The Human Chrinicles Box Set 4

by T. R. Harris

  Nine minutes after entering the system, Daric and a squad of forty-two small atmosphere attack ships shot out the back of the three-mile-long battle-carrier and bolted for the planet’s surface. Three minutes later, Daric’s ship was circling the tall target government building looking for a place to land. There was a series of wide balconies among the upper floors which would make perfect landing zones. His ship dropped to one of the higher ones and his players departed a second later.

  There was opposition, delivered by healthy-looking creatures with bronze skin. They fired powerful plasma weapons at his players, eliminating several before the Nuoreans overpowered them. Then Daric departed the vessel, dressed in full battle gear and carrying his own Secan plasma rifle. He would have preferred his ressnel—his combat sword—but in a contest like this, energy weapons were a more practical choice. The blade was reserved for more individualized challenges.

  They entered the building, encountering more resistance in the wide passageways and expansive rooms. From the layout and opulence of his surroundings, Daric reasoned they were in the chambers of the powerful, the leaders of the Kac. Here he would find Adam Cain.

  Lila! Adam screamed through his ATD. This time be felt a welcoming presence in his mind.

  Father, I am here. I sense your panic—

  The Aris…they’re coming for you!

  There was only a moment’s hesitation before Lila replied. I understand now.

  Understand what?

  Everything. Why Zee has been acting the way she has, as well as my very existence. I am a creation of the Aris.

  Adam shook his head. You got all that from one line?

  I have often pondered my birth and abilities. I should not be…yet I am. I do not have all the information, but the Aris must be responsible for the compatibility between the Formilians and the Humans, something that could only have happened in the distant past. The Aris are the logical catalyst for that event.

  They know about you.

  Of course. They would want to monitor the results of their experiments. Now they wish to examine me.

  Are you in any danger?

  Unknown…until I meet the Aris. Are they not well-advanced from Zee’s time?

  No, they suspended their evolution somehow. Zee says they’re like they used to be.

  Then I may have an advantage.

  Don’t let them take you! I’m on my way.

  There was another hesitation.

  It appears the Aris have already arrived…along with others, unrelated.

  Others? What do you—

  Alarms rang throughout the building; Adam used another part of his ATD to connect with the Formilian’s main computer system. The data flowing into his brain only confused him more.

  Who’s doing the attacking if not the Aris?

  I do not know. Yet please forgive me, father, but I appear to be in some distress—

  “Lila!” Adam cried out loud. He looked to the table where Zee had been sitting only seconds before. She was gone.

  He raced for the exit. The guest chambers were two levels below Lila’s, so he dashed toward the nearest elevator at the end of the hallway. Just then, double doors burst open on his right and a squad of aliens clad in dark green battle armor poured into the corridor, blocking his way. They fanned out on either side, opening a path for a central figure. This alien glanced down at a pad he held in his gloved hand and then at Adam. The creature’s face was Prime, with gold eyes that seemed to glow in the hall lights, especially when they locking on the Human.

  Adam was still running toward the gathering of aliens when he heard the one with the datapad speak. “Adam Cain! I am Game-Master Daric. You will come with me—”

  A moment later Adam was at the alien…and planting a balled fist onto the nose of the grinning face. The creature staggered back, falling into the arms of two of the other soldiers.

  “Sorry dude,” Adam said as he passed. “I don’t have time to play your alien games.”

  Not waiting for the elevator, Adam ran to the stairwell and was gone a moment later, climbing toward Lila’s chambers.

  Daric nearly lost consciousness from the tremendous strike; if not for the Nuoreans behind him he would have toppled to the floor. He tried to right himself, but found his legs were like rubber and he was in need of assistance to stay upright.

  Others were talking to him, but he couldn’t understand. After a moment, his senses returned.

  “Shall we follow?” someone was asking. “Game-Master, do we—”

  “Yes, follow, but do not kill him. I want him alive!”

  Formilian gravity is Juirean Standard, or about three-quarters that of Earth. As a result, Adam was taking the stairs five at a time and was at Lila’s floor in three seconds flat. He laid a shoulder into the sliding exit door, snapping the right side out of its frame, and continued on without breaking stride.

  There were a few natives around but they appeared confused. Adam took one by the shoulders. “Where’s Lila?” he yelled. The Formilian male looked back at him with dazed eyes. They were all like this, addled as if on drugs..

  Then Trimen appeared, seemingly unaffected.

  “There are invaders in the building,” he called out to Adam. He had only one flash weapon, and it was out and ready.

  “Where’s Lila?”

  “In her chambers. Follow me.”

  Adam relieved one of the useless Formilian guards of his MK-17 and raced off with Trimen. At a set of double doors fifty feet farther along, they moved to each side, weapons ready. Trimen activated the controls and the doors opened.

  They entered in a crouch, one on each side. Lila was there, standing in the middle of an enormous room, shrouded in a glowing halo of blue. Her eyes met Adam’s.

  When his telepathic link met a brick wall, Adam reverted to tried and true verbal communication.

  “Are you all right?”

  Lila shook her head. She spoke through the shimmering cocoon holding her. “They are here; I cannot move. Beware. They can influence minds, as witnessed by the guards.”

  Adam and Trimen scanned the room but saw no one else. Although he felt pressure in his mind, it wasn’t painful, not at first. But that soon changed.

  Trimen screamed and fell to the tile floor, gripping his head. Adam fought the mental intrusion, but it was becoming harder by the moment. Then the pressure in his mind vanished. When it did, three creatures were standing before him where none had been before. They, too, were wrapped in the blue halo.

  The Aris were extremely pale and thin, as one would expect from creatures with little need of their physical bodies. They were classic Prime in form—probably because they had been the first Primes and fashioned all other races after themselves. They wore no clothing Adam could see, but the haze of the halo shielded most of their bodies except for the head. One of the aliens stepped forward.

  Adam stood, wanting to fire his weapon yet unable to gather the will to do so. His mind was still active, even as his body was in a state of tingling numbness.

  You are…the birth male, the alien spoke to him in his mind. He looked back at the others and smiled. Success. There is continued interaction between the species. This is encouraging.

  Let her go, Adam managed to convey in his mind, filling the thought with all the venom he could muster.

  The alien turned back to him and appeared to grin. Or what? I find it hard to believe I am having a conversation with you…Human. I remember vividly the moment I created your race. And now here you are, full-developed and threatening me. The humor is evident in the moment, but also the pride. We have done well, my friends. It will be exciting to learn the results of our other experiments. Now let us go. Bring the apex being.

  The three glowing aliens moved off to the right. Adam remained locked in place, unable to move anything but his head.

  “Lila!” he called out. “I’ll find you.”

  The aliens reached the entrance to the wide terrace outside a forty foot bank of sliding gl
ass doors. A breeze rustled the shear curtains. Lila began to slide along the floor, trapped in her electric prison. At the doorway, the lead Aris spoke aloud in a voice that reverberated throughout room. “Come Zee. It is time to go.”

  Adam caught sight of the tiny green globe on a table near the door. For a moment he got the feeling she was looking at him. He felt a sigh in his mind, and then the orb disappeared, as did the Aris.

  Along with Lila Bol.

  The unseen shackles holding him fell away, allowing Adam to stumble for the doorway to the balcony. He still didn’t have complete control of his muscles and held onto the doorframe while looking outside. A small spacecraft, about the size of school bus, began to glow white over its entire surface. The glare continued to grow until blinding in its intensity. Adam lifted his arm to shield his eyes, expecting the brilliance to soon bathe his body with scorching heat. But the air remained cool in the flowing breeze. The ship lifted silently from the terrace before gaining speed and streaking off into the evening sky of Formil.

  Coordination was returning to his body. He ran to the edge of the balcony and looked up. The glow of the spacecraft was evident for several seconds against the darkening sky before it vanished from sight. Adam scanned the balcony for any other spacecraft, be they Formilian or the unnamed others attacking the building. He couldn’t let the Aris get too much of a head start.

  Below him, on the balcony at the guest quarters level, sat a silver-hulled vessel with three of the armor-clad aliens standing patrol. The ship would do nicely.

  Adam returned to the Lila’s chambers just as Trimen was regaining his senses.

  “Lila…where is she?”

  “They took her.”

  “Who took her?”

  “The Aris.” Adam entered the foyer outside Lila’s chambers with Trimen stumbling behind. He knew the other aliens were swarming the building, probably on the floor below looking for him. Next they would be coming to Lila’s chambers.

  “The Aris?” Trimen called out from behind him. “Referring to Zee’s Aris?”

  “That’s right. I spoke with Zee. She filled me in on the details. The Aris created Lila.”

  “I…how? That is incomprehensible.”

  “That’s what I thought too.”

  “They have arrived with an army,” said Trimen. “I received reports of attacks occurring throughout the system before joining you. Others are in the building,” Trimen reported.

  “Those aren’t Aris. I don’t know who they are.”

  “They are not with the Aris?”

  “I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. All I know is that the Aris have left and they have Lila.”

  Armor-clad aliens were at the shattered stairwell door by now, probing cautiously with the barrels of the energy rifles. Adam and Trimen fell against the wall next to the door. Two of the creatures exposed themselves; flash bolts ignited and the invaders fell, blocking the doorway.

  A torrent of blue-white streaks entered the foyer through the stairwell doorway, only to be silenced a moment later when a stern voice yelled out. It sounded like the angry voice of the alien Adam had smacked.

  At least he’s still alive. That says something for the durability of this particular breed of alien, Adam thought.

  “I have to get to the guest level,” he said to Trimen. “There’s a spaceship on the balcony. I need it to go after Lila.”

  Trimen scanned the foyer. The elevator doors were beyond the stairwell opening. They would be locked down by now, the result of emergency procedures. “There is a service shaft at the end of the corridor. It operates pneumatically, moving supplies in pods throughout the building. We might be able to climb down.”

  Without another word, the pair raced away from the stairwell. Aliens were once again trying to enter the foyer. Adam and Trimen sent a couple of random flash bolts at the door, and the aliens retreated.

  They turned a corner and came to a small alcove with a panel of clear glass set in the wall. An amber light glowed next to it, just above a control pad. Trimen fingered the keys and the light turned red. The glass panel opened.

  “All the access doors are open, from here to ground floor,” Trimen said.

  Adam poked his head inside the shaft. It was a round tube made of shiny and smooth metal. “What’s to keep us from falling all the way down?”

  “This.” Trimen had torn a section of thirty-foot long curtain from a nearby window. He tied one end to the legs of the built-in workstation and fed the silky material into the tube.

  “It’s not long enough,” Adam said. He could see the periodic access points for the different floors down the shaft, until it became just a dark point far below.

  “It will get us to the next level. Hopefully the invaders will not be present and we can take the stairs to the lower floor.”

  “Good thinking. I’ll take the lead.”

  Tucking the MK-17 into his waistband, Adam took hold of a ledge above the opening and hoisted himself up until his legs were dangling in the tube. Then taking the curtain firmly in his grip, he began sliding down its length.

  He looked down, knowing there was nothing to stop his fall for fifty stories. He quickened his descent.

  Above, he felt the tension on the curtain rope as Trimen added his weight to the length of cloth. That may not have been the best thing to do, not until Adam reached the floor below. A loud tearing sound confirmed his belief. He began to fall.

  Releasing the now-useless curtain, Adam extended his arms and legs, placing rubber soled shoes on one side of the shaft and his back against the other. It worked—somewhat. He was still sliding along the surface, but much slower. His back began to heat up from the friction against the wall.

  He slid past the access portal for the floor below Lila’s chambers. It came upon him so rapidly that he had no time to react. But now he knew what to expect.

  Then Trimen landed on his lap. He had been in freefall down the center the shaft.

  Adam groaned and pressed harder against the sides, having to support more weight than a moment before. His back felt on fire as the pair gained speed.

  Without warning, the wall of the shaft against Adam’s back disappeared. He fell backwards through access port, losing his grip on Trimen, and now hooked on the edge of the opening by his bent legs, hanging upside down. He felt a weight on his legs and a strong grip around his ankles. He straightened his legs, feeling desperate hands climbing up them. Trimen appeared at the opening until he gripped the outer wall of the portal and pulled, propelling himself out of the shaft. Adam fell head-first to the floor and rolled, finding the soft body of the alien next to him.

  They lay on the cold tile, panting for several seconds, catching their breath before Adam sprang to his feet with renewed urgency. He smiled at Trimen. “That worked—sort of. We should be on the guest level.”

  Adam raced out of the alcove and toward the balcony, leaving Trimen behind.

  “Wait for me!” he yelled after Adam.

  “You find Riyad and Sherri,” Adam called back. “Find out who these other aliens are. I’ll get Lila.”

  “How…against the Aris?”

  “I have an idea where they’re taking her.”

  The platform outside the building was contiguous, forming an observation deck that wrapped the structure. All the higher levels had such a feature, a place where guests and dignitaries could behold the glory of the expanding city of Vull. Night was approaching, and the building was already bathed in both internal and external light, making it visible throughout the city.

  The alien starship was still there, yet with only two guards visible. Adam pulled his MK-17 and sent a series of quick blasts into the aliens as he rushed toward the ship’s open hatch. The well-placed shots struck their unshielded heads, blasting each into unrecognizable masses of bloody flesh.

  Adam had no idea how many others were inside, and he didn’t care. Lila was bolting away somewhere in the heavens and he didn’t have time to waste.

 
He entered through a small airlock open at the other side and met up with a central spine corridor that ran the length of the ship in each direction. He turned right, heading for the pilothouse.

  An alien appeared from a side compartment, unarmored and shocked to see Adam. It was the last thing he saw. Adam closed his eyes as he fired the MK, preventing a short-term bout of blindness from the intense flash. That wasn’t the case for the other alien in the corridor emerging from the pilothouse. Instinctively, he lifted his arms to his eyes as the light flooded the chamber. Adam’s next bolt burned a hole in the creature’s chest.

  That was it for Adam’s MK. The damn power pack of a ’17 only allowed for five shots at level-one. He’d set the weapon at max, not taking any chances against this unknown species of alien.

  He entered the pilothouse, and to his relief, it was empty.

  He scanned the side walls and found a control panel for the pressure door. He pressed it. With the room secure, he slipped into the pilot seat, snapping a safety harness around his waist. Nearly all starship control consoles had the same layout, a consequence of having been designed by Primes for Primes. Yet some used control keys while others had sticks. This one had keys, with strange symbols on each. That was a problem. He couldn’t read alien.

  Adam began to push buttons in what he hoped was some sort of logical progression. The larger keys did produce a reaction. The ship began to hum as the generators wound up. That was a good sign. He pressed another button. This time a powerful flash bolt shot out from the bow, blasting out a twenty-foot wide section of the ornate stone railing lining the terrace, and sending chunks of debris raining all the way to the ground.

  One of the buttons activated a side screen, indicating the various openings to the ship in graphic detail. The main hatch was still open and a pulsing blue light framed the portal, warning the pilot that the ship was not secure for liftoff. Adam didn’t care. He was locked safely away in the pilothouse.

  The ship began to move, sliding sideways toward the edge of the balcony. Adam pressed buttons on the right side of the panel. This corrected the movement to the left, but it sent the spacecraft scraping along the side of the building to his right, creating another cascade of debris as doors and windows shattered. At least now he knew how to move the ship from left and right. Now how about up and down?