The Lost Colony (Lost Starship Series Book 4) Read online

  One of them pointed at the shuttles. Good. Their voices rose as they argued the possibilities. At last, in a group, they surged toward the shuttles. All the while, more subhumans poured out of the door.

  Pa Kur had kept these creatures for years for just such an eventuality. Conditioning them to the correct pitch had been one of his chief assignments. It had been his task because of his keen understanding of subhuman psychology.

  The former military colonists forced a shuttle door open.

  Pa Kur unhooked the comm-unit, clicking a switch, timing them out of curiosity. He had a theory about their mental acuity. Ten minutes later, an upper hangar bay door began to open to the surface. Interesting. They had achieved the feat three minutes faster than he’d anticipated. It wouldn’t make a difference, though, not to what Stand had in mind.

  ***

  Pa Kur settled into position, lying on his stomach aboard a single-ship. It was a tiny, needle-shaped spacecraft with an ability to fold space for extremely short distances. As impossible as it was to believe, the Commonwealth sub-men had invented the tech. The superior New Men Intelligence service had stolen the secret some time ago.

  Pa Kur waited, clenching his stomach. Thirty seconds later, the booster rocket roared. The G forces pressed against Pa Kur as the rocket blasted into space at combat speeds.

  The launch point was on the other side of the water moon as the approaching hammership. The few subhuman probes on this side had “malfunctioned” in such a way as to appear as an accident. Thus, the enemy did not know about the booster rockets. The escaping Palain shuttles were already on the other side of the water moon, no doubt hailing the hammership, begging for rescue.

  Each booster held a Seven. A Seven was the New Men equivalent of a sub-men’s squad. In this instance, each Seven had his own single-ship. Seven boosters roared for space, meaning Pa Kur had forty-nine New Men for the coming attack, his entire sept.

  Soon enough, the boosters reached space. Pa Kur pressed a switch. With the clank of detaching hooks, his single-ship floated free.

  One by one, the empty rockets began to drift aimlessly, the nearest one tumbling end over end. Each Seven maneuvered around its leader. Finally, they sent pulse messages to Pa Kur. Everyone was ready.

  Pa Kur led the seven Sevens around the upper curvature of the red water moon. Storms swirled below in a vast panorama. Maybe it was beautiful. Pa Kur had a difficult time with the concept. He continued to lie on his stomach, holding onto handlebars, using a throttle to adjust his velocity. The gas giant appeared, rising out of the horizon like a massive moon. The Jovian planet was deep blue in color. Several deuterium-processing stations still existed in the upper clouds, although they were less than pinpricks and thus invisible to the naked eye.

  “Go dark,” Pa Kur said into the comm.

  He released the throttle and tapped out a sequence on his board. His needlecraft no longer accelerated, but drifted with its momentum. He activated the mini cloaking device. It was his only defense against the mighty hammership.

  The huge craft had reached the water moon’s far orbit, although it still wasn’t visible this far away.

  The shuttles were visible as they burned brightly, their exhaust tails tiny streaks in the blackness.

  Once more, Pa Kur tapped his comm. Excited, begging voices bubbled from it. The Palain subhumans pleaded with the captain of the Windsor League vessel. Several of them at once continued to explain how they had just escaped New Men captivity.

  The commander of the hammership was cautious. The woman had an obvious right to be.

  From on the water moon, a planetary cannon beamed. The ray struck perfectly, smashing a shuttle apart as metal melted and then exploded with air, water vapor and flesh and bones. A second cannon beamed. This one struck the outer shield of the hammership.

  The two planetary cannons wreaked havoc among the shuttles, destroying one after another. Finally, the hammership’s railguns targeted and fired, screaming shells through the atmosphere, silencing the planetary lasers. Hangar bay doors opened and fighters launched.

  The last two Palain shuttles neared the hammership. The escapees pleaded anew, some of them crying in terror.

  Pa Kur listened intently.

  “Please,” begged one of the escapees. “Board us and search the shuttles. We really are who we say we are.”

  “What about bombs?” the hammership captain asked.

  “Don’t you think we’ve already thought of that?” a shuttle speaker answered. “The New Men are cruel and inhuman. They’ll do anything to win. We’ve searched everywhere through the shuttle. We’re safe, I promise you. But you’re going to have to see that for yourself. That’s why we ask you to board and search us.”

  “Very well,” the captain said. “Prepare for boarding.”

  It took ten minutes of maneuver for the two shuttles to stop fully and the fighters to circle them with their guns live.

  More time passed as two shuttles left the hammership, accelerated and then decelerated. Finally, several spacemen left a Windsor League shuttle, using hydrogen exhaust to propel themselves to the nearest escapee shuttle.

  “Thank you, thank you,” wept one of the Palain escapees. “We owe you so much.”

  “No,” Pa Kur said. “You owe no one anything as you are mere tools.” He pressed a button.

  Hypnotism was an interesting phenomenon. The sub-men were particularly susceptible to the practice. The people in the shuttles believed they had looked for thermonuclear bombs, when in fact they had not. How otherwise could they have sounded so convincing?

  Pa Kur’s radio pulse reached the two shuttles. Seconds later, each of them ignited, blowing apart. Powerful thermonuclear blasts also took out the hammership’s two shuttles and many of the space-fighters. Even more important, gamma rays, X-rays and heat billowed at the hammership. Clearly, the blasts would fail to knock down the shields, but they would whiten the ship’s sensors for a short time.

  “We shall begin,” Pa Kur told his Sevens, “in three seconds.” The time passed. “Now,” he said.

  Pa Kur engaged the single-ship’s thruster. As acceleration increased, he switched on a timer, watching it closely.

  “Fold,” he said.

  His single-ship disappeared from its position and reappeared less than one quarter of a kilometer from the hammership. Just as Strand had predicted, rescue shuttles launched from the giant vessel. That meant a way through the shields for the attacking needlecraft.

  “Ignore the shuttles,” Pa Kur instructed the others. “Get onto the hammership at once.”

  None of his sept acknowledged his command, of course. None of them would understand why the sub-men practiced such a thing. They had heard; thus, they would obey.

  Pa Kur noted the single-ships around him. That was good. On his tiny screen, he saw the opening in the three shields. Once, Per Lomax had used single-ships against Starship Victory. The Emperor’s people had studied the attack. Pa Kur used the new and improved tactics that came from the study. It was why he had forty-nine needle-ships and why they had appeared so near the hammership.

  Surprise must have been total. The shuttles accelerated from the hammership, passing the tiny single-ships. The crews must not even realize forty-nine needle-shaped craft rushed at the open hangar bay entrances.

  Pa Kur stared ahead. The large bay doors began to close. The sub-men on the hammership must finally recognize the threat. With his dark eyes filled with visions of glory, the Fifth-Ranked New Man knew it was too late for them now.

  ***

  Pa Kur landed on a hangar bay deck with a jar. He released the handlebars and pressed a switch. His restraints exploded off him even as the canopy blew into the hangar bay.

  As Pa Kur stood, he activated his stealth suit, engaged his enablers and drew a blaster. Around him, other New Men did likewise. Each disappeared from view. The enablers would speed their reflexes and help their muscles move faster than was natural.

  Hatches opened in the
hangar bay and Royal Marines in battle armor clanked into view. Many of them raised heavy arms, letting their Gatling guns hose exploding bullets at the single-ships. Some of the crafts began to shred into pieces. Other three-man Marine teams carried bigger machine guns.

  Pa Kur sneered as he sailed through the air. He’d already vaulted from his craft. As more single-ships were hit, he landed on the deck. Dampers gave the hangar bay pseudo-gravity.

  None of the subhumans had noticed him, of course. He wore the best in stealth suits. A glance around showed him forty-seven New Men. Only two of his sept had failed to enter the hammership.

  “Open fire,” Pa Kur radioed.

  It was pathetically easy. As the Royal Marines destroyed single-ships, blasters opened up. Only a few of the sub-men survived the first withering volley. One or two looked around wildly, no doubt searching for the invisible killers. The next wave of blasters destroyed them too.

  The boarding attack for the hammership had begun in earnest.

  ***

  A sept of soldiers from the Throne World wearing stealth suits and enablers captured the hammership in exactly fifty-three minutes.

  During most of that time, confusion reigned on the Windsor League vessel. Lights shut down on deck after deck while ventilating systems worked sporadically. During the last ten minutes of the takeover, the subhumans attempted to self-destruct the warship three separate times.

  Pa Kur thwarted each try.

  Finally, with a Seven, he dropped from vents in the bridge ceiling bulkhead. The bridge crew heard the landing thuds and looked around wildly.

  “Where are they, sir?” a woman shouted.

  The hammership commander held a pistol, slowly rotating, searching for something. She raised her gun and fired, hitting a panel.

  Pa Kur didn’t want the woman accidently hitting an important board. He rushed the captain and hit her in the face. The force of the blow catapulted the captain over her command chair. She twitched on the floor with a broken neck and a crushed face.

  The other woman screamed until one of the Seven hand-chopped her neck, breaking it as well.

  Soon, Pa Kur controlled the bridge. But he did not attempt to control the ship, not just yet. First, he and his sept would sweep through the vessel, killing all but five of the crewmembers. He would need those five for later.

  Strand’s plan included Windsor League captives, but they had to be exactly the right kind. After the final killing was completed here, Pa Kur would escort the remaining New Men on the water moon to the nearest Laumer-Point.

  Pa Kur sat in the command chair. He found it to be a good feeling. He did not even mind the dead sub-men littered on the bridge. His Seven would clean up the dead soon enough.

  With an exhale and a glitter in his eyes, Pa Kur luxuriated in the moment. He had a starship command and Strand had a hammership, one of the ingredients to the master plan.

  The other hammerships in the system would never catch this one in time. Those were six hundred thousand kilometers away and presently headed in the wrong direction.

  Soon, word of this New Men attack and victory would spread to the rest of the Grand Fleet. It would continue the psychological process Strand needed to bring about the sub-men’s abject and bitter defeat.

  EARTH

  -1-

  Captain Maddox of Star Watch Intelligence frowned. What was wrong with him? Why did his head feel so woozy?

  The last thing he remembered was playing poker with space smugglers. The room had been in Woo Tower, the fanciest casino in Shanghai.

  By the breeze on his cheeks, he wasn’t inside now, although a wall loomed to his left. Bottles clinked and women giggled somewhere.

  He concentrated to the best of his ability, vaguely spying an open door in the wall. The sounds came from there, although it was dark inside. Should he call for someone to help him?

  No. He needed more information first. He needed to think this through.

  Why was he out here? Maddox realized he couldn’t remember. What was wrong with his eyes? Everything was fuzzy or blotchy. He looked up. It seemed that stars twinkled in the heavens. It must be night.

  Maddox closed his eyes, squeezing them tight. He tried to recall the causation of his predicament. He remembered that he had been nearing the end of a two-week leave. It had been quite some time since his crew had defeated the alien Destroyer. Little had gone to his liking since then, but that wasn’t the issue here.

  He sensed motion and started toward it one foot stumbling ahead of the other.

  “No,” a voice said, behind and to his immediate left.

  Pain flared at Maddox’s left elbow. He realized strong fingers dug into his joint and pushed him forward. Someone caused him to stagger out here, apparently directing his path.

  Maddox opened his eyes. The fuzziness had departed although the blotchiness remained.

  The one gripping his elbow made him turn, propelling him through a door and down a lit corridor. They passed closed doors, ones that lacked handles or latches.

  That was interesting if ominous.

  Fortunately for Maddox, he possessed a slightly higher core body temperature than regular humans. He was half New Man and half Earthling. He burned off alcohol faster than others did. Because of that—

  Alcohol!

  Maddox remembered lifting a shot glass and throwing the contents down his throat. He’d held onto his cards as he did so, sitting at a table in a smoky den. He’d been pretending intoxication in order to lull the other players: smugglers, captains of cargo haulers. One could argue his pretense had been unfair deception so they would drop their guard. Perhaps that had been so, but despite being on leave, Maddox had been engaged in a semi-official mission.

  For the past three weeks, he’d felt someone trailing him. The sensation had intensified the last four days. He had come to believe Woo Tower was the locus for the spying. Surely, one of the hauler captains at the table had been a link to the person or persons interested in him.

  Maddox had lifted the shot glass…right. The waitress had slipped the drink beside his hand, replacing the half-filled whiskey. She had done so in a fervent manner while pretending otherwise. Maddox had taken the drink, knowing it was a reckless gamble. He had been frustrated by the months of inactivity. He remembered the itch of it in his fingertips. In a rash moment—maybe wanting to throw himself into danger—he decided to trust his innate ability to shake off most ill effects. Besides, he’d wanted to know who was trying to drug him by having them make a move afterward, which it appeared someone most certainly had.

  It would also appear that the effects of the drink had been stronger than the captain had anticipated. One could argue he had…er, miscalculated.

  Inwardly, Maddox shrugged. One could make that assertion, surely. He did not believe so himself, at least not yet. Clearly, someone had taken advantage of his dulled state. Likely, the one pushing him down the corridor had a connection with the hidden scrutiny. Now that the hidden person had finally emerged from the shadows, Maddox could react accordingly.

  “Where are you taking me?” he asked, letting himself slur more than necessary. His lips weren’t that numb.

  The other said nothing.

  “Are we still in Shanghai?” Maddox asked.

  The other increased the pace, making the captain stumble faster.

  Maddox could feel his body and mind shaking off the ill effects of the drink. He was tall and slender, with steely muscles and, normally, whipcord reflexes. Tonight, he wore his dress uniform complete with holster. By the lack of weight on his belt, he realized someone had taken his gun. That seemed like an obvious precaution on their part.

  The blotchiness finally departed his vision and the corridor came into focus. The walls were metallic like a spaceship. The corridor slanted down, meaning they walked underground by now. The doors were really hatches. Yes. This might actually be a ship.

  It was time to confront the other before it became too late.

  Without see
ming to, Maddox examined the hand on his elbow. The fingers were thick and stubby, and the fingernails gleamed as if lacquered. That seemed odd as tiny, individual hairs sprouted from the back of the hand. No…those weren’t hairs, were they? It seemed…they might be tiny wires sprouting up as an approximation of hair.

  Maddox was ready to make several assumptions. Either this was a modified man from a strange world or an android made to imitate a human. Either way, the being would likely think of himself as strong. Thus, this move would come as a surprise maybe even as a shock to the other.

  The captain planted his feet and twisted his arm. Instead of ripping his elbow free, greater pain flared. The stubby fingers had tightened their hold, surprising Maddox with their unusual strength.

  “You must come with me,” the man said, pushing harder, causing Maddox to stumble forward once more.

  The captain glanced back. The squat man or android wore a stylish suit at odds with his girth. Maddox recognized it as a Woo Tower casino uniform. The pusher didn’t seem fat but powerful. The face seemed wider than any norm Maddox knew about, although the man lacked any blemishes. That upped the chances he—it—was an android.

  The man glanced up at him before looking away. “This isn’t my preference, believe me,” the man said. “I simply don’t know how else to convince you.”

  “Try explaining it to me,” Maddox said.

  “I will explain, but not just yet.”

  “Do you have a reason for the delay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you care to share it with me?”

  “No, as that would invalidate the reason for waiting.”

  “Of course,” Maddox said. “That’s logical.”

  The man didn’t reply to that.

  “Still,” Maddox said, “I’m afraid I insist we stop.”

  “You are not in a position to insist. Thus, your statement is illogical, likely driven by emotive needs.”

  Maddox twisted back to see if the other grinned or if a shine of delight twinkled in the eyes. The face was impassive, the eyes inert and the pace growing more relentless.