DS02 Night of the Dragonstar by Thomas F. Monteleone, David Bischoff Read Free Book Online

could break the immense cylinder from its cometary path and guide it into a stable L-5 orbit near the Earth. From that position, scientists will study the vessel at their leisure, and the IASA can protect the vessel from the Chinese and the TWC.
    “There was one problem with this strategy, however. A ‘sleeper’ agent for the TWC, Ross Canter, had managed to be placed on the Goddard mission, and at the appropriate time he sabotaged the expedition’s communications gear, cutting it off from all contact with Copernicus Base.
    “Almost simultaneously, a group of TWC terrorists led by Marcus Jashad hijacked an IASA mining vessel, the Andromache, that was parked in lunar orbit. The TWC ruthlessly murdered the mining ship’s crew, except for its captain, Francis Welsh.
    “Filled with one hundred trained guerrilla fighters, the Andromache headed out to intercept the Dragonstar. Control of the alien vessel and its secrets of advanced technology — including its stardrive — would give the TWC the controlling force in world affairs.
    “The actual order of the events have not been fully documented,” the narration continued. “However, certain definite facts have been made available to the press. After many encounters with the local wildlife, Coopersmith and Thalberg reached their destination, the end of the cylinder, where they hoped they would find a passage to the control section of the mammoth ship. Instead they found a wall isolating the last fraction of the interior from the dangerous carnivores in the wild. Guarding this wall were what amounted to intelligent dinosaurs, popularly known these days as ‘Sauries.’ Speculation is that these creatures evolved within the cylinder from the two-legged dinosaurs called (Saurornithoides.) Slightly more than 2.5 meters tall, they are fairly smooth-skinned with vestigial scaling. They stand totally erect, possessing definite shoulders and arm musculature and have three-fingered hands with opposable thumbs. Their necks are thick and longish, supporting a birdlike head. Their faces are pointed, but there is no beak, and their large green eyes are positioned stereoscopically under defined brow ridges. Their skulls are large and possess sizable brain capacity.
    “With a combination of luck and intelligence, the stranded engineer and doctor established communication with the species, which they found to be organized very much along the lines of the government posited in Plato’s Republic — workers, soldiers, and scientist-kings. A breakthrough was established with one of these rulers, a ‘Saurian’ they dubbed Thesaurus, who had access to a passageway in the wall between the Mesozoic environment and the control section of the ship — and seemingly had suffered radiation burns as payment for the knowledge he had attained.
    “Colonel Phineas Kemp soon found the lost pair, and with their help began discovering the fascinating secrets of the Saurian race — including a dioramalike teaching device left by the aliens who had constructed the ship, predicting the arrival of creatures from another world, and providing evidence that the aliens had molded the structure of life on earth. I shall return to this later with scientific musings of my own.
    “Exploration of the Dragonstar ended with the arrival of the Andromache and its treacherous cargo. The TWC army’s attempt to take over the Dragonstar failed, thanks to the cooperation of the Saurians and the hunger of the local wildlife, with which Jashad and his compatriots failed to reckon.
    “Jashad himself was killed after discovering that the main intention of his mission — to own a stardrive — was fruitless. Dr. Robert Jakes had discovered that, from all signs, the Dragonstar had no stardrive; it was, in fact, what amounted to a virtual test tube for the aliens dabbling in prospective life for the planet Earth — and not, as they had thought, a specimen ship.
    “The Dragonstar was placed in a stable orbit. The