The War of Pawns (The Human Chronicles -- Book Three)

by T. R. Harris

  Once in the landing bay, Adam’s group exited the shuttle, leaving Kaylor inside. The landing party consisted of Adam, Riyad, Chris and Billy, and they soon found that the internal airlocks were still functioning – for the time being – so the main part of the ship was still airtight. However, it was the radiation that now spelled the demise of the Juirean battlecruiser. Kaylor had told the landing party that they could only stay aboard for about 30 minutes, even with the environment suits. After that, they could start suffering the effects of the radiation themselves.

  Since this was a sister ship of the one they currently resided on, Adam’s group had no trouble navigating the various corridors leading to the bridge. All along the way, they found a few dead Juireans, along with a larger contingent of other dead creatures. Even aboard Juirean battleships, the crew was comprised of about 80% non-Juireans. There just were not enough Juireans to go around.

  The bridge was empty of any surviving crewmembers, but as they entered, they heard voices coming from the captain’s quarters to the rear of the bridge.

  With weapons drawn, they entered the room.

  Inside were three Juireans, two on a long couch to the left, and a third seated at a desk to the right. The one at the desk wore the capes of the captain, his green-tinted mane now matted and oily.

  Each of the Juireans sat slouched and round-shouldered, their eyes weepy and bloodshot. None of them had the energy to protest when Adam’s party entered the room.

  Adam walked up to the captain. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

  “You offer to help? Your race is very peculiar.” The voice was weak and strained. “You and your Klin allies are sub-beings, with no regard for other life. You will kill yourselves to kill others. I can see now why you must be exterminated.” The Juirean coughed, and blood sprayed on the desk before him.

  “So you are sending a fleet to Earth?”

  “It is no secret, not now. We have no choice. We must defend ourselves against your invasion.”

  Adam shook his head. “It doesn’t matter to you now, but we’re not your enemy. Both our races are being manipulated to war against each other by the Klin.”

  Adam could see the Juirean captain growing weaker by the second. The Juirean let out a small laugh. “Yes, it doesn’t matter now. Whether it is the Klin or the Humans, we will defend our space against our enemies. But do you have any idea what you’re up against, trying to wage war against The Expansion?”

  “Do you, you worthless piece of alien shit?” said Billy Piscopo, stepping forward, with venom in his voice. “We’re not some two-bit race that you can just squash like bugs!”

  Adam grabbed him by the arm and spun him away. Adam then leaned in and whispered, “Relax, Billy. And yes, we are a two-bit race, compared to these fuckers.”

  Then Adam turned his attention back to the Juirean. “How soon until you attack?”

  “I will not tell, and since I am already dead, I’m sure there is nothing you can do to me in the short time I have left to make me tell you.”

  Adam pursed his lips and nodded. “You’re probably right,” was all he said. Then Adam lifted the bolt launcher and sent a blast into the Juirean’s forehead. Next, he turned and placed bolts into the other two, barely-alive aliens.

  Riyad moved up next to him. “Hope you got some satisfaction out of that.”

  “Some, but not enough.”

  Adam turned and left the room, his entourage following closely behind.

  Chapter Ten

  After three months aboard the Juirean battlecruiser, Adam and his crew were now approaching the finally coordinates that marked the location of the planet Earth. At Kaylor’s insistence, they had deviated from the track by about five light years, knowing that the most direct path to the system would be carefully monitored by the Klin.

  Through high-resolution scans, Jym had been able to identify a stellar system that appeared to fit the criteria Adam had outlined as that of the Solar System. As Adam and Sherri helped pinpoint the distinctive gas giants and rocky inner worlds on the still-fuzzy image this far out, their hearts began to beat a little faster. The number of planets and their locations looked right. And when the fuzzy outline of the planet Saturn appeared on the screen, with its distinctive rings, Adam knew they had the right system.

  Utilizing Chris’s ‘drug-smuggler’ plan, the battlecruiser shot past the Solar System by over 10 light years, and then doubled back. They even used the Sun as a shield for part of the way in, only revealing themselves at the last moment as they lined up for a slow, shallow-well run for the moon.

  As they drew nearer to the Earth, Kaylor scanned for any gravity signatures they could detect around the planet, but he found none. Everyone on the bridge looked at each other, worry frowns creasing their brows. Even though the Klin were as much their enemy as the Juireans, without a fleet of 2G’s available to counter the Juirean attack, the planet Earth was doomed. Not detecting any signatures made the assembled Humans very nervous.

  “They have to be there,” Sherri said staring at the screen over Kaylor’s left shoulder. “They’re just hiding.”

  “Of course they are,” Adam agreed, using his own words in a vain attempt to calm the knot growing in his stomach. “They can’t run the risk of having any forward Juirean scouts detect them before the main fleet arrives.”

  They all nodded their agreement, even though the frowns never softened.

  “This kinda blows our plan for sneaking in among all the other gravity signatures,” Riyad stated. No one said a word for a good minute or so. Then Riyad continued. “We should still use the moon as a shield as much as possible, with a very shallow well when approaching. We might be able to pass ourselves off as a much smaller ship, something that won’t set off any alarms.”

  Everyone nodded their agreement.

  “They have to be there,” Sherri repeated, her voice trailing off into the quiet tension on the bridge.

  Much to their surprise – and relief – the huge battlecruiser managed to approach the dark side of the moon without incident. The pockmarked surface of the orb grew ever larger, and disappointment grew on the bridge as the moon completely obscured the Earth from their sight. They had come so far to get home, and even now they were still being denied the chance to gaze upon their homeworld.

  After saying a heart-felt goodbye to Kaylor and Jym – if only temporarily – Adam and his crew of Humans all met up in the landing bay and entered the Juirean landing craft. The plan was for Kaylor to set the great battleship down on the surface of the moon and wait for Adam’s signal. Once received, Kaylor could then move the ship into Earth’s orbit.

  That was about as far as the plan went. None of them had any idea what kind of reception they would receive, and with the Juirean fleet bearing down on the planet, they really didn’t have much time for protocol. The planet needed to be warned, and from there, it was up to people much smarter than Adam to figure out what to do next.

  All Adam had to do was deliver the news, and then head off to find Maria and Cassie, and discover what remnants of a life he had left with them – if any.

  Chapter Eleven

  Adam Cain watched from the pilothouse of the landing craft as Kaylor set the huge Juirean battleship down on the surface of the moon. Using chemical drive, the one-sixth Earth’s gravity of the moon allowed for a surface landing of the spaceship, something not normal for a ship its size. Prodigious amounts of dust flew around the craft and soon obscured the ship from Adam’s view.

  Feeling a slight traced of nostalgia, Adam twisted the shuttle around, and shot off toward the horizon. Within minutes, the brilliant blue and white globe of the Earth began to rise into view, and all the people in the over-crowded pilothouse craned to get a look.

  In his time in outer space, Adam had seen a dozen other worlds from space, but this one was different. This one was home.

  Adam chanced a glance around the room. There was not a dry eye in the place, including his own. The moment was
extremely emotional, since for all of them, the chances of this moment ever arriving had been surrendered years ago. Even Adam, with his stubborn and single-minded ambition to get back home, had known deep down inside that he had been chasing a dream.

  But now, here it was. Earth!

  He engaged a shallow well, and the planet began to noticeably grow in size. There were murmurs from around him, as many of the non-converts got their first real look at space travel, gravity-drive style. Even though they had been aboard a starship for nearly four months, most had not spent any time on the bridge in order to take in the sights of faster-than-light travel. To them, this was something out of a science fiction movie. But they were finding that reality was much more impressive.

  The trip from the moon to the Earth only took 22 minutes at this well-setting. As they entered the atmosphere, Adam slowed down even more, and re-oriented the shuttle for a gravity landing, foregoing a chemical-based descent. He wanted to get down the surface as soon as possible.

  Finding Roswell, New Mexico turned out to be another problem. Since the Juirean landing craft did not have an Earth-oriented GPS system, Adam had to rely on others on the bridge to help guide him to the city. He had a vague idea where it was, but he had never been there himself, and trying to spot it from the air was a whole other matter. So when they did finally come to a consensus as to the location of Roswell, Adam still crossed his fingers that they actually had Roswell, and not Santa Fe, or even Tucson, Arizona.

  Within minutes, the red dust and sagebrush of the New Mexico desert was shooting past the viewport and heading up toward the gravity point located somewhere far above them.

  The landing was perfectly smooth, and when Adam dissolved the well, there was only a slight increase from the ship’s gravity as compared to that of the planet’s. Adam felt a tinge of pride. With absolutely nothing to gauge it by, he had been able to estimate Earth’s gravity pretty darn close. He gave himself a mental pat on the back.

  Moments later, everyone had left the pilothouse and joined the others in the troop bay at the rear of the shuttle. Then with no fanfare, Riyad fingered the controls, and the back panel began to fall away, forming a ramp on which they all flooded down at the earliest opportunity.

  As the warm, fresh air of Earth flowed around him, Adam witnessed an amazing scene, as a number of grown men knelt on the warm, dusty surface and actually kissed the ground. Others just sat down in the dirt and sobbed. Sherri moved up next to him, and they embraced strongly, tears flowing from their eyes as well.

  Riyad stood off to the side, moisture welling up in his eyes, too, and looking a little uncomfortable. Noticing him, both Adam and Sherri broke their embrace and moved to include Riyad in a group hug. Soon the three of them were sobbing loudly between deep laughs and murmurs of mutual gratitude.

  They had made it. They were home.

  Chapter Twelve

  After grabbing whatever crates or chairs they could find, a number of the occupants of the shuttle now sat in the warm, late autumn sunshine…and waited. It had been an hour since they’d landed, and still they laughed and joked and otherwise shared the giddy feelings they were experiencing. It would take a lifetime of trying for the repatriated Humans to match this moment in time. And even then, nothing ever would.

  As it turned out, Adam had set them down about a kilometer north of US-70, and about 10 kilometers west of Roswell, near the intersection of Tierra Grande Boulevard. When the cavalry arrived, he didn’t want them to have to off-road it too far. He had no doubt their descent had been tracked, and that even now, a contingent of helos and Humvees was headed their way.

  He didn’t have to wait long for confirmation.

  The first indicator came from the distant hump-hump-hump of approaching helicopters. Soon he spotted two Apache AH-64’s, along with a pair of larger Chinook MH-47’s on the horizon, approaching from the northeast. Seconds later, the fierce-looking Apaches swept over them at 80 knots; Adam was sure video of the scene below was being beamed back to any number of waiting eyes, both locally, and all the way back to the Pentagon.

  The Chinooks set down in clouds of sand and dust about a hundred meters away, while the Apaches remained aloft, taking up sentry positions about a kilometer beyond. Eight people departed one of the 47’s, all wearing yellow hazmat suits with full headgear. Three carried monitoring equipment, while the other five were armed with M16 carbine assault rifles.

  By the time the people from the helo had covered the distance between their LZ and the shuttle, six Humvees had pulled off the highway and began the short trek over the flat, sagebrush-covered landscape. The vehicles fanned out, leaving a wide trail of dust streaming out behind them.

  Four of the Humvees had men manning .50-caliber M2HB machine gun turrets, and the armored vehicles skidded to a halt about fifty meters from the shuttle. Two of the other Humvees continued closer, coming to a stop next to the landing craft. As the dust cloud blew past them, an Army officer and his entourage quickly climbed out, squinting through the cloud and into the afternoon sun. A few of the men from the shuttle rose from their seats and began to move toward the troops.

  “No!” Adam called out. “Stay where you are.” He then stood near the rear of the shuttle and raised his arms, clasping his hands behind his head. Sherri and Riyad quickly followed suit. Soon, all 35 of them stood like silent monuments, casting long shadows in the approaching evening light, their hands locked behind their heads, and watching as the troops and scientists drew near…

  What followed was a daze of activity – and confusion – as the troops and scientists soon came to learn that all the occupants of the spacecraft were Human. After checking them for radiation and other trace elements that could contaminate the scene – or the planet – the scientists removed their hoods and stood around with nothing much more to do. They had to wait for more qualified personnel to arrive before entering the spacecraft itself.

  The leader of the military troops, Army Captain Jonathan Aronson, was soon led to Adam. For his arrival back to Earth, Adam had cut his hair to a tight half-inch buzz, and changed into his olive green t-shirt and boonie hat. As the officer approach, Adam saluted briskly and introduced himself and his rank. The captain slowly returned his salute.

  “I suppose you have some explaining to do, mister,” he said, scanning Adam up and down.

  “Yes, sir. And do we have story to tell. However, I believe the information I have to report should be done at a more secure location. I also recommend that all the people here with me be sequestered until fully debriefed.”

  Sherri and Riyad looked at him with deep frowns. He turned to them. “We can’t let the news about what’s coming leak out to the public. It could cause a panic.”

  “I know that,” Sherri said pointedly, “but I would really like to let my family know that I’m still alive.”

  “You will – as we all will – but first we need to control the scene. Let’s let the military do their thing first.”

  “You have a lot more trust in them than I believe the two of us have,” Riyad spoke up. Sherri nodded vigorously.

  “Just trust me on this.”

  Aronson had watched the back and forth between the three of them long enough. “Quiet!” he commanded, getting their attention. “I’m securing this location, and this…vehicle. Once I get direction from Command, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen next. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” all three of them said in unison.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Within four hours of their arrival on Earth, all 35 repatriated Humans were aboard a military Boeing 757 and on their way to Washington D.C. Adam, Sherri and Riyad had been singled out and moved into the forward section of the aircraft. An Air Force major was with them, along with three stenographers and four military police. Adam did his best to report the sitrep clearly and distinctly. Every five minutes or so, the information he was relating was transmitted to Washington.

  During the trip, real Human food and drink wa
s provided, much to the immense pleasure of all aboard. Adam had not realized how far off the alien food modules had been until he had something to compare it to. He ate so much, and so fast, that he risked getting sick. But he didn’t care – none of them did. They were home.

  It was a little after four in the morning on the East Coast when they landed at Andrews Air Force Base. From there, a military and police escort, complete with flashing lights, took the three of them through the near-deserted streets of the city to the Pentagon. Adam was told the other 32 men would be following, and would be housed at the Pentagon as well.

  Adam had never been to the Pentagon before, and it was only a minute after they entered the massive structure that he was completely lost and turned around. But much to his surprise, the building appeared to be full of people, even at this early hour. Many of the people they passed looked as though they’d been roused out of bed and called into the office, existing only on coffee and Red Bull. Adam began to get the feeling that a lot of these people were there because of him. At least he was hoping that was the case, because the warning they had returned with was real and dire.

  Eventually, they were shown into a vast conference room, with a massive oblong table of polished mahogany wrapping around a central open area, and with huge monitors lining nearly every inch of the surrounding walls. Enlisted personnel of all military branches scurried about inside the open area, placing documents before the numerous people already seated around the table. There was about a 70/30 mix of men to women around the table, all either dressed in suits and business attire, or military dress uniforms from all branches. Adam had never seen as many gold braids and silver stars in one place before. It was obvious that his report had made an impact.