Vaughn Heppner - The Lost Starship

“Go to sleep and regain your energy,” Meta said. “You’ve been through a lot today. We’ll keep watch.”

Dana shed the rest of her vacc-suit and wadded up an extra shirt, using it as a pillow. She closed her eyes and soon began to snore softly.

Unlimbering the repeater, Maddox took the first watch. The others, following Dana’s example, faded into slumber. The endless hours of preparation, the shuttle horror and searching through the monstrous vessel had tired everyone out.

After watching the others fall asleep, Maddox suppressed a yawn. His limbs ached with fatigue. His turn would come soon enough. Rubbing his arms, he looked around. On impulse, he approached one of the cylinders towering over him, listening to its constant thrum . Had the mixing of matter with antimatter taken place throughout the six thousand years? How had Professor Ludendorff come to his conclusion of the exact passage of time? Ha. What could this starship really do anyway? Would it be a match for the New Men? Maybe their advanced beams would cut this vessel down to size just as it had done to Admiral von Gunther’s battle group.

There were many imponderables, he realized.

Maddox turned back to his crew laid out on the floor. They’d shoved the skeletons and robots aside and brushed away the crusted slime. Gray decking showed there now. It vibrated slightly from the engines.

The captain walked back and forth to keep awake. After all this time, he had actually done it. Well, they all had. What a disparate crew: Lieutenant Noonan, Ensign Maker, Sergeant Riker, Meta and Doctor Rich. They had found the haunted star system and boarded the ancient vessel just as Brigadier O’Hara had planned. It had been a team effort, and what had it gained them and gained humanity?

So far, we haven’t helped the Commonwealth of Planets in the slightest. We have to get this relic back to Earth. Our best scientists will have to go over the artifact and see what new technologies we can reverse engineer from it .

Maddox became thoughtful. That wasn’t going to happen unless they could make this thing run under their control. Even then, it would be an iffy proposition. Could the ship enter the star’s photosphere to use the tramline? Did this craft have a Laumer Drive or something equal to one?

Stretching his back, Maddox wondered if—

He stiffened with alarm. Something small and bright darted to his right. Whirling to face it, he aimed the heavy repeater at…

A blinking spot on the deck the size of his hand slowly moved toward him. With sick fascination, he watched it near. Fear bubbled and a panicked shout nearly erupted. Horror crawled up his back—the starship wasn’t empty after all.

He looked up at the ceiling, but couldn’t spot an aperture pouring out the light. At the last moment, he heard a scape of metal against metal from behind. Maddox began to turn. Mist hissed into his face, some of which he breathed. He caught a glimpse of a metallic construct, a robot, with a nozzle aimed in his face. The mist had come from it. Maddox finally held his breath, but it was too late. The chamber spun.

Maddox attempted to pull the trigger of his assault weapon. That was beyond him now. He toppled toward the alien robot. His second to last thought was that the robot had used the light to distract him long enough for it to sneak up on him. That implied intelligence and cunning.

Does the robot run the starship?

Before he could drum up an answer, Captain Maddox lost consciousness.

By slow degrees, the captain’s awareness returned. He found himself deposited upon what might have been a piece of alien reclining furniture.

The last few minutes before he went unconscious bloomed upon his memory. Maddox didn’t panic. That wouldn’t help him. This was the time for maximum calm.

He opened his eyes and sat up. The chair was too big for him, but that hardly mattered. A swivel of his head one way and then the other showed him he was in a round chamber. What seemed like control panels lined the circular room. Lights flickered on those panels, and they had the tentacle slots.

He searched in vain for the robot that had incapacitated him. Wisely, the thing had taken his gun.

“Hello,” Maddox said. “Can you hear me?”

Silence greeted him.

He tried to stand, but found himself too groggy to get his limbs working properly. With a sigh, he sank back against the chair. First squeezing his eyes shut, he opened them and carefully examined the chamber. It seemed like the starship’s bridge. No skeletons littered the floor. No torn robots lay about strewn here and there. The deck gleamed. No slime had ever stained this area.

“What’s the point of this?” Maddox asked.

A hissing noise alerted him. To his left, the air shimmered and then crackled strangely. Once more, panic threatened. He swallowed, waiting, watching the crackling air.

Slowly, it solidified into a shape, but lines in the thing—like bad reception—made it fuzzy and blurry.

Is that a holoimage?

With this puzzle galvanizing him, Maddox struggled to his feet. Swaying, wondering if this is what it felt like to be drunk, he approached the hazy image. Gathering his resolve, Maddox passed his hand through it.

Yes, it’s a holoimage or the alien equivalent of one .

The haziness of the thing became fractionally more distinct. It showed something vaguely humanoid. Was that accurate or did his mind play tricks on him? The shape didn’t appear to have tentacles of any kind.

Then, distinct alien words sounded from it.

Maddox yelped and staggered back, crashing against the chair.

The sounds vibrated once more, and they definitely seemed to come from the hazy thing that he’d first thought a holoimage.

Is it an alien ghost?

Maddox’s head twitched in the negative. This wasn’t the time to be superstitious. Besides, the idea terrified him. He didn’t want to deal with something like that.

“Hello,” he said.

Around the chamber, slots opened in various bulkheads. Out of each popped a small radar-like dish. They aimed central antenna at him.

Maddox wanted to dodge, but he played a hunch, standing still. Light at the end of each antenna told him the dishes had activated. Heat struck his head. It intensified. Finally, he cried out, ducked away and rubbed his scalp where it hurt.

The lights on the antenna dimmed, and the dishes moved, aiming at his head again. The heat returned, although not as hot as before. Maddox felt lightheaded. Then vertigo struck. He clutched his stomach and threw up what remained of his meal, leaving a stain on the otherwise clean deck.

The radar dishes with their antenna retreated into the bulkheads and the slots slid shut.

The hazy image before him solidified into a replica of himself. Is this what Brigadier O’Hara had meant by needing the right brain patterns? The Iron Lady would only have learned that through Professor Ludendorff. Why hadn’t Dana known about that? Could the doctor be lying about not knowing?

“Captain Maddox,” the holo-replica said, the mouth moving in an approximation of speech. “Welcome to the bridge of Starship Victory .”

The unreality of the moment made it difficult for Maddox to think. Was he dreaming? Had a robot really sprayed a knockout drug in his face? Maybe the strain of these past months and the dire need caused him to hallucinate. He so wanted to understand the ship that he had invented this scenario.

“Are my words unclear?” the holoimage asked.

“No,” Maddox managed to croak.

“Are you unwell?”

Did it hurt to play along with his delusion? Maddox shrugged. It would probably be okay. “I’m disoriented,” he told the thing.