Human Chronicles Part 2 Book 2: The Apex Predator

by T. R. Harris

  Adam looked through the viewport of the shuttle and saw several Kracori moving throughout the large landing bay. Four of them were standing at the entrance to the Pegasus, which sat about thirty yards directly in front of the Klin shuttle. Adam looked toward the huge slide-away doors to the hangar, now safely secure, and he began to narrow his concentration.

  The ATD found the microprocessor to the doors and overrode all safety controls and alarms. The doors began to slide open.

  Immediately, a wild torrent of escaping air filled the room and began to flow toward the opening. Several Kracori were sucked through the ever-widening gap, along with nearly every small module, crate and loose piece of equipment in the bay. The four Kracori at the entrance to the Pegasus were gone, too, swept up in the torrent.

  After a moment, Adam stopped the doors from opening any further, otherwise even the shuttles and other small craft in the bay would have been sucked out into space with the already dead and frozen Kracori.

  Within a minute or so, those Kracori who had managed to hold onto fixed objects began to lose consciousness from the lack of atmosphere. They released their handholds and soon joined their companions in the absolute cold outside the ship.

  Once the bay was clear of any living Kracori, Adam shut the doors and began to pump air back into the chamber. He moved toward the exit hatch of the shuttle. “What about him?” Sherri asked, referring to the Klin.

  Adam didn’t have a lot of time to linger. “I’d love to take him with us just so he can be interrogated back on Earth, but I don’t think he’d survive the trip.”

  “We can always set the gravity a little lighter on the Pegasus.”

  He hesitated near the door. “I suppose you’re right. Okay, bring him.”

  The trio, with Sherri carrying the Klin over her shoulder, left the small shuttle and ran for the entrance to the Pegasus. Now that an atmosphere filled the bay once more, curious yet cautious Kracori were beginning to reenter, at a loss as to why the outer doors had opened without warning and no alarms sounded. Two of the nearest Kracori saw the running Humans and instinctively drew their MK’s.

  Even though he was still learning how to use the ATD to its fullest potential, the disarming of flash weapons was one of the first things he’d learned, and by now he could do it in his sleep. The two Kracori were completely baffled as to why both their weapons failed to discharge, and then just as Adam entered the Pegasus, he noticed one of the Kracori point his weapon in the direction of his companion while still triggering the inert device. The look on the Kracori’s face was priceless when the MK suddenly discharged, sending a lethal bolt of blue-white energy into the chest of the other Kracori.

  As Adam commanded the ship’s computer to secure the outer hatch and prepare for launch, he was wondering how the unfortunate alien would explain that at the inquest which was sure to follow.

  ********

  Sherri forced the near-comatose Klin into one of the seats in the pilothouse and tied a safety harness around his thin body. The alien was still encased in his clear plastic exo-suit, which even if he did manage to work his way out of Sherri’s restraints, he wouldn’t be able to move very fast.

  Adam slipped into the pilot’s seat and was relieved to see all the monitors before him lit-up and functioning. The Kracori technicians hadn’t done anything drastic to the Pegasus in the two hours since their arrival on the flagship. The Pegasus would get them away; what Adam had to do now was make sure they weren’t followed.

  Sherri took a seat at the nav station and then looked over at Adam. “Time for some fancy mental shit,” she said. “They’re not going to let us just fly off without at least a few token bolts sent our way.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I can handle the flagship. It’s the other ships in the area that we have to worry about.”

  Once the generators were charged and the chemical engines primed, Adam began to systematically disable all the electronics throughout the massive starship. Lights flickered out, without even the backups springing to life. Computers shut down and atmospheric fans quickly whirled to a stop. Weapon systems received no power, and even if they were charged and ready, the sensors and targeting computers were all sitting idle, their monitors blank.

  In the darkness of the ship, the Kracori were panicking. Even though they were a proud and accomplished warrior class, the disorientation caused tempers to flair and fear to boil. Eventually self-contained flashlights were found in the dark, and soon wild beams of white light were lighting the interior of the ship like an epileptic laser show.

  Adam activated the servos to the large sliding doors of the landing bay once again, yet this time he let them open to their full range. Dozens of more Kracori were sucked into the clear cold of space, along with four small shuttles and countless crates and propellant barrels that had managed to survive the last purging of the vast chamber.

  Even the Pegasus was pulled toward the opening, and just as the delta-shaped craft joined the rest of the cascading debris leaving the bay, Adam activated the chemical drive and shot off into space.

  With a flick of a switch on his console, Adam initiated a shallow gravity-well, while reserving his mental activities to link back to the ghost ATD he’d created aboard the nearest Kracori ship to the command vessel. He didn’t have time to explore too many of the ship’s command and control computers, so he focused on the weapon systems. There were nineteen separate batteries aboard the Kracori warship, served by four independent computers. He began to sever the controls to these units.

  “They’re coming!” Sherri yelled. “Five ships just initiated gravity-wells.”

  Adam noticed that the ship he was linked to was one of their pursuers and he wondered if they were even aware that their weapon systems were offline. Even so, there were four other Class-5’s only a step behind.

  “Send me a course plot of the Kracori ships,” Adam commanded. The image Sherri sent over showed a wide line of tracks spread out just aft of their position. If the two focusing rings that had been replaced aboard the Pegasus had been larger models, Adam could have easily outrun the Class-5’s. As it was, all the ships were more or less capable of the same maximum speeds. And then he smiled as a plan popped into this head.

  The five pursuers were spread out behind him in a perpendicular line to the Pegasus, each having initiated their wells simultaneously rather than in sequence. Each ship was separated from the others by an adequate distance to keep their wells from overlapping, with the ship Adam was linked to the second from the left along the line.

  Adam felt along the electronic highway aboard the ship until he found the auxiliary steering control. He assumed control of the system … and sent the ship into a radical ninety-degree turn to starboard.

  At the incredible speeds the row of ships were traveling, none had time to react before Adam’s slaved ship angled across the paths of the other three ships to the right. Gravity-wells overlapped, drawing the starships towards a central point in space, and even before they joined, Adam’s ship slammed into the vessel immediately to starboard, resulting in a tremendous explosion mimicking a miniature nova. The other two ships met at the apex of their gravity-wells, and they, too, were consumed in a second massive burst of fire and radiation.

  That left only one pursuer … at least for the time being.

  Adam wasn’t linked to this ship, and he had no way of initiating contact without his own CW-comm being in working condition. Even the traditional radio was ineffective since both ships were still about a third of a light-year apart.

  Could the Pegasus take on a Kracori Class-5 dreadnaught on her own? He didn’t see how it was possible. Even though she did possess a powerful array of weapons, the Pegasus was built mainly for speed; her weapons were no match for the Kracori ship.

  If only he could get within range of his ATD without getting blown to dust.

  “What now, slick?” Sherri asked with a smile on her lips and worry in her eyes. “Once the rest of the fleet sees that
their other ships haven’t destroyed us, they’ll be an all-out race for Earth with only an hour or so separating the winners from the losers. That won’t be enough time for the planet to prepare a defense.”

  “You know I love you, Sherri,” Adam said, not looking away from his console, “but you do have a talent for stating the obvious.”

  “Yeah, but it sure beats sitting around keeping it all bottled up inside. Besides, I want to make sure we’re both on the same page.”

  “And what page is that, my dear, the one that reads ‘The End’?”

  “You know, the frickin Kracori won’t feel the urgency to follow us so closely … if they think we’re dead.”

  “And how do you suppose we pull off that magic trick?”

  “Hell if I know; you’re the miracle worker in this relationship,” Adam looked over at Sherri to see the smile still stretched across her face. “But you better hurry,” she said. “Once the Kracori decide to launch their whole fleet, they’ll probably just keep on coming.”

  Adam began to rack his brain for any idea, for anything the ATD could do to help. How could they convince the pursuing Kracori ship they they’ve been destroyed? And then it dawned on him – they didn’t have to convince this last pursuer that they were destroyed, just the bulk of the fleet, and Adam could do that … if he could get control of the communications system of the ship.

  “Stay here … I’ll be right back,” he said as he bolted out of his seat and rushed to the door of the pilothouse.

  “Where you going?”

  “To the cargo bay.”

  “What for…?” but he was already gone before he could reply.

  There were twelve canisters of the propellant catalyst for the chemical drive stored in the hold. The containers were high-tech, with their own self-contained transportation modules at their base and with automatic hookups and pumping controls on the top. By command, they would move to the engine supply station in the generator room and replenish as needed. And each of these automated units was controlled by a micro-processor.

  Adam had the ATD tap into the processors, and soon a strange parade of hundred-gallon barrels of highly-explosive chemical was making its way not to the generator room, but to the landing bay next to the cargo hold.

  Sherri appeared in the landing bay just as the last barrel made its way in.

  “You left the Klin in the control room by himself!” Adam scolded when he spotted Sherri’s blonde hair peaking above the last of the barrels in line.

  “Don’t worry,” Sherri yelled back. “I gave him some chin-music to listen to … if I didn’t kill him the process. Now, what are you doing?”

  “We need an explosion outside the ship, something to make the Kracori think we’ve overloaded a ring or two.”

  “They’ll be able to detect that the Pegasus is still intact.”

  “Yeah, but it will give them a reason to believe we’re disabled when I dump out of the well.”

  Sherri was silent for a moment as she considered the plan. “They may still shoot first and ask questions later.”

  “There’s that remarkable talent of yours on display again.”

  “I can’t help it.” Now she was getting mad. “I’ve kind of grown accustomed to living, dickhead!”

  “Me, too,” Adam replied, brushing past her once all the barrels were in position. He rushed out of the landing bay, heading for the pilothouse, again with Sherri a step behind.

  They both resumed their respective stations; Adam looked at the unconscious Klin slumped in his seat. “Looks like he’s still breathing … but he’s definitely going to need some plastic surgery to get his dashing good-looks back again.”

  Sherri was too nervous to reply. Instead she strapped herself in and began to prepare for the series of events she knew were coming.

  ********

  Through his ATD, Adam vacated the atmosphere from the landing bay and sent the barrels of catalyst hurling off into space. That wasn’t a very adequate description of what actually happened. In reality, the barrels traveled about two hundred yards from the rear of the Pegasus before being captured by the same gravity-well the ship was falling into. This was much too close for the explosion that was about to come, so Adam had to find a way of increasing the distance without the Kracori noticing.

  Timing would be everything.

  Adam prepared to ignite the chemical drive of the Pegasus – something that was never done while in a gravity-well. In fact, he wasn’t even sure what would happen. Would the super-heated exhaust simply curl back on itself, following the magnetic lines created by the well and engulf the Pegasus in a deadly inferno? Or would the thrust have no impact at all, since the well controlled all movement within the event horizon?

  He didn’t spend any more time debating the answers. Instead, as he triggered the chem-drive he also simultaneously dissolved the well. The blast from the engines struck the barrels just behind the Pegasus, while the momentary thrust after the well evaporated opened up the distance between the ship and the barrels to around a mile. It still wasn’t enough. The force of the massive explosion hurled the Pegasus forward, sending Sherri and Adam slamming in the backs of their seats. Then the ship began to tumble, so incredibly fast that even the internal gravity wells could not fully compensate. The arms and legs of the two Humans went flailing, twisted into almost impossible positions. Adam felt something snap, and pain engulfed his left shoulder. In the meantime, Sherri was screaming. Or was that him?

  Alarms were blaring throughout the pilothouse, and Adam stained to read the screen detailing the damage control measures the ship was automatically engaged in.. The landing bay had lost its outer doors, and most of the external airfoils used for chemical landing control within an atmosphere had been blown off. There was a hull breach just to starboard of the landing bay, which was rapidly being filled with prodigious amounts of sealing foam.

  Soon the piloting computer regained control of the tumbling spacecraft and Adam’s vision began to stabilize. The pain in his shoulder was more acute, and he looked over at Sherri to see how she had faired. Her nose was bleeding and her hair was a ratted mess atop her head, yet she appeared to have movement in all her limbs. As a rule, women were more flexible than men, so she had managed not to break any bones or pull any muscles. Even still, she looked to be completely disoriented and unaware of her surroundings.

  But not Adam; he leaned in closer to his monitor and checked the location of the Kracori warship. It was there, just outside the ship, sitting about a thousand yards off his port quarter. They had been fortunate to this point that the aliens hadn’t destroyed the hapless Pegasus. Maybe they were awaiting further orders before taking action? Whatever the reason, Adam was thankful they were still alive … yet he couldn’t wait around to see how much longer that would hold true.

  The Kracori ship was still too far out for the ATD to make contact, so Adam fingered the traditional radio comm. “Kracori ship, we surrender! Please help! We have injuries.”

  There was a momentary delay before a voice boomed out of the pilothouse speakers. “There will be no mercy, Humans! You will be destroyed….”

  Adam reached out with the ATD and rode the conventional radio waves until they joined with the transmitter aboard the alien ship. The transmitter was a backup to a backup to a backup aboard the alien ship, so it was not linked directly to the rest of the ship’s systems. Panicking, Adam began to feel his way along the various electronic pathways, desperate to find the weapon controls before the Kracori could unleash their deadly barrage of energy bolts against Adam’s defenseless ship.

  There was a surge of energy along one particular path; he followed it. There it was – fire control – and a command had just been sent to charge and fire this particular weapons bank. Quickly, Adam diverted the command to another direction … to one of the other batteries aboard the starship; a second later, flash cannon discharged, sending eight huge balls of pure energy hurling off into space – yet on the opposite side the Krac
ori ship from the Pegasus. And then before the Kracori could trace the cause of the firing error, the ATD located all four servers for the weapon systems and disabled them. Adam began to relax. All the alien ship could do now to the Pegasus was ram her – which was something Adam did not put past the savage Kracori.

  He would take his chances with that for the moment, as he gained control of the CW-comm computer aboard the Kracori Class-5 warship. He sent a flash message to the fleet, a blanket broadcast since he wasn’t sure if the flagship had regained control of their systems by then. “Human spacecraft destroyed … no survivors and no transmissions sent prior to destruction. Own CW-array damaged in the engagement; going offline for repairs.” The authentication signature for the message would be for the Kracori ship, and would be considered legitimate, at least until a follow-up link was established. Adam wouldn’t let that happen.

  He cut all power within the Kracori dreadnaught.

  The Kracori would be helpless aboard their massive ship, fumbling around in the dark and ever-growing cold trying to repair the unrepairable. Unfortunately, Adam had no way of knowing if the message he’d sent would delay the fleet’s departure from the Aslon system.

  He unstrapped and went to check on Sherri. She was still groggy, yet her awareness was returning. “Did we survive?” she asked without looking at Adam.

  “Nah, they got us. We’re dead … but at least we’ll be together through eternity.”

  “So, we’re in Hell?” she said, her groggy voice devoid of humor.

  “Anything broken?” Adam asked as he began to squeeze the joints of her arms and legs.

  “Do you mind? I don’t think anything’s broken, but I’m still ticklish.” She glanced over at the Klin. “How’d he make out?”

  Even without examining the alien Adam knew he was dead. “Not so good, looks like we may need to grab one of the Kracori if we want anyone to interrogate. And speaking of that, I’m going to wait a few more minutes for most of them to pass out from lack of air and then I’m going aboard their ship. I’m sure I can score some replacement focusing rings to get us back to full power.”