The Lost Earth (Lost Starship Series Book 7) Read online

  He stood there staring at her. He knew there was something more he had to do.

  “What…?” he said.

  “Are your intentions hostile?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, managing to convey his outrage at the question.

  “Do you realize it’s almost two years since you left Earth?” she asked.

  “What…?” he asked, hoarsely.

  “We thought you were dead. The scanner, the Builder Scanner, lost track of you many, many months ago.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do we.”

  “Two years?” he asked.

  “The Swarm has smashed the Tau Ceti System, Captain. They have made it into the Laumer Points. They’re a mere three jumps from Earth.”

  “What?” he said.

  “Does that Destroyer work?” she asked. “We have to have it operational tomorrow, if you understand my meaning.”

  “Two years have passed?” Maddox asked, bewildered. His mind had taken too many beatings for it to have retained its normal resiliency.

  The klaxons finally stopped blaring.

  Maddox rubbed his forehead. He saw a body stir on the bridge’s deck.

  “Is another Destroyer coming?” O’Hara asked. “We could use two.”

  Maddox stared at her. He couldn’t believe they had been gone for two years, almost two years. What had happened to make it so long?

  “Well?” she asked.

  “I have just the one, Ma’am,” he said.

  O’Hara tried to hide her disappointment, but she failed.

  “We were lucky to get this one,” Maddox said, nettled.

  “Oh, I’m sure you were. Welcome back, Captain. We have much to discuss before the Swarm strikes again. We’re going to have to figure out what to do with that Destroyer of yours. I have a feeling the New Men are going to want to help man it. I’m afraid there’s going to be trouble…”

  Brigadier O’Hara shook her head. “I’m sending med teams to your ship. We’re going to need Victory for the coming battle. We’ve built the biggest fleet—”

  O’Hara shook her head again. “I’ll give you an hour to get your bearings. Then, I don’t think you’re going to get a full night’s sleep until we win or lose the coming Battle for Earth.”

  PART II

  THE BATTLE FOR TAU CETI

  -1-

  Nearly two years before Captain Maddox returned to Earth with the Destroyer, Commander Thrax Ti Ix and his cleverest aides moved through the Golden Nexus of the conquered Chitin System over two thousand light-years away from the human home in the solar system.

  In Swarm terms, this was Sector 34: Section 13: Mark 98 of the Great Imperium. The Reigning Supreme of the Left Swing Arm—her name was AX-29—had taken temporary command of all the Swarm warships in the star system. The Queen of the Imperium had given AX-29 direct orders: utterly annihilate the origin planet of the Human Race, Earth. After that, AX-29 was to conquer every outpost and vestige of the bipedal mammals. She was to wipe the slate clean of aliens. That was normal Imperium procedure, paving the way for future colonization.

  The Queen had given AX-29 the rights to half the surviving warships in the Golden Nexus System. The rest of the warships would continue the war against the Chitin Empire.

  Commander Thrax Ti Ix scuttled through the main control rooms of the Golden Nexus as he seethed with indignation. Thrax was huge in human terms, as large as a Holstein bull. Yet, he was shaped like a praying mantis. His dangling tools clinked against each other from the harness attached to his abdominal region.

  As Thrax scuttled, he clacked his pincers in agitation. This was too much, simply too demeaning and awful. Thrax had escaped the Builder Dyson Sphere some time ago, traveling in a hyper-spatial tube as the sphere detonated. Thrax had taken tens of thousands of hybrid Swarm creatures like himself with him.

  Following his birth and during his stay at the sphere, Thrax had been taught many wonders by the Builder. In return, Thrax had inserted an ancient Swarm virus into the Builder, which had eventually brought about the creature’s demise. Thrax had yearned to join the Imperium. During his years in the sphere, he’d envisioned great honors plied upon him for the gifts he’d bring to the Imperium. Thrax had assumed, naturally, that he’d be given his choice of star commands, and that he would become the greatest Swarm conqueror in the species’ long history of stellar conquest.

  It all seemed reasonable to Thrax. Then, he’d achieved his dream, giving the Imperium Laumer-Point technology. That was revolutionary to the Swarm and would go a long way to speeding their conquest of the galaxy. Thrax had also brought many saucer-shaped vessels with large bulbous centers from the sphere. Each of the spaceships had star-drive jump capability just like Victory. Thrax had preened upon his arrival to the Imperium, boasting to the first Hive Masters that spoke to him about what he could do for the Swarm.

  Everything had gone downhill after that, the dream brutally shattered.

  Thrax stood motionless in the central Golden Nexus control room. Even his eyestalks were frozen. The other three hybrids quietly scuttled to the back of the chamber. They feared Thrax and his strange moods even as they agreed with his outrage. He’d long promised them glory. He had—

  An odd hissing sound escaped from Thrax as he recalled the many indignities heaped upon him by the Hive Masters. They had tested him and declared Thrax an immoral monstrosity. The majority of the Hive Masters had urged the Queen to destroy Thrax and his freakish brood.

  Imperium policy was clear. Workers worked. Soldiers fought. Hive Masters thought. To merge the three functions in one creature was blasphemy against nature and ancient custom. Thrax’s story of the alien Builder warping hybrids such as himself stuck in the craw of the majority of the Hive Masters.

  Yet, there had been one Hive Master high in the Queen’s council that had urged otherwise. He suggested the Imperium use the immoral monster to stab at the outer alien fringes of the galaxy.

  “Do not give him the command he seeks,” the Hive Master had told the Queen. “But let him use his Builder knowledge to help us eliminate future thorny problems.”

  Thrax had learned all of this through his brief meeting with the Queen. She’d told him everything because she’d obviously wanted him to realize how generous she was being with him. Instead, Thrax realized that not only would he never become the great conqueror of the Imperium of his dreams, but he would become a low-rank menial instead, hated and despised by those he helped through his hard work and sacrifice.

  To the Queen, it was simple. Swarm creatures obeyed. That was one of the essences of their kind. The Builder had produced something different in Thrax and his kind. They obeyed commands a thousand times better than humans did, but in Swarm terms, they were seething rebels at heart.

  Not understanding this difference was, perhaps, the Queen’s chief mistake in dealing with Thrax. She must have believed him Swarm enough to obey any command given him. Besides, the Imperium needed his intellect and understanding if they were to accelerate the galaxy’s conquest.

  The Imperium took Thrax’s saucer-shaped ships from him, giving them to the Reigning Supreme AX-29. He’d also lost command status, gaining the new rank of technical assistant to the Reigning Supreme. Through Thrax’s carefully crafted strategy, the Swarm had defeated the Chitin defenders of the Golden Nexus System.

  “Technical Assistant,” his third helper, Vim, said, “The Assault Master demands haste.”

  Thrax scuttled around to face Vim. The third helper was smaller than Thrax and had been with him on the Builder Dyson Sphere. Vim had long ago lost a chunk of his left pincer in a Kai-Kaus trap.

  Thrax’s hot words of rage died in his thorax.

  Vim held up a large screen with his pincers. The screen was aimed at Thrax. On the screen was the Assault Master aboard the command vessel.

  The Assault Master was a grotesque mass of exoskeleton with tiny, wiggly appendages on the bottom of his bulk. Beside him were feeders, ins
erting tubes into his clackers, pumping royal mush into him. The Assault Master made sucking sounds as mush dribbled from his clackers. A feeder used a cloth, wiping the mush from the glistening exoskeleton “chin.”

  Thrax seethed at this, too. He despised watching royalty eat. They seemed like little human sucklings. Worse, if he questioned the Assault Master at a time like this, it could result in his immediate destruction.

  Finally, the feeders withdrew the dripping mush-tubes.

  “Well?” the Assault Master demanded. “Are you ready yet?”

  “We are still deciphering the coding language,” Thrax said.

  “I’m not interested in methodological jargon. Yes or no, Technical Assistant. Are you ready?”

  “No,” Thrax managed to say.

  “The Reigning Supreme demands action,” the Assault Master said. “She wishes to attack the humans now. She is growing impatient with your continued delays.”

  “I’ve only been in the nexus for a single day,” Thrax pointed out.

  “You claimed to understand the Builders that fashioned the nexus.”

  “I do understand them.”

  “Yet, you are delaying. The two concepts do not mesh.”

  “The Builder codes in this nexus are unlike the ones I learned.”

  “Are you suggesting you are useless?”

  “Can you reconfigure the codes?” Thrax dared ask.

  The Assault Master drew up in outrage as much as his tiny, wriggly appendages could force his bulk upward.

  “You dare to impugn my status, you low-rank mongrel? I am the essence of strategic thought. I am not a technical, an appendage of superior thinking. I am the thinking. Never make such a slur against me again, Technical Assistant. Otherwise, I will order soldiers to snip off several of your legs. After that, you will drag your carcass around with your pincers. Perhaps the degradation will finally teach you to tame your blasphemous mouth.”

  “I am corrected,” Thrax forced himself to say. “You bring light to my imbecility.”

  “True, true,” the Assault Master said, somewhat mollified. “To be honest, Thrax, I find talking to you to be utterly agitating. You fill me with disgust and loathing. I cannot comprehend the Builder that bred you into the mongrel hybrid you are. Perhaps the Builder hated the Imperium.”

  “No,” Thrax said. “The Builder searched for a way to improve the Swarm.”

  “Vile!” the Assault Master said. “It was a vile deed. How can you stand to exist?”

  “I live to serve the Queen.”

  “I suppose that proves you are Swarm, then. It is hard to believe, at times. Your freakishness—well, enough about you. It is a boring topic. I demand that you ready the hyper-spatial tube in another hour. The fleet is ready to move. It is time to attack. Do not disappoint the Reigning Supreme, Technical Assistant. She is growing increasingly impatient with you.”

  A second later, the Assault Master vanished as the connection ended.

  Vim the Third Helper lowered the screen. Thrax and he exchanged glances.

  “How has the Swarm conquered one seventeenth of the galaxy?” Vim asked. “The royalty are conceited asses.”

  “Mass and obedience drowns out everything else,” Thrax said. “The Swarm outbreeds all others. The workers fashion more starships, and the soldiers obey every command, winning due to obliterating mass and a willingness to accept all casualties.”

  Vim bobbed his praying mantis-like head.

  Thrax took in the other two hybrids. “Are you with me in this?” he asked them.

  “We are agreed,” Vim said for himself and the others.

  The other two helpers bobbed their heads in unison. Each of the helpers had nearly the same brainpower and training as Thrax. They also seethed at their low status.

  “Then let us begin Operation New Hive,” Thrax said.

  -2-

  Thrax and his helpers worked tirelessly as only Swarm could. They tore down the chief computer system of the Golden Nexus, using advanced Builder tools brought from the destroyed Dyson Sphere. They learned many of the facts Maddox had found here several voyages ago. Thrax did not unduly care about those facts. He merely stored the data in receiver units.

  The Assault Master called twenty-nine hours later. This time, he was not as accommodating as before.

  “The Reigning Supreme is livid,” the Assault Master told Thrax. “She is almost ready to expunge you.”

  “Who will make the hyper-spatial tube then?” Thrax asked.

  “That is the only thing keeping her from ordering your destruction.”

  “Is her agitation with me logically reasoned?” Thrax asked.

  “Never question me in such a way again. You are—” The Assault Master’s puny pincers clacked with annoyance.

  At that moment, a hatch slid up in the control room of the Golden Nexus. Five huge soldiers scuttled into the chamber. They had armored exoskeletons and razor-sharp pincers. Smaller soldiers scuttled in afterward, aiming zappers at Thrax.

  “Do you understand that I am royalty and you are little better than a worker?” the Assault Master asked through the screen.

  Fear surged through Thrax. He lowered himself onto the floor. “I abase myself at your glory,” he forced himself to say. “I am a mere cog in the Great Machine of the Imperium.”

  The Assault Master panted on the screen. “Never forget that again. Otherwise, I shall enjoy watching the soldiers tear you apart. The Reigning Supreme is ready to flush you from her presence. Hurry, Thrax, or you will become mush in the food vats.”

  “I hear and obey with vigorous zeal.”

  “That’s better,” the Assault Master said.

  Once again, the connection ended. Vim lowered the screen.

  Thrax and his three helpers stared at the soldiers.

  “Are you staying?” Thrax finally asked.

  “Work,” the smallest soldier said. “Work fast, or we will ask for new orders.”

  Thrax understood the threat. The soldiers would remain. They would not shoot, however, unless the Assault Master gave them the order. That order would have to come from the Reigning Supreme, AX-29.

  “Before we complete the work, the four of us must discuss the correct…method,” Thrax told the smallest soldier.

  “Do it fast,” the small one said.

  Thrax moved away from the soldiers, motioning the helpers to join him. The four of them congregated as far from the soldiers as the chamber would permit.

  “Does the Reigning Supreme suspect our plot?” Vim asked in fear.

  “I doubt it,” Thrax said. “She’s impatient, that’s all.”

  “But to kill you for such a spurious reason…”

  Thrax waved that aside with a pincer. “We have a dilemma,” he said quietly. “We have dealt with Captain Maddox before. He is a deadly foe. Star Watch will have advanced Builder technology because of him.”

  “You are not working,” the small soldier said. “You are motionless. Must I ask for new orders?”

  “We’re thinking first as I said,” Thrax told him.

  “Workers work!” the small soldier barked.

  “Call the Assault Master, then,” Thrax said, nettled. “We’re working in ways you cannot comprehend.”

  The small soldier seemed dazed by Thrax’s outburst.

  Thrax took that as a sign that the soldier’s logic centers were confused. He thus gave his full attention to his helpers.

  As he did, Thrax’s bearing altered. He stood taller and spoke more crisply. He outlined a strategic plan for their rebellion. It was wrong that they, the so-called hybrids with superior abilities, should truckle to a hidebound system that demeaned them to such an intense degree.

  “We are greater than any in the Imperium,” Thrax reminded the others. “We are solving the present problem. However, if we allow too many warships into Human Space, we will never achieve our private goal.”

  “But if we don’t take enough warships with us, the humans will defeat our fleet,�
� Vim said.

  “That is the dilemma,” Thrax agreed. “So, how many warships do we let through?”

  “And how do we ensure that the hyper-spatial tube cuts off at the correct moment?” Vim asked.

  Thrax looked at the other three. He lowered his head as if being subservient. The smaller soldier was watching him carefully.

  “We’re going to have to take a calculated risk,” Thrax said in a low voice. “I don’t see any other way around it.”

  “What kind of risk?” Vim asked.

  “We’re going to have to rig an explosive,” Thrax said. “We’re going to have to destroy the Golden Nexus.”

  “What if we’re in the hyper-spatial tube when that happens?” Vim asked.

  “What if we’re on the wrong side of the tube when that happens?” another helper asked.

  “That is the nature of a calculated risk,” Thrax told them. “We won’t know the answer until it happens.”

  The other three looked nervous, but finally, they bobbed their heads in agreement. Soon thereafter, the four of them began to program the main computer of the Golden Nexus.

  -3-

  Half a day later, Thrax stood on the chief warship of the Conquering War-Fleet 1,021. The giant vessel was similar to the motherships that had destroyed the Adok System over six thousand years ago.

  The ship would have dwarfed Victory. This one did not hold any assault craft, but carried immensely huge laser cannons. Ships such as these engaged in the heaviest space battles, pounding enemy vessels with hot beams. The ship did not possess an electromagnetic shield. It relied on heavy hull armor for protection, along with vast Swarm numbers.

  Thrax stood near the Reigning Supreme, AX-29. She had an even grosser bulk than the Assault Master. Her exoskeleton had a glossy sheen from endless buffing. Several feeding tubes were stuck in her mouth as royal mush flowed through them. She burped from time to time, which caused mush bubbles to form and pop.

  Thrax did not have human-like disgust at the sight. He did, however, find her immense immobile bulk nauseating. Yes, she could think. Her thinking was excessively hidebound, but she could comprehend complex subjects when she put her mind to it. What she could not do was move on her own. Workers would do that for her. She ate, though, and defecated, each to a great degree. As the Reigning Supreme, she also possessed a bloated ego. That meant she, too, hated Thrax because of his hybrid nature.