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

by T. R. Harris

  Nurick’s mouth fell open as a blank stare filled his eyes. Adam quickly explained: “We’re being followed, and I need the ship at full power before I can get away from them.”

  The explanation seemed simple enough, yet still Nurick’s eyes grew wide with panic.

  “What’s wrong?” Adam asked.

  “You say you need the power-modules to be operational?”

  “That’s right. I repeat: What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing is wrong. But what if you are not able to evade the authorities, what will you do then?”

  “I won’t surrender without a fight, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “That will only bring more force against you.”

  “Then you better hope I can get the power up to max pretty soon. I could do it in space, but that would require shutting down and going dark. Unfortunately, your fellow Vicoreans are too close for me to do that; they would be on us before I could complete the install. But whatever happens, my current mods are fading fast. I could do the install in a few hours if we could find a rock to land on somewhere, but I can’t even do that until the pursuit backs off. We’ll never make it to Karlis otherwise.”

  “If all you seek is a foothold, then there is a cluster of rogue asteroids on this side of the Lismic.”

  “What’s the Lismic?”

  “It is a dwarf star approximately three hundred light years from here. There are worlds surrounding it, yet all are either very hot or gas giants with severe gravity.”

  “Asteroids will work, as long as the Enforcers aren’t on our tail. I’m only running on four rings at this time to conserve power. If I know for sure I’ll have a place—and time—to install the new mods, I can bring the other four online and open up some distance between us and the Enforcers, at least temporarily. But that will only give us about forty-eight standard hours of running time. After that, I’m dead in the water. It’ll be tight, but I think I can make.”

  “Your nautical references are quite amusing, Adam Cain, yet inappropriate since we are in space and not on the sea. However, with that aside, I will lead you to the asteroids.”

  “Is this correct, has it been confirmed?” asked Honous Bis after he read the datapad entry.

  “It is correct,” said Uisif Ban. “There is both video evidence and testimony from those at the spaceport. There is also the inventory of sixteen power-modules that was delivered to the ship, which is a multiple of eight.”

  “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “Quite possibly, since the ship drew considerable attention at the port, along with the subsequent altercation, of course.”

  “The Kirans?”

  “That I cannot confirm,” Uisif replied. “As you are aware, they have a reduced presence here on Vicor.”

  “Let us endeavor to keep it that way.” Honous turned to his computer and started the process of establishing a link with the planet Huof. “I will let Polimor Security know of this,” he said to his subordinate. “I am confident they will send out units to intercept this extraordinary spacecraft. We shall, too, since it would be in our best interests if the local department secures the ship and presents it to Lord Dakken before Polimor Security has the opportunity.”

  “I concur. And we must always be vigilant of the Kirans. This is the type of technology they relish.”

  “As do we, Uisif. If we can learn the secrets of an eight-ring array, then the stranglehold the Kiran Clan has on gravity propulsion would be broken.” The link with Huof was established, and Honous Bis, Lead Supervisor of Polimor operations on Vicor, would soon send a burst data packet to the central governing planet of his Clan. The message would be received in four hours, by which time he would have his own marauders out looking for the Silean starship.

  Even though Honous was excited for the possibilities of this new technology, he was also skeptical. Until he saw first-hand the operation of an eight-array gravity-drive, he would still consider it a far-fetched concept. And according to the report, the alien spacecraft had failed to bolt away from Vicor at super-light speeds, but rather very conventionally.

  Still, if the technology was viable, then the Polimor Clan must secure it—and before it falls into the hands of Kirans.

  136

  With all eight rings firing—even at reduced output—the Pegasus shot ahead of the three Vicorean starships still chasing them. They were a good two hundred light-years from Vicor by now and still the Enforcers hadn’t given up. As local law enforcement units, Adam was sure they’d eventually reach a point where they’d be called back home. After all, it’s not like Adam committed any major interstellar crime, and at this point, he couldn’t even be charged with the theft of the modules since their legal owner was aboard his ship and had filed any complaint.

  If the Enforcers would drop their pursuit before he reached the asteroids, he could then take a couple of the ring-pairs offline and conserve his power. If not, then he’d be coasting up to the asteroids at his present energy bleed, and with no options left after that.

  The journey to the asteroids would take forty hours; with fully-charged modules, he could have done it in less than a day. Yet his eight mods were sucking air as it was, so Adam was engaged in a very precarious balancing act between speed and energy consumption. Once there, he figured he’d need at least four hours of downtime to install the modules, so he had to open up a sufficient gap between him and Enforcers to give him that operating window.

  Now, as he sat in the command chair, located directly behind the pilot seat on the bridge of the Pegasus, Adam was mentally monitoring the gravity-drive with his ATD, while also chiding himself for not planning further ahead before leaving the Milky Way.

  He should have brought more modules, pure and simple. However at the time, he had no concept of the distance of one hundred sixty thousand light-years. He now tried to put the journey in perspective. That would be like traveling from the Earth to the Galactic Core and back again—five or six times! Adam had made the roundtrip from Earth to Juir—which sat on the other side of the Core—several times over the years, so cumulatively, he’d traveled this far and more. Yet to make it all in one leg took a mind-boggling effort.

  Already he’d spent seven months at full throttle, and he still had another two to go before reaching the planet Anicett, where he hoped to catch up to Nigel McCarthy. This current hassle with the power-modules and the natives on Vicor was just a distraction from his main objective, which only served to frustrate him even more. Every day he didn’t confront the criminal mastermind was another day Nigel had available to consolidate his power. Adam was just one man—against one hundred human warriors—which made his mission daunting enough already. He didn’t need to give McCarthy any more advantage than he already had.

  Nurick had taken up residency in the second stateroom aboard the Pegasus, which was fine with Adam. He remained behind closed doors for most of the trip, except on the rare occasions when he would come out for food. Adam could tell Nurick didn’t like him. That was fine; Adam found Nurick to be a little off-putting himself. After all, he was a six-foot tall rat, complete with a four-foot tail, pink skin and eyes and a short snout with a moist-looking black nose. How rats managed to rise to the top of the food chain on Vicor was anyone’s guess, but Adam had seen a lot stranger things in his day.

  And at least Nurick didn’t smell as badly as other aliens; he still smelled—just not as bad.

  The alien now entered the bridge, disturbing Adam’s silent musings.

  “We must be nearing the cluster,” he said. “Are we still being pursued?”

  Adam nodded. “Yep, and I picked up another two more ships angling in towards us coming from out of our port quarter. I can’t confirm that they’re after us, but we all seem to be heading for the same place.”

  “Forgive me, but even though I spent twelve years as crew and pilot of Polimor channeler vessels, I do not understand the term port quarter.”

  “Top left hand side of our course. Definit
ely not from Vicor, and we seem to be pretty far out for this to be more local cops—Enforcers—joining the parade.”

  “It is likely Polimor Security units, if they approach from that direction.”

  “What is Polimor Security?”

  “They are the official Enforcers for the Polimor Clan. Their authority supersedes that of the Vicorean units.”

  “Why would they be tracking us?”

  “I do not know. However, as you infer, it may just be a coincidence that they are on a vector course.”

  “Unfortunately, I’ve experienced very few coincidences in my life that didn’t come back to bite me in the ass.”

  Nurick’s head trembled involuntarily at the convoluted translation of Adam’s last statement. The alien appeared tired and depressed, so he didn’t press the issue. Instead he stepped to the forward viewport and stared out at the few visible nearby stars, yet mainly at the massive white halo that dominated the space ahead.

  Adam checked the readings. They were still a few minutes out from the outer edge of the asteroid belt and the time when he could start looking for a suitable landing spot. With time to kill, he engaged the tall rat in conversation.

  “Have you ever been there?” he asked.

  “You mean Tanic? Yes, several times when I crewed for the Polimors.”

  “Who are they—the Polimors?”

  “They are me, Adam Cain. I am a Polimor, as is most of Vicor. They are the dominant Clan in this region, although most of their major operations take place within Tanic. Vicor is such an isolated planet that very few of the Clans have a presence there. The Polimor do—to a point—and that is why, even though I have joined the Clan, I have very little connection with them.”

  “So membership is voluntary?”

  Nurick shrugged without turning from the viewport. “I cannot say that. If one wishes to engage in commerce, along with access to certain products and commodities, then no. Most beings in Tanic are members of a Clan and feel a tremendous loyalty to the affiliation. Vicoreans, as a whole, do not. We are more independent, identifying more with our homeworld rather than with a Clan. It is simply a consequence of our place in the universe. I am sure it would be different if Vicor was located closer to Tanic.”

  Several small, solid contacts were now beginning to dot the nav screen. They seemed to be fewer—yet larger—than Adam was used to with the Solar System’s asteroid belt, which would serve his purpose perfectly. Any of these rocks would work. He’d land on one, don a spacesuit and set about installing the power-mods through the outer ring portals. The job was much easier from outside the ship than from inside.

  He checked the latest positions and time-to-intercept for the five ships now closing on them—even though the intentions of two were still in question.

  “There’s a pretty big one coming up in about five minutes,” Adam said to Nurick. “Will you help me install the mods?”

  “Instead, I would request that you leave me on the asteroid, with ample spare atmosphere units for my suit and a comm link. I will be content to ride back to Vicor with the Enforcers.”

  “You help me get the mods installed and you have yourself a deal—if you don’t mind risking the chance that they’ll shoot right past you and continue after me.”

  Nurick turned from the viewport and stared at Adam. “Yes, there is a possibility that may happen, although, they may only be continuing the pursuit so vigorously because you have abducted me. Returning me to Vicor may be their priority mission.”

  Adam smiled. “You really believe that? Are you that important on Vicor?”

  Nurick went to say something, but then snapped his mouth shut at the last moment. He turned back to the viewport. “Perhaps I will accompany you to Karlis. That is the closest associated planet along this course.”

  “Probably a wise decision; I’m sure being left alone on a twenty-mile long piece of space rock, light-years from any civilized planet, could get pretty lonely after a while.”

  Adam hated to say it, but he was actually enjoying having someone around to talk to. It was helping cure his recently-acquired habit of talking to himself, something he found he was doing a lot more of these days. And that couldn’t be healthy.

  The light from Tanic helped cast deep, pure black shadows on the surface of the asteroid Adam had selected as a landing spot for the Pegasus. He reduced speed and swung in low over the relatively smooth and crater-free surface, heading for the shadow cast by a three-thousand-foot tall cliff.

  The five starships chasing them were still coming, and the two from the other direction had now changed course as he did, verifying that they were indeed part of the posse. With this second set of ships coming after them, his time for installation had been cut to only two hours. Normally, it took thirty minutes to install a power-module; at that pace, he’d only get four done, and all that would accomplish would be to make him equal in speed to his pursuers. That wouldn’t be enough. He needed at least another pair online to gain the advantage.

  If after the install, he could bolt away at fantastic speed, the Vicoreans and Polimors would see the futility in their effort and head for home. As it was, Adam was pretty sure the reason the pursuit continued was because hunter and hunted were so close to one another. They couldn’t back off now.

  Nurick had agreed to help with the install, a fact that—depending on his expertise—gave Adam at least the outside chance of getting six or more units installed within the deadline. Even a three-pair would be better than what he had now—which at the moment was a big fat zero.

  A few minutes before, Adam had gone aft and uncrated eight of the new modules, placing them on a small electric tractor which he could drive out of the bay and around to the various ring portals. He also loaded a ladder and tool box on the tractor, as well.

  The Pegasus slipped into the pure blackness of the cliff’s shadow and set down using chem-drive. His pursuers would have seen him enter the asteroid cluster and go dark, so they would be scanning all the rocks within the vicinity where his signature winked out. Hiding in the shadows would give him just a little more chance of remaining undetected.

  With spacesuits donned, Adam opened the rear cargo bay door and the pair drove the small tractor out onto the powdery grey surface of the twenty-mile long asteroid. Red light had replaced the brilliant white on their helmets to make spotting them harder should the pursuing starships get that close.

  While keeping in constant contact with the ship’s sensors through his ATD, Adam and Nurick set to work removing the old mods and replacing them with the new ones. The incredibly light gravity of the asteroid made the work both easier—and harder. It was easier to maneuver the heavy and bulky mods into place, yet they also had the tendency to drift off a dozen yards or so if left unattended, an effect of the rock’s light gravity and slow revolution.

  An hour into the job, with three new mods installed and the fourth just finishing up, a proximity alert sounded within Adam’s mind. He accessed the full computer link and paused while he scanned the data. Nurick held a pneumatic wrench out for Adam, who was now frozen in a trance-like state.

  “Adam, what is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing, just checking on the proximity alert I just received.”

  “I do not understand. You are merely staring into space.”

  “I’m linked with the ship’s computer—”

  “So you are a cybernetic organism!”

  Adam diverted some of his attention from the scan back and to Nurick. “Hell no, I just have a way to link with the ship. It’s just technology, nothing special.”

  “An ability such as that is something special. Can I acquire such technology as well?”

  “Not in this galaxy. And all the counterfeit microprocessors you have here are beyond my reach. Now let me concentrate. It seems the Polimors have picked up the pace and are just at the outskirts of the asteroid field.”

  “Then we must be leaving!”

  “Not yet,” Adam said, dimming the l
ink and turning back to the current install. “They’re slowing down and beginning to scan a number of the larger rocks. That might give us enough time to complete all eight.”

  “We are not even halfway complete.”

  Adam tightened a bolt on the energy module he was lying on and handed the wrench back to Nurick. “We are now. That’s number four. Now let’s get serious about this and knock out the other four in record time.”

  “I am serious about this endeavor, and I would not recommend knocking on the modules. They are sensitive, as well as prone to calibration errors if handled roughly.”

  “Yes sir. Now scoot back out, you’re blocking my way.”

  The next two modules went in without a hitch, making six complete. Adam breathed a sigh of relief. At least now they’d have a fighting chance of evading the Enforcers. Yet just as he attached the ladder to the lip of the next focusing ring portal, the alarm in his head went off again, this time with a vengeance. Nurick was climbing the ladder as well, and when Adam fell into another semi-trance, the alien banged his helmeted head into Adam’s butt, causing the Human to surge forward in the light gravity and halfway into the portal.

  “Dammit, Nurick, slow down!” And then he learned why the alarm was going ballistic.

  One of the Polimor ships was now only ten thousand miles out and closing rapidly. Adam checked the backlogs and found that the Enforcers hadn’t spent a lot of time with the asteroids at the edge of the field, but rather continued to the point where Adam’s signal had gone dark. The ships were here already…and closing fast.

  Contrary to popular belief, asteroid fields are not concentrated clumps of giant rocks all in close proximity and bouncing off one another with regularity. Instead, over time, any close-in rocks had been absorbed by others, until an asteroid field was mostly empty space with tens of thousands of miles between objects. So when the Polimors reached the point where they’d lost contact with the Pegasus, there were only handful of targets to scan. With five ships now involved in the search, they had divided their efforts, with each ship taking an asteroid. Now one of the enemy starships was closing on Adam’s sanctuary rock and slowing, while sending out massive waves of electromagnetic scans.