The Lost Starship

-33-

Through the window, they watched their ship enter a hangar bay. Other narrow shuttles waited down below on a lit deck. Then their craft descended. Soon, it made loud metallic sounds as vast cylinders of compressed air hissed outside the shuttle’s hull. The entire craft shuddered until magnetic locks attached to the vessel and the vibrations stopped.

“We’re in,” Maddox said.

As if on cue, their vacc-boots clanked down onto the deck. Each of them had been floating above the floor.

“We have gravity,” Keith said. “Is that good or bad, do you think?”

“Only one way to find out,” Maddox said. Although he wore a spacesuit, he readied an assault rifle he’d brought from the Geronimo. The others checked theirs. After everyone nodded, he led the group to the outer hatch. Dana had shown them where it was.

The pit of Maddox’s stomach twisted as nervous tension oozed through his arms and made his fingers burn. He glanced back one last time to see if everyone was ready.

“This is it,” Maddox said. “We’re Star Watch officers and personnel.”

“Not all of us,” Meta said.

“As of now, you are,” Maddox told her. “And I don’t mean an honorary member. The Lord High Admiral gave me the authority to draft whomever I wanted. Do you agree?”

Meta nodded, saying. “I do.”

“Then repeat after me,” Maddox said. He administered the oath, and she swore to uphold it.

“Doctor Rich?” Maddox asked.

“Forget about your rituals,” Dana said. “Let’s get on with this.”

“No,” Maddox said. “This isn’t only for you. It lets the rest of us know you’re with us.”

“I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

“You must also be with us in spirit,” Maddox said. “We must be a team or we’re never going to succeed. We have to be able to rely on each other.”

“This is military gibberish,” Dana said.

“We want you to belong with us, Doctor. Will you take the Star Watch oath? Will you fight with every fiber of your being to help us defeat the New Men?”

“Your ringing platitudes mean nothing to me,” Dana said stubbornly. “I am an island unto myself.”

“Wrong,” Maddox told her. “The others gave you their blood to keep you alive. You’re aiding us with your exceptional intellect.”

Dana glanced at the others. “Is this true? Do you want me to join your war party in spirit and in truth?”

“I do,” Meta said.

“And I,” Valerie said.

“Sure, love,” Keith said. “Let it be all for one and one for all.”

“The old musketeer slogan,” Dana said. “That is quaint. What about you, Sergeant Riker, you shot me with your stunner? Do you want me in the Star Watch?”

“An old dog like me in an alien starship on the edge of nowhere would like all the allies he can get,” Riker said. “I want you to join up, Doctor. We need you with us all the way.”

Maddox was surprised at Dana’s reaction. As the gruff sergeant spoke, the doctor turned away. She didn’t speak, but her helmet went up and down in a nod.

“Administer the oath,” Meta told Maddox.

Clearing his throat, Maddox did just that. In a quiet whisper, Doctor Dana Rich took the Star Watch vow, finally joining the team.

Only then did Captain Maddox approach the hatch. He unlocked it and swung it open into the alien hangar bay.

A few interior lights gleamed overhead. From here at least, the other shuttles appeared to be intact. He climbed down, stepping onto the alien sentinel. After a long journey, it was difficult to believe he had gotten this far. A grin split his features. A laugh bubbled.

Twisting around, he saw the hangar bay door they’d entered sliding shut, sealing them from the stars.

“Nothing,” Lieutenant Noonan said in a hoarse voice. “I don’t see any movement. Where are these defenders?”

“Fan out,” Maddox said. “Look everywhere. Lieutenant, do you have your motion detector out?”

“Like I said, sir, I don’t see a thing. I meant on my detector.”

Like mice in a deserted castle, the Star Watch team began to cross the hangar bay deck. They passed other shuttles. Nothing moved. No dust stirred. Scrawled across the floor in various places were alien numbers or words.

“I see a hatch, sir,” Riker said. “Do you suppose the defenders are waiting on the other side?”

Maddox hefted his repeater. What would ancient, alien space marines be like after six thousand years? “This is it, people. If we’re going to control the starship, we have to defeat them.”

His stomach twisted with anticipation. The closer they neared the hatch, the tighter his guts became. Turning, he pointed at each member in turn, showing each person where he wanted him or her to stand. Only then, did he take the final step toward the hatch. Finding his mouth bone dry, Maddox shifted his stance. He gripped his repeater one-armed and swung the hatch open with the other.

Valerie shouted, and she fired several rounds. His helmet muffled the noise of the sounds even as the bullets burned past Maddox into the giant corridor.

“Stop shooting!” Maddox shouted. “They’re dead. Look! They’re all long dead.”

He stared into a brightly lit wide curving corridor. The sight shocked him. Monstrous skeletons of nine-foot… The captain squinted. They were big pincer-creatures with steel-shod claws. Each skeleton gripped what appeared to be a hacked-apart fighting robot. Instead of humanlike arms, the robots had segmented metallic tentacles with grippers on the ends. Littered among the dead combatants were serrated blades, oddly shaped rifles, tubes, possibly grenades and…

“What is that?” Valerie asked. She’d moved up beside him by the hatch. Her gloved finger pointed at a crusty substance covering most of the corridor decking.

The lieutenant’s words coming out of Maddox’s headphones caused him to start. He took a sharp breath and stepped into the corridor. The bottom of his vacc-boots crunched upon the crusted substance, causing it to burst into powder.

The others followed him, observing similar reactions.

“Slime,” Sergeant Riker declared. “This brittle stuff must have been slime once. Did the skeleton things crawl like slugs?”

“Sick,” Valerie said, “sick and disgusting.”

Maddox studied the corridor, looking for clues about the battle that had taken place here. The bulkheads bore scotch marks and had holes in places. He accidentally kicked a tube, which rattled and bounced down the corridor, coming to rest against a skeleton’s skull. The struck bone disintegrated into dust, sending up a puff that slowly drifted onto the deck.

“Was this the defenders’ last stand?” Keith asked.

“I’m not interested in that,” Meta declared. “Where are the other defenders? The medical creature in the shuttle told us some still live or function.”

Maddox halted, and with greater intensity, he stared down the corridor. The littered deck went on as far as he could see. He told himself to think.

“If the starship’s defenders had survived the last battle,” he said, “wouldn’t they have cleaned up this mess?”

“That’s an interesting question,” Dana said. “Yes, I believe you’re correct. By this—” a sweep of a hand indicated the dead— “it shows us nothing alive or functioning remains on the starship.”

“That isn’t what the medical creature told you,” Valerie pointed out.

“Let me ponder the implications of that,” Dana said.

As if they were on a battlefield, the team moved down the corridor in a staggered formation. Their weapons aimed here and there. Vacc-boots continued to crunch the ancient slime and occasionally caused a skeleton to burst apart into dust. The lights burned from the ceiling, providing illumination.

“I’m beginning to think that Doctor Rich is right,” Valerie said. “The ship is deserted.”

“Why the dichotomy?” Dana asked. “The medical creature painted a different picture of what we would find. I wonder if the last time it tried to board, the fight was still in progress. Yes. It might have tried once, maybe twice, and then it knew the hopelessness of entering the sentinel. After communicating with it, I sensed it wasn’t a curious creature, but lonely and frightened, as I’ve said before.” The doctor shook her helmet. “For six thousand years, the medical creature sought a way out of its predicament, refusing to try the only thing that would work: making another attempt to enter the sentinel.”

“Do you know this to be true,” Maddox asked, “or is this conjecture on your part?”

“Maybe a little of both,” Dana admitted.

They continued down the curving hallway. The skeletons of dead aliens and broken combat robots thickened in places and thinned in others. It appeared as if the battle had taken place along the entire breadth of this giant corridor, at least.

“I wonder how big the ship is,” Riker said later.

“I’ve been a fool,” Valerie said. “I’ve been so worried about these fabled defenders that I haven’t thought of anything else.” She adjusted her boxlike motion-detecting device. It made clicking sounds.

Maddox’s spine tightened. What did the noise indicate?

Lieutenant Noonan laughed, looking up. “I have good news. The ship’s atmosphere is breathable, although its carbon dioxide content is higher than I like. The bad news is that it’s far too cold to take into our lungs. We have to figure out a way to heat the air before we can take off our vacc-suits.”

“We’d better find a way to do that quickly,” Meta said. “Our oxygen tanks won’t last forever.”

They had brought extra tanks, but Maddox knew she was right.

“Even if we can breathe their air,” Keith complained, “we’re going to starve to death unless the aliens ate the same foods we do.”

Not only had they taken extra tanks, but each person had stuffed their suit with frozen food packets. Maddox figured they could eat rationed servings for another two weeks. After that, they would begin starving. Losing the scout could well prove deadly to their future survival.

For the next several hours, they explored the giant starship, walking from one end to the other. They found that it was three times the size of an SWS Gettysburg-class battleship, the largest Star Watch combat vessel.

Everywhere, broken fighting ’bots lay entwined with alien pincer skeletons. Clearly, it had been an epic boarding battle fought without quarter to the death.

“If you hadn’t linked with the medical creature,” Valerie told Dana, “we wouldn’t know who invaded and who had defended.”

As they began to retrace their steps, Maddox shouldered his repeater. The others had already put away theirs. It didn’t seem anything remotely alive had survived the many centuries. The starship was in effect empty, a Flying Dutchman of the space ways.

During the sweep back, they explored side hatches, possible weapon storage rooms and finally found the engine area. It was vast, with more of the dead on the floor and crusted slime on the plates.

Big broad metal-colored cylinders hummed with energy. Blue electrical currents flowed between the narrow structures on top of the cylinders. What might have been control panels to the side showed a bewildering set of Christmas lights that blinked in undecipherable sequences.

“Here is the evidence,” Meta said with awe in her voice. “The engines are running. Do you know how incredible that is?”

“Are they a type of fusion reactor?” asked Maddox.

“No,” Dana said. “That wouldn’t be my guess.”

“What would be?” asked Maddox.

“Antimatter,” the doctor declared.

“Do you agree, Meta?” asked Maddox.

“That’s far above my pay grade, Captain,” the Rouen Colony woman said.

“Supposing we can figure out how to control the vessel,” Keith said. “How do we fix the starship if she takes hits? The Commonwealth doesn’t have antimatter technology.”

“First things first,” Dana said.

“We’ve just gotten our first break,” Valerie chimed in. She was studying her device. “The air is breathable and warm enough here for us to take off our helmets. I think the engines heat this spot.”

Inside his helmet, Maddox exhaled sharply. He was the leader. He would test the lieutenant’s theory in order to make sure it was safe for the others. Reaching up to remove his helmet, he found Meta holding his arm, keeping him from it.

“Just a minute,” the Rouen Colony woman told him.

Maddox raised an eyebrow.

“Meta is right,” Dana said. “We must practice caution. Don’t do anything hasty, Captain. We’re on an alien vessel, a running starship from an era six thousand years ago. It’s reasonable to expect odd dangers. We must think through each of our steps before we try them.”

“You have a point,” Maddox said. “But if some of the basics don’t work, we’re dead anyway. This is one of them.” He shook off Meta’s restraining hand and twisted his helmet. Air hissed as he pulled off the metal. The pressure was greater in their suits than in the ship.

Maddox sniffed experimentally. The alien odors made him scowl. The chamber stank, although there was the smell of ozone mixed in that he didn’t mind. He drew a lungful through his nose, held it and exhaled. Then, he glanced at the others staring at him.

One part of Maddox wanted to drop onto the deck as if stricken. This would be the perfect moment for a joke. He refrained from that, however, smiling instead to show them everything was okay. “Let me breathe this stuff for a while. Then another of you can try it. Until then, you can watch me eat.”

He chose a packet of frozen hamburger patties. His rumbling stomach made no protest. Ripping open the fiber, he began to chew the cold hard particles.

A moment later, he heard popping noises and hisses of air as several of the others removed their helmets. Soon, the sound of chewing interrupted their search and thoughts.

Maddox had tasted better, but this was one of his most satisfying meals. He’d been ravenous.

Shortly thereafter, they began exploring again. They had to find the bridge, and then see if there was some way to figure out how to operate the starship.

It proved strange. The sentinel possessed large curving corridors that could have handled elephants. Then there was a spider web of tubular links so small Maddox’s shoulders brushed both sides as he negotiated one.

“Did the aliens have various sized individuals?” Dana asked.

“The small tubes give me claustrophobia,” Keith said.

They searched for hours, and found no evidence of a bridge or a living soul onboard.

“Now we know for a fact the vessel is fully automated,” Valerie said.

They were back in the antimatter engine chamber, breathing the tainted atmosphere.

“I keep thinking I’m forgetting something,” Dana said. “I’m so tired, though. It’s making it hard to deliberate.”

“You do look strained,” Meta told her.

Dana rubbed her eyes, saying, “Believe me, I feel it.”

“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.