Vaughn Heppner - The Lost Starship

“Where?”

“On the prison planet Loki Prime,” Cook said. “It turns out she’s amassed quite a criminal record.”

“What’s the assistant’s name?”

“Doctor Dana Rich,” Cook said. “Among her many talents, she’s a clone thief and computer systems specialist.”

“This is slim evidence to use, some madman’s notes and a criminal’s testimony.”

“The truth, son, is that we haven’t spoken to her. At this point, we’re going off Professor Ludendorff’s notes alone. We also have reasons to believe he’s not as mad as advertised.”

“If Ludendorff was there, why didn’t he board the sentinel himself?” Maddox asked.

“He didn’t have those on his crew who he considered as the right people.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

The Lord High Admiral reached down, taking a briefcase from beside his chair. He set it on his knees, clicked it open and extracted a folder.

That’s quaint , Maddox thought. Why isn’t he handing me a reader?

“I’m told you have an excellent memory,” Cook said.

“Nearly photographic, sir,” Maddox said.

“Read these files. Because of our fear of being compromised, it’s better if you gather these people on the run than if we send them to you. I suspect you’ll find they are an unusual group. There’s a reason for that. Each of them mentally matches the professor’s requirements.”

Maddox looked up.

“Let me rephrase,” Cook said. “Ludendorff believed the sentinel will only accept certain types of individuals.”

“How did he reach such a conclusion?”

Instead of answering, Cook checked his wrist chronometer. “We’re almost out of time, I’m afraid. You should know that your sergeant is already on a penal ship heading for Loki Prime. He will be sent down by pod in the area where Dana Rich is believed to live.”

“Believed?” Maddox asked.

“If we searched her out ourselves, we’re afraid the New Men would learn too much about our plan. They might beat us to her. That cannot be allowed to happen.”

“I’m supposed to break her and Riker out on my own?” Maddox asked.

The Lord High Admiral nodded.

“Sir,” Maddox said. “No one escapes off a Commonwealth prison planet, particularly not Loki Prime.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Cook said. He put his meaty fingers into a pocket, taking out a small disk. He handed it to Maddox. “Those are the codes you’ll need to the prison planet orbitals, Loki System satellites and the location of a fast Patrol scout orbiting the moon. I think you’ll find it’s a unique little vessel.”

Maddox nodded instead of laughing in their faces. Then he flipped open the folder and began to read the first file. He didn’t like what he found. Keith Maker, an ex-strikefighter ace with a serious drinking problem. How did a pilot like that have the right mental qualities? Maddox decided not to worry about it now. Instead, he kept reading. He would remember the facts and mull them over later.

“By the way,” Cook said. “You’ll need a topflight navigator who knows her way around in deep space.”

“Yes, sir,” Maddox said.

“I’m giving you Lieutenant Noonan.”

Maddox looked up. Hadn’t the woman been through enough already? During the meeting, she’d looked worn down. Despite his gut feeling that this was a bad idea, he kept his opinion to himself.

“The lieutenant’s career is in ruins,” Cook said. Perhaps the Lord High Admiral sensed Maddox’s unease about the woman. “By her quick thinking and actions, she gave us a rare window of opportunity. Even so, too many Star Watch officers view her retreat through the Laumer-Point as cowardice in the face of the enemy. This will give her a chance to redeem herself. I think she’s earned that.”

Maddox couldn’t very well refuse the Lord High Admiral. Clearing his throat, the captain asked, “Did she request this assignment?”

“After she learned that her brainwave patterns matched our needs, yes, she did,” Cook said.

Maddox kept his frown inward. This was getting stranger by the moment. “I suspect that means you told her some of the broader picture.”

“Will that be a problem?” Cook asked.

The Lord High Admiral’s question surprised Maddox. He took the opening. “She’s not an intelligence officer, sir. She may have already compromised the operation with her bold recounting of the battle.”

The older, bigger man leaned forward and his eyes radiated intensity. “Then we’d better get started, Captain, before the competition catches on.”

Maddox realized he didn’t have a choice in the matter. Nodding, he looked back down at his folder and continued to read.

Lieutenant Noonan burned with resentment. Usually, she kept that part of herself cordoned off from the rest. She did not have an axe to grind, but many of them lined up in a row.

She stood beside a gargantuan foundation inside Paris’ largest mall, the Le Monde. Thousands of shoppers passed her. Most chattered to each other in French, a few must have spoken German.

“Mademoiselle,” someone said from behind, his voice barely audible over the splashing water and buzz of the crowd.

She turned. A man in a black leather jacket with a shaven scalp gripped a single rose. He looked dangerous, holding himself loosely like a knife-fighter. As he extended the red flower to her, a chain jangled on his wrist. He didn’t smile but watched her closely.

Valerie Noonan had lived with this all of her life. She attracted unwanted attention because men liked the way she looked. Her beauty should have been a blessing. Because of her circumstances, it had simply been one of the many hurdles to jump.

She shook her head. She didn’t want his stinking flower.

He continued to speak in a low voice while still extending the rose.

“I don’t know French,” she said.

“English,” the man said, speaking it better than he had the French. “You look lonely, and you’re lovely. Please, take this as a gift—from me to you.”

“I don’t know you,” she said.

His lips parted. “We can change that easily enough.”

She turned her back to him. In these matters, some men only understood rudeness.

With a shock, she felt the weight of his hand on her left shoulder. The man had just violated her space. He must think he could intimidate her into doing what he wanted. He was about to get a surprise.

Valerie reached up, grabbing his fingers. They were rough-skinned, indicating manual labor or close combat training. She whirled around, twisting his hand and arm. He cried out in pain, his body spun around so he bent low, facing the mall’s tiles, with his arm half way up behind him.

“You don’t hear very well, do you?” she asked.

“Let go,” he said in a flat voice.

Something about that warned her—this man was more dangerous than she’d first suspected. Instead of releasing him and trying to run, she kept twisting.

That’s when the heel of his boot crashed against her shin. It exploded with pain, and it made her angry. She twisted his fingers even harder than before. His other arm reached up and slapped her wrist. A buzz of pain shocked her, a sizzling jolt through her entire arm. On their own accord, her traitorous fingers loosened their hold.

The man with the shaven scalp and black leather jacket straightened, facing her. He hadn’t smiled before. He frowned now, an ugly thing. There was evil in his eyes.

“That was a mistake,” he told her in a low voice.

Valerie Noonan had grown up in the Prosperity Atoll of Greater Detroit in the old United States. In this case, what prosperity meant were survival credits from the government, what people had once called welfare. The atoll was its own world, surrounded by those who worked for a living, paid taxes and therefore had the right to vote.