Vaughn Heppner - The Lost Starship

“Almost?” asked Maddox.

“I have been deified, advanced to a higher plane of existence. I am no longer troubled by my former biology and physiology. Yet, in a sense, I miss those days of…”

You’ve trapped yourself in the soulless hell of a computer , Maddox thought. Yet that wasn’t logical, was it? If the personified AI didn’t have emotions, it couldn’t feel its loneliness.

“Nervous or not,” Maddox said, “I’m glad to enter combat with you.”

“Does that imply you think you’re going to help me?” the holoimage asked.

“Only in the sense of offering a suggestion or insight,” Maddox said. Could AI’s be touchy? This one seemed to be.

“It is too bad,” the holoimage said. “As you spoke, I assessed my weaponry. The disruptor no longer functions. With it, I could have swept these three vessels out of existence. I do not have use of the gyro destabilizer either.”

“What do you have?” Maddox asked.

“The neutron beam,” the holoimage said. “It is my most primitive weapon. Yet it did well enough against the Swarm. These New Men will not survive it, I’m sure.”

Maddox wondered about the ancient battle. “How many star systems did you control before the Swarm attacked?”

“This system,” the holoimage said.

“You hadn’t colonized other systems?”

“We had not yet used our newly discovered star drive. Victory was an experimental model, the first of its kind. Perhaps I should have attempted faster than light travel, but it doesn’t matter now.”

“By star drive,” Maddox asked, “you mean the wormhole, right?”

“Wormhole?” the holoimage asked.

“The one that begins in your star’s photosphere,” Maddox said.

“I have no idea what you’re babbling about now,” the holoimage said.

Maddox ingested the information. Could the alien not know about tramlines and Laumer-Points? It seemed inconceivable.

“Ah,” the captain said, “didn’t the Swarm burst out of the sun as these star cruisers just did?”

“Of course not,” the holoimage said. “For over one hundred years, we watched the Swarm advance toward our star system. Their massed fleet came at sub-light speed, heading straight for us. In their arrogance, they made no attempt to hide their approach.”

“Wait a minute,” Maddox said. “Let me get this straight. The Swarm didn’t use tramlines?”

“What are these tramlines you keep speaking about?” the holoimage asked.

“They’re wormholes, the means we used to enter your star system. How do you think we got here?”

“I’ve had enough of your senseless chattering,” the holoimage said. “The enemy is energizing his weapons. Can it be his beams have a greater range than ours?”

Maddox crouched over his screen, watching the void. As he did, three rays of light speared from the three enemy starships. The captain stopped breathing. Would Victory’s deflector shields hold?

Yes! Before the lances of light touched Victory , a shimmering substance halted them. The three beams poured energy against the ancient vessel’s shield. The rays turned that area red. As the enemy continued to beam, the color darkened, and the area grew larger and larger as the shield attempted to dissipate the energy.

“This is unbelievable,” the holoimage said. “Their beam range astounds me. The Swarm possessed nothing like this. Neither did we possess such long-ranged weaponry.”

Maddox gritted his teeth and balled his fists tight. The New Men continued to beam Victory’s shield. The starship began to tremble. It didn’t come from the strain against the shield. Rather, the antimatter engines whined so Maddox could hear the sound from the bridge. The thrumming engines shook the panels.

“The star cruisers are slowing down,” the holoimage said. “No. I need to close the distance faster. If only I had use of my primary weapons. I would smash these gadflies then.”

“How much longer will it take until we’re in neutron beam range?” Maddox shouted.

“No!” the holoimage groaned. “This isn’t possible.”

Maddox saw it on his screen. A beam speared through the blackened shield. The ray sped for the ancient starship and boiled against hull plating. Armor grew red hot. The beam dug deeper, deeper— “I am overriding the safety precautions,” the holoimage said. “There. That should fix it.”

A fierce high-pitched whine grew louder. The entire bridge shook harder than ever. The holoimage became dimmer, his words harder to hear.

On the screen, the enemy ray no longer melted outer armor. The deflector shield was no longer black, either. It had turned back to a brown color, with the three hellish beams trying to batter it back down.

“In a few more minutes we’ll be in range,” the holoimage whispered.

With pent up frustration, Maddox struck a panel. The alien shield was obviously better than anything the Commonwealth of Planets had. With even that improved technology, the lost vessel would immeasurably help the Star Watch against the New Men. How could he get the starship home was the question.

With their heavy laser beams, Star Watch battleships could have already been hammering the enemy. This short-range alien neutron weapon— Maddox sat up, blinking rapidly . How daft do I have to be? The AI spoke about a star drive. He doesn’t mean wormholes either . Could the aliens have discovered a different way to go faster than light?

An explosion shook the room. The motion threw Maddox out of his seat to sprawl onto the deck. He looked up from his spot.

“Did the antimatter engines blow up?” he asked.

“This is incredible,” the holoimage whispered. “One of the neutron chargers exploded. I’ve taken interior damage. The shield—”

Maddox scrambled to his feet, rushing to the screen. On it, he witnessed three savage beams digging into the vessel’s hull armor. Victory’s deflector shield had disappeared. Pieces of starship melted away in great globular clumps.

“Do something!” Maddox shouted.

“Yes, I will attack now,” the holoimage said. “In dying, I will strike a fearful blow.”

A supercharged purple beam lanced out of the starship. It struck the nearest star cruiser. The alien beam boiled against the enemy screen. First, the shield turned red, then brown and then black. Afterward, the neutron beam speared against the cruiser.

“Yes!” Maddox shouted. “Yes. Yes.”

Star cruiser armor blew apart as the neutron beam dug into the enemy vessel. This was fantastic. The New Men weren’t invincible after all.

“I must attempt the hyper-drive,” the holoimage said. “Otherwise, the enemy will annihilate the greatest starship in history.”

For a terrible moment, intense vertigo overcame Maddox. His eyesight failed him. He heard roaring sounds. It felt as if he left his body and exotic colors swirled around him. Then everything became quiet. It felt as if he floated in space. The next second, the roaring in his ears and a brilliant flash caused his senses to overload. He felt himself thrashing on the deck and shouting incoherently. Then, every color seemed to fly inward toward him—and normalcy returned to the bridge. It left Maddox blinking and panting on the floor. With strangely rusted muscles, he turned to the holoimage.

“What happened?”

The holoimage had frozen. It said nothing.

Painfully, Maddox climbed to his feet and checked his screen. No beams burned into Victory . He saw the void with its distant stars, and something seemed very wrong. He frowned, trying to figure out what the something was. Then he realized that he no longer saw the red giant.

What does that mean?