The Human Chronicles Saga : Boxset #2 (The Human Chronicles Saga Boxsets)

by T. R. Harris

  “Then we will find him for you, however it will be up to the Kracori to dispatch him. The Klin do not engage in such overt activities.”

  “Agreed! We Kracori will welcome the opportunity to do battle once more; we did so enjoy it before. We will bathe in its glory again, and the killing of Nigel McCarthy will be a fine preamble to our elimination of all the Humans of Earth.”

  1

  Adam Cain hated the smell of alien…

  …and the creature sitting across the table from him was certainly no exception. Even though he had never witnessed the smelly beasts consuming large amounts of fish – or any fish-like substances – they always seemed to reek of that pungent, rotting stench that often sent Adam’s throat and stomach to war with each other.

  And besides the smell, the Yakilian crime boss was also spitting some greenish liquid from his mouth as he spoke. Occasionally, a long tongue would snake out of his mouth and wipe the fluid from his elongated chin, and each time he did another gust of the foul-smelling odor would be sent Adam’s way. Also, the beast’s yellow eyes looked more jaundiced than intimidating. And if that weren’t enough, when the creature spoke, he revealed a complete lack of teeth per se, but rather a set of blackened corrugated membranes used in the chewing and grinding of whatever food the thing consumed.

  Yes, the Yakilian was truly disgusting, yet Adam Cain was right where he needed to be, seated before the alien crime lord, strapped to a chair, his hands bound securely behind him – and facing death right in the eye….

  As the senior agent for the New Expansion Force-One Enforcement Division, Adam and his partner Riyad Tarazi had arrived on the planet Yaki three days earlier, tasked with seeking an audience with the leader of the sector’s illegal intoxicant trade, a native named Jakian Foruka. The Yakilian had recently been making overt moves into the neighboring Sector Four, a region of space still loyal to the New Expansion and it administrator, Kroekus of Silea. The potent drugs Foruka flooded the region with had already caused over a thousand deaths on the bordering worlds, and the locals there had appealed to Kroekus to do something about it.

  The New Expansion was at a fragile point in its existence, as Kroekus and his allies sought to rebuild the once galaxy-wide empire back to its former glory. Since the collapse of Juirean rule twelve years before, a slight majority of the eight thousand worlds that had made up the former Juirean Expansion had gone their separate ways, resorting back to their pre-contact independence and vulnerabilities. Even though the New Expansion still counted nearly four thousand worlds as Members, the chaos of the independents was beginning to spread across borders, with rampant lawlessness and disregard for the sovereignty of others tested on a daily basis. At this critical point in the reconstruction of the Expansion, Kroekus was obligated to take action against Foruka and his drug dealers, if only to show the galaxy that the New Expansion had the backs of their loyal members.

  This was where Adam’s Force-One operatives came into play. With the authority to go anywhere within the realm of the old Expansion, Cain’s Crusaders – as they were called within their own ranks – could dispense with diplomacy and protocol and use whatever means necessary to accomplish their missions. Adam called this blanket authority a License to Kill, however in this case, it was a license to kill aliens.

  In fact, Cain’s Crusaders were often called in when diplomacy failed or when there was no central government or other authority causing the problems. Adam’s team specialized in delivering messages, and the message of the day was: ‘Don’t go up against the New Expansion or else terrible things will happen to you.’

  Jakian Foruka was about to have that message delivered personally by Adam Cain himself.

  Like any self-respecting crime boss, Foruka was hidden behind several layers of security, so when Adam and Riyad first landed upon the planet, it didn’t take them long to realize that just finding Foruka could be a problem. By traditional means, it could take days, if not weeks, and all the while the crime lord could get wind of their inquiries and flee, wasting all their time and effort.

  The two Force-One operatives needed another plan.

  So after spending three days scouting out several of the criminal’s more well-known warehouses, Adam decided on a more direct approach: He simply walked into one of Foruka’s warehouses and demanded to see the boss.

  This particular warehouse was in the Yaki capital city of Mufoon, a sprawling, ugly conglomeration of brick and concrete buildings seeming to infect several radically steep hills like a malignant tumor on the land. A river carved a steep quarter-mile-wide canyon between the hills effectively separating the disgusting part of Mufoon from the truly-disgusting section. The warehouse Adam entered was located on the truly-disgusting side.

  Inside the building Adam found over forty Yaki natives – Adam figured he’d call them natives, since it was obvious he was the only alien in the warehouse – and within moments of his arrival, they all produced flash weapons of every make and model, apparently out of thin air.

  One of the Yakilians approached him – obviously an underboss or capo of some kind. He towered over Adam, as did most aliens, and stared down with sickly yellow eyes. Other natives rushed in to disarmed him, taking from him his Smith & Wesson Model 629 .44-Magnum with Hoghunter Laser Grip – not his usual weapon of choice, but one selected specifically for this mission.

  The towering native asked him about his reason for being there and Adam stated that he was from the New Expansion and had a message for Foruka from the Administrator himself. The Yakilian then placed the barrel of an MK-17 bolt-launcher against Adam’s forehead. “You will reveal to me this message – now.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Adam said, calmly meeting the alien’s glare. “This message is for Foruka only.”

  “Then I will kill you now—”

  “And when your boss learns that an emissary from the New Expansion had come with a personal message for him, and you did not allow it to be delivered, how do you think he will react? There will be others who come after me; you will not be able to hide this information from Foruka.”

  Uncertainty filled the alien’s eyes, and after a bout of face-covering bloviating, the underboss eventually had Adam bound, blindfolded and placed in the back of a transport to be taken before Jakian Foruka.

  After about half an hour, Adam could hear the sounds outside the transport begin to echo off nearby walls as the vehicle entered another structure. Still blindfolded and bound, Adam was perp-walked into the inter-sanctum of Foruka’s criminal headquarters. The blindfold was removed and two Yakilians placed straps across his chest and legs, securing him to a wooden chair.

  Adam’s eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light inside the room, and he found he was sitting across a desk from a boney-looking creature with two curved horns sprouting from his forehead. Despite the horns, Foruka looked more like an emaciated ram than a devil, and Adam gave himself a mental pat on the back. I love it when a plan comes together…

  . Adam met the Foruka’s alien stare evenly, attempting to look slightly bored with the whole affair. Just a little more prodding and this smelly bastard should be ready….

  “For such a powerful criminal, I was expecting a more imposing creature,” Adam said. “You’re not much more than a goat that can talk.”

  “I do not know why you are trying to provoke me, or even for that matter, who you are?” the creature said, his voice popping out of his throat like bubbles from a pipe. The translation bug imbedded behind Adam’s right ear efficiently converted the Yakilian language to English, but it could not disguise the gurgling sounds coming from the alien. “The fact that you so boldly walked into one of my most important distribution centers proclaiming to have a message from Kroekus tells me that you are simply a courier and therefore expendable once the message is delivered, hence you gain no advantage by being provocative. So tell me, what is this message you carry?”

  Adam grinned widely. “Yeah, about that – I lied. There is no message. It
just seemed like the quickest way to meet you face-to-face.”

  Foruka narrowed his eyes and stared at Adam for a long moment before speaking. “You are truly insane to try such a ruse on me. Who are you and what do you want?”

  “My name is Cain, Adam Cain,” he replied in his best James Bond accent – the Sean Connery version, the only one that really counted.

  Foruka didn’t pick up on the significance of the accent, but the name did evoke a reaction. “Adam Cain? I do not believe it. I have heard of this being, but you cannot be he.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he is a Human, and all the Humans have left Expansion space.”

  “Apparently not all of us….”

  Foruka shook his head – at least that gesture was something the two races had in common. “You are using this name in an attempt to intimidate me, but you cannot possibly Adam Cain. He is a great person within the Human clan and he would not be way out here on Yaki – and certainly not foolish enough to arrive without backup or entourage.”

  Adam smiled – a large, toothy grin that he knew would be a sign of defiance and challenge in alien culture. “I don’t need backup, especially not against an inferior creature such as you.”

  He watched the anger grow in the Yakilian, an emotion that caused the alien’s eyes to water to such a degree that Adam thought he was crying. But he knew better; Adam had done his research.

  Foruka bit his bottom lip, trying to restrain himself. “With no message to deliver nor any force supporting you, I do not understand your blatant arrogance,” Foruka said, with almost pity in his voice. He looked down at Adam’s .44-Magnum resting on the table separating them, placed there by the tall Yakilian Adam had first met at the other warehouse. This creature now stood to Adam’s left the anger apparent on his face, infuriated that Adam had lied to him to gain access to Foruka. If Adam hadn’t had other plans for the natives in the room, he was sure Foruka’s lieutenant would have hell to pay for allowing this imposter to get this close to his boss.

  “You may be a Human, or you may not,” Foruka said, “but you have indeed arrived bearing a strange weapon.” He reached down to pick up the shiny silver, long-barrel handgun with the wooden grip. Adam maintained his challenging smile as he saw the shock cross Foruka’s face when he realized just how incredibly heavy the weapon was – at least for a Yakilian. The alien tried to hide his surprise and discomfort while barely managing to lift the gun with one hand, his arm trembling slightly from the effort.

  “Why do you carry such a cumbersome weapon?” Foruka asked. “An MK is much lighter and much more advanced. Projectile weapons are far too primitive to be effective.” The alien pressed the only button on the firearm – the one to the laser sight contained in the grip, and Adam’s smile spread a little wider.

  Instantly, Foruka noticed the green dot appear on the wall across the room. His eyes widened and the bony plates above them lifted. “Ah, this is indeed a primitive weapon; you must use manual sighting rather than computer targeting.” The crime lord looked to his right, at his lieutenant. “What do you make of this, Hicun? What are we to do with this beast now that we know he carries no official message and has lied to gain entry?”

  Foruka’s lieutenant maintained a stern expression, determined to salvage the situation if he could. “If this is indeed Adam Cain, then the one who kills him would be feared and respected throughout the galaxy. I say kill him, Foruka; kill him now before he has a chance to cause further trouble. No creature will challenge you after this deed is done.”

  “Yes! Kill him now, that is a good idea – and with his own weapon!” The Yakilian lifted the Smith & Wesson a little higher, struggling against the heavy weight of the firearm and its awkward balance to place the dancing green dot of the laser sight on Adam’s forehead and hold it steady. Finally, he gave up the pretense and brought his other hand up to help support the weapon. He placed his finger on the trigger.

  “Oh please, don’t kill me, you … you scunium!” Adam maintained his smile as he chanted the Yakilian word for asshole. The anger grew even more in the alien, and Adam saw him begin to squeeze the trigger. Past the safety point, the trigger became stiffer; Foruka struggled more, before finally placing a finger from his other hand on the trigger as well.

  Anytime now, Adam thought. He stretched out his smile even wider, baring his teeth. He continued to stare at the crime lord with a fierce intensity, challenging him.

  Finally the trigger depressed – and all hell broke loose in the room!

  First, the explosion from the shot came with a deafening boom, intensified by the confined space of the office, something aliens were not used to when compared to the softer poof of their flash weapons. Next, the recoil threw the massive handgun back toward Foruka, compressing the bones in his right forearm to such a degree that they shattered, exploding outward at the weakest point and penetrating the skin in a dozen places with splinters of thin, Yakilian bone.

  Foruka dropped the weapon on the desk and collapsed into his chair, not even screaming out in pain as the shock of his injuries overwhelmed him. He held what remained of his arm in his left hand, staring at it with impossibly wide eyes, his right forearm now forming a ninety-degree angle to the rest of his limb. And there was blood everywhere.

  Next, Adam stood up, breaking the thin wooden chair into kindling as he did so. He tore the bindings from his hands and then reached across the table to recover his weapon. Aiming to his right, he let loose with another deafening shot to the chest of the alien guard standing next to the table, a creature who had been stunned into inaction by the noise and bloody consequence of Foruka firing the S&W. Following that, Adam whipped the gun under his left arm and shot the other Yakilian – Hicun – in the face. The hollow-point, .44-caliber round passed effortlessly through the thin skin of the alien and then expanded outward, literally blowing away the entire skull of the creature. As Hicun fell to the floor, Adam was amused to see that only a flimsy – yet perfectly formed – yellow-tinted mask of the alien’s face remained.

  Adam brought the gun up to his lips and blew away imaginary smoke from the barrel. “Yippee ki-yay,” he chanted.

  For his part, Foruka was completely unaware of the death of his two guards, still engrossed in the shattered remains of his arm and muttering to himself in words the translator could not decipher. Adam brought the weapon up and sighted down the barrel at the alien’s head.

  “By the way, Foruka, I am Adam Cain, not that you’re going to live long enough to remember. Hasta la vista, baby!” then he pulled the trigger.

  Now that the deed was done, Adam knew it would take the other natives in the complex a few more seconds to react to the unfamiliar sounds coming from inside the office, but after that it would be swarming with armed and angry Yakilians.

  In the two-thirds gravity of Yaki, Adam ran quickly toward the outer side of the office, identified by windows set high up in the wall, letting in the pale yellow light of the Yaki star. He lowered his shoulder, and without slowing down, barreled into the wall like a fullback hitting a defensive line, breaking through it with little effort.

  Again, Adam’s pre-mission research had paid off, revealing to him that most Yakilian structures were built with vertical supports spaced at four-foot intervals. And even if he had been unlucky enough to encounter one of the wall studs, with the lower density of the wooden fibers on the planet, they would have easily shattered, just as did the covering wallboard. The outer skin of the building was made of a porous, concrete-like material and that, too, crumbled easily as Adam exploded through the wall and out into the open.

  However, what Adam had not counted on was that he would be three stories up when he broke through the wall.

  He exploded through the side of a building that sat on the slope of a steep hill and found he was flying through the air, arching toward the face of another building across a narrow alleyway. He managed to turn his back just before impacting the red stone surface, and even though a portion o
f the wall cracked and caved in slightly, the impact still knocked the air from his lungs, stunning him temporarily. But now he was falling, and even in two-thirds gravity, it was still at a pretty good clip.

  On the surface of Yaki, his normal 180-pound frame weighed in at only 120-pounds, so he braced his muscles for a landing on the concrete surface of the alley. He hit the street and rolled, lessening the impact of the landing on his knees. When he stood, he was uninjured and in an alleyway that formed an artery between two busy streets. The Smith & Wesson was still held firmly in his right hand, the green dot of the laser sight dancing erratically on the wall of the neighboring building. Adam smiled, and with his thumb turned off the radical-misaligned targeting laser.

  From experience, Adam knew that most aliens used computer targeting for their hand-held flash weapons, so he had gambled that Foruka would instinctively rely on the laser sight of the S&W, rather than use his own judgment when aiming the weapon. Therefore, Adam had set the sight a good eight inches or more off-center. Provoking Foruka to use his own weapon against him had been an integral – yet risky – part of his plan, yet it had worked flawlessly.

  Adam’s research had also revealed that the Yakilian bone structure was much weaker than that of a Human, and that it probably couldn’t withstand the recoil from the massive .44-caliber round. He had been right about that, too, and the results were even better than he’d anticipated.

  For Adam Cain, Human-Superman, this was Mission Accomplished.

  Now all he had to do was find a way to get off the planet….

  Adam heard the panicked voices of Yakilians coming through the gaping hole in the warehouse wall he’d just made, and when he looked up he saw a horned-headed alien emerge and aim an MK flash weapon in his general direction. It would take the targeting computer of the weapon about a second to lock onto his position, so in the interim, Adam aimed the .44 at his attacker and dropped him with accurate, canon-like blast to the forehead.