by T. R. Harris
From previous analysis, the teleportation and gravity-drives of the prototype vessel would be inoperable for a short period after transit. That was why the Humans had not shown themselves. But they would.
“Open a link with the senior commander of the units on station,” Rodoc ordered.
“Yes, Master.”
A moment later the image of an older Nuorean in a gray uniform came on the screen.
“Lead-Player,” Rodoc began, “the Humans are aboard the station and will attempt to leave the system in approximately ten minutes. Do not destroy the ship when it exits the station.”
“Master?”
“With the LP-6 generator complex secure, there is no need to destroy the vessel. It employs a revolutionary type of teleportation drive that would prove valuable to our cause. Track the vessel, and only engage if there is confidence of its capture. Is that understood?”
“Of course, Master Rodoc. Your orders will be followed.”
The tech cut the line and returned to the screen to the overview of the transit zone.
Rodoc checked the time. Then he smiled. For all the success the Humans have experienced in the Suponac, they really hadn’t accomplished much. LP-6 was still operational, the planet Earth was about to destroyed, and the Nuoreans still roamed the Kac. In consideration of all that, Rodoc (1,402) may have to amend his impression of Adam Cain.
********
“The Humans have left the station, Master!” the tech announced.
Finally.
It had been far too long beyond the time required to recharge their drives—and still the Humans remained cloistered within the station. Out of frustration, Rodoc had stepped out on the balcony. He spent most of his time there, mesmerized by the constantly shifting surface of the ocean. It was soothing.
But now the Humans have left the space station, with only five minutes remaining before the LP-6 transit.
Rodoc came back to the tech. “Report.”
“The ship is moving away on chemical drive.”
“Maintain tracking. It is unclear whether they travel in a straight line or can change course during a teleportation event. Alert our stations in the sub-worlds and production systems. I cannot believe they are still attempting to make the LP-6 staging area, not unless the teleportation drive has the required range.”
“They have established a course, Master, yet it is not out-system. They are lined up on Nuor.”
Rodoc studied the screen. Just then, the Humans engaged a weak, sub-light drive.
What was Cain proposing? Did he intend to make a desperate attack on Rodoc’s estate, a final blow at the end of a losing game? How would he even know of Rodoc and the location of his estate? Even so, the Grand Master would not underestimate the Human.
“Activate the property shields,” he said to the tech. “And place a screen of ships above.”
“Master—the ship has disappeared!”
Rodoc relaxed. Cain was now acting according to expectations—
“It has reappeared,” the tech reported.
Rodoc saw the contact dot on the screen. “Where is that?”
The aspect of the screen adjusted, and the crescent shape of a portion of the planet Nuor appeared. Rodoc’s heart skipped a beat. Cain is intending to attack.
“The ship is maintaining a stationary position. It is moving no closer.”
“Relative to Nuor?”
“No, Master, relative to a point in space, fourteen hundred miles from the surface.”
A moment of profound denial swept through the Grand Master, as an impossible thought came to mind. However, he didn’t have time to contemplate the possibility beyond its initial impression—before a massive seismic quake struck the estate.
Columns crumbled and ceilings crashed, as a huge crack opened along Rodoc’s precious balcony. Half the structure fell away, dropping into the now-roiling sea below. Rodoc and the tech were thrown to the floor, all the monitoring equipment with them. And the shaking continued—in fact it grew more intense by the second.
Just then, a horrific wind erupted without warning, swirling through the building and into the sky above the ocean. Rodoc crawled outside, onto what remained of his balcony. What he saw was both frightening…and familiar.
He gasped as he saw the impossibly long spiral of white and gray atmosphere reaching into the sky, culminating at a distance point. The sea was a chaotic mass of hundred-foot waves topped with frothing foam, also being drawn into the vortex. Trees on the nearby hills were being ripped out of the ground—land which followed a moment later in the form of huge chucks of black soil racing into space. The roof of the building lifted away, revealing more of the apocalyptic vision filling the sky.
Rodoc knew what was happening; he’d seen it before, through images of a distant, uninhabited world a thousand light-cycles away. But this was happening to Nuor.
Just before Rodoc (1,401) Kallen-Noc was sucked away into space, he spoke his final words into the deafening cries of a dying world: “Well played, Adam Cain. Well played.”
Chapter 23
A moment later…they were home.
Even though they had no idea where they were, the blazing star located only a few million miles away was welcoming and with a familiar feeling. Adam breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing a huge yellow star this close meant there had been the possibility they could have materialize inside the ball of fusing hydrogen gas. But they were lucky.
They were back in the Milky Way, safe and—
Jym’s ear-piercing scream rang throughout the bridge. “Behind us! Oh the Gods of Fulquin!”
A view from the aft camera appeared on the main view screen. At first it was hard to comprehend what they saw. It was a brown and white ruddy mass, resembling a dull-colored nebula, growing in size behind them. But then individual features within the cloud could be made out as they came closer. It was rock, mixed in with frozen atmosphere and ice. And each piece was the size of a mountain…or a continent.
“Get us out of here!” Copernicus yelled.
Adam was a heartbeat ahead of him.
He activated the chemical drive—the only propulsion source he had for the next ten minutes—and the ship took off from a dead stop. He shifted between the aft nozzles—for acceleration—and the starboard side jet—for course correction. It was a losing tradeoff. Looking at his monitor, Adam saw that the debris cloud was moving faster than the chem drive could push them. They couldn’t outrun it, so Adam had to move them out of the path before it was too late.
Yet this was different than trying to avoid a relatively small cloud of ball bearings. This was the mass equal to half a planet filling the space behind them. And the huge remnants were constantly crashing into one another, altering course and shattering large pieces into millions of smaller chunks. The cloud was expanding. Nothing within a one-eighty-degree circular arc was safe.
Adam Cain—semi-mutant—was doing all he could to avoid the vengeful remains of the planet Nuor, but even he had his limits. The Najmah Fayd was being pummeled by the smaller bits, the only saving grace being the fact that most of the debris was heading in the same direction they were, which lessened the force when they hit.
“To your right, Adam!” Sherri yelled.
Adam checked his screen, having trouble at first comprehending what he saw. It looked to be a hundred-mile-long rectangular slice of frozen ocean, tumbling slowly as it flew through space.
Adam had an idea.
He shifted course slightly, moving closer to the huge slab.
“What are you doing?” Sherri asked. “I told you about the giant sheet of ice so you could avoid it, not head straight for it.”
“We need something to protect us. Besides, I’ve always loved the ocean.”
“Me, too, stupid, but not in the form of a humongous iceberg in space.”
Adam concentrated on the rendezvous. The slab was moving up on them rapidly. He knew they couldn’t match its speed, but he might be able to lessen the impact if
he made contact when part of the slab was rotating away from them.
The crew gasped as the object drew closer, awed and frightened by the massive size of the frozen slice of Nuorean ocean. One side was impossibly smooth and slick, having sheared off from another piece. The other side—the side they were heading for—was a frozen relief of a roiling surface, with hundred-foot high waves caught in mid-crest.
Even at full power, the icy surface was racing toward them at incredible speed, and when they made contact, the impact was like hitting a brick wall at forty miles per hour. The hull compressed and screamed, yet managed to stay together. Why that was possible? The answer came a split second later.
The slow rotation of the slab had the Najmah Fayd sliding along the surface, which helped lessen the force of the impact. But it also caused another problem. This was the side with the stormy ocean relief, and a few seconds after making contact, the ship slipped up the tall slope of a cresting wave—and flew off into space like a ski-jumper off a ninety-meter ramp.
The ship flipped several times as Adam fought with the attitude jets to correct the orientation. The other end of the ice slab then rose up to meet them. The Najmah Fayd was flipped over at the time, and hit the ice from the top, crushing every antenna and monitor they had except for a few cameras set in recessed cans in the hull. Bridge screens went dark.
“This is supposed to be better?” Sherri screamed.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time!” Adam yelled back.
His idea to ride the slowly tumbling slab of ice became moot a few moments later, when once again they were hurled into space. This time they made it clear of the huge iceberg. Adam activated the chemical drive again and raced away once more into the maelstrom.
Well, Adam thought. That didn’t work.
And that’s when the chemical drive sputtered and shut down.
Adam shook his head, thinking of all the time for this to happen, why now? But he knew it was inevitable. Now all he had were the attitude jets…at least for another four minutes—
Something large, hard and fast struck the Najmah Fayd amidships. The speed of the impact was such that ship barely reacted to the collision. Internal gravity died, along with just about everything else. The previously-repaired bridge crack reopened, but only a little—however, it was wide enough to allow atmosphere to race through the opening. Riyad was the closest to the breach. He took off his outer shirt and threw it at the opening. The stream of escaping air guided it through the zero-g, until the cloth hit the bulkhead and sealed the crack, at least most of it.
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, dressing 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.
Chapter 24
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.
