by T. R. Harris
Battlelines
The Human Chronicles Saga
#14
an Adam Cain adventure
by
T.R. Harris
Copyright 2016 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.
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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
Battlelines
The Copernicus Deception (coming July 26, 2016)
Jason King – Agent to the Stars Series
The Enclaves of Sylox
The Drone Wars Series
Day of the Drone
In collaboration with George Wier…
The Liberation Series
Captains Malicious
Contents
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Epilogue
Prologue
Two hundred thousand starships!
Admiral Andy Tobias had to shake his head each time he thought of the mind-boggling number. He tried to put it in perspective: the combined fleets of the Orion-Cygnus Union and the Juirean Expansion would come in somewhere near eighty-five thousand warships. Throw in all the other miscellaneous militaries in the Milky Way galaxy and one could stretch that number to one hundred thousand.
But the Hal’ic fleet, created on one world—and in secret—was twice what an entire galaxy could muster.
Tobias was just glad the Hal’ic were on his side…and that he was the supreme commander of the whole kit and caboodle.
“Admiral, mass forces are approaching Kor,” the Hal’ic liaison reported. The officer had been instructed by his superiors to use Andy’s Human military rank, even though Veritis was the official position to the native hierarchy. “There are inadequate defenses to prevent our objectives. Shall I give the order to proceed?”
“Hold on,” Tobias said. “Any word from Captain Cain and the others?”
“None, hallon.”
Andy had only been the head honcho for three days, but he knew the Hal’ic word hallon meant sir. Out of respect for local military customs, Andy had specifically requested that his translation bug keep the native pronunciation. Besides, the sooner he became acclimated to life on the planet J’nae, the better. It looked like he—along with the other five Human members of his staff—would be here for a very long time.
“And no trace of the Mark IV starship?”
“The same, hallon.”
The admiral’s jaw tightened. He’d warned them—repeatedly—and now it looked as though his worst case scenario was being played out.
Tobias addressed his liaison, Tier-Five Supervisor Miszn Obli: “Proceed to Phase One. Time to first contact?”
“Eighteen minutes.”
“Status on the portal assault?”
“Thirty thousand ships should be arriving on station at the remaining three trans-dimensional portals within the next six hours. The twenty thousand destined for the inter-dimensional cluster will take another three days to reach target.”
“Very good. Feed status reports from Kor to my second, Lieutenant Commander Paulson, as they become available.”
The alien scooted away quickly.
Andy lifted a cup of what passed for coffee on the planet J’nae and drank the last of it cold. He hadn’t slept in nearly thirty hours and the invasion of Kor was just beginning. It was going to be a very long day.
Since command of the Hal’ic fleet had been dropped in his lap, Tobias had already made an impression on the inexperienced native officers. Through a cautious release of his forces—rather than a mass reveal of the Hal’ic’s true combat strength—he had managed to get the Sol-Kor to commit far too many of their assets in a failed attempt to overwhelm the defenders from the planet J’nae. As a result, the home planet of the Sol-Kor was now left virtually defenseless. Tobias had to snicker. Even if it hadn’t been, the prospect of warding off over fifty thousand enemy warships would have been impossible in anyone’s book. Only now it would be more of a cakewalk for the Hal’ic.
But the invasion of Kor was only the first campaign in what was surely to be a titanic endeavor, and that was why Andy already had Phase Two underway: the isolation of the battlefield from potential reinforcements.
In his brief tenure on J’nae, Andy had learned of the existence of three major transit portal arrays within forty light-years of the planet. These were the facilities which maintained contact with the other universes the Sol-Kor operated within; there had been four, until Andy destroyed the transit portal to the Human universe. In addition, he had learned of over ninety other portal arrays that were used to move ships between points within the Sol-Kor universe. He had no idea this type of portal even existed, but when he thought about it, it made sense. Journeying from galaxy to galaxy was still a long and arduous process, requiring dozens of years even with the most-advanced starships. Long ago, the Sol-Kor had made these journeys and then built linking portals back to their home galaxy. Now they were able to hop around their universe with relative ease.
Throughout the millennia, the Hal’ic had acquired extensive intelligence on the Sol-Kor war machine, and as Andy scanned the numbers on his first day on J’nae, he felt like throwing up. The Sol-Kor numbered over one trillion individuals in their Colony, and each one was essentially a soldier. They also had vast manufacturing centers, and access to unlimited raw material from across multiple universes.
But the most sobering number of all—even though it was only an educated guess—was the estimated eight million warships the Sol-Kor had available—if they could be accessed.
That was why Andy had fifty thousand of his own ships heading off to destroy the portal arrays of the Sol-Kor.
If Phase Two was successful, the home galaxy of the Sol-Kor would be on its own against the Hal’ic forces. Unfortunately, the galaxy was also the most populated, and settled by the flesh-eating aliens, with an estimated five hundred thousand ships available. Even then, with the impending destruction of Kor, there was a very good chance
the Hal’ic could deliver a crushing blow to the Colony, at least in the near-term. It would take time for the Sol-Kor to organize an effective counterattack. The Hal’ic were better prepared, and now with more experienced leadership.
Defeating the Sol-Kor, at least in this galaxy, was possible. With time, the Hal’ic could build defenses against the inevitable arrival of other Sol-Kor forces from the isolated regions.
The secondary benefit to Andy’s plan of isolating the primary galaxy of the Sol-Kor was the fact that all the other segments of the Colony would be cut off from their only source of repopulation—the Queen of the Sol-Kor. Given enough time, with no replacements arriving from the home galaxy, the ravenous hordes of flesh-eaters in faraway galaxies or distance universes would simply die off. If the Hal’ic could fend off reinforcements in the near-term, the Sol-Kor problem would cease to exist forever.
To the Hal’ic, time was on their side. Their race had been one of the first to be harvested by the Sol-Kor after the invaders had set forth from their homeworld in search of new crops on distant worlds. That was five thousand years ago, and during that time the survivors of that first harvest had gone on to build a thriving and technologically superior civilization beneath the ruins of their once great cities. They had planned for this very moment, designing and building weapons of war to be used against the evil Sol-Kor horde.
Even so, their moment of destiny had been thrust upon them unexpectedly only two months before, when word was received that the Eternal Queen of the Sol-Kor was dead, having been assassinated by none other than Adam Cain and Riyad Tarazi. That was great news. Added to that, all the Queen’s potential successors had also been killed. The Hal’ic saw this as the opportunity they’d been waiting for. Ancient battle plans were dusted off and strategies set in motion.
That was when the Hal’ic Scribes decided they needed experienced and seasoned leadership to pull off such a major undertaking. All the native warriors had been trained by simulator, without a single live battle to their credit. After learning that one of the Queen’s assassins had been captured by the Sol-Kor, the Hal’ic rescued Adam Cain and brought the Human to J’nae, placing him in charge of their massive fleet…
Until Admiral Andy Tobias had been unceremoniously—and unexpectedly—sucked into the Sol-Kor universe. At that point, Adam deferred to the admiral’s superior skill and experience, and within minutes of his arrival on the Hal’ic homeworld, Andy found himself in charge of the single largest military fleet anyone had ever seen. It was heady stuff for the sixty-nine-year-old Navy SEAL.
But now the inevitable unknowns of war were beginning to surface.
This last bit of news from Tier-Five Supervisor Miszn Obli could easily send even the best laid plans of the Hal’ic to hell in a handbasket, and in spectacular fashion.
And the most frustrating part: Andy had seen it coming.
The Mark IV prototype starship, the one Riyad Tarazi called the Najmah Fayd—or Star Panther—was missing and now presumed to be in the hands of the new Sol-Kor queen. At first blush, that didn’t sound too serious. After all, it was just one ship.
However, the craft was the only starship capable of making independent trans-dimensional jumps. All other ships were required to pass through huge rips in space created by planet-based arrays, whose towers climbed over a kilometer above the surface. Because of their size and complex construction, there were very few of these portal arrays around, which made them easy to target and destroy. Currently, Andy had fifty thousand warships tasked with doing just that.
Yet the Star Panther didn’t need any such array to make the transit between universes, or even within universes. It was a revolutionary machine, one which would rewrite how interstellar travel was achieved from here on out.
The thing that could spell complete and utter disaster for the Hal’ic—along with every other race in all the universes—was the fact that the Sol-Kor had the only working prototype, while Andy and his allies didn’t have a clue how to build one. Panur—that pain-in-the-ass immortal mutant alien—had built the only working model, leaving no instructions with the good guys on how it was done.
Even if the Sol-Kor didn’t have the ship—which Andy wasn’t one hundred percent sure they did—their new queen was a mutant genius as well, and an intellectual match for Panur. Just knowing that such a thing was possible would set her on a course to build her own TD-capable starship. Then millions more just like it.
Tobias and his side were short one immortal mutant alien genius of their own.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, Andy knew that wasn’t entirely true. There was Lila Bol, Adam Cain’s half-Human, half-alien daughter. She was also an immortal mutant alien genius, which it seemed were popping up everywhere these days. She had helped Panur build the first prototype. Theoretically, she could show how it was done.
Unfortunately, she was missing-in-action somewhere on the planet Kor, along with Adam, Riyad Tarazi, Sherri Valentine, and Arieel Bol. Hell, they even had a Juirean Overlord with them, which Andy found to be exceptionally unnerving.
As Admiral Andy Tobias watched the graphic of the massive Hal’ic fleet approaching the planet Kor, he suddenly felt nauseous. Once the Hal’ic were through with their vengeance attack on the planet, there wouldn’t be much left beyond piles of smoldering rubble. Even if Adam and his team were still alive, they wouldn’t be after the Hal’ic got done with the planet.
With the possible exception of Lila, of course.
Supposedly the girl couldn’t be killed, thanks to something called regenerative cells. But even that fact didn’t give Andy much comfort. Finding one individual survivor out of the maelstrom to come would be next to impossible. And without her to help Andy’s side counter the Sol-Kor’s anticipated technological leap in star travel, even two hundred thousand warships wouldn’t be enough to stop the flesh-eating aliens from conquering everything…and anywhere…they damn well pleased.
Adam Cain is an alien with an attitude.
His adventures continue….
Chapter 1
Adam Cain could smell the Juirean Overlord from fifty meters away.
It was a foul, sickening odor which stood out even on a planet full of foul, sickening odors. The alien’s condition—as he called it—was not only annoying, it was also dangerous. It would certainly give their position away should any Sol-Kor with a sense of smell happen by.
And now this.
“Yes, it is definitely a cave,” the excited, white-haired alien was saying. “We can seek shelter within.”
Within was the problem. That meant a confined space with very little ventilation. Adam patted the handle of his MK-17 flash weapon, knowing that the last battery pack was spent. If not, the fate of the odoriferous Juirean would have definitely been in question.
“Are we far enough down the mountain that an attack on the pyramid would not collapse such a refuge?” Arieel asked, working her way down a series of huge granite boulders, a small avalanche trailing out from her latest foothold.
Adam reached out and grabbed her arm, steadying her.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “We’re almost to the bottom. It might be just as easy to keep—”
“Holy crap!” Sherri Valentine cried out. “That has to be the Hal’ic fleet.”
All eyes turned skyward, only to be covered by lifted arms to shield against the brilliant flare from above. The entire sky had suddenly caught fire, a vast sheet of blinding white light falling toward them.
“Hurry! To the cave!”
Lila, along with the Juirean, Benefis Na, was the first to duck inside the small, dark opening. Riyad was right behind them, with Sherri on his six. Adam and Arieel were the farthest from the entrance.
In the light gravity of Kor, Adam could have easily bounded his way the remaining fifty meters to the entrance, but he wasn’t about to leave Arieel. He wrapped an arm around her impossibly narrow waist and hoisted her over his shoulder. She let out a grunt, but then quickly sur
rendered to his machismo. Moments later they were in the cave.
And none too soon.
The cave was about three thousand feet below the top of the mountain that served as the base for the eighteen Sol-Kor pyramids within this settlement cluster, including the huge, black capital structure designated as M-1. This was the Hal’ic’s primary target, and the combined energy of over ten thousand flash cannon bolts fell upon the building with the force of a dozen nuclear bombs.
The ground shuddered, tossing them all to the musty cave floor. In another part of the cave the ceiling gave way, sending roiling clouds of choking dust racing for the exit. Adam and his team were coated in fine, gray powder. Even as the rumbles from above continued, they crawled desperately toward the opening and its promise of breathable air, gasping for breath
But then an avalanche from above reached the level of the cave, a torrent of boulders, rock, mud, and pyramid debris raining past the entrance. Adam pulled Arieel back inside just as Sherri flew over them, diving back inside for the relative protection of the cave.
The river of debris raced quickly past the entrance, creating a strong area of low pressure outside which literally sucked the choking dust from the cave.
Sweating, even in the frigid temperature, the team scampered further into the cave moments before the entrance collapsed, casting the interior with an impenetrable darkness. The three Humans carried compact flashlights on their utility belts, and soon arrows of light penetrated the still lingering haze.
