by T. R. Harris
“You mean the ship itself is the portal?”
“Yep.”
“And it can jump back and forth between universes…all on its own?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then I don’t blame him. I probably would have done the same thing. Imagine what would happen if the Sol-Kor got a hold of that technology?”
“Yeah, we’ve heard it all before, ad nauseam. But now the ship is here, parked over at the stadium you first landed in, all safe and sound.”
“Still, that was a big chance you took.”
“Rescuing you was worth the risk.”
“I mean bringing Panur’s ship over here.”
“It’s not Panur’s ship, it’s mine,” Riyad countered.
“The point is we could be in some deep doo-doo if the Sol-Kor learn how to copy Panur’s modifications.”
“Give it a rest, Adam,” Sherri said. “Would you prefer we didn’t even try to save you?”
“Yes, I would have. I didn’t want you to risk your lives in the first place—and now this. Damn, I’m not worth it. Just think how shitty I’d feel if the Sol-Kor did get their hands on Riyad’s ship and it was all because of me?”
“Well, thanks for nothing, Mister Veritis-supreme-commander-my-shit-don’t-stink Cain.”
“Dammit, Sherri, you haven’t changed a bit, have you?” Adam looked past her to Riyad. He just shrugged.
“Veritis Cain,” Lun interrupted. “Just the presence of this alien spaceship could raise alarms on Kor, prompting a search should it be detected.”
“Can you communicate with it?”
“I do not see why not, yet that would not be wise.”
“Then let him land and bring him down here.”
“More…guests? As a senior security officer, I must protest.”
“Look, Lun, all this secrecy stuff is coming to an end pretty soon anyway. Once the assault on Kor begins, I’m pretty sure they’ll know where we came from.”
“You’re planning on attacking Kor?” Riyad asked, astonished. “Don’t get me wrong, big kahuna, but what good would that do? They have forces spread all over the place, including multiple universes.”
“It will disrupt their operations, maybe even slow them down enough so we can attack their less-guarded facilities.”
“I have a question,” Sherri chimed in. “Why the hell did the Hal’ic put you in charge of their whole war effort in the first place?”
“Because none of their forces have been in a single live battle, only simulators.”
“And you’re going to send this army of rookies over to Kor—just to be slaughtered,” Sherri said.
“I’ll be coordinating things.”
“This sounds like something Andy would be better suited for. At least he’s been the admiral of something.”
“I am confused,” said Lun. “These are your friends?”
“Yeah, but you can’t tell, can you?”
“My point exactly.”
“Butt out, alien…this is an intervention of sorts,” Sherri growled.
“Mister Cain…the other ship.”
“Yeah, open a link.”
“I must protest.”
“Dammit, Lun, just do it. Why put me in charge if no one will follow my orders?”
“Very well, but there could be consequences.”
********
The link was sent out in a narrow beam, focused exclusively on the sister ship of the Najmah Fayd. Since wormhole communications were in use in both Human and Sol-Kor universes, Andy should recognize the signal for what it was: an invitation to open a link.
Adam stood fuming, still angry at having his two best friends gang up on him like that. Even Lun Szy had questioned his decisions.
“There has been a response,” said the Hal’ic tech sitting nearby.
“Give me the link,” Adam ordered. “Place it on speakers.”
“Andy—Admiral Tobias—it’s Adam Cain.”
The link was audio only, so for a few seconds Adam didn’t know if his greeting had been broadcast or not.
“Seriously?” said a familiar voice. “Please authenticate.”
“T.J., October, 2007. Her name was Luna.”
“Okay, enough,” came the quick reply. “How is it even possible that I’m speaking with you, Captain?”
“With the help of some new friends, I managed to get away from the Sol-Kor. I’m on the planet you’re currently heading for, safe and sound. We have you on our scopes.”
“Glad to hear that. Where’s Tarazi?” The admiral’s voice was stone cold.
“I’m here, Admiral.”
“What the hell happened to us? How did we get over here?”
“Something about being caught up in the vortex. Don’t ask me what that means. It wasn’t intentional.”
“A lot of good that does. And your ship?”
“Also safe and secure. There’s no need for you continue with your mission to destroy her.”
“As long as that ship remains in one piece, my mission continues.”
“Listen, Andy,” Adam said. “Why don’t you come on in and we’ll talk about it. Once you have all the facts, I’m pretty sure you’ll see that there’s no chance the Sol-Kor will learn of…well, you know.”
“So you acknowledge that there is a danger, and that communications could be intercepted?”
“All I know is that we can’t go around blabbing classified information over open channels. We don’t want to pull a Hillary Clinton, after all.”
There was a pause on the channel before Tobias spoke again. “It seems I have little choice. You have a better lay of the land than I do, and you mentioned having help. I assume you mean the ships that have begun to trail us into the system. We just picked them up about ten minutes ago, still pretty far out.”
Adam look over at Lun, who frowned before rushing off to another monitoring station. His reaction was almost instantaneous, barking orders.
“Andy, how many ships are you detecting?”
“Twenty…no thirty. They’re just on the edge of our scope.”
“Admiral, those aren’t friendlies, they’re Sol-Kor.”
There was only a moment’s pause before Tobias’s voice was screaming from the speakers. “Destroy that fucking ship! Do it now!”
********
“How soon can you get here, Andy?”
“Are you going to destroy the Mark IV?”
“Yes, but we need to get you safe.”
“My ship, just like Riyad’s, is faster than anything in this galaxy. I can be there in thirty minutes if we really push it.”
“Then do it. Frankly, Admiral, I need your help.”
“Doing what?”
Adam hesitated as he looked at Sherri. “I need you to take command of a two-hundred thousand ship fleet of warships.”
Even Sherri and Riyad gasped, so it was no wonder it took Tobias a full thirty seconds to respond.
“Did you say two hundred thousand?”
“Yessir. My friends—the Hal’ic—have been preparing for this moment for a very long time.”
“I can imagine. And if I’m not mistaken, you somehow have the authority to put me in command?”
“It’s more of an abdication of my position.”
“You’re in charge?”
“Seems so.”
“Hell, it’s been less than two months since the commando team made it back through the portal. You’ve been busy, Captain Cain.”
“Yessir. But really, I need your help. The Hal’ic think I’m some kind of military genius because I killed the Eternal Queen—”
“I helped,” said Riyad.
“Anyway, they put me in charge of their fleet. Now I’d feel a whole lot better if you took command.”
“What level of experience and proficiency can I expect?”
“No real-world experience, just simulators.”
“No one has any battlefield experience?”
“No sir, none.”
“Well, that changes things.”
“Let’s face it, Andy, you’re better qualified for the job than I am.”
There was another pause on the line. “Okay, I’ll do it…but on one condition.”
“That I destroy Riyad’s ship.”
“Negative. You give me the location and I’ll do it on my way in.”
“Not a problem. I’m with you on this one.”
“I’m glad someone is.”
“But you do realize that by destroying the ship we may never get home again?”
“I’m willing to accept that. Are you?”
“Yessir.” Adam looked at Riyad and Sherri. With dour faces, they each nodded. “As are Riyad and Sherri.”
“Very good, Captain. Send out a homing beacon and the location of the Mark IV. I’ll see you thirty minutes.”
Adam looked at his friends and smirked. “Hey, the Sol-Kor are probably going to kill us all anyway, so we really aren’t losing anything.”
“Gotta love your attitude,” Sherri said. “Even if it sucks.”
Chapter 23
Adam didn’t wait for Andy to arrive before he set the ball in motion. He had the huge outer doors to the hanger bay opened, along with the doors to forty-eight similar locations around the planet. Slowly—slower than he wanted—the ships began to parade out.
Launching two hundred thousand of anything takes time, especially starships. After being shuttled onto huge conveyor belts, the ships were placed in lift-off shelters where their chemical exhaust was quickly siphoned off so as to not blanket the entire underground hanger in hot, blinding smoke. Even then, only forty ships could be launched per minute. By the time Tobias entered the atmosphere of J’nae, only twelve hundred out of twenty thousand ships had been launched from this particular location, forming up in a huge open staging area north of the city ruins.
Adam had been joined in the command center by the rest of his team, with the notable exception of Panur. As far as Adam knew, he was still locked away in the glass box, canisters of liquid nitrogen hanging over his head.
On a proximity screen, Adam watched the live image of Andy’s ship as it homed in on the broken-down sports arena where Riyad’s ship was hidden. Adam had to inhale slightly when he saw the sleek, mean lines of Riyad’s sister ship in flight.
“Damn, that’s a pretty ship,” he said.
“They can go nine hundred light under perfect conditions,” Riyad bragged, even though half-heartedly. His baby was about to destroyed.
“No shit! Sorry, man.”
“It has to be done, I guess.”
The sleek black ship with the silver swath running along both sides of the fuselage ducked through the caved-in roof of the stadium and disappeared.
“What the hell, Captain? Are these the right coordinates?”
Adam reached forward and pressed the comm button. “Yessir. We watched you enter the stadium. What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? The damn ship isn’t here!”
“What do you mean? It has to be.”
“A hundred-meter-long ship would take up most of this field. It would be hard to miss. I’m telling you it’s not here. What kind of game are you trying to pull here, Cain…or is Tarazi to blame?”
“Not me, Admiral. We left the ship there yesterday.”
“Well, someone has moved it.”
Adam whipped around until he spotted Lun Szy. “Did you have the ship moved from the stadium?”
“No, Veritis Cain. No orders have been issued for such a thing.”
In a panic, Adam studied the faces of his team. They all displayed the same look of shock.
“Lun, check on Panur! See if he’s still in his cage.”
The Hal’ic officer descended on a console. A moment later he looked up, wide-eyed. “Surveillance cameras show no one is in the chamber. Panur is loose!”
“Don’t worry. He hasn’t stuck around to torment the Hal’ic. He’s taken off with Riyad’s ship. He has a nasty habit of stealing other people’s starships.”
Adam turned to Lila. “Can you contact him, I mean psychically?”
“I can, if he’s willing to respond.”
“What’s going on, Captain?”
“Give me a minute, Admiral. It looks like Panur may have taken off with the Mark IV.”
Adam was expecting a loud retort to blast from the speakers. Instead, the admiral’s voice came over calm and measured. “Well, isn’t this just great. I tried to warn y’all. But nobody listens to me anymore.”
“Lila’s attempting to contact him.”
“She’s with you and not him?”
“Yessir.”
“That’s good to know. Now we only have one immortal mutant genius to contend with rather than two.”
“Mutant? Who is a mutant…Lila?” Lun was coming unglued. With a huge Sol-Kor fleet bearing down on his planet, and the devil-himself Panur free of his cage, the Hal’ic officer couldn’t handle the idea of another mutant alien loose in his world. He stood up, trembling, spittle dripping from his mouth. He turned and ran from the room, mumbling loudly as he did so.
Adam and his people regarded the alien for a moment, before returning to their tasks.
“Lila, any luck?”
“Yes, I am in contact with his mind. Where are you?” she said aloud. “He is indeed aboard the Najmah Fayd.”
“What’s the Najmah Fayd?”
“It’s the Mark IV, Adam,” Riyad said impatiently. “Yes, if she is not destroyed, I will change the name. It means star panther.”
Adam turned back to Lila. “What’s he doing with the ship?”
“He is going to Kor to confront the Queen.”
“I heard that,” came Andy’s voice over the speakers.
“Can you get him to come back? Tell him he can have another ship to make the journey—Andy’s ship. It’s just as fast.”
“I heard that too. There no freaking way I’m turning over my ship to that bastard runt.”
“Andy, yours doesn’t have a TD-portal built into it. Let him take it,” Sherri pleaded.
“Okay, if you can get him to bring back the other one.”
All eyes turned to Lila. “He is committed, he says. And with the superior engines of the Najmah Fayd, he is only two hours away.”
“You can’t follow him, Admiral,” Adam said. “They’ll blast you out of space before you can get with half-a-light of Kor.”
“But Panur can?”
“He’s Panur, Admiral. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
“This is a goddang clusterfuck of major proportions, Captain. Not only have y’all come into Sol-Kor space with the prize-jewel of all prize-jewels, but now it’s about to be hand-delivered to the last creature we’d ever want to even learn of its existence.”
“Maybe Panur can…I don’t know, neutralize the Queen? That way she won’t be able to do anything with the…the Star Panther.”
“That’s our only hope.” Tobias sounded exhausted. “So, do you still need me to command the largest fleet of starships ever assembled? In light of everything else that’s gone wrong recently, I actually find that idea to be, well, appealing.”
“Yessir! I definitely need you. Follow the beacon. You’re not too far away.”
“All right, I’m heading over. But be assured, Captain—as well as the rest of you—this ain’t over. Not by a long shot. Tobias out.”
Chapter 24
Andy Tobias didn’t have much to say to his fellow Humans, yet the inescapable presence of the Formilian’s powerful pheromones had their effect on the Human male. He went out of his way to hug Arieel and to kiss her hand in gentlemanly fashion, and even took extra notice of Lila, who although a stunning copy of her mother, was nonetheless a mutant.
The admiral came into the command center with his five-man crew in tow.
“I’ll be assigning critical posts to my men,” he announced, making it clear to all within earshot that Adam and his men were being cut out of the loop. �
��Who’s my Hal’ic counterpart?”
A native stepped up to him. He was older than most and wore a dark green uniform with three white patches on the sleeve. “I am Estor Jan. I was the former Veritis before donating my position to Adam Cain.”
Tobias reached out and shook the alien’s hand. “This is a form of greeting,” he said. “I’m glad to have you at my side. As a newcomer to your world and military structure, any and all input from you and your staff will be most welcome. I’m not here to lord over you, just to supplement your skill with my own and that of my staff.”
Adam pursed his lips. He could have never made a speech like that.
“However,” Tobias continued, “as in any chain of command, there can only be one person in charge, the person with the final say and whose orders are to be followed immediately and without question. The Hal’ic people entrusted that leadership position to Adam Cain, who has subsequently turned that responsibility over to me. As far as credentials go, I have been Mister Cain’s superior officer for going on thirty Human years and I’ve taught him nearly everything he knows. I am currently the supreme commander of the military forces for a galactic empire, having directed countless battles, both large and small. I bring to this position—that of Veritis—a skill level and confidence unmatched across two universes. I assure you, that if you follow my orders and my lead, we shall win the day. The Sol-Kor cannot possibly know what they’re facing, not only in terms of sheer numbers of warships, but also from a command standpoint. Now, direct me to my station. We have a war to win.”
After the cheering in the command center had died down, Tobias summoned Adam to his command chair.
“Son…that’s how it’s done.”
“Damn, Andy, that even got me ready to pick up a sword and storm the walls.”
Tobias just grunted. “Listen, I know you’re not to blame for what Panur and Riyad cooked up in order to mount a rescue attempt, but I do have to warn you: siding with them will not win you any favors from me. We go back a long ways, Adam. Don’t go throwing it all away because of some misplaced loyalties.”
“Panur’s taken off with the ship, Admiral. I don’t know what you think we could do about that.”
