by T. R. Harris
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 thing 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.
Chapter 14
“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.”
Chapter 15
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 coul
d 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 space 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.
Long-range sensors showed the transit zone for LP-5 to be less populated than the TZ’s the team was used to. Their only other experience came from LP-6 and the jumps between galaxies. These staging areas were always packed with either invading warships or those returning home after a tour of duty. There were barely nine ships waiting at the LP-5 transit zone.
Even if this side of the gravity tunnel looked innocuous enough, they knew it wouldn’t be the same at the other end. That was where the trap would be sprung, and Adam was sure the Nuoreans had enough firepower on hand to overwhelm his small ship while its engines were down.
As they moved slowly through the outer reaches of the Nuorean system, Jym noticed a new cluster of grav-sigs lining up behind them. The jig was up, and that’s when Adam realized this was the Nuoreans plan all along—to trap the Najmah Fayd between two fleets of alien warships, one in front, the other from behind.
The re-routing of the chemical engine control thrusters was complete, allowing the powerful exhaust to be channeled through a makeshift conduit and nozzle strapped to the starboard side of the ship. The stream could be toggled between the aft jets and the exhaust tube. Once shifted, the ship would make an abrupt left turn—and hopefully stay in one piece.
Copernicus was set to launch two quick barrages of Hades IV missiles ahead of their flight path, fourteen rockets in total. He set them to spread out, covering a radius of one hundred twenty degrees. With the detection of the ships behind them, he set another fourteen to cover their tail. All-in-all, the stage was set for an extremely dangerous environment for any metal-hulled vessels within the transit zones, the Najmah Fayd included.
As per Coop’s recommendation, all the crew dressed spacesuits and the atmosphere throughout the ship was evacuated, eliminating the possibility of pressure explosions from within.
Adam watched the clock as the time to the transit drew closer—as did the ships behind them. The Nuoreans apparently had the same idea: to accelerate into the TZ the moment it activated. They would have fifteen seconds to make it into the TZ before the portal closed.
The Najmah Fayd was four thousand miles from the edge of the transit zone when gravity readings began to go haywire. The portal was opening.
Coop released the missiles—both front and rear—as Adam waited an excruciating-long five additional seconds more before gunning the chemical engines, currently channeled out the tail of the ship. He couldn’t use a gravity-well because that would eat up the screen of Hades IV missiles shooting out in front of the ship. Once on the other side, he would switch to the jets to the starboard side nozzle for the turn to port.
Even before they made the transit, enemy warships were exploding in the rearview mirror.
The journey to the LP-5 end zone was half the distance they’d traveled getting to Andromeda, so only a second went by before they burst into the space of the opposite TZ. The threat board exploded with contacts, with several of the Nuorean ships already underway after only a couple of seconds’ delay. They were definitely waiting for them, and extremely quick at the controls.
“Hold on!” Adam yelled as he diverted the chemical exhaust stream and turned ship.
It was strange what happened next.
With no air in the ship to carry sound waves, rivets popped and welds snapped in absolute silence. A thin crack opened up along the portside bulkhead of the bridge, and one of the ship’s stubby wings broke off.
The crew screamed in their helmets as the g-force tried to tear their bodies apart—as it was doing to the ship—while pressure from the chair restraints threatened to rip open the fabric of their suits.
Just then, something small and unseen pierced the forward bulkhead and passed through the bridge, creating another small, round hole in the aft wall. Adam caught sight of Riyad. They shared a look, knowing that the metal projectile would continue to rip through multiple walls and bulkheads until it exited the ship—hopefully without hitting anything critical.
Adam returned his attention to his course board. They were turning, making a severely arching track to port and out the transit zone. Another five seconds passed before he cut the engines.
The effect was immediate and welcoming—to the crew and the ship. The pressure ended and they could breathe again.
The bridge was dark, except for the fluorescent glow from the still-active monitoring screens and the red flashing light of the emergency alarm. They couldn’t hear the alarm, not through the vacuum within the ship. Internal gravity was off as well.
Jym was feverishly working the nav sensors, looking for any ships in the vicinity that could pose a threat. There were plenty around, even after making the turn; however, the momentum of the Najmah Fayd was moving them away from the deadly cloud of invisible hull-shredders spreading ever-wider within the TZ. The plan had worked—to a point. Now all they had to do was repair the extensive damage to the ship.
That’s when Adam noticed something strange about the alignment of the alien warships. They had all changed course and where now heading away from the transit zone at flank speed. It took him only a moment to realize what they were doing: matching the direction and velocity of the metal ball bearings. It was masterful, not only for the simplicity of the strategy, but also for the speed at which the entire fleet had adopted it. Most the forty-odd ships were now ahead of the cloud and again changing course, this time heading in the direction of the Najmah Fayd.
“We got trouble,” Adam called out. He unbuckled his restraints and floated into the center of the room. “The Nuoreans are on their way. We have to do damage control and get the TD drive back up pronto. Coop, Kaylor…you’re with me.
Riyad…see if we still have weapons control. Sherri, Jym…start patching holes.”
Adam led his workers to the aft engine room, where both the gravity generators and trans-dimensional drive were located. The monitoring screen to the TD drive was dark—which wasn’t good. Kaylor hurried to the console and fastened small anchor lines to his suit so he wouldn’t float away as he worked. He booted up a backup diagnostic screen and began to run the program. Moments later he began to bark orders.
“Panel four, seventh circuit—replace it.”
Copernicus was at the box first.
“Adam, go to the auxiliary power generator. We need to prime the system.”
At the base of the twin grav-generators was a smaller, oval shaped unit resting on a pair of metal legs bolted to the deck. There were two large switches on top. Adam planted his magnetic boots to the deck and began to flick the switches back and forth several times before leaving them in the on position. Although he still couldn’t hear the hum of generator being spun up, he could feel the vibration through his boots.
The lights came on in the room, and the main screen for the TD drive lit up. Kaylor shifted his position and began typing at the console. The vibration on the deck grew stronger, and a moment later Adam felt his stomach turn. He looked at Kaylor with a frown.
“Did you just jump the ship?”
“Yes, but only half-a-light from our last position. I used what was left in the storage batteries and the aux. They are drained again, so we have at least another ten minutes before we can jump again.”
“Half-a-light isn’t very far,” Coop said. “The Nuoreans can be here in about six minutes.”
“How about the grav-gens?” Adam asked Kaylor. “Can we get anything out of them?”
“Possibly. The problem is the stress that the gravity drive places on the hull. We have numerous cracks and broken seals already. We could literally fall apart if we activate the drive.”
