilt a
nd grief. Likely, he will die a raving madman. Good riddance to him anyway.”

  “Why would Lisa Meyers give you such a gift?”

  “That’s the easiest part of all to explain,” Drakos said. “She’s coming, and soon, I believe. She wants the Commonwealth in disarray so she can remake you submen in her image.”

  “And you agreed to that?”

  “With this victory, I will soon rule the superiors, the Throne World and all the subsidiary worlds we own now. I will…” Drakos frowned. “You seem far too keen about Pluto, Cook and O’Hara for a mewling coward begging to save his own skin. Why is that?”

  Maddox sighed. On the main screen, he appeared tired, very tired. “Go to sleep,” he said.

  “What was that?” Drakos demanded, suddenly feeling tired. “What did you say to me?”

  “Sleep,” Maddox said. “Go to sleep.”

  “No…” Drakos said. “I have the greatest willpower among all superiors and submen. No one can will me to sleep.”

  “We shall see,” Maddox said on the main screen. “Go to sleep, now.”

  -2-

  In an underground chamber below Star Watch Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, was a squat stand. On the stand was a heavy polygonal Builder stone, and it was radiating heat. Maddox, Ludendorff and Draegars from Bosk had used the stone before. Maddox had acquired it in the Beyond some time ago from a former Builder depot, a hidden asteroid. High Command had given Maddox the okay to use the stone here, agreeing this was the best way to interrogate their prisoner, Lord Drakos.

  The stone had unique functions, including allowing minds to connect like a wireless, but at a potential terrible cost to the users.

  Maddox sat in a chair on one side of the increasingly hot stone. Drakos sat in a chair on the other side. Each man had his eyes screwed shut and obviously strained to open them.

  Their minds were connected through the stone. Until handlers had carried an unconscious Drakos into the underground room, he had been in storage in stasis aboard Victory during the journey home to Earth. There had been many debates about how to pry various pieces of knowledge from him. Maddox had hit upon this method, wanting to know how Drakos had learned the Allied Fleet was waiting in the Gomez System for the bugs and hardliners. Intelligence had learned some of this from the other Agamemnon survivors. Only Drakos seemed to know all the facts, though.