Free The Lost Patrol by Vaughn Heppner Page A

invisible out there.
    “What the hell?” Riker said.
    “Cease fire,” Maddox ordered.
    Hank repeated the command, shouting at his Marines.
    Maddox had already drawn his long-barreled gun. Riker had brought it over from Victory . He charged through the hatch in time to see a ghostly humanoid-shape shimmer into existence on the deck. Next, sparks played along the ghostly suit. Then, an explosion caused the air to sizzle. A tall man in a suit appeared as he lay on the deck. He held a weird-looking carbine and his helmet visor had a crack running down the middle.
    The autocannon shells had damaged the suit, but none of them had breached its integrity.
    “Armored stealth suit,” Maddox whispered.
    The person in the suit twitched, twitched again and began to sit up. Whoever it was must have seen Maddox. He raised the weird carbine.
    Maddox fired rapidly, knocking the weapon away so it clattered onto the deck.
    “Should I kill him?” Hank asked, aiming his autocannon at the intruder.
    Maddox glanced back. The Marine sergeant stood to his left. “No,” he said. “Physically subdue him.”
    “Come on, boys!” Hank shouted. “Don’t let the bastard move.”
    The Marines piled onto the enemy. Some grabbed legs, others arms. They hoisted the person airborne, making sure feet and hands couldn’t move. The person tried to twist free, but the marines’ powered-armor servos made that impossible.
    “Bring him onto the bridge,” Maddox said.
    The Marines did so.
    Maddox noticed Meta working on the small Spacer. “How is she?” Maddox asked.
    Meta looked up. “She’s hurt, but it appears she wore some kind of energy dampening cloth. Did she know the hidden intruder would fire an energy weapon? Is that why she did what she did.”
    Maddox stepped near Shu, kneeling by her. The small Spacer was unconscious.
    “You said you met her before, right?” Meta asked.
    “In the Lin Ru Hotel,” he said.
    “It must have been some night,” Meta said bitterly.
    Maddox looked up. “Shu tried to kill me in the Lin Ru.”
    “That doesn’t make sense,” Meta said. “Why did she just leap in front of the shot then? We all saw it. She deliberately did it.”
    Maddox had witnessed the action. Why would the Spacer do such a thing? “She believes I’m di-far, ” he said.
    “How did she know the intruder had or was in the process of firing a shot?” Meta asked. “The man wore a stealth suit—if it’s a man. He was invisible to the rest of us.”
    That was a good question.
    “She couldn’t just have a feeling about it, could she?” Meta asked. “That’s impossible, right?”
    Maddox spun around, examining the person in the stealth suit. He stepped near and unsnapped the helmet seals. The person struggled to no avail. With a sharp tug, Maddox pulled off the helmet to reveal a golden-skinned New Man staring at him.
    “We should have figured,” Riker muttered.
    Maddox grabbed the New Man’s jaw in a vacc-suited grip. “Who are you?”
    The New Man’s stare hardened. He practically vibrated with hatred.
    That puzzled Maddox. He’d never felt this from a New Man before. As far as he knew, he’d never seen the man before, either.
    On inspiration, Maddox ran his gloved fingers across the man’s short pelt of hair. As the Marines held the New Man down on the floor, the captain knelt, examining the scalp. Yes. He saw hairline scars on the skull.
    “What are we going to do with him, sir?” Hank asked.
    Maddox straightened, glancing at Shu. She’d warned him about the danger of coming on the hauler and had taken the shot meant to kill him. She’d also worn some kind of dampener cloth. That seemed like another piece of Builder technology. The Marius III had truly turned out to be tainted. Shu had warned them. She had felt something here. Could it be that at the last moment she had sensed the New Man aiming at him. Did the feeling come from a supernatural source or did it come from something else?
    “Take the prisoner to