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

by T. R. Harris

  “The Klin do have forces here – they can stop the Juireans if they want to,” Sherri countered, desperation in her voice.

  “Unfortunately, Ms. Valentine, that is simply not the case,” the Klin said. “We have fewer than 20 ships in the entire system, and many of them are not warcraft. Our scouts have indicated that the Juireans are coming with a fleet of over 500 warships, plus hundreds of other support vessels. We are no match for them.”

  “What are we to do?” Phyllis Conrad pleaded to the Klin.

  “Madam Secretary, all I can say is that we are hastening our fleet to the region, but we will not be able to stop the initial attack. With the weapons the Juireans possess, your defenses will be inadequate. The Juireans will be coming to annihilate your race. Since your military forces will be of no threat to them, they will instead concentrate first on your major population centers, as well as your more obvious military installations. As they did to my race so many thousands of years ago, their goal will be to kill as many of your kind as possible.”

  “Should we evacuate the cities? Will that spare a large part of our population and give your forces enough time to get here?”

  “We estimate the Juireans will be arriving within six days.” There was an explosion of voices once more throughout the room; some people even rose from their seats and ran for the doors.

  “Secure all exits!” St. Claire ordered, and the MP’s, with Beretta M9’s drawn, blocked the doors.

  “We have to warn the people!” one of the men at the door called back to St. Claire.

  “That would only cause more panic. And we cannot evacuate all the major population centers in six days. Where would they all go?”

  “If I may,” the Klin said, raising his voice through the microphone to get everyone’s attention. “I would suggest you secure your leaders, scientists and select business people. Just as in the case of the Juirean attack upon Klinmon, my homeworld, they will not be able to kill all of you with their initial strikes. Our forces will eventually arrive. There must be enough leadership left to rebuild your society.”

  “This is all bullshit!” Adam said, pointing at the Klin. “We’re being set up!”

  “MP’s! Remove these three and lock them away!” St. Claire ordered, as he stood, pointing at Adam. “You, Mr. Cain, as well as Ms. Valentine and Mr. Tarazi, are the most despicable creatures of them all. This is your planet and your people that you are destroying.”

  “We didn’t do it!” The MP’s rushed forward; Adam tried to fight back, but four of them managed to grab his arms and press him down against the table. His arms were forced behind him, and he felt handcuffs being clamped around his wrists. Sherri and Riyad stood silently, as three more MP’s leveled their weapons at them. And then the three of them were quickly hustled out of the chamber.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Once they were gone, the Secretary of State, Jonas Lofton, raised his voice above the commotion. “We must try to negotiate with the Juireans!”

  The statement brought an almost immediate quieting to the room. He continued. “We must send a delegation to meet with the Juireans before they attack, and tell them that we are of no threat to them.” There were dozens of nods throughout the room.

  Matthew St. Claire turned to the Klin Ambassador. “Will that work? Will the Juireans speak with us?”

  Every eye was on the pale alien as he cocked his head in thought. “It may, but there are no guarantees. It’s impossible to tell what damage Mr. Cain and his comrades have done to Juirean-Human relations, even if he isn’t working actively with them. I will make arrangements for a vessel to take a delegation into space.”

  “Should you accompany us as well? After all, your kind has much more experience dealing with the Juireans.”

  “That would not be advisable. The Juireans have an instinctive fear of us. If they knew how actively our two races have been interacting, they may not trust your intentions for peace.”

  “Yet the delegation will be in a Klin spaceship?” said General Daniels. “How will that look?”

  “We have spaceships which the Juireans have never seen. They will not be able to identify the configuration.”

  “Then it’s decided,” Secretary St. Claire announced to the room, a tense enthusiasm spreading among the occupants. “We will appoint a peace delegation to meet with the Juireans. With the help of our Klin allies, we will determine the best location for this meeting, somewhere far enough from Earth so the Juireans will have time to call off their attack. I believe the delegation should be comprised of the Secretary of State, a senior military official, the national science advisor, and of course, I volunteer to be part of the delegation as well. Jonas, are you okay with this?”

  The Secretary of State looked at St. Claire. He was pale and sweating slightly. He said nothing, but instead nodded feebly.

  Then St. Claire looked down the table at Jerrod Llewellyn, the President’s science advisor. “I assume you have no problem with going?”

  “I believe I am the only one in this room who has had the privilege of traveling aboard a Klin spaceship. I would welcome the opportunity again.” Even though his words sounded enthusiastic, his voice still trembled when he spoke. This would not be a pleasure cruise.

  “Good. I’ll let General Daniels appoint the military delegate; I do not believe he should go—”

  “Mr. Secretary! You couldn’t keep me off that ship with an army of your own!”

  “But if our efforts are not successful, you will be needed here.”

  “I have dozens of competent replacements, Matt. Besides, if we fail, there’s not much our military can do against the Juireans, according to Ambassador Lumonsee. I need to go where I can do the most good.”

  “Very well, Damien. Let’s get going. Thanks to Mr. Cain, we don’t have much time.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Adam was surprised to learn that there was a fairly decent-size jail facility in the Pentagon, but since the building was so huge, he had no idea where it was or how they got there. All he knew was that once again the three of them were being placed in a cell together for something they didn’t do.

  “That didn’t go exactly as you had planned, did it?” Riyad commented with a wry smile from where he sat on one of the two benches in the cell.

  “We’ve been played, and for how long, I don’t know,” was Adam’s angry comeback.

  “That doesn’t change the fact that no one believes us, and now we’re the bad guys,” Sherri threw in her two cents as she sat down on the other bench, her eyes weeping from both fear and anger.

  For his part, Adam was too angry to sit, so he paced the center of the cell like a restless tiger. “And all I wanted to do was get home to my family.”

  After about 10 minutes, Sherri broke the awkward silence. “Do you think they’ll let us make a phone call? I really want to let my parents know that I’m okay.”

  “You can forget about that,” Adam said, a little too harshly. “There’s no way the military will let us talk to anyone outside of the circle of those who already know about us. They can’t risk us spilling the beans about the coming attack…”

  The sobering thought hit all three of them at the same time: The Earth was going to be attacked, and the Klin weren’t going to do anything to stop it.

  “But why would they want the Earth to suffer so much? It seems like a lot of effort just to kill off a bunch of Humans,” Sherri asked.

  Adam turned from the small slit of a window in the cell’s door that he had been looking though, and leaned against the door. “They won’t let us be completely destroyed. They’re probably just lurking out there right now, waiting for us to get our noses bloodied enough so that when they do swoop in and save us, the whole planet will be eternally grateful.”

  “In the meantime, millions of people will die—” Sherri had her comment cut short by a sudden knock on the cell door. Adam jumped further into the room, startled. Then a bolt slid away and the door opened.

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nbsp; Lt. Andy Tobias stepped in. Adam approached him quickly. “LT, you have to believe me, we didn’t lead the Juireans here!”

  Two armed guards stood at the door, their eyes locked on Adam, watching his every move. Tobias turned to the guards. “It’s all right. I just need a minute with them before we go,” he said, closing the door. Then he turned to Adam.

  “I don’t know what kind of fucking bullshit you’ve got yourself into, Cain, but you sure have stirred up a hornet’s nest! When I got the call this afternoon that you had been found – and alive – I was hootin’ and hollerin’ all over the place. One of my men was comin’ home! It’s bad enough when we lose a SEAL, but when we can’t bring home the body, that’s way worse. And then I come to find out you’ve been out gallivanting around the galaxy all this time, and consorting with all kinds of nasty alien critters. What am I to make of all this?”

  “Sir?”

  Tobias looked at the other two people in the cell and said, “They’re moving all you to a holding facility at Little Creek. The other people who were on the spacecraft are headin’ there, too. You’re to stay there until the government can figure out what to do with y’all. I’m to accompany you there and make sure you don’t do nuthin’ stupid.”

  “But, sir, we came here to warn people of the Juirean attack, and instead we’re being blamed for it.”

  “I’m sure everyone in that room is just acting out of fear. Once they all calm down, I’m sure they’ll take a second look at your testimony. Besides, I can’t blame ’em. I almost lost my load, too, when I saw that alien guy. This may be old news to you, but I was freakin’ the fuck out.”

  “Will I be able to call my folks?” Sherri asked.

  “’Fraid not, Ms. Valentine, maybe later.”

  “If there will be a later…” Riyad said, half under his breath.

  “Be that as it may, we’re leavin’ here in a few minutes and taking a helo all the way to HR—”

  “Where?” Sherri asked.

  “Sorry, ma’am – Hampton Roads. I was able to convince them that SEALs should watch over SEALs, and they agreed. So…up! Let’s go—” And then Tobias grabbed Adam by the arm and squeezed it tight. “And chill out, mister. Don’t try nuthin’, or I will have to put you down.”

  The lieutenant’s gray eyes burned unflinchingly into Adam’s. He had known Tobias for over a year before his abduction, and he knew that the lieutenant was someone you did not want to tangle with. He was the kind of man who made other SEALs nervous. Adam just nodded, and then he led the parade out of the cell, and to the waiting contingent of guards outside.

  Chapter Sixteen

  They boarded an MH-47 Chinook helicopter for the ride down to Hampton Roads, Virginia and the Little Creek Naval Amphib Base. During the two-and-a-half hour trip, Adam couldn’t help but think of Maria and Cassie, and how they would be only seven short miles from each other, and yet his family wouldn’t even know he was there.

  But worse than that, he feared for their safety. Even though he had heard the Klin speak dispassionately about how the Juireans would concentrate on the largest population centers first, as they attempted to kill as many Humans as possible, he couldn’t convince himself that the Juireans would skip over Hampton Roads in their initial salvos, not with the area hosting the largest concentration of military forces anywhere in the country. If Adam’s assessment of the Klin was correct, and the Klin did eventually stop the Juirean attack before the entire planet was destroyed, his only hope would be that his wife and child would be spared long enough for the Klin to act.

  Yet in light of his other assumptions of late, Adam wasn’t feeling too confident in his assessment. And now here he was, being transported to military ground-zero for the United States, a prime target if ever there was one. As he sat in the incredibly noisy helicopter, staring out the window at the verdant Virginia landscape whizzing by far below, he couldn’t help believe that all his troubles were only about a week away from coming to a sad and tragic end.

  Adam felt a rush of emotions as the helicopter swept in low over the Chesapeake Bay, and slowed for a landing in a field at the east side of the naval base. Once down, they were hustled into a waiting van and driven to a non-descript building on the base at the corner of 5th Street and Hewitt Road.

  Throughout the transfer, the guards maintained a hawkish watch on the three ‘prisoners,’ even though Adam had no idea what actual crime they were being charged with in order for the government to detain them this way. However, in this charged atmosphere, he was sure no one would be looking out for their civil rights once the Juirean attack began.

  Inside the building were dozens of additional guards, and they soon learned that the building was actually a warehouse that had been quickly modified to house the 32 other men from the shuttle. In a large separate room, cots had been moved in, as well as a long table with food and drink. There was even a large flat-screen TV to one side of the room, where nearly all of the men were gathered watching Fox News. They were all so starved for information about their homeworld that they sat with rapt gazes, staring at the screen, and listening as a cute woman with impossibly white teeth drone on about a labor strike happening somewhere in Detroit.

  No one noticed Adam and the other two as they were escorted beyond the main room and placed in two other, more secure rooms, in the back of the building. Sherri was given a private room, while Adam and Riyad had to share accommodations. After telling the three of them that they would need permission, as well as escorts, to go to the bathroom, the guards shut and locked the doors and took up positions outside the rooms.

  It was obvious to Adam that the other men in the facility were not considered such high security risks as the three of them. Adam didn’t mind not being housed with the others. He was glad he didn’t have to explain to them how bleak the future looked, not only for them, but also for the entire planet.

  As with so many things that had happened to him over the past year, his joyous and triumphant homecoming had suddenly disintegrated into a nightmare of Titanic proportion.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lieutenant Andy Tobias left the building and had a driver take him the eight miles to the Training Support Center, at the Dam Neck Naval Base. This was the HQ for the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU. Although Tobias had been in the military for over seven years already, he still hated the acronyms, so he often referred to his unit simply as ST6 – SEAL Team Six.

  As he entered the surprising old wood building, which housed one of the planet’s most elite military units, he was surprised to see the anteroom filled with over 20 members of his Team, and all looking anxiously at him. He knew instantly that the word of Cain’s return had spread throughout the platoon, and probably beyond. The SEALs were an extremely tight-knit group, and news of a fallen comrade returning from the dead would be a major event. And even though Tobias had to maintain a high level of security regarding Cain and his reappearance, there was just no use trying to deny it to this bunch. They were all too intelligent to fall for anything but the truth.

  “It’s true,” he said, wending his way through the assembled bodies. “Cain is alive and well.”

  “Where’s he been?” a voice called out from the crowd.

  “That’s classified for the time being.”

  Tobias approached a man sitting on a chair near the first cubicle in the room, his head hung low, posture showing defeat. His name was Gill Norris, otherwise known as ‘Peanut,’ a term of affection for the good ol’ boy from Georgia. Tobias put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and when Norris looked up, there were tears in his eyes.

  “He’s safe, Norris. And he’s home.”

  Norris nodded, and pressed his lips tightly together, fighting hard to hold back the tears. After all, SEALs didn’t cry…usually.

  Peanut had been with Adam during the raid in Afghanistan, and for over a year, he had been blaming himself for Adam’s disappearance – even though no one else in the unit felt the same.
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br />   He and Adam were buddies, and it had been his responsibility to keep an eye on him while in the field. One moment Adam was on his six, and then the next, Norris’ night vision had been destroyed by a brilliant flash of light from behind him. When he’d turned, and his vision cleared, Adam was not to be found.

  The four others in the squad called off the raid and joined in the search, but to no avail. Eventually, a helo arrived to hustle them out of the area. Whatever the light was, it had surely alerted the Taliban. Staying any longer would have only endangered more lives.

  “What the hell’s going on, LT?” one of the other men asked. “I feel there’s something coming down, and we’re not part of it.”

  Tobias surveyed the young and anxious faces looking back at him. Even though they were young – only a couple over 25 years of age – these were the best of the best; hard-charging, gung-ho fighting men who would never shrink from a fight. Tobias knew he couldn’t tell them even a tenth of what he knew, yet he had no doubt, they would all learn soon enough.

  Tobias had stayed in the massive war room after Cain and the other two had been removed, so he knew of the coming attack, as well as the desperate attempt to negotiate with the aliens. But he had also been in the military long enough to know that diplomacy usually failed – at least in the long run. Even though hands may be shaken – or maybe tentacles in this case – eventually the true nature and intentions of the opposing parties would surface, and then the military would be called in to settle things once and for all.

  “There’s nothing I can really tell y’all at this time. Just stay loose. Hopefully, Cain will be back in the unit in about a week. For now, you’re all dismissed for 48 hours. Go home and chill. Oh, and someone take Peanut out and get him laid!”