Invasion Force (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 21)
Page 1
Invasion Force
The Human Chronicles Saga #21
T.R. Harris
An Adam Cain Adventure
Contents
Copyright 2017 by T.R. Harris
Email List
Contact
Novels by T.R. Harris
Cast of Characters
An Alien with an Attitude
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
In the next Adam Cain adventure…
Email List
Contact
Novels by T.R. Harris
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.
Email List
If you would like to be included on the master email list to receive updates and announcements regarding the series, including release notices of upcoming books, purchase specials and more, please fill out the Subscribe form below:
Subscribe to Email List
Contact
Email: bytrharris@hotmail.com
Website: bytrharris.com
Novels by T.R. Harris
The Human Chronicles Saga
The Fringe Worlds
Alien Assassin
The War of Pawns
The Tactics of Revenge
The Legend of Earth
Cain’s Crusaders
The Apex Predator
A Galaxy to Conquer
The Masters of War
Prelude to War
The Unreachable Stars
When Earth Reigned Supreme
A Clash of Aliens
Battlelines
The Copernicus Deception
Scorched Earth
Alien Games
The Cain Legacy
The Andromeda Mission
Last Species Standing
Invasion Force
Jason King – Agent to the Stars Series
The Enclaves of Sylox
Treasure of the Galactic Lights
The Drone Wars Series
Day of the Drone
In collaboration with George Wier…
The Liberation Series
Captains Malicious
Available exclusively on Amazon.com
and Kindle Unlimited.
Cast of Characters…
Adam Cain:
Our hero. When the aliens abducted a Navy SEAL, they had no idea they’d bitten off more than they could chew. Now freed from his captives, Adam has spent the past twenty years making the aliens pay for upsetting his comfortable life back on Earth, earning him the moniker of ‘The Alien with an Attitude.’ With Humans evolving on a heavy-gravity world, Adam discovers he’s faster, stronger and more coordinated than most of the aliens he encounters, making him—and his fellow Humans—the creatures to fear throughout the galaxy. And now, through a series of challenges and missions, Adam and his band of loyal warriors defend both the Earth and the galaxy against a multitude of threats, both alien and home-grown. Join Adam and his intrepid band of heroes for their latest escapades.
Riyad Tarazi:
Another abductee by the evil aliens known as the Klin, Riyad was once a high-ranking freedom fighter/terrorist back on Earth. Once free to roam an area of the Milky Way known as the Fringe, Riyad deftly uses his skills to climb the ranks of the Fringe Pirates, before becoming their feared and ruthless leader. Then he meets Adam Cain—first as enemies, then as friends—and his whole life changes. Throughout the years, the two friends have saved each other’s butts more times than they want to admit. Now they’re the most-deadly Human duo in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Sherri Valentine:
Once a young and carefree veterinary student in Phoenix, Arizona, Sherri took a fateful jog one evening and ended up like the others—as an alien abductee. Yet once she escapes, she goes on to make a very good living as an alien assassin, working for various cartels and criminal organizations in the Fringe. After hooking up with Adam and Riyad, she’s gone on to become one of the ‘Big Three’ Human heroes, known and feared throughout the galaxy. She’s beautiful, pragmatic—and deadly.
Kaylor & Jym:
These two aliens were dealt a strange hand of fate when they rescued Adam Cain from certain death aboard a booby-trapped Klin starship. Over the years, the pair of galactic scoundrels have accompanied Adam and the Humans on many an adventure, and in the process become Adam’s closest alien friends.
Copernicus Smith:
Passing himself off as a pragmatic starship repairman—specializing in servicing the Milky Way’s criminal element—Copernicus hides a secret which makes him one of the deadliest Human operatives in the galaxy. Affiliated now with Adam Cain, he’s become a vital part of the team, helping to round out its lethal effectiveness.
Arieel Bol:
Recognized as ‘The Most Beautiful Female in the Galaxy,” Arieel is the quasi-religious leader of the planet Formil. She’s also the mother of Lila, an immortal, mutant genius, who was the result of an inter-species union between her and Adam Cain—something the specialists said could never happen. Now as on-again, off-again lovers, Arieel and Adam are the only two beings in the galaxy carrying Artificial Telepathy Devices (ATD’s) implanted under their skin. These brain-interface modules enable the control of electronic devices, such as lights, doors, computers—and energy weapons—as well as telepathic communications between the two. Arieel’s arrogant, spoiled—and drop-dead gorgeous.
Adam Cain is an alien with an attitude.
His story continues…
1
A massive black starship, six miles long, occasionally reflecting streaks of gold and white off the tell-tale signs of the diffusion screens which wrapped the vessel out to twenty miles from the hull. It was an impressive sight, captured by video drones placed along its path. The huge behemoth ignored the miniscule cameras and continued relentlessly along its silent journey.
The massive starship was also oblivious to the two hundred twenty Tactorian warships ringing its course, forming a gauntlet a million miles long for the alien vessel to run. Yet none of the defenders fired upon the intruder, a strange sight considering the overwhelming odds in their favor.
Aboard the Tactorian flagship, Adam Cain watched the scene unfold on the main viewscreen, feeling sick to his stomach and about to vomit. It wasn’t the presence of the deadly Klin warship that had his stomach tied in knots; rather, it was the noxious smell aboard the warship. This was an alien vessel, crewed exclusively by the black-shelled, bug-like creatures. They had no need to accommodate vis
itors, even someone of Adam’s notoriety. They ran their ship as they pleased, while feeling right at home with the putrid odors circulating within the ventilation system.
Adam had arrived three hours earlier, placing his small, two-person starship in the docking bay of the flagship. The fleet was already assembled by the time he arrived, having been alerted by Phoenix Command that their system was one of nine suspected to be next in line for the Klin’s scorched-earth campaign of death and destruction. Adam had already visited the first two on the list. The black ship was a no-show. But here he hit paydirt, arriving just before the oblong-shaped vessel appeared out of a strange double blackhole at the edge of the system, with no warning of its approach. Now the ship was moving towards the third planet in the system—Tactoria—to fulfill its deadly mission.
Adam knew more about the capabilities of the Klin than anyone in the galaxy. He and his team had been taken aboard one of the six-mile-long ships a year ago. They managed to escape, and afterwards witnessed first-hand the effects of the aliens dropping over three million killer robots on a planet, and the utter devastation that followed. Since then, thirty-two other worlds had been reduced to smoldering ruins, with only a relative few million survivors on each left to wander dumbstruck through the remains of their once-proud civilizations.
Tactoria were next in line. Adam had come to witness the event, in a morbid attempt to learn more about his enemy.
“With respect, Adam Cain, we cannot hang idle as this occurs,” said the Tactorian commander, Kanik G’ks. He clung to a rail above his station, looking down at the smaller Human through eyes like black marbles. The aliens never sat; instead they used a pair of long appendages extending from their shoulders to hang like bats from bars placed throughout the ship. Other, more articulated arms and hands, worked the controls below. The ship’s odd layout left Adam with no place to sit, constantly needing to shift his weight for relief. After three hours, his feet where killing him.
“Trust me, Commander G’ks, if you fire upon the ship it will only energize their laser weapons. At the moment, they don’t have the power to attack your fleet.”
Adam was unable to read the expression on the slick black face of the alien, with its hard crust and solid black eye orbs resting on the surface of a pointy head. But the tiny, round mouth was producing sounds that Adam’s universal language bug translated. They were words of desperation and panic.
“Yet they traverse unopposed to Tactoria, where billions will die unless we stop them.”
“You’ve seen the data, Commander. I wish there was more we could—”
“Yes! There should be more the Expansion could do to protect us.”
“I don’t represent the Expansion.”
“It matters not! You move within the branches of power. You have access to strength we do not.”
“Believe me, G’ks, if we could do something, we would. But it’s early in this war with the Klin. We’re still working on countermeasures.”
“Yet you come here this day with none, not even to test. You are here simply to observe, to observe the death of a civilization.”
Adam fell silent, intimidated by the unblinking glare from the alien’s eyes. For a moment, his sickness shifted from the pungent smell to the regret he felt for G’ks and his people. Although several million would survive the attack, as the Tactorian said billions more would not, along with their structures, monuments, historical relics and more. For all intents and purposes, this was the day the Tactorian race would go extinct.
“Those aboard your fleet—as well as the thousands you’re taking from the planet as we speak—they’ll form the core of a new Tactorian civilization—”
“Why did they not accept our offer of surrender and cooperation?” the alien questioned, ignoring Adam’s words of hope. “Others have been granted such, yet not the Tactorians.”
He was right. Every world approached by the Klin had offered unconditional surrender, along with the cooperation of the population to build their killer robots and black delivery ships. Thirty-two had been approached; six were granted clemency, while twenty-six civilizations perished. Even the Tactorians had begged the Klin to accept their surrender—as they were continuing to do even as the black ship approached their homeworld. But the Klin remained silent, resolute. The black ship continued along its path, moving through the system at nine-tenths the speed of light, scheduled to arrive at Tactoria in four hours.
“Perhaps the Klin have not faced such fire as we can deliver. Perhaps—”
“Twice your number of defending ships met the Klin at Si-on Three. But they opened fire and lost over three hundred ships before the fleet could retreat out of range. I implore you: Do not make the situation worse—”
A small flash through the forward viewscreen caught Adam’s attention. He turned in time to see a thin shaft of light streak across the black of space. The line reached a point in space where it stopped and spread out, wrapping an invisible object in a faint green iridescence glow. Before he knew it, a hundred other streaks all converged on the same point in space.
“Get us out of here—now!” Adam cried out.
“Leave? We have only just begun the battle.”
“All you’ve done is charge their weapons. Their shields absorb energy and feed it back into the ship. The Klin don’t have a choice now but to attack your ships just to bleed off the excess. And they’ll do it with a weapon far more powerful than any of your shields can withstand. Get your people out of here!”
All eyes shifted to the drone cameras tracking the Klin warship. The vessel was now encased in a shimmering shell of green light, while torrents of white and blue energy flared away from the shields, only to arc back and enter at the forward and rear tips of the vessel. As the Klin ship absorbed the energy, a dozen powerful laser beams shot out from points on the hull, targeting Tactorian ships located several thousand miles away. Traveling at nearly the speed of light, the beams reached their targets a split second later, passing through overloaded diffusion shields and burning through helpless hulls with impunity.
None of the initial targets were spared; the Tactorians were too close. Those farther away began to change course as they witnessed the fate of their comrades. All the while the defenders continued releasing salvo after salvo of flash cannon fire from their rear turrets. The Klin ship didn’t attempt to evade the incoming balls of plasma energy. Instead, it took them in, repurposed the energy, and sent it back out to destroy even more Tactorian ships.
G’ks realized now the truth in Adam’s words. The laser weapons of the Klin had a hundred times the range of flash bolts; the Klin ship didn’t even have to change course to attack the defenders. The lasers simply locked onto other targets a million miles away and unleashed more beams. Some of the lasers even tracked across space before coming in contact with their prey, something unheard of with flash weapons. The Tactorians were completely outmatched. Of the two hundred twenty defenders, only ninety remained space-worthy after the first minute of battle.
Just then, a brilliant flash of light filled the bridge. Adam raised his arm to shield his eyes from the blinding assault.
“You have nuclear weapons?” he asked, stunned at the revelation. Most worlds within the Expansion were restricted from having or developing such devices. They weren’t needed in the era of space travel and gravity drives. At a moment’s notice a targeted vessel could enter a gravity-well and be a half a light-year away and safe from the weapon’s limited influence. They were effective, however, if used in a nuclear sphere, but only against stationary targets and when fifty or more bombs were detonated simultaneously.
“They are from a past time,” G’ks explained. “Yet we will use any measures to save our world.”
Adam had never seen a Klin black ship square off against a nuclear explosion. Although he feared the worst, he was hoping for the best.
Most of the drone cameras didn’t survive the explosion, yet a few did, those at the outskirts of the weapon’s range.
They showed the Klin ship being bombarded by sheets of yellow energy, interlaced with lightning bolts of blue and white. The arcing beams of energy feeding the black ship were triple in thickness and intensity, yet the hull appeared to be intact and unaffected by the intense radiation surrounding it.
Just then, an incredibly bright beam of light erupted from the top of the vessel amidships. It streaked off into space perpendicular to the length of the hull. Then it began to move. On G’ks threat board the huge beam was seen slashing across space, targeting and slicing through four more of his ships. These vessels were three million miles from the Klin vessel, yet still they fell to the deadly laser beam. At that distance, it took the beam sixteen seconds to reach its target, but once established, it remained charged and able to shift from one defender to another. Every rock, piece of space junk, even clouds of gas and dust was vaporized as the steady beam raked across the heavens between Tactorian ships.
And now it was moving toward the flagship.
“Reverse course!” G’ks yelled. Hanging from their bars, half a dozen Tactorians began operating controls. The ship was in mid-turn when the beam reached it. Diffusion shields flared once as the energy from the laser overwhelmed them instantly. And then the star-hot light sliced off the rear third of the ship.