Authors: Vaughn Heppner
“Yet we can communicate,” Maddox said, “which disproves your theory.”
“How you strive to reason like a man. It is pitiful to watch. Attend my words, Captain Maddox. A cow lows to let its master know it is hungry. A farmer shouts to guide the cow to the waiting grain. They communicate, but they are far from equal. Can you grasp the point?”
“
I do,” Maddox said. “Your arrogance will destroy you.”
“
I see a half-beast wishing to ape humanity. You practice what you conceive as self-awareness. We of the Race are true to ourselves—what you perceive as arrogance.”
“Did you call
me to gloat?” Maddox asked.
“
How you struggle to understand me. To you, I am
Per Lomax
. Know then that I have degraded myself to give you an opportunity to surrender and save your genes for study. I also require Professor Ludendorff’s notes. Do this, and live. Refuse, and go into an eternity of oblivion, never to know again.”
“You don’t believe in an afterlife?” Maddox asked.
“Show me the evidence you’ve complied of such a state.”
“Humanity’s sacred books all teach this
,” Maddox told the New Man.
“
Do not speak to me of the cries of a terrified subspecies. The Race is humanity. Our books do not speak of pale illusions needed to soften the realities of existence.”
“Per Lomax is like calling you master?”
Maddox asked.
“As I said earlier, you are a grade above the others
of your herd. Bravo, you can see to a limited degree. Now, the moment is upon you, Captain Maddox of the Star Watch. Surrender or die. You will not have another opportunity.”
With his heart pounding,
Maddox put the comm on mute. He turned to the others. “How much time until we reach the Laumer-Point?”
“Ten minutes,” Valerie said. “We don’t even know if the scout’s Laumer Drive can activ
ate the tramline through all this ice.”
“Lasers!” shouted Keith. “
Saint Petersburg
is firing.”
“Blow off the
first engine,” Maddox said.
With a forefinger,
Keith stabbed his board. The great mass of the comet meant that down here no one felt the explosion that ripped away the engine, hurling it behind them.
On the screen, Maddox watched
an engine tumble from the comet. At the same time, the twin lasers stabbed into the ice, burning deeper and deeper.
Th
e lasers boiled ice into water and vapor. As the lasers kept digging, they boiled away more and more. Finally, that created a cloud. The cloud dissipated some of the lasers’ strength. Unfortunately, the temporary situation wouldn’t last.
“
According to my calculations,” Valerie said, “the lasers are going to dig through to us. Once the beams reach the scout’s hull, the game will be up.”
Maddox knew that. He waited as the
tumbling engine continued away from them and toward the approaching destroyer. The distances were too great between the vessels to make much of a difference. The captain waited for the engine to be far enough away from the comet.
During the wait, the laser
s sliced through the ice and past the hidden scout. The attack lasted long enough for the beams to reach the other side of the comet, stabbing through.
“
The destroyer is retargeting,” Valerie said. “They must know they missed us with the first shot.”
Beaming once again, t
he lasers tried another area of the comet.
“Now,” Maddox
told Keith. “Send the signal.”
The pilot
did just that.
Seconds later, the engine with
its atomic pile went critical, creating a thermonuclear fireball. That blocked the beams. The ice protected them from the EMP wash and the heat and radiation expanding back to them.
“The destroyer’s deflector shields snapped on,” Valerie said.
“Blow the next engine,” Maddox said. “We’ll try this again.”
Per Lomax of the Race refused to let the trick play out a second time. He used the
destroyer’s beams to melt the next engine before the atomic pile could go critical.
“It’s no good,” Valerie said
, her eyes so wide the whites showed as she stared at him.
“Wrong,” Maddox told her. “While the
destroyer’s beams struck the engine, they weren’t needling through the comet. Ensign, blow off the next engine.”
For
the next several minutes, the comet detached engine after engine. The
Saint Petersburg
destroyed them one at a time, beaming into the comet between intervals.
“The Laumer-Point is approaching,” Valerie shouted.
“I can hear you just fine, Lieutenant,” Maddox said in a calm voice.
She cast him a harried look
but nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said in a more controlled voice.
“Activate the Laumer Drive,” Maddox told Keith.
“Aye-aye, Captain, sir.”
They watched the board, watched—
“It’s not activating,” Valerie groaned. Then a green light flashed. “Wait! The Laumer-Point is opening, Captain.”
Maddox grinned fiercely. “Get ready for jump,” he said.
“The lasers,” Keith said. “They’re digging straight for the scout this time.”
Maddox glanced at his board. He knew the lasers wouldn’t make it in time. “We’re going in, people.”
“Will we make it through the red giant’s photosphere?” Valerie asked.
“That,” Maddox said
, “is the question of the hour.”
The comet with
Geronimo
embedded within shot down the wormhole. Flashing through the non-liner medium, the mass of ice, snow, rock and other debris exited the unstable tramline as an intact whole. It appeared inside the outer edge a red giant’s photosphere.
Immediately, the 3000 K of heat began transforming ice to water to steam and then down to its component particles.
The scout’s antigravity-pods screamed, screeched and soon smoked with complaint. The considerably lessened comet erupted out of the star’s surface like a bullet through a wall, speeding away. The heat continued to dissolve the comet, but at a lesser rate. Intense radiation struck the icy surface. Less of it reached the centrally placed scout, and the special hull blocked most of the deadly rays. Still, too many rads penetrated their bodies. Provided the crew survived the next few minutes, each of them would have to take heavy dosages of anti-rad medicine.
The minutes passed, and the ancient ice boiled away into vapor
, leaving a great misty trail. The star’s gravity began to slow their velocity. Fortunately, they had built up to quite a speed before shooting through the Laumer-Point.
Ten minutes after entering the alien star system—if this was truly it—Maddox said, “We’re going to make it.”
Lieutenant Noonan swiveled around. She kept blinking. Finally, she smiled so hard it seemed as if it would crack her face open. She began to scream with laughter.
Ensign Maker joined in, gales of pent-up terror erupting as he howled with joy.
Maddox felt the maddening elation grip him as well. It bubbled, threatening release. Finally, he swallowed it down. Turning his head, he waited, letting the other two enjoy their well-earned moment of relief.
They were here, heading away from the red giant. What would the ancient
star system show them? He was eager to find out.
Now comes the hard part. I have to convince Doctor Rich to help us. Either that
, or I have to drug her with truth serum and see if I can get useful data out of her
.
***
Like a newborn chick,
Geronimo
burst out of the shell of what remained of the comet. It was a sick scout in too many ways. Most of the crew suffered from the radiation treatments.
Maddox felt the effects the least. Meta was in a similar condition. Riker and Doctor Rich were the sickest.
The Star Watch spaceship was in poor repair. The gravity generator had become inoperable. The antigravity pods limped along, and the cloaking device refused to respond. They lacked ship’s cannons of any kind. They didn’t even have a missile or a mine to their name.
“We made it to the star system,” Maddox said, “but we’re in no condition to do anything.”
He sat beside Lieutenant Noonan as she wheezed on the robo-doctor.
“What’s it…” she coughed weakly. “What’s it like out here?” she whispered.
Maddox used a portable holo-unit. With a control, he clicked it on. The box hummed and an image of the star system spread out before them. Valerie raised her head, examining it.
Maddox did likewise. It was surreal. Little red dots showed the position of drifting space hulks, wrecks from an ancient war. Humanity might have fought with chariots at that time, the charioteers hurling javelins at each other. There wasn’t a mere thousand or ten thousand wrecks. It was more like fifty thousand
drifting hulks.
“Incredible,” Valerie whispered. “It’s a graveyard of starships.”
Maddox nodded. Fifty thousand odd spaceships drifting from a war fought so long ago that all memory of the reasons had vanished with the alien races. Had it been two alien species fighting each other? Maybe it had been two subspecies like the New Men and old humanity struggling for dominance and existence.
From one end of the star system to the other, the hulks drifted, orbiting the monstrous red giant.
“Where are the planets?” Valerie asked.
“The professor’s notes told the truth,” Maddox said. “There’re aren’t any planets left, just thickened asteroid globules showing what once must have been worlds.”
“No gas giants either?” she asked.
“Gases in thick profusion and nickel-iron asteroids,” Maddox said,
“but not planets. Whatever weapons the aliens used, planet busters seem to be among them.”
Valerie tore her gaze from the holoimage to stare at Maddox. “Is there any sign of the sentinel?”
The captain felt a growing numbness in his heart. He shook his head.
“What? You mean there never was one?” Valerie asked.
“If it’s here, the sentinel is hidden.”
“Sneaking up on us?” she asked.
Maddox stared at her. “I don’t like to think of that.”
Swallowing audibly, Valerie asked, “Is there any sign the
Saint Petersburg
followed us down the wormhole?”
“None,” Maddox said. “If they did, the red giant’s photosphere overloaded their deflector shields and annihilated the destroyer.”
“If there’s no sentinel…” Valerie said.
Just then, the scout’s interior alarms rang. The ship’s intercom came online. Ensign Maker spoke
between bouts of coughing. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have company. The alien sentinel is barreling straight for our ship.”
***
“We’re back to square one,” Maddox said. “Now, you’re in the fire with us, Doctor. If you want to live, you’re going to have to help us board the alien ship.”
Dana Rich lay in her cot in her former quarters.
She wheezed with phlegm lodged in her lungs. She was sick with fever, but the robo-doctor had given her a seventy percent chance of recovery.
With red eyes, Dana chuckled
throatily. “I’m sick of disappointment, Captain. I don’t like defeat either. Your sergeant broke something inside me when he used the stunner on its high setting. It makes me feel good watching you suffer with anxiety.”
“You have a fever,” he said. “
Provided we survive the sentinel, you will recover.”
“I don’t
think you’re hearing me. I don’t want to get better.”
“To spite me?” he asked.
“Maybe you are hearing me after all,” Dana said.
“Doctor, the sentinel is coming fast.”
Maddox pointed at the holoimage.
The sentinel was big, and it generated powerful deflector shields. The alien starship had two broad disc-shaped areas and it bristled with weaponry. It had already
blasted the
Geronimo
with harsh sensor sweeps.
“Do you have any final words, Captain?”
Dana asked. “Our end is fast approaching.”
“You used to have fire, Doctor. Are the New Men that much better than you that you’re afraid to try
to compete against them?”
She gave him a weary smile. “I enjoy watching you flail, seeking to find
a way to unlock me. You have no idea. Maybe I should prolong your agony. Send your sergeant here. Let me stun him as many times as he stunned me. Then I’ll tell you what you must do.”
Maddox rose from his stool. Putting his hands behind his back, he began to pace. He didn’t know how to proceed. He wouldn’t sell out his people. He wouldn’t hand over his authority. Was his life over then?
Halting, he peered at Doctor Rich. She’d propped up onto one elbow with a smile on her face. She watched him with avid delight.
“I need your help,” he told her. “I’ve said that from the beginning.”
“You think that’s what I want to hear?”
They stared at each other. He saw pride. He saw a wounded person, a genius and someone
incredibly bitter.
I’m about to die. The sentinel will swat us out of existence. What does
such a lonely, bitter person want to hear? Does she hate me because Riker and I defeated her?
Maddox moved to the stool. Picking it up, he set it
just before her cot. He sat and put a hand on her arm. She jerked away, scowling at him.
“I’m different,” Maddox said. “My mother escaped from the Beyond to the Oikumene. I have some of the qualities of the New Men. I fear that half of me belong
s to them.”
The scowl eased from her features. She looked at him with interest. “You’re
the spawn of a New Man?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible. I want to capture one of them and test his DNA, matching it against mine.”
“Do the others realize this about you?” Dana asked.
Maddox shook his head.
“You think knowing this about you will sway me?” she scoffed.
“I have no idea,” he said. “I felt like telling you
, like telling someone.”
“Why?”
“If we succeed, think of the enjoyment you could gain by holding that over me.”
Dana Rich
blinked several times. “I’m not your friend, Captain.”
“I don’t think you have any friends, Doctor.”
“You’re right!” she snarled. “I’m alone. We’re all alone.”
With the outburst,
bitterness seemed to flow from her as if from a broken dam. Hate twisted her features. Her eyes radiated something profoundly troubling. She panted, and she worked her mouth with silent rage.
Maddox watched the performance. This woman had been deeply hurt.
The amount of suffering awed him.
Finally, her features grew less rigid and twisted. The intensity pouring from her became normal anger.
The pants turned to wheezing for air as her lungs bubbled with phlegm. She coughed for a long time before finally closing her eyes.
In time, her breathing evened out.
Maddox rose silently from the stool. He had no more ideas about what to do. With a leaden step, he moved toward the hatch.
“I’ll do it,” she said behind him.
Maddox turned, surprised at what he heard.
“It has nothing to do with you or your silly secret. This has everything to do with me. I’m Doctor Dana Rich, and I’m going to give humanity its fighting shot at your uncles.”
“What do you need?” Maddox said.
“Help me up to medical. I’ll dial the robo-doctor and give myself the needed shots. Then
, you and I are going to the control room. Let us see if I have the magic you’re looking for.”