The Lost Secret

  SF Books by Vaughn Heppner

  THE A.I. SERIES:

  A.I. Destroyer

  The A.I. Gene

  A.I. Assault

  A.I. Battle Station

  A.I. Battle Fleet

  A.I. Void Ship

  A.I. Rescue

  A.I. Armada

  THE SOLDIER SERIES:

  The X-Ship

  Escape Vector

  LOST STARSHIP SERIES:

  The Lost Starship

  The Lost Command

  The Lost Destroyer

  The Lost Colony

  The Lost Patrol

  The Lost Planet

  The Lost Earth

  The Lost Artifact

  The Lost Star Gate

  The Lost Supernova

  The Lost Swarm

  The Lost Intelligence

  The Lost Tech

  The Lost Secret

  Visit VaughnHeppner.com for more information

  The Lost Secret

  (Lost Starship Series 14)

  by Vaughn Heppner

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Copyright © 2021 by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  -Prologue-

  Far in the Beyond, on the Throne World of the New Men, was a prison for the most dangerous human in existence.

  At the moment he didn’t look particularly dangerous, deadly or even nefarious, as he was a gnome of a Methuselah Man—a hunched, muttering madman. He paced through his prison complex, clacking his teeth with frustrated rage as he spewed spit, obscenities and profundities in equal measure.

  He was Strand, a former Earthman kidnapped and trained centuries ago by the vanished Builders. In those distant days, the aliens had gifted him with superior intelligence and long life—if he proved nimble and clever enough to keep it, which he had so far. New Men, highly ranked Star Watch officers, Spacers—a host of people—feared his cunning and breadth of knowledge, particularly concerning ancient alien technology, some of it still scattered among the stars.

  Strand had committed many sins, many transgressions against the innocent, but he’d also achieved incredible things.

  The Methuselah Man halted, barefoot in his black monk’s habit with hood and rope belt, and eyed the walls of his confinement. He seethed, his gut knotted, and he feared, oh, how he feared to remain trapped for yet another span of years.

  The prison was large as such things went, especially given the nature and number of his crimes. But he was alone ninety-nine point nine percent of the time. Yes. He believed that most people were idiots, and he suffered fools poorly. Because of his breadth and depth of knowledge, he was also quite aware that solitary confinement was one of the worst horrors to inflict upon a human. He was, after all, a herd animal like the rest of the human rejects. People needed companionship to maintain mental equilibrium.

  He was anything but normal, but after all these lonely and tedious years, the solitary confinement had begun to drive him…

  He shook his fists. He ground his teeth and started pacing again even as he strove to quit muttering like a madman.

  His prison quarters were composed of five connecting chambers. There was one for toiletry and hygiene, another for exercise, including a treadmill—

  Strand snarled to himself, despising the treadmill. He paced enough each day so that his stringy muscles still possessed surprising strength. A treadmill—bah!

  He passed the useless library room. He’d read each book so often that he’d memorized them.

  He’d committed many sins, transgressions, crimes and offenses. It was ironic that he was a prisoner to possibly his greatest achievement: the creation of the New Men, his present wardens.

  A terrible light shined in his eyes.

  Over one hundred and fifty years ago, he and Professor Ludendorff—another prodigy of a Methuselah Man—had set out to ensure humanity’s survival in a tremendously hostile universe. They had each served the Builders; that was before the remaining alien overlords had left en masse to places unknown, abdicating their rule. Due to their greater knowledge about surrounding space, Strand and Ludendorff were far more aware of the coming dangers to humanity than the Earthlings who had finally started to colonize outward from their Terra-local star systems.

  Given their profound knowledge of the coming dangers, and both believing themselves students of history, they realized how often humanity found itself divided at the worst possible moments. Thus, as paragons of virtue—in their unified opinion about themselves—Strand and Ludendorff had begun a bold experiment. It was called the Thomas More Society, named for the ancient former chancellor of England who had both coined the term, and written a book called Utopia. The two Methuselah Men had planned to make the perfect or ideal society as told by Socrates, who had envisioned philosopher kings benevolently ruling over brave warriors and brutish workers. Their twist was to create a race of superior defenders who would leap to humanity’s aid in its hour of direst alien peril.

  To that end, the two Methuselah Men had posed as regular, if extremely wealthy, businessmen. They’d started the Thomas More Society for the Betterment of Humanity. The two planted the idea of a model civilization into the membership. Ten years later, several gigantic colony ships had set out for the most distant stars in what others called the Beyond. It meant beyond the pale of organized human society, which was always expanding. Thus, the colony ships deliberately went far indeed, eventually landing on what was to become the New Men’s Throne World.

  It was a pristine planet, an idyllic world, as envisioned by hyper-environmentalists.

  Soon after landing and completely cut off from the rest of humanity, Ludendorff and Strand—particularity Strand—began to implement The Plan.

  The Plan was simple and direct. Throughout the ages, people had selectively bred cattle, horses, dogs, chickens, pigeons and other domesticated animals for certain traits. In this instance—and here was where Strand shined—the two set up a system of government where a committee approved or disapproved of a man and woman procreating or not, based on their genetics. Naturally, Strand ran the committee exactly as he wanted, with the other members being his unwitting puppets. And he’d already secretly determined what he hoped to achieve from the selective breeding.

  After a time, Ludendorff took his leave of the Throne World, as certain of Strand’s practices had begun to make him feel morally queasy.

  Strand had anticipated Ludendorff’s departure—had engineered and encouraged it, in fact. Such abilities were among his greatest, as he was a manipulator par excellence.

  With the moralistic old fogey out of the way, Strand shifted into high gear. He stratified the colony into an ever more hierarchical society. He abolished the old-fashioned marriage of one man with one woman and instituted “the harem,” strictly for the better men, those who had proven themselves worthy. In this instance, better or worthy referred to warrior skills: brains, strength, reflexes and ruthlessness to achieve and, if needed, to kill without compunction.

  Fourteen years later, to speed the results already achieved through selective breeding, Strand began genetic modification of the fetuses.

  Nearly one hundred and fifty years from the beginning of the colony, those now called New Men were perfected, and soon thrived in abundance.

  They were tall, golden-skinned as befitted a superior race, and possessed great strength, paranor
mal reflexes and lofty intelligence—comparable to a normal human champion athlete in physical contests or a chess master in mental acuity.

  However, Strand ran into a snag. The New Men universally lacked an X-chromosome in their sperm. Strand had never figured out how this had come about or how to correct the flaw, but it meant that the New Men sired only sons, never daughters. They produced crops of fine young lads, hearty soldiers and pioneers, but there were never any New Women. So, the new race could obviously not survive more than a generation unless they constantly acquired fresh young women to impregnate.

  Additionally, the present path to making more New Men meant they had to breed with carefully selected unmodified women. Strand had discovered and then taught Throne World geneticists how to inject a fetus with the gene-editing substances that would transform the budding baby into a golden-skinned superman, or a dominant, as the Throne World natives called themselves.

  Was that the fatal flaw to the original Thomas More Society ideal? Strand had begun to wonder. As a quick fix—about a decade ago or so—he’d initiated “secret raids” into the Commonwealth, kidnapping the very best women: brainy, athletic and beautiful. The last trait was because Strand considered himself an artist as well as the universe’s greatest scientist, and he desired to create a beautiful as well as highly functional New Race.

  During these raids, many New Men saw how weak, stupid and pathetic regular humans were. The raiding teams began to call normal humans premen or submen. They, the New Men, were the new model of humanity. The lesser standard humans were more akin to Neanderthals or Homo habilis compared to them. Only the prized beauties captured for breeding stock were considered worthy of the dignity of being called human, but even they had no power in the New Man society. Their only role was as breeders and mothers of more New Men.

  To hold the growing sense of New Men entitlement at bay—at least, Strand told himself this was why he did it—he took over direct and open leadership of the Throne World and instituted a strict regime: this was to get back to the good old days of the Thomas More Society. He even used terror, at times, and later inserted brain-chips to keep the New Men subservient to what Strand considered his adamant will.

  As cunning, intelligent and amoral as Strand was, he wasn’t driven by sexual lust or the intense desire to dominate as the greatest New Men dominants were. In retrospect, perhaps Strand had created his supermen too well. It was a tale as old as Frankenstein: the monsters turned on their creator.

  The present Emperor of the Throne World led the rebellion against Strand’s rule. It was how he became the Emperor. Methuselah Man Strand eventually fled, barely escaping with his life, and vowed revenge against the golden-skinned ingrates he’d created.

  With a growing sense of their unique strength, the New Men decided to change their originally designed role. Instead of being the last-ditch defenders of humanity, especially in mankind’s darkest hour, they would conquer and rule the premen, shaping them into useful workers. Ironically, Strand later mused, the all-conquering dominants would unknowingly implement part of Socrates’s ultimate form of government. Who could reasonably argue against that?

  Thus, the New Men went to war against unmodified humanity, sweeping aside every effort to halt their drive with amazing ease.

  In desperation, Captain Maddox left on a dangerous and profound quest, found the ancient Adok starship Victory and returned to Earth with it. Soon thereafter, Star Watch began to win more engagements, eventually pushing the New Men out of “C” Quadrant. Golden Ural and his soldiers took a vast haul of women with them, but the war was ended, and there had been an uneasy peace ever since.

  Worse for Strand, the smug, arrogant young pup of a Star Watch officer—the damned hybrid Captain Maddox—had captured Strand and turned him over to the Emperor.

  Here in the prison on the Throne World, Strand had languished ever since.

  He muttered under his breath, swearing awful curses against Maddox and his crew, and against the traitorous Professor Ludendorff who had been helping that prideful young ass for years.

  What did this veritable prodigy of the stars look like? Nothing like his creation: the tall, handsome and proud New Men. Strand was short, a gnome or dwarf of a human, shrunken perhaps due to his extreme age. The term Methuselah Man meant something, after all. He was short, as stated, with a larger than average head and skull case and strange, some said frightening, eyes. The eyes radiated with infernal heat. He wore a monk’s outfit, including cowl and rope belt. He did not wear sandals, but walked barefoot. Worse, he smelled of sweat and old urine. His soiled garment had something to do with the stench. And he appeared disheveled, unwashed and perhaps, a few might say, stark raving mad.

  Strand had spoken with Golden Ural several months ago and had told the dominant that the craziness was part of an act. Strand never did anything halfway, but threw himself at any chosen activity. In this case, that was feigned madness.

  Golden Ural had stayed long enough for Strand to reveal certain secrets about a long-lost Builder weapon, the mobile null region. Captain Maddox had desired the information, because Methuselah Woman Lisa Meyers had unleashed the null region against the Commonwealth of Planets. The captain had convinced the Emperor to help weak humanity.

  “Whatever,” Strand muttered. “It doesn’t matter…unless Meyers killed Maddox.” The Methuselah Man chuckled nastily, relishing the idea.

  He turned his head and spit on the floor. “Damn Maddox. Damn Star Watch. Damn you all!” he shouted, shaking his gnarled fists at a video camera, one of many in his prison.

  New Men guardians watched him at all times, no doubt to stop him from killing himself, if he should ever attempt it. The Emperor feared him, but still wanted Strand around for emergencies, to help them in case unexpected alien menaces should rear up that were too tough for the New Men to handle.

  Strand lowered his fists and then his head, beginning to shuffle once more. He chuckled silently to himself at how well he played the role of madman—

  Strand halted, knit his considerable breadth of brow and started to wonder upon something that had been bothering him lately. Unease had started in him after he’d discovered that Professor Ludendorff had finally learned about the Builder Library World. Strand had stolen the memory from the professor centuries ago, but now the old goat had recalled their time on the distant planet. Strand thought of Ludendorff as a goat because his fellow Methuselah Man loved women with real sexual desire, and often kept a beauty around as his paramour.

  “No, no,” Strand muttered. “Stick to the issue, will you?”

  What had he been thinking? Ah! He remembered. The Library Planet.

  Strand’s head bobbed up and down. Then, he shuffled to a chair, sitting on it and putting his elbows on the table. He resumed knitting his brows as he froze in position and began to use his great intellect to think, to really think.

  It was time to devise a plan, a devious twisted plan so he could regain his freedom.

  “Ah,” he said, later, realizing something profound. To achieve his goal, he would have to provide critical help to the New Men. He would have to commit a supremely good deed in order to…

  His hellish eyes glowed, as he was beginning to see how he could do this and screw smug Star Watch along the way.

  -1-

  Captain Maddox was definitely out of uniform as he lay on a sandy beach in Maui, wearing dark swimming trunks.

  Meta stretched out beside him on her own plush towel. She’d had him untie her string bikini top as she lay on her stomach. Afterward, she’d had him lather suntan oil over her body.

  While leaning back on his elbows, Maddox ran his eyes over his wife. She was a babe, all right, a coconut smelling one, nicely tanned, with luscious curves, long blonde hair and longer legs.

  I’m living the dream, Maddox realized.

  Then why didn’t it feel that way?

  The captain scowled, knowing the reason. He’d been arguing with the Lord High Admiral, had been doing so
for over a month already. They’d disagreed about the ex-Iron Lady, Mary O’Hara, Maddox’s grandmother and former chief of Star Watch Intelligence.

  Thinking about it caused Maddox’s scowl to deepen. He was a long, lean man with muscles like bands of steel. In some ways, he was a New Man, the golden-skinned so-called superman of the Beyond. Maddox was fast like them, dangerous like them—

  “Where’s Mary?” Meta asked.

  Maddox started, surprised that he’d zoned out while thinking about Admiral Cook’s stubbornness against his grandmother.

  Meta had not only turned around from her former position on the blanket but faced the ocean. She used her right hand to hold up her bikini top.

  A skinny surfer clutching his board rose from the shore, staring at Meta with teenage fixation.

  Maddox’s senses sharpened into focus. His grandmother had joined them on the beach today. She’d gone out on a paddleboard. It took skill and balance to negotiate the ocean’s swells and waves like that, but she was still fit and athletic. Normally she could handle it, but…

  Jumping to his feet, Maddox scanned the ocean. They were on a public beach full of tourists. A ribbon of bathers that paralleled the shore played in the shallow water. Farther out, a ribbon of surfers that also paralleled the shore drifted in the swells, waiting for a good wave to ride.

  Maddox didn’t see Mary with either extended group.

  The captain blinked as worry twisted his stomach. He scanned even farther out—there, he saw her. It had to be his grandmother, right?

  “I need the binoculars.”

  Meta handed them to him, after digging the binoculars out of their duffel bag.

  As Maddox accepted them, he idly noticed his wife had retied her bikini top. He raised the binoculars, training them on his grandmother.

  She stood on the board, with the double-bladed paddle in her hands. She wore a modest one-piece swimsuit. She was shorter than Meta, much older, but with firm muscles in her arms and thighs. She had wet curling gray hair plastered against her scalp, indicating she’d spilled into the ocean at least once and climbed back onto the board. For someone her age—over a hundred—she had pleasing features like a woman in her forties. That came from extended life treatments.