by T. R. Harris
He was relieved when Riyad reported that he’d caught the TD module and it was safely in the landing bay.
Now all he had to do was retrieve Arieel.
Arieel Bol was in a small medical room attached to the security shack. It wasn’t much more than a first-aid center with a green military ambulance parked outside, the one that had brought her here a few minutes before.
Her chest was aching from the constant pumping of rough hands on her skin. Humans were extremely strong and they didn’t realize the fragility of her Formilian body. Out of desperation, she had sat up in the ambulance on the way here, proclaiming herself to be well. But that didn’t stop the medical staff—along with the three security guards who accompanied her—from continuing to assist with her recovery. They dabbed her forehead with wet clothes, wrapped pressure monitors around her arm and placed cold metal objects on her bare chest. She was dazed and unaware of her nakedness. Even if she had been, this was her duty to the mission, and by all the attention she was receiving, her mission was a success.
But now she had to get back to the ship.
She absently placed the thin metallic fiber straps over her breasts, inviting collective moan in the room. “I must return to my ship. I cannot tolerate this gravity any longer.”
“We have drugs that can help you,” said a Human with a white robe over his clothing, his voice anxious.
“That would only be temporary. I need permanent relief.”
“Of course. We’ll take you there immediately. But first, can we get a group photo…just so we can prove we met such an important dignitary?”
“Of course,” said Arieel, lighting the room up with her smile. “And tell them how you saved my life. I will be forever in your debt.”
A few minutes later, Adam met the ambulance at the portside docking bay entrance. The back doors opened and there was Arieel, along with eight men: six airmen and two Navy corpsmen. They helped her out the back and up to Adam. Some of the men saluted, others were too distracted to care.
Adam lifted the weak-kneed alien into his arms, using his mutant-enhanced muscles to make it appear effortless. Arieel wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled her head against his chest.
“It’s all right boys,” Adam said with a wicked grin. “I’ll take it from here.”
As he walked up the ramp to the landing bay, he heard though his enhanced senses one of the men remark, “Lucky bastard.”
Yes, yes he was.
All right, Kaylor, Adam said through his ATD. Give the men outside a little warning blast of exhaust gas, and then let’s get going.
I would if I could, Adam. We do not have clearance to lift-off.
With Arieel still in his arms, he walked the length of the ship to the bridge before setting her on one of the leather couches along the aft bulkhead. Sherri was there with a shot of gravity drug.
Adam slipped into the comm station. “Link me with the tower,” he growled at Kaylor.
“This is Captain Adam Cain, requesting immediate lift-off clearance.” His image on the screen verified his identity.
“I’m sorry, Captain Cain, but you have no flight plan filed, and the area is a security zone. I need authorization from FlightCon.”
“Then get it. I have a critically ill alien dignitary aboard: Arieel Bol, the Formilian Speaker. I need to get her out of Earth’s gravity immediately or she’ll die. Do you want to be responsible for that, lieutenant? Do you?”
“Sir, I’m only following protocol.”
“Is that what you want to tell the Board of Inquiry at your Courts Martial?”
“Sir—”
“Give us clearance…now!”
On the video screen, the man looked both flushed and pale at the same time. Then he nodded. “Let me clear the air above you. As you know, the area around Phoenix Command has the highest concentration of flight traffic in the galaxy.”
“Thanks for the history lesson, now snap to it.”
“Yessir. Clearance granted. Proceed out along flight vector alpha-two, one hundred forty degrees southwest.”
Adam glanced over at Kaylor, who gave him a nod.
“Thank you, lieutenant. You just averted a major intergalactic incident.”
“Yessir. Good lu—”
Adam cut the connection.
Sherri was looking at him. “You sure can be a badass when you want to be. I’m sexually turned on at the moment.”
Adam winked at her. “I yam what I yam.”
24
It was cold this morning and both security guards had their jackets zipped up to their throats; however, the frigid desert air did help to revive their tired bodies in preparation of the coming day. They drove the open-air electric transport up to Hangar 3-C and Airman Anthony Ortiz hoped out. He went to the door and punched in the security code while his partner, Sergeant James Hunter, watched the orange glow on the horizon indicating a sunrise only minutes away.
Ortiz stuck his head inside the hangar. Then he went inside.
Hunter watched his partner, wondering why he went inside the hangar? It was just a visual inspection and notation in the datapad.
Wanting to stretch his legs in the chill of morning, Jim Hunter climbed from the vehicle and went to join his partner. When he pushed open the door and stepped inside, he found out what the problem was.
“They must have it over refitting, or perhaps testing.” Ortiz said.
“Yeah, I heard some bigshots came in last night to look at the one down in the bunker. Maybe they made a breakthrough. And did you see the picture the nightshift left in the shack? Damn.” Hunter checked his datapad.
“No shit, lucky bastards. Even so, whoever took the ’X out didn’t log it.”
“We better,” said Ortiz, “otherwise it will be our asses.”
“I’ll check with the shack to see if they know anything about it.” The Air Force E4 fingered his shoulder comm unit. “Hey Mike, this is Jim out at #3.”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you have any record of XR-3 being moved? It’s not in its hangar.”
“Well, I’m sure it didn’t just decide to take a leisurely morning stroll. And who would want to steal a shell of a starship?”
“It’s not here, and there’s no record of it being taken out.”
“All right, let me check.”
A moment later a more concerned-sounding Airman Mike Walters came on the line. “I have no record of it either. I’ll call over to Testing and see if they have it over there. Stay where you are until I confirm.”
Forty minutes later the base was abuzz with activity. After much confusion and finger-pointing, it was concluded that the prototype vessel XR-3 was indeed missing, and when this information reached the upper floors of the main T&D building, all hell broke loose.
General Paul Sharp had spent the night in his office, first entertaining his guest Captain Adam Cain, and then jacked up on worry that something was about to happen. After the ugly space freighter left the base, he was able to relax, finally falling off to sleep around oh-three hundred. Four hours later he was wide awake and taking the short elevator ride down to the underground bunker holding the TD starship.
He knew it was it there; that had already been confirmed. But was it all there? That was the question. And why would Cain take a starship without a power component. His analytical mind was already coming to a conclusion even before he looked into the control compartment.
Early investigators had discovered the video screen. It was a rather crude method of hiding the theft, and unnecessary as it turned out. Cain was long gone by the time of the discovery.
Sharp put a comm pad to his mouth. “Get me the tower.” he barked.
“Phoenix Tower, Senior Chief Rebecca Ferguson speaking. How can I help you sir or ma’am?”
“This is General Sharp. Call up the lift-off logs for last night, those from the T&D fields.”
“Sir, I will need your authorization code.”
Sharp grit his teeth. “Si
erra one, one four,” he groaned. He was in no mood for protocol.
“Yessir. Just a moment, sir.”
The air traffic control officer came back on the line. “Yessir. One vessel, a non-designated freighter called the Nautilus. Landed sixteen forty-five yesterday afternoon, departed twenty-one eighteen the same evening.”
This was information the general already knew. “Where did it go? That’s what I want to know.”
“System Control had the vessel following prescribed course out to marker forty-two, at which time it initiated an unauthorized class one gravity-well and left the system.”
“Did they maintain the course?” For a millisecond after a gravity-well was established, a tiny streak in the space-time continuum was created, indicating the direction of the well.
“Course was consistent, sir. A violation has been charged for the early well creation and has been posted in the log, should the vessel enter any Union-controlled airspace.”
“Thank you, Chief.” He cut the line and made another call.
“Union Space Command, senior watch commander Captain Randal Simms speaking.”
“Captain, this is General Sharp.”
“Yessir, pleasure to speak with you again.”
“This isn’t a social call. Alert outer perimeter security to be on the lookout for an old Expansion freighter that left the system along the alpha-two corridor at around oh-two hundred. They will more-than-likely be using evasive maneuvers by this time. This is a T&D Alpha-One emergency. The ship is believed to be carrying stolen technology vital to the Union.”
“Yessir. I’ve sent out the alert. Probable destination?”
“Formil. The planet’s supreme leader is aboard—”
“Arieel Bol?” asked the Air Force officer.
“Yes, that’s the one,” said Sharp impatiently. “She was pressing for us to release certain classified material to her for transport to the planet. Captain Adam Cain is with her.”
“Adam Cain!”
“Captain, dispense with the hero worship. Concentrate and do your job.”
“Yessir, sorry, sir.”
“Place watches along the route and revoke all privileges for Captain Cain. He is to be stopped and confined at the earliest opportunity.”
“Sir, we’re restricted from direct security operations within Juirean territory at this time…but I will ask for cooperation from local sources.”
“Very good, Captain. Also, send a tracking unit out to their well-entry point and attempt to track the gravity wave. Formil may be their advertised destination, but there’s a good chance it was only a diversion.”
“I have assigned this a top priority, sir. We’ll find them.”
Sharp cut the link before letting out a deep sigh. He was frustrated and angry. He really liked Adam Cain, and now he saw he’d been played for a fool last night, lured into giving Cain and his team access to all he needed. It was never the Najma—whatever he was after. He wanted the TD module and a clone of the TD ship. And as for Sharp and his team…without the TD module, they had nothing.
Yet Sharp’s greatest fear wasn’t that Cain had the module and a starship to stick it in. It was that he might make it work.
25
“You cannot make it work?” Jym repeated, looking up at his illustrious leader. It was not a look of admiration, but one of frustration. “I thought that is why we went through all that trouble.”
“I’m working on it.”
Adam’s answer didn’t appease the tiny Fulquin, or anyone else in the hangar bay for that matter.
The team had moved a spare battery pack into the XR-3 and wired it to the generators. If need be, they could jumpstart the generators and get the gravity drive working. But if they shut it down for whatever reason, there would be no restart, not without the proper batteries. The rest of the power to the sleek, new starship was provided by a direct link to the Nautilus. It was fully powered, but just like with the scientists on Earth, the TD module sat idle. The indicator gauges were lit, but nothing was happening inside, not like before the Najmah Fayd had been torn apart.
“We’re four weeks out, Adam” said Riyad. “Do you think you can figure it out by then?”
Adam shook his head. “Let’s face it. If I can’t do it in four weeks, then another four years won’t make a difference.”
“Have you considered that the module may have been broken in the crash?” Sherri asked. “It may be impossible to make it work again.”
“That’s a possibility,” Adam admitted. “But that’s not how Panur built things. He made them to survive, even what the Najmah Fayd went through. But if something is broken inside, we need to find out what it is and fix it.”
“So, where do we start?” asked Kaylor. He and Jym were anxious to get their hands dirty making the trans-dimensional starship operational. The only problem was they’d done everything they could to this point and still the damn thing didn’t work.
“Let’s go back to the beginning,” Adam began. “When Panur made his modifications, he only had the limited resources found on that planet where he and Lila were hiding.”
“Panur’s World,” Kaylor said.
“It had another name, but that’s what he called it. Knowing Panur like I do, most of his inventions were simple, built from things you can order on Amazon. That was his true genius. He took complicated concepts and found simple solutions to them. For the TD ship, he added some power components in the engine room, which the scientists were able to reverse-engineer. Then he built the module and slipped it into the control compartment. That was about it, and the thing worked. He was then able to create a small tear in the fabric of space and move between dimensions. It never seemed that complicated or stressful on the ship or the power systems. Now we have a brand-new replica of the Najmah Fayd and the TD module inserted. We’ve all traveled by TD drive before. We know the signs and the flight indicators. We know when the system is operational and when it’s not. And right now, it’s not.”
“That was a very good summary of the crap we’re in, Captain Cain,” said Sherri Valentine. “Now how about a solution?”
“That’s going to take some time,” he said. “And it certainly doesn’t help having the six of you standing around watching my every move. Scram, give me space. I have some mutant-enhanced thinking to do.”
Arieel stepped up to him and took his hand. “I have confidence in you, Adam. You’ll make it work…or we will all pay a terrible price for your failure.” She smiled and walked away.
The Nuorean Yonin Cavins (984) walked into the Master-Player’s compartment with purpose and approached the basic table Qintis Bondo (435) used as a desk. Yonin was second-in-command of the Nuorean force in the Kac, and therefore had authority to do so.
“Something important, Yonin?”
“It is not the Klin,” Yonin assured his superior. Both Nuoreans were ultimately concerned that their fleet may be discovered by the Klin. Because of this concern, Qintis had his people evacuate the planetside habitats they’d settled and re-boarded the nearly nineteen hundred starships making up their fleet. This allowed them to stay mobile and hidden between star systems, within the great void of space.
“No, this concerns our Great Nemesis.”
“Adam Cain?” Never in the history of the Nuoreans had one player acquired the status of a title. Adam Cain was the first. “What of him.”
“A curious development. There is a galaxy-wide watch out for him, with an apprehend-on-sight order.”
Qintis grinned. “Yes, we have tried that strategy ourselves, with disastrous effect.”
“This is different, Qintis. This order was issued by his own people, the Humans of Earth.”
“Now I am truly confused. Why has he fallen out of favor with his own kind?”
“I asked the same question,” said Yonin. “Before coming to you with this news, I applied some of the confiscated wealth we still have from our colony worlds and made inquiries. It appears he has absconded with some
very important artifacts from Earth, items of military value.”
“Such as?”
“Information is not firm, but he has with him a transport module from his prior starship, the one that entered the Suponac and allowed him to wreck such havoc.”
“The trans-dimensional vessel? This is a module from that ship?”
“Yes, although it is rumored to be non-operational at this time. The Humans have been trying in vain to make it work.”
Qintis was excited. For nearly two years, the Nuoreans had studied various data involving Adam Cain and his miraculous starship. Yes, they knew of the capacities of the ship, and regretted the fact that those in the Suponac had been unable to acquire the vessel. With news of its near destruction upon returning to the Kac, Qintis believed that to be the end of the story. Apparently it was not.
“He would not have jeopardized his fame and status unless he believes he can rebuild the device.”
“Qintis, can you imagine what we could do with a vessel such as that?”
“Yes, we could return to our galaxy—at least a small contingent of us—enough to inform others of our existence. It could spur accelerated action on building a new link with the Kac.”
“Yes. And we could be going home in a few decades, rather than lifetimes.”
Qintis thought for a moment before speaking again. “Gather all information regarding the location of Adam Cain.” He held up his hand to cut off the protest. “I know others are doing the same, but it must be we who succeed. Use our wealth to collect all information. There can be no higher priority than to find Adam Cain.”
26
For the second time in less than two years, Adam and his team were being hunted across the galaxy. However, redemption this time would only come if he got the TD module working and Lila and Panur on his team to help defeat the Klin. Nothing short of saving the galaxy—again—would save them.