The Lost Starship (17 page)

Riker forced himself to think. “How…” He began to cough.

Maddox eased him up. Riker spat red gunk, coughed, spat and coughed more. Finally, he began to wheeze as a queasy feeling consumed him. He shivered uncontrollably.

“How many did you kill?” Riker
whispered.

“Five of them,” Maddox said.

“There were six,” Riker whispered.

“The last one was running hard.
I let him go.”

“Don’t let that fool you, sir. He’ll double back. What you have, it’s incredible wealth to them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Now you must save your strength, Sergeant. We don’t have far to go, but it will take some effort.”

“I’m done for, sir,” Riker said.

“Nonsense, Sergeant. I didn’t come all this way to have you die on me. Besides, I need what lies in your skull.”

“I’m not very lucid, sir. My thinking is off. The last one is returning. Count on it.”

“I’ve already told you I’ll keep that in mind. Now stand up. There’s a good fellow. Lean your weight on me.”

“How did you make it down here, sir?”

“I have my flitter,” Maddox said.

“I heard it earlier.”

“Good. Now concentrate. Yes, keep walking.”

Riker swam in and out of consciousness. A raging fever made him desperately cold. He would have crashed to the ground many times, but Maddox kept him up. Riker couldn’t believe this was happening.
He wanted to weep with relief, but he would never do that before the captain. He wouldn’t give Maddox the pleasure.

“I have red rot
in my lungs, sir.”

Maddox said nothing.

With a final supreme effort, Riker opened his eye. The last Scorpion stood before them. He aimed his flintlock at Maddox.

“Drop your gun,” the man said.

“Is that barrel made of wood?” Maddox asked.

“Drop it!” the Scorpion shouted. Oil slicked his skin in most places. Some of it looked dry
, though. That was bad luck for the criminal.

Maddox pitched his gun onto the ground.

“That’s good,” the Scorpion said, grinning. He only had a few teeth left, and they were green. “Now, tell me who you are?”

“
I’m with Intelligence,” Maddox said, “Star Watch. I’m on Loki Prime looking for Doctor Dana Rich. Have you heard of her?”

The Scorpion cawed with laughter. “Of course I’ve heard of that bitch. She’s two tribes up on the mountain.”

“Ah,” Maddox said.

The Scorpion cocked his head. The rag over his face was almost dry. Riker knew the man needed to re-soak it.
“You don’t know what that means,” the Scorpion said. “Up the mountain. Did you just drop onto the surface?”

“In a manner of speaking,
I did,” Maddox said. “Now listen here, my good fellow. If you’re interested in a reward, you’ll tell me all you can about Dana Rich and her tribe.”

“No,” the Scorpion said. “I’m the one making the deals. You’re—” The man cocked his head again, and he glanced around before staring at Maddox. “Do you hear that hum?”

“I do in fact,” Maddox said.

“What is it?”

“My taxi out of here,” Maddox said.

“You’d better explain that to me.”

As Riker watched, he saw the flitter glide into position behind the man.

“Look behind you,” Maddox s
uggested.

The Scorpion did.

“You see now that I have the ability to reward you,” Maddox said.

In disbelief
, with tears in his eyes, the Scorpion stared at the captain. “That’s your air-car up there?”

“
Indeed.”

As a tear slid down his face, t
he Scorpion grinned. “Do you know what a ransom is?”

“I’m aware of the concept
,” Maddox said.

“Good. Because you’re going to communicate with your driver and tell him to land right
here.”

Maddox shook his head.

“Do you want to die?” the Scorpion shouted, his cloth fluttering before his lips.

“You misunderstand,” Maddox said. “I wasn’t shaking my head for your benefit, but for the driver’s.”

“What?” the Scorpion asked, his forehead furrowed.

On the nose of the flitter,
Riker saw a slot move out of the way. A barrel poked out.

“Go
ahead,” Maddox told the criminal. “Take a look behind you. I’m sure you’ll find this of interest.”

On
ce more, the Scorpion glanced back. That’s when a heavy slung from the flitter’s weapon blew apart his chest. The bloody remains toppled onto the soil.

“I should have listened to you, Sergeant,” Maddox said.
“The man did indeed double back. Now we’re going to have to get Doctor Rich with only a minimum of information to guide us. I’d planned to chase the convict down and interrogate him.”

The captain said more, but Riker didn’t hear
the rest as he slipped into blessed unconsciousness.

Maddox opened the flitter’s emergency kit. It had a small diagnostic compu-doctor, a round device a little heavier than his fist. The captain pressed it against the sergeant’s chest.

The medikit flashed red—not a good sign. Then
, it injected Riker with various antibiotics and painkillers. Afterward, it gave a medical readout on a tiny screen.

Maddox examined the report, slowly climbing to his feet afterward.

“How bad is it?” Keith asked.

“We have to get him
up to
Geronimo
or he’ll die.”

“So…?”

Maddox took several steps away from the prone sergeant, thinking hard. Riker had a fever and debilitating funguses or spores mutating in his body.
Geronimo
had a larger and more advanced medikit than the one here. It might save the sergeant—if they left immediately. The longer he waited, the less chance Riker had for survival.

Maddox seethed inwardly, although nothing showed on his face. Sergeant Riker was a good man, if too tepid on too many occasions. Still, the sergeant was good with a gun, resourceful when it counted and levelheaded. Yet Maddox couldn’t fly him up
this instant. He had to find Doctor Rich first. The space beacon was ticking, and soon it wouldn’t matter what happened. They had to leave the Loki System, sooner being better than later.

Maddox didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he was going to have to risk Riker’s life. He owed the sergeant his
, but—
Is this how I repay him?

It had been a poor idea to send Riker to Loki Prime. O’Hara must have believed she was protecting the sergeant from Octavian Nerva. If the sergeant had remained on Earth, Nerva’s hitmen would have slain Riker in retaliation for Caius Nerva’s death.

“Sir,” Keith said, sounding worried. “He’s moaning.”

Maddox stroke back to Riker. He bent on one knee, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. It radiated heat.

Riker opened a bleary eye. Slowly, he moistened his dry lips. “
Doctor Rich…she’s higher on the mountain, sir. She’s tough. Stronger tribes live higher.”

“Ah,” Maddox said. “I think I understand. Lower
on Loki Prime is swampier, meaning worse spores.”

“
Right,” Riker whispered. “And, sir—”

“I’m listening, Sergeant.”

“They’re…excellent woodsmen. If not, they die.” Riker tried to say more. His eye closed before he could speak. Shivering, he collapsed back into unconsciousness.

“What’s that mean?” Keith asked.
“What he said.”

Maddox stood, and he tapped his chin
with a forefinger. He raised his head, examining the trees and the gloomy light. He listened to the nearby river churn. Closer to them, insects hummed. He kept slapping his skin, killing them. The bugs were bigger here, more insistent than the mosquitoes on Earth. Fortunately, both Ensign Maker and he had taken shots before leaving the scout. Riker likely had, too, before ejection, but nothing helped against worse spores in the lowlands.

“What are we going to do, sir?” Keith asked.

Maddox turned around. He couldn’t abandon Sergeant Riker to his fate and he couldn’t let Doctor Rich slip through his fingers. In times like this, Maddox had found a bold front achieved the best results. He was dealing with the worst scoundrels of the Oikumene. The higher tribes of criminals were the tougher ones. That would also mean smarter. They had nothing to lose. No, that was wrong. One could always die. His flitter and weapons represented incredible wealth to these people.

Yes, yes, he would have to use their avarice against them. Greed blinded people. Scam-artists used greed against normal individuals. They offered the victim riches and ended up fleecing them instead.

The conditions down here were dreadful. The citizens of Loki Prime led awful lives. Yet he had to keep in mind that each of these inmates was a criminal of the lowest sort. Everything demanded speed. Therefore, he must take chances and he must practice ruthlessness.

“We should leave,” Keith said. “These insects are eating me alive.”

Maddox regarded the pilot. Keith wiped a gunk-stained palm on his pants.

A killer
idea blossomed then. Maddox knew exactly how he would use the inmates’ cupidity against them. It wasn’t his first choice, but it might be his only one at this point. Failing on Loki Prime meant the New Men would win by default.

No. I’m not going to let that happen
.

“Hurry, Ensign,” Maddox said. “Help me stow the sergeant in the flitter
, in the back.”

“We’re leaving
the planet?” Keith asked.

“
Not yet,” Maddox said. “We’re departing this spot. We’re going higher up the mountain.”

***

Soon enough, Maddox felt relief as the flitter’s canopy slid shut. The flyer’s air-conditioner hummed, taking away the humid, rotten-smelling atmosphere.

“We should have brought breathers,” Maddox said.

“Our injections will see us through, right?” Keith asked.

Sergeant Riker groaned pitifully from the back.

Keith’s eyes widened, and he massaged his chest. “Bloody spores are in our lungs, eh, mate? They’re mutating. I can feel them.”

“He’s been here for days,” Maddox said. “We’ll go through a complete scrub once we
’re back on
Geronimo
. We’ll be fine.”

“Do you really believe that, Captain?”

Before Maddox could answer, red blips appeared on the flitter’s screen in the dash. The captain’s brow furrowed as he examined them more closely.

Keith snapped off the answer, “Missiles,” he said. “
They’re coming down fast.”

“We’ve been spotted?” Maddox asked.

Keith’s finger roved over the controls. “I don’t think so. There’s no radar lock-on. Are they heat-seeking missiles or radar directed?”

“Compared to the land around us, how much heat are we giving off?”

Ensign Maker had been lifting, bringing them above the trees. Now he lowered back among the giant branches in a hurry.

“It should be harder for the
missiles to hit us if we’re almost on the ground.” Keith brayed a sharp laugh. “That’ll be the day, mate, they can knock me down so easily.”

Perplexed, realizing the odds for success had plunged even more drastically, Maddox wondered what had given them away.

“What’s your pleasure, Captain?”

Maddox glanced at the pilot, unsure what Keith meant.

“Where should we go, sir?”

“Head up the mountain
,” Maddox said.

“
Jolly good, sir.”

Maddox kept one eye on the screen and the other on the terrain. The flitter was small enough to weave among the branches of the giant trees. They glided through a gloomy world
. Each insect cloud maintained its own flock of bat-things darting through them.

Soon, t
he trees became smaller, the branches closer together.

“I’m going to have to lift above the treetops, sir,” Keith said.
“This is too dense.”

Maddox nodded, trying to keep
a sense of futility at bay. What had he done wrong? Had the destroyer changed the security codes? That didn’t seem right. A Commonwealth penal service ship would have done that, not a Star Watch vessel.

Keith hovered
over a tree, and he glanced at Maddox. “What’s it going to be, sir?”

“How far
out are those missiles?”

“Two minutes from impact, Captain.”

“Let’s wait here a moment. We’ll use the trees for cover at the last minute.”

“Will the orbitals keep sending more if the first ones fail?”

That seemed likely. Maddox wondered if there was a way to simulate the flitter’s destruction. There was no time for that. Was there any possibility now of leaving Loki Prime?

The seconds
ticked too slowly. Waiting for death was always hard.

“I’ll be prodded and poked,
Bloke,” Keith said. “Look! The missiles aren’t heading for us.”

“What?” Maddox asked. “Are you certain?”

“I know how to read a fighter screen, sir.”

Maddox studied the
small panel and didn’t know what the ace saw that he didn’t.

“Higher up the mountain, sir. That’s where the missiles are headed?”

“Why?” asked Maddox.

“I have no idea
, Captain. Why do the orbitals launch missiles in the first place?”

Maddox wrestled with the concept. Riker kept coughing and moaning in back. The man sounded terrible.

The flitter lifted. Maddox stared at the pilot.

“W
ant to see what’s happening, sir,” Keith said. “That’s how you beat your enemy. Can’t just sit in the dark and hope for luck. You have to see his tactic in order to conjure up a counter.”

Enemy
, Maddox said silently.
We have to defeat our enemy
. He snapped his fingers.

As
he did, he saw a black object streak down. It headed for a place higher on the mountain. Keith had been right. Then the missile disappeared into the trees. A second later, light expanded, and a cloud billowed into view. A second missile streaked down. It too created light and debris, seemingly hitting the same spot.

“Those orbitals mean business,” Keith said
with a low whistle.

“None of the
missiles were directed at us,” Maddox said.

“If they were, it was piss poor targeting.”

“In answer to your question,” Maddox said. “The orbitals search for high tech, demolishing it. If we didn’t have our clearance, we’d already be dead.”

Keith engaged the
flitter’s controls, sliding toward the missile strike.

“The conditions here
are not favorable for creating high technology in the first place,” Maddox said. “Secondly, the strike came during our time on the planet. Is that a coincidence?”

“Wouldn’t bet the f
arm on it, Captain,” Keith said.

“Neither would I. In my line of work, there are few coincidences.”

“So let’s say the natives didn’t build a high-tech toy the orbital programs objected to,” Keith said. “What else would they launch at?”

A grim feeling spread
across Maddox’s chest. The
Saint Petersburg
had come to Loki Prime. Back in Earth orbit, the destroyer had failed to beam down a Nerva drone fired at the scout. Immediately upon Keith’s destruction of the offending drone, the destroyer’s comm officer had demanded the
Geronimo
stay where it was. Maddox had refused, and the destroyer fired a laser at them. Now the same destroyer was at Loki Prime. Orbitals watching for high technology had just barraged the area he—Maddox—was heading to. Why did the missiles hit there? What was there they would attack?

“Doctor Dana Rich,” Maddox said.

“What’s that, sir?”

“The
Saint Petersburg
must have sent down a landing party to grab Dana Rich. Remember, in Glasgow a sniper fired at us?”

“I hadn’t run so fast for a long time,” Keith said. “I remember the crawly piece of slime
, all right.”

“How did the sniper know ahead of time to be there
in Glasgow?” Maddox asked. “Someone else must have the Lord High Admiral’s list. You were on the list. And Dana Rich is on it, and she’s partway up the mountain. That’s why the missiles slammed down there.”

“Do you think she’s dead?” Keith asked.
“Do you think they’re trying to murder her, whoever
they
are?”

“There’s only one way to find out
,” Maddox said. “You see the smoke? That’s where we’re going—now.”

***

In retrospect, Maddox realized he should have reasoned things out a little more carefully. Maybe his need for speed blunted his judgment. Maybe the lowland spores attacking his immune system dulled his thinking. In any regard, he flew straight into an ambush.

Keith Maker glided low over the treetops, nearing the black smoke. Flames appeared ahead, licking skyward. Maddox checked his gun before holstering it. Leaning back, he saw that
Sergeant Riker slept fitfully. Small spumes of red trickled from the sergeant’s nose. That wasn’t blood. It would have been better if it had been. What had Riker said, red rot? That was an apt name.

“
For the love of Pete!” Keith shouted. “Will you look at that, matey. I mean Captain, sir.”

Maddox saw it, and worry erupted in spades. A
Star Watch shuttle—correction, a smoking wreck of a shuttle—had been blown onto its side. The vehicle had gaping holes and crumpled areas. It would never lift off again. The dead were strewn around it, many of them missing limbs, some in Star Watch uniforms, some not.