Maddox knew that. He waited as the tumbling engine continued away from them and toward the approaching destroyer. The distances were too great between the vessels to make much of a difference. The captain waited for the engine to be far enough away from the comet.
During the wait, the lasers sliced through the ice and past the hidden scout. The attack lasted long enough for the beams to reach the other side of the comet, stabbing through.
“The destroyer is retargeting,” Valerie said. “They must know they missed us with the first shot.”
Beaming once again, the lasers tried another area of the comet.
“Now,” Maddox told Keith. “Send the signal.”
The pilot did just that.
Seconds later, the engine with its atomic pile went critical, creating a thermonuclear fireball. That blocked the beams. The ice protected them from the EMP wash and the heat and radiation expanding back to them.
“The destroyer’s deflector shields snapped on,” Valerie said.
“Blow the next engine,” Maddox said. “We’ll try this again.”
Per Lomax of the Race refused to let the trick play out a second time. He used the destroyer’s beams to melt the next engine before the atomic pile could go critical.
“It’s no good,” Valerie said, her eyes so wide the whites showed as she stared at him.
“Wrong,” Maddox told her. “While the destroyer’s beams struck the engine, they weren’t needling through the comet. Ensign, blow off the next engine.”
For the next several minutes, the comet detached engine after engine. The Saint Petersburg destroyed them one at a time, beaming into the comet between intervals.
“The Laumer-Point is approaching,” Valerie shouted.
“I can hear you just fine, Lieutenant,” Maddox said in a calm voice.
She cast him a harried look but nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said in a more controlled voice.
“Activate the Laumer Drive,” Maddox told Keith.
“Aye-aye, Captain, sir.”
They watched the board, watched—
“It’s not activating,” Valerie groaned. Then a green light flashed. “Wait! The Laumer-Point is opening, Captain.”
Maddox grinned fiercely. “Get ready for jump,” he said.
“The lasers,” Keith said. “They’re digging straight for the scout this time.”
Maddox glanced at his board. He knew the lasers wouldn’t make it in time. “We’re going in, people.”
“Will we make it through the red giant’s photosphere?” Valerie asked.
“That,” Maddox said, “is the question of the hour.”
-30-
The comet with Geronimo embedded within shot down the wormhole. Flashing through the non-liner medium, the mass of ice, snow, rock and other debris exited the unstable tramline as an intact whole. It appeared inside the outer edge a red giant’s photosphere.
Immediately, the 3000 K of heat began transforming ice to water to steam and then down to its component particles.
The scout’s antigravity-pods screamed, screeched and soon smoked with complaint. The considerably lessened comet erupted out of the star’s surface like a bullet through a wall, speeding away. The heat continued to dissolve the comet, but at a lesser rate. Intense radiation struck the icy surface. Less of it reached the centrally placed scout, and the special hull blocked most of the deadly rays. Still, too many rads penetrated their bodies. Provided the crew survived the next few minutes, each of them would have to take heavy dosages of anti-rad medicine.
The minutes passed, and the ancient ice boiled away into vapor, leaving a great misty trail. The star’s gravity began to slow their velocity. Fortunately, they had built up to quite a speed before shooting through the Laumer-Point.
Ten minutes after entering the alien star system—if this was truly it—Maddox said, “We’re going to make it.”
Lieutenant Noonan swiveled around. She kept blinking. Finally, she smiled so hard it seemed as if it would crack her face open. She began to scream with laughter.
Ensign Maker joined in, gales of pent-up terror erupting as he howled with joy.
Maddox felt the maddening elation grip him as well. It bubbled, threatening release. Finally, he swallowed it down. Turning his head, he waited, letting the other two enjoy their well-earned moment of relief.
They were here, heading away from the red giant. What would the ancient star system show them? He was eager to find out.
Now comes the hard part. I have to convince Doctor Rich to help us. Either that, or I have to drug her with truth serum and see if I can get useful data out of her.
Like a newborn chick, Geronimo burst out of the shell of what remained of the comet. It was a sick scout in too many ways. Most of the crew suffered from the radiation treatments.
Maddox felt the effects the least. Meta was in a similar condition. Riker and Doctor Rich were the sickest.
The Star Watch spaceship was in poor repair. The gravity generator had become inoperable. The antigravity pods limped along, and the cloaking device refused to respond. They lacked ship’s cannons of any kind. They didn’t even have a missile or a mine to their name.
“We made it to the star system,” Maddox said, “but we’re in no condition to do anything.”
He sat beside Lieutenant Noonan as she wheezed on the robo-doctor.
“What’s it…” she coughed weakly. “What’s it like out here?” she whispered.
Maddox used a portable holo-unit. With a control, he clicked it on. The box hummed and an image of the star system spread out before them. Valerie raised her head, examining it.
Maddox did likewise. It was surreal. Little red dots showed the position of drifting space hulks, wrecks from an ancient war. Humanity might have fought with chariots at that time, the charioteers hurling javelins at each other. There wasn’t a mere thousand or ten thousand wrecks. It was more like fifty thousand drifting hulks.
“Incredible,” Valerie whispered. “It’s a graveyard of starships.”
Maddox nodded. Fifty thousand odd spaceships drifting from a war fought so long ago that all memory of the reasons had vanished with the alien races. Had it been two alien species fighting each other? Maybe it had been two subspecies like the New Men and old humanity struggling for dominance and existence.
From one end of the star system to the other, the hulks drifted, orbiting the monstrous red giant.
“Where are the planets?” Valerie asked.
“The professor’s notes told the truth,” Maddox said. “There’re aren’t any planets left, just thickened asteroid globules showing what once must have been worlds.”
“No gas giants either?” she asked.
“Gases in thick profusion and nickel-iron asteroids,” Maddox said, “but not planets. Whatever weapons the aliens used, planet busters seem to be among them.”
Valerie tore her gaze from the holoimage to stare at Maddox. “Is there any sign of the sentinel?”
The captain felt a growing numbness in his heart. He shook his head.
“What? You mean there never was one?” Valerie asked.
“If it’s here, the sentinel is hidden.”
“Sneaking up on us?” she asked.
Maddox stared at her. “I don’t like to think of that.”
Swallowing audibly, Valerie asked, “Is there any sign the Saint Petersburg followed us down the wormhole?”
“None,” Maddox said. “If they did, the red giant’s photosphere overloaded their deflector shields and annihilated the destroyer.”
“If there’s no sentinel…” Valerie said.
Just then, the scout’s interior alarms rang. The ship’s intercom came online. Ensign Maker spoke between bouts of coughing. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have company. The alien sentinel is barreling straight for our ship.”