Alien Assassin

by T. R. Harris

  Finally, the lifeless alien slipped from his arm. Adam holstered the ’47 and pulled the flash rifle from across his back. As he did so, he whipped the weapon around and sprayed a barrage of bolts at the guards entering through the hole in the wall he’d just made. Then he continued the arc, blasting more holes in the walls, cabinets and other aliens – kitchen staff he reckoned – in a full circle around him. The sight and sounds were deafening, of crumbling ceilings, burning wallboard and wailing creatures. Then fires began to flare up, from grease, fabric and burning wood. It all added to the confusion Adam was hoping for.

  Soon he was out of the kitchen and blasting his way across a large dining area. He was surprised to see even more guards come headlong into the hall, wondering just how many of them Bundnet had on the grounds. There seemed to be a lot more than when he’d reconned the compound over the past few days.

  Oh well, just more score to rack up…

  Then to his shock and surprise, Adam felt a heavy thud hit his back. He flew forward and fell, sliding several meters on the polished stone floor. He knew he taken a hit to the back, but was relieved to find that his own makeshift diffusion screen had apparently worked. Since all the bolts from the various weapons they carried were made up of concentrated balls of electricity, Adam had fashioned a series of wires sewn onto the exterior of the pressure suit he wore. Not as strong or long-lasting as a full-fledged diffusion shield, his experiments had shown, however, that the electric bolts would dissipate along the wires, heating them up and melting the wires, but also lessening the impact of the hit. The concussion still knocked him off his feet, but that was about the extent of the damage. Of course he also knew that the wire mesh was only good for one bolt. The next one could prove fatal.

  Rolling on his back as he slid along the floor, Adam aimed the flash rifle between his legs at the three guards who had taken up positions behind him. His aim was true and the bolts from the rifle had a devastating effect on the thin-boned Hildorians. Then he was on his feet again and running for the main entrance of the house.

  The ornate, double front doors were made of metal of some kind, so instead of barreling through them, Adam jumped and crashed through the thin glass transom window above the doors. His action took the seven remaining guards stationed outside by surprise. As he flew over them, they did their best to follow his movement with their weapons, but like most aliens, their shots came slow and several meters behind him.

  Landing softly on the brick walkway leading to the entrance, Adam rolled once and came up on one knee. With the flash rifle married to his chin, he sent a stream of bolts into the guards, literally ripping them apart at their waists.

  He then scanned the front of the building, his movements and those of his rifle acting as one. When he was satisfied there was no further movement in his direction, he slowly rose to his feet.

  No one appeared to be left alive in the compound, or those who were chose to stay indoors and out of sight. It was a wise move.

  Calmly, Adam Cain snugged down his boonie hat and shouldered his rifle. Then he turned and walked casually down the long driveway and through the open gates of the compound, his back illuminated by the flickering light from the now fully-involved fire, as it quickly consumed the building behind him…

  Chapter Two

  Adam drove the transport to the small spaceport located on the other side of Jaxas, about 150 klicks from Bundnet’s compound. Even though the gang leader was – had been – a criminal, he still had a lot of contacts and support within the local government, military and law enforcement. It was imperative for Adam to get off-planet as soon as possible, especially after the carnage he’d created over the past three hours.

  Although he was relatively new to the whole hitman occupation, the one issue he had with it was the dichotomy associated with getting work. One couldn’t simply advertise ‘assassin-for-hire.’ Yet you still had to get your resume out, and with some way for potential clients to contact you. As it turned out, although his name wasn’t widely known, his species was gaining recognition. And since Humans were so rare in these parts, he figured it wouldn’t be long before the authorities – as well as Bundnet’s criminal partners – placed the hit squarely at his doorstep. He was undoubtedly the only Human on the entire planet.

  Even though it was well past midnight on this part of Hildoria when Adam arrived at the spaceport, there was still quite a bit of activity at the facility. Every planet, and even every spaceship, operated mainly on its own internal time schedule, so spaceships were arriving and departing at all hours of the day and night. This was actually good for Adam, since his arrival was masked by all the activity.

  He parked the transport near the main gate and wiped the black grease from his face. Then he gathered up his duffle bag full of weapons and walked the rest of the distance to his ship.

  His spaceship often presented a problem of its own. The Cassie-1 – named after his young daughter back on Earth – was a unique-looking ship that never failed to draw attention everywhere he went. Unfortunately, this was something a professional hitman tried desperately to avoid.

  He had acquired the sleek, modern craft as a consequence of the events near Malfora Lum almost nine months before. It had belonged to the Juirean Counselor Deslor Lin Jul, and Adam and his two alien companions, Kaylor and Jym, had used it to escape from the Klin starship just before it exploded. Since the Counselor had been aboard the Klin ship when its atoms were sent hurdling into the universe, Adam figured the Juirean wouldn’t have much need for the shuttle after that…

  So Kaylor had attached the craft to the hull of his own ship and carried it back to Silea with them. There, with the help of some of Kaylor’s more unsavory associates, the ship had been repainted and re-designated. Still, the unique design of the ship could not be hidden from inquiring eyes.

  He entered the ship and stowed his professional gear in the ship’s single stateroom, then proceeded to the pilothouse. The ship was small, yet powerful. It boasted dual 5,000-Unnis 2g/Generators that provided equal compression whether in a front- or backwell. Yet being as small as she was, the ship only had one internal gravity generator. This didn’t cause a problem for Adam; he always kept the internal gravity cranked up to what he estimated to be at least Earth’s level, if not a little higher, in order to keep himself strong and his muscles toned. Yet it did present the rare visitor to his ship with difficulty moving about. That was all right; he never had that many visitors anyway.

  Adam slipped into the pilot seat and began the lift-off procedures. Kaylor – probably his only real friend outside of Earth – had once told him that while on-planet he always kept one of his generators active, just in case he had to make a quick exit. Adam had adopted this practice, and it had saved his hide on more than one occasion. So it wasn’t long before the Cassie-1 was lifting silently and smoothly off the surface of Hildoria, and heading for open space.

  As he reached the outer limits of the planet’s thin atmosphere, Adam spotted two contacts on his screen moving to intercept. This had been expected. He made no attempt to evade; rather he watched to verify their intent before taking action.

  Since the Cassie-1 had been originally built and owned by the Juireans, Adam had elected to save one special feature of that lineage – the ship’s original transponder. On Silea, Adam had a new primary transponder installed that masked the ship’s Juirean identity, otherwise everywhere he went local officials and luminaries would be swarming all over him and the ship, trying to make an impression and curious as to why a Juirean official would be arriving unannounced. The new transponder, although highly illegal, had solved that problem.

  But with a simple flick of a switch, Adam once again activated the Juirean transponder. Almost immediately, the two ships on his screen slowed. Then they paralleled his course for a moment before finally veering off.

  Even though he had no love lost for the Juireans, at times it was good to be the King!

  After setting the coordinates for Castor
, Adam shed the alien-blood-stained pressure suit and took a quick shower. He then dressed in a t-shirt and jeans and then went to the ship’s small galley for something to eat. He took the plate of bland-tasting brown mush to the stateroom.

  The stateroom aboard the Cassie-1 was the only internal part of the ship that screamed opulence. Designed so a high-ranking Juirean could travel in luxury, it was huge, measuring twenty meters square, with a full-size bed to accommodate the seven-foot-tall Juireans, a private bathroom – grooming station, they called it – and an office area sporting a large metal desk and a four-meter long couch.

  The trip to Castor would take two days, and was the headquarters of Seton Amick, the gang leader who had hired Adam for the Bundnet hit. So after finishing his meal, Adam lay down on the couch and propped a pillow under his head. He had carried the boonie hat into the room with him, and now twirled it on his hand absent-mindedly. The floppy-brim hat had been made custom for him by tailors on K’ly. In fact, he had spent most of his first contract fee at the tailor shop. He had them make ten pair of jeans, several white and olive-colored t-shirts, a couple of polo-style shirts, two light jackets and two pair of rubber-soled boots. As he figured, even though he had to live in an alien-dominated universe, he didn’t have to dress like one!

  As he lie on the couch, Adam didn’t close his eyes. Instead, his gaze focused on the bulkhead at the end of the couch.

  The wall was covered with various pieces of paper and plastic, each holding a clue of some kind as to the location of Earth or the Klin hiding place in the Fringe. For the past nine months, when he wasn’t off exterminating some smelly alien creature, Adam could be found scouring the Library or following other leads trying to track down the location of his homeworld. It was a nearly impossible task, and yet without even this activity and its thin sliver of hope, Adam Cain would have long ago placed his precious MK-47 to his own head and pulled the trigger…

  Since being abducted nearly nine months before, Adam Cain had had a birthday. He was now 27, and as he lie on the couch, he began to reflect on his recent past – as well as his prospects for the future.

  In the blink of an eye, Petty Officer 2nd Class Adam Cain, U.S. Navy, was at one moment on a mission in the Hindu Kush Mountains separating Afghanistan from Pakistan, and the next he was waking up in a hibernation pod aboard a deserted Klin starship. That was where he had first made contact with Kaylor Linn Todd, the gruff, yet experienced interstellar mule-driver who had rescued him from certain death at the hands of the Fringe Pirates.

  Along with his co-pilot Jym, the two aliens had offered to help Adam find his way back to Earth, a mysterious planet in its own right, located somewhere in the unexplored Far Arm of the galaxy. However, as Kaylor salvaged the Klin ship, he removed the ship’s computer core – a crucial piece of information he withheld from Adam – and hid it in an asteroid belt in the Nimorian system. The computer core contained not only the location of Earth, but also the secret location of the Klin, a race of beings who the galaxy-ruling Juireans believed they had exterminated 4,000 years before. Once the Juireans had learned of the computer core’s existence, they had sent all the power their empire could muster at the two mule-drivers and Adam, the sole survivor from the Klin ship after its attack by the Fringe Pirates.

  In the course of tracking down the core and avoiding the Juireans, Adam had met up with the leader of the Fringe Pirates, the only other Human he had encountered since leaving Earth. His name was Riyad Tarazi, a former Islamic terrorist, who himself had been abducted six years earlier. Tarazi provided a wealth of knowledge regarding this strange, new reality Adam found himself in, having not only survived for all those years, but actually rising to the top of the pirate hierarchy in the process.

  It had been Riyad who had told Adam a startling truth, that when compared to the capabilities of the vast majority of aliens, Humans were about as close to supermen as they came. As he explained, Humans combined the traits of quickness, strength, coordination and intelligence better than any other creature he’d yet encountered. That was the reason Riyad had been able to challenge the other pirate captains for their positions, until he finally stood at the pinnacle of their ranks.

  Adam had experienced this so-called superiority himself, first in a gunfight with the lizard-like Rigorians, and then in his escape from a jail cell in the Nimorian city of Gildemont. Using his superior strength in the lighter-gravity world, Adam had indeed felt like Superman, nearly able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and the like.

  Yet this superman complex was easily explainable.

  As the months went by, Adam learned that nearly all the planets in the Fringe had lighter gravity than Earth, making him appear stronger than any of the natives. He also found that Human bone structure was thicker and stronger than that of the various alien races in the region. This gave him added toughness and durability. And his quickness and coordination simply came from his training as a Navy SEAL, plus his natural athletic ability.

  Yes, to others he may appear to possess super-powers. But as Adam Cain finally began to drift off to sleep, feeling the aches and pains from his encounter with Bundnet and his mechanical suit, he knew his mortality was very real and his super-abilities simply a product of fate. Still, he had no qualms with using them to better his fortunes…

  As always, his sleep was fitful and filled with painful visions. His reality had been unexpectedly ripped away, taking from him his beautiful young wife Maria and their three-year-old daughter, Cassie. His disappearance, while on a clandestine mission in Afghanistan, would have brought about a heart-wrenching uncertainty to his family and friends. After awhile, the Navy would have closed the file on him, declaring him officially MIA. Of course by this time, the action would have been more symbolic than functional, since long before this all who knew him would have long ago accepted the fact of his death.

  It was for this reason that Adam so strongly despised aliens. He had not asked for any of this to happen. He had not volunteered to be an astronaut and travel the stars. Instead, he led a simple, happy life back on Earth that he was perfectly content with. But that had all been taken from him.

  By aliens.

  Adam had spent many days, if not months, conflicted as to his ultimate fate. If he couldn’t return home to his wife and kids, then what was the reason for going on? He was utterly alone, more alone than any Human on Earth could possibly imagine.

  And yet there was hope. His abductors, the Klin, had been to Earth – and they knew where it was located. Plus there was Riyad, another Human set adrift in this alien universe. That meant there were probably other Humans wandering the galaxy, just as lost and desperate as he. It was this knowledge that kept him going day to day.

  In fact, there had been seventy-nine other Humans on the Klin ship with him, but they had all been killed by the Klin rather than have them fall into the hands of the Fringe Pirates. Riyad had logically surmised that there must have been hundreds of such trips made by the Klin that had successfully navigated through The Void unmolested, shuttling abducted Humans from Earth to some secret location. The pirate had further advanced the theory that the purpose for abducting so many Humans must have been so the Klin could build a Human army capable of defeating their mortal enemy – the Juireans. Why else would their race be so important to the Klin?

  It all made sense, but how the Klin expected a singular, non-spacefaring race like the Humans to defeat a galaxy-wide empire encompassing 10,000 systems, was way beyond Adam’s limited comprehension. Still, his existence in this strange universe – as well as Riyad’s – meant that something was going on.

  In fact, just before the nuclear bomb on the Klin ship had detonated, killing the Juirean Overlord, Counselor Deslor and Riyad, the technicians had been able to activate the Klin computer core. In the files, information had been revealed about the Humans that had actually scared the Juireans, members of the mightiest race of beings in the galaxy! For a moment there, just before Riyad had taken the Juirean Overlor
d hostage, the two Juireans had expressed more fear of the Humans than they did for their archenemy, the Klin.

  Adam and his two alien companions had been fortunate to escape the Klin ship when they did, and Adam had seen his first nuclear explosion in space. But before they escaped, Adam had heard a word – Annan – that had profoundly affected the Juireans. It had to be important.

  In his research, it wasn’t too difficult to find numerous references to the word Annan, the most-common of which was to a now-extinct, plant-like animal from Klinmon, the homeworld of the Klin. The creature had been quite remarkable. It was a small animal that would dig a shallow burrow in the ground and then separate into four or five equal parts, each with its own brain and higher body functions. Once separated, the Annan would send electronic signals through the ground for up to half-kilometer away, signals which carried the full memory of each individual part of the animal. Each separate segment of the creature would then absorb these signals and integrate the memories into its own existence. This way, the creature could survive the death of any of its separate parts, with fully intact memories and abilities. Only destroying all the sections could one completely kill the creature. Fortunately, Annan were herbivores, and therefore no threat to the other creatures around them, otherwise they would have been quite formidable.

  So why would the Juireans have such a reaction to a harmless, extinct animal? Adam did not know, but his research had also produced other references. Annan also meant the strategy of diversifying your base of command, making it harder to be completely defeated should one of your bases be destroyed. Adam was no idiot, so he reasoned that the surviving Klin must have adopted an Annan strategy for survival after the attack by the Juireans on their homeworld. There would be no single Klin hiding place, but rather numerous ones, and unless the Juireans could locate and destroy all of them, the Klin would remain an on-going threat to them.