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

by T. R. Harris

  Needless to say, the captain knew of Adam Cain, if by reputation only.

  “We travel nearly two hundred thousand light-years just to find you here.” The Rigorian may have heard of Adam; it didn’t mean he liked him.

  “It is a small universe, isn’t it, Captain.” The lizard-like creatures were truly intimidating in appearance, with long mouths lined with pointed, inch-long teeth. Their skin was made of thick scales and the intense, yellow eyes seldom blinked.

  “I was surprised when Kroekus informed me of your status change, yet I understand the two of you go back through many years.”

  “All the way to The Fringe, which puts us both—you and me— a long way from home.”

  The Rigorian did not comment on Adam’s statement. Instead he turned impatient. “What is it you want, Adam Cain? I will obey, seeing that I have been given no choice.”

  Adam grinned, making sure not to bare his teeth at the Rigorian; that was how he got in trouble with them the first time. “A simple request, Captain Vins. As a Human, I’m used to our ships having names. It’s easier to identify them among others—”

  “This is the HN-1,” the Rigorian stated forcefully. “That designation allows it to be distinguished among others without difficulty.”

  “Yeah, I know, but it just seems too impersonal. I’d like the ship renamed to be the Goliath. It just seems appropriate based on its size and intimidation factor.”

  “I do not understand any of the references you make, and I reject any such change in designation.”

  Rigorians had always rubbed him the wrong way, and this particular one was no exception. Adam took a step in closer to the alien, who towered a full foot taller than him. “Captain Vins, I do not recall asking your permission. It is a simple matter, and one I expect you to carry out promptly and without question. Do you understand?”

  “I will have to check first with Kroekus.”

  Adam stepped back and smiled. “By all means, check with him. But just note that he came to me to be his First Advisor because he needs me and the special talents I possess. I’m sure it’s the same with you, and why you were selected to command this vessel, and not someone like your executive officer. I’m sure your XO doesn’t possess nearly the skills you do and would never aspire to take over your command, if the opportunity presented itself.”

  Adam saw uncertainty fill the expression of the gruff, grey-skinned lizard. He even swore he saw his skin change color, something Adam had only heard rumors of before. The alien’s mind was working overtime, weighing his options and recourse.

  Finally, through scaled lips that barely moved, Captain Vins replied: “I will change the name, as you wish, although I find this whole display of power unnecessary and immature. You are the First Advisor and I am the Captain of this ship. We have two separate functions within the fleet.”

  “I agree, Captain Vins… just as long as you realize that my position is higher up the chain of command than yours.”

  The Rigorian’s expression was one of stone. “I see now that what all the others have said about you is true. You truly are an alien with an attitude, Adam Cain. And that attitude continues to create turmoil and tension even to this day.”

  This time when Adam smiled, he bared all his pearly whites. “And that is a badge I wear with honor, Captain Vins. Just do your job and I’m sure we’ll have no further need for conflict or disagreement. Now please, make the necessary announcements and data updates. This is christening day for the Starship Goliath.”

  Kroekus was trying to appear amused by the whole affair, when in fact he was obviously upset. “Why do you antagonize my crew, Adam Cain? I understand Human’s propensity for sentimentality, but to cause a rift with my senior command over something as trivial as renaming the HN-1seems to be completely unnecessary.”

  “I know,” Adam said. “It was such a minor request that I don’t know why he made an issue out of it?”

  Kroekus closed his eyes momentarily and shook his head. He sighed. “Now on to other matters, matters of much more importance.”

  They were seated in a wardroom near the bridge, with three other aliens, all of different species, who formed the inner advisory circle of the Kroekus administration. Adam had been introduced to the aliens, but most of their names were too hard to pronounce to be remembered. So from left to right around the table, he simply thought of them as Manny, Moe and Jack.

  “The HN-1—or the Goliath—has departed the Krinus Nebula and is now approaching a rendezvous point with one of the major break-away commands of the late Dakken Mor. Adam, you might want to see if your pet will help us establish lines of communication with this individual since he happens to be a Vicorean. As you are all aware, I have never been to the Tanic Galaxy before, so all my dealings have been through long-distant communications and representatives. The Goliath does have the firepower necessary to get this commander’s attention, yet it is not my desire to destroy the fleet I paid to have built. This commander—Qwels Nur—has no knowledge of us, as far as I can tell, and the appearance of the Goliath in his space will surely cause alarm.”

  He shifted his attention to Adam. “Will your associate assist in opening a dialogue, before I have to resort to a blatant display of power to make my point?”

  “I will certainly ask, and he may have more influence on this creature than you may think, seeing that Nurick’s last name is also Nur. These two could be related.”

  Kroekus’s eyes grew wide. “That is indeed a fortuitous consequence.”

  “But seeing that Nurick is not really part of this operation, he may require some extra incentive to help secure his loyalty.”

  Kroekus frowned. “It always comes down to that, does it not? Discover his price, Adam, and then let me know. I will keep the Goliath hidden until negotiations can be established. You and Nurick Nur can take the Pegasus; however, be reminded that your ship is constantly monitored. Do not deviate from your mission.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Adam said with a slight upward curling of his lips.

  “Qwels Nur…of this you are sure?” Nurick asked, while in a mild state of shock. Adam had informed him of the offer made by Kroekus, an offer that in one fell swoop could make him set for life. The problem for Nurick, however, was that he had no idea how long that life might last.

  “If that is the same Qwels Nur I know, then he is indeed what you call a relative. Vicorean birth-mothers usually produce a dozen or more infants per litter and my brood was of normal size. And I do have a brother named Qwels. He joined the Enforcer Corps when I joined the channeler transport fleet. He subsequently advanced to Polimor Security, as do most Enforcers with ambition, and of that, Qwels had no shortage. The last I heard he was advancing rapidly within Security ranks.”

  “That sounds like our guy. Now he’s part of this super-secret war fleet Kroekus has built. Will you help us make contact?”

  “You say Kroekus will pay me for this effort?”

  The smirk on Adam’s face said it all—if the alien could have read his body language. Instead, Adam had to put it into words. “That’s right. Do you have a figure in mind?”

  “A billion nilabars? Does that sound reasonable?”

  “Are you serious? I have no idea how much that is, but I think a billion of anything is out of the question.”

  “As I have learned from you, I was simply opening negotiations,” said Nurick with a smile. His mood had improved considerably over the past few days as more evidence had been witnessed regarding their new status aboard the huge starship. By now even some of the crew was saluting Nurick in the corridors.

  “Then since locbars is something you are more familiar with, I would say a thousand. That would be an amount for which I would risk my life.”

  Adam’s ATD wasn’t good for much aboard the Goliath, but it did have a calculator function. So he did some quick figuring in his mind. A locbar was about one-point-six pounds of gold, or around twenty-three troy ounces. Since Adam’s first encounter wit
h Nurick and his locbars, he had researched the data archives aboard the Pegasus and found that gold was selling for around twenty dollars an ounce back on Earth when the data had been last updated. It seemed that with an entire galaxy worth of gold now available, the precious metal wasn’t so precious anymore. Still, Nurick’s figure would contain a little over twenty-three thousand ounces, which would come to nearly half a million dollars.

  Adam had to smile. To him that was a lot of money, yet to a creature such as Kroekus it would be chump change.

  “I’m sure I can make that happen, Nurick. Now grab your stuff and meet me at the Pegasus.”

  “I have no stuff, just this uniform I wear. If you recall, I had not planned on making this journey.”

  “Understood, but a thousand locbars will go a long way to helping you acquire a lot of stuff.”

  “And that is why I have agreed to help.”

  148

  Nigel winked at Simone Dubois without Alic noticing. The slight curl at the edge of her mouth told him she concurred.

  There’s an opportunity here.

  It had been three months since Nigel and his party arrived on Anicett, and during that time things had gone better than planned. Of course, Nigel didn’t have a firm plan when they first landed, but over the subsequent weeks, one had emerged. And this latest news out of the Polimor Clan was a bonus he hadn’t counted on.

  The leader of the Polimors was dead, killed in some sort of catastrophe to strike the city of Balic-Mor. There was even a low-yield nuclear explosion involved, which only made the death more dramatic.

  The reports out of the planet Ralic-Sim were still sketchy and speculative. Some believed the event to be a freak consequence of a disturbance that began at the nearby security spaceport. Others were saying the nuclear explosion had to be triggered on purpose; that power stations simply didn’t go critical like that.

  And the timing was suspect, too. Dakken spent ninety percent of his time on Huof, not Ralic-Sim, yet he had just been called to the city on a matter of critical importance to the Clan, or so the reports said. He had only just arrived and met with his First Advisor Solius Vix when the city was destroyed.

  Naturally, some were already blaming the Kiran Clan, and that played right into Nigel’s hands. As soon as Alic Kiran was through stomping around the room and dismissed the meeting, Nigel would begin to feed the propaganda surrounding the event on Ralic-Sim.

  “Is there any truth whatsoever that we were involved in this act?” Alic’s question was a screech that echoed off the cold, concrete walls of his security bunker. Even though he directed the question at no one in particular out of the twenty-four beings in the room, Nigel knew it was meant for him.

  “Why would we do such a thing, Lord Kiran?” he said calmly. “It’s an unwritten rule in war that the leaders are off-limits.”

  ‘Obviously a rule written by the leaders themselves,” Alic spat out sarcastically.

  “There has to be someone left to negotiate with and leaving a power vacuum at the top can only bring about uncertainty and the potential of rebellion within the ranks.”

  There were nods around the table. Alic noticed the reaction and Nigel saw an increase in the panicked expression on the alien’s face. “You are the master of war, Nigel McCarthy,” Alic said. “Maybe if the people of Tanic were more violent and aggressive, like those from Silea, then we might have acquired such knowledge over time, as well. Instead, I will bow to your intimate experience in such matters. Yet that still does not quell the rumors that are beginning to circulate, not only within the Polimors, but also among us.”

  “In light of our recent activities, an escalation of hostilities between our Clans was predicted, even though we are simply answering the build-up of a Polimor military fleet with one of our own. It’s the only way to maintain peace between our people.”

  “How can matching military strength with military strength assure peace?” asked one of the odd creatures down the table, a bug-like thing with a disconcerting pair of multi-faceted eyes.

  “We can it MAD,” Nigel answered.

  “I agree,” was the common murmur that spread throughout the room.

  “It’s an acronym for Mutual Assured Destruction or M-A-D. If both parties are on parity militarily, then neither will be tempted to strike. War only occurs when one party believes they have an advantage over the other. If we had not answered the Polimor build-up with one of our own, we would have only been inviting aggression.”

  Nigel smiled slightly at the embarrassed looks now permeating the room. Even Alic Kiran was silent—for a moment.

  “Yet, Master McCarthy, our efforts in this area have been more public than the Polimors. And with the advanced propulsion system you’ve so graciously decided to give us, our ships are several degrees superior to what the Polimors are building, if our intelligence is accurate. That fact must surely be of concern to the Polimors; and now this event and by suspicious means. I’m afraid the Polimors will react negatively and believe the falsehoods that are spreading. How can we defuse this situation?”

  All eyes turned to Nigel—which was a common occurrence these days in the upper chambers of the Clan leadership. Even though he knew exactly what he was going to do, he hesitated before answering, as if analyzing the problem from his expert position as the Lord of War.

  “We call this having to prove a negative. Since there is no evidence that we were involved, it’s virtually impossible to prove that we weren’t. I suggest we put on a very public show of sympathy and support for the Polimors and their loss. At the same time, we increase our efforts to build and refit the fleet. Our new ships will be coming off the line with the new concentrated-array gravity-drive, yet we can get a jump on this effort by refitting as many of our security ships as possible with the new technology. It will be cheaper and faster, compared to a complete build from the keel up. It is my belief that sometime soon the Polimors may seek revenge against us for an act for which we were not responsible. We must be prepared.”

  Alic was nodding emphatically as he stomped around the table. “Yes, we must be prepared. This event will cause a power vacuum—as you call it. Do we have any idea who will step into a leadership position within the Clan?”

  “With Lord Vix also killed, there is no one who stands out prominently,” said one of the other advisors.

  “And their fleet; what about that?” asked Alic Kiran.

  A military question, and again all eyes shifted to Nigel. He had hesitated at first revealing his background to Alic, yet now he was grateful he had. The Kirans were starving for guidance in this arena, ever since the reports of Polimor military ambitions had begun to surface a few years before. The Polimors seemed to be much more adept at military tactics and strategy than one would expect from their background. It was not the same with the Kiran Clan, at least not until Nigel showed up.

  Now there was mad rush to learn all they could about the art of war, and Nigel McCarthy was their guru—and in the eyes of some—their salvation.

  “I have seen this before,” he began. “Typically individual commanders will assume control over their forces, led by a supreme military figure, either a general or an admiral. I believe I have briefed you all on these ranks. For reference, this information is now in the database.”

  He frowned and pursed his lips before continuing. He waited until the impatient Alic Kiran was about to boil over before continuing. It was a power game Nigel played within the room. He now controlled the conversation, and as such, the power of the Clan.

  “The Polimors are just as new at the art of war as we are. Their leadership is very inexperienced, and therefore, probably uncertain what to do in this instance. Commander-One Zi’lous Jur is the current leader of the clandestine fleet, as far as we can tell.”

  “Not very clandestine, is it?” said a voice down the table.

  “Nothing is, Advisor. That is something that we, as a Clan, must also accept. With the vast manufacturing operations of the Clan, which rel
ies on the assistance from others not of the Clan, there is no doubt that the Polimors know all about our new drive and efforts to build and refit a military fleet.”

  “We know all that, McCarthy,” said Alic impatiently. “What about Zi’lous? Is he a threat?”

  Nigel looked around the table. “Do we even know if he’s still alive? Could he have been with Dakken?”

  No one answered the question.

  “First we must confirm that he survived. If he did, then he will be securing the fleet as we speak, while at the same time preparing for an attack from our forces.”

  “But we are not going to attack!” said Alic.

  “I know that, Lord Kiran, but Zi’lous must always assume the worst. And as an alternative, he may choose to take the initiative. According to intelligence reports, the Polimors outnumber our skeleton fleet by a factor of four-to-one. Even with our superior engines—on a relative few of our units I might add—he may elect to launch a preemptive strike against us before we have a chance to roll out the fleet.”

  “And if he didn’t survive?”

  “Then paranoia will spread throughout the individual units. Eventually someone will rise to top and assume control. In the meantime, the situation will remain extremely volatile. Some of the more radicalized commanders may even elect to strike at us on their own, possibly targeting our production facilities.” At least, that is what I will suggest to them, Nigel thought.

  He turned his gaze directly on the nervous-looking Alic Kiran. “And as far as you are concerned, Lord Kiran, I would consider you to be in extreme danger. If the belief builds even more that we are responsible for the death of the Polimor leader, then some within their Clan may seek a quid pro quo.” Nigel saw blank expressions come over the faces of several of the aliens. “It means something for something,” he explained quickly. “They may seek to assassinate our leader to answer for the assassination of their own.”