When Earth Reigned Supreme (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 12)

by T. R. Harris

  If anyone was feeling the effects of the gear packs, it was the two old men on the team, Adam and Riyad—particularly Riyad. He was almost fifty years old, and had never gone through special forces training, at least not in a true military sense. His early training came through his affiliation with various terrorist organizations, beginning when he was in his teens. Even then, he hadn’t had any real physical and tactical training in almost thirty years.

  A few of the more physically fit members had taken on the burden of some of Riyad’s pack, so that he only had about fifty Earth-pounds to carry, at least initially. That would drop to around thirty-seven on the other side of the portal. To his credit, Riyad didn’t let pride get in the way when he accepted their help.

  Adam, on the other hand, took the full load, although he too was way over the hill and out of shape at forty-six. He figured he could handle the burden for the short term. In their most optimistic mission assessment, they’d simply waste the Queen and be back through the Klin portal in time for lunch.

  They would know soon enough.

  ********

  “Captain Cain, are we going to do this or not?”

  It was Lieutenant Larry Johnson asking the question. Adam looked at him and nodded. “T-minus five minutes, L.T. You have Bravo squad…along with Mr. Tarazi.”

  Earlier, Adam had pulled the young officer aside and tasked him with keeping an eye on Riyad. The old man of the team had spent the most time within the Queen’s Chambers, and because of that he was a valuable asset to the mission. Otherwise Adam would have left him behind. Now he worried for his friend.

  With a quick nod, Johnson acknowledged the silent understanding between him and Adam. Riyad was his responsibility; he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him.

  “Okay, men…positions.”

  The team lined up in twos, Adam and Corporal Neo Anderson taking the lead. Riyad was in the back half of the line, three pairs up from where the two equipment carts would bring up the rear, the last two commandos gripping the elevated handles with small electronic controls built into the bars.

  For the initial phase of the operation, technicians had been able to trace the last link made to Adam’s portal through the laptop computer Panur had used as a controller. The equipment the mutant used to build the portal turned out to be very basic and straightforward; it was the programming within the computer that left the Milky Way scientists in the dust. Fortunately, destination coordinates and a recorded data stream had been easy to retrieve. But beyond that they didn’t have a clue what ninety percent of the programming meant.

  In spite of that, the scientists had assured Adam and Riyad they could open the link with the Klin portal. Whether or not that portal was actually the one aboard the Klin colony ship was one of those “on-faith” assumptions they’d been working with from the beginning.

  “Thirty seconds,” Adam called out. He looked to his right, to where secret agent Stephen Monroe was standing twenty feet away with a serious expression on his thin face. There was no tally-ho, no thumbs-up from him. He was worried, just like everyone else. If the mission failed, the war for control of the Milky Way would continue with the same intensity and desperation as before. Eventually, the good guys might even be victorious. But the strike team would be trapped within a sliver of existence only an atom’s width away from where they stood, isolated in a reality completely foreign to the Humans, and there would be no one on the other side to mourn their fallen bodies. There was a good chance they were destined for a Sol-Kor dinner table somewhere, possibly even that of the Queen herself.

  “Open the gate!” Adam ordered.

  The scene through the once transparent doorway suddenly changed to show what appeared to a still-life image of a dimly lit room with walls lined by banks of sophisticated electronic equipment. The scene didn’t stay static for long, as various devices displayed either steady or flashing lights of multiple colors. Panur’s gift to Adam had indeed linked with another portal, and now the time had come for the moment of truth. Adam didn’t take time to study the image to see if he recognized it as the portal room aboard the Klin ship—it didn’t matter—it was the only portal they were linked with. It would have to do.

  Without hesitation, both he and Anderson rushed through the doorway, weapons pressed to their cheeks, short-barrels attached to their M-91 assault rifles in preparation for CQC—close quarters combat.

  Mission Reign Supreme was underway.

  Chapter 5

  The first thing Adam noticed upon stepping through the portal was that his assault pack suddenly felt a lot lighter. This came as a relief, but not as much as when he realized he’d been in this room before. It was the portal room aboard the Klin colony ship, which was actually a converted CW comm room that Panur had adapted to create the TD portal—a feat he accomplished in only thirty hours the year before.

  And the room was empty.

  By twos, the team rushed in, sentries taking up positions at the room’s only door, placing microphones against its metal surface, listening for any movement in the corridor outside. The two UTC specialists trained in portal operation, or at least what was known of it, moved to the control bank and began hooking cables to the handheld computers they had with them. Their movements were fluid and confident, and soon data was scrolling on the screens. A Klin-to-English translation program had been installed on the devices, although most of the data coming over was just numbers.

  Adam moved up next to where the men were punching keys on the computers.

  “Report,” he whispered.

  “Pulling up a log of recent portal activations,” Joey Garcia reported. “There’s been a lot, and not just to your portal, Captain.”

  “That’s a good sign. Can you pinpoint the location of the matching portal…or portals?”

  “Not from this, but there’s only three addresses. We know yours. The other two are unknowns.”

  “Pick the one used most often, Mr. Garcia.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  A faint click was heard…and the team froze.

  Adam looked to the door, where Ace Harbison was listening through earphones while holding up his arm, bent at the elbow with a balled fist. Someone was approaching.

  Ace circled his hand and pulled the microphone from the door. The team vanished from line-of-sight of anyone entering through the door…just as a louder click was heard and the door slid open.

  A squad of Klin dashed through, their bodies encased in a shimmering haze of blue light, and armed with Xan-fi flash rifles. The shimmering came from diffusion shields, which normally didn’t come in such compact size to be worn by an individual. But the Klin were the most-technologically advanced creatures in the galaxy.

  The aliens came in blasting.

  This was what Adam had been afraid of. The portal must have been monitored from somewhere else aboard the ship, and the unauthorized activation had prompted a security response—more than likely supplemented by video surveillance of the room as well. This became obvious as the aliens placed accurate flash bolts to where the Humans were semi-hidden.

  Adam’s team was well positioned to cover the doorway, and armed with projectile weapons whose deadly fire ignored the electronic shields the Klin wore—which were designed to absorb flash bolts, not hunks of ballistic lead.

  Despite the video surveillance and their overwhelming numbers, a dozen alien bodies were shattered by a near point-blank barrage of gunfire, cooling suppressors on the barrels keeping the sound of the weapons to muted puffs. The Klin fell in piles on the deck before their leaders realized the futility of a head-on assault.

  “Get the portal open, Garcia! They’ll use explosives next.”

  “Where to? Travis, or…”

  “SK-Land!”

  “Yes, sir. Activating the portal!”

  The image inside the portal—that of the hangar at Travis—wavered and then disappeared, to be replaced with a view of a much larger room, dimly lit but not empty. Several gray-skinned Sol-Kor
turned from workstations or stopped in their tracks to look at the now-activated portal.

  “Cover!” Adam yelled, and then he bounded through the opening, flicking his weapon to automatic as he did so. He placed his aim on several of the SK’s near the portal and depressed the trigger. Alien bodies twisted in wild spasms and fell to the floor.

  Then there was gunfire all around him as half the team entered the new universe and began cutting down the natives with deadly precision. The Sol-Kor in the room were unarmed, and ran for the room’s two exits. None of them made it.

  Adam glanced back at the portal. The backup team at Travis, tasked with securing the Klin portal for the duration of the operation, would be unable to enter the colony ship until Adam relinquished control of the portal back to Travis. With the battle taking place in another universe, Adam didn’t see that happening. The fourteen men waiting in California would have no link to the Klin ship.

  The ammo carts came through the portal next, with Riyad and Johnson bringing up the rear. They entered backwards, firing into the Klin portal room with no let-up, while the rest of team concentrated on keeping any of the Sol-Kor from escaping the huge room and raising the alarm.

  “Watch out!”

  Johnson jumped, tackling Riyad and sending both of them tumbling to the side of the open portal. A millisecond later, with a swish a small missile shot through the portal, trailing a plume of white smoke behind it. The missile struck the far wall of the Sol-Kor portal room and exploded, the damage isolated to the equipment bank it hit, plus a couple of unfortunate SK’s who were running by at the time.

  Another missile streaked through, followed by another. Both hit the floor and skidded before they, too, impacted the far wall.

  “Conman, take out the portal! We can’t leave it open. They’ll just keep firing missiles in here if we do.”

  Connors cocked the underbarrel grenade launcher on his assault rifle and aimed it at the base of the Sol-Kor portal. With a poof, the subsequent explosion blew the metal frame to pieces and the image of the Klin control room disappeared—as did their most direct means of escape.

  The room suddenly became deathly quiet. All the Sol-Kor were dead, only the Human assault team left breathing in the foul, alien air. Adam did a quick headcount—all his men were accounted for, and with no apparent injuries. He pointed quickly to each exit and the team separated into halves, each taking a doorway.

  Adam looked around the room. This wasn’t where he’d entered a year before, which didn’t bode well for the mission. He accepted the fact that they were in the Sol-Kor universe, but were they in the Queen’s Chambers, only in another portal room after the last one was destroyed? Or were they worlds away from their intended destination?

  Reality began to take hold. It was only him and his other eleven Human commandos up against a trillion Sol-Kor, and on their home turf.

  At least we caught them by surprise…all one trillion of them!

  The thought came out lacking his usual bravado.

  ********

  Each member of the team wore high-tech wrap-around visors that were a soldier’s dream come true. They polarized instantly to ward off flash attacks, could switch to infrared and heat signatures with a voice command, and even contained limited range radar/motion detector capability up to twenty meters in the open, or easily within a single room. They also constantly provided heads-up displays of video feeds from various sources, along with relative gravity readings, temperature, and atmospheric conditions. They were compact enough to be worn constantly, even with the gaudy Sol-Kor masks over their heads—though none of the team was wearing one at the moment.

  Adam took out a small, articulated video camera from his utility vest, and as another team member cracked open the door, he extended the camera outside.

  Every member of the team saw the same image in their visor, and it made their hearts sink.

  A row of buildings across a wide street, and a hazy brown, cloud-dotted sky high above. This meant they were not in some large portal station within the vast Queen’s complex. They could be anywhere in the Sol-Kor universe.

  Adam handed the camera to Anderson and then slumped back against the wall, contemplating their next move. At least the image showed the street to be quiet, no apparent alarms sent out, prompted by the noise of the brief battle within the building—at least not yet. That was good news. The bad news was that without being in the Queen’s Chambers, the mission suddenly shifted from an assassination to an extraction—their own extraction from an impossibly hostile environment.

  “Drake,” said Adam through the mic on his visor. “Find a way to the roof and launch a drone. We need to get some idea where we are. Ace, Mac, go with him and set up a high nest. It’s a pretty good bet someone is going to get the word about this portal going down, so we should be expecting company. Kaczynski and Garcia, check the equipment to see if you can get any information about our location and other portals in the area. The rest of you take up positions near the exits and keep the cameras operating. Maintain a clear killing field for anyone entering, although our main objective at this time is to find targets to interrogate.”

  The team moved out, just as Riyad slipped in next to Adam and sat down.

  “Well here’s another fine mess you’ve got me into.”

  “What can I say, Ollie…it’s what I do best.”

  “Hang in there, my friend. At least we have our health.”

  “For a while longer—”

  “Captain, Drake here…I found an opening to the roof. Getting ready to launch the drone. Patching video through to our visors.”

  “Very good. Let’s see where we are.”

  The advanced mini-drone, equipped with a high resolution zoom video camera, shot up into the air, beaming back an aerial view of their immediate surroundings. The cluster of uniformly spaced and identical buildings continued for ten blocks in all directions before giving way to a more open landscape to magnetic east. Drake panned the drone around until it faced west…and here the image changed to something much more interesting.

  The vast expanse of the largest spaceport any of them had ever seen. The wide-open landing field stretched nearly to the horizon, before a series of towers—small and insignificant from this distant—rose up along the far boundary. Ranging placed the buildings at over eight miles away. The massive spaceport was a beehive of activity, a cloud of vessels landing and taking off in a chaotic frenzy.

  Adam could see huge harvesters, hundreds of them, along with thousands of beamships. There were several huge beam platforms—giant square boxes equipped with gravity drives—which carried multiple batteries of the Sol-Kor blue pulse beam emitters, designed to place the populations of entire worlds into mindless stupors, suitable for eventual harvest. Everywhere, streams of service vehicles moved among the giant starships, looking like lines of ants invading a discarded sugar cube.

  Further investigation found an unbelievably large expanse of massive buildings fading into the distance south of the spaceport, with dozens of fifty-yard-wide conveyor belts stacked with uniform crates feeding into the complex. Huge cargo trucks were moving from the harvesters to the conveyor assemblies, dropping their loads in a dance of robotic efficiency before circling back around for another load.

  The massive complex had to be the processing center for the raw food being brought in from multiple universes. From here, the finished product would exit the complex in an equally impressive display of choreographed efficiency, to be distributed throughout the Colony.

  With a trillion hungry mouths to feed, this had to be just one of countless spaceport processing centers scattered throughout Sol-Kor space. Where this one was located was what concerned Adam the most.

  Drake switched the view to the north, and Adam heard an audible gasp from the members of his team.

  Beyond the grounds of the wide spaceport, a sloping plain rose up to meet a towering bluff, capped by a high ridge that the drone sensors placed at an elevation of a thousand met
ers above their present altitude. Adam had been on dozens of alien worlds in his time, but he had never seen something that looked this alien, this ugly and foreboding.

  Atop the ridge, seemingly built haphazardly out of various sized blocks of a mottled black and gray, rose a series of raggedly-shaped pyramids. The arrangement of their blocks followed no logical, symmetrical pattern except to form the basic shape of a pyramid. The structure appeared to be off balance and with huge gaps along the edges, giving the whole thing a craggy, disorganized look, as if blocks were added when needed and without regard to placement or aesthetics.

  Several of these pyramids bordered the ridgeline, with one taller than the others, even as its neighbors challenged the main structure for supremacy. Each structure staircased down to almost the base of the ridge before another grouping of blocks began to grow upwards to form the neighboring pyramid.

  The image zoomed in as close as it could, and Adam and the team could see more detail within the row of craggy pyramids. Each structure was connected to the one next to it by a series of tubes, and even from this distance they could see pods moving within. In addition, they could make out windows and doorways on the individual building blocks. Drake sent the size estimates of the blocks to the team via the HUD, and they found that most blocks measured four hundred feet across and one hundred feet high. The peak of the tallest pyramid was placed at seven thousand and eight hundred feet above the altitude of the drone.

  A quick count along the ridgeline found eighteen such pyramids before the row ended as the mountaintop fell away.

  “Drake, zoom in on the stuff at the base of the bluff,” Adam said.

  The image shifted, and it only took a split second for the team to realize what they were looking at: gigantic piles of trash, one at the base of each pyramid, streaming down the mountain and accumulating along the sloping plain. Each pile had to be a thousand feet or higher, and covered by a cloud of native birds feasting on the incredible smorgasbord of refuse.