The Lost Artifact Read online

  Maddox was on the bridge, listening to von Helmuth. As the commodore paused for breath, the captain saw his chance, a way to cancel the man’s stubbornness.

  “And your people agree with all this?” Maddox asked.

  Von Helmuth raised his head more erectly. “We are a proud people, Captain. Hindenburgers do not surrender.”

  “But you run away from battle?”

  “A lie from the swine, Third Admiral Bishop,” von Helmuth declared.

  “Are you hard of hearing?” Maddox asked. “The Windsor League has granted all of you full pardons. You needn’t have lost your hammership and the people serving on it. We’re at peace with the New Men, facing a much grimmer threat from the Swarm Imperium.”

  “It does not matter,” von Helmuth said. “Leave this star system, Captain. We do not want you here.”

  “I can drop antimatter bombs on you any time I desire,” Maddox said. “You shall die if you continue to resist. Are you prepared to die, Commodore?”

  The man expanded his chest. “I am more than willing, as my world has crumbled around me.”

  “That’s absurd,” Maddox said. “You needlessly lost your hammership. You can still retain your life.”

  “Nein, this is a lie, a trick.”

  “You are a poor actor, Commodore.”

  Von Helmuth blinked rapidly. “I do not understand the insult. I am telling you the truth.”

  “You there,” Maddox called.

  Von Helmuth looked over his shoulder. An aide was passing behind him.

  “You!” Maddox said loudly.

  The aide-de-camp looked up at the screen over the commodore’s shoulder. The man was younger, with a fresh face and a perfectly tailored uniform. Maddox was doubtful that anyone had put a control net into the aide’s skull.

  “Commodore von Helmuth is not in his right mind,” Maddox told the younger man. “He wishes to commit mass suicide. I can grant him his wish, or I can give you all full pardons from your government. If you wish, you can even return to Hindenburg.”

  “Go, go,” von Helmuth told the shocked aide-de-camp. “Why are you here?”

  The younger man hurried out of the picture.

  The commodore turned back to Maddox. “You lack honor, sir. We are speaking commander to commander. I ask you not to do that again.”

  Maddox inclined his head. “You are determined to die, then, Commodore?”

  A tic appeared on the Hindenburger’s square features. “No one wishes death, Captain. But I am a man of honor. You have defeated me on the battlefield. I could theoretically surrender, but I would never do such a thing. Or I could still die an honorable death in combat as your away teams attempt to land on the surface.”

  “Do you know why we came to Kelle?” Maddox asked.

  “Of course, I know,” von Helmuth said.

  “Perhaps you do, in a sense. You have heard of Methuselah Man Strand.”

  The tic appeared again, worse than before.

  “No,” the commodore said. “I have…” A glazed look came to his eyes. “I have never heard of him,” von Helmuth said in a robotic voice. “Do not ask me about him again, I implore you.”

  “I demand that you tell me all you know about Methuselah Man Strand.”

  Von Helmuth whitened. “Nein, enough,” he whispered. “You must not say that name to me.”

  “Why is that?” asked Maddox, leaning forward.

  The tic had considerably worsened.

  “I can heal your injuries,” Maddox said softly, “including any damage to your mind.”

  For a moment, something like sanity appeared in the commodore’s eyes. Then, he began to shake his head. “You. Must. Stay up there. Do you hear me?”

  At that moment, commotion occurred beyond the screen’s range. Von Helmuth turned. His head swayed back as if with surprise.

  “No,” the commodore said. “I am in charge. I am—” He reached for a sidearm.

  “Don’t shoot him!” Maddox shouted.

  A shot rang out. Then a fusillade of shots rang out. Several of the bullets riddled the commodore’s body, flinging him out of view of the screen

  Maddox banged a fist against an armrest. He needed the commodore.

  A moment later, a Hindenburg lieutenant of marines, a blond-haired veteran, peered at Maddox from the screen. “I am Lieutenant Hess. I wish to formally surrender to you, Captain. I also wish to claim the Windsor League pardon.”

  Maddox nodded. He had planted the seed. It had sprouted faster than he’d expected. “What about the commodore?” he asked. “How is he?”

  The Hindenburg marine glanced to the side before regarding Maddox. “The commodore still breathes. That won’t last long.”

  “Wait,” Maddox said. “I want von Helmuth alive. I need him alive, as do you, Lieutenant.”

  The marine became instantly suspicious. “Why is that? For a show trial?”

  “Your commodore has been sitting on a galactic secret,” Maddox said. “I need that secret, Lieutenant. It is why I came here. Do you understand?”

  A slow dawning of understanding appeared in the marine’s blue eyes. He nodded grimly, and he turned, motioning sharply as he gave orders.

  A medic raced into view and then out toward the fallen commodore. The lieutenant watched a moment and finally turned to Maddox again.

  “I will cooperate,” Hess said. “I cannot guarantee all the others, but I will help you as much as I can. I am sick of this backwater. I want to go home. I want to leave this place. It is cursed.”

  “Of that,” Maddox said, “I have no doubt. You have my personal guarantee, Lieutenant. Help me and I will do my utmost to help you receive a pardon.”

  The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed. He leaned toward the screen. “This is no real pardon?”

  “Not as you conceive of it,” Maddox said. “But you’re earning the gratitude of Star Watch Intelligence. We know how to pay our debts.”

  The marine stared at him suspiciously for several seconds longer. Finally, he nodded. “I understand. I’ve gambled. But I don’t see how I have much hope if I work against you.”

  “You have no hope any other way but to work with me,” Maddox said. “Help me, and maybe we’ll all have hope.”

  The marine cocked his head. “How do you mean?”

  “Get things ready for us,” Maddox said, “and I’ll show you.”

  -23-

  Despite the commodore’s threats—and the threats of some of his highest remaining officers—the rest of the Hindenburgers and all the wives and children desperately wanted to accept Maddox’s good-faith offer.

  The Bismarck was gone. The heavy laser sites and missiles pits were all demolished. A few gunboats had circled the dwarf planet and waited on the other side, likely hoping Victory would ignore them.

  In the end, it meant Hindenburg marines under Lieutenant Hess shot a few resisting officers and locked up the rest. Those officers raved dire threats. Meanwhile, a medical team worked to save von Helmuth’s life.

  Maddox went down with three shuttles. Meta wanted to join him. He ordered her to remain aboard Victory. He didn’t want anything happening to his beloved.

  The captain landed with armored Star Watch space marines. In the end, though, the surviving Hindenburgers were too eager to please him for any complications to emerge.

  Soon enough, Maddox found himself in an operating theater. He watched from his two-tons of exoskeleton-powered combat armor.

  “Sir,” the head surgeon said. “I will do everything in my power to revive the commodore.”

  Maddox’s helmet swiveled from side-to-side. Using an outer speaker, the captain asked, “You’re the chief medical officer?”

  The man nodded.

  “How many control nets have you put into various minds?” Maddox asked.

  Under his medical mask, the doctor turned crimson. “I-I…” he stammered.

  Maddox waved an armored hand, causing the servos to whine. “I’m interested in the number, Doct
or. Are you controlled?”

  “No,” the doctor whispered.

  “Von Helmuth is, though, yes?”

  The doctor nodded woodenly.

  “If he dies, Doctor, you die.”

  “Captain—”

  The faceplate whirred down.

  The doctor gasped at Maddox. “New Man,” he said in a shaky voice. “I-I’m sorry, your honor. I-I did not know.”

  Maddox wasn’t sure why the doctor had changed his tune the way he had. Maybe because the original Strand had usually shown up in the company of New Men.

  “I want von Helmuth alive,” Maddox said. “I also want him in a cooperative state.”

  “I will do my best, sir.”

  The faceplate whirred shut. Maddox stepped outside the operating theater.

  An hour later, the doctor appeared. He seemed faint and pale and kept staring down at the floor.

  “Von Helmuth is dead?” Maddox asked.

  The doctor nodded miserably.

  “Why did he die?” Maddox asked.

  “I…attempted to adjust the net. He survived the bullet wounds. None had hit a critical organ. The net…it was strangely altered. I did an autopsy to determine the reason he died. Something in the neural net had changed. I don’t know what because I’ve never seen its like.”

  In his two-tons of armor, Maddox looked down on the terrified doctor.

  “Strand trained you?” Maddox asked.

  “Aboard the Argos,” the doctor whispered.

  That had been the name of the original Strand’s special star cruiser.

  “Tell me about Kelle,” Maddox said.

  The doctor looked up and quickly looked down. He licked his lips nervously. “What do you want to know, Master?”

  “Anything you know that might lead me to alien technology,” Maddox said.

  The doctor looked up sharply, his eyes wide. Like before, he looked down again, shaking his head. “I don’t know anything about that, Master.”

  Maddox waited several seconds, debating his options. Finally, his suit seams cracked open as the seals de-magnetized.

  “Sir,” the chief space marine said. “Is that wise?”

  Maddox ignored his guard. He moved outside the combat armor and went into the operating theater. He saw von Helmuth’s opened skull. He saw the other medical personnel cringing away from him.

  The captain did not ask for help. He’d made an error here. He’d trusted their fear to keep them from hindering him. He had been wrong to do that.

  Selecting a hypo from a tray, Maddox examined various types of anesthesia. As an Intelligence operative, he’d had to knock out his share of people.

  Soon, Maddox was in the other room again. An armored marine held the doctor.

  “W-What are you going to do to me?” the man stammered.

  “Nothing,” Maddox said. “Don’t worry. I just want to ask you a few questions.”

  The doctor seemed to relax a moment.

  Maddox hypoed him as it hissed.

  “No!” the doctor shouted. “You injected me with truth serum.”

  “On the contrary,” Maddox said. “I killed you with a lethal dose of poison.”

  The doctor’s eyes widened, and he almost seemed relieved. He slumped unconscious a moment later.

  “What should I do with his corpse?” asked the space marine holding him.

  “Take him upstairs to Victory,” Maddox said. “He’s not dead. He’s unconscious. He feared truth serum, had likely been modified so he’d commit suicide under those conditions. I want him alive, as we’re going to interrogate him, but first we’re going to remove his neural net.”

  “He was controlled, sir?”

  “Undoubtedly,” Maddox said. “But that’s fine, as I think I’ve finally found the right person to give me a few answers.”

  -24-

  Twenty-four hours later, Maddox, Meta and several space marines, all of them in combat armor, and the holoimage of Galyan, moved deep inside Kelle. They had discovered the hatch that led into the tunnel with the alien environment.

  Maddox flinched upon sight of it.

  “You have seen these strange polymers before?” Galyan asked.

  “Oh yes,” Maddox said. “Aboard the Destroyer. It reminds me of the first time when the lone Destroyer attacked Earth and we had to break in to take over the controls.”

  “I remember,” Galyan said. “We are on the right track, then?”

  “I’d say so,” Maddox said.

  They found the things the clone of Strand had seen. They found the shot-up cylinders and the now-decaying, previously dissected corpses. They found the resting place of the alien vessel and the various pieces of Nameless Ones equipment scattered throughout the area. The crystal machines in particular seemed otherworldly.

  “What do you make of all this?” Meta asked over a suit comm.

  “The Strand clone has been here,” Maddox said. “From the state of decay, we missed him by about a week. That means we’re close on his trail. But what does close mean at this point? How do we find his next destination?”

  “You’ll think of something,” Meta said.

  Maddox continued to study the strange crystals with the machines running inside them. What had this place done? The captain shook his head. He hadn’t found anything to give him a clue as to the clone’s next port of call. He was going to have to use the Builder cube again. He did not trust the cube. In many ways, he wanted the cube off the starship. One wrong slip on their part and the cube might try to take over again. So far, they had contained the cube’s abilities to attack Galyan.

  Maddox continued to record the alien place. They couldn’t stay on Kelle for long. The Strand clone had come, gotten what it needed and departed to parts unknown in a vessel of the Nameless Ones.

  What could the vessel do?

  Maddox shuddered. How could the clone have forced himself to use a machine from a place like this? Maddox hated the Nameless Ones. He hated their equipment. He hated this place.

  As Maddox recorded, he, Galyan, the marines and Meta combed the area for clues. Finally, one of the space marines found a strange small object.

  The suited marine picked it up. The dark object shimmered and began to radiate heat.

  Maddox was nearby and looked up, seeing the pulsating object in the marine’s powered glove. “Drop it,” he told the man.

  The space marine did so, backing away fast. Smoke drifted from his already molten glove. “What is that?” the frightened marine said over the comm.

  Maddox neared the object, while Galyan shimmered into existence beside it.

  The small dark object lay on the strangely jointed floor. It radiated intense heat and it seemed to pulsate, growing faint and then more solid again in brief cycles.

  “What do you sense, Galyan?” Maddox asked.

  “There are odd sounds emanating from it, Captain,” the holoimage said. “I am recording them.”

  “I don’t hear anything,” Meta said.

  “It is above the normal human hearing range,” Galyan said. “I suspect it is a type of beacon. It is sending the sounds in a pattern. What the sounds mean, I have no idea. I am recording them for further study.”

  “You already said that, Galyan,” Meta told him.

  The object grew hotter yet.

  “The sounds…” Galyan said slowly.

  A grim certainly struck Maddox, so like a physical blow that he staggered. He looked up in alarm and his gut clenched.

  “Driving Force Galyan,” Maddox said sternly. “Return immediately to the starship. That is an order. Go!”

  Galyan stared at Maddox and suddenly disappeared.

  “Listen,” Maddox said on an open channel. The grim certainty pounded in his brain like a gong. “Run. All of you. Run! There’s no more time.”

  As the captain said that, he grabbed Meta, dragging her along.

  “Run!” Maddox told the marines. “This place is going to blow.”

  The space marines n
eeded no more prodding than that. The servomotors whined as the two-ton armor suits began to move like mechanical rhinoceroses. They soon left the alien area, using their helmet-lamps to give them light.

  “You forgot the object,” Meta radioed Maddox.

  “Keep running,” the captain said.

  At that point, a titanic explosion occurred behind them. The tunnel walls shook and cracks appeared on the ground.

  “Go, go, go!” Maddox said. “If you stop, you’re dead. It’s going to get worse, much worse.”

  It did, the explosions intensifying behind them, and the shaking growing many times worse.

  “What’s happening?” Meta cried.

  “Planetary destruction!” Maddox shouted. “We have to get off this ball before it all goes up. So save your breath for running.”

  -25-

  Fortunately, most of the Hindenburgers had already transferred up to the starship. About one third of the hammership’s original crew had survived the years on Kelle, the destruction of the Bismarck and the mayhem afterward. A few others had escaped in the gunboats, still trying to hide from Victory on the other side of the dwarf planet. The years of piracy had brought most of the crew wives or common-law wives, and a growing number of children.

  All of the Bismarck’s survivors aboard Victory were locked behind sealed bulkheads in an area they likely couldn’t create much mischief even if they wanted to. The starship had more than enough room for the new passengers, especially with the seventy-odd slain Star Watch personnel earlier in the mission.

  Maddox trusted the survivors as far as it went, but he didn’t want to have to trust them with his ship. Thus, they would remain behind the sealed bulkheads until further notice.

  “What about the people on the gunships?” Valerie asked from her station on the bridge.

  The captain had made it back to the ship and was presently assessing the situation. It had been a harrowing race through the tunnel to a waiting shuttle by the main seal. Luckily, Keith had been there. He’d gotten them out with only several boulders crashing against them from the shaking corridor.