When Earth Reigned Supreme (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 12)
Page 22
J’nae didn’t appear to be playing around.
Out of desperation, Adam now took the initiative. He was just as fast and strong as the alien, at least what she was displaying at this point, so he came at her with moves to her left and then to her right, forcing her to retreat. She countered with a stabbing strike at his mid-section, from which he jumped back and sucked in his gut to avoid being speared. Still, the sharp blade managed to slide across his left side, slicing through clothing and a six-inch length of skin. He grimaced in pain, yet didn’t bother to look down at the rapidly growing blood stain on his garment. The Queen was already moving in for the kill.
She came in high this time, and it was all Adam could do to lift his sword in time to meet hers in a classic ‘t’ formation. The force of the blow sent him to his knees.
Yet as the Queen let the momentum of her strike carry the blade further to her left, Adam was presented with a clear view of her right side mid-section. He thrust his own blade forward, before feeling the clash of metal on metal again, along the ringing tone of J’nae’s sword sliding along the top edge of his and right up to the guard of the hilt. The two warriors were now only inches apart, with the Queen’s intense and animated face glaring down at him, a wicked grin on her face.
Then Adam looked toward the end of his blade, and found it buried half way into the belly of the Queen. She was also looking at the point where the metal disappeared into her body, just before lifting her sword and ramming the butt end of the hilt into Adam’s exposed forehead.
He fell on his back, stunned, losing the grip on his sword. He lay there, completely at the mercy of the Sol-Kor Queen.
J’nae took a step back, but rather than deliver the killing blow, she stood up straight and smiled. Then with her free hand, she gripped his embedded blade and slowly pulled it from her body. No blood appeared, and as soon as the pointed tip was visible again, the wound was already healed. She tossed the blade aside, hearing it clang against the stone floor of his quarters.
A tense moment followed, as Adam wondered what she would do next.
But then the Queen flipped her own sword with a twist of her wrist and planted the point onto the stone floor, resting her right hand on the end of the grip.
“That was…stimulating, Adam Cain. I thank you for that,” she complimented. But then her eyes narrowed. “Yet as I suspected, you retain much more skill with such a weapon than you originally let on. You Humans are indeed devious creatures.”
Adam shrugged. If he was considered skillful with a broadsword, then that wasn’t saying a lot for the competition she’d been facing. Yet deep inside, Adam let his macho ego have its due; if he’d been up against a normal opponent, he would have come out victorious. Not bad for a rookie broadsworder.
J’nae looked to the wide swath of red on his shirt and pants. “I will have someone attend to you.” She turned abruptly away and strode toward the door. Yet just as she reached it, she paused. Turning, she returned to where he lay, and reached down to recover his sword from just under the edge of the elevated pad he used as a bed. She smiled at him for a moment, before turning and leaving without another word.
********
After the medical attendant left, Adam lay on his bed, shirtless, with a large, white bandage on his wound. He stared up at the high ceiling, analyzing what just took place, to see if any conclusions could be drawn.
It had been a month and a half since he’d been placed in his rather palatial prison next to the Queens Chambers, within the ugly, black pyramid the Sol-Kor referred to as M-1, the seat of government for the Colony. He was fed regularly, allowed exercise time and even granted limited computer access so he could keep his mind stimulated.
After the remainder of his strike team had been unexpectedly rescued from the portal building, Adam was the sole Human left in the Sol-Kor universe. At first, he didn’t know if that was good or bad. Fortunately, rather than take her frustrations out on him at the loss of the team, J’nae had shrugged off the incident, choosing to focus her attention and curiosity on Adam. In those early days, the Queen came by often, but recently, the visits had become less frequent, as affairs of state took priority over playtime with her new pet.
And Adam wasn’t so much concerned for his own welfare—he could handle whatever the Queen had in store for him.
Who he was really concerned about was the rescue team.
He held out no false hope that Riyad and the others would simply write him off and not even bother mounting a rescue attempt. He wouldn’t, if the roles were reversed. And although he had no idea how he would pull it off, knowing Riyad, Adam was ninety-nine percent sure that a second team of Human commandos would soon enter Sol-Kor space, but this time tasked with bringing him back home.
To that end, men were going to die, and the least Adam could do was make their mission worthwhile…by staying alive until they arrived.
That…or find the way home himself, before any more lives were lost on his behalf.
Adam now divided his time between exercising and surfing the equivalent of the Sol-Kor internet. An English-to-Sol-Kor language program was provided for him, so he found his surfing expeditions to be quite enlightening. There was nothing on the computer of tactical value—at least as far as the Sol-Kor knew—but every bit of information helped. Who knew what tidbit would provide the spark for a plan? And so when he wasn’t beating himself up with his extremely strenuous exercise regime, he was on the computer looking for anything that could be used to his advantage.
With the gravity of Kor as light as it was, Adam had to work hard to maintain his strength and muscle mass. His natural Human abilities were his ace-in-the-hole, and if he let his body acclimate to the local gravity, he’d lose that advantage.
His watchers couldn’t understand his devotion to the routine, until he explained it had to do with religion. They left him alone after that, although still failing to see the significance in his efforts. He was okay with that. Most of the Sol-Kor were dumb as rocks, even though there was a segment of more-intelligent SK’s he had to be on the lookout for.
And the Queen was the most intelligent of them all.
She was another Panur-like creature, similar to the five-thousand year-old mutant alien, who was the byproduct of the former Queen and another alien race. In fact, from what Adam had learned, J’nae had been created in the same manner, only using Panur and the Queen—his mother—for the necessary DNA material. This incestuous union—done in genetics labs, of course—had produced another super-mutant. Like Panur, J’nae had regenerative cells, allowing her to have already lived six hundred standard years before assuming her role as the new Queen. She was also extremely fast, unbelievably strong and with a photographic memory and perfect recall.
Although he often took a beating during the sparring sessions with the Queen, the one thing he’d learned was that her own blows were not much more powerful than a strong Human male could deliver. To the native Sol-Kor, she was Superwoman, yet if it wasn’t for the fact that she couldn’t be killed, Adam was sure he could take her in a fair fight…if there was such a thing as a fair fight against an immortal mutant alien.
So now, as he lay on the bed contemplating his future, two things became abundantly clear. One: If he was going to defeat the Queen, it would have to be by other than physical means. And the other: She couldn’t be outsmarted, either.
With that reality staring him the face, Adam smiled, feeling relief when the line of thinking left him with only one option—other than waiting for the rescue team to show up and get themselves killed.
He was going to have to escape on his own.
And the sooner the better. He was sure Riyad wasn’t sitting around twiddling his thumbs. It was only a matter of time before his best friend made the fateful mistake that could cost him his life—along with the lives of all who followed him.
And Adam Cain couldn’t let that happen.
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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 (coming April 2016)
Jason King – Agent to the Stars Series
The Enclaves of Sylox
The Drone Wars Series
Day of the Drone
With author George Wier
The Liberation Series
Captains Malicious