“Where are you going, sir?” the lieutenant asked.
“I have a new argument to present to the doctor,” he said. “Wish me luck.”
“Not this time,” Valerie said.
Maddox was already headed for the hatch. He halted and glanced at her.
“This time, we need something stronger,” Valerie said. “I’m going to pray.”
“Ah,” Maddox said. Then he hurried for the corridor.
Maddox didn’t bother knocking. He simply opened the hatch and stepped through.
Doctor Rich sat up in bed, scanning a reader. She gave him a bored look then went back to reading.
He closed the hatch and locked it. Meta had tried to enter once when he’d done something like this before. He didn’t want that happening again.
Maddox pulled up a chair, sat down and began to wait. After fifteen minutes, he realized Dana Rich would never speak first. Part of him wanted to get up and leave.
Don’t be absurd, he told himself. Winning a stubbornness contest with the doctor means nothing. Gaining the alien sentinel to defeat the New Men is the only measurement of victory.
“I have news,” he said.
He saw the fingers holding the reader tighten slightly. Slowly, she lowered the device to her lap. Maddox had the feeling she’d been waiting anxiously for him to talk. Maybe it had been hard on her to outwait him. If he’d stalled just a little longer…
“I’m reading an interesting chapter,” she said. “So I hope you can get to the point and leave me in peace.”
She’s bluffing. She must desperately want to talk. Even a tough bird like her will crack over time. She’s smart, but she’s not immune to the same defects and needs we all possess.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll be brief. A star cruiser had taken up the chase.”
“You mean one of the New Men’s special cruisers?” she asked.
“Precisely,” Maddox said.
“And you’ve rushed to tell me this for what reason?”
“I would have thought it obvious.”
“My wits have atrophied since you’ve locked me in,” Dana said. “Why don’t you explain the reason to me?”
“It’s simple enough. The destroyer lost our trail. Now one of the star cruisers has taken up the slack. Possibly, it indicates the New Men’s starship has always been there.”
“Hmm, possibly,” Dana agreed.
“There might be more star cruisers.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” she said.
“I believe that proves the New Men’s agents in Star Watch have divined our objective or known it for quite some time.”
“I’m still not following you,” Dana said. “Why tell me any of this?”
“Don’t you see? The New Men must believe that our objective is possible. If it were impossible, why use important cruisers to trail a scout?”
With her brow furrowed, Dana glanced back down at her reader. A smile worked its way onto her mouth as she looked back up. “I can see how you reached your conclusion. That they’re following us doesn’t make the impossible any more feasible. Instead, it proves the New Men are less a menace than you’ve painted them.”
“Why is that?” Maddox asked.
“The sentinel is beyond anyone. So, the New Men are as capable as we are of making misjudgments.”
“What if you’re wrong about this?” he asked.
“I’m not wrong,” Dana said. “Remember, I’ve been to the alien system. You haven’t, and neither have the New Men.”
Maddox watched her. Did she really believe what she said, or was she angling for something he couldn’t see yet?
“Even if you’re right,” he said, “the New Men are closing in on us.”
“Then you must outfox them, Captain. That means you should leave me in peace while you do your job. Please, go. Your insistence wearies me.”
Nodding slowly, Maddox dared to asked, “What happened to you, Doctor? Why are you so bitter?”
“Do you jest?” she asked. “Isn’t it obvious that my bitterness, as you put it, is caused by the powers that spurned my efforts and dropped me onto Loki Prime?”
“One of those powers also rescued you.”
Her dark features hardened. “Go away, Captain Maddox. Your presence annoys me.”
Reluctantly, he stood. He wanted to know the right words to unlock her heart. It seemed frozen on some bitter memory, some slight she refused to forget. Seeking those words, his mouth moved and his right arm rose as he made a forlorn gesture. Finally, silently admitting defeat once more, Captain Maddox retreated from her quarters.
By a combination of luck and hard work, the Geronimo easily beat the star cruiser to the tramline. Pushing the scout to its limit, they made five jumps in quick succession. They hopped from system to system. On the third jump, they raced away from Nemesis System frigates. The ships demanded identification, launching missiles after the scout refused all requests. Using an unstable wormhole, Geronimo barely slipped away. It saved them from the missiles, and it seemed to lengthen their lead over their adversaries.
Meta and Valerie worked overtime on the struggling engine. Keith helped them, and Sergeant Riker spelled the other two in order to keep an eye on an unflagging Meta. The Rouen Colony woman kept the scout running more than any other two of them combined.
All too often, Maddox sat hunched in his quarters, rereading the professor’s notes over and over. Even when his eyelids drooped, he forced himself to read, to think, to read some more.
The captain shuddered and awoke with a yell. Sweat slicked his face, and his heart pounded. He could only remember pieces of the dream, but it horrified him—a woman on the run had carried him in her womb.
“Mother?” he whispered.
Maddox squeezed his eyes shut. He’d never known his real mother, or his father, for that matter. Who had they been? What kind of people exactly? Would they have been proud of what he was trying to do, or would they have laughed at him?
My father—
Maddox’s head snapped upright. His eyes shined. He grabbed the professor’s notes and began to read for what felt like the one hundred and first time. What if “sun” meant “comet” and “asteroid” meant “star system?” That would mean— He jumped to his feet and turned on the computer. With the notes in one hand, he tapped in the coordinates on the computer and finally deciphered Ludendorff’s record of his visit to the alien star system. An hour later, Maddox had a chart leading into the Beyond. The departure point would be the Nine Whiskey Star System.
He pulled up a star chart and found they were four jumps from there. Afterward, he slumped in his chair with his gaze blurred. Could this be it? Had he truly broken the code that would bring them to the most legendarily haunted region in space?
There’s only one way to find out. He downloaded the information, sending it to Valerie’s computer in the control room. Then he hurried there to tell them the good news.
The next three weeks left the crew exhausted as they worked overtime keeping the scout running. Geronimo had left the Oikumene far behind. They ranged deeper and deeper into unknown territory. The Saint Petersburg and the New Men star cruiser had both shown up again, but the Geronimo had managed to shake them off.
Maddox imagined the New Men spreading a net after each jump the scout made out of their sight. There were only so many routes to choose from. Each enemy starship must head for a different point. Then, the enemy used their sensors in each newly-entered star system to search for the Geronimo.