The Lost Starship (6 page)

“You must put this behind you,” the brigadier said. “In reality, your origins don’t matter. It’s who you are now that counts.”

Yes, who am I?
Maddox decided to shelf the probing for the moment. Still, a cynical smile touched his lips as he looked at the brigadier. “On to the second question then,” he said. “Why tell these things now?”

“My dear boy, isn’t it obvious? Yes, some will think you’re merely being clever, thinking four or five moves ahead of us.
You’re telling me this to hide your tracks, taking a gamble with me.”

Maddox felt his heart go cold.
Despite her earlier words, it sounded as if O’Hara believed he really had New Men genetics.

“
I know you have a good heart and good intentions,” O’Hara said, “but more importantly, so does he.”

“
He?” asked Maddox. “Who is
he
?”

A secret door slid open,
startling Maddox. A large man with a red face and a white uniform stepped into the room.

“Me,”
Lord High Admiral Cook said. “I don’t think you’re a plant or a sleeper. I believe you’re just the man we need to give us an edge against the New Men before they begin their invasion in earnest.”

Maddox stared at the Lord High Admiral. He hadn’t expected this.

The brigadier rose and began to move from her desk.

“Stay seated,” Cook told her. “You, too, young man.”

Maddox had belatedly shot to his feet. He paused
for a second and then sat back down.

The big man moved stiffly
, as if he had bad knees. He probably did. Maddox wondered how old the Lord High Admiral was. Probably older than the brigadier.

With a grunt and the creak of his chair, Cook settled himself. Apparently satisfied with his position, the
Lord High Admiral turned to him.

“You’ve made this much easier for us, my boy. I appreciate that. I admit I had a reservation or two about you. Not anymore. You have my complete trust.”

“Thank you, sir,” Maddox said.

“No, no. I thank you. The
New Men situation baffles me. How could three ships demolish an entire strengthened battle group like that? Oh, I grant you, the New Men had several edges. They caught von Gunther’s people gripped in Jump Lag. And that beam of theirs that cuts through shields is a real killer. It was all too brisk against armor too.”

“May I ask a question, sir?” Maddox asked.

“Son,” Cook said, “you can ask me all the questions you want, if you do it during the next half hour. That’s all the time I can spare—that you can spare. If we’re going to make this work, you’re going to have to leave fast.”

The
accelerated tempo and scope of these events shook Maddox. He needed time to adjust. No. He had run out of time, hadn’t he? He’d have to do his deep thinking later. Right now, he had to go with this and see where it led. The Lord High Admiral had said he could ask anything he wanted. Well, all right then.

“Sir,” Maddox said, “do we have any idea of the number of starships the New Men possess.”

“No idea at all,” Cook said. “Logically, though, we should have more vessels than they do. They started with a tinier base and can’t have anything close to our population levels. However, Admiral Fletcher’s suggestion of compiling one giant armada and rushing them seems too risky. They would surely learn of such a massive gathering. They might also take the opportunity to target our unprotected industrial planets and bomb us back into a primeval age.

“
My boy, because the stakes are so high, we’ve decided to use caution and approach this like an interstellar war. That means blocking key jump routes, guarding our most important systems and attacking their strategic lines and industrial bases. If you’re captured, you can tell them all this.”

“I don’t plan on getting caught
,” Maddox said.

“Glad to hear it,” the
Lord High Admiral said. “Naturally, we’ve sent Patrol scouts into the Beyond.”

The Patrol arm of Star Watch went on the deep recon missions. They were the risk takers and they often traveled years at a time, searching new star systems, expanding the Commonwealth’s knowledge of the Beyond.

“We have to learn more about the New Men,” Cook said. “I mean, actually learn something concrete about them. I don’t have much faith in those missions, though. Likely, we’ll never see those Patrol scouts again, which is a shame.”

The
Lord High Admiral’s jawline tightened. “Son, let me tell you, it’s no fun sending volunteers to their deaths. I don’t like it one bit. This isn’t a cold game to me, where people become counters to move across a board. This is a death struggle of competing races, winner take all. I believe that with all my heart.”

The
Lord High Admiral glanced at the brigadier. Then, he refocused on Maddox.

The captain could feel the man’s force of will. The
Lord High Admiral must have hooded some of it during the meeting yesterday. Not now. Those green eyes studied him with fierce intensity.

“I’ve felt for some time
that our enemy believes he’s superior to normal humans,” Cook said. “The people he uses as agents—” The Lord High Admiral waved his big hands. “We don’t have time for a history lesson. They didn’t have to move at this precise moment if they didn’t want to. That they did invade the Oikumene seems to indicate they feel they have enough resources to defeat us.”

From her desk,
O’Hara cleared her throat.

“Not now, Brigadier,” Cook said. He focused on Maddox again. “We don’t know their politics. That’s her point. We don’t know their situation. Maybe they’re like the ancient Ostrogoths who fled before Attila the Hun’s grandfather. Maybe some truly wicked aliens are out there pushing the New Men
into us. I doubt it, but we don’t know. We’re clueless about far too much. One thing we have an eyewitness to—Noonan and her lifeboat crew told us how three cruisers slaughtered a Star Watch battle group.”

“Could they have planted that?” Maddox asked.
“Could they have captured Noonan and given her false memories about what really happened?”

“Sure they could have,” Cook said. “We have experts trying to deduce just that. Some believe that
’s the actual case. It’s too hard for most of us to accept three ships doing what they did. Maybe in reality the battle was a slugfest with nearly even sides. The New Men won, captured Noonan and brainwashed her into thinking what she told us. There aren’t any mental marks or other evidence pointing to that, but anything is possible, I suppose.”

Cook shrugged. “If that’s the case,
though, we have much less to worry about. Then, when our main fleets engage, we’ll do much better than we thought we would. We’re fools if we hope Noonan’s evidence is wrong. These New Men are a menace beyond anything we expected. And that’s where you come in, Captain.”

“I can’t see how one man can make much of a difference
in this,” Maddox said.

“
Firstly,” Cook said. “You won’t be one man. You’ll be part of a team, a very unusual team, to be sure.”

Maddox
noticed the Lord High Admiral and the Iron Lady trading glances. Okay then.

“How can one team make a difference
in such a broad war?” he asked.

“Right. That’s the question.” The
Lord High Admiral’s nostrils flared. “You’re about to leave on a quixotic quest, Captain, maybe the craziest assignment anyone has ever gone on. We’re desperate. It’s more than possible that humanity is facing extinction. The New Men strike me as arrogant beyond anything we’ve faced before. The trouble is that their arrogance seems to be entirely backed by real ability. I think they
are
better than us at waging war and waging a secret spy contest. I think they’re doing unspeakable things to the populations on Odin, Horace and Parthia. I hope to the Lord in Heaven I’m wrong, but I have a bad feeling in my gut that I’m right.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Maddox said. “That doesn’t answer the question
, and my half hour is fast running out.”

“
You’re right.” Cook glanced at the brigadier. “You want
me
to tell him, don’t you?”

“I couldn’t do it, sir,” she said.

Maddox was surprised at the tone of her voice. The Iron Lady sounded weary, sad, as if…
This will be a supremely difficult operation. That’s what they’re hinting at. She can’t give me the orders to do this because she fears for my life.

For the first time, Captain Maddox felt himself blush. It was a strange sensation. Did Brigadier O’Hara have a motherly concern for him? Did she look at him as more than her star officer? She’d been aware of him since his birth, watching, maybe wondering
about him.

Lord High
Admiral Cook cleared his throat.

Maddox looked up.

“I’m going to tell you a story,” Cook said. “It’s an old one. You may have heard rumors about it before. There is supposed to be a star system far out in the Beyond. It’s a smashed system, all the planets long ago turned into rubble. Whoever fought that ancient war used planet busters of unimaginable strength. According to the tale, hundreds, thousands of wrecked starships drift as useless hulks. Some believe that aliens battled there while our ancestors chased cave bears from their dens. We’ll probably never know the reasons for the conflict or what drove them to such desperate measures.”

Cook leaned a little closer. “A
mong the asteroidal debris and dead ships is a working sentinel. It’s a huge vessel still seeking its ancient enemies. Even more importantly, this automated sentinel, this primeval Guardship, contains advanced weaponry beyond anything we have. If the Star Watch could gain this craft, and if it was better than the New Men’s starships, then maybe we could win the coming battles.”

Maddox watched the old man
as he spoke. Yes, during his many assignments he’d heard rumors of this sort. The story had wandered through the star lanes for a long time. He also knew that a few prospectors had searched for the destroyed system. The legend went that no one who hunted for the alien super-ship was ever heard from again.

“If this star system
is real and the sentinel is there,” Maddox said, “anyone attempting to board it would die.”

“Not if the team doing it had the right personnel,” Cook said.

“Who would these people be?” Maddox asked. “I don’t see how I possess any of the needed qualities.”

“You would bring several
elements to the table. First, you would be the team leader, guiding and prodding the others. Second, you’re a specialist at intrigue and subterfuge. Anyone able to pull this off would need such talents. Third, you’re a lethal survivalist. Fourth, if you win your way onto the sentinel, the brigadier and I believe you would be trustworthy as its commander. Lastly, we both think you would make an excellent starship captain.”

“That’s a lot to carry on my shoulders,” Maddox said.

“Come, come, my boy,” Brigadier O’Hara said. “You’re just the man to do it. If you can’t, I don’t know who can.”

“Break
onto an alien sentinel from a war six thousand years ago?” Maddox asked.

“Yes,” Cook said. “It sounds mad. That we’re down to something like this shows the desperation of the hour. There’s something else
you should know, too.”

Maddox felt the back of his neck prickle. He had felt such stirrings before.
It warned him that the old man had saved the worst for last.

The
Lord High Admiral scooted his chair around, bringing it closer so their knees almost touched. “Captain, this will be a dangerous mission for more reasons than its objective. After listening to Lieutenant Noonan’s tale, it seems our enemy has infiltrated our various organizations even more deeply than I’d believed. It’s taken me a long time to admit this.” He glanced at the brigadier before staring back at Maddox. “How can one accept such a bitter truth until the reality of it stares one in the face? It’s good the Iron Lady has been at the helm of Star Watch Intelligence all this time. She’s seen more clearly than any of us have.”

“That’s all past us now,” she said. “We’re finally on the same page. That’s what counts.”

Cook stared at his big hands.

“Sir…
” Maddox said.

The
Lord High Admiral raised his head. “Son, no one on our side can know what you’re doing. That’s another reason you’re the perfect candidate.”

“By no one,
” Maddox said, “you mean no one other than the brigadier and you.”

The
Lord High Admiral’s features grew even graver. With his eyes fixed on Maddox, the old man nodded.

The captain
felt a stir in his heart. Maybe he should have felt betrayed at their suggestion. Instead, a thrill raced through him. Perhaps he had been born for this very purpose. The Lord High Admiral was saying that he wanted him—Captain Maddox—to save the human race. That was an impossible burden. Yet, that was also a goal to fire a man’s imagination. It meant that what he did was vital. It meant that he was important. He mattered in the grand scheme of things. Cook and O’Hara trusted him. In a way, they were like his parents, asking him to save the family.

“Yes,” Maddox said. “I accept the challenge.”

“I haven’t told you the rest,” Cook said.

“
I think I already know, sir. You mean to fool the New Men, or their operatives here. That means I will have to act as a fugitive from justice. I will be on the run. In Intelligence parlance, I will be out in the cold.”

“I told you he’s sharp,” O’Hara said proudly.

“One thing troubles me,” Maddox said.

“Yes?” Cook asked.

“You can’t just be sending me out there on a rumor. The operation is too important. That means you have facts about this system, not just old stories.”

“You’re right,” Cook said. “Son…there’s a crazy genius out there, half mad explorer and half
compiler of ancient secrets. His name is Professor Ludendorff, and we have some of his notes. Ludendorff claims to have made it to the star system in question. Even more importantly, he says he saw the sentinel and measured a few of its abilities. He says it isn’t just big, but claims the vessel is three times the size of a
Gettysburg
-class battleship.”