The Copernicus Deception (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 15)

by T. R. Harris

  So it was the concern for the vessel itself that troubled Adam so much. So far, he’d found nothing remarkable about it. It wasn’t exceptionally fast or well-armed. The cargo section was slightly smaller than normal, meaning it couldn’t carry a huge amount of high-value goods. And even the region the ship had been transiting was just normal Kidis Frontier space.

  So why the focus on the ship itself?

  Although Adam had never associated with Visidorans before, he still got the impression that Marshal Manis’s disappointment in not finding any contraband ran deeper than her failure to catch Copernicus in an illegal act. It was the way the two of them looked at each other, along with the brief private conversation, that had Adam suspecting there was a lot more going on beneath the surface.

  Was Manis looked for something in particular? Was she disappointed when she couldn’t find it? Was Copernicus also disappointed that she didn’t find it?

  Adam looked around the incredibly disheveled mess that was the ship’s main cargo hold. He’d never seen anything like it. Most of the time, inspections were conducted using portable x-ray machines or sniffers. Visual inspections were used, but not to this extent. Even some of the containers themselves had been disassembled. The Visidorans had torn the place apart, looking for something, something they said they hadn’t found.

  Or did they?

  Adam smirked. How perfect would that be? Find something everyone wants, then claim it wasn’t there even after you find it. He was sure they wouldn’t hold up the elusive item and yell out Eureka! if they had. Especially not a potential contraband item of immeasurable value.

  “What the hell did you do in here?”

  Adam spun around to find a red-faced Copernicus Smith standing open-mouthed at the door to the cargo bay.

  “We did not do this,” Kaylor said. “This is how we found it.”

  “The Gradis are going to be pissed—correction—their clients are going to be pissed. How are we going to put this back together?”

  “Why is it your job to do that?” Adam asked. “You were just hired to repair the engines.”

  “They’re going to blame us.”

  “The Visidorans stopped and searched the ship, not you.”

  Coop snickered. “Yeah, but they can’t sue a government. But they can sue me. It’s easier to claim we did this than the Visidorans. I’ve never seen anything like this before. What were they looking for?”

  “You tell me.”

  Copernicus cast an accusatory look at Adam. “Don’t start that shit again. I have no idea what the ship was carrying, so how could I know what they were looking for?”

  “Maybe they did find what they were looking for—”

  “No…they said they didn’t find anything.”

  Adam noticed the slight warble in Coop’s voice, as he spoke quickly to defend the Visidorans before he thought better of it.

  “And you believe them?” asked Adam, now suspicious of every word out of Coop’s mouth.

  “Well, I don’t, for sure,” he said guardedly. “But they were going to let us take the ship, until your Juirean friends showed up.”

  “And if they really were looking for something specific, and they didn’t find it, do you think they’d let you take the ship away? They could have just as easily kept the ship and let the Gradis fight to get it back. Instead, Manis was going to release it into your custody.”

  Anger flared once again in Copernicus. “Just what the hell are you insinuating?”

  “Nothing,” Adam said. “I’m just trying to figure out why this ship is so important to everyone.”

  “It’s because of the bond—”

  “I know. You signed a bond, making you liable for the ship and the cargo. I checked the Library. It said bond-agreements like this are very rare. Why would you sign something like that?”

  Adam noticed a slight hesitation from Coop, as if he was deciding what to say next. “I’ll tell you why…four million reasons why.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means they were going to pay me four million Juirean credits to recover the ship and cargo.”

  “Four million! That’s a little above the going rate, isn’t it?”

  “You told us it was two million,” Kaylor joined in. “And we were to get twenty percent.”

  “Sorry, but I’m the one who signed the bond, not you.”

  “So what is the going rate for a standard repair or recovery?” Adam asked.

  “About five hundred thousand,” Jym answered for Copernicus.

  Adam smiled. “So, I ask again: what’s so special about this ship and her cargo that the Gradis would pay eight times the normal rate.”

  Copernicus squared his jaw. “I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is they offered me a lot of money and I accepted. But seeing the current state of the cargo, I can see a renegotiation in my future. And if there really was something of exceptional value aboard—and now it’s missing—I could be in a lot more trouble than simply losing a portion of my fee.”

  With a look if resignation and defeat, Copernicus looked around the cargo hold once more. “The Gradis are coming here in a couple of days. I’ll see what I can do about the engines, while you guys try to get this cleaned up the best you can. I would appreciate your help, Adam.”

  “Sure, a trade-off for room and board until Riyad and I can get back to the Union.”

  Chapter 19

  Adam was sure of it now.

  There was something hidden aboard this ship, and he truly believed it was still here.

  With his guard up, Adam helped Kaylor and Jym sort the cargo and place it back into appropriate containers. Most of the items had labels, along with electronic bills of lading attached to the containers. Even then, it was taking far too long, and Adam was sure they were making mistakes. People were going to be very upset when their orders eventually arrived.

  The power surged in the ship as Copernicus managed to get the generators on line and tested the well.

  “I told you so,” Kaylor said to Adam.

  “We could have got the engines going, too, if we had more time,” Jym grumbled.

  A rumbling of the ground followed shortly afterwards. Adam looked at Kaylor with a frown.

  “That’s probably Krons and Flisher returning. They’re one of the other repair crews.”

  A moment later Copernicus poked his head in the cargo hold. He nodded his approval.

  “You’re making progress,” he complimented, to Adam’s surprise. “I’m going to check on my other crew. I’ll be back in a little while to help.”

  Adam saw this as the perfect opportunity to take a break. He asked if Kaylor and Jym wanted to join him in the dining area of the ship but they declined, saying they had better food aboard the FS-475. Adam had just spent the past three days eating aboard the ‘475. He would take his chances with the food processors aboard the Gradis ship.

  All processors work by taking a combination of basic materials and infusing them into a medium, either solid or liquid, depending on a particular programmed formula. Since only so much room aboard was allotted to the holding tanks, ships tended to limit the menu to items that best fit the taste buds of the crew. Ships belonging to a particular species tended to have more restrictive choices. Ships like this one, with their more diverse crew, generally had more variety.

  In the galley, Adam scanned his blood, setting the parameters for the appropriate formulas. Then he asked the computer if it could produce something similar to pork chops. Within a millisecond, the computer had searched the language banks, found references to pork chops, matched the generic formula to what was available aboard and pronounced that his item would be ready momentarily. Ten seconds later, a slab of light brown meat-looking stuff came out of the dispenser on a square plate. It was hot, it smelled like cooked pork, and from his experience it would also taste something like pork, or how he remembered pork to taste.

  When he sat at table and sampled the first bite, he found he
was mistaken. The meat tasted just like paste—the medium which the chemical flavor and nutrients were supposed to have been injected. Yet the computer had verified his selection and the formula….

  “Great,” Adam sighed. “Now I’ll have to go find another processor.”

  He decided to scan the computer with his ATD first to see if he could identify the problem. Perhaps a simple tweak and everything would be back on par.

  Almost immediately, he noticed a single blockage within the computer’s feed line. It was an intermittent signal, strange and faint. He attempted to clear the blockage with a mental command, but nothing happened. He didn’t think anything of this; he wasn’t the most proficient ATD operator, except when it came to disarming flash weapons and activating light switches.

  Yet if it wasn’t responding to mental commands, then it could be a physical object impeding the flow of information. He went to the processor and mentally followed the trunk line below the counter and to a cabinet below. He knelt down and opened the door. The back panel in the cabinet could be removed to access the power lines and feeding tubes to the processor. He reached in, ending up on his belly, and pulled away the panel.

  The comm line feeding the processor’s computer disappeared beyond the maze of other wires and tubes and under the dispenser. In his mind’s eyes, Adam could see the obstruction. It was a pale glowing light of a strange green color. This was odd; most power sources came in as just white of variable intensity.

  He reached his hand around the corner at the back of the under cabinet and felt something small and round. And it was also warm, but not hot. His fingers closed around the object.

  It came loose and Adam pulled it away from the comm line.

  Immediately, Adam noticed a steady increase in the white light flowing along the line.

  Anxious to see if he’d fixed the problem, Adam extricated himself from the cabinet and went back to the processor, setting the small round object on its flat base on the counter. He tried the pork chops again. This time they tasted just fine.

  He wolfed down half of the pork steak and then rose to order a drink. That’s when he noticed the round object was no longer on the counter.

  He was sure he’d left it there, and there was no place it could have slipped behind on the counter. Possibly it fell to the floor.

  He bent down. Nothing. So he opened the cabinet door again.

  There it was, resting on the bottom panel. For some strange reason, Adam sensed the object was embarrassed to be found.

  He picked up the orb and took it to the dining table.

  Upon closer examination, he found it to be more tear-drop shaped with a flat bottom for balance. It was made of metal, with a light green hue. There were markings on the exterior.

  Adam lifted it closer to his eyes, trying to make out the design. That was when his ATD went crazy.

  It started as a slight buzz, that grew quickly to a nearly unbearable level. His eyes began to water and he could feel heat coming to his right side, under his armpit.

  He set the object back on the table and began to unbutton his shirt. This was the first time the ATD had done this.

  But then the buzzing stopped and the burning sensation went away.

  Slowly, Adam turned his attention back to the green orb on the table. Again, the thing seemed to be staring at him.

  He placed his hand over the object and concentrated, probing the metal with his Formilian device. There was definitely energy coming from within, but it was like nothing he’d ever felt. He lifted the object and moved it close to his side.

  The buzzing sounded and the burning returned.

  He quickly set the object on the table and pushed away from the table.

  “What the hell are you?” he asked the object aloud.

  He hadn’t been expecting an answer…when he got one.

  Of course he couldn’t understand it. The signal came to his mind in the form of a wave-like vibration. Then it faded away.

  “What are you?” he asked again. Once again the vibration returned.

  Was it trying to communicate with him?

  “Are you alive?” he asked next.

  This time the vibration came quickly then faded, as if saying yes…or no.

  “Are you what everyone is looking for?”

  The vibration was longer and more varied this time. Adam took that as a yes.

  Adam heard a movement in the passageway outside the mess hall. He snatched up the orb and placed it in his pocket, on the left side of his body, away from his implant. The buzzing and heat did not return.

  Copernicus walked past the doorway heading for the cargo hold. Suddenly he stuck his head around the corner.

  “Thought I saw you in here. How’s it going in the cargo bay?”

  “Fine, I just stopped to grab a bite.”

  “Pork chops?”

  “Something like pork chops.”

  “I hear you. I’m going back to help sort through the mess.”

  “I’ll be right with you.”

  Coop took a moment to scan the room before ducking back into the hall.

  Adam went to the processor. He ordered an intoxicant, figuring he needed a stiff drink after his discover. But his discovery of…what?

  Chapter 20

  The Incus were miners, builders and manufacturers and ambitious to a fault. Recently, they had begun building their own line of plasma bolt launchers, taking what MK Weapons Systems was doing with their line of flash weapons and attempting to improve upon it. They had met with only limited success.

  The Incus were running into the same problem MK had, and that was the competition from the Humans and their projectile-type devices.

  When compared to ballistic weaponry, the limitations of energy devices were obvious, and everyone admitted it. They lacked firing capacity and range. The Human’s weapons could fire hundreds of rounds between reloads, and the range was easily ten times longer than even the best hand-held bolt launchers. The only advantages energy devices had over projectile weapons were their light weight and the ability to recharge. Yet in combat, those advantages became irrelevant. The means to saturate a target with hundreds of rounds, plus at much greater distances, was what everyone wanted. In addition, projectiles could pass through standard energy shields with impunity.

  So the Incus began an aggressive campaign to create their own line of projectile weapons. Of course, the Humans were light-years ahead of them in both design and manufacturing, and their reputation as the galaxy’s foremost fighting force didn’t hurt either.

  Yet to even attempt to compete with the Humans, the Incus needed raw materials, and in this case, metal.

  They began to scour the region around Incus for every source of the required material they could find. This included both inhabited and uninhabited worlds, plus asteroids, which proved to be the most efficient means of acquiring this raw material, and for the least cost.

  When they ran out of fertile fields within their own space, the Incus began making illegal forays into surrounding territories, slipping into metal-rich asteroid fields and absconding with all they could before being discovered.

  It was a six-ship fleet of Incus mining vessels illegally in Cadonic space that set the current state of affairs in motion.

  The Zaniff Field was a rich source of heavy metals, and the giant rocks were just drifting there in space, asking to be harvested. Those objects that were small enough and with near-consistent content were grappled and pulled away, making a slow, yet steady getaway back toward Incus space. Mining operations didn’t stop during the journey; the Incus would take what they could get, even if discovered and the asteroid abandoned.

  That was when they discovered The Wall.

  It was definitely of artificial origin, yet when the surrounding rock was dated, the first revelation was made. It was over seven billion years old.

  Since the creation of the universe—this universe—went back fifteen billion years, there had been at least four cycles where materi
al was recycled through star creation and destruction. The oldest material was absorbed long ago by super-giant stars with short lifespans. Their unstable nature didn’t allow for long-term development before they grew to such proportions that they ended their lifecycle in tremendous supernovas.

  The new elements created within these explosions flew out into space, only to congeal once again into new stars, followed by even more supernovas. The early universe was a very chaotic and dangerous place.

  Yet after three of these cycles, the universe had expanded enough that some stability came to the newly formed star systems. The plethora of planets surrounding these suns were given time to mature and for life upon them to evolve. Yet this stable period had begun only recently in galactic history, about five billion years ago. Most everything older had gone into the recycle bin of the universe long ago.

  So when the seven billion year old rock was discovered—and within it the remnants of an ancient structure, the Incus began speculating as to what they had found.

  It was commonly accepted that life had evolved to advanced stages within most of the preceding recycle periods, with each successive cycle creating more prehistoric civilizations than the one before. The universe is resilient. Creatures came and went without ever leaving a trace. By the time a race evolved, reached maturity and died off, a million years of civilization might have passed. By then, most species were ready to call it quits. They’d lived long enough.

  The Incus reasoned they had found a very small chunk of an ancient civilization from either the late Third Cycle or the early Fourth, the one the galaxy was currently experiencing. The age of the surrounding rock didn’t necessary mean that was the age of The Wall, but it did place the civilization that built into within the three to five billion year range. The asteroid might be one of the last remaining traces from the parent planet, having miraculously avoided being drawn into a stellar fire over the course of billions of years. And not only was the age of the rock significant, it was also the discovery of signs of ancient intelligent life. It was a truly remarkable find, one that on its own would have made headlines across the galaxy.