by T. R. Harris
That should make them think twice about sticking their heads through there, Adam thought. This is kinda like a game of whack-an-alien!
But just then, he heard the sound of dozens of footfalls on the concrete surface at street level coming from both ends of the alley; he was trapped, and with only two rounds remaining in the cylinder.
Adam reached behind his left ear and felt for the small round bump under the skin; he pressed it and heard a faint click as the communicator was activated.
“Riyad, where am I?” he spoke into the alleyway.
“I have you about twenty miles out – I’m on my way.”
“Better hurry, they have me trapped in an alley and I’m low on ammo.”
“Two minutes. Do you see any place to land?”
All Adam could see were the steep walls of the surrounding buildings hugging the hills in every direction, yet none were over five or six stories tall. “Just buildings, so come in on gravity. You’ll be able to take off the roofs on all the ones around me.”
“You’re saying we’re going for a gravity extraction?” Adam could almost hear the smile in Riyad Tarazi’s voice through the communicator.
“We practiced this; it should work.”
“It’s your call, my friend. I envy the ride – deploying netting now.”
The alleyway was devoid of even the most ubiquitous of dumpster or storage crate, leaving Adam out in the open and vulnerable. Foruka’s Yakilians had arrived at the opposite ends of the alley and sent a few un-targeted flash bolts around the corners and in his general direction. As it was with nearly all aliens, they were terrible shots without a targeting computer, so Adam simply sent a shot in the direction of the nearest corner to drive them back. Once Riyad appeared overhead in the Phoenix, the destruction wrought by the use of a gravity drive within city limits would serve as the best cover he could hope for. But in the meantime, the aliens had confiscated his additional ammo and now all he had left was a single round before his impressive weapon became just a heavy piece of stainless steel. Even with that, if the natives came close enough, it would serve as a very effective hammer.
Just then, Adam heard a sharp crackling sound coming from the left end of the alley. His eyes widened, as a sparkling ribbon of white-hot electricity suddenly began tumbling towards him, like a ten-foot long snake suffering from an angry epileptic seizure. The electric snake rolled down the alley, closing the distance rapidly while Adam watched in horror as the twists and contortions of the deadly weapon were impossible to gauge. It was coming right at him and he had no place to hide.
Damn this alien universe and their fascination with electricity!
At the last moment, Adam chose the only path of escape he could think of … and he jumped straight into the air. In the lighter gravity of Yaki, he reached nearly ten feet in his leap, and the whipping coil swung under him, missing his dangling feet by mere inches. He dropped back to the surface and watched the coil continue to roll away and exit onto the main street at the other end of the alley.
One of Foruka’s Yakilian gangsters came around the corner of the building where the coil had originated, armed with a flash rifle and confident that the electric snake had cleared out the alleyway. Adam greeted him with the final round from the S&W. The bullet struck the goat-faced creature in the right shoulder, severing the arm from his body and throwing the rest of the bloody corpse back into the rush of other Yakilians beginning to round the corner. They all fell back, diving for cover, as the severed arm continued to spasm on the ground, a gruesome reminder of the awesome stopping power of the Smith & Wesson.
Riyad’s arrival in the Phoenix was none too soon … and impossible to miss.
To his relief, Adam looked up to see the delta-shaped spacecraft begin its descent toward the surface. As it dropped closer to the tops of the buildings, loud rumbling and ripping sounds could be heard as the roofs began to be torn from their supports, drawn inexorably upwards toward the series of gravity singularities forming far above the rapidly approaching spacecraft. In a matter of seconds, the contest between the alien-built structures and the gravity-wells was lost, and massive sections of roof, walls and interiors began to fly skyward in a reverse downpour of debris. The alleyway was quickly filled with clouds of dust drawn in from the surrounding area, dust that soon began to form into torrents of tornadic columns reaching up to and beyond the spacecraft.
Adam could feel the air being sucked from his lungs, as well as the tug of gravity from above. He crouched down, and with a powerful burst from his legs, jumped upwards into the air. With an assist from the ship’s gravity well, he gained altitude quickly, easily reaching the third or fourth stories of the buildings on either side of the alley, their own upper stories now completely torn off.
But it still wasn’t enough – he began to fall back toward the surface. “More power, Riyad!” he cried out, watching the surface of the alley speed toward him.
And then, when about ten feet from the surface, he felt a greater tug in the opposite direction. As he began to climb again, he struggled to gain his breath, but soon found there was thicker and dirtier air all around him.
The bottom of the large spaceship grew rapidly as Adam was pulled upward. He could also see the large, circular form of the netting placed at the exact center of the ship, its own surface pulled taunt and concaved against the pull of the gravity well. If he was to survive, he would have to hit the net dead on.
Adam was carried upward in a black cloud of debris, and then just as he approached the netting, he saw a Yakilian off to his right who had also been lifted by the gravity-well. The alien was staring at him with the most startled look Adam had ever seen. Adam didn’t have time to react before he contacted the net and sank into it; the Yakilian missed it by about two feet and impacted the solid metal surface of the underbelly of the spaceship – and turned instantly into a round, red splotch, crushed against the metal by the force of the well.
Adam grabbed the netting and instantly felt its bands begin to cut into his flesh. He was being pulled through it like dough through a spaghetti maker!
“I’m on, Riyad! Cut the power and let’s get out of here!”
Much to his relief, the gravity-well dissolved just as the chemical engines exploded to life. Adam felt a rush of hot air as the ship slid off toward the east, now climbing high above the rooftops of the city.
And then he began to fall.
Without the tug of the gravity-well holding him against the netting, the planet Yaki began to take over. Adam reached up just in time to grab hold of one of the long, nylon filaments that made up the net, and then dangled there by one hand as the spaceship picked up speed. “Damnit, Riyad, I’m about to fall off! Do something.”
Almost immediately, Adam felt the counter gravity from a small well, yet one not nearly as intense as before. He managed to get a better grip on the netting with his other hand and then he looped an elbow through the bands.
“Are you still there?” Riyad asked, sounding only slightly concerned.
“Yeah – thanks for asking.”
“So it worked; that’s something to keep in mind for next time.”
“Next time it’s your turn, and I’ll be at the controls.”
“I’m looking forward to it, my brother. They’ve been calling us supermen for long enough. It’s about time we learned how to fly like one. I’ll set us down in the fields about ten miles further on.”
2
The ship’s four landing pads were deployed, and as soon as the spacecraft was about twenty feet off the surface Adam let go of the netting and fell to the grassy ground below. He fought against the hot rush of the chemical jets and ran for the access ramp Riyad was deploying. Even before it was fully extended, he jumped the ten feet onto it and ran into the ship, slamming the controls that would retract the ramp back into the ship.
“I’m in … let’s go.”
“Roger, Captain Cain. Your wish is my command.”
Thirty seconds later Ad
am was in the pilothouse and slipping into a seat next to Riyad. Through the forward view screen he could see the blackness of space directly in front of them, as well as the bright, thin glow from the atmosphere of Yaki curving off to the right and left. The darkness grew thicker, and within seconds they were in space.
Riyad looked over at Adam and did a quick double take. “Checkers anyone?” he asked through his trademark brilliant-white grin.
Adam could feel the burning from the various squares of red welts that were rapidly forming on his skin, imprints from the netting that had nearly diced him to bits. “Maybe we need to rethink a tarp instead of netting,” Adam said. “If the bands were any thinner, I’d be nothing but a bunch of bloody Adam McNuggets by now.”
“But it worked – sort of. And I assume Foruka won’t be causing any more trouble for the Expansion?”
“You know they’ll just replace him, and then it will be business as usual,” Adam said, grimacing as he ran a finger over the welts swelling up on his face.
“That’s true, but not before there’s a major power struggle for control of his drug empire. That could take a year or two to settle out. Hopefully by then, our friend Kroekus will have worked more of his political magic and brought these disgusting creatures back onto the reservation.”
“Riyad, you know talk like that is blatantly racist.”
The swarthy pilot just grunted. “It’s either a political solution … or more of us. The Yakilians will have to make a choice. Either way, I’m fine with it.”
A monitor on Riyad’s console began to chime. “We were anticipating this, my friend. Four pursuers, closing fast.”
“Government?”
“Their transponders would indicate so.”
“Open a link—”
“Departing ship, initiate contact!” a bubbling voice burst through the speakers in the pilothouse.
Adam smiled at Riyad. “They beat me to it.” He fingered the switch. “This is the New Expansion ship Phoenix. We are on a protected mission under authority of the Administrator. I am sending you the coded authorization now.”
Once Adam had sent the communication, the two Humans sat back and waited to see if the document would be honored. They held out little hope that it would; it had only been honored once before.
“New Expansion ship Phoenix, this document is not recognized within the Yakilian Triumvirate. The Expansion no longer has authority over our affairs. You have just caused the destruction of a portion of Mufoon, as well as the deaths of dozens of our citizens, including the most-revered Jakian Foruka. You are therefore ordered to reverse course and return to Yaki immediately.”
Adam pulled up the long-range monitors showing the four ships flanking them, two on each side, and could see the distinctive hotspots on each ship as they charged up their flash weapons.
“It looks like they don’t expect us to comply,” Riyad said, himself busy with the controls for the Phoenix’s own weapons.
“Yaki vessels,” Adam announced. “Our authority supersedes that of your system. We will not comply, and I must warn you any action against us will result in the most severe of consequences.”
“Very well,” the bubbling voice responded immediately. “By my authority, I declare you fugitives from justice and evoke Law 17. You will be destroyed immediately.”
Adam could see the four Yakilian ships had engaged their defensive diffusion screens and that their flash weapons were now fully charged. Any second now they would release bolts of blue-hot energy towards the Phoenix.
However, what the Yakilians did not know was that they would be firing upon a very special ship in its own right….
With nearly unlimited funds provided by the Administrator of the New Expansion, Adam and his small band of Human warriors had managed to design and build the most-advanced starship in the galaxy. Among its many refinements, the Phoenix boasted not four, but eight focusing rings capable of generating gravity-wells in as many directions. And not only that, the internal compensators were the fastest ever built, allowing for radical vector shifts that would have normally crushed a crew to death before the compensating gravity-wells could save them.
So when the first bolts were released from the Yakilian ships, Riyad simply performed a steep barrel roll to his left, at such a speed and angle that the Phoenix seemed to appear almost instantaneously on the opposite side of the two left-attacking ships.
Then before the Yakilians could react, Riyad unleashed his own hell upon the attackers closest to him. The laser weapons he fired were also unlike any before them. They were low intensity, yet even at that, they departed the Phoenix at nearly one-third the speed of light and carried at their tips a cone of special heat-resistant material. Yet even that material wasn’t enough to withstand the extreme temperature of the short-range lasers for very long. By the time the cone disintegrated and the lasers were shut down, the payloads were already streaking toward their targets at speeds faster than any flash-bolt could achieve.
The payloads – the material that had been embedded into the mesh of the laser cone, consisted of thousands of tiny ball bearings. They now traveled toward the Yakilian spaceships at unimaginable speeds, and each carrying the kinetic energy of a small meteorite. Since diffusion shields are designed to absorb and dissipate the electrical charge from energy weapons, the ballistic balls of metal passed cleanly through the shields and contacted the surface of the Yakilian ships unimpeded. At the point of contact, the hulls dissolved, opening up an area approximately three feet in diameter, as the cloud of ball bearings continued to pass through all interior features and exit out the other side of the ships in less than a blink of an eye. The rapidly escaping atmosphere within the Yakilian spaceships further widened the hull breeches, and soon both ships were torn in half, with each end tumbling off in a Y-like formation into the blackness of space.
The other two Yakilian ships witnessed their counterparts fall in a most-lopsided manner and chose not to pursue the Phoenix. Instead, they bolted off in the opposite direction at speeds much higher than was recommended within a stellar system.
“I tried to warn them,” Adam said at the conclusion of the short battle. “But I’m glad it happened. This will give the Yakilians even more to think about if they ever want to go up against the Expansion again.”
Having never lost his smile, even in the heat of battle, Riyad looked over at Adam. “Listen to you, Mr. Cain. You sound like such the company man. I would have never imagined it to be so!”
3
Over the five hundred years since Surun became the capital of the Omphly Federation, the look of the planet had changed considerably. Now most of the planet’s architecture consisted of stark, grey concrete buildings devoid of ornamentation of any kind. The structures were functional, and that was about all. The male-dominated society chose function over form, not concerned with anything beyond the basic. So their architecture, cities, society – indeed the entire planet – was a study in absolute functionality, guaranteeing they would never win any awards for style or creativity.
Hoagmar Zin had never been to the planet before so he didn’t know what to expect beyond the basics: Expansion-normal gravity, a breathable atmosphere slightly higher in oxygen content than his native In’mar, and the current headquarters of his old friend Fex-Lor Tenth.
It had been nine years since last he saw Fex-Lor, not since the skinny Vinnerian had left the inner sectors and headed for the rebellious regions of the Expansion, seeking a more-open and profitable environment from which to run his operations. From the few contacts he’d had with his former partner-in-crime recently, Fex-Lor was doing quite well, or at least he was now. This was a relatively new situation for him, since Zin had heard that only three years before Fex-Lor was having to sell slaves just to make ends meet. Since the slave-trade occupied the lowest rung on the ladder of criminal activity, this meant Fex-Lor had not found his Golden Forlac like he’d been seeking, not until just recently.
Yet the news filtering
out of Surun and the Federation now revealed Fex-Lor to be one of the top three crime lords in the sector, and this had all come about over the past three standard years. Besides the joy he would experience with seeing his old friend again, Zin was more-than-curious how Fex-Lor had managed his profitable turnabout in such a short time.
Yet reminiscing about old times was not the primary reason Zin had come to Surun. He was actually on an assignment, and his former partner might be a source of information which could prove very profitable to Zin. At least that was where all the trails were leading.
It had been two months since Zin received the commission. It had arrived through one of his normal cutouts and consisted of just a simple text message along with a sum of twenty-thousand credits transferred into his account. His assignment was to track down and report the current location of a creature name Ni-gel Mcoukatie – or something like that. He had seen the words yet was at a lost as to how the name was pronounced in his native In’marian. Since the minor-name was so difficult for Zin to speak, he chose to call his mark Ni-gel. It was simpler that way.
This was the fourth assignment he’d received from this same source, and by now a pattern was beginning to emerge. With the type of information sought for each commission, Zin was pretty sure his ultimate employers were the Klin.
The fact that he did not know this for sure was his only saving grace, and the reason he accepted the assignment in the first place. With the mysterious and ancient Klin now a documented ‘outlaw race’ by the Humans, Zin would be taking an incredible risk accepting a commission from them. Yet with all the cutouts and blinds he had established over his career, he was confident he could plead ignorance if he was ever accused of assisting the Klin. However, he had no idea how the Humans would treat such a plea, especially in light of their own nasty reputation.