Smith's Monthly #9 Read online

  Now her ship was between galaxies, moving farther away from the Milky Way toward the edge of the Local Group. There was a small cluster of about a million stars there that might hold clues.

  She was about to call it an afternoon in frustration when Dannie from Communications paged her.

  She clicked off the images of the floating galaxies and said, “Yes.”

  “Chairman, I have a message from Chairman Wade Ray marked critical and for your eyes only.”

  “Thanks, Dannie,” Maria said. “Put it through.”

  Maria brought the message up on her screen floating in the air in front of her before she even gave herself a moment to worry. She had no idea why Chairman Wade Ray would contact her. If the Seeders had an operating council, which they really did not, he would be the head of it. One of the most powerful of all the Seeders. And one of the oldest humans she knew about.

  She couldn’t imagine why he would even take notice of her.

  The image came up and she could see the famous Chairman Ray smiling at her, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. His classic long, gray hair flowed down over his shirt and he looked thin and young, just as all Seeders did, even with the gray hair.

  “Chairman Boone, I am sorry to have to pull you from your mission,” he said. “But we have a situation developing in the Milky Way that needs your expertise.”

  She wished like hell this was an actual conversation so she could ask questions, but alas, it wasn’t.

  An image of a Seeder ship came up on the screen. It looked old, as some of the early Seeder ships she had studied. And there was something else wrong about the image.

  Ray’s voice came over the image. “Please note the small dot against the lower right portion of the right wing of this ship.”

  She leaned forward, staring at what looked like a dot against the hull of the old ship.

  Then the image started to zoom in and it took her mind a moment to realize just what she was seeing. That just wasn’t possible.

  “That dot is my ship, one of the largest ships we have at this time, in comparison to the large ship behind it,” Ray said, confirming what she knew couldn’t be possible. Space allowed for the building of huge ships, but that huge ship could hold an entire planet’s population and have room left over, it was so big.

  “The big ship seems to be out of control and it has extremely powerful screens,” Ray said. “It will plow through many inhabited planets in the Milky Way, killing billions, if it can’t be stopped.”

  Ray’s face appeared again. “I have sent all the data we have gathered about this ship and its path. We are going to try to board the ship to gain control of it, since we fear it is a ghost ship. We need your expertise on this coming mission.”

  Then Chairman Wade Ray nodded. “Please help us. Billions of lives are at stake.”

  At that the message ended.

  She sat and listened to it one more time, then did a quick glance at all the data. Maybe, just maybe, she didn’t have to backtrack any more to find the path of the original Seeders. Maybe the knowledge had come to them.

  She had Dannie send back a short message to Chairman Ray. “Message received. We are on the way.”

  Then she paged her five senior staff and told them to meet her in the Command Center. At top trans-tunnel speed it would take them almost two weeks to reach The Milky Way and the location where Chairman Ray had asked for them to go.

  In that two weeks they had a lot of planning to go.

  And research, since that ship’s path might point back to the solution they have been looking for on this entire mission as to where the Seeders started from.

  But first she wanted to have her senior staff all see the message from Chairman Ray at the same time. She wanted to see their reactions.

  And then eventually everyone on board would see the message and data as well. After all, they were all in this together.

  But with so many lives at stake, she couldn’t imagine a single member of her crew having an issue with returning to the Milky Way and trying to help.

  They were all Seeders, after all. Starting, protecting, and nurturing human life was their job.

  TWO

  ROSCOE MUNDY BRUSHED the long brown hair from off his face and looked around, stunned at what he saw. He was alone and he stood in the center of the huge main room of an old lodge. He had been in some pretty impressive structures over the last few hundred years, especially the last twenty years working implanted as an enforcer with Sector Justice in the third sector of the Milky Way Galaxy, but this building was close to the top in impressiveness of pure comfort of all the places he had seen.

  He dropped his small leather pack on the wooden plank floor and took a deep breath of the clean air. He had on a long-sleeved black shirt with a black leather vest over the top of it and the sleeves rolled up. He had on cowboy boots and jeans and a wide, black-leather belt. The belt buckle was two pistols crossed like swords.

  He stood in one place in the big room, just looking around, trying to take in the details.

  The walls, posts, and beams were peeled and polished logs that had to be ten feet around in places. A giant, smooth-rock fireplace filled one side of the immense room, a natural crackling fire going in it, giving the room a wonderful, wood-smoke smell.

  What looked like a check-in desk, all made out of polished wood, filled the right side of the room near a grand, wood staircase that wound up to a floor above.

  To the right of where he had transported in were brown cloth couches and chairs, all facing the huge fireplace and looking very comfortable and deep, with quilts tossed over the backs of a few of them.

  He could see pine trees outside the huge windows in a neighboring dining room area that had a good twenty tables with four chairs each. None of the tables were set.

  This lodge was very high up in some coastal mountains on a planet that had had a major accident. A stray electromagnetic pulse from a distant nova had wiped out all but about a million of its population. That disaster had happened just over three hundred years before, just after he joined the Seeders and came to the Milky Way to help out.

  The population of the planet was recovering nicely, especially in such a short time. In fact, they were almost back into space. They did not know anything about the huge galaxy-wide society of humans growing beyond their system, but eventually they would and join in.

  Clearly, this lodge was from the period before the accident, and had been amazingly preserved by someone.

  But this planet seemed to be jinxed in more ways than just a freak electromagnetic pulse storm. Now this planet was in a direct line of a speeding monster ghost ship that would destroy it as if nothing were there.

  He had been recruited by Chairman Wade Ray to help stop the ghost ship. That’s why he was here.

  He picked up his leather overnight bag and moved over to one of the big, overstuffed chairs near the left side of the fireplace. He dropped into the chair, enjoying how it felt completely comfortable and natural.

  He leaned back and just stared up at the ceiling and the large, wooden logs over his head.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” a man said as he came down the staircase.

  “Completely,” Roscoe said, looking over at the man.

  Roscoe had a sudden moment of surprise looking at the smiling, thin guy who looked like a scientist in a brown, pullover sweater and cloth pants and loafers. They guy even wore glasses, even though no Seeder he had ever met needed them.

  All Seeder health was perfect. A benefit of the job.

  Roscoe couldn’t remember the guy’s name, but they had met once before about a hundred years ago, trying to stop a war in the first sector. Roscoe hadn’t realized the guy was a Seeder at the time.

  “Nice seeing you again, Mr. Mundy,” the guy said, extending his hand as he got close. “My name is Vardis Fisher. Everyone just calls me Fisher.”

  Roscoe stood and shook his head. “Just call me Roscoe. Didn’t know you were a part of all this when
we were back in Sector One.”

  “I didn’t know you were either,” Fisher said, smiling and dropping into a chair across from Roscoe. “Maybe they should put bells on us or something.”

  “Name tags,” Roscoe said, smiling. “Never was good with names and after a couple of centuries, that’s gotten worse.”

  Fisher laughed and indicated the big lodge around them. “Like the old place?”

  “I sure do,” Roscoe said. “All yours?”

  “My wife and I sort of met here about three hundred years ago,” Fisher said. “This lodge saved her and we were recruited by the Seeders at that point to help out. We’ve kept the lodge as our home and base ever since.”

  “Nice,” Roscoe said. He had thought of finding a home base at some point, but so far it just hadn’t come up since he moved around so much. The longest he had stayed in any one place was with Sector Justice, and he knew that was almost over as well, since he couldn’t explain not aging.

  But a big lodge like this one with extreme privacy was certainly something he could enjoy. Someday he would find a permanent home.

  At that moment, Chairman Wade Ray, his wife Tacita, and two other women materialized in the open area in the center of the room.

  Every time Roscoe saw Wade Ray, he was impressed and stunned. Ray was extremely old and powerful among the Seeders. Roscoe had no idea how old he really was and had never had the chance to actually ask. He didn’t look old except for the long, gray hair that hung down over his expensive silk shirt.

  Both of the other women were stunningly good looking. One had dark, short hair and the other long red hair. The dark-haired one went over and kissed Fisher, so that had to be his wife, Callie.

  The redhead just stood there wearing a t-shirt that left little to the imagination and tight jeans and running shoes. Clearly the woman was in amazing shape and her face and neck and arms were covered in freckles that made her look cute and very alluring.

  And she had large golden eyes that were amazing. So far they hadn’t looked at him, as she was too busy looking around at the lodge. He felt lucky because if she did look at him, he wasn’t sure he would be able to turn away.

  He hadn’t felt that attracted to someone else in a long, long time. He would have to be very careful around her because all he really wanted to do was play connect the dots with his tongue on those freckles.

  He forced himself to take a deep breath, clear that thought, and turn his attention to Chairman Ray and his black-haired wife Tacita. She had done a quick look of the lodge and nodded, then moved over to the couch and sat down, saying nothing.

  Roscoe knew her reputation as being cold and brilliant. It was rumored that she and Chairman Ray had been a team for over a hundred thousand years. He couldn’t imagine being with one woman for that long. He couldn’t imagine living that long, actually. In fact, that number just sort of numbed him, it was so large.

  As they all got seated, Roscoe kept his attention on Chairman Ray, but noticed out of the corner of his eye that the redheaded woman had now noticed him and was staring at him. He didn’t dare let himself look at her.

  He wanted to, but he didn’t dare.

  “This is our command team,” Chairman Ray said. “Welcome. You’ve all been briefed on what we face, so first let me do some introductions and reasons why I have asked you to be part of this.”

  He turned to Fisher. “Chairman Vardis Fisher and his partner and wife, Callie Sheridan. Both of them are more educated than most anyone you will ever meet. They will run the science part of this mission, from mathematics to the social sciences. We have no idea what we might find when we get inside that ship, so we need to be ready for anything and they have two of the most diverse and nimble minds I have had the pleasure to meet.”

  Both Fisher and Callie nodded to that, clearly slightly embarrassed.

  Chairman Ray went on. “Their ship and two other scientific ships will be support and they will lead the scientists.”

  Then Chairman Ray turned to the redhead. “This is Chairman Maria Boone.”

  Roscoe looked at her, but she had her golden eyes focused on Chairman Ray.

  “Chairman Boone is the leading authority on the history of the original Seeders,” Ray said, “and she and her ship cut a tracking research trip short and returned from the edge of the Local Group boundary to help. Since that old ship is an ancient Seeders’ ship, we’re going to need her entire crew of experts to unravel what we find.”

  Then Chairman Ray turned to Roscoe. “This is Roscoe Mundy who doesn’t know it yet, but has become Chairman Mundy of a ship called The Huntington. It has just reached orbit above us.”

  Roscoe managed to not jerk from surprise, but instead nodded a thank-you to Chairman Ray.

  Roscoe had had no intention of becoming a Chairman of his own ship this soon. In a few hundred years of more experience, maybe, but not yet. But it seemed he was being given a gift for the moment. He just hoped he was up for the task.

  “The Huntington is the heaviest-armed Seeder ship ever built. It was recently finished and stored in the First Sector, waiting for a moment when it would be needed. So Chairman Mundy will be in charge of all military and security forces we might need going into that large ship. He is one of the clearest-thinking military brains we have.”

  Roscoe nodded to that. He had been briefed on that part of the mission, just not being a Chairman of his own ship. Nor had he expected the compliments coming from Chairman Ray.

  “Four other Seeder military ships will be joining us from the Andromeda Galaxy,” Ray said, “as soon as they can get here, which will be in about two weeks.”

  Roscoe nodded, suddenly totally overwhelmed. He had no doubt he was going to have to recruit a few mortals from Sector Justice into the Seeders, with permission, of course, to help on his ship. He had no idea how to do any of that.

  Seeders Justice was a fairly new policing organization that had formed in the Milky Way Galaxy. It had a lot of great people in it, experienced people he could trust.

  Chairman Ray then patted the leg of his wife. “Tacita and I will be in overall command of this mission. You all will report to me or Tacita.”

  All four of them nodded.

  Nodding right now was about all Roscoe could do. Mostly he kept his focus on the patterned carpet in front of his chair.

  “We’re going to have to work together if we’re going to save billions of lives,” Ray said. “The big ship will hit the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy in five months. It will destroy this planet in six months and ten days if we can’t stop it or alter its course.”

  “We have a very real ticking clock,” Fisher said.

  “Very real,” Chairman Ray said, his voice soft.

  No one said a word as the fire in the big stone fireplace crackled.

  THREE

  MARIA BOONE HAD almost melted in her chair when she stopped looking at the incredible lodge they were in and noticed Roscoe Mundy. She had never had a reaction to a man like that before and luckily she had had a few minutes to recover as Chairman Ray introduced them all and outlined their mission.

  And watching Mundy get surprised with his own command of a ship was amazing. He actually managed to stay calm, but she could tell from how he shifted twice when Ray wasn’t watching, he was trying his best to gather himself.

  He was cool and very smooth and stunningly handsome. Wow. Who knew she would be attracted to the military type. His long brown hair sure didn’t make him look military.

  Finally, it was Chairman Fisher who broke the silence after Ray’s announcement of how little time they had.

  “Any ideas how we are going to get inside that thing?” Fisher asked.

  Maria pulled her gaze from Roscoe, who was still managing to look at the floor in front of him as he gathered himself.

  “We have a few ideas,” she said, “from plans of other older Seeder ships that have come down through the centuries. But we’ll have to work with you to confirm our theories. And from what we can
tell from the readings of the shield, teleporting inside isn’t an option.”

  “We have come to the same conclusion,” Ray said.

  “I am one hundred percent convinced,” Callie said, “that this is an old Seeder ship. But in all the records we have ever seen, there has been no real mention of building something this large. So this might be very old, or very new.”

  Ray nodded to her that she should go on. And Tacita looked up and focused her intense gaze on Maria.

  “New?” Roscoe asked, now clearly recovered.

  She looked at him and somehow managed to not just stare into those deep, dark eyes. He held her gaze, but he seemed as surprised as she was with the tension between them.

  And the attraction.

  “It’s a possibility,” she said, nodding, then pulling her gaze from Roscoe back to Ray and Tacita. “I’m not convinced that early Seeders had this kind of capability. I don’t think we do now unless there is something I don’t know.”

  Ray just nodded.

  Maria went on. “If the Seeders originated outside the Local Group of galaxies as many think, then their civilization now would be very old and capable of this kind of technology. And might still be using this older design.”

  Again, Ray and Tacita just nodded.

  “It seems there is a second problem in boarding the big ship,” Roscoe said. “It’s traveling faster than anything I know of when it drops out of trans-tunnel drive.”

  “With some modifications by my chief engineer, my personal jump ship can match that speed exactly,” Fisher said. “My jump ship is small, and can only hold about twenty comfortably, but it can match the speed without a problem.”

  Maria watched as Roscoe nodded.

  “I would like to attempt the first boarding in three weeks,” Chairman Ray said.

  He then turned to Fisher and Callie. “Thank you for the kind offer of the use of your wonderful lodge as we prepare.”

  “Feel free to come and go,” Callie said.

  “We have stocked the kitchen at the bottom of the stairs,” Fisher said. “Help yourself.”