SF Books by Vaughn Heppner

  THE A.I. SERIES:

  A.I. Destroyer

  The A.I. Gene

  A.I. Assault

  A.I. Battle Station

  A.I. Battle Fleet

  A.I. Void Ship

  A.I. Rescue

  A.I. Armada

  LOST STARSHIP SERIES:

  The Lost Starship

  The Lost Command

  The Lost Destroyer

  The Lost Colony

  The Lost Patrol

  The Lost Planet

  The Lost Earth

  The Lost Artifact

  The Lost Star Gate

  The Lost Supernova

  The Lost Swarm

  The Lost Intelligence

  The Lost Tech

  The Lost Secret

  The Lost Barrier

  The Lost Nebula

  The Lost Relic

  The Lost Task Force

  Visit VaughnHeppner.com for more information

  The Lost Task Force

  (Lost Starship Series 18)

  Vaughn Heppner

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Copyright © 2023 by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  -1-

  A peculiar anomaly began 40.7 light years from Earth, deep in the Trappist-1 System.

  The system star was a red dwarf nine percent the mass of the Sun, with a radius slightly larger than Jupiter. It had several terrestrial planets within the Inner System, all of them tidal locked. That meant each of the planets kept its same face to the red dwarf all of the time.

  The third planet was infested with human life. They lived in the Twilight Zone or Twilight Band, with heat radiating from the hot side and thus warming the territory. That meant the icy cold from the dark side also leaked there, meeting where the domed cities had risen.

  Zinc, the name for the third planet, was part of the Commonwealth and thus protected by Star Watch. Several defensive satellites ringed Zinc. Two SW destroyers and three escort vessels also patrolled the Inner System, basing out of the third planet.

  Zinc boasted a population of fifteen million people. Most were miners or were in some way connected with the Carstair Metals Mining Consortium.

  It was a medium-sized consortium as such things went, with offices and mines on three star systems and eleven planets. Three of those planets were in the Trappist-1 System.

  None of the mines on the other planets had more than four thousand effectives stationed there at any one time, and that would prove critical, for them.

  The stellar anomaly occurred a little more than thirteen million kilometers from Zinc. That made it 215 million kilometers from the fourth planet, Cobalt, between the third and fourth planets.

  No one in the Trappist-1 System knew anything about the anomaly…yet. To be fair, no one in the system had the sensors to detect such a thing.

  Still, the effect took place. Greater darkness appeared at the location. The darkness deepened, in a metaphysical sense, and spread to a distance of 222 kilometers in diameter. Soon, four lighter points appeared within the darkness. The four points grew in luminosity, becoming bright enough to detect with the human eye.

  In seconds, the bright points became so illuminated it was possible to detect four separate oval objects. Did that make them spaceships? Yes. The brightness came from exhausts of individual propulsion units.

  There was another anomaly, a distortion, possibly an opening of some kind. Before this, it seemed as if a film, or skin, or something was between the vessels and regular space. That something vanished as the four oval vessels became even clearer.

  Each seemed a replica of the other. Each had a fin up front, to the sides and on the bottom back. Each was blue-colored and contained a bubble canopy on the top front near the forward fin. Each was bigger by a factor than a Star Watch shuttle. That made each considerably smaller than a SW destroyer, but larger than a fighter.

  A single suited humanoid sat underneath each bubble canopy. Each wore a black-visor helmet with a flexible tube coming out the front and going down. Each humanoid had two elongated arms and a thin, elongated torso. Given the size and speed of the vessels, each of the beings seemed like a fighter pilot.

  Their helmeted heads swiveled as if they looked around and then down at the glowing consoles. Invisible waves traveled between the four vessels.

  No one in the Trappist-1 System knew it yet, but those were radio waves, as the four pilots communicated with each other.

  In less than three minutes since coming through, the four pilots zeroed in on Zinc and increased velocity in the habitable planet’s direction.

  The acceleration was much faster than any Star Watch fighter could achieve. That didn’t take folding into the equation, which made sense, as a fold wasn’t the same as increasing velocity, although a fold covered more space faster. The sharply increased acceleration would certainly have led any human observer to conclude the humanoids had anti-gravity dampeners assisting them.

  The four vessels covered a quarter of the thirteen million kilometers to the planet before a satellite operative from Outpost 3 spotted them.

  Ensign Pimentel watched spellbound for over three seconds. A warning klaxon awoke her from her stupor. Pimentel sputtered, wasting several precious seconds more. She was stocky and given to careful thought before speaking. Finally, however, Pimentel alerted the officer in charge.

  By that time, the four vessels had traveled another half a million kilometers closer to the planet.

  Perhaps because of that, Pimentel shouted the information a second time, as the watch officer had only looked up in annoyance the first.

  The watch officer, Lieutenant Givens, a skinny, geeky fellow with a stain on his tan uniform, reacted by breaking into a run. He reached Pimentel by the time the four vessels had gained an additional quarter million kilometers to Zinc.

  “Look!” Pimentel shouted, pointing at her screen with a black-painted fingernail.

  Givens did just that, his brown eyes bulging. “Where did they come from?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Contact them.”

  “Me?” Pimentel asked. That wasn’t her department.

  Lieutenant Givens whirled around, his eyes bulging just as much as before. “Where’s Bohost?” She was the comm officer.

  “She’s on her lunch break,” a marine said.

  Givens cursed, running to the comm board. Panting, flipping switches, he began the contact procedure.

  The four vessels were coming missile fast upon Zinc, and they had yet to slow down.

  “This is Outpost Three for the Planet Zinc,” Givens said. “We have you on visual. You’re traveling—identify yourselves at once.”

  There was no response.

  “Did you hear me?” Givens said. “Who are you? Identify yourselves or we’ll open fire.”

  The comm speaker crackled. “You want to know who we are?” a voice asked.

  Givens blinked with astonishment. There was something alien about the speaker even though the voice used standard Anglic with an odd accent.

  “Yes,” Givens said. “Who are you?”

  The alien laughed over the comm. “We’re your Angel of Doom, partner.”

  “What?”

  “Sir,” Pimentel said in alarm. “They’re launching missiles.”

  Givens looked over his shoulder at her. There was a sick knot in his gut. “What’s their target?”

  “I think it’s us, sir, Outpost Three.”

  A sheen of sweat had appeared on Givens’ high forehead. He bent over the comm, his sweaty forehead furrowed. “Why are you attacking us?” he asked with a rasp to his throat. “You must cease at once or you’ll be destroyed.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” the alien said.

  “Why are you attacking, dammit?”

  “That’s easy. The Ship needs you for fuel.”

  The sweaty forehead-furrows deepened. “What does that even mean?”

  “Good-bye, partner,” the alien said.

  “Sir!” Pimentel shouted. “Our AI has launched anti-missile rockets.”

  Givens looked up. “Use the lasers, too. We need to take out the…whatever they are.”

  “Me, sir?” Pimentel asked. “I’m not trained for weapons.”

  Givens looked across the chamber. Wayness must be on her lunch break as well, perhaps with Bohost. With the sick feeling spreading to his thin chest, Givens began running for the weapons station.

  “Sir,” Pimentel said. “The alien missiles are beaming.”

  Givens skidded across the deck, his long fingers reaching for the weapons panel.

  “The anti-missile rockets are moving at a crawl compared to theirs,” Pimentel said, her eyes glued to the screen. “The beams—”

  Ensign Pimentel never finished her thought. The alien beams punched through Outpost 3’s armored hull. The satellite didn’t have a shield generator. One of the beams hit a reactor, which caused an immediate explosion. A piece of shrapnel from the reactor blew through into
the control chamber and obliterated Pimentel’s head.

  Givens saw it, blanched at the spray of blood and then blew apart from the explosions destroying Outpost 3.

  Their part in the battle for Trappist-1 was over.

  -2-

  The four alien fighters used the same launched missiles—perhaps drones might be a better name, as they didn’t destroy themselves with warheads—beaming each of the Star Watch outposts orbiting Zinc, obliterating them one by one.

  Once the outposts were demolished, the drones re-maneuvered and attacked the three Star Watch escorts in orbit around the third planet.

  The escorts had attempted to destroy the alien craft during the outpost destruction phase, but without success. Now, the escorts were the targets.

  As the last escort blew apart, two huge antimatter missiles launched from the surface detonated. The wash of heat and radiation disintegrated the alien drones. Unfortunately, some of the wash—the heat, radiation and EMP—killed, maimed and injured several hundred thousand personnel in the domes directly below the blasts.

  The four alien fighters zoomed in different directions. Each deployed some kind of drop mine. The mines ignited thrusters and raced down through the atmosphere. The mines were incredibly dense and shrugged off anti-air fire even though three took direct hits. The mines detonated spectacularly three kilometers above the surface. The blasts took out two missile launch sites and another two hundred thousand people.

  The four alien fighters, meanwhile, kicked into high gear and roared up into near orbital space.

  The two Star Watch destroyers nosed around Zinc’s largest moon. The planet had three of them. This moon was half the size of Luna and 200 thousand kilometers from the planet. The destroyer bridge personnel had watched the events through hastily launched probes.

  The senior officer in charge now made his tactical decision. The destroyers—sleek vessels with crews of 34 and 37 respectively—began emergency burns for the third planet. The shields were at full strength, the torpedo tubes ready to launch and the fusion cannons primed to fire.

  Both destroyers tracked the four fighters. Both attempted communications with the enemy.

  There was none.

  The four alien fighters maneuvered into a diamond formation and accelerated toward the approaching destroyers. The fighters accelerated faster than seemed possible, at an incredible fifty gravities. That was daunting, especially given all that had happened so far.

  “Launch a spread of antimatter torpedoes,” the senior destroyer officer ordered.

  Each destroyer launched three in a staggered formation.

  Like everyone else on the two bridges, the senior officer had witnessed the destruction of the satellite outposts and learned that hundreds of thousands of people had died on the surface. This was an alien invasion. It had to be. He’d never seen such large and devastating fighters before. How could they accelerate like that?

  “I’m not detecting any enemy shields, sir,” the sensor operator said.

  As she spoke, a narrow green beam speared from each alien fighter. The beams struck the destroyer shields, two on one. Without preamble, each destroyer shield collapsed. The green beams continued, boring into the comparatively thinly armored hull of each destroyer.

  In seconds, the beams found volatile material and engines aboard the two Star Watch vessels. Terrific detonations blew apart each destroyer.

  No one on either destroyer made it to any escape pod.

  The explosions continued even as the destroyer-launched antimatter torpedoes ignited.

  As the first torpedo did so, the four alien fighters began to fade. Was that a protective device? Did they truly disappear, or were the fighters deploying some kind of invisibility field?

  The alien pilots obviously knew, but no one on Star Watch’s side did.

  The fade was complete by the time the warheads’ heat, radiation, EMP and blast forces washed over the area where the alien fighters had been.

  Now, however, the Star Watch military vessels in the system were all destroyed. Zinc was chaotic with mass casualties. A few Carstair transports had begun emergency maneuvers from orbital space, obviously heading out. Maybe they planned to use the nearest Laumer Point to leave the star system. A few shuttles hauled ass from the surface. Each of the shuttles headed for an orbital mining transport with frightened people eager to escape the star system.

  The four alien fighters reappeared. They didn’t do so in the spot where they’d faded, but at a distance, as if they’d been traveling…in whatever state they’d been in.

  Invisible radio waves passed between them. Did the pilots talk about the transports? It seemed likely, as the four fighters began turning, heading back for the mining transports.

  The chief Carstair rep in the system, already aboard a transport, began imploring the four alien fighters for mercy. He offered them money, land, women, drugs, you name it. The rep desperately wanted to live.

  It made no difference. There was no contact. The alien fighters continued their course back to Zinc—

  Bay doors on the huge mining transports opened. From them launched illegal military-style strikefighters. It would seem the Carstair rep had more resources than he was supposed to have.

  That made no difference, though.

  The alien fighters annihilated the illegal strikefighters with as much ease as they’d done everything else. Then, they used the green beams to destroy each mining transport.

  In two sweeps around the planet, every space-capable human ship, yacht, satellite, anything, perished. They fell to the green beams and beaming missiles of the four blue oval alien fighters.

  Radio waves left the four, directed at the dark region thirteen million kilometers from Zinc.

  An hour passed.

  The four alien fighters took up station in orbit around the third planet.

  Anyone who’d tried to contact them from the planet was dead, the building from where the message had originated a radioactive ruin.

  Lights began to glow from the dark region thirteen million kilometers from the planet. Soon, giant machines oozed out of the darkness and headed for Zinc.

  Each machine was the size of a city block, a puzzle of construction: some shaped like giant Us, others like Zs and a few like Ls. They began a slow approach to the planet as if they brought doom.

  It was at this point—40.7 light years away—that an operator on Pluto turned the Long-Range Builder Scanner onto the Trappist-1 System. It was a routine check, and it barely came in time.

  -3-

  From a technological perspective—as to how it did what it did—one of the most fascinating and least understood items picked up in Captain Maddox’s many voyages was the Long-Ranger Builder Scanner. He’d acquired it in the Galyan-named Pandora Star System, from the Planet Sind II.

  The Builder Scanner could track ships one hundred light years away, when it was focused in that particular direction and location. What was the science behind the scanner? No one in Star Watch knew, not even Professor Ludendorff.

  The Long-Range Builder Scanner was stationed deep inside Pluto. There, Star Watch officers and personnel used it for military and civilian purposes.

  To make the scanner more efficient, a Long-Range Builder Comm device linked the Pluto station with Star Watch Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland Sector. The reason for this was simple. The average distance from Pluto to Earth was 5.3361 billion kilometers. That would take a laser light-guide message about five and a half hours to go from one place to the other. To give an answer would take another five and a half hours.

  That made swift communication impossible the normal way. With a Long-Range Builder Comm device, it was like talking over a telephone, seemingly instantaneous.

  The third Builder item in the equation was the nexus stationed between Earth and Luna. The nexus was a giant pyramid and could form a hyper-spatial tube up to five thousand light years away.

  The key here was obvious. If Star Watch kept a fleet handy near Earth, or any number of ships, it could send them quickly, within hours, to something the scanner found light years away.

  It had revolutionized Star Watch and their ability to react quickly, giving them a greater strategic and tactical use of the fleet.