Mission Critical
Page 17
“I know. It’s what I do.”
A few days later, Adam was up and moving about. He made his way to the bridge where Jym and Kaylor greeted him. Jym left the room and returned a few minutes later with a small tub of vanilla ice cream.
“I am told Humans find recuperative benefits from this food. You will find that the Formilians have added an entirely new menu to the Klin food processors.”
Adam took the tub and dug in with a small metal spoon. He savored the sweet coolness, rolling his eyes and moaning with pleasure. It had been over a year since he had ice cream. He did feel better after the first couple of swallows.
“What ever happened to the money—the Juirean credits?” he asked his two alien friends.
Jym looked disappointed. “All we could recover was the loose chips on the deck of the Orion. The rest was moved to one of the Gracilian warships…which I inadvertently destroyed when it attacked the Colony Ship. If I had known, I would have spared the vessel.”
Kaylor stepped up and put a hand on his little Fulquin friend. “It was still over five million credits on the Orion. That amounts to nine hundred thousand each. It is not eighteen million, but it will be enough to get the Colony Ship to Earth, if that is still your wish.”
“I was thinking I would give it to you. I would really like to get someplace with normal Earth gravity.”
“Where is that?” Jym asked.
“I was thinking about…Earth.”
Jym recoiled, embarrassed. “Yes, that would be a good choice.”
“What of your fugitive recovery business?” Kaylor asked.
“We can still do that, just by CW link.”
“Would you help cover the cost of operating the station?”
“Sure,” Adam said, placing a hand on the shoulders of both Kaylor and Jym. “After all, we are partners.”
Copernicus entered the room, a frown on his face, and ruined the moment for the three old friends.
“We still have to figure out what to do with the DMC?” he said. “I’ve come to agree with you; the technology is too dangerous to keep around.”
“Where is the DMC now?”
“In one of the cargo holds. C’mon, there’s something else I want to show you.”
As they made their way down one of the many long corridors of the Colony Ship, Adam said to Coop: “I haven’t had a chance to thank you. Your knowledge of the research station saved all of us. Without you Earth wouldn’t be around anymore.”
“I know that,” said Copernicus, almost bitterly. “And I’m never going to let you live it down, either.” He gave a furtive glance Adam’s way, a thin smile creeping across his face.
Adam smiled, too. “I would expect nothing less.”
They entered the large room, where a number of supply crates had been moved in to form table platforms. The dark matter collector and the two cases of loose cubes rested on one. Sherri, Riyad and Arieel were there.
And sitting on another crate a few feet away were the two Aris personal service modules.
Can you hear me? Adam asked through his ATD. The device had settled down after the excess energy had been bled away. It was working fine now.
“We can hear you,” came a masculine voice though side speakers in the room.
“I see you’ve learned how to tap into the comm system,” Adam said.
“We have always known how to do that. We just chose not to.”
Adam preferred speaking with the ancient entities this way. Mentally, they could read his emotions as well as his thoughts.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“After meeting you aboard the research station, we inquired with the Aris as to your identity.”
“You can communicate with the Aris?” Adam found this fascinating. There were only a handful of them left and they were off doing whatever three-billion-year-old aliens do when they’re immortal.
“Is that not obvious from my comment?”
“Of course. Sorry.”
“It was at that point we learned that you, and the Formilian Arieel Bol, were the Birth Parents of the Supreme Being. You call her Lila.”
“That’s true.”
“Although her body was not used to bring immortality to our masters, she was the culmination of a very long experiment by the Aris, a validation of their efforts. The Aris said we should assist you in any way we can.”
Adam looked at the DMC. “Good. Then maybe you can tell us how to get rid of that damn thing?”
“The accumulator? You wish it to be gone? Why would you not use it as the Aris used it, as a source of power?”
“Because we’re not ready for it,” Adam answered. “The Aris may have been able to use it simply as a power source, but the people of today will use it as a weapon.”
“We understand,” said another voice, this one feminine. “But we do not understand the difficulty. Simply destroy it if you wish.”
“But the cubes?” said Sherri. “Do you know a way to neutralize the effect?”
“What effect?”
Sherri buried her chin in her chest. “The big ass singularity it will create if we destroy it.”
“They do not know,” said the masculine voice, surprise in his synthetic voice.
“Know what?”
There was almost a chuckle through the speakers. It was definitely some kind of snide remark made by the orbs.
“We will have to explain,” said the female orb, sounding impatient. “The dark matter blocks only become charged when the particles are spinning.”
Everyone in the room waited for the orbs to continue. After ten seconds of silence, Adam spoke up.
“What does that mean? Are we supposed to come to some conclusion from that?”
“Further explanation is needed,” said manly orb, joining in the impatience of his partner.
“Indeed.” The female globe continued. “While in the holders, both on the unit and in the transport cases, the surrounding material inhibits the spinning of the particles. Without spin, they have no charge. It’s only when they are removed from the holders do the particles acquire their valences. Only at that time do they become volatile.”
“Are you telling us the cubes are harmless if they remain in their holders?” Copernicus asked, incredulously.
“That is precisely what we are telling you.”
“What about their effect on gravity and communication links?”
“Those are harmless consequences of their state of matter. It is not dangerous.”
Adam cut to the chase. “So we can shoot this thing into the center of a star and it won’t create a supermassive blackhole.”
“Only if the blocks are removed first. However, if they remain in the holders, they will melt, along with the accumulator. It appears your concern has been exaggerated.”
“The concern for destroying the coll—the accumulator—but not for the danger of the individual cubes,” Adam pointed out. “I still say we get rid of it.”
Everyone nodded their agreement.
“As you wish,” said the male orb, “although accumulators are easily constructed.”
“Maybe by you, but not us.”
“Would you like us to show you how?”
“No!” was the unanimous opinion of the living beings in the room.
Epilogue
It was the first snow of the season, and Adam stepped out from the warmth of the cozy log cabin to take in the crisp mountain air of the Tahoe Basin. Sherri, Copernicus and Riyad were inside, reaching the point where laughter and raised voices were required to overcome the effects of the spiced rum they were drinking. Adam was a little tipsy himself, although the freezing air and slight wind sobered him up quickly.
This was the six-month anniversary of their return to Earth after the dark matter affair. Adam had rented the cabin specifically for this occasion, even as he continued to search for a plot of land to build his new log home…a dream destined never to come true.
Most of the nine hund
red thousand credits was already spent. It seems the conversion rate from Juirean credits to dollars wasn’t what it once was, and he was burning through cash faster than expected. At this rate, he would soon have to return to the bounty hunting business.
He smiled, thinking maybe he just wasn’t meant to have money.
Oh well, Kaylor and Jym were anxious for him to come back. The cost of the running the Colony Ship was eating them alive and they needed a new source of income.
Adam glanced up just as the snow white clouds parted above, revealing a patch of black sky filled with sparkling stars. Although these were only local suns, not more than a few hundred light-years away, Adam had been to a few of them. There was life around those tiny dots of light, life that in one way or another had pissed him off sometime over the past twenty years. He smiled at the cynical thought. But that was just Adam being Adam. Yet even through cynicism, he could hear the calling of the lights. Soon he would returning for more adventures among the stars. That was his destiny.
He thought again about a slogan for his galactic bounty hunting business. He had the perfect one, at least in his opinion. Others may question the message it conveyed, but they couldn’t deny the truth behind it:
Adam Cain…the alien with an attitude.
The End
More Adam Cain adventures to come.
Be looking for information about the next Adam Cain Adventure…coming soon!
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Novels by T.R. Harris
The Human Chronicles Saga – Continuum
Mission Critical (An Adam Cain Adventure)
The Human Chronicles Saga (original series)
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
Scorched Earth
Alien Games
The Cain Legacy
The Andromeda Mission
Last Species Standing
Invasion Force
Force of Gravity
REV Warriors Series
REV
Jason King – Agent to the Stars Series
The Enclaves of Sylox
Treasure of the Galactic Lights
The Drone Wars Series
Day of the Drone
In collaboration with George Wier…
The Liberation Series
Captains Malicious
Available exclusively on Amazon.com and Kindle Unlimited.