Vaughn Heppner - The Lost Starship

“What do you need?” Maddox said.

“Help me up to medical. I’ll dial the robo-doctor and give myself the needed shots. Then, you and I are going to the control room. Let us see if I have the magic you’re looking for.”

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.

“It’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.