“We can’t face a star cruiser again,” Dana had told him.
“Do you think they’re waiting for us?” Maddox had asked.
“I think the New Men don’t give up easily. They must realize we escaped the alien system and how we did it. Yes, I think they’re hunting for us. We must be ready for the worst. They’re out there somewhere.”
Maddox’s stomach growled loud enough so Lieutenant Noonan looked up. When their eyes met, she looked away.
“Food,” she said.
“I feel like a desperate predator ready to tackle a bull elephant for lunch,” Maddox said. “We may have to figure out how to use one of the shuttles and take it down onto the fourth planet.”
“I volunteer to go,” Valerie said.
“I believe I’ll be the one going down onto the planet,” Maddox said.
The lieutenant looked up, shocked. “Sir, you can’t leave the ship now. You’re too valuable. No one else can speak with… it,” she said, using her chin to jut at the tiny holoimage.
The thing gave her a fervent glance.
“Sir,” Valerie said, “I think it knows what we’re—”
“Lieutenant!” Maddox said, interrupting her. “Whatever you were going to say, don’t.”
She grew pale, nodding quickly. “I’m sorry, sir. The thing gives me the creeps. It listens to us much too—”
“Lieutenant,” Maddox said, “desist your line of reasoning.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“We’re about to jump,” he said. “We must be ready for anything. Think about that.”
Valerie waited before saying, “This next jump is exciting and terrifying at the same time.”
With his hunger, Maddox found it difficult to concentrate on anything but food. He’d finished the last of his rations. He could commandeer someone else’s, but he didn’t feel right doing so. If this star system failed to provide them with food… nothing else mattered anyway.
“Inform the others we’re about to make the jump,” Maddox said.
Valerie opened intra-ship channels and told the crew to prepare for the next use of the star drive. Then she got up, moving to a different station. There, using the thin rod to tap slot-controls, the lieutenant made the last jump to the new system.
-41-
The ancient starship Victory slid toward the fourth planet of the system.
The G class star was eight percent larger than Sol. It had a similar luminosity and ten planets. The inner system contained four of those planets; the outer had five gas giants and a Pluto-like world. There were no asteroid belts or visible comets.
“Well?” Maddox asked.
“No artificial satellites orbit the fourth planet, sir,” Valerie said. “It has two small moons, which we already knew.”
“Yes, I see those,” Maddox said.
“The industrial index shows that the greatest concentration is on the approaching continent, sir, the one shaped like an octagon.”
The starship was several hundred thousand kilometers from the fourth planet, about the distance of the Moon from Earth. It was a blue-green world similar to Terra. The octagonal-shaped landmass facing them radiated the most industrial signs.
“I’m detecting nuclear power,” Valerie said, sounding surprised.
“Good. What about radio waves?”
“Nothing,” Valerie said. “I have no indication they know we’re out here.”
“That seems strange,” Maddox said.
“I agree, sir.”
“Well, we need food. Start calculating an orbital entry above the planet.”
“Sir?” the lieutenant asked.
Maddox glanced at her, and then he remembered himself. He wasn’t on the Geronimo. This was Victory. “Sorry, Lieutenant,” he said. “Old habits die hard.” The captain thereupon gave his orders to the holoimage.
The starship shuddered as the vessel’s engines applied power, slowing the mighty craft so it could soon enter planetary orbit.
“We made it,” Valerie said. “We’re really here. I can hardly wait to see what kind of foodstuffs they have.”
“Yes,” Maddox said absently. “We’re here.”
“Is something wrong, sir?”
“I wish our new starship had the instruments to sense the system’s Laumer-Points. How many tramlines run into this star system? How do they link with the others? Are the beings down there men or some new alien species?”
“We’ll know some of the answers soon enough, sir.”
A half-hour passed and the planet loomed before them.
“Oh-oh,” Valerie said, as she studied her board.
The words sent a shudder down Maddox’s spine. “What’s wrong? What are you sensing?”
“There was something and now there’s nothing,” Valerie said quietly. She used her rod to stab controls. “If I were on the Geronimo, I’d know how to replay what I just picked up.”
“What—”
“It came from the nearest moon,” Valerie said, “the one swinging toward us.”
“Computer,” Maddox said to the holoimage. That’s what he’d taken to calling it. “Did you pick up those readings?”
“I did,” the tiny image told him.
“What was it?”
“A broadcaster,” it said.
“Where did it broadcast?” Maddox asked.
“Toward the inner planets,” the holoimage told him.
“What—”
“Sir,” Valerie said, with horror in her voice. “Look! That has to be the Saint Petersburg. I’d recognized its shape anywhere.”
Maddox stepped toward her screen. He saw the familiar shape. The SWS destroyer used the smallest moon, accelerating as it swung around it. The warship sped at them. It would appear the enemy vessel had been using the moon to hide from them.
“Its laser batteries are charging,” Valerie said. “Do they mean to try to take us down, sir?”
Maddox stared at the screen. Despite his hunger and the shriveled state of his stomach, his mind now moved at lightning speed. If the destroyer raced at them… it must have sent the broadcast signal toward the inner planets. That implied reinforcements, which in turn likely meant at least one star cruiser. If two enemy vessels were in this system, it stood to reason the New Men—maybe Per Lomax in particular—had deduced Victory’s state of ill repair. That would indicate the New Men had studied the nearby planets and made a calculated ambush site: where the alien starship would go. Either that was the case or the enemy had tracking systems able to cross light-years. That seemed improbable. Therefore, the New Men’s heightened intellect had probably reasoned out what their best chance of success would be against the ancient starship.
In these precious seconds of lightning thought, Maddox realized humanity indeed faced its gravest challenge. These beings were supermen in every way.
“What are we going to do, sir?” Valerie asked. “We can’t enter planetary orbit now. The Saint Petersburg will destroy us. If there’s a star cruiser nearby—”
“We must replenish our food stocks,” Maddox said.
“Not at the cost of our lives, sir.”
Maddox blinked once, twice, three times before he laughed.
“We’ll have to jump far away, sir,” Valerie said. “I don’t see what else we can do.”
“Negative,” Maddox told her. “The enemy has just made his greatest mistake.”
“Sir?” asked Valerie.
“Computer,” Maddox told the holoimage. “Can you focus the neutron beam into a tighter ray?”