Children of the Aris: Set in The Human Chronicles Universe
Page 14
Adam snorted. “Yeah, the others. He shot them out into space somewhere, hopefully, frozen for all eternity. As to where Garus is now, he left with his Gracilian crony, Crin. I have to assume he had another way out. He knew you and Panur were in the complex. By the way, where is Panur?”
“Cooling off,” Riyad said with his trademark white smile. “He made quite an impression on the Gracilian defenders.”
Lila looked around the room. “This is where Garus built the Formation and refined the quantum beam. Did he have a chance to carry out any of his threats?”
Adam laughed weakly. It even hurt to laugh.
“I’m going to ask for a bonus for this, but he was only minutes away from destroying both the Sun and Liave. I was able to stop the beam by blowing up the containment chamber.” He motioned toward the twisted hunk of metal across the room.
Riyad smiled while placing a hand on Adam’s scorched shoulder. Adam winced again. “Before the requisition for the bonus can be submitted, we will need verification of such heroic deeds, witnessed by three impartial observers and notarized. Otherwise, all you will get is a pat on the back.”
“The story of my life.”
The mutants weren’t anxious to leave the underground complex before they had a chance to study Garus’s quantum beam generator and learn what they could about how he stored the beams. The Formation was gone, but the technology still fascinated them.
There was a decent-sized MedLab in the complex, although it had not been in service for many years. Even so, Adam was moved there, and Lila examined him closely, using her almost supernatural abilities to perform a CAT scan without having a CAT scan machine. She isolated the microfracture in his skull and where his brain was swelling the most. Medicines were flown in from Lanacon, and four days later, Adam was ready to be moved to the main spaceport for the flight back to Navarus.
The mutants had all they needed from the base—at least for the time being. There was plenty of room for the trip back to Navarus, seeing that they had Garus’s, Adam’s, and the mutant’s DM ships to get back to the planet. All three of the super starships were on loan from General Oakes, and he threatened to bill them for any loss or damage that might come to them. Fortunately, they were being returned without a scratch, so they were expecting to get their deposits back.
Adam was feeling much better by then, not only from his medical care but also from the small amount of revved up healing he’d inherited from Panur.
And as for Panur, the intake of energy from dozens of Xan-fi flash bolts had sped up his recovery time. He informed Summer and J’nae that he could perform the extraction as soon as they returned to Navarus. He would be able to monitor Summer during the procedure. But from all indications, she was ready; in fact, Panur would have performed the extraction during the five-day-journey back to Navarus, but he didn’t have one of his tiny grey master bodies to place J’nae into. They were stored back at his lab.
All in all, it was a bittersweet victory against Garus. He was still alive, but his plans had been stopped cold, at least for the time being. What he would do now was anyone’s guess. But with the Formation gone, there wasn’t much damage one Allanni Master could do.
CHAPTER 16
THEY HAD no problem entering the base and making it to the building without being noticed. Even the two guards at the entrance posed no problem. Although the sentries were professionals, there wasn’t much chance someone would dare invade the private sanctuary of the mutants. Hell, even the guards had no idea whether or not Panur and Lila were in the laboratory. They seldom left, and they didn’t need food supplies brought in. Besides, pity the poor creature who wanted to go toe-to-toe with either Panur or Lila Bol.
A mild stun bolt from his hands was enough to put them under, enough for Crin to move in and make their sleep permanent. Even the locking mechanism to the building was simple for the Master to circumvent.
Once inside the main room, Garus recognized it from the link when he negotiated for the Formation disks. He stepped over to the concave hole cut in the floor, with a matching dome above, the place where he, Docem and Panof had abducted the mutants using a teleportation beam. The mutants installed a modified Lerpiniere field over the building after that, but it mainly prevented transport beams from entering. It didn’t stop people from walking through it.
Now Garus and Crin surveyed the rest of the room, looking for the main vault. Computers were active but password protected.
“The Humans took the lift to where they got the disks,” Garus said as he stepped up to the elevator. He looked inside. There were only four buttons. “We shall start at the lowest level.”
A few minutes later, the pair stood outside a ten-foot-wide by a nine-foot-high metal barrier. An elaborate security box was on the wall next to the door.
“Try the word CASSY,” Garus told Crin.
He tried the code. It didn’t work.
“Now KASSY.”
Again, no success.
“Perhaps they changed the code,” Crin said.
“Perhaps, but we still have more combinations to try.”
Two attempts later, the code CASSIE worked.
The vault door slid aside, revealing a large empty room lined only with equally empty counters and shelves.
“There is nothing here!” Crin exclaimed. “We have come here for nothing, risking our lives.”
“Risking your life, Crin, not mine,” Garus corrected. “But there is more to this room. There is a safe, a smaller vault.”
“There!” Crin pointed. It was a simple grey-metal panel about three feet square embedded in the concrete wall. There was an electronic code box on the door.
“Try the word DAVID.” Garus said.
The door did not unlock.
Garus thought for a moment before stretching out a sinister grin.
“Now try MARIA.”
Crin had no idea where Garus was coming up with these codes, but he followed directions. He punched in M-A-R-I-A….
The pair was out of the laboratory five minutes later, hurrying to get away before the dead guards were discovered.
CHAPTER 17
THE THREE DM starships landed at the Enforcer spaceport, not far from the mutant’s lab. It was night in this part of Navarus; Adam had lost track of local time while away on Gracilia.
He was anxious to get home and into his own bed, but that wasn’t to be, not yet. Lila and Sherri insisted that he go to the Garrison hospital to be looked over by Human doctors with Human medical equipment. He reluctantly agreed, but only after the mutants stopped by their lab to drop off some of Garus’s equipment they’d salvaged from the Gracilian base. Lila wanted to go to the hospital with him, but first, the lab.
Even before they got to the building, they knew something was up.
Amber and red lights flickered from the tops of security vehicles outside the laboratory, while a dozen Human and Enforcer personnel stood outside.
The small caravan carrying the team pulled up, and Panur and Lila jumped out ahead of everyone.
“What has happened?” Panur asked the senior security guard. The man was familiar with Panur. He wasn’t intimidated, but he was worried.
“Someone killed the two guards and forced their way into your building,” the man reported. “We just discovered this about fifteen minutes ago. No one has entered your laboratory. I was just getting ready to call you.”
Panur and Lila rushed past everyone, followed closely by the rest of the team. No one stopped them; they were all well-known to the security detail.
Once in the main room, Lila ran to a computer terminal while Panur raced to a side room. Adam followed, knowing this was where the floor vaults were that held the three dark-matter-collectors. Panur fingered a combination and opened the first safe. He looked up at Adam.
“It is still here.”
He checked the other two before the pair returned to the main room.
“All the DMCs are safe.”
Adam knew dark-mat
ter-collectors were the most dangerous things in the galaxy, especially in the hands of evildoers or just the ignorant. One of them had enough power to destroy a third of the galaxy; all three, and poof, nothing would be left of the Milky Way.
“It had to be Garus,” Lila said from her computer station. “He knew we were on Gracilia and got here before us.”
“If so, then he barely beat us here,” Adam said.
“He took a conventionally-powered starship,” Panur said. “If we had not insisted on staying at the base after the battle, we would have beat him here in the DM ships.”
Adam had never seen Panur so disappointed—in himself.
“So, what did he take?”
“That I have not figured out,” Lila said. Then she leaned in closer to the computer screen.
“The main vault has been accessed.”
She didn’t wait for the others, instead rushing to the elevator. Only Panur, Sherri and Adam made it in the car before the doors closed.
“How did he get into the vault?” Adam asked.
“Because I did not change the code.”
“And he heard the code when I was talking to him on the link,” Adam concluded.
“Yes, and he remembers everything.”
“Why didn’t you change the code,” Sherri asked, cautiously. It wasn’t her place to second-guess Lila.
“We installed the Lerpiniere field, but since there was nothing in the vault at the time, I did not see the need to do it before leaving for Gracilia.”
“He’s after the last Formation disk,” Adam announced. “Why, what good would one disk do him?”
Before the mutants could answer, the elevator reached the bottom floor. At the main vault, Lila punched in the code, and the door opened. She and Panur raced to the wall safe, finding the door locked and secure.
“I did change the code on the wall safe,” Lila stated. “I did it when we placed the remaining disk inside.”
Adam relaxed—somewhat. The tension was so high in the mutants that it was contagious. He still didn’t know what the big deal was. What could Garus do with a single disk? Panur once said it takes six disks to make the Formation do anything.
Lila fingered in the code and opened the door. Her shoulders slumped. Then she reached inside and pulled out a lone piece of rare paper. Not many people used paper these days, but somehow a piece had found its way into the safe.
Lila read the message before handing the sheet to Adam.
“It is for you.”
Adam took the paper, and with Sherri looking over his shoulder, he read the writing. It was in English.
The message read: “Your first guess was right. I thank you. Now … until we meet again.”
“What does he mean: My first guess was right?” Adam asked Lila.
“I recall the conversation, as did Garus,” she began. “When I said the code to the safe was DAVID, you said it was your second guess. Your first guess was MARIA. Maria was the new code.”
Adam looked in the safe. It was empty.
He looked at the forlorn mutants.
“I still don’t get it. Garus only has one disk. Why is that such a tragedy?”
Panur leaned in. “Because, Adam, you forget the one key feature of the Formation disks. They are organic.”
“Which means what?”
“It means Garus will be able to grow another set of Formation disks.”
Adam and Sherri were stunned.
“Another set?” Sherri asked for confirmation, not believing what she just heard. “Like a whole new set of disks, everything he will need to destroy all advanced life in the galaxy?”
“The disks are alive,” Panur said. “They are living organisms, made of Allanni material, the same material as Garus. Given enough time, he could do it.”
“How much time?”
Panur smirked. “That I do not know, not for sure. It could take a year, or it could take a thousand.”
“But he wrote: Until we meet again,” Adam pointed out. “He thinks it will happen in my lifetime. Is that possible?”
“I suppose it is,” Panur answered. “But your lifetime or beyond, what difference does it make? Garus is immortal. He has all the time it will take. And when he’s done, he will be able to build another Formation and another quantum beam generator.”
“And with them, he could replace all advanced life in the galaxy with his own,” Adam sighed, paraphrasing what Sherri had just said.
“To put it bluntly, yes.”
“Well, damn,” Adam Cain said. “Looks like this story isn’t over, not by a longshot.”
The End
(for now)
More Adam Cain Adventures to follow…
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NOVELS BY T.R. HARRIS
The Adam Cain Saga
The Dead Worlds
Empires
Battle Plan
Galactic Vortex
Dark Energy
Universal Law
The Formation Code
The Quantum Enigma
Children of the Aris
The Human Chronicles
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
Mission Critical
The Lost Universe
The Immortal War
Destroyer of Worlds
Phantoms
Terminus Rising
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Three Free Books
Novels by T.R. Harris
Contents
The alien with an attitude is back!
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
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Novels by T.R. Harris