by T. R. Harris
“Agreed,” Dal said without hesitation, and much to the chagrin of Lion/El. The rotund, four-armed alien was the Minister of the planet, yet Dal was making all the decisions during the meeting. “However, there must be adequate enforcement in Kanac from the outset, where law enforcement is most needed. You must give my city its due consideration.”
“I understand. That’s why I want six months in advance. We’re going to be spending a lot of time away from Balamar getting things going.”
Dal slapped the table, not out of joy or frustration, but because that was how his species concluded negotiations.
“Very well, and now we will leave the final details to our esteemed and highly competent Minister, Lion/El.” Adam saw Lion/El relax as Dal threw him a bone, having stepped on his authority throughout the meeting. “And now let us welcome our first Chief of Regional Law Enforcement, Marshal Adam Cain.”
No one clapped or cheered. Either they didn’t know that was expected, or they had no reason to celebrate. Adam didn’t care. He wasn’t in the mood to celebrate, either. He would take the money and run. That was what he normally did in situations such as this.
Chapter 1
Six months later…
“The BAAC ships are bugging out, leaving their force on the surface,” said Jay Williford from a scope station. “Spineless bastards.”
“Better for us,” said Marshal Adam Cain from the command chair of the EAV—an Enforcer Assault Vessel. “Getting the three hundred insurgents out of the facility is going to be hard enough without first having to deal with a space battle. I thought you’d be happy.”
Jay nodded. “I just know what the BAAC are using for warships. They’re no match for an EAV. I just like the thrill of kicking alien ass when the odds are incredibly in our favor.”
Adam looked around the bridge and grimaced. He and Jay were the only Humans in the room—indeed, in the entire four-ship squadron. Everyone except them were aliens of a variety of species. Then he shrugged. By now, his Enforcer crew knew not to take the words of the Humans too literally. Still, the kid had a lot to learn about Human-Alien relations.
Adam snickered, catching himself in the irony of his thoughts. Who was he—the famous alien with an attitude—to question the attitude of others?
He shrugged and focused his attention on the matter at hand, as the four ships of his squadron dove into the upper atmosphere of the planet Hax’on. Adam had never been to the planet before, although he certainly knew of it. It was here that the infamous superweapons—now known as BARs—were built. An estimated twenty thousand of the advanced rifles were still missing, although almost immediately after his nascent police force was created, five hundred of the weapons miraculously appeared. Adam suspected the alien criminal kingpin Dal Divisen was behind the theft, and with the discovery of the cache of rifles just when Adam’s force needed them most, only served to confirm Adam’s suspicions. Dal was a major advocate of the formation of the Enforcers, and he was giving them all the tools they would need to succeed.
And now, a force of three hundred radical insurgents known as the BAAC had taken over the Tainesin Manufacturing Works on the planet Hax’on, the facility where the weapons were built. Word had gotten out that this was where they were made, and the BAAC came here looking for more to further their cause. They were a violent and unpredictable force in the Dead Zone, opposed to what they considered was the subjugation of the region to the Expansion by a small band of wealthy refugees who had acquired ownership of the hundred ravaged worlds in the Zone. They wanted complete independence and eviction of all races not from the region, and their methods involved raiding local colony settlements, the sabotage of shipping centers, and now, the invasion of manufacturing facilities seeking superior weapons built at a time before the Mad Aris Kracion ravaged the area.
Adam came to Hax’on with a force of four of his advanced patrol craft, along with twenty-eight highly-skilled Enforcers, all armed with BARs—Human slang for Big Ass Rifle. The insurgents greatly outnumbered the Enforcers, but the super rifles were the great equalizer. It shouldn’t be much of a contest—unless the raiders found more BARs within the complex. That was possible, Adam conceded, but there shouldn’t be many. The facility had been stripped clean of most inventory years ago. But still, he wasn’t taking any chances.
Adam looked at the back of the young Human, Jay Williford, seated at the console forward from where he sat. Jay was one of Adam’s deputies, and although he was reckless and impulsive, he was still a Human. Adam had the habit of hiring every Human he came upon, whether they had training or not. They were Humans—the supermen of the galaxy—and even the most unskilled Human was worth ten aliens in the field.
Besides that, it was Jay who first discovered the superweapons on Hax’on. He’d been to the Tainesin facility before and Adam needed that first-hand experience to help guide the assault. For his part, Jay was ready for some action, especially with a BAR in his hands.
Adam scanned a tactical layout grid of the Tainesin facility. The major buildings were located north of a vast field of warehouses, and south of that was a modest spaceport with a row of robotic cranes along one side.
“Set us down in the warehouses, midway between the main complex and the spaceport. Soszen, take three snipers and secure the cranes. The BAAC may have shooters of their own up there, so be careful. Once secure, set up overseer lookouts to cover our assault on the main buildings. Jay, you take half our remaining troops and approach from the east. I’ll take the rest and come in from the west. Remember, they may have a few BARs. We won’t know until they fire one, so, don’t get too cocky out there.” A commlink was open to all four of his EAVs. Two carried the assault troops; the other two would fly overhead cover. “Immediate dust-off upon touchdown. Use the warehouses as cover. Then we have that greenbelt area to cross to get to the buildings.” He checked the mission clock. “We’ll be down in forty seconds. Everyone to their stations.”
Only two people were left on the bridge as Adam led the way aft, with Jay close behind. They met the rest of the troops in the EAV’s rear launch bay. Besides the compact, yet volatile BARs, each Enforcer wore a black diffusion vest designed to protect them against even level-one flash bolts. Adam made similar vests years ago when he worked briefly as an alien assassin. They were lifesavers; the only drawback was they were only good for one level-one bolt or three level-twos before they shorted out. Still, it was better than having nothing at all.
For his part, Adam came armed with his retro six-shooter ballistic pistol, holstered on his right hip, along with a modern version of a Glock 19 in a back holster and an MK-88 top-of-the-line flash weapon in another on his left hip. Currently, the BAR was slung across his back on a black utility strap.
When he first took the job of Marshal for the Dead Zone, Adam had no intention of going on missions such as this. He was supposed to be simply a figurehead, a desk-jockey playing a role for the cameras. As predicted, things didn’t go exactly as planned. But much of that was his fault. As his force grew and the missions expanded, Adam got the old itch again, the itch for combat. He’d thought he’d had his fill of it after over twenty years of fighting aliens across the universe—and others. But now the time he spent tending bar and socializing with customers at Capt. Cain’s Bar & Grill was an agonizingly boring affair. He loved the thrill of the hunt and the feel of a powerful weapon in his grip. He’d served nearly all his life in the military, in one capacity or another. It was a calling he couldn’t deny. His job as top-cop in the Dead Zone help resurrect that calling, and these days, he was just as likely to be strapping on a weapon and storming out the back of an assault vessel as he was to be found sitting behind his desk in Riyad’s old warehouse next to the bar.
Of course, Sherri protested, not so much from fear that he might get hurt, but from jealousy. As with Adam’s job as Marshal, Sherri’s as the Vice-Minister of the Dead Zone was supposed to be more ceremonial than a real job. But that didn’t work out either. Her boss�
��the Minister Lion/El—was not a good manager, and much of the responsibility of running the planet Navarus and the Zone fell to her; yet where Adam loved his new job, Sherri hated hers. She threatened to resign nearly every day, but after six months she was still at it, refusing to leave a job half-done. And as it turned out, by this time she was the unofficial president of the Dead Zone. She wouldn’t admit it, but she got off on the power and prestige of the position.
The starship landed with a jolt, not being subtle in its rapid approach from the clouds. The door dropped immediately and Adam and his people streamed out. Jay raced off to meet up with the other half of the troops on the other EAV, those he would command. Adam gave the younger man the main approach to the manufacturing facilities. He’d been here before. Adam would follow from the west, covering Jay’s flank.
The four troops assigned to clearing the towering loading cranes ran off in a variety of alien gaits only a Human could ridicule. They appeared to be moving in slow motion, but that was par for the course for the aliens around him and Jay. That was what made Human so exceptional, their superior strength, speed and coordination.
Adam wrinkled his nose as he took in his first breath of Hax’onean air. A voice came over his comm. It was Jay Williford.
“I’m in position … but damn, this place smells like shit. It wasn’t like this before.”
“It’s the fertilizer drops,” Adam said unnecessarily.
“I know, and I am glad the atmosphere is breathable now without the radiation, but I’d almost prefer to be wearing an environmental suit again.”
For much of the past six years, the atmospheres of the Dead Worlds remained saturated with deadly levels of radiation left over from Kracion’s neutron bomb attacks. Since then, natural processes had diminished the levels before the huge galactic conglomerate Maris-Kliss began disbursing atomize decontamination chemicals into the air. It was safe to breathe the atmosphere now on nearly all the Dead Worlds, even as the water remained contaminated to a degree and the ground sterile.
To reenergize the soil, MK was now making periodic drops of concentrated fertilizer with a mixture of radiation-resistant grasses and other plants. The result was that every few weeks, it would literally rain shit within certain latitudes on all the Dead Worlds. The program was making a difference. There was now vast regions of vibrant grass covering most of the more temperate zones. The vegetation was designed to die out and recycle back into the soil, adding nutrients to the ground. The problem was that a fine coating of brown fertilizer was on everything, including buildings, discarded cars, streets—everything. Prevailing winds were expected to blow the smelly concoction off the structures, but that didn’t always happen, and even now, the myriad of warehouses around them had roofs of green grass. It would make for a verdant, peaceful scene—if it didn’t stink to high heaven.
Adam’s troops moved out—and immediately began drawing harassing fire from positions ahead of them. There were three hundred BAAC in the compound, most untrained but determined. The first bolts that came in were fired from conventional flash weapons, which was encouraging.
“Soszen, what’s your status? We’re taking fire here,” Adam said through his throat mic.
“We are at the cranes; there does not appear to be snipers in place. We are moving into position. Give us five minutes.”
“Roger that.”
By now, the aliens under his command knew Human communications terminology and other slang.
It was midday on Hax’on, but still the launching of star-hot plasma bolts left an indelible image in the atmosphere, appearing more as beams of light than balls of concentrated energy. This made it easy for Adam to pinpoint the location of the incoming fire. He brought his BAR into firing position and sighted along the barrel. The weapon essentially shot nothing but level-one bolts, which was overkill against most aliens. And it had a charge capacity of one hundred shots. This compared to only five level-ones from a standard MK-17 or twenty from a Xan-fi flash rifle. He found his target; a young alien cradling his weapon like an amateur. As Adam finger the trigger, releasing the perfectly targeted bolt, he almost felt sorry for the alien. Almost.
Now there were dozens of bolts streaking through the air, most coming from the direction of the manufacturing buildings and not the warehouses. The pale blue bolts from the BARs contrasted sharply from those of the more conventional weapons. The BAAC fighters knew what they were up against, and there was panic in their shots. The BARs had four times the range and twice the power. Adam and Jay’s Enforcers were cutting down dozens of the insurgents while making relentless progress moving from warehouse to warehouse.
Just then, a number of blue bolts shot overhead, targeting other locations in the assembly buildings. They were coming from loading cranes over five hundred yards away. No other energy weapon in the galaxy could make shots like that. Only Human-designed ballistic sniper rifles had more range and accuracy, and then only when fired by an expert.
Adam’s force made it to the greenbelt between the warehouses and the main buildings making up the Tainesin Manufacturing Works. The expanse of land was actually green, thanks to the periodic shit showers. It was still quite a bit of open ground to cover, especially for the slow and awkwardly moving aliens under his command.
“Soszen, clear out the BAAC in the nearest buildings, then get ready to cover us. Jay, you and I are going to take lead. Get across the field and then provide cover as the rest of your troops cross over.”
“Roger that, Captain. Give me the word.”
Adam crouched down, taking a sprinter’s starting posture. Blue bolts streaked overhead. He sighted where he wanted to go, and then gave the word.
Both he and Jay Williford burst out from behind the cover of the warehouses, running with blazing speed across the short grass of the field. Adam glanced over to see who was ahead in the race. He smiled. Jay may be twenty years his junior, but Adam once had a supply of Panur’s mutant cells in his body. Although they were now gone, his body learned from them. He was now ten percent stronger and tougher than his Human counterparts, although that wasn’t something he like to spread around. Still, seeing that he was easily out sprinting the younger man would give him bragging rights on the way back to Navarus.
Even with the covering fire, flash bolts still tore up the soft soil around Adam as he ran. And when he reached his destination and ducked for cover around a corner, he came face to face with a BAAC fighter, aiming a Xan-fi flash rifle at his chest. In the alien’s panic, the creature triggered the weapon, not waiting for the targeting computer to lock on. Adam was only ten feet away, and he took the bolt directly in the chest. The diffusion vest did its job absorbing the charge, even if the force of the plasma bolt sent Adam flying backward through the air before slamming into the side of another building. He lost the grip on his BAR, although the weapon stayed attached to him by the sling band.
In a flash, Adam had his long-barrel, .45-caliber revolver out of its holster. The explosion from the weapon echoed throughout the complex, a sound foreign to this particular breed of battlefield. The heavy metal round ripped a gaping hole in the chest of the alien fighter, making it his turned to be thrust into the air in the light gravity of Hax’on.
For a moment, Adam sat on the ground with his back against the building, noticing something strange around him. There was silence, an awkward moment of quiet as everyone in the fight stopped to contemplate the strange explosion they’d just heard. After the briefest of delays, however, the battle began anew.
“Are you okay?” Jay asked through the comm.
“Yeah, just had to use a backup,” Adam answered. “I’m up and moving again. Let’s get our people across the field.”
Two minutes later—and with the loss of three of their Enforcers to enemy fire—Adam and Jay had their teams in position and ready to enter the first two structures to be cleared. These were huge assembly buildings where the parts from a dozen contracted manufacturers were brought together. Tainesin was the las
t company one would expect to be producing the most advanced energy rifles in the galaxy. It was known for making automated food processors and refrigerators. That’s why it came as such a shock to find they had a supply of twenty thousand superweapons ready for shipment at the time Kracion attacked Hax’on. The client who ordered them had counted on this incongruity to keep the rifles a secret. It took him five years before he was in a position to reclaim his property. That didn’t go as he had planned. But that was another story.
Now, Adam’s team was clustered around him, an assortment of aliens from across the galaxy. Unlike the Humans under his command, Adam was more selective with the aliens he recruited. These were relatively skilled fighters, at least by alien standards. Although there were no Juireans in his police force, he did have a fair number of Rigorians working for him, intimidating creatures looking like seven-foot-tall, upright-walking alligators. He got over his primal fear of the beasts once he began working with them on a regular basis. If one could get past the three-inch long, razor-sharp teeth lining an eighteen-inch long mouth, they were actually quite pleasant to be around. Now, two of the rough-skinned beasts flanked him, ready to enter the building as soon as Adam opened the door.
He’d made a rough count—very rough—of the number of BAAC dead he saw along the way. It was only about forty or so, meaning there was a potential force of one hundred sixty scattered throughout the rest of the complex. He’d already given instructions not to take mercy on the enemy. There were too many of them to be gentle. His people were to go in blasting and not stop until the last BAAC was dead—or their asses were scurrying away into the nearby hills. Adam noticed a thread of saliva drooling from the mouth of one of the Rigorians. He was ready for some killing.