Vaughn Heppner - The Lost Starship

“Your answer is evasive,” Maddox said. “As an officer that follows the regulations, is it yes, or is it no?”

Valerie tried to squirm away from answering. “The Lord High Admiral is trying to save us,” she said.

“By breaking the law?” asked Maddox.

Valerie opened her mouth to answer but found that she didn’t know what to say.

“Lieutenant,” Maddox said, “I believe you’re now experiencing a common failing among all of us. To wit, that our theories have a terrible tendency to crash against reality. In such an instance, one should employ judgment to make a calculated choice. The trouble is that, at times, your judgment will fail you, just as it has me in several instances. Then you must dust yourself off and begin anew, attempting to learn from the experience.”

“Are these new procedures, sir?”

“We can speak about procedures later,” Maddox said. “Right now, we shall concentrate on the mission. The rescue of Doctor Dana Rich takes priority. Without her, it’s doubtful we can reach the alien star system or have any real chance of gaining entrance onto the sentinel. Here is the last known picture of her.”

Maddox aimed a hand-unit at a wall. A photo appeared of a dark-haired woman. The hair shined with conditioner and reached well beyond her shoulders. She had dark eyes and a deep brown complexion, giving her an exotic appearance. Her smile indicated cynicism, while her brow showed high intelligence.

“She has an Indian and Cherokee background,” Maddox said.

“I thought Cherokees were Indians,” Keith said.

“Not that kind,” Maddox said. “I mean a citizen of India.”

“Doctor Rich was born on Earth?” Valerie asked.

“Yes, in Bombay,” Maddox said. “She hasn’t been to Earth for over twenty years, however. She emigrated to Brahma.”

“How old is she?” Valerie asked.

“The file didn’t say. She’s highly intelligent, capable and considered very dangerous. She’s a clone thief, having broken into Rigel’s Social Syndicate highest-level holding cells.”

“They must have been important clones,” Valerie said.

“Of the ruling syndic himself,” Maddox said. “He and his cronies control the Social Syndicate.”

Valerie shook her head. She’d never heard of them.

“It doesn’t matter now,” the captain said. “I have a locator—”

Valerie laughed. “I don’t see how this will be difficult, then. Oh. Please excuse my interruption, sir.”

“Finish your thought, Lieutenant.”

Valerie fidgeted before saying, “Can’t you fix Doctor Rich’s location, fly down, spray the area with a knockout gas and pick up her inert form?”

“I’m afraid not,” Maddox said.

Valerie glanced at Keith before turning back to Maddox. “Am I missing something, sir?”

“As I was going to say,” Maddox told her, “I have a locator to help me find Sergeant Riker. He’s my assistant in Star Watch Intelligence. He has already been sent to Loki Prime with the task of finding the good doctor. After picking him up, I hope to proceed quickly on the ground to her.”

“Your sergeant, sir?” Valerie asked.

“Yes. He’s a good man.”

“Brave, too,” she said. “He agreed to drop alone onto the prison planet?”

“No. He was sentenced to Loki Prime for killing Caius Nerva, Octavian Nerva’s heir.”

“Why would your sergeant kill the heir to the richest man on Earth?” Valerie asked.

“I’m sure he’ll enjoy telling you the story, provided we make it back alive.” Maddox checked a chronometer. “We have forty minutes until we reach the jump point. This time, we’ll use our cloaking device and go in with silent running. We must be ready for any eventuality.”

He eyed them before picking up the clicker, bringing up another picture. This one had a timetable on it. “Let’s go over our operational details,” Maddox said.

They did for some time. As the captain neared the conclusion, and despite her reluctance to do so, Valerie found herself impressed with him. Maddox made excellent plans.

Soon, the captain stood. “That’s it, then. We’re about to make history—the first to break anyone out from the deadliest prison planet in the Commonwealth.”

SWS Scout Geronimo moved silently through the Loki System. The cloak kept the ship hidden from the masses of sensors sweeping the areas between the planets. Each satellite-beacon did so with automated regularity.

Since exiting their Laumer-Point, they’d drifted, using their initial velocity to move. There was a reason for tiptoeing through the void—complications—even more than Maddox had anticipated.

There were four planets in the system. At the center was an F spectral class star, a blue-white fireball twenty percent larger than the Sun. The nearest world was a rare chthonian planet. It was odd for several reasons. Firstly, once it had been a gas giant like Jupiter, which made it strange because the planet was in the inner system. It was rare for Jovian worlds to be so close to a star. Secondly, the proximity to the star had a drastic effect on the gas giant. Through time and gravity, the star had stripped away the gas giant’s atmosphere and outer planetary layers. All that remained was the world’s rocky core. In many respects, the chthonian planet now resembled a terrestrial one.

A Class 1 Laumer-Point existed between the star and the chthonian planet. It was the main entrance into the Loki System—the Geronimo had entered elsewhere. A Star Watch monitor waited to guard the jump point.

Monitors were slow ships, designed to slug it out toe-to-toe with other heavies, using powerful beams. Their deflector shields were often as strong as a battleship’s. Some, like the Archangel out there, had warfare pods attached.

Upon spying the monitor with passive sensors, Lieutenant Noonan had spotted the Archangel’s pod. A quick computer match had told her it contained drones. That gave the monitor the ability to launch missiles. The heavy would likely use that tactic against any starship able to outrun it, staying out of beam range.

Of course, because the monitor remained near the Class 1 Laumer-Point, it could strike other vessels while their crews experienced Jump Lag coming through, making unwanted starships easy targets.

The SWS monitor had a distinct shape: perfectly round except for the attached warfare pod. Every inch of space on that vessel was devoted to its massive engines to supply the beam power and deflector shields. If Geronimo tried to fight Archangel , the monitor would swat it out of existence within the first minute. The trick was keeping far away from the monitor and its long-range beams. The scout was a flea compared to the giant fighting ship.

Archangel’s beam range was almost one hundred thousand kilometers. Because of laser dissipation, the closer one approached the warship, the stronger the beams burned. Fortunately, for the crew, according to the operational plan, Geronimo wouldn’t remotely approach the monitor.

The system’s second planet was Loki Prime, the prison world and target for their venture. It orbited the star at a greater range than Earth did the Sun. Because this star was larger and hotter, it made the prison planet a sauna, carpeted with dense and dangerous plant-life.

Geronimo had entered the system through a Class 3 tramline, the backdoor so to speak. The chthonian planet orbited the star at a Venus-like orbit. The Class 3 tramline was close to the system’s third plant, a gas giant in a Jupiter-like orbit. That meant over one billion kilometers had originally separated the scout from the monitor.

The distance gave them a wide margin of safety from the monitor. It was a slow ship. That meant Archangel would have to accelerate for days to reach the gas giant. Geronimo could be long gone by then, as it was faster than the monitor. However, if the slugger-ship launched seeker drones… that would be a different matter. The scout would have to retreat fast to the outer system Laumer-Point if it saw the monitor launching drones.