The creature cringed. It was as if Becker had an electronic whip. At each slashing flick, the alien entity bled and screeched.

  These were mental images, as this was a telepathic fight in his own brain.

  “How did you get in my mind?” Becker said. “I don’t understand this.”

  “Let me be,” the alien said. “I just want to live. You don’t understand. The crystals are broken. The entity is no more. I am the last.”

  “The last what?” asked Becker.

  “The last of the Aetharians, you dolt.”

  “But you’re not an Aetharian,” Becker said. “They were lizard-like creatures. You’re not like that. You’re like a mammal with a tail and fangs, a freaking rat.”

  “That’s just in your mind, you fool. There’s more to it than this. Let me be, and I can teach you so much. You will never know. You will never know unless I share it with you, you freak.”

  “Yo, you’re the freak!” Becker roared, lashing at it with his mind.

  The alien creature hissed as it spurted telepathic blood.

  “You don’t belong here,” Becker said. “I want to live my life without any alien interference for once.”

  “There’s something weird about you. Yeah, the Liss, the Prime Saa, left some instructions in here about you. Did you know that?”

  “Yes.” Becker lied. He didn’t know. Was the creature making things up? That had to be it. Still, how did it know about the Liss?

  “Good,” the alien sneered. “Now that we established my authority—”

  Becker struck again, lashing with his mind at the alien.

  This time, the alien raised a telepathic shield. “I’m learning. I’m using your own mind against you, you retard. You’ll never defeat me, Becker.”

  Becker became enraged because of the insults and a stark fear that he would no longer control his own intellect. This thing was more alien than the Liss. It was from a different spiral arm, for Pete’s sake. Becker didn’t want it crawling in his mind.

  Thus, as Becker started to go under from the stasis drugs, he collected telekinetic power, and he located exactly where in his brain the alien, etheric creature lived.

  The alien must have become complacent.

  Becker struck then, but he did not strike at the rat-like image with telepathic dominating bolts. Becker struck his own brain cells, destroying them with telekinesis power. He was pulling out the rug from under the alien thing.

  Becker might have given himself a stroke, but he also choked the alien entity.

  It hissed evilly.

  As Becker started to go under, he saw the alien rat-image dissipate.

  “You will regret this! You will regret doing this to me!”

  “Die!” Becker said to his mind. “Die, you foul fiend from Ector! But no, before you go—”

  Becker grabbed memories with telepathic power. These were memories from the alien thing. How could memories be ethereal? How could memories be in his mind, from the crystals, from the man who had been slain through Venna’s willpower?

  It was an ethereal, etheric combination. As Becker succumbed to stasis, he seized the memories of this entity from Ector, as well as some ideas from the pudgy playboy whom Venna had forcibly seduced the last time.

  As Becker went under, he did not look at all the interesting facts he could know about Ector, and the making of the Phantasma Synth Crystals. Instead, he went through the pudgy man’s memories, as if it was a playbook on how to be a player, on how to be an alpha chick-chaser, and how to gain girls successfully.

  This was so insightful! Perhaps at no other point in Becker’s life could he have understood these things better than at this moment, when he was receptive, when he was on the verge of a stroke, when he had driven off an alien etheric thing in his mind. As he gained these insights—it was a bizarre combination—and it may not have been possible if Becker wasn’t on the verge of stasis.

  As Becker drank in these ideals, and began to shiver and convulse because of a semi-stroke, the stasis field took hold. It locked Becker into frozen immobility, saving him from the stroke and for who knew what else.

  -25-

  “Galyan,” Maddox said from the command chair on the bridge.

  “Sir,” Galyan said, straightening.

  “Calculate how quickly Victory can move to the Barnard’s Star system six light-years from here and determine the exit point from the Solar System in terms of the Laumer Point. I also want you to calculate the positions of the celestial bodies in Barnard’s Star in relation to the Laumer Point exit. Then, tell me how soon we can arrive, preferably hidden from view of any enemy ships at their most logical locations over there.”

  “Do you want me to assume this enemy patrol would be near the stated Laumer Point exit?” Galyan asked.

  “That seems obvious, but yes,” Maddox said.

  “I am sure you are aware that there is a Star Watch station and guard vessels there.”

  Maddox nodded. “The station and ships have likely been neutralized.”

  “Should I envision a larger flotilla of enemy ships then?” Galyan asked.

  “It doesn’t have to be,” Maddox said. “In any case, given those stipulations, make the calculations.”

  Galyan didn’t even flicker his eyelids. “I have them, sir. We can reach the location a half hour sooner than the phase ship, given the ship’s present rate of travel. If the ship should drop out of phase to travel faster, then the ship may beat us there. But I do not think it likely the enemy will drop out of phase this near Earth or while in the Solar System.”

  Once more, Maddox nodded.

  “Sir, may I make a further suggestion?”

  “What is it?”

  “If there are enemy starships in the Barnard’s Star System, likely they are cloaked. That is not the main point, though. Would it not make sense for us to analyze them without them knowing we are doing so?”

  “Of course,” Maddox said.

  “Does that mean me?”

  “I see what you’re getting at. You want to do some ghost-mode scouting. Unfortunately, your range is too limited, meaning we’d have to go in too closely. They’ll spot Victory even if they don’t spot you.”

  “Valerie’s darter has stealth features, sir. She could lay down signal boosters so I could easily search the area and learn more about the enemies we are dealing with, without them spotting Victory. In fact, you could be halfway across the star system while I scout.”

  Maddox pointed at Galyan. “That’s an excellent suggestion. Mr. Maker, get ready for three star-drive jumps in quick succession. Galyan, give him the coordinates for each jump.”

  As Galyan floated to Keith, Maddox pressed an intercom switch on his armrest. Within seconds, he spoke to Valerie, outlining the situation and her probable role in it.

  “Are you able to deploy in ten minutes?” Maddox asked.

  “That would be cutting it close,” Valerie said. “I first need to collect and stow the boosters. That will take more than ten minutes, especially as we’re jumping.”

  “Understood,” Maddox said. “Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?”

  “Twenty would be more likely, and even that—”

  “Twenty it is,” Maddox said, interrupting. “Let me know the moment you’re ready.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Maddox sat back as the others bustled around him. He thought about what he’d learned, about Lord High Admiral Cook’s last will and testament. Imagine him as the Lord High Admiral of Star Watch. How would he change things?

  Maddox’s features tightened.

  He would likely start by subduing the New Men and integrating the positive elements into the Commonwealth.

  Maddox shook his head, pushing the ideas aside. It would soon be time for a conference meeting to decide exactly what they should do with Becker. Becker had done an outstanding job protecting his grandmother, even if the man was slippery like an eel and untrustworthy in the extreme.

  “We’re ready for the first jump, Captain,” Keith said from the helm.

  “Proceed,” Maddox said.

  Victory made its first jump, leaving the Solar System for empty space. It would need another two jumps to get into position against the hidden enemy. Could that be a Leviathan task force? Could New Men be involved? Or was this exactly as it appeared, a Spacer operation? Where had the Spacers gained such exotic weaponry as a phase ship and the hideous crystals?

  Maddox opened his mouth and stretched his jaw, working to come out of the partial jump lag.

  “Galyan,” Maddox said.

  “Sir,” Galyan said spinning around.

  “Check on Becker. Make sure he’s still alive.”

  Galyan disappeared, and then reappeared a moment later. “Sir, there seems to be a slow motion stroke taking place in Becker. Otherwise, he is alive.”

  “Alert medical,” Maddox said. “We’ll also give them a few minutes to see if they can prevent the rest of the stroke. With his brain, a stroke would probably destroy his unique abilities.”

  Once more, Galyan disappeared.

  Maddox drummed his fingers on an armrest. Becker had saved his grandmother. He owed the slippery telepath. He couldn’t just let a stroke take care of things naturally. That would be dishonest, wrong. Wasn’t stasis enough protection for the massive brain? How could they go anywhere if Becker couldn’t go through a jump, fold or possibly a hyper-spatial tube?

  Galyan reappeared almost immediately. “Sir, I have determined that whatever happened to Becker did so before we jumped and not during.”

  “You mean the stroke?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How in the world did you determine that?” Maddox shook his head. “No, never mind. You’re saying that the star-drive jump is not going to kill or even hurt Becker?”

  “It appears not,” Galyan said.

  “Lieutenant,” Maddox told Keith.

  “Aye, sir,” Keith said.

  “Whenever you’re ready, make the next jump,” Maddox said. “Oh. Galyan, tell the medical people what you just told me.”

  Galyan vanished.

  “It’ll be just a few minutes before we jump again, sir,” Keith said.

  “Alert me when you’re ready.”

  “Aye, sir,” Keith said.

  Maddox waited, wondering what the next hour would bring.

  -26-

  Victory made two more star-drive jumps before it appeared in the Barnard’s Star System, an empty system, which in this case meant devoid of civilized inhabitants.

  There was supposed to be a Star Watch outpost and warships here. But there were neither signals nor beacons. There did not appear to be any wrecks either, which seemed odd.

  Victory came in behind a large gas giant midway between the inner and outer system. That was closer than Jupiter would have been to Earth but farther out than the Asteroid Belt in the Solar System. There were three Mercury-sized planets near the dwarf star.

  Barnard’s Star was invisible from the Solar System, but quite visible now. It was a type M red dwarf, with about seventeen percent the Sun’s mass and three percent its luminosity. It was, of course, much redder than the Sun.

  Between the terrestrial planets near the star were a slew of moons, asteroids, comets, and other stellar debris. None of the planets or moons were habitable, especially since the dwarf star emitted significant hard radiation. There were no magnetic fields or other stellar properties to block the harsh radiation.

  The Laumer Point exit from the Solar System was among the terrestrial planets and debris. It seemed likely the enemy had hidden their cloaked ships somewhere over there.

  Valerie and her small crew in the Darter Tarrypin launched from a hangar bay. The darter looked like a glorified, delta-wing bomber, although it was several times larger and could last in space for months. The darter engaged its stealth field and folded several times in quick succession, dropping a tiny signal booster each time.

  The boosters would lengthen the distance Galyan could project his holoimage from the AI core in Victory.

  Soon, the darter returned to its hangar bay, and Valerie gave the all-clear before docking.

  Afterward, those on Victory waited, and waited, and waited more for some indication a ship had exited the Laumer Point.

  “Sir,” Galyan said on the bridge, “I suspect the phase ship might already have come through.”

  “There has been no indication from the Laumer Point,” Andros Crank said from the Science Station. He was the Chief Technician; a pudgy Kai Kaus survivor from a Builder Dyson Sphere Victory had visited many years ago.

  “Nevertheless,” Galyan said, “I think you should send me, sir. I believe the phase ship is already in this star system.”

  Maddox considered that as he studied the terrestrial planet cluster. Debris could have blocked a Laumer Point emission. Galyan was right. Too much time had passed.

  “Go, Galyan, see what you can find.”

  Galyan disappeared from the bridge. From the projector in the heart of Victory, the holographic image went from booster to booster until he ranged among the three terrestrial planets near Barnard’s Star.

  Eleven minutes and thirty-two seconds into the mission, Galyan found the cloaked ships. They were near the largest moon of the second terrestrial planet.

  It helped that Galyan and Ludendorff had long ago reconfigured certain sensors to better detect cloaked vessels. Those had just proved critical in helping him find the cloaked vessels.

  Galyan zoomed to the nearest saucer-shaped Spacer ship. He plunged through the hull into the corridors. He immediately found Spacers with their black-tinted goggles. Galyan began recorded everything.

  Soon, he found the main designation. These saucer-ships belonged to the Spacer Third Fleet.

  Galyan moved quickly, leaving the first saucer ship and entering the second in his search for the phase ship, which he found in the fifth vessel, inside a hangar bay.

  In ghost mode, hiding in a far corner, Galyan saw the outlines of the phase ship. It was lozenge-shaped. The docking locks were moving into place. The ship must have just entered and landed in the hangar bay.

  A minute and a half later, the main hatch of the phase ship opened, and out filed Spacers. They were small people of Southeast Asian origin, from before the Space Age on Earth. Next, an anti-grav stretcher floated out. Galyan zeroed in, spotting a Leviathan cyber on it.

  This was odd: a stasis field shimmered over the cyber. The head was canted at an odd angle, while jacks were embedded in the skull. The jack wires led to a small humming unit at the head of the stretcher. Did the unit keep the Leviathan cyber unmoving, unthinking, or preoccupied?

  Galyan wanted to take a closer look, but restrained himself from doing so.

  Then he saw another cyber on a second stretcher. No, scratch that. He saw a cyborg trooper. Galyan had read about them in Intelligence files. The trooper had been switched off or put into sleep mode. It didn’t look particularly dangerous. The trooper looked like a robot with fleshly parts.

  Next, two Spacers helped an old crone out of the phase ship. The crone was dark skinned, not dark as in black, but dark as in burned like a tree to its darkest charred color. Her skin almost seemed cracked. Another Spacer moved up to help as she hobbled.

  Galyan tried facial recognition. He did not anticipate discovering that it was Venna the Spy. This did not make sense. How had she aged and changed color? No. That did not matter. Galyan collected data. This was data.

  Suddenly, the hideous crone, with her wood-charred features, looked up. Her eyes seemed to burn like two hellish embers. Galyan had the terrible sensation she saw him.

  Galyan ran a logic check: should he stay or should he go? He decided to stay as a horrific smirk crossed her features. Then it seemed as if it was too hard to keep holding up her head. She bent her head, and the others continued to help her shuffle toward the main exit from the hangar bay.

  Galyan switched concentration. He did not recognize the phase ship’s type, but there it was.

  The horribly altered Venna left the hangar bay. Galyan considered this. She had definitely seen him. This seemed like enough data collection.

  Galyan disappeared from that saucer ship. Logic dictated a quick retreat. Thus, he fled, exploding each of the boosters as his holoimage backtracked to Victory.

  He had counted nine saucer ships. That represented too much firepower for Victory to take on by itself. He had found Spacers and one Leviathan agent. No, he had found two Leviathan agents. The Spacers had deactivated each of those.

  With extreme prejudice, Galyan zoomed back to report to Captain Maddox.

  -27-

  Maddox listened to everything Galyan had to tell him. Once the AI had finished, Maddox swiveled his chair and pointed at the communications officer.

  “Open a channel with the Spacer flotilla commander. Tell them Captain Maddox demands to speak with them.”

  For the next ten seconds, the comm officer hailed the enemy flotilla commander without luck.

  “Perhaps the signal cannot reach them,” Galyan said. “I destroyed the boosters. Maybe the radiation from the dwarf star is too powerful.”

  Maddox waved Galyan silent. “Of course, they can hear us. They’re deciding what to do about it. This is the perfect location. We’re too far for them to launch missiles or fire beams. But it’s close enough that we can see what happens. We’re also close enough to talk.”

  “I am studying your personality profile,” Galyan said. “You want them to talk because people often say stupid things, such as giving away their game plan.”

  Maddox didn’t bother to reply.

  The comm officer said, “A Spacer marshal is appearing on the main screen, sir.”

  Maddox swiveled to face the screen and shooed Galyan out of the way. The holoimage drifted aside. Maddox sat straight as an old woman appeared on the screen.

  She wore long finery, epaulettes of a Spacer marshal, and she had the ubiquitous black-tinted goggles and wore a military cap. She had lined features and long, blonde-colored hair. That looked hideous on her because she was a shrunken creature. She did not possess the charcoal color Galyan had described, though.