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

by T. R. Harris

  “Ready on weapons, Mac. They’ll probably try bombarding us with their beams before engaging. Might as well give them what they’re expecting.”

  “Play dead?” Riyad asked.

  “While limping away on autopilot. If they figure we can’t mount a defense, then maybe the rest of the fleet with continue on with their mission. Then once we get enough separation, we’ll blast our way out and head for the stars.”

  “You make it sound so simple.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  Riyad frowned. “You know our dampening belts are just about out of juice. We hadn’t planned on being here this long. This will be our last gasp using them.”

  “So let’s make it count. Mr. Anderson, on my command steer left forty-five degrees relative at full power. Once the beams hit, reduce power by fifty percent and begin a slight rotation. Make them think we’re all off in la-la land. Ready…execute!”

  The star field through the forward viewport streaked away to the right, and then steadied up. “Here they come,” Connors reported.

  “How many?”

  “Ten of the scaly bastards.”

  The Humans aboard the stolen starship felt the onset of pressure headaches as the Sol-Kor pulse beams hit. Anderson slowed the ship, and then the star field outside began to wobble, in sync with the slow spin he was creating.

  “They’re slowing, Captain,” Connors reported. “Half are peeling off and returning to the convoy.”

  “That still leaves five of the bastards. ETA to contact?”

  “They’re a cocky bunch, aren’t they?” Connors said. “And taking their sweet ol’ time closing on us. We should be a couple of light-years from the fleet by the time they reach us. I estimate contact…eight minutes.”

  “Get ready on the weapons, Mac. Anderson, gun it as soon as we engage. We’ll fight our way out of the area.”

  The next seven minutes crawled by, until the first two beamships were within weapons range.

  Connors was shaking his head. “No screens yet…idiots.”

  “Be thankful for that, Mike,” Adam said. “Wait until all five are in range. Then raise the shields and fire.”

  “Problem, sir,” Johnson said from his place at weapons control next to MacTavish.

  “What’s that?”

  “Only four weapons banks, two starboard, two port.”

  “Do the best you can, L.T. Hopefully our shields will hold until we can target the fifth ship.”

  “Thirty seconds until they’ll all be in range.”

  “Get ready, men. It’s going to get rough from here on out.”

  “As if it’s been a walk in the park until now,” someone said from another section of the bridge.”

  The seconds clicked off—and then…

  “Shields! Fire!”

  Brilliant pulses of light lit up the bridge through the viewport, accompanied by simultaneous jerks as bolts of plasma erupted from the weapons batteries. The bolts closed the distance in a split second, each battery unleashing a circular spread to catch any fast-reacting pilots from escaping.

  The alien ships were displayed on the main screen as graphic representations, since they were still out of visual range. The onboard computers simulated the bolts contacting the unshielded hulls of the first four beamships, showing them passing cleanly through the relatively thin metal skin. Pressure explosions blew out, star-hot plasma filling the ships, incinerating everything in its path. Within ten seconds of initiating the battle, four enemy ships were dead in the water.

  Lieutenant Johnson now focused his attention on the remaining beamship, but it was too late. Shields had been raised, and the next barrage of bolts sent out from the Human’s captured starship was absorbed by the energy grid of the enemy vessel. Return bolts flared out, impacting the shields on their ship as well.

  And then the chase was on.

  Anderson sent maximum power to the gravity generators, pulling the ship forward at maximum acceleration. The gravity wells created by beamships were of a lower intensity than were the Klin-designed propulsion drives, but they operated on the same principle. Adam’s stolen vessel slipped just inside the event horizon, pulled ever-forward by the series of miniature blackholes created by the generators. Space around the ship wasn’t as distorted as it was with Klin drives, and the men on the bridge could clearly detect the Sol-Kor ship trailing behind them, matching their speed exactly.

  “Anyone else coming to the party, Mike?”

  “It looks like it, Captain, but they’re pretty far off. And all things being equal, they won’t catch up to us…unless we run out of fuel first.”

  “Mr. Anderson, bring us over toward that system off to starboard. We don’t want to get too far off track to check the other portals. We might be able to find some cover there.”

  “Unless that’s a Sol-Kor stronghold as well.”

  “Damn, hadn’t thought of that. We are in their neighborhood, after all. Keep a sharp eye out for any far-off gravity sigs. We may have to alter course if we find any.”

  “All seems clear, at least for now.”

  “Good. Time to the next array along the line?”

  Connors checked his readings. “Seven hours at our present speed, and then about seven hours each after that.”

  “We’re almost there, boys. One of these other portals is the doorway home. Stay frosty.”

  Chapter 20

  The stolen beamship entered the space of a small yellow star with their single pursuer only forty-eight seconds behind. So far, no other enemy gravity signatures had been detected within the system, which seemed odd for being this close to Kor.

  There were six major planets in the system, including four gas giants and two rocky worlds closer in. Long range scanning showed that the second planet from the star was an Earth-like world, complete with blue oceans, white clouds, a magnetic field, and an atmosphere that could support Human life. As they sped closer, Connors became curious enough to aim the long range cameras toward the surface. What they saw at first was encouraging. There were cities and huge communities scattered throughout the more temperate latitudes.

  In order to evade the enemy beamship. Anderson skirted the atmosphere and swung around to the far side of the planet, losing sight of the other ship, if only momentarily. That’s when they got their best look at the cities far below.

  This close in, they saw a different picture. The cities were dead, just vast ruins that looked to be thousands of years old, covered with overgrowth, with only their tallest, strongest spires still recognizable. Instantly, the crew knew what had happened. This world had been harvested, probably among the first to suffer such a fate when the ravenous Sol-Kor left their home planet to seek food in other star systems.

  That was why no Sol-Kor bothered with this system. It had already been picked clean and discarded, billions of sentient beings having been consumed.

  Adam’s temper flared. He knew the Earth was destined for same fate if the Sol-Kor had their way. The aliens were relentless, their numbers too great. They would succeed eventually if something wasn’t done to stop them.

  “Let’s make a stand here,” he said to the room. “Besides, we can’t make too much progress surveying the other portals with that asshole on our tail.”

  “Any ideas how, sir?” Neo asked.

  “Once we get down in the atmosphere, gravity drive goes away for all intents and purposes. Then it’s just pilot skill that matters.”

  “Gee, thanks, sir. It’s not like I’ve a lot of experience in one of these ships.”

  “The Sol-Kor are basic and unimaginative, and I’m sure they’ve never played a video game in their lives. Let’s rip up some sky and make them regret getting up this morning.”

  “Do Sol-Kor sleep? I don’t recall if they do or not.”

  “They’ll take the long nap after we’re done with them,” MacTavish said from his weapons station.

  “Find us some deep canyons, Mr. Connors, someplace we can show them what real pilotin
g is all about.”

  “There you go again,” Anderson said. “Nothing like putting pressure on me.”

  “Relax. You’ll do fine, Mr. Anderson.”

  “Come right forty degrees,” Connors said. “In about five hundred miles there’s a large rift or river valley. Should be a lot of canyons in there.”

  The pilot cracked his knuckles and gripped the steering column with both hands. “Here we go. I’m reducing speed to lure the bastard in. Keep our ass shields up, Mac. I plan on drawing him in real close. And by the way…they call me Neo!”

  Adam grinned, recalling another time in a faraway universe. The Matrix had always been one of his favorite movie series. Obviously it was Anderson’s as well.

  Moments later, the beamship dropped between two craggy cliffs made of stratified red, brown, and gray rock. At this point the canyon was about a mile wide, but the sides closed in rapidly to only a few hundred yards across. Then a rogue stone spire appeared on the left side, just around a sharp bend.

  The enemy beamship had fallen out of orbit and followed the Humans into the canyon having found it nearly impossible to track the ship from above with it deep in a relatively narrow crevasse. They slowed as the opening narrowed, but as Neo jerked the column to the right and had to back off himself to avoid hitting the outcropping, the enemy ship gunned it and closed to visual weapons range. They fired.

  “Crap!”

  The flash bolt impacted the rear screens; it was absorbed, but not before transferring some of its kinetic energy to the forward motion of the Human’s ship. They surged forward, directly toward the side of the canyon.

  Neo turned the ship on its side just as they felt a jolt on their right. Mac had fired into the side of the cliff—not more than thirty meters away—and the reciprocal push from the flash bolt helped shift the craft sideways more than the engines alone were capable of doing. It was just enough. They missed the jagged rocks by the skin on their teeth, sending out a blinding cloud of red dust behind them.

  “Thanks, Mac. That was some quick thinking.”

  The big officer was too busy to reply, planning for more course-altering flash bolts should they be necessary.

  The canyon widened, and the pair of spacecraft dropped down, skimming over a wide, brown river. The path of the waterway had carved the canyon, and it soon began to meander back and forth through a series of sharp turns. Neo was getting the feel of the ship now and seemed to be enjoying pitching the vessel back and forth around the turns.

  “You’re losing them!” Adam shouted.

  “I thought that was the idea.”

  “If we do that, they’ll just pop back into space and wait for reinforcements. Let them think they can finish us off here.”

  Anderson visibly pouted. “Sir, yes sir.”

  He slowed, allowing the Sol-Kor vessel to come within firing range again. This time the bolts missed as Neo continued his swinging motion back and forth across the canyon opening.

  “Did any of you see the movie Independence Day?” Adam asked.

  “Yeah, I did…I think,” Mac answered.

  “Me too,” Connors answered. “On one of the oldies stations.”

  “How about you, Neo?”

  “Can’t say I have. What about it?”

  “In the movie this same thing is happening, and then they come to a sheer cliff. Hero goes vertical and the bad guys slam into the side of the cliff.”

  “Sounds like fun, but what’s to guarantee we can go vertical enough to avoid the same fate?”

  “Mac’s flash bolts, that’s what. Load up, Mr. MacTavish. As we draw close, unleash some bolts at the sides of the cliff. Stir up some dust so the scaly bastards behind us won’t be able to see.”

  “Roger that,” Mac replied. “Now all we need is a cliff to steer them into.”

  The one thing a Grand Canyon-like, six hundred kilometer-long river canyon has a lot of is an abundance of sheer cliffs. After one particularly radical turn, the team spotted one such barrier further along the riverbed. Their view of it became blocked at another turn, but they knew it was coming, just before the river shifted abruptly to the left.

  The ship buffeted to the left and right as Mac began bombarding each side of the canyon with flash bolts. In space, these small shifts in position from the reciprocal force of the bolt launches were not an issue, but in the narrow confines of the canyon they could be catastrophic. Fortunately, each jolt to one side was quickly compensated for by another to the opposite side, and Neo was able to maintain some semblance of steering control.

  The onslaught of bolts striking the red clay and rock of the cliffs was shrouding the canyon in a thick cloud of red dust. The enemy craft had closed on them and was matching the stolen beamship’s movements to keep from impacting the canyon walls.

  Then Adam saw the cliff dead ahead. They would be on it in three seconds. “Now, Mac!”

  This time the released bolts were forward and down from the path of the ship. The resulting reaction, along with Neo pulling all the way back on the stick, sent the beamship on a hockey-stick path upwards, toward the white clouds above. The bolts struck the cliff wall beside them, plunging the ship into its own cloud of red dust, obscuring their view.

  Breathing stopped, as the commandos weren’t certain if they would clear the top of the cliff. Even as they rose higher, more dust, rock and debris was drawn from the wall, and then even more as the soil near the summit became looser.

  Then they burst out of the cloud, already several hundred meters above the high plain surrounding the deep river canyon. Breathing resumed.

  On an exterior camera, looking straight down at the rapidly shrinking canyon below, the men witnessed a thunderous explosion rivaling a small nuclear blast. A cloud of fire and rust-colored dust climbed skyward, chasing the fleeing starship, but they were traveling too fast to be caught.

  From this vantage point, they saw where an entire section of the cliff face had been blown out, forming a wide semi-circle in the side of the canyon. As they climbed higher and further away, the cloud below them began to dissipate, with no pursuit emerging from the red haze.

  “Great job, everyone!” Adam cried out.

  None of the men acknowledged his compliment. They hunched over their controls or consoles and took in several deep breaths.

  Eventually, Neo Anderson did reply: “I know the good guys are always supposed to win these things, but it was still pretty intense from where I sat.” He craned his neck to look back at Adam. “What now, sir?”

  “Let’s find a place here to power down for a while. Let them think we were also destroyed in the crash. If we head back into space, we’ll be a lot easier to spot.”

  “In one of those old cities?”

  “Sound good. Should be plenty of places to hide. Once we cut power we’ll be impossible to find. Mike, lead us to the closest one.”

  ********

  Fourteen minutes later, the stolen beamship was gliding through wide, overgrown avenues of a once thriving metropolis, appearing to be several thousand years old. This world had been teeming with an advanced civilization around the same time mud huts were being constructed along the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates in ancient Mesopotamia. Now the creatures who built this vast city—and thousands of others—were gone, victims of the Sol-Kor’s insatiable appetite. And considering how advanced the race appeared to have been at the time, the invaders probably savored the exceptional quality of the native brain matter as they feasted on the billions of doomed souls.

  The demise of this race was a tragedy in its own right, but Adam knew they were only one of literally millions of other worlds sterilized by the Sol-Kor. What magnificent contributions could these people—and so many others like them—have made if only given the chance to survive?

  The gravity on this world was near what would be termed Juir standard, or about three-quarters Earth. As a consequence, the natives were probably taller than Humans, and their buildings reflected this. Adam soon found the remai
ns of a huge covered stadium. A section of the ancient roof had caved in eons ago, and Neo guided the ship through the opening and set it down at the far end of the field, nearly lost in the overgrowth of tall weeds.

  They quickly powered down, reducing their energy signature to virtually zero, undetectable unless an enemy starship was a hundred meters or less directly overhead. As the generators wound down and fell silent, the strike team got their first chance to relax after six long, harrowing days.

  Chapter 21

  Adam was the only one on the bridge, the rest of the crew having gone aft for food or sleep, when it dawned on him that they had left Earth only six days ago—and five of the six days had been spent in space, sitting on pins and needles as part of a fleet of five thousand enemy starships.

  Stunned by that thought, in the dim light of the bridge, Adam had time to reflect and think back to his days as a Navy SEAL. Even then he’d marveled at the sudden changes of venue he and his teammates went through on a regular basis, something no ordinary civilian could comprehend. On so many occasions he’d be called away at a moment’s notice from his home in Virginia Beach to board a cargo plane or jet destined for some foreign war zone. The team would routinely strike out on their missions—some lasting only a couple of days, others for several weeks—and it was the shorter missions that jolted his senses the most. He could be shopping at the Lynnhaven Mall one day, get called out, and be back four days later, having traveled halfway around the world to end the life of some bad guy, or save the life of another. To the people in the mall around him, they couldn’t conceive of the visions he carried in his mind as he scanned the clothing racks at Penney’s, or the tastes, smells, and feelings he’d experienced only hours before.

  Now here he was in another universe—as inconceivable as that might sound—in a city built five thousand years ago by a race of dead aliens, attempting to avoid death or capture by yet another alien race. After twenty years of adventures among the stars, Adam still found it mind-boggling.