As Ural descended, heading into the upper atmospheres, a Leviathan software worm bored deeper into the orbital’s computer systems. The worm worked fast, as its creators had designed it to do.

  On Ural’s piloting console, a red light began to flash.

  He scowled briefly. Then, his fingers roved over the controls as he tried this and that. More warning lights began to blink on the board.

  That was too much. Ural sent an emergency message to the Supreme Intelligence. He didn’t receive a response. That was more than troubling.

  The orbital still descended, pushing through increasingly dense atmosphere, although the atmosphere was thin compared to the surface density. Skids emerged on the bottom of the orbital. The craft began to shake. That was too soon. The shaking shouldn’t have started until the orbital reached the thicker atmosphere.

  Ural tapped the console controls, seeking the cause of the premature shaking.

  The enemy software worm had an answer for such attempts. There was a surge of power through the panel’s electrical grid.

  The piloting console overloaded and exploded. Pieces of the console flew up. Ural jerked aside with preternatural reflexes. An ordinary human would have likely died with console fragments embedded in his face.

  Despite such reflexes, Ural’s chance of survival had become marginal as the uncontrolled orbital plunged into the atmosphere, heading down faster than before.

  The gravity pod still worked. If it hadn’t—Ural shook his head. If he wanted to survive, he needed to think this through, not wallow in problems.

  The exploded panel was finished. He couldn’t control the orbital’s flight. If he remained in the orbital, he would die when it crashed on the surface. So, he must leave at once. Could he survive a freefall from this height?

  Ural stood. He was able to because of the gravity pod. It would likely overheat soon and shutdown or explode. He had to act while the pod still operated. Acting meant leaving the orbital.

  Decision made, Ural turned and dashed through the control cabin. He moved through a hatch and down a short corridor, approaching the emergency exit hatch.

  He opened an emergency locker, pulled out and donned a surface environmental suit. It was heavy and stiff, needing a pack and heating unit. He slung on each, plugging them into the main EVA suit.

  If the Supreme Intelligence knew this was happening, the entity could use planetary tractor and pressor beams. That none had latched onto the orbital told Ural the SI was not yet aware of the problem.

  This was a dire situation. He was on the brink of death. Despair welled up, wanting to drown him in sorrow. He refused in indulge.

  “I’m not going to die today.”

  His voice had a calming effect on his nerves.

  He couldn’t afford to die today, especially after discovering something extraordinary yesterday. He had considered sending a Long-Range Builder Comm signal to Maddox in Victory about it. He hadn’t sent the message, but he must the first chance he had. The message was vital. He had been mulling it over. The thought of it had distracted him earlier today when he first boarded the assault vessel.

  Concentrate on the moment.

  Yes. That was the right thing.

  Ural closed the last seal on his EVA suit. He turned and lurched, using a handrail because the grav pod must be weakening. Contrary forces tugged at him.

  He dragged himself to an emergency thruster pack, a huge bulky contraption. It was in effect a mini-spaceship.

  It was hard latching himself into it. The EVA suit and constant gravity flux was making it more difficult.

  Time was running out for this. If he waited too long to exit, the orbital’s hull would be too hot as it plunged through the thickening atmosphere, gaining velocity.

  Hoisting the huge thruster pack, using its own mini grav pods, Ural staggered and clanked the last few meters toward the exit hatch. He activated the magnetic clamps on his boots. That helped steady him.

  The orbital was shaking violently all the time now. Heat had intensified within. He had only seconds to do this.

  Ural hit a switch. A hatch opened. He staggered into the air lock and slapped the inner switch. The hatch must have malfunctioned. The inner hatch wouldn’t close and the outer one wouldn’t open.

  Refraining from cursing, Ural manipulated a keypad on his wrist. The signal signs on the screen showed the hatches should be working.

  A series of beeps told him—

  The outer hatch exploded away, hurtling from sight. Air rushed against him, air leaving the orbital into the near vacuum. The rush propelled him outside.

  Excessive heat struck Ural. That was from the orbital’s hot hull. The heat lessened as he left the orbital because of the initial shove of air.

  He used a gyro, righting himself, and expelled a mass of braking hydrogen from the thruster pack.

  The orbital left him, racing planet-ward faster than he did as he was free falling at a slower rate.

  The braking expended most of the thruster pack’s fuel in one tremendous burst. The G-forces caused Ural to black out. The EVA suit-computer diagnosed the problem. A medikit hypo injected a harsh stimulant into him.

  With a quick jolt, Ural revived, although his head was pounding with pain and his heart racing.

  As he descended, the orbital transformed into a fiery comet below, destined to crash into the Library Planet’s snowy expanse.

  Ural’s mouth was dry, his eyes gritty. Even so, he commenced a meticulous descent. At precise moments when the flight computer beeped, he engaged the thruster to help him decelerate.

  He sped through the upper and middle atmospheres until he entered a zone where a man with parachutes might hope to land safely. Luckily, the parachute system was integrated with his thruster pack. He patiently waited, calculated the perfect moment, and then activated the first drogue chute.

  He felt a jolt and almost instantly, the chute detached, having achieved its purpose. He slowed just enough to deploy the next chute.

  Ural reduced his descent speed. Here, he got lucky. Although he had seen a swirling blizzard from space, he must have entered the eye of the storm. As he drifted down with a huge parachute overhead, the white planetary surface rushed up until he reached the icy terrain of the blizzard planet.

  He was far from out of this. He had to reach shelter in order to avoid the lethal storm and freezing cold around him.

  He unlatched himself from the thruster pack. Staggering, he stepped onto the crusty snow. Using a navigational device in his EVA suit, Ural set off on his trek.

  His visor map showed an 81-kilometer trek through a violent blizzard. The EVA suit had a heating unit, but would it last long enough? He had to reach a surface hatch into the subterranean realm.

  A defiant grin formed behind Ural’s helmet visor. If he failed, nothing mattered. If he succeeded, he was resolved to contact Maddox at the earliest opportunity. He needed to relay the vital information he’d discovered to Captain Maddox. Afterward, he could talk to the Supreme Intelligence about the assault vessel. They needed to discover why the orbital had malfunctioned so badly today.

  -6-

  Captain Maddox was in Starship Victory’s weight room doing squats when the signal arrived, although he didn’t know it yet. A holoimage appeared. Maddox finished his last rep, racking the bar with a clang.

  Maddox was similar in build to Golden Ural. The New Man was his uncle, after all, his father’s brother. But Maddox lacked the golden hue and extreme height.

  There was a wolfish leanness to Maddox. Like Ural, he was a hunter at heart. But there was also a touch more humanity in his face, as he was less New Man. Maddox hadn’t received the needed injections, as his mother had escaped the New Man birthing facility while he was in her womb and before the geneticists could act.

  In the weight room, Maddox turned and saw an Adok holoimage waiting expectantly for him.

  The holoimage was named Galyan. He looked like a replica of an Adok, a short alien with ropey arms. Galyan also possessed unusual features, like cracks in his face. These were a part of the AI programming that even Professor Ludendorff hadn’t been able to fix.

  In any case, the starship was headed for the refugee planet of the Adoks. There, Maddox could begin his investigation about what had happened two and a half years ago when a Morag alien named Grutch had kidnapped him off the bridge, possibly with the aid of the Adoks.

  “Sir,” Galyan said, “you have a call on the Long-Range Builder Comm device.”

  “Who is it?” Maddox grabbed a towel, wiping sweat from his face as he followed Galyan.

  The holoimage floated in front of the captain instead of walking. “The message is from your uncle.”

  “Golden Ural?”

  “Yes sir, that is correct.”

  “I wonder what he wants. Did he say if it was important?”

  “Vital,” Galyan said.

  “Who took the call?”

  “Your wife, sir. Was she wrong to do so?”

  “No, no. Let’s go see if it’s urgent.”

  “I already told you it’s vital.”

  Maddox broke into a sprint. None among humanity could keep up with him when he did. He sprinted along ship corridors, passing startled crewmembers. Many were new to Victory and hadn’t seen the captain before.

  Maddox had been missing for two and a half years, kidnapped by Grutch. The captain had had an amazing adventure in the Scutum-Centaurus Spiral Arm. Now, though he had returned, he still didn’t feel completely at home. He wondered how his clone brother Dravek was doing in the Heydell Cloud.

  Soon, Maddox reached the chamber with the Long-Range Builder Comm device. It had a unique capability: it could send and receive instantaneous messages across hundreds of light years. Only a select few ships and offices within Star Watch were equipped with a Long-Range Builder Comm device. Victory, perhaps the most important ship in Star Watch, was one of them.

  Meta stepped away from the blocky device as Maddox entered and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  Meta was a voluptuous, beautiful, blonde-haired woman in a Star Watch uniform. She had the rank of lieutenant.

  Maddox had brought her along last voyage. Now she was here again, as was Jewel, their seven-years-old daughter. Jewel was presently in a classroom.

  Maddox sat on the couch and picked up the microphone. A cord dangled from it to the square device sitting on a coffee table. The device looked like a big, retro radio with dials of all things.

  “Uncle, this is Captain Maddox speaking.”

  “Are you alone?” Ural asked, getting to it.

  Maddox glanced at Galyan, who watched expectantly. Then he glanced at Meta. “No. Others are present.”

  “I ask that no one else but you hear this,” Ural said.

  “As you wish.” Maddox lowered the microphone. “If you two wouldn’t mind?” He used his eyebrows to gesture toward the hatch.

  “Sir,” Galyan said, “isn’t that against regulations?”

  “Galyan, just do it.”

  The holoimage disappeared.

  Meta looked at him searchingly before stepping through the doorway, the hatch swishing shut behind her.

  Meta had become more suspicious of him, probably because Maddox had always said, “I’ll be right back,” and then he would be gone for months. Now, he’d been gone for years.

  Maddox hoped an extended voyage with the two of them together would help smooth some of the problems his leaves of absences had caused.

  Before resuming the call, Maddox took out a small detector. With his thumb, he clicked a switch. The detector beeped. He moved the unit, pointing it at different places around the chamber. It beeped louder in one direction. Pressing the switch of another device—

  Galyan reappeared in the chamber.

  “You were in ghost mode,” Maddox said. “You did not disappear but only pretended to.”

  “Where did you get those, sir?”

  “Never mind where. You disobeyed an order. Don’t let that happen again. Do you understand?”

  A hangdog look appeared on Galyan’s face as his head slumped in a human fashion. “I will go now, sir.”

  “Please do.”

  Galyan turned and slid through a bulkhead. As a holoimage, such a thing was easy for him.

  Maddox used the detector again. It didn’t beep this time. He pulled out a third tiny unit. A subsonic sound began to emit from it. That would disrupt any eavesdropping devices, including the starship’s internal sensors.

  “All right, Uncle, I’m alone. What’s so important you don’t want anyone else to hear?”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Golden Ural, I’m here.”

  “I had an accident a few hours ago and I just made it back underground.”

  “What sort of accident?” Maddox asked.

  “This is why I wish to speak to you alone.”

  “I am.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Where to begin: there have been incidents over the last several years. Subtle attacks against the Supreme Intelligence.”

  Maddox ingested that in silence.

  “The attacks have come from various sources,” Ural said. “Some assault the main computer program. I mean viruses. Sometimes Supreme Intelligence equipment malfunctions at the oddest moments. Such a malfunction just happened to me. My orbital crashed after I walked through and studied an attack vessel from the Sovereign Hierarchy of Leviathan.”

  Maddox blinked several times. “How did an assault vessel get way out there to the Library Planet?”

  “That is not the point, for now. The point is I have a symbiotic relationship with the Supreme Intelligence. He has given me priceless information, so I have learned much more than I am at liberty to discuss. I, in turn, have built devices and systems for his protection. I’m always debugging the Supreme Intelligence, keeping him true to the original Builder nature of his construction.”

  “That’s interesting, but what does that have to do with this emergency call?”

  “That is an excellent question,” Ural said. “My main point is that I’ve started to involve myself in intelligence matters, not only at the Library Planet but in the outer galaxy. In doing so, I’ve discovered much. One of the things I’ve discovered is that the Empire of the New Men has an insatiable desire for nubile women.”

  “We’ve always known that,” Maddox said. “The New Men have captured many Commonwealth women. In the past, it started a war between us. Frankly, now that I think about it, I’m sure they kidnap some now and again. But I thought the overall trafficking was supposed to have ceased after the Emperor left the Library Planet.”

  “If you mean because now New Men-impregnated women can conceive girls as well as boys, you are correct,” Ural said.

  “That’s exactly what I mean. There shouldn’t be any more reasons for the New Men to kidnap Commonwealth women.”

  “The continued kidnappings occur in part because of the change in New Men sperm DNA.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Let me finish,” Ural said. “The Emperor and some of his chief satraps have engaged in an even greater and faster expansion of the Empire.”

  “I’m still not catching your drift.”

  “The New Men need more wives, concubines, any birthing females because they’re colonizing more planets. The Emperor wants all those planets brimming with New Men and Women. They’re accelerating their population growth in order to out produce the Commonwealth as soon as possible. Since the New Men started from a single planet—the Throne World—that is a vast operation and goal.”

  “That I can understand,” Maddox said. “So how does that affect Victory and me in particular?”

  “I don’t know if your Intelligence agencies understand that there has been an ongoing drain of prime-age females from the Commonwealth.”

  “I haven’t heard anything. Are you sure this is true?”

  “Both are true,” Ural said. “Your Intelligence Service has failed to undercover it and it is happening at an accelerated rate. One of the chief exporting nexuses is Cestus IV.”

  “You’re sure about your data?” Maddox asked.

  “I’m absolutely certain.”

  “Why tell me? You should tell the Lord High Admiral.”

  “I may, but I’m now telling you. I’m telling you because Archduke Artaxerxes Par is presently overseeing the operation and has entered Commonwealth space.”

  Maddox grew still as he tensed. The call was starting to make more sense. Artaxerxes Par was a New Man he knew well. The name was on his short list of those who had murdered his father, Oran. Maddox ached to return the favor. Perhaps his Uncle Ural wished that as well.

  “Do you want me to kill the archduke?” Maddox asked.

  “Do as you wish, nephew. I’m relaying the information is all. Stopping the archduke could certainly help stem the drain of young females from the Commonwealth.”

  “I see.” Maddox’s mind had already begun to churn. Victory was on its way to the refugee planet of the Adoks. Could he deviate from that? Cestus IV was a long ways from here and the Adoks.

  “Are you still there, Captain?”

  “I’m here. Your information is interesting, to say the least.”

  “I thought you might like it.”

  “If you received the information days ago, why tell me only now, especially after your accident?”

  “Because I want you to know,” there was a husky note to Ural’s voice. “They murdered my brother, your father. I cannot demand justice myself. As you know, the Emperor has banished me from the Empire. I’m no longer welcome there for as long as the Emperor lives. Nor can I conceivably leave the Library Planet at this time.”

  “I get it,” Maddox said.

  “Do you? Do you understand you have an obligation to your father?”

  “And to my mother,” Maddox said with heat.

  “Yes,” Ural said, “I keep forgetting how people think in the Commonwealth. It’s such a different mode of thought, quite different from how I was raised. In any case, I hope you use the information.”