Vaughn Heppner - The Lost Starship

They had to get this vessel home before the Great Space War started with the New Men. Would the enemy hold back long enough? Would Captain Maddox bring them home through sheer force of will?

“We’ve made it this far,” Riker said.

“What’s that?” Valerie asked.

“We’ve made it this far, Lieutenant. We’ve done the hard work. Now we’re like a horse out in the pasture, racing to get home again.”

“Well,” Valerie said. “In my opinion, we can’t do it fast enough. Now, if you’d find a place to sit, Sergeant. I’m going to sound the jump alarm.”

He hurried to an alien chair.

“Are you ready?” Lieutenant Noonan asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Riker said.

Valerie sounded the alarm. A few moments later, they began the next jump.

Captain Maddox’s stomach growled as he stood on the bridge. He was hungry and gaunt. Like Meta, his metabolism burned too hot.

He studied the screen. The G class star waited three light years away, one more jump. They hadn’t detected any spacecraft in the system—not that he’d expected to. Starships were too small and quick to see from such a vast distance. The fourth planet of the star showed industrial technology but no radio waves. Could they be human emigrants from the Oikumene who had fallen back into barbarism? Had they forgotten how to make radios? It was beginning to look that way.

Exhaling, Maddox glanced at the diminutive hologram on the panel beside the screen. It showed the alien commander from six thousand years ago, who looked human enough with his silvery matted hair and dangling arms. They still hadn’t gotten an answer for the tentacle-like control slots. The holoimage of the former commander didn’t look up at him, ever. Was that significant? Maddox hoped not but felt it must be.

Dana had successfully enslaved the AI, which remained coded to his voice. None of the others could understand the holoimage when it spoke. That must have to do with the original brain scan. They hadn’t figured out how to replicate that, and the holoimage seemed to have forgotten what he’d done earlier.

Lieutenant Noonan sat at her scanning station. Doctor Rich remained in the AI nexus. Meta, with Riker and Keith as helpers, tried to fix the main deflector shield generator. It refused to cooperate. That meant the starship had no screens, just its shredded hull armor. They had a single neutron cannon, which so far had proven to be enough.

“We can’t face a star cruiser again,” Dana had told him.

“Do you think they’re waiting for us?” Maddox had asked.

“I think the New Men don’t give up easily. They must realize we escaped the alien system and how we did it. Yes, I think they’re hunting for us. We must be ready for the worst. They’re out there somewhere.”

Maddox’s stomach growled loud enough so Lieutenant Noonan looked up. When their eyes met, she looked away.

“Food,” she said.

“I feel like a desperate predator ready to tackle a bull elephant for lunch,” Maddox said. “We may have to figure out how to use one of the shuttles and take it down onto the fourth planet.”

“I volunteer to go,” Valerie said.

“I believe I’ll be the one going down onto the planet,” Maddox said.

The lieutenant looked up, shocked. “Sir, you can’t leave the ship now. You’re too valuable. No one else can speak with… it,” she said, using her chin to jut at the tiny holoimage.

The thing gave her a fervent glance.

“Sir,” Valerie said, “I think it knows what we’re—”

“Lieutenant!” Maddox said, interrupting her. “Whatever you were going to say, don’t.”

She grew pale, nodding quickly. “I’m sorry, sir. The thing gives me the creeps. It listens to us much too—”

“Lieutenant,” Maddox said, “ desist your line of reasoning.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“We’re about to jump,” he said. “We must be ready for anything. Think about that.”

Valerie waited before saying, “This next jump is exciting and terrifying at the same time.”

With his hunger, Maddox found it difficult to concentrate on anything but food. He’d finished the last of his rations. He could commandeer someone else’s, but he didn’t feel right doing so. If this star system failed to provide them with food… nothing else mattered anyway.

“Inform the others we’re about to make the jump,” Maddox said.

Valerie opened intra-ship channels and told the crew to prepare for the next use of the star drive. Then she got up, moving to a different station. There, using the thin rod to tap slot-controls, the lieutenant made the last jump to the new system.

The ancient starship Victory slid toward the fourth planet of the system.

The G class star was eight percent larger than Sol. It had a similar luminosity and ten planets. The inner system contained four of those planets; the outer had five gas giants and a Pluto-like world. There were no asteroid belts or visible comets.

“Well?” Maddox asked.

“No artificial satellites orbit the fourth planet, sir,” Valerie said. “It has two small moons, which we already knew.”

“Yes, I see those,” Maddox said.

“The industrial index shows that the greatest concentration is on the approaching continent, sir, the one shaped like an octagon.”

The starship was several hundred thousand kilometers from the fourth planet, about the distance of the Moon from Earth. It was a blue-green world similar to Terra. The octagonal-shaped landmass facing them radiated the most industrial signs.

“I’m detecting nuclear power,” Valerie said, sounding surprised.

“Good. What about radio waves?”

“Nothing,” Valerie said. “I have no indication they know we’re out here.”

“That seems strange,” Maddox said.

“I agree, sir.”

“Well, we need food. Start calculating an orbital entry above the planet.”

“Sir?” the lieutenant asked.

Maddox glanced at her, and then he remembered himself. He wasn’t on the Geronimo . This was Victory . “Sorry, Lieutenant,” he said. “Old habits die hard.” The captain thereupon gave his orders to the holoimage.

The starship shuddered as the vessel’s engines applied power, slowing the mighty craft so it could soon enter planetary orbit.

“We made it,” Valerie said. “We’re really here. I can hardly wait to see what kind of foodstuffs they have.”

“Yes,” Maddox said absently. “We’re here.”

“Is something wrong, sir?”

“I wish our new starship had the instruments to sense the system’s Laumer-Points. How many tramlines run into this star system? How do they link with the others? Are the beings down there men or some new alien species?”

“We’ll know some of the answers soon enough, sir.”

A half-hour passed and the planet loomed before them.

“Oh-oh,” Valerie said, as she studied her board.

The words sent a shudder down Maddox’s spine. “What’s wrong? What are you sensing?”

“There was something and now there’s nothing,” Valerie said quietly. She used her rod to stab controls. “If I were on the Geronimo , I’d know how to replay what I just picked up.”

“What—”

“It came from the nearest moon,” Valerie said, “the one swinging toward us.”

“Computer,” Maddox said to the holoimage. That’s what he’d taken to calling it. “Did you pick up those readings?”

“I did,” the tiny image told him.

“What was it?”

“A broadcaster,” it said.

“Where did it broadcast?” Maddox asked.

“Toward the inner planets,” the holoimage told him.