The Lost Destroyer (Lost Starship Series Book 3) (2 page)

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Maddox moved down a corridor with the silkiness of a jungle cat. His mind churned over the possibilities. Per Lomax was deadly and vastly clever, one of the New Men created in the Beyond, a genetic superman with delusions of godhood.

By exerting himself to the limit, Maddox had defeated Per Lomax once. He wasn’t sure he could do it again. It wouldn’t be for a lack of trying, though.

Starship
Victory
had a minimal crew and only a handful of passengers, less than twenty people altogether. The starship was an ancient Adok vessel, the last of its kind from a war fought over six thousand years ago. It had two huge oval areas and could have carried thousands of personnel. With Galyan, the Adok AI, presently down, Per Lomax could be hidden anywhere.

Maddox had narrowed the situation down to three possibilities. Per Lomax had set the jumpfighter on auto as a ruse, Per Lomax had used the craft to reach the ghostly vessel or someone in the crew had fled the starship. He wasn’t interested in the third possibility, at least not yet. A free and vengeful Per Lomax was the great danger. Until he had eliminated that threat, nothing else mattered.

From around a corner, Maddox heard a footfall. He froze, straining to pinpoint the exact location of the sound.

The footfall did not repeat itself.

Maddox’s eyes seemed to gleam. Slowly, carefully, like a great cat on the hunt, Maddox eased down the corridor.

The ship-wide intercom system was still down, and none of the portable comm-units worked. That was damage from the magnetic storm. He was on his own against Per Lomax.

Despite Maddox’s resolve, his stomach tightened. The iron realist in him whispered a terrible truth. No one could match a New Man one on one.

The captain stopped, gripping his gun tighter. Per Lomax might be unarmed or only possess a knife or a knife-like shank. At close quarters, a knife could be just as deadly as a gun, though.

Maddox debated options. He only had a few. Time was his enemy in this. He could not relinquish control of
Victory.

The starship raced home to Earth from the Tannish System in “C” Quadrant. The vessel was far ahead of the survivors of Admiral Fletcher’s Fifth Fleet, which the starship had saved from destruction. Interstellar messages could only travel as fast as the fastest spaceship. The ancient vessel with its star drive was faster than any other Star Watch ship. Maddox raced home to give High Command the good news.

I should have demanded a platoon of space marines from Fletcher before I left the admiral.

Maddox’s head twitched in a quick negation. Could have beens were useless.

His lips peeled back to reveal white teeth. In these situations, one could move too cautiously. Maddox inhaled. It was truth time. He charged, turning the corner.

Maddox saw his mistake immediately. A waiting shooter leaned against the wall, aiming a stunner at him. Maddox’s trigger finger tightened. At the last millisecond, he eased pressure so as not to shoot.

The barrel of his gun was aimed at Sergeant Treggason Riker’s forehead. Maddox would have put a bullet hole in his Star Watch Intelligence aide. Fortunately, the captain’s superior reflexes allowed him to catalog the “shooter” as friendly and lower his weapon just in time.

As Maddox did so, Riker twitched in surprise, no doubt at the captain’s swift appearance, and pulled the trigger of his weapon. The stunner ejected a nearly invisible blot of force. Maddox began to dodge, but not even he was that fast.

The stun blast knocked the captain backward onto the deck plates. Maddox groaned, although he managed to keep hold of his gun, which lay on the floor with him.

“Captain,” Riker said in a gravelly voice. “I’m terribly sorry, sir. I thought you were the killer.”

As Maddox struggled to remain conscious, he refrained from groaning a second time. His body ached, and he couldn’t move yet. The stunner must have been set on medium. At low, he would have been able to sit up already. At high, he’d be either unconscious or dead.

“Can you hear me, sir?” Riker asked, peering down at him.

Sergeant Riker was an older man with leathery skin. He had a bionic eye and a fully bionic arm. The man had lost the eye and arm in a blast many years ago on a desperate mission on Altair III. The sergeant was an old dog in the Intelligence Service, handy with a gun, possessing a cunning tactical sense and fierce loyalty to Star Watch.

Clearly, Riker had set an ambush for someone. Even as Maddox waited to “thaw,” he considered that. Did the sergeant know about Per Lomax’s escape? Wait, Riker had just said he thought Maddox had been the killer. Had Per Lomax already killed someone?

Maddox strove to move his lips.

“You should try to relax, sir,” Riker said. “If you fight it, the stun lasts longer.” The older man frowned, hesitated and finally added, “You’re going to feel sick for a time.”

Maddox already knew that.

The older man backed away. By the sounds, he checked his stunner charge. Then, Riker cleared his throat and muttered something unintelligible.

At last, Maddox’s chest unlocked. He sucked down a shuddering gasp of air. He took the sergeant’s advice, relaxing his muscles until he was limp. That made breathing easier, which in turn helped him wait.

Finally, Maddox whispered, “Who’s dead?”

“One of the slarn trappers, sir,” Riker said.

Maddox closed his eyes. The trappers were Professor Ludendorff’s people. They hunted slarns, a vicious predatory beast on Wolf Prime prized by people throughout the Commonwealth for their fur. In a few good years, a trapper could become wealthy. Ludendorff had been on Wolf Prime studying an ancient Swarm hive and the various alien cave etchings and artifacts found there. Ludendorff had two archaeologists and two slarn trappers with him aboard
Victory
. Make that one slarn hunter now.

“How…” Maddox moistened his mouth. “How did the trapper die?”

“A broken neck, sir,” Riker said.

“Twisted from behind?”

“The broken nose and blood smeared on his face would indicate a savage punch or kick to the head, sir,” Riker said. “I’d imagine only three people on the starship could do that with just their fist.”

“Per Lomax, Meta and me,” Maddox said.

“Exactly, sir. I was heading to the holding cell to check on our New Man. Then, I heard someone coming. It turned out to be you, sir.”

Maddox managed to frown. He hadn’t thought he’d made
any
noise. How had Riker heard him?

Turning his sore neck, Maddox focused on the sergeant. “The holding cell is empty.”

Riker turned pale. In two quick twitches, the sergeant glanced right and left, aiming the stunner in both directions.

“You perceive the danger,” Maddox said. “Good. Now, help me stand.”

With a trembling hand, Riker holstered the stunner. He crouched behind the captain, putting his hands under Maddox’s shoulders, lifting.

Maddox felt as if he’d massively over-trained, with his muscles slow to respond. By minute degrees, the captain made it to his feet.

Riker panted, saying, “Good thing I have a bionic arm, sir. You’re heavier than you look.”

Maddox held out his left hand. It disgusted him that it trembled. He hated any sign of personal weakness. Lowering the offensive hand, he shuffled against a bulkhead and leaned against it, resting.

“I’m surprised you’re able to stand at all, sir,” Riker said, taking out his stunner, eying both ends of the corridor. “Not too many people could do it so quickly after a stunner shot.”

“Someone took the jumpfighter outside the ship,” Maddox said.

“During this mess, sir?”

“Yes.”

Riker looked at him in surprise. “It must have been Per Lomax.”

“He could have set the jumpfighter on auto to make it look like he did.”

It took Riker a second to work through that. Maddox watched the changes on the sergeant’s face. Finally, the old features scowled.

“He’s a clever bastard,” Riker muttered.

“More than clever,” Maddox said. “Now, show me the dead man.”

“Can you walk yet, sir?”

“Give me an arm. I’ll lean on it.” Maddox hoped moving would help to shake off the stun.

“What if we run into Per Lomax?” Riker asked.

Right. Maddox couldn’t afford the stun weakness. Time was their enemy. He had to outmaneuver the New Man while the odds still favored them.

The captain closed his eyes, gathering his will. Taking a deep breath, he opened them, straightened and managed a few staggering steps. Continuing to walk, he drew his long-barreled gun with a shaky hand.

“Sergeant,” Maddox called. “Show me the dead man.”

“Yes, sir,” Riker said, hurrying to catch up. He glanced at the captain, looked as if he wanted to say something and then decided against it.

With the sergeant in the lead, the two operatives headed down the corridor.

***

Ten minutes later, Maddox knelt beside the dead slarn trapper. The corpse had a thick, gray-streaked, gory beard. The nose was broken, flattened and smeared with drying blood. The angle of the head indicated a broken neck just as Riker had said.

The corpse—his name had been Sten Gorgon—wore a homespun shirt and pants with heavy boots, Wolf Prime attire. Maddox didn’t know how long Sten had been with the professor.

“Even with a crank bat,” Riker said, “it would be hard to break the neck like that.”

Maddox checked one end of the corridor and then the other. He didn’t hear anyone coming. The sergeant was right about the crank bat.

Inspecting the corpse one more time, Maddox set his gun on the floor and patted the torso through the shirt. He felt something near the belt.

Maddox might have snatched his hand away and dove onto the floor to escape a booby trap blast, but he felt something slim tucked against the corpse’s belt. Unbuttoning the three lower buttons, Maddox extracted a metal collar.

“Per Lomax’s shock collar,” Riker said, identifying the object.

Twisting it around, Maddox studied the thing. It was a nasty device meant to hold a dangerous but invaluable prisoner in check. In the orbit of Wolf Prime, Per Lomax had led a boarding party of New Men. The enemy had attempted to capture
Victory
. At heavy cost, Maddox’s team had killed all the invaders but for Per Lomax. Him, they had taken prisoner. It had been the first enemy prisoner—dead or alive—anyone had captured. Maddox had been taking the New Man home to Earth for the experts to question.

If Per Lomax left his holding cell, the shock collar was supposed to have rendered him unconscious. The ion storm must have shorted the device. Would Per Lomax have known that ahead of time? Might it have been an educated guess or gamble on the New Man’s part?

Maddox used both hands, pulling the collar apart. It had been open. A quick examination showed him someone must have opened the lock normally, not with a burst of strength tearing it apart. Could Per Lomax have had inside help?

As preposterous as the idea seemed, Maddox was forced to consider it.

“Who do you think killed the trapper, sir?” Riker asked.

“Maybe that’s the wrong question,” Maddox said. “
Why
did the person kill Sten Gorgon?”

“I’ll bite, sir. Why did they kill him?”

Maddox stared at the corpse. Methodically, he considered the situation.
Victory
had used the star drive, jumping into an empty system. The vessel had appeared beside a spatial anomaly, an ionic front magnetic storm. After the jump, the starship’s shield had been down. It took precious time before the deflector mechanisms could come back online. The electromagnetic shield might not have withstood the strands of magnetic force anyway. As it was, the interfering magnetics and strand-attacks had damaged the starship and rendered most interior systems inoperative. During that time, Per Lomax had escaped from the holding cell and someone had launched the starship’s remaining jumpfighter. On top of all that, a faint, gigantic spaceship had moved through the magnetic storm.

Was
Victory’s
jump appearance near the magnetic storm a coincidence? Was the faint ship in the spatial anomaly—it’s being there at the instant it was—another coincidence?

Maddox seriously doubted that. So who had plotted the starship’s course to the magnetic storm?

Before Maddox could begin the analysis, Riker shouted, bringing up his stunner. A
click
sounded from the weapon. A blot of force ejected from the barrel. The bolt passed though the hologram of Driving Force Galyan. The AI image stood before them, having just appeared.

“Don’t do that!” Riker shouted. The alien holoimage had a humanoid shape, but with ropy arms and extremely deep-set, dark eyes.

Galyan examined his torso before staring at the sergeant. “Why did you just shoot me?”

“I thought you were someone else,” Riker said in a calmer voice.

“Who did you think I was?” Galyan asked.

“Never mind about that,” Maddox said. “It’s clear you’re functioning again.”