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

by T. R. Harris

  For his part, McCarthy was not carrying a flash rifle; instead he wore only a Colt M1911 pistol in a holster around his waist. The only other piece of electronics he had on his body was the shoulder communication module … plus a strange looking medallion hanging from a chain around his neck. Adam sought to learn more of the medallion but found just a void area in his scan. Either the medallion was not electronic or … McCarthy had built a Formilian-type control device!

  The revelation shocked Adam to his core. This was one of his worst fears – what if McCarthy learned the secret of artificial telepathy. He scoured his memory to see if he could remember if any of McCarthy’s men also wearing medallions but didn’t think so. He was sure he would have noticed, since the pendant was so prominent on Nigel. So if it was only Nigel he had to contend with, then he just may have a chance. Besides, Adam was pretty sure Nigel didn’t know about Adam’s own device.

  “We’ll be parting company here, Adam,” Nigel was saying. I will take your team back to my base for safekeeping, while you take one of your hotrods back to Formil. I know how fast your ships can go, so I wouldn’t lollygag if I were you.”

  Adam was almost positive he’d never heard Lex Luther or one of the Bond villains say lollygag before, but he was also sure there’s never been a super-villain named Nigel before, either. That kind of thinking – at a time like this – was not helpful.

  McCarthy stood up and pulled Adam to his feet. He flicked out a Fury commando knife and cut the nylon straps from his hands. “You may need your hands free to pilot the ship. Now let’s get you going. I’m sure you have everything you need aboard your ship.”

  McCarthy led Adam to the elevator and then down and out of the living quarters building. During the walk to the hangar, neither said a word. Nigel walked with the confidence of a person who knew he was in complete control of situation, and in some ways he was. He had four of Adam’s closest friends locked away in another building and under guard by twelve highly trained commandos. He was also wearing a device around his neck that allowed him to control electronic modules.

  Adam’s one ace-in-the-hole was that he sure his device was of a more-advanced and that he had training from the masters, something Adam was sure Nigel lacked. Once he got to the hangar, with its myriad of electronic equipment, modules and machines, Adam would make his move.

  As they approached the building, Adam saw that the lights illuminating the entrance to hangar were on, even though he had turned them off himself – mentally. He also saw the bloody corpses of Nigel’s commandos strewn out on the tarmac. And there, off near the edge of the building and situated between two empty power-module containers, was the still body of Lee Schwartz.

  Adam felt an incredible wave of sorrow flow over him. He had known Lee for over three years and could count the missions they’d gone on together at over twenty. He had played cards with the man and traded jokes. They each shared a love for the ocean – the ocean of Earth – and the scenic beauty of the California coast. But now here he was, on a world twenty-thousand light years from his home with no one to grieve for him, except only in passing.

  McCarthy would pay for this! Even though Lee was just one more casualty to be added to McCarthy complicity in a billion others, this one was right up there with the deaths of his wife and child during the Juirean attack on Earth.

  As the two of them passed through the gaping entrance to the huge hangar, Adam could feel the awareness grow within him. The device was either mirroring his anger or had sensed it on its own. Either way, the unit was geared up and ready for action.

  First, Adam severed the leads to Nigel’s shoulder communicator, isolating him from contacting his backup. Then they approached the ramp leading up to the airlock within the Phoenix.

  “I’ll be watching the newscast,” McCarthy said at the head of the ramp. “The news of the Speaker’s death needs to be broadcast; I need my Omphly allies to know when the deed is done. Only then will I release your team, including Ms. Valentine.”

  Adam had already entered the airlock when he turned back to Nigel. “I need to use a tractor to pull the ship out of the hangar,” he said while walking back down the ramp past Nigel.

  “Make it quick—”

  As Adam passed McCarthy he lowered a shoulder into the Englishman’s side while at the same time grabbing the chain holding the medallion around his neck. He shoved Nigel further up the ramp and into the airlock while ripping the medallion away. Once Nigel was inside the airlock, Adam commanded that the hatch close and the inner door lock, trapping McCarthy inside.

  Adam stood panting on the incline ramp, holding the medallion in his right hand and feeling really proud of himself. That was easy. Now McCarthy was out of the picture; all Adam had to do was head back and rescue the rest of his team—”

  Suddenly the outer hatch began to open! McCarthy was standing at the entrance now holding his Colt firmly in his right hand. “You dumbass! The device still works for several feet away from my body. It’s my brainwaves that count. Now give it back and stop fucking around.”

  Adam backed away, holding the medallion out in front of him. “You can’t kill me. If you do you’ll never be able to get to Arieel.”

  “I’ll figure a way; I’m good at that. But I could also just start killing your team. I didn’t need that medallion to take over your base, I don’t need it now.” He reached up to activate the comm unit. “Carter, come in.” He waited … nothing. “Carter, come in. Where the bloody hell are you?”

  As Nigel slowly walked down the ramp toward Adam, talking on the communicator and holding the Colt steadily on Adam, he didn’t notice the slowly moving electric tractor that had come around the front end of the Phoenix. Adam cautiously guided the heavy-duty cart along the side of the ship and toward the ramp. Then just as it got to within ten feet of the ramp, Nigel noticed the movement out the corner of his eye. As he turned – his eyes wide – Adam sent the tractor slamming into the ramp, sending Nigel tumbling down the metal incline.

  Adam took off for the stack of energy modules, all held securely in impenetrable metal canisters. Nigel McCarthy was a crack shot, and even as he rolled down the ramp, he managed to let loose with three very accurate shots in Adam’s direction. One scorched his shoulder, while the others ricocheted off the metal floor of the hangar, barely missing him.

  Nigel was soon on his feet again and running toward the energy modules. Adam crawled on his belly between two large stacks and circled back as Nigel rounded the stack. He jumped to his feet and ran again, rounding the back of the Phoenix while still grasping the medallion.

  Two more blasts erupted from McCarthy’s weapon, the rounds making barely a dent in the hard surface of the spaceship. The sparks, however, from metal hitting metal, flew off the ship and landed on Adam’s face – they were that close!

  As Adam ran around the ship he noticed a large tank of acetylene gas standing near the central construction workbenches. The release for the gas was electronic – of course – as was the igniter draped over the tank. With his mind, Adam imaged the release value and commanded that it open, releasing the gas into the air. But now he reached a quandary. The inner wall to the hangar was directly in front of him, only about ten feet away. The tank was about thirty. Adam pressed himself against the wall and turned toward the work area. And then he began to concentrate. He’d seen Arieel do this before; all he had to do was envision what she had created.

  McCarthy rounded the back of the Phoenix and spotted Adam standing in plain sight against the far wall. He stopped running and began to approach cautiously, the weapon still leveled at Adam’s chest. “Now you’re being reasonable,” he said. “There’s no need for either one of us to get hurt….”

  McCarthy slowed his approach as he began to imagine a thin blue light between him and Adam. He frowned and cocked his head, squinting to see if what he was imagining was real or not.

  Adam continued to concentrate, letting his face go limp and his eyes staring off into space. He could
see the shield in his mind’s eye, and when he refocused on the space before him, he could see the image of McCarthy shimmering on the other side of a light blue aura.

  Suddenly Nigel’s eyes grew wide and his mouth fell open. “You right bloody bastard – you, too?”

  Just then Adam lit the igniter above the gas tank, causing a tremendous explosion of heat and blue fire to envelope the inside of the hangar. McCarthy was blown to his right, impacting the side of the Phoenix with such force that it would be a miracle if he survived. Meanwhile, the effects of the blast spread out over the entire north end of the hangar, heading straight for Adam.

  He fought with every ounce of his mental concentration to maintain the image of the shield, and when the concussion hit, it was like nothing he expected. The explosion shoved him hard against the metal wall of the hangar, the flame and searing heat only inches from his body. The inferno continued for what seemed like an eternity, with yellow and blue fire trailing off to his left and right, yet not penetrating beyond the shield.

  Finally, it was over, and the shimmer blue shield recoiled back from his body. He was alive – and unharmed. But that couldn’t be said for this section of the hangar. It was a smoldering remnant of its former self, with debris piled against the sturdy bulk of the Phoenix and against the outer walls. The area where the acetylene tank had been was devoid of anything, except for blackened streaks on the metal flooring.

  The life-saving shield of static electricity slowly faded away and Adam moved out into the center of the work area. He looked around quickly trying to find the medallion that he remember as last being held in his grasp, but no longer there. Then against the wall, he saw the broken and charred remains of the device. It was destroyed … at least was this one.

  He heard moaning coming from near the Phoenix and immediately realized it had to be coming from McCarthy. Damn, he survived. Can’t anything kill this guy?

  A pile of debris fell near the spaceship and a leg appeared, the clothing burned the skin underneath red and bloody. Adam walked over and rifled through the pile until he found Nigel’s head. Except for a bad gash under his left eye and half the thin hair on his head missing, the big Englishman didn’t to be too badly injured. His beady blue eyes were glowering at Adam.

  “You … you have it, too.” He managed to spit out through swollen lips.

  “Yeah, but mine’s the Cadillac of the telepathy machines. Yours was an Edsel.”

  McCarthy managed a painful laugh. “But I can mass produce the things. Can you?”

  The thought sent Adam’s stomach into knots. That was definitely something that gave McCarthy the upper hand, even if he wouldn’t be around to guide it. His technicians knew.

  Adam quickly pulled Nigel from the pile of debris and found a metal chain that had blown nearby. He wrapped it around Nigel and then placed a metal bolt through the links to keep it from coming undone. In Nigel’s injured condition, it should be enough to hold him. Adam now had to prepare for the blow back from the explosion. Surely McCarthy’s commandos had to have heard it.

  He ran to the front of the Phoenix just as half a dozen armed men appeared at the hangar opening. They had their M4A1 carbines securely in battle ready stance as they approached. They also still had the flash rifles strapped across their backs.

  Adam slipped down behind one of the big landing pads of the Phoenix and tried hard to remember what Trimen had said about how to turn a flash weapon into a bomb. That was it! Disconnect the fire control and discharge the power pack into the weapon. He closed his eyes and began to envision the inner workings of a Xan-fi flash rifle. He had used this weapon for years now and knew nearly everything about it. The images poured into his mind.

  Within ten seconds, Adam could hear the every-increasing hums coming from the weapons. There were panicked voices as the commandos sought to understand what was happening. It only took a few more seconds for them to realize the sound was coming from their flash weapons. By then it was too late.

  The force from six simultaneously exploding flash rifles was staggering, strong enough to slide the Phoenix away by around ten feet. Adam was protected behind the landing pad and took the short ride with the huge spacecraft.

  Without waiting for confirmation that all the commandos at the hangar were dead, Adam sprinted from under the Phoenix and out of the hangar, heading for the living quarters. In his mind’s eyes, Adam knew seven commands had bit the dust outside the hangar. That still left six in the building with his teammates – including Sherri.

  What would Nigel’s men do now that they’ve just heard a secondary – and more powerful explosion – than before? Would they simply execute Adam’s team and then head off the island?

  With energy derived from panic and desperation, Adam ran for the shell-shaped building. There were more lights on now, something he had not done. And then he heard the voices. They were coming from above him, from one of the balconies on the third floor of the building.

  Adam skidded to a stop and looked up. That’s when he saw Sherri, leaning over the railing and waving. She was smiling.

  “Relax, Adam,” she called down to him. “We’ve got it under control up here.”

  Just then Dawson and Riyad appeared behind her, cradling M4 rifles and manhandling a couple of McCarthy’s commandos to the edge of the deck. “Thanks for the distraction, Captain!” Dawson yelled down at him. “It was just what we needed to get the jump on these assholes.”

  Adam bent over and placed his hands on his knees and taking in several deep breaths. When he looked up, Dawson and Riyad were still smiling broadly, but Sherri’s smile had vanished. Even from that distance, he could see the pain in her eyes.

  This would be the last straw.

  28

  Medical specialists were flown in from a system ten light years away to tend to McCarthy’s injuries, which turned out to be nothing more than a broken left leg, several cuts and bruises and a patch of third-degree burns on his left arm. After surveying the effects of the explosion, Adam was amazed Nigel had survived at all, let alone as relatively unscathed as he had.

  Eight days after the attack, McCarthy was cleared for travel and placed aboard the Phoenix for transport to Juir. From there, the Human diplomatic mission would take charge of him for transit back to Earth.

  Already Adam and his team had received numerous CW links with Earth congratulating them on the capture of Nigel McCarthy. It seemed that the experts in the black rooms were anxious to get their hands on him, and to use their skills to extract that most-valuable of information the Englishman carried with him – the location of the Kracori homeworld. Planners within the Planetary Governing Authority were already drawing up rough strategies for the assault of Elision, having every confidence that attaining the information was only a matter of time.

  In the meantime, Adam and his people went about preparing the body of Lee Schwartz from transport back to Earth as well. He was placed in a special cryogenic casket, and after a brief yet tearful ceremony was also placed aboard the Phoenix. In about a year’s time, Commander Lee Schwartz, U.S. Navy, would be home, to be buried at the fully-rebuilt Arlington Cemetery with full military honors.

  As the team tried to get back to a somewhat normal routine, they received a message that a delegation from Formil would be arriving in a few days, ostensibly to present Adam with an award of some kind. He had had it up to his neck with awards and accolades, and after witnessing Sherri’s initial reaction to the news, he was ready to call the whole thing off. But then Kroekus informed them that he would be arriving for the ceremony, as well as the Human Ambassador, John Daulton.

  Sherri bit her bottom lip and stormed off to her apartment, after agreeing with Adam that there was nothing he could do to stop it now. He was pretty sure she was up in her quarters, packing for Earth – for about the tenth time this month!

  29

  Mark Henderson had just about reached his breaking point; this was the third time in as many days that the killer Nigel McCarthy was as
king to see him. For Henderson’s part, he couldn’t wait for their arrival at Juir so McCarthy could be transferred to a larger ship with hiberpods. Then they could place the arrogant Englishman in one of them and crank the cold-meter down to absolute zero. At least then he wouldn’t have to hear his uppity Baroque accent anymore. Some people may find the accent interesting and sophisticated. Not Mark Henderson. On one level, he equated it to that of a hillbilly drawl … just another funky way of talking.

  McCarthy was locked away in one of the executive staterooms aboard the Phoenix, complete with a king-size bed, large grooming station, a small food processing center, along with all the DVD’s he could watch. Technically, he could exist in the room for the rest of his life – however long that may be. Once Henderson got him back to Earth, he was sure McCarthy’s life expectancy would be measured in days, if not hours.

  Henderson didn’t fear McCarthy. Although he may be huge and well-trained, he still carried a cast on his broken left leg and a thick wrap around the burns on his arm. He had minor bruising of his ribcage, along with numerous other bandages where his cuts were healing. Overall, Nigel McCarthy was in no condition to take on a six-foot two, two-hundred nineteen pound former Army Ranger. So Henderson simply fingered in the security code on the door and entered without knocking.

  Nigel McCarthy was seated on the stateroom’s solitary couch, a caramel-colored drink in his hand. He looked relaxed and seemingly confident … for some reason.

  “Captain Henderson thanks for coming.” McCarthy greeted warmly. “There’s a drink ready for you on the counter.”