The Lost Starship (12 page)

“I’ll show you how we used to take care of missil
es,” Keith said. “Get ready, Lieutenant.” The pilot cut acceleration. Then, he rotated the scout so the cannons aimed at the missile.

“I see it,” Maddox whispered. He meant a visual contact. The missile’s long exhaust made it a bright object
, and it headed straight for them.

“Engage the cannons,” Keith said.

Lieutenant Noonan shook her head. “The missile is using advanced ECM. I can’t get a targeting lock on it.”

“Switch the
guns over to me, love,” Keith said.

She
didn’t hesitate, but tapped a screen.

“Yes, you little
crawly, come to poppa.” Ensign Maker tapped a control. Each time a cannon fired, the scout trembled slightly.

Maddox
watched his screen for what seemed like an interminably long time until finally, a bloom appeared.

“Bingo,” Keith said. “The boggy is eliminated.”

Maddox studied his panel. He couldn’t believe it, but the ace was right.

“Good work, Ensign,” Valerie said. “I’m never going to doubt you again.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Keith said. “All donations to my party fund will be appreciated.” He began tapping the panel.

The scout rotated
once again. “I’m going to use five dampened Gs, mates, we’re about to accelerate.”

“This is
SWS Destroyer
Saint Petersburg
calling SWS
Geronimo
,” a woman said. “Respond
Geronimo
.”

“Have you plotted our course yet, Lieutenant?”
Maddox asked, ignoring the new message.

Valerie waited a beat before saying, “I’m working on it, Captain.”

“The sooner I have that the better,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“Will the destroyer laser us if we don’t comply with their orders?” Keith asked.

“I plan to prolong the procedure,” Maddox said. “By the way, you have my congratulations on expert firing. That was well done.”

“Thank you, sir,” Keith said.

Maddox went back to his instruments, talking to the destroyer’s comm officer.

“I’m going to have to report you for firing weapons in Earth orbit without proper authorization,” the destroyer’s comm officer said.

“Do w
hat you must,” Maddox said. He had no doubts now that someone had compromised the destroyer commander. The rot was definitely deeper than he expected.

“You will desist from accelerating,”
the comm officer said. “My captain wants me to inform you, he will be shooting out your engines otherwise.”

“Tramline in three minutes,” Valerie said.

“Class three?” Maddox asked.

“Yes, sir,” she said, “although, it will be a roundabout way
to our destination.”

“
At least it will get us out of this mess,” he said.

“It will
, at that, sir,” Valerie said.

“Do you copy
my last message,
Geronimo
?” the destroyer officer asked.

Maddox began an argument
with her. As he started to work himself into a supposed rant, Lieutenant Noonan shouted:
“
Get ready for jump!”

The Laumer-Point
was invisible to human eyes. Even so, an opening to a small wormhole appeared several kilometers from the accelerating
Geronimo
.

“This is
SWS
Saint Petersburg
,” the destroyer comm officer said. “We have our main laser locked onto you. You must immediately shut down the scout’s Laumer Drive or we won’t be responsible for your destruction when our beam takes out your engine.”

Keith’s fingers flew over his controls. “Expelling chaff and an emitter,” he said. “Get ready.” He tapped controls. Even with the dampeners, massive acceleration struck. The scout fairly leaped away.

At the same time, loud beeps emanated from Valerie’s panel. The destroyer had lock-on. A beam flashed, and it would have hit but for Keith’s fast actions in changing their estimated position.

“They’re retargeting!” Valerie shouted.

Another beam flashed. It stabbed into the chaff, annihilating the emitter.

“I knew they’d fall for it,” Keith whooped with delight. “Now
, hang on. I’m going to hit the entrance faster than I should.”

“
SWS
Geronimo
, comply with our orders. You must remain in the Solar System or face destruction.”

Maddox leaned low
to the microphone. “Yes,
Saint Petersburg
, we agree. We’re shutting down our drive now.”

“Clever,” Keith said. “That should give us the seconds we need.”

“
Geronimo
,” the destroyer comm officer said, “your engine is still online. You must comply with our orders or face immediate destruction.”

“We’re shutting down now,” Maddox
told her.

“This will be a little tricky,” Keith said, as he squinted at his controls.
“We could miss the opening. According to procedures, we should do this gently.”

Despite the ship’s velocity,
Keith flew them perfectly. The SWS Scout
Geronimo
entered the wormhole. That broke the targeting lock from
Saint Petersburg.
At the same time, a laser flashed. Since it lacked mass, the beam swept past the wormhole opening, missing the
Geronimo
. Because the scout
had
mass, it entered the wormhole and left the Solar System, heading along the tramline for the New Panama System.

Tramlines granted humanity faster than light travel. This meant that news spread at the speed of starships, no faster. Like the old colonial days of wooden sailing ships, packet liners brought information that might be days, weeks or even months old. That meant a fast ship could outdistance the news, at least for a while.

As the
SWS Scout
Geronimo
accelerated through the empty Karakas System, heading for the next jump point, Ensign Keith Maker tried to focus on that.

He told himself his shakiness was
a case of nerves. He clicked a reader, studying yet another scout function manual. His gaze roved over text, but he forgot the words the second he looked at the next one.

Lifting
a hand, he watched it quiver.

I need a drink. There has to be something aboard this speedster
I can guzzle.

Like the other
two, Keith now wore a Star Watch uniform. The captain had insisted each of them don one. Maddox must believe the clothes made a person. What horse manure. Yet…Keith felt different wearing his regs. It reminded him of Tau Ceti, and that was both good and bad.

He recalled the duty rules. That he was in a military again. It also reminded him of Danny
Maker, his younger brother.

I m
iss you, boyo. I wish…

Keith made a fist, wanting to smash the reader. His throat convulsed, it was so dry. He needed to oil it with a beer,
or preferably, several shots of whiskey.

They were two days
out from the Solar System, from Earth, and this was the first time the scout ran on automated, without someone in the control room. Maddox slept, and who knew what the pretty lass did. Valerie could read three times faster than he could and pored over the scout’s manuals. The woman was a stickler for rules, and it was obvious she felt better in uniform.

Each of them had
already spent considerable time learning the scout’s functions. It made better sense to Keith how they had escaped the destroyer. The
Geronimo
could boost like the devil. There at the end of the confrontation, that’s exactly what they had done. Maybe even as important, the ship had an impressive cloaking device and was constructed of antisensor material. After Valerie explained how the device worked, he had finally started to believe they could sneak into the Loki System without the monitor detecting them and blasting them to atoms. It would be tricky, but with Maddox and him—
Keith slapped the reader onto the table. He sat in the wardroom. It could
comfortably hold six people, nine if everyone squeezed together. He’d forgotten how much he hated tight places. It was different in the cockpit of a strikefighter. Then it felt as if the universe was his home. He could go anywhere in the fighter. But sitting inside a vessel with the bulkheads squeezing around him, without a wide-angle view of the stars…

I definitely need a sip of something. How is a man supposed to
live in this tin coffin? It’s not as if I’m on the clock. It’s downtime, matey.

He stood, cracked his knuckles and stepped to the hatch.

A short walk down the corridor into the storeroom, that’s all it will take. Then I can rummage me a beer maybe find a bottle of good Scotch. The captain can’t deny me that, can he? Ha! I remember him guzzling in my bar. The chap can drink with the best of them. He’ll understand
.

Keith opened the hatch. The scout thrummed softly
all around him, a smooth ship for its small size. Still, he could hear the air recycling through the vents. It was cooler than he liked and there were hints of something off in the ship’s atmosphere.

He took several steps down the main corridor. The captain’s hatch was closed and probably locked. Maddox didn’t seem trustful
of anyone. Behind the engine-room hatch, Keith could hear Valerie testing machinery. Did the lieutenant think she could repair damage if it came to that?

A tremor washed across Keith’s shoulders. He looked around
. In strikefighter combat, he used to feel the same thing when an enemy snuck up behind him. Checking all around, he failed to spy any cameras. Soon, he chuckled. No one watched him. Yet, he wondered why it felt as if someone did.

I
know why. I need a drink worse than I realized
.

He reached for the
storeroom hatch, but hesitated. He ached to open the door. His hands trembled, and he wanted to taste beer. Even more, he wanted that numbing to his mind. He needed to feel the intoxication begin to take hold. Then everything would be better with the world. Just a good buzz was all he wanted. That wasn’t too much to ask a man.

I saved their arses back there from the destroyer. They owe it to me, this little throat-wetter
.

His hand inched closer
to the hatch, and he stopped it again. Keith wondered on the wisdom of a drink.

He was on the adventure of his life. This was greater than going to Tau Ceti. A terrible threat menaced humanity. Blokes with god-complexes with heightened abilities and
racist theories of their superiority told regular Joes to surrender or die. The enemy acted with fierce arrogance, taking on entire battle groups with three warships, and winning those fights.

If I start drinking
again, I might endanger the mission. I need to think this through
.

Keith stood like that for ten second
s, then twenty, then thirty. He grimaced and made a fist. He wanted a drink, but he also wanted to escape the need for whiskey. He’d been falling into a deeper abyss for some time now. He remembered looking down at that hole when he’d still been standing on the ledge.

He would
sit on the edge of his bed, holding a whiskey bottle, knowing that if he started drinking, things would only get worse. A few times, he had set the bottle on his nightstand and had gone and done something else. A different part of his brain had told him to pour the liquor down the sink, get rid of the stuff. He had done that once, watching the amber fluid drain away. Then he had berated himself for a week afterward about wasting good booze. That stuff cost money.

For a time, fear of the abyss, of going down into drunkenness, had halted his mad binges. Then a day came
—he wasn’t sure of the exact date—when he’d finally given in and plunged into the abyss. He’d been falling ever since, wondering when he would hit rock bottom.

No, no,
he told himself.
I’m free of drink now. That’s why I left my pub. I have to save the Earth. To do that, I have to stay sober
.

Keith
closed his eyes and willed himself to leave. He wanted to walk away, but he stood there instead, battling against his better judgment. When he opened his eyes, he found that his hands were on the storeroom hatch.

With a terrible feeling of resignation, he turned the wheel
and opened the hatch. He climbed through into the storeroom. A quick study showed him a carton that looked as if it might contain drink.

Clicking the
carton’s locks, he opened it, and a Danny-boy grin spread across Keith’s face. Look at those green bottles. Saliva moistened his mouth, and his thirst raged.

With trembling hands, he reached in, removed
one of the lovely bottles and worked out the cork. A last moment of doubt filled him. Guilt made him lower the flagon.

“I’ll just take one sip,” he said quietly. “How can a sip, a mere taste, hurt anyone?”

Keith shook his head. It couldn’t hurt. That meant it would be okay. As he brought the bottle to his lips, he knew that he was lying to himself. He had waged such interior arguments many times. In his heart, he wanted to drink, so he didn’t mind lying to himself. That helped ease his conscience just enough to get the opening to his lips. Then it wouldn’t matter anymore. His need for booze would take over.

He upended the bottle, and
precious whiskey filled his mouth. He allowed sip after sip of the fiery substance to slide down his throat. Oh, but that was good. The warmth going down his throat, and then the heat in his stomach—there was nothing better in the world.

Soon, the buzz would hit his mind, and everything would be
cozy. Keith laughed, a bubbly sound, and lifted the flagon again.

He noticed
a slight movement to his left. Then, something hard struck, and the green bottle shattered in his hand. Glass flew everywhere. Some gashed his hand. One piece cut his lip. Whiskey soaked the front of his uniform, and the rest rained onto the floor.

B
linking in shock, Keith turned.

Captain Maddox stood there with a baton in his grip.

Keith opened his mouth, too stunned to speak. He wanted to curse the man. Blood dripped from his hand. A look into the captain’s eyes killed any accusation.

“Ensign Maker,” Maddox said
, speaking calmly as if nothing had happened. “Several days ago, you suggested I was tossing you a rope and hauling you out of the abyss. Am I correct in saying that?”

Keith licked his lips, and tasted blood.
His brain throbbed with indignation.

“I’m addressing you, Ensign.
I’m asking you a question. I expect an answer.”

Keith touched his lip. He stared at the blood on his fingers. Then he looked at Maddox again.

“I am your rope, Ensign. I
am
going to help you break the habit. I need a pilot with a clear mind and perfect reflexes.”

“Are you going to beat me with your baton?”
Keith asked.

“
Negative. I respect you too much to thrash you as if you’re a convict.”

Keith raised his hand, the one with the gash where blood dripped.
“This is some way of showing your respect, mate.”

“That is incorrect,” Maddox said. “My respect compels me to
act. If I didn’t respect you, I would let you drink to your heart’s delight and leave you on one of the planets we’re passing.”

“
Leave me with what I know about the mission?” Keith asked.

“Yes.”

Keith couldn’t help it. He believed the man. This Captain Maddox was as hard as nails. He meant to defeat the New Men. Keith liked that about Maddox. In fact, he realized he respected the man, and he felt shame for this encounter.

“I want you to pay attention
to me,” Maddox said.

Keith nodded.

Maddox set the baton aside. Then he held out his hand. In the middle of the palm sat a dull black pill.

“The mission is everything,” Maddox said. “We don’t have time to rehabilitate you the old way. I need you now, Ensign. I wondered if you had the willpower to desist for the length of the operation. I’m afraid the allure of intoxication has a stronger grip on you than you realize.
Therefore, it’s time for stronger medicine. This time, literally.”

“You mean that pill?” Keith asked.

“Take it,” Maddox said.

With his left hand,
Keith plucked the pill out of the captain’s palm.

“You have a choice,” Maddox said.
“This pill, the first of several, will begin to react inside you. After a few days, it will have reconditioned your body. If you drink alcohol after that, you will become very sick, as in vomiting.”

“What,” Keith said. “Are you crazy
? I’m not taking this.” He held up the pill.

“Ah. Well, then you leave me no choice. Good-bye, Mr. Maker.”
Maddox turned and headed for the hatch.

“That’s it?” Keith asked.
“That’s the end of your talk?”

Maddox halted
, but he didn’t turn around. “I believe I made myself clear some time ago.”

“About what
, sir?”

“
Ship discipline,” Maddox said.

Keith scowled. He needed to get his hand bandaged,
maybe even have it stitched. “So where does this leave us?”

“Once you
clean up, you can leave your uniform on your cot. You won’t need it anymore.”

“Wait a minute. You’re saying
I’m finished here?”

“
Precisely,” Maddox said.

“But you need me. You need a fantastic pilot.
You said so yourself.”

“True,” Maddox said. “Yet
, the rest of us can’t rely on a crewmember that won’t follow orders. We must function as a team, or this won’t work.”

“So if I want to stay on this crazy mission, I have to take your
bloody pill?”

Maddox stood silently with his back to Keith.

The small ace weighed the black pill in his hand. He shook his head. Part of him hated Maddox. Part of him didn’t want to let the man down. He’d seen the officer in operation. If anyone could see this mission through to the end—
“I don’t believe this,” Keith said. He popped the pill into his mouth and forced himself to swallow it. When he looked up, Captain Maddox
was facing him.