Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  An unfamiliar chamber took form around me. Bleak and aseptic, the walls were steel and lead-laced to keep out radiation. There were windows, but they were small, triangular affairs with fogged glass. Beyond these apertures, the dull rust-colored light of Mars glowed.

  In the chamber with me was an elderly man. He wasn’t an oldster—at least, I didn’t get that impression. Oldsters were accounted as people who well over a century in age.

  “Hello Captain Sparhawk,” he said, clasping his hands in front of his lab coat and smiling at me coldly. “I’m Director Vogel, and I’m in charge of this facility. We’ve been expecting your call. You’re the first to detect and identify our project.”

  “That’s only to be expected,” I said. “The other ships in Defiant’s wake aren’t within sensor range yet.”

  Vogel nodded. “They’re also poorly designed to detect threats—they’re only built to eradicate them.”

  “You mentioned a project? I can only surmise you’re talking about the ship orbiting Mars.”

  “Just so. The Iron Duke is our pride and joy. We only launched her yesterday. She’ll form the core of Earth’s task force when she’s ready.”

  I frowned, despite the fact I was trying not to. “Can you tell me more about this Iron Duke, Director?”

  Vogel cleared his throat.

  “You must understand this is highly classified information,” he answered carefully. “I can’t tell you anything you don’t need to know. I will say, that there’s no danger to your fleet. Please approach Phobos and dock at Pier Three. I’m willing to personally entertain you and your questions until Admiral Halsey arrives.”

  Breaking the connection after the usual pleasantries, I retreated into my own skull and again sat in my chair aboard Defiant.

  The whole affair was disquieting. Could Vogel be a Stroj agent? Stranger things had happened.

  It was difficult in today’s climate of secrecy to be sure who to trust. We were all tight-lipped due to our worries about Stroj infiltrators. But that very lack of trust, and the fear that was the root cause of it, heightened everyone’s sense of paranoia.

  After considering Vogel’s offer for a few minutes, I decided to order Durris to dock at Pier Three.

  I had little choice. It was my mission to investigate these things to protect the main fleet. I was just going to have to take Director Vogel’s word at face value.

  Nine hours later we’d completed our deceleration regimen and glided into port near Phobos. The gentle tug of her gravity was only one or two hundredths that of Earth, but we still had to employ stabilizers to keep our ship from drifting down to the surface.

  Once we’d docked, I left Durris in charge of the ship and headed to the docking bay.

  Pier Three was a long tube of nano-ferrous metal that stuck out like a thin tongue into space. We’d attached ourselves to the end of it, and from the docking bay I rode a capsule down to the surface.

  Behind me walked Zye and Yamada. Inside the lab complex, we engaged our magnetics. Our boots clicked rhythmically as we made our way down the echoing hallways.

  More than just a security grunt, Zye was one of the best among my crew at detecting Stroj influences. I valued her opinions under any suspicious circumstances.

  As my science and communications officer, Yamada was a clear choice to round out the team. She could help me to understand this briefing if necessary.

  I’d thought about bringing along Marine Commander Morris, but I’d passed on the idea. This was supposed to be a meet-and-greet, not a boarding assault.

  A familiar face met us at the end of the first passageway. It was Director Vogel. His hands were laced before his body as they’d been before. He wore an odd smile, and his lips seemed to be too long and sharply curved upwards at the corners.

  Reflexively, I smiled in return and nodded to him.

  “Welcome to Phobos, Captain Sparhawk,” he said. “I see you’ve brought some of your crew with you.”

  “Yes. This is Lieutenant Commander Yamada and Lieutenant Zye.”

  Both women were attractive and Asian in appearance, but they were built on dramatically different scales. Zye was a Beta colonist, a clone hybrid designed to survive under high gravity and difficult conditions. She was taller than I was but built with heavy bones and musculature.

  Yamada was much more classic in design. Her straight black hair was several centimeters longer than regulations allowed, but no one had challenged her on that point.

  “Excellent…” Vogel said, looking them over briefly. “What a contrast… Come this way, please.”

  Zye and Yamada exchanged glances, but I didn’t respond to his slightly rude behavior.

  We followed him into the bowels of the place. Now and then, as we passed various pressure doors and portholes, we spotted more personnel. They were universally dressed in lab coats or vac suits. Everyone seemed very professional and focused on their tasks.

  “Director Vogel,” Yamada said, speaking up for the first time. “I’ve checked into the records. There are only six hundred people stationed on Phobos. Are you telling us you managed to build that huge ship out there with such a tiny crew?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her, and his oddly permanent smile lengthened. “Yes,” he said, “that’s exactly what I’m saying. We have only a small team here, but we’ve accomplished a great deal.”

  “Hard to believe,” Zye said.

  He glanced at her and his smile faded a little. He paused and stopped walking. “Ah, the Beta,” he said, referring to Zye. “I’ve studied you from afar, madam. You’re a known deceiver, and yet you’re suspicious of all others. Can you explain this combination of personality traits?”

  Zye shrugged. She was indeed different from everyone else on Earth, but it rarely seemed to bother her. She didn’t bat an eye at the Director’s challenge.

  “Yes, I can explain,” she said. “Someone who has told countless lies to survive also learns to recognize that behavior in others.”

  Vogel’s mouth twitched, but his frozen smile stayed in place. “Pray then, what do you detect from my conduct?”

  “Arrogance, mild deception and condescension. On the personal side, a lifetime of academia has apparently led to social disconnection and—”

  I cleared my throat and took a step forward, placing myself between the two. “Let me explain, Vogel. Zye is not—”

  “Not entirely civilized by Earth standards? Yes, I know. As I said, I’ve studied her from afar. I’m still fascinated, if somewhat disappointed. Let me show you our work. Perhaps everything will become clear then.”

  He led us to a chamber with a floor of black glass. It was circular and about ten meters across.

  “This is the observation deck. Below us are the construction facilities.”

  We looked at one another in confusion—but not Zye. She stood near the Director, tense and wary. For once, I couldn’t fault her paranoia. After all, we’d been ambushed by people who seemed far less odd than Vogel.

  Vogel spread his hands. “Don’t you want to see it?”

  “Yes,” I said, “show me what you’re talking about.”

  The floor beneath our feet shifted. The shift wasn’t slow or subtle, it was fast and alarming.

  One second, we were standing on a gloss-black floor which was perfectly flat and smooth. The next, we were standing on nothing.

  The floor seemed to vanish. As we didn’t fall, I could only surmise that it had become transparent. The transparency was so perfect that it seemed as if we were floating in the air.

  A very great distance below us was a vast work area. Machine tools of every sort buzzed and whined. The audio had cut in just as suddenly as had the visual.

  None of this was more than momentarily alarming. But then we got a closer look at the figures operating the power tools.

  They weren’t entirely human. Shapes with multiple arms, multiple legs and even multiple heads in some cases were moving down there, working on small craft.

/>   Sleek ships, dozens of them, were all over the factory floor. The odd workers scuttled from one ship to the next, moving with alien dexterity and speed.

  “They’re all different,” Yamada said, gasping.

  “The fighters?” Vogel asked in surprise. “Not at all. They’re all identical, other than their numbers and state of construction.”

  “Fool!” Zye growled.

  Suddenly, she grabbed Vogel. She gripped him by the neck, actually lifting him into the air so that his feet dangled. Fortunately, the gravity was slight, or he might have been seriously injured.

  “She’s talking about the workers!” Zye shouted into Vogel’s shocked face. “They’re all different from one another.”

  “Specialized, yes,” Vogel gargled past Zye’s fingers. “They’re modified to perform unique tasks. Why has this elicited a violent reaction?” He craned his neck and his wide eyes looked at me plaintively. “Sparhawk, call off your Beta. She’s gone mad!”

  I stepped forward, placing my hands on my hips. Yamada was still staring down into the factory floor, fascinated and horrified at the same time.

  Zye was fixated upon Vogel. I could tell from long experience she wanted to murder him immediately.

  For once, I couldn’t fault her for her instincts.

  “Let me explain our negative reactions, Director,” I told Vogel.

  His mouth worked like that of a fish, and his eyes bulged in alarm. His insipid smile had vanished completely.

  “The creatures below us are all too familiar to me and my veteran crew. They are the enemy. They are Stroj.”

  Vogel made a choking sound. His slender fingers clawed at Zye’s own thick digits.

  She relaxed them only enough to let him speak.

  “Of course they resemble such creatures,” he said. “How else did you think we could build Iron Duke in such a short time? Humans couldn’t do it. Robots would take too long to be programmed for each task.”

  I stared down at the floor, my heart sinking. Had CENTCOM gone mad?

  “You admit, then, that these creatures are hybrids of humans and machines? Cyborgs? You copied our enemy’s designs to speed up production of the fleet?”

  He was unable to answer, so I waved for Zye to put Vogel down.

  Reluctantly, she released him. He rubbed at his neck and looked at us strangely.

  “It was the only way,” Vogel said. “It’s my greatest achievement. These workers aren’t Stroj. I’m not a Stroj.”

  “If I thought you were, you’d be dead already,” Zye growled again. “You’re worse than a Stroj. You’re a fool.”

  I nodded, unable to disagree.

  “I’d never anticipated such a reaction,” Vogel said. “Dignitaries I’ve brought here have always laughed and applauded.”

  “That’s because they’ve never met the Stroj face-to-face,” I told him.

  I was unable to take my eyes from the scene below us. The entire time we’d argued and watched from up here, the creatures below us had remained absolutely focused on their tasks.

  They were the ultimate workers, I had to admit that.

  -3-

  At length, we received a more complete explanation from Director Vogel. The Phobos team had been assigned an impossible task: to come up with a means of multiplying industrial production. Worse, this improvement had to be realized in space, not on any planetary surface. Once the Council had approved the budget to build a new fleet, development of experimental industrial methods had quickly become the sole purpose of the lab complex here on Phobos.

  In the past, the academics stationed on this remote outpost had limited their interests to things like asteroid mining techniques for ice and gas reclamation. They’d never been fully-funded or allowed to push the limits of their scientific know-how.

  That had all changed after Earth had encountered a serious threat from her colonies. Now, the powerful people who ruled our home world wanted their best minds to produce miracles. Nothing was off-limits. No plan would be rejected—as long as it achieved results.

  “So,” I said, speaking in the relatively neutral ground of a conference room, “you were inspired by the design of the Stroj. You studied them, took samples, and built your own versions?”

  “No,” Vogel said, “we did not copy the colonist tech. We appropriated the concepts only. In my opinion, we vastly improved upon their primitive, ad hoc designs.”

  “You think you made improvements?” Yamada asked. “Like what?”

  “We’ve built a variety of highly specialized types, for one. Some are brutes for lifting and placing parts. Others—the ones with numerous small limbs and thin fingers—do the finer work. Still others start off with many optical organs to keep watch on the rest and coordinate the complex manufacturing steps for maximum efficiency.”

  Pride had crept back into his voice, despite our group’s obvious disapproval.

  “Who then, Director, approves the final state of these… beings?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Not us,” he admitted. “We give them a starting point which consists of one of the basic designs. After working for a time, the variants begin to reconfigure themselves. They seem to enjoy it.”

  “Variants?” I asked.

  “That’s what we call them. They’re not entirely human, admittedly. They’re variant humans. People who’ve been enhanced for the good of us all.”

  “I see…” I said.

  Director Vogel eyed each of us in turn, and he took offense at our dour expressions.

  “Look,” he said, “we’re not monsters. Neither are the variants! For raw materials, we only use volunteers shipped up here from Earth. These people are patriots who wish to forward the cause of Earth’s defense. After a minimal mind-scrub, we regrow their basic biologicals and plant them in an artificial chassis. They do the rest, adding mechanical enhancements as they see fit.”

  Yamada leaned forward. “Do these things talk to you? Are they happy? Are they even human anymore?”

  Vogel shrugged and avoided her gaze. “They don’t speak much—but not because they lack the wit to do so. They don’t always need speech. They communicate with packet radio faster than we can with words. They seem happy with their status. Each of them does the work of a hundred trained men. That’s a source of great pride to everyone on Phobos!”

  Yamada shuddered. I caught that, and I understood it. So far, we’d been unable to get Director Vogel to understand our misgivings. He seemed stubbornly defensive concerning his abominable creations.

  “You have to meet them for yourself,” he insisted. “You have to witness their incredible efficiency.”

  Yamada and I exchanged glances, saying nothing, but then Zye spoke up.

  She hadn’t spoken since we’d first reacted in shock to the variants. Now, she leaned forward and fixed the Director with an unfriendly stare.

  “You believe yourself to be wise and powerful, but you’re not. You are foolish.”

  Director Vogel’s face reddened. I doubted he was accustomed to having his intellect questioned.

  “Zye—” I began, but Vogel waved me off.

  “No,” he said. “Let her speak. She knows what she means to say, and I’d like to hear it. Accepting criticism of one’s own work is the hallmark of any scientist.”

  “You’ve created evil here,” Zye said. “These beings aren’t human—at least, not human enough to trust. They must be destroyed.”

  “Destroyed? Would you order workers killed after a factory is shut down? Besides, they haven’t finished their task yet.”

  “They’ve built your ship, haven’t they?” I asked.

  “Yes, but only the mothership. The smaller vessels aren’t all completed. There are thousands more scheduled to be produced over the next month.”

  “I’m beginning to understand,” I said. “That massive vessel circling Mars isn’t a battleship, is it?”

  “No. It’s a carrier, a star carrier. It’s an entirely new class of ship, and the largest Earth
has ever produced.”

  “How many fighters can it carry?” I asked.

  Vogel shrugged. “That’s classified information.”

  “You mentioned thousands?” I pressed.

  Vogel let his smile creep back onto his face. “She is a very large vessel.”

  “How long?” demanded Zye. “How long will the construction of these fighters take?”

  “The variants work with amazing speed. They’re taking in raw metallic ore constantly and processing it as fast as we can bring it in. We have a shipment from the belt impacting every six hours, around the clock. The refinery workers catch the spheroids of high-grade ore as they impact Limtoc Crater. Each shipment is then processed and sent on to the fabrication crews, and after that—”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, “you’re talking about different teams of variants, right? Multiple teams?”

  “Of course.”

  After further questioning, I leaned back in defeat. Director Vogel wouldn’t tell me much about the capabilities of the star carrier, but he was boastful about his shipyard. The labs of Phobos had been turned into a construction facility. There were variants all over this tiny moon, performing countless tasks. The few he’d shown us were only the final assembly team.

  “And now,” he said at length, “I must bid you farewell. The next tour starts within the hour. This tour is at an end.”

  “The next tour?”

  “Yes. Admiral Halsey is about to arrive. If you want any further information, you’ll have to talk to him.”

  Vogel’s attitude had turned sour. He didn’t want to talk to us any longer, that much was clear. He’d grown tired of our mistrust and dire warnings.

  We were ushered out of the facility with expediency. The long ride back to Defiant was a brooding one.

  Zye looked out the capsule windows, such as they were. She stared down at the rough, curving surface of Phobos.

  Yamada tapped at her mobile computer, and it glowed up into the faceplate of her pressure suit.

  “I think they have thousands of these variant creatures,” Yamada said, “all over the moon. Probably, there are more of them out in the belt. The old-school belters as we knew them would have a hard time generating all the raw materials needed in such a short time.”