Scorched Earth: (The Human Chronicles Saga Book #16)

by T. R. Harris

  Adam reached out with his ATD to communicate with the three-billion-year-old alien-created personal service module he’d brought to Earth after his last adventure.

  Do you understand the dilemma? he asked the object. It could only communicate telepathically—and Adam was the only person in the galaxy who had an embedded Formilian artificial telepathy device linked to his brain.

  Yes, Adam. I’m scanning the nearby units. They are really quite primitive.

  Save the editorializing for later, my friend. Can you link with them or not?

  Not the actual engines, yet I can access the main battery packs.

  Can you add power to them…or whatever it is you do?

  Yes. I can supply the packs with near-instant energy, although the composition of my resources are slightly different than used here.

  “What’s he saying?’ Riyad asked, growing impatient with Adam’s silent staring at the orb.

  “He said he can recharge the batteries, but can’t power the engines directly.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Pogo, what does this mean for the operation of the ship?

  The vessel will be able to perform as designed, and the recharge times will be shortened considerably.

  By how much?

  Hard to know for sure, not without direct experimentation. However, my scan indicates that as of now, after a full draining of the batteries, a one hour, four minute recharged would be required, based on your Human time scale. With my input, I can decrease that to two minutes.

  Adam’s eyes widened. He looked up at an anxious Riyad. “Two minutes between recharges!”

  “And that means what…exactly?”

  “A two minute recycle time between each three light-year jump.”

  Riyad blinked. “That’s barely enough time to get our bearings. It’s also something like ninety light-years per hour. That’s fast.” Adam could see the glimmer in his friend’s eyes. The mission was shaping up.

  “Okay, this is what we’ll do,” Adam said, his voice trembling with excitement. “We need weapons and supplies. I’m sure the ship doesn’t carry any long-term provisions or armaments onboard, not being an experimental craft. So let’s stock up and be ready to move out tomorrow night.” His face turned solemn. “They’re not going to let us out of here without a fight. We may have to bust a few heads along the way.”

  Riyad flashed his trademark smile. “That never bothered me in the past. Don’t know why it would now?”

  “Pogo, stay here and learn all you can about the onboard systems,” he said to the orb aloud. It could hear others talk, even as it could only communicate telepathically with Adam.

  Yes, Captain Cain, as you command.

  ********

  Adam and Riyad left the ship.

  “Let’s pray the sentries don’t tell anyone we were here,” Riyad said. “That could tip off Hollingsworth about our plans.”

  “I get the feeling he already has his suspicions. Dammit, I should never have told him I knew about the Mark VII.”

  “To head him off, I suggest that later today you do something to convince him you’ve put any ideas of a rescue out of your mind.”

  “Like what?”

  Riyad raised his left hand. With his fingers cupped together he twisted his wrist back and forth. “If you’re going to be paraded around the Union, you could show him how you’ve been practicing your Queen’s Wave.”

  “Asshole. Let’s get going. There’s still a lot of real work to be done before we go rescue our damsels in distress.”

  ********

  As soon as he opened the exterior door to the hangar, Adam was blinded by an assault of light from multiple sources. Squinting through the glare, he saw at least twenty armed soldiers, with lights attached to their weapons, and all the barrels aimed at them.

  A backlit figure approached. “I knew you’d try something stupid like this,” said Admiral Mort Hollingsworth. He motioned for this men to lower their weapons. “There you have it. That was your one and only get-out-of-jail-free card, just to let you know you’re being watched. Next time I won’t let you off so easy.”

  Riyad sighed and leaned against the corrugated metal wall of the hangar, defeated.

  Adam wasn’t so compliant.

  “I’m sorry, Holly, but this is one order I can’t follow.”

  Just then, all the lights on the soldier’s weapons, as well as those illuminating the exterior of the hangar, suddenly winked out. On such a moonless night, the area was cast into near total darkness, with only the glow from the distant headquarters complex defining the landscape.

  “Cain, what the hell are you doing?” Hollingsworth cried out.

  But Adam was already on the move. He ducked back into the hangar, pulling Riyad in by the shirtsleeves after him. He slammed the metal door shut and activated the electronic lock with his mind.

  “That won’t keep them out,” Riyad yelled.

  “I reset the locking code.”

  “To what?”

  “Six zeros, it’s the only thing I could think of at the moment.”

  The lights in the hangar popped on again as they sprinted for the entrance to the Mark VII starship.

  “What now?” Riyad queried. “They’ll have a thousand troops outside in a matter of minutes. There’s no way they’ll let us take this thing out onto the tarmac, even if we could get it moving.”

  Adam stopped at the hatchway and pointed up. “The roof rolls away. We’re not going out…we’re going up!”

  Pogo, can you get the generators operating?

  I’ve been monitoring events. Perhaps you should asked that question before you set out on this particular course of action?

  Can you or can’t you?

  Yes, already charging. Adequate power for liftoff in twenty-three seconds.

  Great. We’re heading for the bridge.

  The hum of spinning-up electronics was heard throughout the ship as Adam and Riyad dashed onto the bridge. With so much interior space taken up with generators and battery banks, the ship was only designed to carry a crew of three, including a pilot, co-pilot and test monitor. Adam and Riyad slipped into the control seats and strapped in. Thanks to Adam’s ATD, screens were already lit with data steaming across. A dial on the left side of the pilot’s panel was building to one-hundred, an indication of full power.

  “I thought you said this thing was too heavy to fly?” Riyad pointed out.

  “That’s to get it to full capacity, and we won’t need the weight of the extra generators strapped on the hull, not with Pogo aboard.” Adam scanned his control board until he found what he was looking for. He activated the switch.

  A prolonged series of loud, echoing clanks and clunks was heard coming from outside the ship.

  “I assume that’s the sound of the external generators being jettisoned?”

  “Like I said, we don’t need them…I hope. I’m opening the upper hangar doors.”

  Using his ATD, Adam located the overhead door controls. Riyad switched his screen to a top view and watched as the huge panels separated along a centerline. The gaping black opening grew wider, beaming the light from the interior of the hangar into the sky above. A few stray clouds made their presence known in the phantom light from below.

  When the charge indicator topped out, Adam ignited the chemical liftoff jets.

  The Mark VII had only ever been launched by first moving it through wide side panel doors and onto the vast concrete pad outside. The hangar was never designed to accommodate a vertical liftoff. By lighting off the jets in such an enclosed space, the effect was much more impressive than an outside launch. Quite a bit so.

  The side walls bulged out, as fire and white smoke slammed against them, before being vented upward and through the now-open roof of the hangar. Bright torrents of roiling flame and gas shot skyward, joined a moment later by the ghostly shape of a starship moving within the fiery cloud. The ship gained altitude quickly, w
hile trailing even more fire and brimstone below. At five thousand feet, Adam tilted the nose to a radical angle toward the heavens and applied full chem power.

  The image on the screen now showed the hangar as a prominent beacon of light far below within the vastness of the blackened landing field. The dot of light grew smaller, even as the brilliant glow of the city of Phoenix to the north came into view. But it, too, soon turned to just a white smudge on the dark globe below.

  Once clear of the atmosphere, Adam activated the first gravity jump without knowing exactly to where. Instantly the view on the screens changed to that of an eerie greenish glow with faint streaks of white and blue forming the walls of a poorly-defined circle. The image only lasted a few seconds before normal space popped back into view. A low-pitched hum cycled down, then there was silence.

  Riyad tapped the keys on his console. “According to the star positions, we’re two-point-nine-four light-years from Earth. Not quite the three the salesman said she’d do, but close enough.”

  “Anyone around?”

  “No one close, just a few faint signatures near the edge of the screen.”

  “Which way to Worak-nin?”

  Riyad checked his screen. “Back the other way. Distance, sixty-two hundred light-years, give or take a light-year. You know, I’m no mathematical genius, but that’s still around two thousand seventy jumps. With two minutes between each jump we’re looking at around three days to get there.”

  “You figured that out in your head? Maybe you are a mathematical genius.”

  Riyad flashed a smile.

  “Still beats the old transit time of around a month,” Adam continued. “Plot-in the course.”

  “What about provisions…and weapons?”

  “Yeah, about that, we may have to make a stop along the way. We’ll see how things go.” He unbuckled his safety harness. “I’m going back to see what Pogo has learned about the ship.” He looked at the chronometer on the wall. “New jump coming up. Set it on auto. We’ve got quite a ways to go.”

  “Yessir, Captain Cain, sir.” Riyad saluted.

  Slipping from the pilot seat, Adam returned the salute, however, his was of the one-finger variety.

  Chapter 3

  Adam was surprised by what Pogo had already learned about the Mark VII. First, it did carry a decent-size compliment of armaments, as well as enough provisions to last a crew of three for a month. The reason—as it turned out—was the ship was being prepped for a full dynamic test, using the cluster of extra generators that had been strapped to the exterior. Researchers wanted to see how the ship would function with a full load.

  When Adam dumped the exterior generators, the ship’s weight was lessened considerably, allowing for an uneventful liftoff from Earth’s surface. Then with Pogo’s energy contribution to the batteries, the ship was able to make jump after jump—three light-years at a time—with minimal recharge time between, and without the need for the additional generators. It was a win-win all around.

  Seventeen hours into the trip, all that changed.

  Adam, we have a problem, Pogo’s ethereal voice echoed in his mind.

  He and Riyad were in the small galley, preparing a bland meal of spaghetti-like mush. The ship’s food processor wasn’t the best, just something with comparable weight and able to keep the test crew from starving.

  What is it? Adam asked mentally, his gut tensing. The ancient orb didn’t engage in idle conversation.

  My energy inputs are having a degrading effect on the battery components. The subtle difference in wavelengths is the cause.

  How bad is it?

  I’ve noticed it early enough to prevent the batteries from failing completely. But soon the ship will require a new battery bank along with a four-hour initial charging boost using conventional power. I can regulate future power inputs to prevent this from happening again—at least the requirement for replacements. Yet periodically we will need full recharges with conventional energy timed at several hours each.

  How much time do we have left on the existing batteries?

  Two hours of jump times, approximately one hundred eighty light-years.

  Okay, give us some time to see what we can come up with.

  You have two hours if we continue with the same jump schedule.

  “Problem,” Adam announced aloud. He repeated to Riyad what Pogo had just told him.

  “That’s what we get for stealing a prototype,” Riyad said.

  The two men hurried to the bridge with bowls of steaming mush in their hands.

  Their current location placed them just on the Kidis Frontier side of the border, which according to the Juireans, was now Expansion territory. This area between the two galactic empires would the most-saturated with passive detectors, and having already perforated local space with a series of pop-ins and pop-outs, it was a good bet the Juireans were already tracking these disturbances, even if they didn’t know what they were.

  “I have no idea what’s around here,” Adam complained. “And who knows where we’re going to find a new battery bank for an experimental starship of Human design.”

  Riyad’s forehead was creased with worry lines. “Not much out here, from what I can see. We’re in the void area between arms of the galaxy. However, if we do find any settlements out here, it’s a good bet they should have a fully-stocked starship parts store. They’d be like an oasis in space and quite popular.”

  “By the way, you got any money on you?” Adam asked.

  Riyad withdrew his wallet. “Twenty-seven dollars. Any idea what the exchange rate is out here?”

  “Not enough, that’s for sure. Hey…what this?”

  Riyad leaned in close to Adam’s screen. “Bingo! Looks like a small support colony about twelve light-years from here.”

  “Yeah, and sitting on a single lump of rock out in the middle of nowhere. It’s registered under the authority of the Tigans, whoever they are. Let’s check it out.”

  “And the money situation?”

  Adam smiled. “I do have my American Express Gold Galaxy card with me.”

  “The one backed by an M-101 assault rifle?”

  “That’s the one. Never leave home without it.”

  ********

  Twelve light-years was only four jumps and less than ten minutes from their present location, yet rather than pop in close to the station, Adam dumped out of the jump half a light away and approached under a conventional gravity-well of modest depth. He didn’t want to attract any undue attention.

  Support colonies were like truck stops in space, eking out a rough and tumble existence by catering to the needs of star travelers traversing wide stretches of void space. Most were huge space stations, while others took advantage of large asteroids or stray planetoids. The majority of commercial starcraft weren’t equipped to go more than a few thousand light-years without refueling and provisioning, making these stations vital to interstellar travel and commerce. The prices were astronomical, but desperate people were willing to pay the cost for not planning well enough in advance to fill-up at a more competitive gas station.

  Adam was in the desperate category. He also had no money, which made the saying he’d kill for a new bank of batteries more literal than figurative. It may very well come down to that. After all, Sherri and Arieel were worth a few dead aliens. Maybe more than a few.

  The settlement was on a rogue rock about half the size of the moon, and it was obvious from first glance that the Tigans had been there for a very long time. As the only piece of solid ground for three hundred light-years, the colony’s operators had taken advantage of nearly every level square foot of the surface, covering it over with a complicated spider-web-like network of rust-colored plasti-steel canopies and connecting tubes, dotted with thousands of rectangular windows, most covered in a thick layer of obscuring dust.

  A survey map of the settlement came up on Adam’s screen, providing more information about the colony. There was a permanent population of around ten thous
and individuals, serving the needs of approximately three thousand starships per standard Juirean year. The one feature that caught Adam’s attention, however, was the mention of an underground gravity-grid.

  He’d heard of this being done before, but not on something this small. Buried generators produced a series of regulated singularities in huge chambers carved out below surface, creating a supplement to the planetoid’s own feeble gravity field. Adam knew this type of technology didn’t come cheap, but it would provide them with gravity similar to Juirean-standard or about three-quarters that of Earth.

  “Heads up, Mister Cain—we have Juireans.”

  Adam glanced at Riyad’s real-time view of the colony. There were several ships in stationary orbit above the main part of the settlement, among them a couple of Class-4 Juirean cruisers. The long-range video also showed a dozen or more Class-2’s and -3’s in port at the three surface landing fields visible from this angle. Undoubtedly, there would be more on the other side.

  “Shit!” Adam growled.

  “Luckily we took a detour from our projected path to Worak-nin,” Riyad said. “Maybe they won’t associate us with the mystery signal that’s been popping in and out of their space.”

  “We’re still two Humans in a Human-designed starship.”

  “Well, maybe it’s time to let the aliens know who’s boss, Captain Cain,” Riyad said with an evil-looking grin.

  Adam sighed. “Yep, you’re right. Nothing subtle; it never is. I’ll have Pogo keep what’s left of our battery banks charged and ready. When we get what we’re after, we’ll pop out of here, leaving the mane-heads with one finger up their noses and another up their butts, wondering what just happened.”

  “You paint such graphic images with your colorful American way of saying things.”

  Adam smiled. “Gear up, buddy. We’re going in.”

  ********

  Three suits of battle armor were found hanging in a locker within the Mark VII’s service bay. There was also a compartment with a wide assortment of projectile and flash weaponry. Ammo for the Human weapons could be an issue. They only had twenty-five thousand rounds of standard caliber. There were a lot more than twenty-five thousand Juireans in the galaxy, but that would be a good start.