by T. R. Harris
Sherri unfastened her restraints and floated to the pressure door at the rear of the bridge. There was a small window in the hatch.
“Holy crap, it took out the entire floor of the common room back to the state rooms. The aft section looks to be okay. I can see light coming through the launch bay window.”
“Do we have any other data?” Kaylor asked.
For an answer, Adam accessed his ATD. He scanned the ship for working systems before making his report.
“The landing bay is secure and has atmosphere. So does the engine room. However, half the batteries for the TD drive have been ripped out, so we can’t jump when the time comes. And I wouldn’t put faith in the gravity-drive, either. The one thing we having going for us: The iceberg gave us a velocity assist. We’re now moving at about the same speed as everything else around us—all except that linebacker who just blindsided us.”
It was already growing noticeably colder on the bridge, and air was still leaking from the crack. Sherri went to the damage control locker and opened it. Inside was an ample supply of tiny oxygen tanks and yellow nose masks. She passed them out.
What she was ignoring—or chose not to mention—was the fact that only four light spacesuits hung in the locker. There were six people on the bridge.
“We have to get to the landing bay,” Adam announced. “It has atmosphere, survival gear and an air lock.”
“Which the bridge doesn’t have,” Riyad pointed out. “How are we going to get from here to there?”
Adam had an answer, but they weren’t going to like it.
“The four of you take the suits. I can withstand the cold better than the rest of you, so I’ll take Jym with me, holding him against my body for warmth. And his fur will help too.”
The rest of the plan was obvious.
Adam and Jym moved to the door, yellow oxygen masks secured over their noses—which was a problem for Jym since he had a snout. The tiny alien crawled into Adam’s arms and wrapped his furry arms around the Human’s torso as best he could. He was silenced by fear and cold, shaking noticeably.
“It will be all right, buddy,” Adam said softly to his little friend. “I’ve got you.”
Once the rest of the crew was suited up and ready, Adam braced his feet against the side of the weapons console and prepared himself. He nodded to Sherri.
The first thing she did was dump all the air from the bridge; the temperature dropped by fifty degrees in a second. Then she activated the door controls.
Adam pushed off with legs and flew through the open portal like the real Superman, one hand extended out in front of him, with the other holding Jym to his chest. The bottom of the ship was open to the absolute cold of space, and although they had oxygen, the penetrating numbness made it almost impossible to breathe.
Fortunately, the ship wasn’t that long, and a moment later Adam crashed into the bulkhead of the t-corridor at the aft end of the ship. This was where the spine corridor ended. To the left was the engine room, to the right, the cargo bay and the airlock to landing bay.
Fighting through the stiffness overtaking in his muscles and joints, Adam floated to the right. Through his ATD, he already had the airlock cycled for entry. With his free hand, he worked the latch, opened the door and floated inside. He secured the hatch and activated the controls with his mind. Three seconds later he and Jym floated into the landing bay, drifting toward the ceiling.
Adam uncovered Jym and felt for a heartbeat. His black fur was nearly frozen through, but there was a slight pulse. The problem: Like on the bridge, the temperature in the landing bay was dropping fast. Without the life support generators running in the engine room, no heat was flowing through the ship.
Still holding Jym against his chest, Adam reached out his free hand and concentrated. With help from his ATD, he pulled ions from the air to form a sparking, arcing ball of static electricity in the air above his hand. In the dry, cold atmosphere, there was plenty of random electricity around for his needs.
But Adam wasn’t done. He commanded the volume of the ball to become smaller, compressing the atoms until the sphere became a brilliant point of light. And as the ball grew smaller, it gave off more heat.
Adam could feel the welcoming radiance—but again, he wasn’t done.
He created six more tiny points of light. When he was done, he grasped a support beam along the ceiling and looked down, cradling Jym’s softly purring body in his other arm as the air around them heated up noticeably.
The other four crewmembers entered the landing bay through the airlock, dressed in spacesuits and connected to the metal deck by magnetic boots. They removed their helmets and let them drift away.
They were in a line, staring up at the image of Adam Cain, lit by the glow of the seven twinkling lights, and looking down at the tiny bear held reverently against his bosom.
Copernicus Smith was the first to speak. “The Church of Adam Cain just got a new disciple.”
Next to him was Sherri Valentine. “In Cain We Trust.”
Riyad Tarazi spoke next. “God Save the Cain.”
Kaylor Linn Todd was last in line. He had no idea what the others were saying, and rather than make his contribution to the Church of Adam Cain, he simply looked at the others as if they’d suddenly lost their minds.
114
One-and-a-half million light-years from Adam Cain’s religious apparition—and hovering five hundred miles above the LP-6 generator complex—six eight-foot-long metal cylinders sprang to life.
They were designed to do so after detecting the creation of a series of competing singularities whose influence stretched between galaxies. When the blackholes dissolved fifteen seconds later, sensors in the cylinders reached out, seeking the infrared markers painting portions of the huge generator complex.
Tiny gas jets erupted, guiding the SENOs toward their targets. Thirty-eight seconds later, the first of the bombs made contact at its assigned spot. It set thin anchor wires into the metal surface and waited for the others to do the same.
Eight seconds later, all six nuclear devices exploded.
The first effect of the massive detonation was to literally vaporize the ninety-mile-in-diameter venting cage, along with a hundred miles of the generator housing from each of the twin structures. But the effect didn’t end there. Ripples rolled along the tubes, cracking metal and composite, which rapidly turned into gaping fissures. The tubes began to disintegrate, until only a hundred-mile section at each end was left intact and tumbling off into space….
Epilogue
With warmth and air, Jym quickly recovered. Blankets were pulled from cabinets and any tiny hull leaks were sealed. They were safe—for the time being—but trapped inside a dead ship on the edge of the galaxy.
That’s when Adam reached out with his ATD and made contact with one of the passive detection buoys a million miles from their location. The instrument had the capacity to open comm links with emergency authorities, and after some fancy circuit routing, Adam was able to talk with a live person.
The person was a monitor tech of the Sepphl race. Adam had never heard of them, but he was happy for any help they could get. He was told the gravity wave from the last pulse had been detected and allied forces were on the way, but it would take six days to get there. In the meantime, contact was made with a local mining colony three light-years away and a rescue vessel was sent out from that location.
Fourteen hours later, Adam and his team were taken aboard the mining ship, while the Najmah Fayd was marked for later recovery.
They now huddled in the ship’s lounge, quiet and reflective. Celebration would come later. For now it was a time of rest and contemplation.
Sherri was cuddled up with Copernicus, napping as Coop absently stroked her hair. Kaylor and Jym were at a nearby table, munching on food like it was going out of style, while Riyad was spread out on a recliner, staring at the ceiling, lost in thought.
For that matter, so was Adam. He was in the process of categori
zing the events of the past two weeks, putting things in perspective the best he could.
First of all, he knew there were over one hundred thousand Nuorean warships still prowling the Milky Way. It would take time and effort to erase their cancer from the galaxy, but it would be done. Adam felt a trace of payback knowing that aliens aboard those ships wouldn’t learn of Nuor’s destruction until if—or when—another pulse came through from Andromeda. Until then, they would be confused and adrift, not knowing what happened or what to do next.
And there was the rub: Adam had no idea if the bombs had gone off. For all he knew, the generator complex at LP-6 was still intact, just waiting for the Nuoreans to build another control station or send the one they already have back to where it belonged. The LP-5 station was still active, so it was possible for them to do just that—after the race recovered from the loss of their homeworld, of course.
But recover they would, whether LP-6 was destroyed or not. The Nuoreans were competitors of the highest degree. A normal species—having just suffered the same catastrophic event—would think twice about repeating their mistake. Not the Nuoreans. They would see it as the ultimate challenge. They would be back, Adam was sure of it.
When was the question?
Adam couldn’t see them doing it in less than fifty years—even if LP-6 was intact. If it wasn’t, then the estimate extended out another hundred years or more. Fortunately, none of the team would be around under either circumstance.
Adam quickly amended his last statement. There was a possible he would be still here. His mutant cells could repair external injuries in a jiff; he was sure they were also working to keep his internal organs young and vibrant. Was he immortal, or only semi-immortal? He didn’t know, and at this point, it didn’t matter.
The one thing he did know for sure—that baring some unfortunate event—Adam Cain would outlive his friends.
And there was the curse of immortality: He would have to suffer through the pain and sorrow of watching his friends grow old and die. In an instant, the past twenty years flashed before his eyes, all in vivid detail, thanks to his mutant tumor. The six people in the room had shared many an adventure during that time—with Adam again quickly amending the word adventure to read episode. Adventure had the connotation of thrills and excitement, as in fun. Adam would hardly consider the episodes they’d shared as fun.
But they sure were thrilling.
With his new-found perspective, he vowed to make sure there would be many more episodes ahead for Adam Cain and his band of intrepid heroes….
After all, old soldiers never die. They just pick up a weapon and carry on.
The New Beginning
Last Species Standing
And now…
Book #20 in
The Human Chronicles Saga
Copyright 2017 by T.R. Harris
All rights reserved, without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanically, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Adam Cain is an alien with an attitude.
His story continues…
Prologue
Ninety ships were sent to the transit point.
It wasn’t a large contingent, simply because the Nuoreans couldn’t risk more ships than that. For over a thirty day, no re-enforcements had come through any of the landing points, forcing Master-Player Qintis Bondo (435) to begin formulating alternative game plans.
He was in contact with the survey fleet at the transit point, having laid a string of communication buoys along the way. Knowing that the forces of the Kac would locate most of the relays, he had duplicates laid along the path. The strategy worked. Once the natives found and destroyed a relay, they moved on to others along the line. All the while, the signal was simply switched to the backup relays and communications remained intact.
It was for that reason Qintis knew no transits had occurred. Now his forces waited another three days—the time it took the midpoint generator to recharge—on the off chance there had been some confusion as to the transit times.
Yet there was no confusion. This was the tenth missed transit; Qintis didn’t need any more proof that LP-6—Launch Point-6—was non-functioning.
Qintis also had the intercepted news broadcasts from within the Kac to factor into his conclusion, which celebrated the return of the player Adam Cain and his team from the Suponac Galaxy. They were being hailed as conquering heroes, presumably for destroying or damaging LP-6. He had to agree with that assumption, although the reason he sent his forces to the predetermined transit points was to learn if the damage was slight enough to be repaired in a timely manner. Qintis was ready to concede it was not.
This raised the second concern in his planning: What was to become of the remaining eight hundred thousand Nuorean players in the Kac? They were aboard the two thousand warships Qintis had under his command, hiding within this alien galaxy, awaiting re-enforcements. Yet if no re-enforcements were forthcoming…what then?
It was then that Qintis received the most-dire news of all.
Under the insistence of the Third Cadre players within his command, scouts were sent into the vast debris field of rock and ice that had accompanied Cain and his players back from the Suponac. It was there that conclusive evidence was attained that the debris was the remains of Nuor—the birthplace of his race. That’s when Qintis’ plans took a sudden turn.
He no longer had to devise game plans for challenges and victory against opposing Kac forces. He now had to plan for the survival of his fellow Nuoreans.
After the initial shock faded, Qintis realized the loss of Nuor was nothing more than an inconvenience. It had been centuries since the planet served as the true home of race. Now it was more symbolic, and only the home of the Grand and Qualifying Masters, along with the Third Cadre. However, at any given time, a fair number of these officials were off-planet; they would have survived to form a new government.
In addition, even the vast amount of data that ran the empire was preserved, backed-up through several redundant systems and stored on various planets throughout the Suponac.
Qintis had to thank Adam Cain for his lack of knowledge of how the empire functioned for the minor impact this event would have in the long run. If he had targeted one of the colony planets—where billions of Nuoreans lived who were more critical to the daily operations of the society—then the damage would have been more widespread and lasting.
As it was, the destruction of Nuor was more a psychological event rather than any great set back.
Also, unless Cain had managed to destroy all the launch points out to LP-6, there still remained a direct link to the midpoint between galaxies. After an appropriate time for grief and re-organization, his people would begin construction of a new gravity generator to link the two galaxies. It may be a hundred years or more before such a link was reestablished, yet Qintis knew they would not leave his players stranded in a faraway galaxy.
All he had to do was make sure his people survived long enough for contact to be made.
Qintis had already taken the first step.
Suspecting the worse, he moved his fleet to the very edge of the Kac, to a region he knew to be claimed by neither the Expansion nor the Human Orion-Cygnus Union. He located six planets in the area that met his requirements for gravity, atmosphere and level of technological advancement. Each of these worlds had advanced indigenous populations which had been integrated into the galactic community, if not into an empire. They had star travel and trade with other planets. This was important because the Nuoreans would need these races to provide them with sustenance, as well as industrial support.
>
The Nuoreans began with strategic firebombing from orbit of select population centers, resulting is a quick subjugation of the natives. Although the compliance of the natives was a necessity, this was also a test of the resolve of the empires of the Kac. The results were encouraging.
Although the conquered planets protested to the leaders of the Kac, the response quickly came back: Since none of the worlds were members of their respective empires, there would be no answer to the Nuorean’s aggression. Qintis helped this decision-making along by communicating to these same leaders, indicating that with their homeworld destroyed, all the Nuoreans wanted to do was to live in peace within their new galaxy. He further stressed that the Nuoreans had not come to the Kac to conquer, enslave or strip away precious resources from the natives of the Kac. Instead, they had come simply for the sport. And now that that purpose had been supplanted by the need to survive, the Nuoreans were no longer a threat to the galaxy.
As Qintis suspected, the leaders of the Kac were desperate for peace, and would sacrifice the six worlds to meet that goal. So the Nuoreans spread their forces among the conquered worlds, forcing the inhabitants to provide for their every need—including immunity challenges, yet on a much smaller scale and more pragmatic in nature. Nuorean life took on added significance, so the contests became more controlled. They were held more to retain skills and fitness rather than for societal advancement.
