Battlelines (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 14)

by T. R. Harris

  “I accept your terms, Panur, yet please endeavor to free the Queen without delay. We need her guidance against the Hal’ic.”

  “I will,” said Panur. And then he leaned in a little closer to the camera and whispered. “A word of advice: homeworld.” And then he cut the link.

  Edei looked at his aide. “What did he say at the end?”

  “I shall have it replayed. It sounded like homeworld.”

  “That is what I heard as well.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “I had last mentioned our war with the Hal’ic. Was he speaking of Kor, or of the homeworld of the Hal’ic?”

  “He must mean J’nae—the planet. Kor is destroyed.”

  Edei changed the image on the screen from the black of the broken link with Panur to a summary of the actions being taken to thwart the Hal’ic advances along the rim of the galaxy. There were plans underway for a strike against J’nae—the planet—yet they were in their infancy. Until other assets arrived from across the galaxy, it was all the Sol-Kor could do to head off the haphazard Hal’ic attacks taking place on numerous battle fronts, while also maintaining an adequate defense of the six major population worlds beyond Kor.

  Could Panur be suggesting that the homeworld of the Hal’ic was susceptible to attack, having committed all their resources to the war beyond their system? There had been little discussion of such a possibility, believing the Hal’ic too smart to have left themselves so vulnerable. Yet could that assumption be what the aliens were counting on? After all, who would commit all their assets to other battlefronts, leaving the home front unguarded?

  Edei Fran smiled. It had been a subtle hint, yet if Panur was still truly part of the Colony, he might have felt obligated to assist in the absence of the Queen. The mutant had been to J’nae—the planet—so he knew the capacity of the Hal’ic.

  Or was it a trap?

  Edei had no way of knowing. Yet taking action against the Hal’ic homeworld would be unexpected—just as the Hal’ic attacks on the outskirts of the Colony had been unexpected—and successful to this point. The Sol-Kor had not fought a major war in thousands of years, so there was much to learn from this new conflict. And perhaps the greatest lesson of all was that doing the unexpected was often the path to victory.

  Council Member Edei Fran made a decision. He sent Mortis out to assemble the other members of the Council, along with the ranking High Nosleads. He would do the unexpected, or at least set the plan in motion. Should Panur be true to his word and free the Queen, then she could do as she wished at that point. Yet a decisive course of offensive action would be underway, unlike the humiliating defense the Sol-Kor had been engaged in since the beginning.

  It felt good to be acting like a Sol-Kor again.

  Chapter 16

  “I know I don’t need to ask,” Sherri said, “but you’re not really planning on giving J’nae back to the Sol-Kor, are you?”

  “Of course not,” said the tiny mutant. He wore a satisfied grin on his face as he met the stares of the Humans. He had been expecting admiration, yet still he detected doubt in their eyes. “You must understand, most of the Sol-Kor are incapable of detailed deductive reasoning. Edei Fran is not one of them. Yet his almost unique ability within the Colony has caused him to overthink the issue. He should know by now that the Queen cannot be killed, yet since he can imagine himself being wrong, he talked himself out of the truth. And this lingering doubt is the bargaining chip we need to give me time to complete the repairs. You should prepare for launch. I will have the conventional engine back online in approximately ten minutes.”

  “You whispered something at the end,” said Adam Cain, his eyes narrowed and accusatory. “What was it?”

  “It was a statement of solidarity with the Colony. He must believe I still have the best interests of the Sol-Kor at heart.”

  “Do you?”

  “I know you do not trust me, Adam, but you must realize I am now working to correct a mistake I made when I created J’nae. She was not ready to assume leadership, and even if she were, I do not believe it’s in the best interest of the universe to put an immortal in charge of a race such as the Sol-Kor. I revel in the immense variety of life to be found. The Sol-Kor threaten that variety and all there is to learn from it. Now, please let me return to my work. There is still much to do.”

  ********

  Adam nodded and the alien rushed away.

  “Just like the Sol-Kor, we don’t have much of a choice but to trust him,” Sherri said to Adam and Riyad.

  “I know,” said Adam. “But I can’t help feeling that everything he says and does is for his own benefit, not ours. Our paths may merge now and then, but eventually he’s going to make a radical right turn and leave us in the lurch. It’s just a feeling I have.”

  “Just so long as our joint paths lead us back to the Milky Way,” Riyad kicked in. “After that, I don’t give a damn what happens to your little mutant friend.”

  ********

  True to his word—this time—the repairs to the conventional star drive of the Najmah Fayd were competed in less than fifteen minutes. Riyad was in the pilot seat, having the most experience operating the ship, and after trying to free the submerged craft from the suction of the goo at the bottom of the lake with chemical jets—and failing—he chose to light off the gravity drive while still under water. Although the team was locked safely away inside the starship and unable to see the full effect, it had to be an amazing sight to see.

  The miniature black hole was created nine hundred meters above the lake and immediately began to suck everything around it into the event horizon. An incredible torrent of reddish-black water shot upward, wide at the base but narrowing to an infinitely small point in the clear Silana sky, giving form to something that was normally invisible—a gravity well. Not only that, but the very nature of a black hole added an iridescent glow to the upper reaches of the pyramid of water that radiated out for several kilometers around the singularity.

  The tower of liquid began to climb higher into the sky. The original black hole dissolved, only to be replaced by another, and then another, all created at the same distance from the generators of the Najmah Fayd. The lake was nearly empty by the time the starship became visible, raising out of the depths, the sticky goo that had held it in place now ripped from the surface of the planet by the singularity above. A little farther up, the singularity’s influence on the surface of the lake began to fade, and a shower of water began to slowly cascade back to the planet. By then, the ship was gaining speed, a multitude of additional black holes being created and then dissolved along the flight path.

  Now the creation point was moved further away from the generators and the intensity increased. The Najmah Fayd reached the boundary of space and almost immediately achieved the point of equilibrium where she rested just within the black hole’s event horizon. Here the laws of the singularity overrode those of normal space—and except for the computer animation of the ship and her location—the Human starship disappeared from view.

  “You may engage the overdrive, Mister Tarazi,” Panur announced over the intercom from the engine room. “I see this is a variation of the design of the modifications I made to the Pegasus II back on Earth. It lacks refinement, yet it is functional. Those who are currently following us should be in for quite a surprise when you engage.”

  Riyad pressed the required panel and was rewarded by a low rumble coming from the aft section of the ship. It only lasted for a second, as the dynamo effect of the enhancers kicked in, quadrupling the power to the generators. The ship shot forward, four times its previous speed, which was already pushing the limits of the Sol-Kor mainships that were following them. At least a dozen had been on station around the Najmah Fayd, forming an escort cone around the ship when she left Silana. Now all they could do was watch as their charge raced away and out of range.

  “Where to, Panur?” Riyad asked over the comm.

  “Steer eight-four-eight, down fifte
en. Continue on this track for six hours. I have a little place tucked away where I can complete the TD drive repairs.”

  “Someplace unknown to the Sol-Kor?”

  “That’s right. Even us immortal mutant geniuses need to get away now and then. It’s a little refuge not even the Eternal Queen knew about. I’ll have the parts there I need to fix the mess J’nae made of my drive. Until then I am at an impasse.”

  “Speaking of J’nae, what do you intend to do with her? We can’t keep her in the battlesuit forever,” Riyad asked.

  “Since I will have no need to enter the landing bay until we arrive at our destination, place her in there and then open it to space. She will remain frozen without the need for chemicals.”

  “I like that idea, even though I would prefer to kick her ass out the bay doors and let her spend eternity drifting in interstellar space. Why are you keeping her around?”

  “We may need her in the future. As long as she is with us, we are immune from Sol-Kor attack.”

  ********

  Edei Fran was informed immediately when the alien starship bolted away from the escorts at a velocity impossible to match. Panur was gone, and with him, the Queen.

  Part of him desperately wanted to believe the mutant, that he would leave the Queen unharmed on some distant world where she could be recovered. He had not anticipated the unique nature of the alien starship. He would be totally at Panur’s mercy to follow through with his promise. If not…the consequences were almost too tragic to contemplate.

  “Hasten the plans for the attack on the Hal’ic homeworld,” he said to the High Noslead Mortis. “We cannot wait to see if Panur will be true or not. We must defeat the invaders now. Already, valuable resources, as well as lives, are being lost to the raiders. Only by attacking the source of the threat will we defeat it.”

  “I have only managed to gather a force of fourteen thousand,” said Mortis. “These have been taken from those forces not destroyed within the outer systems, as well as all we can risk pulling from Silana.”

  “I would imagine that should be sufficient, if in fact the Hal’ic are without adequate defense.”

  “It was Panur who set you on this path, Council Member. And now he has absconded with the Queen in a vessel of superior design and capabilities. Can he be trusted?”

  “I would say not, yet even if there are defensive units on J’nae—the planet—our actions will still come as a surprise. For a commitment of fourteen thousand ships, we could cause incredible damage to their infrastructure. Prior to this war, a fleet of that number would have been overwhelming. Not so anymore.”

  “That is true. It also illustrates how so much has changed in such a short time.”

  Edei Fran took a hard look at his aide. “Yes, the Colony has been shaken to its core, even fundamentally transformed with the loss of the Eternal Queen. And on that subject, make it a priority among your duties that the female offspring of the new Queen be closely guarded. If Panur does renege on his word, they are the only hope for the survival of the Colony.”

  “I have already taken that upon myself. There are only a little over one hundred of them, one hundred to guarantee the continued existence of the Sol-Kor. It is a frightening prospect.”

  “Let us hope then that Panur returns our Queen. Although she offers a new direction for the Colony…at this point, it is our only direction.”

  Chapter 17

  Andy Tobias was encouraged by the most recent reports he saw, at least to a point. His strategy of bypassing the major population planets of the Sol-Kor and attacking along the fringe of the galaxy was working. The enemy was suffering heavily casualties while the Hal’ic were coming through relatively unscathed.

  The part that was making him nervous was that the bulk of his forces were spread thinly across half the galaxy, and pulling further away from J’nae with each passing day. Although the reports consistently showed the Sol-Kor were maintaining near-full strength defenses around their vulnerable population centers, it still left a huge number of warships just hanging around with nothing to do. If the Sol-Kor truly believed in Andy’s strategy, they would realize that these defensive units were being wasted in their current assignments. If they were freed to pursue his ships, it would mean an even further thinning of his forces as they tucked tail and ran.

  In addition, he was also left with a yawning area of lightly defended space lying directly between J’nae and Silana. The distance between the two planets was eight thousand light-years, so it wasn’t like they could sneak up on him. But it was a clear path between here and there.

  Andy had to remind himself that to this point the Sol-Kor had turned out to be unimaginative military opponents, primarily concerned with protecting what they had against further destruction. Except for the original invasion of the Hal’ic star system, the Sol-Kor hadn’t taken any actions that would be deemed offensive in nature. After all, these weren’t Human—or even Juirean or Klin—opponents he faced. They were simple creatures with simple thoughts. He had to fight hard not to overthink a problem when it came to the Sol-Kor.

  He tried to relax and accept the situation on its face value. In normal operations, that could spell disaster, since Humans have a tendency to always try something underhanded or unexpected. Up to this point—here, as well as back in the Milky Way—

  the Sol-Kor had demonstrated no such talent for deception. What you saw was what you got.

  Even still, Andy couldn’t shake the nagging itch he had on the back of his neck.

  ********

  When LCDR Tom Paulson approached, Admiral Tobias was glad for the interruption. He was in his sequestered command center, part of the much larger and not so chaotic ops center for the Hal’ic. As the fringe-strategy gained momentum, there was very little left for those back on the homeworld to do. Discretion concerning local tactics and targets were left to commanders on-site, since they had the best grasp of up-to-the-minute battle conditions. They’d also opened a command annex next door, which helped with the din caused by the often emotional Hal’ic.

  “What’s up, Tom?”

  “Just got a report out of Silana. Something’s going on there, although I don’t what exactly.”

  “The Queen, Adam…or both?”

  “Not sure. All I know is that there was a disturbance at the main pyramid—that’s what the report called it. Didn’t say whether it was a battle or what, but the building was damaged.”

  “Sounds like our guy at work.”

  “It does, but right after that there was a lockdown of the Silana system, and the promised followup report never came through as scheduled. The place is as dark as a tomb.”

  “Like I said, there’s only one guy I know of who can make such an impression on an entire star system. With a news blackout, that could be to keep bad news from leaking out.”

  “The Queen?”

  “I hope so. On another subject, have you noticed any unusual Sol-Kor ship movements over the past few days?”

  “You mean toward the rim?”

  “Headed our way.”

  “You think they may be planning something?”

  “Just a feeling.”

  “Damn, sir,” said Tom Paulson, “your feelings are legend. Should we send out scouts to take a look-see?

  “Probably wouldn’t hurt. But don’t send out a lot. I don’t want to spook the Hal’ic. They’re a nervous lot as it is.”

  “Yessir. And about Silana?”

  “Keep trying to make contact with our spies. Eventually we might even get an update from Captain Cain. He’s been off grid for a number of weeks now. It’s about damn time he reported in.”

  Chapter 18

  Panur’s retreat wasn’t a planet at all but a hollowed out asteroid lost among a billion other lumps of rock located in a violent binary star system with an overabundance of huge gas giants. This battle between gravity behemoths had prevented any rocky-core worlds from forming, and no habitable planets meant no interest from passing interstellar trave
lers.

  No one but Panur.

  Once the Najmah Fayd entered the large basin that served as the spaceport for the mutant’s home-away-from-home, the team noticed a whole array of other starships parked nearby, all in some state of repair or modification.

  Panur was on the bridge for the landing, and addressed the unasked question. “It’s a hobby of mine—starship design. I’m always working on something new.”

  When Riyad cut the internal gravity to the ship he was immediately shocked by what he felt. “Is that gravity? I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “Yes, I have the entire planetoid wired for gravity. It makes it easier to work and to keep my bearings.”

  “Where are the generators?”

  “On the other side.”

  “They must be huge.”

  “One hundred meters in diameter…and I have six of them. Oh, and I also have a dynamic force shield over the basin. I can flood it with atmosphere and the shield retains integrity. Shall we take a stroll outside?”

  “What about J’nae?”

  “I have facilities inside that can hold her. Advanced cryogenic equipment.”

  It was Sherri’s turn to comment on Panur’s excesses.

  “Sure…doesn’t everyone?”

  ********

  It felt strange to Adam to be walking in street clothes on the powdery dust of an asteroid, looking up at open space above. For years, Human scientists had been trying to build a containment shield to accomplish just this sort of thing, but so far had been stifled by the energy requirements for such a device. And here was not only a perfectly working model, but a massive one at that, easily covering an area three times the size of a football field. There was no telling how long Panur had had this technology, and it was something he’d thrown together for convenience.