When Earth Reigned Supreme (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 12) (24 page)

Five minutes later, the bindings had been removed from their hands and the two Humans moved to recover their weapons. The natives pulled away and said something to their leader.

Adam addressed the prisoner. “Tell him we need those back. They are what we use to kill Sol-Kor, and they are dangerous unless you know how to use them.”

The Sol-Kor prisoner didn’t speak, prompting Adam to step over and plant his own booted foot into the alien’s side. He was careful not to hit him too hard, but even then he cried out in pain and fell over, remaining there with his eyes squeezed shut.

“Tell him!”

The prisoner began to speak. When he was done, the leader yelled at his underlings and the weapons were handed over. The safety on his rifle had been turned off; he quickly set it again.

“You don’t look too good, Riyad. I think they really did a number on you.”

“You may be right. Everything’s spinning.”

“Hang in there a little longer.”

Adam turned to the Sol-Kor. “What are you doing here? Didn’t you do a good enough job the first time you came to the planet?”

“We monitor this world periodically. My crew and ship were captured. I am the last survivor.”

Adam smiled. “These creature obviously have a long memory.”

“Yes, they do. They apparently relate past events through songs and stories. They are aware of what happened here, and who did it.”

“Serves you right. Hopefully, when your usefulness is gone, these creature will have you for dinner.”

“They didn’t eat the other members of my crew. They made sport of them.”

“And why are you still alive.”

“I am of an intelligence class that has been trained to speak their language. As I said, we monitor this world. Eventually the population may grow to the point where a second harvest would be possible, especially since this planet is so close to Kor. But who are you? I have not seen your stock before.”

“We’re Humans from U-5,” Adam answered. Then his smile turned even more sinister. “And you may find this interesting: we have just killed your Eternal Queen and all her Royal Zygotes. There are no more female Sol-Kor to carry on your species. The Sol-Kor—unlike the natives of this planet—are destined for extinction. How do you like them apples?”

The Sol-Kor stared at Adam, silent for several seconds. “This is not true.”

“Sorry, bub, but it is. We stole the mainship from Kor after wasting the bitch. And now we’re about to return to U-5 victorious, while your disgusting race begins its long slide into oblivion.”

 The native leader was watching his prisoner carefully, noticing the look of terror on his face following Adam’s indecipherable comments. He said something to the SK.

When he didn’t answer, the native kicked him in the ribcage again. This time the Sol-Kor barely noticed. He continued to stare at Adam.

The leader yelled again, and finally the SK spoke, but without taking his eyes off Adam.

When he was done, it was the native’s turn for his jaw to hang slack and stare at the prisoner. He turned to Adam, a glint in his eye. He closed his mouth and grinned wide, stepped up to Adam and grasped his forearms, opening his mouth to say something but found it difficult to form the words. Then it came, the words as clear as day.

“J’nae…friends.”

********

Before Riyad and Adam were escorted back to the beamship, the Sol-Kor prisoner had fallen completely catatonic. When he failed to respond to kicks or verbal abuse, the native leader concluded he had lost his usefulness. With a single sweep of a long, hard blade made of polished metal reclaimed from a bygone era, he lopped off the alien’s head. The body—minus the head—was unceremoniously dumped in the street outside the building the natives called home. Adam didn’t see what became of the head, but he was sure there was a trophy room around somewhere where it would be prominently displayed, hopefully along with hundreds more.

Adam, Riyad, and the native entourage—along with their leader—entered the huge stadium at ground level and emerged on the playing field through a side entrance. The escorts left them at the sidelines, watching with weary eyes as the bulk of the team rushed up with weapons at the ready.

“Hold your fire, Chief,” Adam ordered. “They’re friends. Now get Riyad back to the ship as soon as possible. He’s suffered a concussion.”

The team rushed off toward the ship, leaving Adam to turn to the small gathering of natives standing twenty yards away. He saluted them. They looked at each other, confused. Adam just smiled and then turned away himself. He knew word of the Queen’s death would circulate around the planet, and maybe then the natives of this lovely world would begin to rebuild their society. In any event, Adam was sure the natives of the planet would outlive that of the evil Sol-Kor.

Poetic justice played out over five thousand years.

********

Lun Szy watched the aliens as they returned to the Sol-Kor ship, knowing that a meeting would have to be called among the Scribes. If the Queen was indeed dead, and the Sol-Kor sterile, this could be a major turning point for the Hal’ic people.

The escorts disappeared back into the dark corridors of the stadium, and once out of sight of the Humans, Lun removed the rough animal hide tunic and pulled the softer status robe from his pouch. Others around him were wiping the grit from their faces and replacing their own garments. A portal was nearby that would lead them below the surface, to the hidden chambers of the Hal’ics. The population would welcome this momentous news. It had been long in coming.

Lun hoped what the Humans had said was true. It had been five thousand years since the evil Sol-Kor had harvested their planet, and in all that time the survivors had remained hidden, knowing that the eaters could come again. With that veil lifted, could his people now return to the surface, to resume the civilization they maintained within the lower depths? Lun was cautious, yet hopeful.

Probes would be sent out to verify the information. Soon he would know the truth.

Chapter 22

“This one is different from the portals on our side.”

Admiral of the Fleet Andy Tobias frowned at the technician. “I know it’s a helluva lot bigger. Is that the extent of it?”

“No, sir. The control center is multi-faceted and more complicated than what we’re used to.”

“Can you work it or not?”

The tech was an ITC Specialist Senior Class, the highest there was. He matched the admiral’s frown. “We can turn it on and open an portal. With the current settings it’s linked to the one on our side, the one we control.”

“So what’s the problem? I thought that’s what it’s supposed to do.”

“It is, but from the look of things, it may be able to link with multiple portals.”

“In our universe or this one?”

“I don’t know, just that there’s control programming that suggests this one is capable of a lot more. The portal we control on the other side has just one location program installed. Here, I not only see a dozen specific entries, but the potential for adding hundreds more.”

Andy’s heart began to pound harder in his chest. “Are you implying this array is some kind of super array, a master TD portal?”

“There no other reason for having such redundancy or computing capability, not if all you want to do is link with only one portal. We know what those arrays look like.”

“Can you locate the other arrays they have programmed in?”

“Not yet. It’s still pretty much Greek to us for the most part, but we’re making progress.”

Andy nodded. “Very good, Mister Patel. Keep working on it.”

After he left the control complex, Andy returned to the shuttle he’d taken to the surface of the array planet from the
Winston Churchill
. He excused a comm tech and sat down at the console himself. He programmed in a CW link code and waited for the signal to cycle through the relay that had been set up in Sol-Kor space near the open portal. The delay was only slightly longer than normal, and soon an image appeared on the screen, the image of another JUDS officer a universe away.

“Andy, I wasn’t expecting your link,” said the officer, a look of concern on his face. “We’ll have to keep it brief. The whole Union is out for your ass, or at least the pinheads running things.”

“I understand, Evan, and I certainly wouldn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize your career.”

Rear Admiral Evan Benson was one of Andy’s oldest friends, and was commander of the Union Intelligence Service—essentially what had once been the CIA. Andy had contacted him through a secure backdoor comm-link, one that should be completely unmonitored, especially considering Benson’s job. But with the political turmoil in the Union, all prior associates of Andy’s were probably under surveillance.

“So what’s up?”

“Do you have an accounting of the SK activity at their other portals, the ones not controlled by either us or the Expansion?”

“I do. We have the locations of eight under SK control, monitored by drones and other methods.”

“Anything unusual over the past couple of weeks?”

“Unusual, what do you mean?”

“Their activity level—any change?”

“I don’t know. Let me check.” Andy waited as Benson pulled up the latest data on his office computer. It didn’t take long before he was back on the link.

“How did you know? There’s been a complete lack of portal activity over the past eight days, at least as far as we can tell.”

“At all the locations?”

“Yep, which looking at the timeline report is completely out of order. Up until then they’d been flooding the galaxy with reinforcements. They know we can track their portals so they’ve been stacking the deck in their favor. Andy, you obviously had some idea what I’d find. How?”

“I’ve been talking with the techs over here at the portal we control in Sol-Kor space, and they seem to believe this may be some kind of super portal array.”

“One that can control all the others?”

“Maybe not like that, but a central point linked to all the others in the Milky Way.”

“Holy crap, do you know what you’re saying?” Benson exclaimed. “We always assumed there was a matching array on their side for every one here. But if there’s only one—”

“And we control it.”

“I repeat—holy crap! This could be the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for. This is great news!”

“Yes…and no.”

“What do you mean?”

Andy blew out a breath. “It means that if this is their only way into the Milky Way, then they’re certainly not going to let me keep it for long.”

“Then blow up the fucker!”

“Then I cut off the only way for Cain and his team to make it back to our universe.”

“I thought they were going to use the portal in the Queen’s Chambers, like before?”

“The mission was launched six days ago, Evan, and they’re not back yet. I have to assume that part of the plan is a bust.”

Evan Benson eyed his long-time friend, knowing his feelings for Adam Cain. “It could also mean the mission itself failed. Have you considered that? And if that’s the case, how long are you going to wait before doing what you know you have to do, especially in light of this new information?”

“That will be up to the Sol-Kor. So far they haven’t made any attempt to retake the portal, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. It’s a given they have a lot more resources to throw into the effort than we have to keep it.”

“Maybe Osbourne will give you more support, once he learns that you have?”

Andy shook his head. “No, he’d order it destroyed just to force me back over to his side where he can deal with my traitorous ass as he sees fit. Damn, Evan, we barely had enough units to take the portal in the first place, let alone defend our position against an overwhelming force.”

“It sounds like your mind is pretty well made up, buddy.”

Tobias’s gaunt face nodded while looking off-camera. “You’re right,” he said after a moment. He looked back into the sad eyes of his friend. “I’ll place the charges, but hold off until the alien bastards leave me no choice.”

“Andy, Cain’s mission was designed to stop the Sol-Kor by cutting off the head of the snake. He may have done that, we don’t know. But one thing we do know—and evidenced by the data—we could accomplish the same thing simply by blowing up the damn portal array. If Cain was in command, he’d do it.”

“I know, Evan, you plain-speaking sonofabitch. I don’t even know why I called you in the first place?”

“Because you miss me, that’s why,” Benson said with a forced smile. “Just blow the thing. Then when the galaxy learns what you’ve done and its consequences, it’ll be pretty hard for Osbourne to prosecute the officer who won the Sol-Kor war for our side. I’ll do what I can to make sure the word gets out.”

“I appreciate that, Evan, but for now keep it under wraps. I’m still going to give Adam as much time as I can. Then I’ll blow the crap out of this place.”