Scorched Earth: (The Human Chronicles Saga Book #16) (24 page)

“Sir, we just lost three of the starboard launch bays, along bulkheads 9-454 through 18-398.”

“Integrity?”

“Down to thirty percent and falling.”

Emerson unfastened his safety harness, but held onto the command chair to keep from floating away. “Comm, contact the nearest vessels for assistance.” He pressed a button on the arm of his chair. “This is the Captain, all hands abandon ship. I repeat, all hands abandon ship.”

Emerson turned to the young lieutenant junior-grade. “Mister Smith, what was the last word on the battle?”

“Success, sir. Decisive.”

“Glad to hear it. Now, get moving.”

“After you, sir,” said the young officer with a sad smile.

“You know I can’t do that, Mister Smith, but I will be right behind you.”

Synnoc had made the ten mile journey to the Military Command Center to supervise the great battle, knowing full-well that his friend would be irritated by the interference.

Kradis was the Fleet Marshal; it was his job to conduct the battle, not the Elder’s. But this was the moment Synnoc had been envisioning for years. He wasn’t satisfied to play spectator, not for something this important.

That was then.

Now he was an emotional wreck, yelling at subordinates and throwing anything that wasn’t attached to something large across the dimly-lit control room.

It all started when nearly every contact point on the threat board suddenly doubled or trebled. How could this have happened? Were they employing a type of dimensional jump-drive?

“No sir,” Kradis reported. “Site reports show the additional vessels had been under tow and in dark status. They were undetectable.”

“Not to visual observation!”

“My Lord, we could not get a visual, Our units were in hiding. By the time verification was received, they were within the dampening fields.”

Later, as the battle deteriorated even more, Synnoc began to bark orders—many of which countermanded those of the Fleet Marshal—and sending hundreds of Juirean ships into the mass of enemy vessels on one-way suicide missions. None of the Juirean crews refused. These orders came from the Elder himself.

“My Lord, they have lost one of their ship carriers.”

Synnoc looked to Kradis with manic eyes. “Out of how many?”

“They had three.”

“And the other two?”

“Still operational.”

“So I find little joy in your report. What is the latest casualty report?”

Kradis punched keys on his panel. “Over two thousand, the situation is still fluid. Permission to call retreat. We
must
preserve what we can.”

“And the enemy strength?”

“That, too, is fluid, since we did not have an accurate starting count.”

Synnoc glared at his Fleet Marshal.

“The Humans still have a fleet of over two thousand five hundred ships in strength. If we preserve the remainder of our units, we should be close to parity for defense of Juir.”

“Juir? They will not be allowed to reach Juir!”

“My Lord, we have very little in place to stop them. With the channel open for Cain, the only units we have available are the survivors from this battle.”

“I refuse to accept that. We have five hundred more coming from the Bondit region.”

“In two days, my Lord, and they are on course for the battlefield, not Juir.”

“Divert them.”

“That will add another day to their journey.”

A dozen sets of yellow eyes were on the pacing Council Elder. “How long?”

“How long what, my Lord?” asked Kradis.

“How long until they get to Juir?”

“
They
the Humans, or
they
our forces?”

Synnoc took Kradis by his uniform and shoved him against a wall. “Do not mock me, Kradis. I want to know when Adam Cain will get to Juir! Do not be stupid.”

The Fleet Marshal had had enough. He pushed his superior away and pressed him into a nearby chair. “I am not stupid, Synnoc! It only appears so because I follow stupid orders! Cain does not matter at this point. The survival of Juir does!”

“Guards!” the Elder cried out. “Restrain Kradis. He is no longer Fleet Marshal. Place him in a holding cell pending review of his actions by the Council Elite.”

Kradis didn’t resist. He glared at Synnoc while being escorted from the room.

“My Lord,” one of the Master-Overlords in the room began, “who shall be the new Fleet Marshal?”

“I do not need a Fleet Marshal. I will assume the position myself.”

“My Lord?”

“You forget, I have military experience. I am more than qualified to lead the war against the Humans.”

“As you wish, my Lord. Orders?”

“Get me the location of Adam Cain.”

“And what of the fleet? Shall I order the withdrawal?”

Synnoc was up and pacing again.

“My Lord, the fleet?”

“Yes…recall them, but order our units not to interfere with the journey of Adam Cain. He must be allowed to reach Juir.”

Chapter 28

The manufacturing worlds of Oannan and Bal—two of the original planets in the Seven World Common Alliance, the precursor to the Expansion—had been rebuilt after the Kracori attack seventeen years before. They’d both suffered major damage, yet not as severely as Juir; dropping a half-a-kilometer-wide asteroid on a planet was a pretty serious event. Even to this day, the homeworld of the Juireans had an average temperature eight degrees below its pre-attack level, the result of the nuclear winter that followed the asteroid impact.

The Kracori had targeted the manufacturing plants hoping to limit the Juirean recovery should their attack on Juir fail. After the Humans took over the Expansion, they poured money and resources into rebuilding the resources of the empire. Now the twin planets enjoyed thriving economies and a higher-than-average standard of living, as compared to the rest of the Expansion.

The planets were also located less that a light-year from Juir.

Adam reasoned Synnoc would be expecting him to come directly to Juir in his super-powerful starship, burning a path right up to the Elder’s front door. So Adam would do the unexpected. He and Riyad would make their way to Oannan, and from there, to Juir via the hundreds of daily cargo ships delivering goods and services to the capital planet of the Expansion.

Of course, the two Humans would have to commandeer yet another vessel and then land at one of the huge receiving ports located hundreds of miles from Juir City. From there they would move overland before Adam could implement the second part of his plan.

The shuttle from the Class-2 worked great for getting them to the surface of Oannan, then wearing black environment suits to disguise their identities, they mingled with the dozens of Expansion races populating the cargo transit center. After that it was simply a matter of gaining access to a small delivery ship destined for Juir.

They settled on one of Lan’olic ownership, with a crew of six and carrying a cargo of unfrozen and foul-smelling food stock to the capital planet. The ship was simply a target of opportunity, so it was done out of no animus toward the aliens. In fact, the Humans had never heard of Lan’olics before, so they were surprised when they turned out to have very strong suction cups on the tips of their fingers that made fighting them for control of the ship problematic. The suckers locked onto the composite material of the environment suits and wouldn’t let go, even as alien bodies were smashed against bulkheads and doorways. Even after all six were down, it took Adam and Riyad several minutes to pry the stubborn suckers from their suits.

“Dammit, that’s thrown us behind,” Adam complained as he sat in the single pilot seat—oversized, even in his enviro-suit. He lit up the generators. “We don’t want to lose our place in line.”

“There’s an angry Juirean telling us to hurry up. There’s still a chance,” said Riyad from a station to the rear of Adam position.

The small cargo ship lifted from the surface in a cloud of chemical exhaust and raced upward toward the small gap in the caravan heading for space. The line was narrow at this point, and Adam nearly collided with a much larger ship on chem drive as he squeezed in.

“Now you have those in the ship to our rear yelling at us.”

“Screw them.”

An image of a hideous, multi-flapped mass of pink and yellow skin appeared on the forward viewscreen. “Just thought you’d like to know what they look like, my friend, in case you still have a desire to
screw them
.”

“Yuk, get rid of that! Was that a face…or something else?”

“I think it was a face, but one can never be sure. On a more serious note, the line is stretching out now, preparing for gravity drive. Time to Juir: Sixteen minutes.”

“Not even enough time to get a breather from these damn suits. But maybe you can do something about all the dead Lan’olics stinking up the place.”

“Why me?”

“Because someone has to fly the ship…and I got to the pilot seat first.”

********

It had been ten years since Adam lasted visited Juir. That was when he gave his famous—or infamous—speech returning control of the Expansion back to the Juireans. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

After taking control of the galaxy at the end of the war, Humans found themselves falling into the same self-destructive path as the Juireans, that of trying to rule something as large as a galaxy as a single race. The job was just too big, requiring every Human alive to be involved in the task in one way or another, while still falling woefully short. Massive breeding would be needed to create more Humans, with the young trained for critical jobs even before they reached their teenage years.

That was no way to live, and fortunately the powers on Earth realized this early on. They still liked the idea of lording over a stellar empire, but maybe one not quite as large as the Expansion. Adam joined the movement to abdicate rule of the Expansion in exchange for a more manageable empire comprising only of the Orion-Cygnus Arm of the galaxy.

Because of his fame, Adam was given the honor—or curse—of delivering the galaxy-wide speech that told of the Human’s plans. He wasn’t comfortable as a public speaker, but by all accounts, the speech came off just fine. Then the Humans left Juir and returned to Earth. Soon afterwards, the Orion-Cygnus Union was formed, with Earth as its capital.

And then they all lived happily ever after….

Well, not quite.

Then came the Sol-Kor, followed a new war with the vindictive Juireans. Adam couldn’t understand what Synnoc was thinking? There was no need to go to war, not again, and not so soon after the galaxy-wide devastation caused by the Sol-Kor.

The Juirean Elder was clearly mad, and madmen—or mad-aliens—were hard to understand or predict.

As to the fate of Sherri and Arieel, it wasn’t a mystery what could happen to them, only the details of their death. Would Synnoc use them for bait, as a way to capture Adam and Riyad? Or would he use them to force a surrender? He could also simply execute them on a whim, just out of spite. The bottom line was Synnoc was going to kill the two females—and Adam and Riyad, too, if he got his hands on them. The only questions were when and how?