The Lost Secret by Vaughn Heppner

Author:Vaughn Heppner [Heppner, Vaughn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-09T22:00:00+00:00

-47-

The next day, shipboard time, the Star Cruiser Paralos used its star-drive jump to move from 9000 AUs in the Oort cloud to three million kilometers from the third planet of the system. It was a dark world with low nickel-iron mountains and sludgy valleys of sulfur, bubbling from vents reaching to the mantle.

Golden Ural was on the bridge, sitting to one side. Samos of Thetis was in the captain’s chair. He was a thickset dominant with large hands and prematurely white hair. He ran an efficient vessel, which soon neared the five-kilometer ship. From what they saw on the main screen, their target was in even greater disrepair than originally suspected.

There was a long main body: a tubular section five kilometers long. Attached to the tube were thousands of independent cylindrical pods. Slender shafts or spokes connected the pods to the main tubular vessel. The bow held the obvious bridge and the stern had the thrusters and engine and presumably fuel pods.

“During its operational days, they might have rotated the ship to simulate gravity in the pods,” the science officer suggested.

Ural was inclined to agree. That struck him as strange, however, as it implied the ship lacked gravity control. How was that possible for an ancient Builder vessel? The Builders had possessed greater technology, not lesser.

Samos turned to Ural. “I’ll bring you to within five thousand kilometers of the wreck. You can board the shuttle and complete the journey with it.”

Ural stood. “Do you mind if I monitor your science officer?”

Samos gave the barest of nods before swiveling back to the main screen.

Ural crossed the bridge to the science station and watched and listened as the officer ran his scans of the derelict ship.

It had hundreds of hull breaches to the main tubular section, tens of thousands if one counted all the cylindrical pod attachments. Most of the breaches were the size of Samos’s fist—larger than an ordinary fist. This seemed to imply a shotgun-type weapon. The science officer confirmed the lack of life or energy readings. He estimated the wreck at seven hundred years old, give or take several decades.

When finished, the science officer looked up at Ural.

Ural touched the sub-superior on the left shoulder before turning to Samos. “I’m satisfied. With your permission…?”

“Freely granted,” Samos said. He paused, eyeing Ural. “I was with you at the Battle of Gomez System.”

“Ah.”

“I have always admired your tactical brilliance.”

“Thank you. I admire your ship handling.”

“I…wonder about Strand,” Samos said.

“Oh?”

“Naturally, the Emperor has the situation under control, and that includes the Methuselah Man scoundrel.”

“Such is my own opinion,” Ural said.

Samos stared at him. “Yet…I mistrust Strand.”

“I will be on my guard.”

“Perhaps…he had better be on his, eh?”

Ural thought about that. Samos had been among the first to cheer the Emperor’s suggestion about traveling to the Library Planet. Would the dominant have changed his opinion in such a short span? It seemed unlikely. Thus—a test, Ural suspected. Trahey must have put Samos up to it.

Ural smiled softly. “If Strand performs for the Emperor, who am I to complain? I, too, wish for the greater glory of the Throne World.

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