Vaughn Heppner - The Lost Starship

“Are you saying you’re no longer human?” Maddox asked.

“Your conceit is ill-reasoned,” the New Man said. “Homo Sapiens have risen little higher than the brute beasts around them. Perhaps you have something more personally compared to the common ruck of your Orion Arm herd. I would like to examine your DNA to discover what this difference is, but it is a small matter. We of the Race have arrived at genetic perfection. That makes us human. You and your ilk are something lower on the evolutionary scale.”

“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 activate 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.

The 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 lasers 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, the 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 .