by T. R. Harris
Adam turned to the tiny globe. “Okay, just like with the jump-drive, are there any side-effects we need to be aware of?”
“Just one. Although I can draw energy from my surroundings, I do have my limitations. Dividing my capacity between too many devices will affect them all. For the beam weapon, it requires nearly all I can offer at the time of its operation.”
Adam nodded. “That’s good to know. We’ll have to keep that in mind if we need to use it again.”
“Now that I can communicate with you, Riyad, let me guide you to a quicker and more efficient installation of the battery banks. The method you’re using now is…well, very Human-like.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Riyad asked, frowning.
“I would prefer not to say. We must remain on good terms for the duration of the mission.”
“Is that sarcasm I detect?” Adam asked.
“I told you before, I have absorbed most Human mannerisms and personality. That’s what I was programmed to do. Whether my comment is sarcasm or not…I will leave that up to you to decide.”
The orb vibrated visibly. Adam got the impression it was laughing.
5
It took twelve more hours beyond the supply colony to reach the Worak-nin star system. The journey was uneventful, which gave Adam time to recall dozens of experiences he and the late Andy Tobias had shared over the past twenty-five years.
Adam was no more than a sniveling twenty-one-year-old at the time he joined SEAL Team Six, based at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in Virginia Beach, Virginia—if SEALs could ever be termed sniveling. As it was with most boots right out of training, Adam knew nothing of his job until the knowledge was pounded into him by senior men like Tobias. A full lieutenant at the time, Andy was his first squad leader, and he took the young seaman under his wing. It was baptism by fire, yet in such a deadly occupation, Adam quickly realized it was also the most effective method of getting the point across to the cocky, young Alpha Males in the Teams. First one had to be humbled by your betters before you would respect what they had to teach you. Andy Tobias excelled at humbling.
Adam spent five years on Andy’s team before being abducted by the Klin. That was twenty years ago, and everything that had happened between then and now could fill several volumes of the most-unbelievable science fiction series anyone could imagine. Most times Adam didn’t believe it himself, thinking his adventures to be just some crazy dream from which he’d eventually wake. However, this dream-like state would often evaporate when he’d look out the viewport of a starship or when an alien crossed his path. That’s when reality would slap him rudely across the face, as every bump, bruise or beating he’d suffered throughout the years came back to haunt him. At forty-seven, Adam Cain had already lived several lifetimes worth of adventure. And here he was again, approaching an alien planet full of alien villains, while on one more desperate mission of life or death.
He suddenly felt very tired.
“I don’t see a lot of traffic around the planet like you’d expect,” Riyad said from the co-pilot seat. “I thought the reports said Juireans were crawling all over the place?”
“See if you can raise Tom and Travis on their comm unit. We should be within range.”
Energy surged back into Adam’s body, stimulated by the coming mission. For good or bad, this is what he lived for, had trained for. He let that training and instinct take over.
“Rocky to Apollo Creed, come in Apollo.”
Adam looked at Riyad askew. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“It’s a code, stupid, something the Juireans won’t recognize.”
“No shit. I know it’s a code. Just why that one?”
“It’s better than Bambi to Thumper, come in Thumper.”
“That I’ll give you. Stick with Rocky and Apollo.”
Adam stationed the Mark VII four light minutes from the planet. The comm unit was a traditional radio, not a wormhole type device, so its signals could only travel at light speed. Even this far out, they would be visible from any planet-based detectors, and the one drawback of the jump-drive was they could never go fully dark. There was always some residual energy signal coming from the various generators and battery packs onboard.
So as Riyad tried to make contact with the two Humans on the surface, Adam kept a close lookout for any approaching warships.
“Eh, this is Apollo, I guess,” came a questioning voice over the bridge speakers. It was Sergeant Travis Morgan.
Riyad leaned in close to the console. “Travis, it’s Riyad.”
“Yessir, I recognized your voice. Why the code? We’ve been broadcasting for a couple of weeks and so far no one has come looking for us.”
“Just a precaution, sergeant. Is Paulson with you?”
“He’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. He’s out scouting the palace again. Is Captain Cain with you?”
Adam took over the conversation. “I’m here, Travis. The two of you have done a remarkable job. Where are you?”
“We came down off the mountain and now we’re hiding in the woods near the palace. That’s where the Juireans have set up their headquarters, and where Sherri and Arieel were taken.”
“So they’re still there?” Adam’s heart leapt. He didn’t want to admit it, but he’d been expecting them to have already been moved—or dead—by the time he arrived.
“As far as we can tell, although we haven’t actually seen them. We were about four hours behind the Juireans getting here, after finding out about the admiral. Also, we haven’t been able to maintain constant surveillance on the compound. Too many mane-heads wandering around. And the damn natives here are kissing their asses, too, so we can’t trust them. How many ships do you have, sir?”
“Just one, sergeant,” Adam replied.
There was a slight hesitation before Travis spoke again. “Understood. Can you home in on my signal?”
“I have a way of doing it. Is there an LZ in the area, someplace we can land without being seen?”
“Not where we are. When Commander Paulson gets back, we’ll move to a better location and make contact again.”
“Very good, sergeant. Looking forward to seeing you again.”
“Same here, sir. It’s been a long three months—hell, even longer than that, really, if you count being in the Sol-Kor shithole, if you pardon my language, sir. I’m pretty anxious to get back home, sir, if that’s in the cards.”
“Aren’t we all. Be careful and report back when you have an LZ mapped out. Cain out.”
“No sightings in two weeks,” Riyad said, concern heavy in his voice.
“I know. But we have to assume the best, while preparing for the worst.”
“Yeah…but two weeks.”
Adam shrugged.
It was an agonizingly long five hours before the speakers crackled again and Lieutenant-Commander Tom Paulson’s voice was heard.
“We’re about nineteen kicks from the palace. Had to go out this far to find a safe landing zone. There’s a mountain pass to the north. If you come in five hundred miles on the polar side and stay low you should be able to slip through the pass undetected. The LZ is a wide clearing surrounded by a thick grove of trees. What kind of ship do you have?”
“It’s experimental, about three hundred feet long.”
“That should fit without any problem. Be careful, Captain. The place was swarming with mane-heads up until about forty-eight hours ago. Since then, I have no idea where they’ve gone.”
“The spaceport?”
“Virtually empty, but no liftoffs that we know of in a week.”
“And Sherri and Arieel?”
“Still no sightings.”
“Roger that. We’re making our approach, Commander. See you in a few minutes.”
After so many jumps, Adam was getting the hang of the new stardrive. He now calculated a short hop to the planet’s north pole region. Even still, the maneuver was risky, appearing so close to a large gravity body.
If he pulled it off, they’d reach the surface with minimal chance of detection.
Once engaged, the blackness of space was immediately replaced by the blinding white of a pristine snowpack fifty miles below the ship. Adam gunned it, dropping even lower in a matter of seconds. He leveled out at seven hundred feet, keeping a very weak gravity-well created above them to stay aloft, while using the chemical jets for forward propulsion.
The relatively smooth and level expanse of snow soon gave way to a rising mountain range to the south. Adam spotted the twin peaks that formed the pass Paulson had mentioned and steered in that direction. From there, it was a rollercoaster ride, as the topography rose and fell, often with little warning.
After fifteen minutes, the valley floor began to fall away, dropping toward a vast plain covered in verdant forests and laced with shimmering threads of rivers and streams. Adam and Riyad had spent a couple of weeks on Worak-nin, mostly in and around the area where the mutant Panur had built his golden palace, so they knew the area fairly well, at least where they were headed.
Even so, they had the benefit of Adam’s mental ghost presence in Paulson’s comm unit to guide them
This was a trick Adam had learned long ago, right after he’d first been fitted with his brain-interface device. It was discovered he could send his awareness along various communications waves, be they continuous wormholes or conventional. Once at the other end, he could create a surrogate presence. This came in handy for controlling things at space-borne distances. In this case, all he needed to do was plant a signal in the comm unit’s internal circuitry. Within his mind’s eye, he could see the white dot in his vision. They were almost there.
The clearing rushed into view; Adam pulled back on the stick and the nose rose up to slow the ship, keeping them from overshooting the LZ. He corrected the jarring maneuver, before unceremoniously plopping the craft down on the grassy surface with a pronounced bump.
Riyad twisted his neck and looked at Adam. “Might have a lawsuit coming after a landing like that.”
“Good luck trying to collect. I’m just a poor GS worker.”
“Aren’t we all.”
Paulson and Morgan were waiting at the hatch when Riyad cracked it open. After the obligatory hugs and fist-bumps, the four men moved inside.
“What is this thing?” Paulson asked.
“It’s a Mark VII experiment craft. One of a kind.”
“How did you get it here undetected?”
“It employs a type of trans-dimensional stardrive—”
“No way, not again!”
Adam smiled. “Relax, Tom, it can’t jump into other universes.”
“Thank god. I’ve had about as many universes as I can handle in one lifetime. Any backup expected?”
“’Fraid not,” said Riyad. “We kinda borrowed the ship…without permission.”
“We call that stealing where I come from.” Paulson’s smile matched that of the other three men.
“Like the saying goes,” Adam began, “if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.”
“Well, I would say you’re one trying son-of-a-bitch…sir,” said Travis Morgan.
Adam gripped the enlisted man’s shoulder. “Thanks, sergeant. Now what say we go rescue us some damsels in distress?”
“Yessir, Captain Cain, sir! That’s what legends are made of.”
6
With sacks of ammo magazines dangling from full MOLLI packs, Adam and his team set out through the pine-like forests of Worak-nin. They were armed to the teeth, having cleaned out the weapons cabinet in the Mark VII’s service bay. For his part, Adam carried an M-101 assault rifle, and two .45 caliber Glocks. He also had four light-weight MK-17’s with four battery packs each, and rounding out his arsenal was a KA-BAR combat knife, two canisters of mace, six hand grenades and two flares. The other men were similarly armed, along with throat and ear-piece comms.
A nineteen klick hike through the woods was a piece of cake for the Humans, even with the packs they carried. Worak-nin was rated Juirean-Standard in gravity, placing it about three-quarters that of Earth. It was mid-day—not the best time to launch an assault—but Adam was anxious to learn the status of his two favorite females. And if what Paulson had said about the Juireans was correct, most of them had already departed after the killing of Admiral Tobias.
The team’s destination was the palace of gold that Panur had built when he and Lila decided to shack-up together. More correctly, the huge mansion had been built for them, by more-than-willing local labor. The purple natives had been completely enamored with the mutants and their demonstrations of supernatural feats, believing the pair to be the living gods they claimed to be. It was easy to understand why. Both Panur and Adam’s daughter, Lila, possessed the unique trait of spontaneous—and willful—cell regeneration. They could change their appearance, while also allowing them to live an indeterminate number of years. For all intents and purposes, the pair were immortal.
They also possessed superior intellect. As Panur once explained, he had near-perfect recall, coupled with a five-thousand-year lifespan—at that time—and he’d acquired an incredible amount of knowledge he could easily access.
With that combination of abilities and mutations, Panur and Lila were a formidable pairing, one with near unlimited possibilities.
Two years ago, the natives of Worak-nin scrounged together every ounce of gold they could find to build the sixty-room palace, thinking this would gain them favor with their gods. The truth of the matter, neither Panur nor Lila cared a lick for wealth. They didn’t need any. They had immortality and genius. Even so, that didn’t stop Panur from playing with the natives, engaging in one of the many social experiments the bored mutant used to occupy his time.
Now the huge building complex reflected the light of the Worak-nin sun in blinding flashes off the dark yellow surface. A five-feet-tall wall enclosed the estate, with an ungated entrance along each side. The compound hadn’t been built for security, only to impress.
Adam lifted his closed fist and the team stopped.
“I think I’ve found Tom’s missing Juireans.”
The men moved up beside him, all four falling prone in the tall grass at the tree line, monoculars aimed at the building.
“I don’t see anyone,” Paulson commented. “Been like this for several days.”
“They’re all inside,” Adam reported. “I’m detecting the energy signatures of over fifty flash weapons. Four distinct groups, with sentries patrolling.”
“You getting this from your brain-link thingy?” Paulson asked.
“Yep.”
“Why are they all inside?” Sergeant Morgan asked.
“Because they’re expecting us,” Riyad answered.
Adam nodded. “Hollingsworth was right. The Juireans connected the jump points and plotted our course to here.”
“So it’s an abort?” Paulson asked.
Adam looked at him with a frown. “Abort? Hell no. I didn’t come all this way to abort.” He looked back at the palace and scanned it with his monocular. “But one thing is clear, I don’t have the skill with my brain-thingy to isolate each individual flash weapon and sever the firing controls. That would take forever, and then I might miss a few.”
“Well…if they’re expecting us, shouldn’t we oblige?” Riyad said. When the other three looked at him with blank faces, he continued. “They think they have the upper hand, and if there’s one thing I know about Juireans, they sure do like to boast about their victories. They’ll probably want to take us prisoner—at least me and Adam.”
“Gee, thanks, Mr. Tarazi. I guess Travis and I are a couple of red-shirt crewmen from an old Star Trek episode. No names and the first to die.”
“Everyone has their roles to play, commander.” Riyad flashed his trademark smile. They didn’t appreciate his sense of humor.
“Relax,” Adam said. “I’ll protect us, at least against the sentries. The main cluster of troops is in hiding, stationed on each side o
f Panur’s office, as best I can tell.”
“The meditation rooms?” Riyad asked.
“Looks like it.”
“Meditation rooms?” asked Sergeant Morgan.
“Yeah, Panur and Lila each had a private room they could go to and contemplate their navels, while attempting to solve the mysteries of the universe. However, unlike the Hindus and Buddhists, that pair could actually do it.”
Adam replaced his monocular in its holder and readied himself on one knee. “I’ve got a plan. Everyone line up on me, and no shooting unless you absolutely have to. Don’t give the mane-heads an excuse to fire back. Okay…let’s roll.”
In the planet’s light gravity, the line of sprinting Humans would have set a world’s record for the hundred-meter relay back on Earth. They ran straight for the low wall—not the entranceways—and hurdled the barricade without breaking stride. At the forty-eight-step grand stairway rising to the front landing, they took a dozen steps at a time and split up at the top, flanking the double forty-foot-tall entry doors, two men on each side.
Adam tried the left door. It swung open, and the team moved inside.
Adam began whispering into his throat microphone, giving a running account where the energy signatures were for the flash weapons within the building. They’d been spotted, and several of the white dots in Adam’s mind were moving behind walls and down hallways, maneuvering for position.
The four men knew the location of Panur’s office. It was straight ahead across the cavernous main entry hall and through a set of ornately-carved twenty-foot-tall gold doors. The office was more like a throne room, where the mutant received local worshippers and other dignitaries during his brief reign as Lord of Panurland—as he called Worak-nin. The team sprinted for the doorway, through the enormous room and past dozens of strange artifacts the natives had donated to their gods.
They reached the entrance to the office without the shadowing aliens making a move. It was clear they were expecting the Humans to enter the room…so Adam led the way.
