With the Eye, my brothers and I will induce an illusion in the Entity that should confuse it long enough for us to launch in the trade ship and affect our escape. I hope you are a space adept, that you know how to use space weaponry and fix whatever is broken in the trader. I suspect that all the armaments will have been taken from the ship. We can hope there is something that you and your other can use.

  Captain Maddox, this is a desperate gamble. If we fail in this, the Entity will surely insert conversion circuitry into you and me. I do not know why you are here and how you could possibly have escaped conversion this long. But you are here, and I sense in you energies such as I have never perceived in a human before. Therefore, this is the moment, this is the time, and if we succeed, we have only ourselves. Captain Maddox, this energy flow message is ending, and I hope that we can work together.

  With that, Maddox smacked against a bulkhead face first. They were before the hatch and collapsible tube that would allow them into the waiting crawler. Intense cold radiated from the tube.

  Naxos glanced at him.

  Maddox’s nod was barely perceptible.

  The other two like Naxos seemed dull and disinterested. Maddox wondered about that. They seemed to have lost their energy and will. Something untoward was at work and this Eye of Helion, what could it possibly be?

  Maddox shook his head, realizing this was a chance. Naxos had set it up beforehand. The leader of the Triad was using Dravek and him.

  Perhaps Naxos had subtly worked upon the Entity telepathically to set this up days or even a week ago.

  Dravek asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” Maddox said hoarsely.

  He entered the freezing flexible tube, leaving the building and soon entering the crawler. The others followed, including the three guards. One slid to the driver’s seat, sitting down. The other two sat in back.

  Maddox knew he had to act once the crawler started. The attempt would occur in moments.

  -22-

  The crawler was moving across the dreary landscape. The parked skimmers and drones outside were coming up.

  This was it. Maddox reached down to his boot. There was the monofilament blade in its sheath. He drew it, turned, and stabbed with lethal speed, shoving it into the guts of a guard, slicing up even as he stood. The other didn’t even have time to gurgle before he was spewing blood and gore into the small crawler compartment. Would the Entity know what had happened?

  At this point, it didn’t matter.

  Maddox scrambled over his seat, over the dead guard. As the other behind that one raised his blaster, Maddox stabbed straight into one of the blank-seeming eyes.

  The guard said, “You have,” and that was it. The blade entered the brain and neatly sliced it in half. The process was a gory, messy, fatal solution.

  By that time, Maddox had turned around.

  Dravek had subdued the driver, having broken the man’s neck.

  Maddox looked back. In the hacking and slashing, he knocked off one of the square leather hats. There was a vile blinking corkscrew device twisted into the converted one’s skull.

  Maddox gaped. The device was evil, having taken away the man’s humanity to convert him into a hive-mind computer machine. Maddox had had enough of these types of things. He hated the Entity with the loathing he’d felt for the octagonal robots from Planet Kregen.

  “Now we’re screwed,” Dravek said. “The Entity must know we killed his creatures. Why’d you do that?”

  “Shut up.” Maddox turned to Naxos. “Now what do we do?”

  “Drive to the third trader ship. We must gain entrance within. Everything depends on that.”

  “What’s the runt babbling about?” Dravek asked. “How’s that going to help anything?”

  Maddox didn’t answer. Instead, highly keyed up, he barged forward, keeping his knife from cutting anything. He slid into the driver’s seat and started the crawler moving again. It was desperately cold in here. No, no, he had to concentrate on what mattered. He’d ruined two spacesuits by slashing the guards to death. The spacesuit remained on the guard Dravek had killed, stuffed just behind the driver’s seat. It needed a helmet to be complete.

  “Take off his spacesuit and find the helmet,” Maddox snapped at Dravek. “Then see if you can fit into the suit. We’re going to need it.”

  “We can’t escape from the moon,” Dravek said. “You know the situation. You as good as killed us.”

  “There’s more going on than you know,” Maddox said.

  “Yes,” Naxos said.

  Maddox glanced at the other two of the Triad. He didn’t understand why they were so tired, why their eyes drooped. Could they be using up mental energy to do something he didn’t perceive?

  That must be it.

  Maddox drove across the grainy dry seabed surface, heading for the parked trader ships.

  So far, none of the skimmers or drones had lofted. Was that because of the two sleepy Triad members telepathically doing something critical to the Entity?

  Last time on the Gnostic ship, the Entity had reacted swiftly, without compunction. But here—Maddox decided not to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth and continued to drive as fast as he dared.

  He turned for the trader ships.

  “That one,” Naxos said in a subdued voice.

  Maddox turned the crawler that way, cranking the wheel and bringing the machine close to the ship. He turned to Dravek. “Well?”

  Dravek stood, squeezed into the spacesuit, having found the helmet. “I still don’t get it.”

  “They’re telepaths or have some sort of telepathic power,” Maddox said, jerking a thumb at the others. “They’re weakening the Entity or confusing him in some fashion. We must enter that ship and probably leave in it. The ship holds an enhancing telepathic weapon called the Eye.”

  “Ain’t that sweet?” Dravek said, with a grin sliding into place.

  Maddox wrenched the wheel. The crawler crunched across gravel and skidded near the trader vessels.

  Dravek was at the crawler airlock. He put on the helmet and twisted it until it latched into place. Soon, he was outside the crawler. Maddox watched through the windshield. Dravek stepped over icy granules to the ship, opening the hatch without a problem.

  Soon, a collapsible, elongating tube reached from the ship. Dravek was outside again, guiding the tube and attaching it to the crawler hatch.

  There was a knock on the bulkhead.

  “Are you guys coherent?” Maddox asked.

  All three of the Triad blinked and stared at Maddox as if they had no idea who he was.

  “Right,” Maddox opened the hatch. A blast of freezing air blew into the crawler.

  The chill engulfed the three of them, causing one to yelp and another to gulp.

  “No,” Naxos said.

  For an instant, they all looked shocked and aware of what was going on. Then they once more slumped into an incomprehensible state as if they were fools who had no notion of what was going on.

  Maddox hustled them together and drove them into the hatch, through the tube and into the trader ship. In moments, the hatch closed behind them.

  Maddox kept prodding the three.

  In a second, the three needed no more prodding. They turned like sleepwalkers and moved like automatons through a short corridor, through a hatch that opened for them and into a cabin.

  Maddox followed close behind.

  In the room, a round crystal the size of a baseball pulsated with a luminous quality in its core. The three rushed clumsily like nerds late for cafeteria lunch. They thrust their hands at it and touched it together. Each crooned and smiled.

  The Triad sat on the deck in a lotus position, each facing the other, each of the knees touching the knees of his fellows. They held their hands out, the crystal orb barely floating above their flesh. Their faces were coherent, as if they knew exactly what they were doing. Their eyes opened as they locked gazes with each other, staring, smiling, nodding and uttering monosyllabic words. Afterward, each shut his eyes as if they had serious work to do.

  “Maddox, Maddox,” Dravek shouted. “Where are you?

  “You guys have this?” Maddox asked the Triad.

  There was no answer from them. He was going to assume they had it, that they were doing something to the Entity. Otherwise, none of this would work.

  Maddox whirled around, hurrying out the cabin, meeting Dravek in a ship corridor.

  “Let’s see if we can figure out the controls,” Maddox said.

  “This shouldn’t be working,” Dravek said. “According to what we’ve seen, there should be no hope for any of this.”

  “I’m beginning to think the Triad used us for their plan longer than we realize. This is bizarre, but I’d rather throw in my lot with those three than end up with a converter screwed into my head.”

  “I’m with you there,” Dravek said.

  They entered the control cabin and began to study the instrument panels.

  “I have this.” Dravek sat in the pilot’s seat, activated the engine and generators and discovered the ship had some fuel but less than expected. Shortly, he started the lift-off thrusters. The spaceship shivered and then rose from its location in the dry seabed.

  Dravek laughed with glee. “I never thought we would get this far.”

  “Keeping doing it,” Maddox said, “and we’ll get even farther.”

  The trader ship continued to rise, with the dry seabed and surrounding terrain dropping below. The Methane Sea spread out before them. Soon, they would be able to see the curvature of the ice moon.

  “Shouldn’t we destroy the mining base while we have the chance?” Dravek asked.

  “How?” Maddox sat at a nearby station, checking an instrument panel. “I see no weaponry evident anywhere.”

  “The spaceship could be a weapon.”

  “Do you want to crash the ship into the Entity and kill ourselves with it?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I. Therefore, our best means of defense is to get the hell out of here as fast as possible.”

  “And go where?”

  “Let’s get off the moon and head to…” There was a thought in Maddox’s brain. “Let’s head for Gath.”

  “Why there?” Dravek asked suspiciously.

  “…I don’t know.”

  “Do you think it was your own thought?”

  “That’s the question. But I’m not going to worry about it now. I want to leave the moon and get out of the gas giant’s gravitational control.”

  “Yeah,” Dravek’s fingers danced over the controls. “I’m switching off the lift-off thrusters, as we have enough height. I’m engaging the main thruster and activating the gravity dampener. That way we won’t kill our telepaths once we start booking it.”

  “Excellent news,” Maddox said.

  He stared out the port window, viewing the grandness of space, amazed that he was getting this opportunity at freedom. It felt awesome.

  “Look at that,” Dravek said, pointing at the green-blinking comm unit.

  “Don’t answer it,” Maddox said.

  “Wouldn’t think of it. Now buckle in. I’m going to increase velocity while we can and get out of the gas giant’s gravitational control.”

  -23-

  The free trader vessel increased velocity as it left the ice moon and began to struggle against the gravitational pull of the looming gas giant.

  Maddox glanced at the comm. It had stopped blinking. He checked the sensors. No missiles had lifted from the moon’s surface. No targeting cannon had activated. No other spaceships had lofted from the ice moon. What was the Entity doing? How could the Triad with the bright crystal be causing any of that?

  If the Triad used telepathic power, what did that say about the main Entity computer? Was it more than a mechanical device? Did it possess biological parts within the main computer? How otherwise would telepathy have an effect against a computer?

  Once more, the comm lights blinked. This time, Maddox was curious. How could it hurt to answer? Seeing no drawbacks, he reached to connect the comm.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Dravek said.

  “We’ve made it this far. Maybe the Entity wants to bargain.”

  “Maybe it can use an open link against us.”

  “I’m not sure how, and I’m curious.”

  “Maddox! No! Someone else is making you think that.”

  It was too late. Maddox clicked open the link. On the comm screen appeared the lean face of Barbelon. The eyes were just as blank as the first time.

  “You did it,” the Entity said through the woman. “I was not sure you would.”

  Maddox frowned, as he didn’t understand why he’d opened channels. That wasn’t like him. Could the Triad have caused that?

  “I am not referring to your escape from the moon,” the Entity said. “But that you’ve cast your lot with the bizarre aliens.”

  “Bizarre? You mean because of their telepathic power?”

  A strange leer spread across Barbelon’s face.

  What was happening? Maddox didn’t understand. Could the Entity show emotion? Did the link with biological parts corrupt the main computer? Or was this a subtle attack and the Entity was gloating about it?

  “Your escape is a small matter,” the Entity said through Barbelon. “I realize now that you played for time because of the larger timetable. Yes. I know your purpose, why you came to me. I should have realized immediately. If you should survive the coming fight, you can tell your superiors I won’t fall for such a ploy a second time.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Maddox said.

  “Attack ships of Leviathan have exited the red portal.”

  Maddox motioned to Dravek.

  Dravek manipulated the controls, engaging the long-range scanner. The red portal appeared on the sensor screen. Six oblong vessels of Star Watch destroyer size must have exited the portal less than an hour ago.

  “Use active sensors,” Maddox said.

  After a few clicks, Dravek did.

  Maddox studied the readings. Each destroyer-class vessel had the signature mark of a Leviathan warship: iridium-Z hull armor. Each also had fusion cannons. The six vessels had already started to accelerate, heading for the gas giant.

  “Switch back to passive sensors,” Maddox said.

  Dravek complied.

  Six destroyer-class warships: Leviathan meant to rule or conquer the star system. This was a bad development.

  “Leviathan followed you in a delayed manner,” the Entity said. “A Strategist must have surmised your reaching the star system would advance Leviathan’s cause. That is the only reasonable explanation for your having escaped a Leviathan battleship.”

  “How did my arrival here help the six warships?” Maddox asked.

  “I have not yet determined that,” the Entity said. “Perhaps the point was in finding the entrance to the star system.”

  “The vortex was always there.”

  “I imagine there were other nearby spatial anomalies troubling Leviathan. That you used the vortex was critical to them in some manner.”

  “Why did they wait so long to come after me then?”

  “Rest assured, I will unlock the reason soon enough.”

  “Why’s the Entity talking to us?” Dravek hissed. “It’s for a reason, and I doubt the reason is aiding us. Cut the connection while you can.”

  Unease filled Maddox. Maybe Dravek was right. Speaking like this was foolish, and for no appreciable gain.

  “Leviathan used you,” the Entity said. “Leviathan means my destruction. Were you their willing pawn? Don’t bother answering, as I know you’re a practiced deceiver. It doesn’t matter. I know how to deal with the attack.”

  “Against six destroyer-class vessels?” asked Maddox.

  “A paltry six, I say,” the Entity replied. “I have been readying for Leviathan for many months. Why do you think I mined the best fissionables I could find in this pathetic star system?”

  “I don’t know,” Maddox said. “I’m all ears if you want to tell me.”

  “You think yourself lucky? No, Captain. You are unlucky. Remaining with me would have seen your survival. Now you are about to die. Know that three missiles are already coming for you. You will not survive your treacherous part in this charade. I will survive Leviathan and the agents they sent at me. Goodbye Captain Maddox.”

  Maddox stabbed the cut-off button and shut off the gloating Entity. Why had he accepted the call in the first place? It didn’t make sense. He checked his mind and detected a subtle connection to the Triad. There was the reason, no doubt.

  With a snarl, Maddox severed the connection, using his intuitive sense to do it. Afterward, he swiveled and checked the sensor board.

  “Is the Entity right?” Dravek asked. “Are missiles homing in on us?”

  “I don’t detect any.”

  The trader ship passed a smaller moon in the gas giant’s system.

  A klaxon blared.

  “Warhead,” Dravek said. “It was behind the moon. It’s a mine, a space mine.”

  “Accelerate,” Maddox said.

  Before Dravek could comply, the warhead detonated. It was a large nuclear device. The exploded warhead radiated gamma and x-rays, EMP and heat.

  Dravek altered the ship’s path, speeding behind another small moon. That moon took most of the heat blast of the warhead. It didn’t block enough of the EMP, though. The lights flashed and went dead. Red emergency lighting clicked on. The trader ship was built tough, its electronics able to withstand more than what had struck them.

  What about gamma and x-rays? They would have already struck the ship from the near blast. Maddox doubted the trader’s hull, lacking an energy shield, was thick or strong enough to block the heavy radiation. They were likely dead but just didn’t know it yet.

  “We were too close to the blast,” Dravek said.