The Lost Starship (32 page)

Captain Maddox didn’t like it.

In medical, Doctor Rich
had injected herself with massive doses of stimulants. Her eyes burned with feverish intensity. Now, she sat in the control room, her fingers blurring across a computer console.

The woman didn’t talk. She hunched over her board, twitching instead of moving. Muttered comments drifted from her, but no one knew what she said.

This lasted for hours. During this time, the sentinel approached in what seemed like serene majesty. The starship didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Where could the scout go? Yet, how did the sentinel know they were trapped?

Maddox must have asked Valerie the question.

Doctor Rich quit tapping. She straightened and swiveled around. “What did you say?” she asked.

With a helpless gesture, Maddox said, “How does the sentinel know we can’t escape the star system?”

“It has no idea,” Dana said.

“Then why doesn’t it rush after us?” Maddox asked.

Dana’s eyelids flickered several times. It made it seem as if her brain flipped the question hundreds of times in several seconds, attempting to decipher the answer.

“Why are you bothering me with your nonsense?” Dana asked angrily. “I’m trying to work. Your chatter disrupts my thought process. Worse, your inane ideas clutter my mind with trivia. Leave, please. Let me work in peace.”

Maddox inclined his head. Without glancing at Valerie—the lieutenant would know what to do if the doctor went berserk—he left the control room, softly closing the hatch behind him. Under different circumstances, the doctor’s behavior might have bothered him. He recognized a genius at work, though. They could be inordinately touchy.

Riker and Keith slept, exhausted from days of effort. Noises came out of the engine room. Meta must be tinkering. On impulse, Maddox headed there.

Most of the journey, he’d avoid the Rouen Colony woman. She troubled him because he loved—er,
liked
—the sound of her voice too much. He enjoyed her face, the eyes especially, and he fully appreciated her womanly form. That did not change the troubling fact that she had stunned him several days ago.

Ducking his head, Maddox entered the large compartment. Meta wore coveralls with a Star Watch logo on the upper front pocket. She had a belt of jangling tools around her waist.

From where she worked, Meta gave him a half-glance. She wore a hat with a protruding bill. The long hair was tucked out of sight. The burn on her cheek had almost healed. Despite it, Maddox found it difficult to tear his eyes from her features.

With a
magnetic wrench, she tightened a fitting. Lowering the tool, she faced him. “Is something wrong, Captain?”

He shook his head.
Today, he felt different. He decided this once to act on his impulses.

“Why the stare-down?”
Meta asked.

“Procedure,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“Time has compressed my energy toward a single goal,” he said. “Now, Doctor Rich attempts to create a
tech spell against the approaching monster. My presence hindered her, so she asked me to leave. I now find myself with a surfeit of time on my hands.”

“How about you use regular words,” she said.

“I like what I see,” he said.

She frowned, and hooked the tool onto her belt. With a swift unlatching, she removed the belt and set it on a panel.

“Don’t you know it’s impolite to stare?” she asked.

“So stop
looking at me,” he told her.

“I mean
you
staring at
me
.”

“Ah,” he said.

She cracked her knuckles. “Lieutenant Noonan has told me that in the Star Watch it’s wrong for a senior officer to use his rank to his advantage.”

“Then what use is rank?” Maddox asked.

“Do you know something? On the planet—I mean Loki Prime. You beat me because I’d been infected with a million spores and germs. It weakened me. Now, I’m stronger and quicker.”

“I see.”

“If we sparred again, you would lose.”

Maddox glanced at the ceiling. The past few months have moved with startling speed. He’d been so busy with the prize that he’d forgotten about life, his in particular. He finally admitted it to himself. He liked Meta. It was more than her beauty. She was different from regular people. He felt an affinity
for her, and he liked her bluntness.

He looked at her
again, letting his eyes lock with hers.

Her head swayed a fraction, and she frowned.
Perhaps not even realizing she did it, she buttoned her coveralls all the way closed. The top two had been undone.

“
Would you like to freshen up?” he asked.

“What for?” she said.

“To look more presentable,” he said.

“How dare you say that?”

“Ah.”

Her chin lifted. “You’re a conceited ass, Captain. You think far too much of yourself.”

“In that case, you should be pleased. I’m thinking of you right now,” and he took a step closer.

“I
t’s time we retested our sparing skills,” Meta told him.

“You’re right,” Maddox said. “I’ve been contemplating a new hold. I call it, ‘a hug.’”

Meta rushed him and threw a right cross at his chin. Maddox caught her fist with his hand. If she had been a woman from a 1 G world, he could have twisted her arm into a submission hold. With Meta that proved impossible. Using her considerable strength, she shoved the hand, and he staggered back, forced to relinquish his grip.

“You’re quick
as a snake,” Meta said, “and you’re stronger than you look. Why is that?”

“Lack of cigarettes,” Maddox said. “
And I train daily. Now, it’s my turn to ask something. Why do you have a hair-trigger temper?”

“That’s your fault. I don’t
care for your cockiness, the way you come in here and start—”

Maddox moved then, and
he was fast. He darted close, touched her chin with his fingers and brushed his lips against hers. Anticipating her reaction, he shifted his head, sidestepping away from a delayed swing.

From the distance of several steps, he grinned at her. “
You’re tasteful,” he said.

She touched her lips as she stared at the floor. Finally, she looked up. “Don’t ever try that again.”

He said nothing.

“If you do
try,” she said, “you won’t like what happens.”

Like an old-style courtier,
Maddox made a flourish with his hand and bowed at the waist. Straightening, he said, “Good day, Meta. Please, carry on.”

Afterward,
he headed for the hatch. He expected her to call out. It didn’t happen. Instead, before he could duck his head and exit into the corridor, he heard her bang a tool against a bulkhead. He grinned to himself.

Maddox had wanted to do that for some time.
With the sentinel coming, the odds of them getting out alive were no good. He might as well enjoy what could be his last moments of life.

***

Twenty hours later, Maddox inclined his head to Doctor Rich. Everyone met in the wardroom. Valerie had whispered to him earlier that Dana had worked herself to exhaustion at the computer.

The doctor
sat at the other end of the table. She had dark circles under her eyes, and the flesh on her face seemed to sag. Maddox knew she’d taken another massive dosage of stimulants. According to Valerie, the doctor had admitted to her that she—Dana—knew a special mixture to goad her mind to furious outbursts of activity. Clearly, the witch’s brew of chemicals cost the owner.

Maddox looked around the table. Meta wouldn’t meet his gaze. The Rouen Colony woman had her arms crossed before her breasts. She seemed intent on letting everyone know that she was ignoring the captain. Maddox found himself more intrigued
with her than ever.

Let the chase begin
.

No. He didn’t have time to indulge
now. That would be for later when they won.

Keith Maker grinned. Sergeant Riker kept kneading his one good eye. The old man had just woken up. Valerie sat straight,
seeming the perfect Star Watch officer in her crisp uniform.

The others wore their uniforms, but they didn’t keep them as sharp as Lieutenant Noonan did hers. Maddox decided his uniform could use pressing.
These past weeks, he’d become too lax about dress codes.

Doctor Rich cleared her throat, giving him a meaningful glance.

“Doctor,” Maddox said. “You’ve been hard at work. Would you like to discuss your findings with us?”

“Thank you, Captain Maddox,” Dana said. “You are correct.
These past hours, I have reanalyzed the alien sentinel. During our voyage into the Beyond over the last three months I have been replaying in my mind many of the arguments I had with Professor Ludendorff. He was a frightfully intelligent person, with stunning insights. Without him, our original expedition would never have reached this strange system. We spent weeks studying various wrecks. We also analyzed rubble, searching for technical or civilizational clues, anything to help us understand the sentinel. Near the end of our stay, the professor believed he had found the ticket.”

Dana
shook her head. “I rebelled at the professor’s idea. It seemed like a suicide mission. Convincing several key crewmembers, we took over the professor’s ship and escaped the star system. Eventually, he regained control. As I said, Ludendorff was the opposite of the absent-minded professor. He was brilliant with theoretical ideas and their practical application. I should have foreseen that and marooned him somewhere. Eventually, that’s what he did to me.”

Doctor Rich sighed. “In any case, I have probed the approaching sentinel. I wish I could tell you I’ve discovered something new and amazing. That is not the case. I am down to trying the professor’s plan, as I can think of no other way to gain
ing entrance onto the sentinel. At this point, I don’t see any other way of surviving the killing machine.”

“What is th
is method?” Maddox asked.

“It will sound ridiculous, I’m sure. It still sounds that way to me. Yet I would rather take a risk attempting to survive than wait
idly for death to claim us. Thus, it is either the professor’s plan or nothing.”

“What’s his idea, love?” Keith asked.

Doctor Rich gave the pilot a cold glance. Afterward, she cleared her throat and regarded Maddox. “Part of me wishes to hate you, Captain. If you hadn’t come down to Loki Prime, none of this would be happening to me. But you did come, and I am off that Godforsaken world with its horrible spores. Now, Death comes for us. And I am propelled to try Ludendorff’s crazy scheme. I’m sure that somewhere the professor senses this and smiles.”

Raising her voice, Dana said, “You always were far too smug to like, Professor. Yet I say, good luck
with whatever thing you are presently trying to achieve.”

Maddox wondered if this uncharacteristic flowery speech was an effect of the stimulants Doctor Rich had taken.

Dana glanced around the table. “This is the plan,” she said. “We will set the scout on autopilot. It will approach the sentinel. Likely, we will see some interesting form of destruction.”

“What kind of
silly plan is that?” Keith asked, snapping his fingers. “Phtt, so ends our expedition?”

“I said put the scout on autopilot,” Dana said. “
All of us will leave before
Geronimo
is destroyed.”

“
Where are we going to be?” Keith asked. “Floating in space watching the bloody fireworks?”

Doctor Rich raised her eyebrows. “You’re sharper than you look, Ensign.”

“What?” Keith shouted. “You’re serious?”

“As I said, it is a harebrained scheme. Professor Ludendorff claim
ed it would work, given the right adjustments on our part. That’s what I’ve been working on for the last fifteen hours. I’ve been trying to remember what sequence he said will succeed.”

“
Your plan calls for us to spacewalk off
Geronimo
and send the scout to its doom against the sentinel?” Maddox asked.

Doctor Rich didn’t seem to hear the question. She stared at a bulkhead. Maddox wondered if she’d fallen into a tra
nce.

Suddenly,
she began to speak in a soft voice. “We had a death on our expedition. A crewmember named Hassan died while we were in the alien star system. We gave him all the trappings of a Muslim burial—the man had been a renegade of the Wahhabi sect. Then we set him adrift in the system as if we were at sea on Earth. The sentinel hurried to investigate. It even launched a small vessel, which scooped up our dead friend. The shuttle returned to the sentinel.”

“With the body?” asked Maddox.

“The professor thought so,” Dana said.