by T. R. Harris
It took only a moment before Rodoc noticed a change. At first he had trouble understanding the meaning of what he saw, as a thin white cloud was forming on the right side of the planet, being drawn into space to form a sharp point. Then the cloud turned ruddy in color, mixing with the white of the atmosphere. The camera zoomed in, showing huge chunks of the planet—the size of mountains—being ripped off the surface and joining in the catastrophic exodus into space.
That’s when Rodoc noticed something on the screen which displayed the transit zone for LP-3. As he watched, his jaw fell slack. Appearing within the four-hundred-thousand mile diameter jump zone—and racing off into space—were the same massive chunks of rock, interlaced now with frozen sheets of atmosphere and ice. The area continued to fill, resembling a disjointed asteroid field consisting of thousands of objects. This continued for another fifteen seconds until the transit was complete.
Rodoc stared at the screen for several seconds, watching the mass of debris race from the transit zone. He looked at the screen with the planet. The brown globe was now grossly misshapen, with a large, ragged bite taken out of the right side. The atmosphere no longer glowed as a massive cloud of brown haze was already beginning to fall back on the planet, obscuring some of the most catastrophic damage.
Rodoc looked at Morlon. “Why?”
“To prove it was possible. No one has ever transported a planet through an LP before. There was a possibility the singularities could rupture or disintegrate.”
“And you tested it now, with me nearly two hundred thousand light-years from Nuor? What if there is damage to the generators?”
Morlon turned back to the controls. “This was not our first test, Master. I would not have risked your life if so.”
“You’ve done this before…destroyed a planet?”
“Yes. Three. This was the fourth.”
“Again, I ask why?”
“This is a potential solution to our Human problem in the Kac.”
Immediately, Rodoc grasped the meaning. “Yet the Earth is located much farther into their galaxy than was this planet. We would need a direct line…and the use of the LP-6 generators.”
“That is what we are looking into. I already have Cadre in the Kac taking precise measurements of the location of Earth. I will know more in a few days.”
Rodoc looked back at the rapidly expanding debris field. “Why was the planet not transported here complete? The zone is adequate in size to hold such an object. And the objects at this end are moving. That is not normal for a transit.”
“Our transit lines work best without opposing gravity fields. That is why we aim them at the outer edge of the Kac—that and because the entry points on our side would have be placed farther into the Suponac. In this case, a planet exerts its own strong gravitational field which resists the transit pulse. As these forces oppose, the planet is ripped apart. We may not be able to pull the Human’s homeworld entirely out of the Kac, but what will be left could hardly be classified as a planet. And we could always link again in three days and do even more damage if necessary.”
“And the movement of the debris?”
“The transit zone at the target world was offset slightly. Debris was drawn into the zone, which produced momentum. When the material appeared at this end, the momentum was maintained. Once we passed through LP-3, I had the transit zone shifted to the target world, which set the corresponding exit point at this end further into the void. I will return it to normal for our journey back.”
“And what happens on our end, as the Human world is drawn to us?”
“It matters not. The destination point will be somewhere deep in the Suponac and of no interest to us.”
The idea of killing billions of creatures in a single act did not weigh on Rodoc’s mind. What dominated his thinking was his renewed admiration for the Third Cadre officer. After his failure at LP-5, he had taken the initiative to act on his planning, enough to have already destroyed three worlds before this one. Rodoc chided himself for not seeing the potential of the gravity generators as a planet-busting weapon. Yes, the Humans were Jundac and deserved to die in the most efficient manner. Yet this new use for LP-6 could be employed against other problem worlds or even huge fleets of warships—if their position could be discerned in time to adjust the aim of the generators.
And the other advantage of this new use for LP-6, it required no additional equipment, construction or even fleets of warships. With selected targeting, the Nuoreans could beat the Kac into submission without losing a single player. Take out Juir and Formil—along with Earth—and surrender would be next. The enemy would have no defense, no place to hide.
Rodoc could tell by the stern look on Morlon’s face that the Cadre officer had already thought of all the uses for his strategy—and how this would restore the Grand Master’s respect for him. Morlon was right.
Then Rodoc’s stomach tightened.
“Adam Cain?” he said to the Cadre officer.
“He becomes a non-factor. Once I have the precise coordinates of Earth, I will personally travel to LP-6 and make the adjustments. Cain may eventually reach the station—even manage to return to the Kac by some manner—but his homeworld will be gone.”
Rodoc frowned. “As will be LP-6.”
“We will rebuild. We are a patient race, and once LP-6 is back in operation, planets all over the Kac will begin to be ripped apart. They will know who is doing it yet will be helpless to do anything about it. And that, Master, would be the worst case. If not, then Adam Cain dies and LP-6 remains. As I said, he is no longer a factor. His world will be destroyed long before he can do anything to stop us.”
The Grand Master beamed at the Cadre officer. “You have my full support, Morlon. Well done. You may have just single-handily conquered an entire galaxy.”
103
Adam had had enough. The Najmah Fayd was small enough already and the conditions cramped, but this was too much.
He went aft—to one of the small staterooms—and pounded on the door.
“C’mon you two! You know we can hear you.”
“Sorry!” came Sherri’s breathy voice. “Lot of tension…need relief.”
“Well…we’re jumping in a few minutes. And I mean through space, and not bones.”
He heard Sherri’s squealing laugh through the door. “That was…funny,” she moaned.
“Well hurry up.”
Copernicus’s deep, throaty voice now came through the door. “Aye—” grunt, “aye—” grunt, “Mister Cain.”
Adam breathed a deep sigh and walked away. “That’s Captain Cain to you,” he whispered. He couldn’t help himself; it was habit by now.
Adam had amended his original plan and stayed away from the transit zone for a full ten days. They had left the triple star system several days before and jumped in closer to Nuor, following a checkerboard of systems, planets and asteroid belts to stay hidden. As they drew closer, they were able to learn more about the Nuorean homeworld from their sensors and comm chatter. That’s when Adam noticed a major increase in both incoming and outgoing ships every six days. Since the LP-5 transit zone was within the system, it would be very hard to get close without being noticed. This cycle of traffic flow could provide some cover.
He was also sure his delay was causing a significant amount of confusion on the part of the Nuoreans, or at least those who had been expecting him to show up at the so-called celebration. For master tacticians, their plan was pretty transparent, which in a way insulted Adam. They weren’t taking him as seriously as they should—or will—once he made the transit to LP-6….
The good thing about where the LP-5 transit zone was located meant they didn’t have to go all the way to Nuor to reach it. It was barely in the system, about three billion miles from the planet, and the stream of space traffic avoided the zone for fear of gravity contamination. Adam also noticed that the TZ became active every seventeen hours, according to the increased gravity readings detected. This was a good th
ing as well. It meant a quicker return if they were able to make it to LP-6 and set the bombs.
Adam still wasn’t ready to accept this as a suicide mission. He was still planning on making it back home.
104
“Any idea how we’re going to get through?”
Sherri always asked a lot of questions, and mainly concerning how Adam was going to do one thing or the other. Most of the time he just made something up just to get her off his back. But this time he had a real answer.
“This TZ cycles every seventeen hours. The next one is coming up in thirty-four minutes….” All eyes were on their fearless leader—more so now that they knew he had mutant abilities. Adam had always been their default leader, but now he was even more so.
Sherri grew impatient with his pregnant pause for effect. “And then what? We just waltz in?”
“Not exactly waltz. I was thinking more like a tango.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“We time the jump exactly, then pop in at full thrust and shoot right through before anyone notices.”
Adam was in the pilot seat, ready to make any super-human evasive maneuvers should they become necessary.
“That would take some precise navigation to make a moving jump into a specific area,” said Jym from the nav console.
All eyes returned to Adam.
“Yeah, I can do it,” he said, answering the unasked question.
“I’m not so worried about this end,” Riyad said. “It’s the other side I’m worried about, when we’re operating on just chem-drive.”
“Our momentum will help with that. We’ll land already moving at a pretty good clip. But still, it’s a chance we’ll have to take. Floundering around like we did the last time came as a surprise to everyone. This time we’ll be ready.”
“Ready for what?” asked Sherri, still not convinced. “Another Nuorean fleet waiting for us? I was hoping for something a little more creative, maybe even spectacular.”
A thought crossed Adam’s mind, triggered by what Sherri just said. He turned to Copernicus, who was seated—as always—at the weapons console; he liked playing with high-powered ordnance. “What if we send in a little insurance policy ahead of us? You know, give the Nuoreans something else to think about?”
“Like what, a Hades?”
“A full complement of them, about five seconds ahead of us.”
Sherri shook her head. “You know those metal balls will shred our hull just as easily as they will a Nuorean ship. It will only take a few to poke enough holes in us to put me in a bad mood.”
“You’re always in a bad mood,” Copernicus said with a smile, “so how would we know?” He was sleeping with her, so he could get away with saying things like that. He was also telling the truth.
Unlike the Nuoreans, Copernicus fully understood the meaning of the hand gesture Sherri made in his direction.
“I have another idea,” Adam said, “a corollary from my last brilliant contribution. First of all…Sherri, you’re right about the ball bearings.” She stuck her tongue out at Copernicus. “So what we have to do is exit the landing zone in the quickest and safest way possible. And that would be with a ninety-degree turn to the side, while the ball bearings shred everything in front of us.”
Kaylor picked up on the idea. “An auxiliary thrust vector, designed to turn us, even without gravity-drive.”
“Exactly,” Adam said, pointing a finger at his Belsonian friend.
“Assuming we could do that, making such a radical turn at speed could tear the ship apart,” Copernicus pointed out. Although he was an intergalactic super-spy in his covert life, he was also a damn good starship mechanic. He knew the limits of Human engineering and construction. “We’d have to re-route the primary exhaust jets to one side. It wouldn’t be a true ninety-degree turn—not if we want to stay in one piece—but we should be able to overcome our forward momentum to avoid the ballistics. I would also recommend spacesuits for all, just in case we take a few hits.”
“And remember,” Adam said, “we only have to avoid the bad guys for around ten minutes. Once we get our battery power back, we’ll be gone and they’ll never catch us.”
Riyad stepped over to Coop and Jym. “C’mon guys, let’s start the re-routin’. If you haven’t noticed, Captain Cain is far too important to get his hands dirty anymore. He’s too busy thinking.”
Adam grinned. “Someone has to do the thinking around here—for all of us.”
Riyad sent his own hand gesture Adam’s way. “Think on this for a while.”
105
Morlon (783) barely had time to return the Grand Master to Nuor before he was back in a transit zone and waiting to be hurled over a million light-years into space. He took a squad of ten First Cadre technicians with him, specialists who knew better than anyone the procedure for realigning the gargantuan generators at LP-6. With the target so far into the Kac, the precision required was above the paygrade of the standard generator techs on the space station. He recruited the top experts for the task, knowing he couldn’t afford a miss, even if it only meant a three-day delay before attempting another shot. His reputation had to be restored, and in spectacular fashion. He had to get it right the first time.
In addition, Adam Cain was still out there. A tingling on the back of Morlon’s neck was a warning that something was about to happen regarding the Human, something that would take all his skill and training to overcome. That’s why when his ship appeared at the end-point for LP-5, he insisted on taking a personal tour of the sentry ships on duty, the ones waiting for the Human’s eventual entrance. He sent his personal ship along to the LP-6 station so his techs could get a start on the realignment, using the precise coordinates he had just received from his spies in the Kac.
As expected, discipline was lax on the ships he visited, a condition that quickly changed when news of his presence spread throughout the fleet. Nuoreans don’t normally shirk their duty, and it would be wrong to assume the crews aboard the forty-eight waiting starships had done that. Instead, it was boredom that infected the crews. They were players, and most of them would have engaged in some level of challenge combat in the ten days they had been on station halfway between galaxies. There was an arena on the LP-6 station, but they were not allowed the rotation time to use its facilities. With the unpredictable nature of the enemy, no one could be spared, not with the seventeen-hour recycle time for the transit zone.
Morlon moved among the crews, made up primarily of Second Cadre military types, with a few Thirds thrown in as supervisors. It was the Third Cadre officers who received the brunt of Morlon’s admonitions. They were the cream of the crop within Nuorean society and were therefore responsible for the actions of the crews.
Still, as Morlon boarded a small shuttle for the four-hour journey to LP-6, he felt the frustration of a job left undone. Cain had come to the Suponac to stop his people from invading the Kac, yet every three days, more Nuoreans made the passage through LP-6. Morlon had to imagine the Human was under some form of deadline. He couldn’t afford to wait weeks—even months—before making his move on the LP. And yet still he remained hidden, a ghost.
Perhaps something had happened to him and his ship? That was a possibility; after all, they were in a foreign galaxy with dangers unknown. Morlon laughed. If that were the case, then his forces would spend weeks, months—even cycles—waiting for an enemy that never arrives.
Morlon had been correct in his summation to Grand Master Rodoc, regarding the fate of Earth and the LP-6 station. Even if the Humans did destroy the station, it could be rebuilt. Yet it was his casual acceptance of this fact that had been disingenuous. Morlon feared for the station’s destruction, whose reconstruction would not be completed within his lifetime. He also worried he would never see the end result of his glorious game—that being a cloud of rock and debris in space that had once been the planet Earth. He so wanted to see that before he died.
Morlon was pleased to find the LP-6 sp
ace station a buzz with activity when he rejoined his team. He had never been to the space station before and was in awe of it size. It was the largest such station built by the Nuoreans; even so, it was dwarfed by the massive metal and composite object floating in space nearby.
The Cadre officer stood in rapt admiration of what his race had built, and only after he learned the massive silver tube was over five thousand miles from the station did he come to grasp the full scope of LP-6. The generators looked to be only a few miles away, yet it was their sheer size that caused the optical illusion. They were two long tubes, each measuring seven hundred miles in length by forty wide. Morlon had trouble imagining a building seven hundred miles long, and that was just what the generators were—both of them. The tubes were connected in the center by a spherical metal framework measuring ninety miles in diameter. This was the venting area where the double blackholes were created. The pressure was so intense that the frame had to be replaced every ten transits or so, which meant down-time and a constant stream of workers and materials coming through the LP-5 transit line. The scheduled maintenance wasn’t due for another four shots—twelve days from now.
Morlon wondered if that was what Cain was waiting for, but then he questioned how the Human would even know the maintenance schedule? Impatiently, Morlon shook his head. He was giving the alien too much credit and letting him dominate his thinking. He would put the Human out of mind for now, to concentrate instead on his plans to destroy the birthplace of the Human race.
As with most plans, Adam once again modified his. Instead of barreling into the Nuorean system with engines ablaze, they approached quietly, merging with the incoming traffic, in order not to attract too much attention. Even still, they had all space drives aboard—both conventional gravity and trans-dimensional—fully charged and ready. It was decided they would make the balls-out run for the TZ only if and when they were challenged.
