The Lost Artifact Page 6

  “What about the coaster?” Valerie asked.

  “It accelerated out of the asteroid at a considerable rate,” Galyan said. “It has acted like a vessel on the run.”

  “Okay…”

  “Now, several strikers seem to be in pursuit,” Galyan said.

  “You think Captain Maddox is in the coaster?” Valerie asked.

  “The captain has not contacted us for some time, Valerie. Maybe he is in trouble.”

  “He would let us know if that was him,” she said.

  “Not necessarily,” Galyan said.

  Valerie rubbed her chin. “That isn’t Finlay Bow’s smuggler ship.”

  “The asteroid authorities might have discovered that Finlay is in the captain’s pay,” Galyan said.

  Valerie made a face. The “authorities” that Galyan referred to were the Social Syndicate overlords of the asteroid. She hated space pirates with a particular loathing. Actually, because of letters of marque from the Social Syndicate, the base personnel called themselves privateers. But that was just a fancy term for pirates.

  To Valerie, privateers or pirates were exactly like the gang members of Greater Detroit, scavengers that preyed on the weak and helpless. She’d grown up dealing with gangbangers and had learned to hate their ganging-up tactics. To her, they were like hyenas. Space pirates were just like that, too. In fact, she didn’t have any use for smugglers like Finlay Bow either. But that was another matter.

  Valerie had seen gang members beat up on each other. That was probably what this was. She didn’t think Maddox would get himself in such a pickle as to have to run in a tiny coaster pursued by larger strikers. Maddox would know better than to try that.

  Galyan could be such a worrywart at times. The holoimage was at his worst when it came to the captain’s safety.

  “What if it isn’t the captain?” Valerie asked Galyan. “What if, instead, the captain is in danger inside the asteroid, and us appearing out here to help the coaster makes everyone inside the asteroid go crazy against Maddox? They hate Star Watch over there, remember?”

  “I am familiar with the mission parameters,” Galyan said. “Look, Valerie, the strikers are gaining on the coaster. I have detected radar lock-on. They appear ready to fire on the vessel.”

  Valerie stared at the situation on the screen. Maybe if she ate a ham sandwich, her mind would clear up. How was anyone supposed to think clearly, if she were hungry all the time?

  “We’re too far away to make any difference,” she pointed out.

  “Keith is not too far,” Galyan said.

  “He’s waiting where he is for emergency action only,” Valerie said. “No. You have to give me evidence that the captain is in the coaster. Otherwise, I’m possibly harming him by showing our hand too soon.”

  “Hail the vessel,” Galyan suggested.

  Valerie considered that, and shook her head. “Hailing them will give us away just the same as if we showed them Victory.”

  “May I make a suggestion?” Galyan asked.

  “Save it for later,” Valerie said, irritated. Yet, despite her hunger and despite her certainty that the coaster held scummy pirates instead of Maddox, Valerie bent forward in the command chair to watch the ongoing events.

  -12-

  The Clone Strand also watched the action. He did so from his secret ghost-ship. It was a unique vessel, hardly bigger than a Star Watch shuttle. It was, however, of Builder design with many revolutionary systems.

  The clone sat in the command chair, using gravity waves to build up speed. He observed the fleeing coaster and the three following strikers. Slender craft, the strikers were mostly fuel and engine with forward compartments for the two-man crews. Each striker had twin cannons capable of firing 30-mm shells. Sometimes, a striker carried a few missiles. These three did not.

  They were the perfect pirate ships, small, maneuverable and easy to hide behind stellar debris. Like ancient pirates, the asteroid looters did not use large spaceships. The strikers were more like canoes on ancient Earth during the time of sailing vessels. In those days, pirates had often used a mass of low canoes to sneak up on an unsuspecting anchored merchantman until the canoes bumped up against the wooden hull, and then the pirates swarmed aboard.

  The strikers had much greater acceleration than the coaster. They would be in firing range in less than two minutes.

  As Strand watched the situation, he made a face. He did not see why his advanced computer had said Maddox would get safely away ninety-nine times out of one hundred. Chang seemed to hold all the advantages out there.

  Could the computer be that off? If so…he might have to alter his plans.

  Strand knew very well, of course, that Starship Victory was behind the largest moon of the nearest gas giant. Had the original Strand been wrong to trust the advanced computer? After all, the original had failed in the Sind System. Captain Maddox had captured him there.

  Was there something…different about Maddox that upset the incredible Builder software?

  Strand’s ghost-ship continued to drift in-system through the asteroid belt. So far, everything had proceeded smoothly enough. Strand had followed the computer’s suggestions and by them, lured Starship Victory out here between the Chin Confederation and the Social Syndicate Worlds.

  Strand the clone had woken up in a distant star system during the grim Swarm invasion of Human Space. He had learned that the original Strand was a captive of the New Men on the Throne World. His activation was the key to a revenge plan on the original’s part. Strand the clone had reached the Solar System twenty-six days after Star Watch’s last battle with the Swarm. Strand had begun his secret work shortly after that.

  The clone had labored hard, only using a few secret assets left on Earth and Mars. He had been one man working across many months to achieve his careful purpose. Professor Ludendorff’s sullen anger had greatly aided him. The professor had left the Solar System in a huff, taking Doctor Dana Rich with him.

  Strand smirked as he remembered. Ludendorff might have understood certain signs. The old fool was cunning. Now, though, no one on the other side truly understood his genius. The New Men no longer had spies on Earth. The Spacers had departed…

  Strand cracked his knuckles. His only worry was the advanced computer’s reliability. If Chang caught or destroyed Maddox…

  The wizened clone stabbed a switch on his console. When nothing happened, he pressed it again.

  A moment later, a hatch slid up. A hovering Builder robot moved through the hatch. It looked like a large upright artillery shell.

  Strand the original had found the robot and the advanced computer long ago. The original had left both in storage, fearing to use Builder tech. Now, with no other tools available and due to the parameters of the Samson Option, the clone had decided to activate the complex machinery.

  “Maddox is in danger,” Strand told the robot.

  The robot neither said nor did anything.

  “The computer said Maddox would survive his mission to the asteroid,” Strand told the robot.

  “Your statement is incorrect,” the robot said in a stilted voice. “The captain will escape ninety-nine times out of one hundred.”

  “You’re telling me we’re watching the one time the computer is wrong?”

  “The computer is correct,” the robot said.

  “Chang is easily going to destroy Maddox.”

  “No.”

  “No?” Strand asked.

  “The computer has rendered its verdict. Maddox will escape.”

  Strand looked up at the screen. The strikers were closing in fast. What was he missing? What did the Builder computer know that he did not?

  A queasy feeling of doubt touched Strand. Had it been a mistake to activate the Builder robot and computer? He would never have done so, but under the Samson Option, he could use such tools. What did it matter if the tools became uncontrollable? The Samson Option meant that he was supposed to destroy everything he could.

  “Ch
ang’s strikers have achieved radar lock-on,” Strand said.

  “Wait,” the robot said. “It is not yet over.”

  Strand scowled, nodding, hating the churn in his guts. He’d staked far too much on the computer’s computations. If Chang captured Maddox or even killed him, the privateer would become unbearably smug, to say nothing about Strand’s future success with his greater goals.

  A second later, Strand shrugged. Well, if Chang did become too smug, at least it wouldn’t be for very long.

  -13-

  Maddox’s head swayed back and forth as Finlay tried one jink after another. His eyelids fluttered as his neck muscles finally stiffened, keeping his head from flopping all over the place.

  The captain smacked his lips as consciousness slowly returned to his brain. He sat up and noticed Finlay giving him a quick glance.

  “Glad to have you back,” she said. “You’re just in time to watch them kill us.”

  Instead of responding, Maddox reached up behind his head and felt the stitches. He should have ripped them out some time ago. Could he shove his fingers into the wound and yank out the device?

  Maddox frowned. There was something else, something he wasn’t remembering…

  The comm beeped.

  Finlay glanced at him again. Terror filled her eyes. “Chang is going to demand our surrender,” she said.

  Maddox wiped his lips with the back of a hand, squeezed his eyelids closed and then opened them. He clicked the comm switch.

  On the screen, the bullet-shaped head of Chang appeared. The man seemed inordinately pleased with himself.

  “We have radar lock-on, Captain Maddox,” Chang said.

  Maddox said nothing, although he nodded in agreement.

  The massive privateer showed off his index finger. “All I have to do is press the firing switch and you’re dead.”

  “Do you mind if I verify the validity of your statement?” Maddox asked.

  It took a half-second. Chang smiled grimly. “No, no, please, be my guest.”

  Maddox tapped his controls. On his screen, he saw the three tube-shaped strikers closing in on the coaster. There was an asteroid fifty thousand kilometers away. The asteroid was nine kilometers in diameter, a pygmy compared to Smade’s Asteroid.

  Maddox noted the radar lock and the 30-mm cannons on each striker. The privateer was right. Chang had them dead to rights.

  The comm beeped again. Maddox tapped his console. Chang’s gloating face reappeared.

  “Well, Captain, what’s it to be?”

  “I want to live,” Maddox said in a plaintive voice.

  “That’s not an answer.”

  Maddox seemed to hesitate. As he did, his manner changed. He became quite meek. “Please, let me live.”

  Chang laughed heartily. “I wish Strand could see us now.”

  “Strand?” asked Maddox.

  “That’s right, Captain, Strand, Star Watch’s terrible nemesis.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it? Shall I put you to sleep again by pressing this?” Chang showed off the control device.

  Maddox’s mouth dropped open in shock as he reached back and touched the stitches.

  Chang leaned nearer to his screen, and his manner became intense. “Jettison your cannon, Captain. Turn your ship and began deceleration. If you don’t immediately comply, I will obliterate your vessel.”

  “We are complying,” Maddox said.

  “No,” Finlay said beside him.

  Maddox reached across his console into her space, and slapped a switch. The coaster shuddered. Outside the viewing bay, the vessel’s cannon tumbled end over end.

  “Very good, Captain,” Chang said. “You’re being wise.”

  “I want to survive,” Maddox explained. “And I want to add that I’m worth quite a ransom.”

  “Is that so?” Chang asked in a smug manner.

  Maddox nodded.

  “It will cost Star Watch plenty to get you back,” Chang said. “…if I ransom you to them, that is.”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” Maddox asked. “They’re the only ones who would want me.”

  “Do you think so?”

  Maddox’s eyes widened. “No,” he said, sounding terrified. “You wouldn’t ransom me to the…” He let the last hang because he didn’t know who Chang referred to.

  “The New Men,” Chang said.

  “B-But, the New Men are our allies,” Maddox said.

  Chang laughed again while rubbing his hands in glee.

  “Should I rotate the coaster?” Finlay asked him quietly.

  Maddox turned to her, scowling thunderously. Couldn’t the little smuggler keep her mouth shut?

  On the screen, Chang stopped laughing.

  Maddox faced the privateer, his features nearly unrecognizable as he began to beg, “Please, don’t ransom me to the New Men. Star Watch will pay you a bonus for me.”

  “What do I care about that?” Chang asked.

  “Sir,” Maddox said.

  From her pilot’s seat, Finlay was staring at Maddox in shock.

  “Rotate your vessel,” Chang said. “You must begin decelerating at once.”

  Outside the coaster, one of the strikers pulled up less than five hundred meters from them. The striker had rotated and decelerated with hot exhaust so it wouldn’t overshoot the slower-moving coaster.

  “Do you have any idea when the ransom talks would begin?” Maddox asked.

  “No more stalling,” Chang said. “Rotate your vessel.”

  “Yes, at once,” Maddox said. He faced Finlay. “Rotate us,” he said, while giving her a minute headshake.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Finlay asked.

  Maddox closed his eyes almost as if in pain. “Rotate the ship,” he shouted, opening his eyes and leaning toward her. That leaning took him slightly out of sight of the comm screen.

  “Don’t do anything,” Maddox whispered to her.

  Finlay stared at him as if the captain was going crazy. Her hands hovered over the controls.

  “Why isn’t your pilot rotating the coaster?” Chang demanded.

  “I’m going to throttle her,” Maddox said. “Give me a second.”

  “You’d better hurry, Captain,” Chang said. “My patience is limited.”

  Maddox unbuckled his restraining straps. Then he stood in the tight confines of the cabin and loomed over Finlay. By doing so, Maddox put his back to the screen.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she whispered.

  “I’m buying us time,” he whispered back. Then he shouted, “I don’t care what you think. Chang gave us his word. He said that he’ll ransom us. You will not self-destruct this ship. That’s an order.”

  “Rotate your ship,” Chang said from the screen.

  “I’m trying, sir,” Maddox shouted.

  “I think he’s trying to trick us,” someone said from Chang’s screen.

  “Maddox, do you hear me, Maddox?” Chang shouted.

  Maddox slid back into his seat. “We’re rotating now, sir. We’re doing it now.”

  Several seconds ticked by. As they did, Maddox buckled his straps back into place.

  “You’re not rotating,” Chang shouted. “Rotate now or I’m firing. Do you hear me?”

  “I do, sir. I don’t know what’s the matter.” Maddox twisted in his seat to stare at Finlay. “Turn hard right and keep doing it. Go down and right and don’t stop. It’s our only hope.”

  “What?” Finlay said.

  “Now,” Maddox said insistently. “Do it this instant or we’re dead.”

  -14-

  Lieutenant Keith Maker had been watching the four vessels. He was behind the nine-kilometer-diameter asteroid, “behind” in relation to Smade’s Asteroid and to the fast approaching spaceships. Just like Starship Victory behind its moon, Keith used an independent sensor in front of the asteroid to watch the ongoing situation.

  The lieutenant was a small, sandy-haired Scotsman noted for his daredevil f
lying skills and a penchant for whiskey, buried out of loyalty to Maddox. He had a thing for Valerie Noonan, despite her pent-up personality. She was a babe, and there was something anchoring about her personality that appealed to Keith. She was the opposite of him, and he liked that. He felt he could trust her.

  Keith nodded to himself even as he powered up his experimental fold-fighter. He had monitored the communications over there. Captain Maddox was in the fleeing coaster. The wily captain had been using one of his trademark methods to get out of danger. It was a good thing he—Keith—was here. The captain must realize that only Lieutenant Maker could save his life.

  That was why it was so galling that the fold-fighter was failing to fire up its jump capacity.

  The fold-fighter was a modified heavy strikefighter common to Star Watch. The strikefighters were like old-fashioned jets, but they flew in space and attacked like a swarm of angry hornets.

  Modified was the key word here, as the fold-fighter lacked the regular strikefighter’s racy lines. This baby was a tin can—almost literally—a tube of metal with hundreds of sprouting antennae, cannons and laser emitters. In the past, a tin can like this would have had a matter/antimatter missile. Keith did not have one of those today. The bulk of Star Watch’s antimatter missiles had been burned up during the Swarm Invasion.

  Not that Keith would have used an antimatter missile in this case.

  “Blast your balls!” Keith shouted at the machine, banging a fist against the console.

  That didn’t help a thing except it made Keith feel a tad better.

  He shook his head, telling himself to think this through. He was the best strikefighter pilot in Star Watch. That was a fact. That didn’t mean he was a good mechanic, but he knew how these things operated.

  He’d been behind the asteroid for several days already. He slept in a separate attachment pod, ate, played endless video games and waited for the captain to show up.

  Keith had been in the pod when the four spaceships had spit out of Smade’s Asteroid. On the possibility that Maddox was in the coaster, Keith had immediately transferred to the tin can.