The Copernicus Deception (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 15) (4 page)

Chapter 3

The emergency link came through the comm just as Commander Said returned to his station. He now accompanied his captain to the Combat Information Center at the rear of the bridge to receive the communique.

Although Captain Morris had been expecting an update to his orders, he was concerned when the classified link was required to be received in the SCIF—Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility—aboard the ship. Only Morris, Commander Said and a chief comm officer were present.

The face of Admiral Hollingsworth appeared, looking stressed, as Morris would expect under the circumstances. The admiral’s blue eyes scanned the occupants of the room aboard the starship, three thousand light-years from Earth.

“Things are really heating up, David,” the Admiral began without preamble.

Morris’s stomach tightened. War was an unpredictable thing, especially at the beginning.

“The Juirean fleet is moving to cut you off, and they have a hundred ships to make sure they succeed.”

“Sir, as much as I take pride in my Human heritage, I think that’s a little more than we can chew. But do you honestly believe they’ll fire on us? This is a lot larger than just the Frontier.”

“They’ve been getting a lot more belligerent recently. I wouldn’t put it past them to find some excuse to start the war, using you and your ships as the pretense. You’re not going to like this, but I’m ordering you and your units to proceed to the Luminis Cluster and set up a defensive line. Half the worlds there are protectorates of the Union. We have more right to be there than the Juireans.”

“And if they attack?”

“Then they’ll come off as the aggressors.”

Captain Morris smiled. “Glad we can do our part, sir.”

“Don’t worry. There are sixty ships in the area already, and I’m bolting another forty that way in the next day or so. You’ll have back up.”

“What about Admiral Tobias?”

“I’ll let him know what’s going on. With the trans-dimensional starship gone, there’s no urgency to reach him, not now anyway.”

“I’m sure the Juireans know he’s on Worak-nin. Do you think he’ll be safe? Capturing him and Cain’s team would be a major propaganda coup for the Juireans.”  

“I’ll have him go to ground. Besides, I wouldn’t advise the mane-heads to go up against Cain and his people…not again. It didn’t work out so well for them the last time they tried.”

“That was then, Admiral. They have a pretty good idea what we’re all about this time around.”

The admiral’s face contorted. “I was afraid you were going to say that. That’s what I’m concerned about, too. The Juireans are smart enough—at least they are now—not to start something they can’t finish. And after we carried most of the weight against the Sol-Kor, our forces are at a disadvantage, at least numerically.”

“Do you have something up your sleeve, sir?”

“If I did, I couldn’t tell you.” Hollingsworth’s face was a blank canvas. Morris thought how he’d hate to play Texas Hold ‘Em with the man.

“Very well, sir. Is there anything else?”

This time the admiral’s blue eyes bore into the junior officer. “Just this: We cannot shoot first. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. Perfectly.”

“Good luck gentlemen. Keep me informed.”

The screen went black.

Chapter 4

Adam staggered onto the bridge two hours later, his headache down to a somewhat tolerable level. Copernicus was seated in his pilot’s chair, a leg draped over the right armrest. He barely reacted to Adam’s arrival.

With a steaming cup of black coffee balanced in his grip, Adam sat at the comm station before swiveling the chair around so he could look out the forward viewport. The liquid in the cup was strong and bitter, and just what the doctor ordered.

“Back among the living?” Smith asked without looking at his guest.

“Got tired of wallowing in my pain. Figured a walk would do me good.”

“Go easy on the coffee. It’s the real stuff. I have it shipped in from Earth.”

“Thought so. It’s the best I’ve had in…well I don’t know how long.” He sipped at the contents of the cup.

Now Copernicus swiveled his own chair to look at his guest. “So…Adam Cain, universe-hopper, savior of the galaxy. I guess I should be honored by your mere presence aboard my ship.”

Adam frowned. “Hey, you came to us, remember. And I didn’t ask for any of this to happen to me.”

“Yeah, I know, I saw the movie. My girlfriend at the time dragged me to see it. She had a poster of you in her bedroom.”

“What was she, twelve at the time?”

“Something like that.”

“Dude, you’re not that much younger than I am.”

“As they say, it’s not the years, it’s the mileage. I’m twenty-six.”

Adam remained quiet. He thought Copernicus was in his forties. But then curiosity got the better of him. “So what’s your story? What’s a Human doing out here in the middle of the Frontier, and running a starship repair business? Isn’t there enough business in Union space?”

“As you surmised earlier, my primary customer base would prefer to avoid the Union—and the Expansion for that matter—if at all possible. And their reputations precludes certain, more reputable firms from doing business with them. But me, I get more business than I can handle, and at about twice the going rate.”

“How big’s your operation?”

“I have eight crews, plus three haulers and a planetside yard. Four haulers if you include the
FS-475
. I carry it on the books as a contract-for-hire.”

“And where is home?”

“A little no-name outside of Austin, Texas.”

Adam pursed his lips at Copernicus. “You know what I mean.”

“It’s actually a neat little place called Liave-3. You’d love it. My shipyard is right on the shore of a huge sea. Great waves, but I wouldn’t recommend surfing there.”

“Why not?”

Copernicus smiled. “The planet never had one of those giant asteroids crash into it, so there are still dinosaur-like beasts roaming around, along with fifty-foot-long sharks.”

“What about the natives?”

“Those are the natives. Off-worlders have come to the planet, though, so there’s a fairly large city nearby where I get my miscellaneous labor and parts from. Also, you’d be surprised how tasty T-Rex steaks can be.”

“Sound great. So how did you get your training? Military?”

“How’d you guess? But even before that I was always tinkering with cars and other things. That’s just what you did in Texas when your nearest neighbor was five mile away. Found a pretty good home in the service, though. Got to the rank of Tech-Sergeant before deciding to leave.”

“Why was that?”

“Partly because of you.”

Adam raised his eyebrows. “Me?”

“Yeah. I was in the Army at the time Earth ruled the Expansion; I was stationed on Juir when you made your little speech giving the galaxy back to the Juireans. By the way, thanks for that.”

Adam didn’t know which way to take that, so he let it drop.

Copernicus continued. “After that, me and a few buddies decided to stick around. We began to pick through the derelicts from past space battles—mainly places in your wake, I might add. It was pretty lucrative for a while. We not only had hundreds of ships to salvage, but all the spare parts were just drifting around in space. We’d fix up the ships and sell them off. Made some good coin, for a while. Then the big boys moved, including those MK assholes. You know they make more than just flash weapons, don’t you. They’re into just about everything now. Kind of the Amazon of outer space.

“Anyway, that’s how I came into contact with some of my current customers. They’re always looking for reliable—and cheap—transports. When word got out who we were selling most of our inventory to, things got a little too hot for me in the Expansion. So I took my skills and worked my way to the Frontier. It’s been about four years, and no regrets.”

“Any run-ins with the Sol-Kor?.”

“Fortunately, no. Not quite sure why. They did hit Kidis here and there.” Copernicus smiled. “But since they seemed to be attracted to more advanced civilizations, that more or less exempted the Frontier from the menu. I missed all the really juicy action.”

“You’re lucky, Copernicus…trust me on that one. It wasn’t pretty.”

Copernicus shifted in his seat. “I guess we should get something straight. Very few people call me Copernicus. Most call me Coop.”

“Not Cop?”

“No, Coop. It started about the time I got big enough to kick everyone’s ass in high school.”

Adam grinned, and held up a hand in surrender. “Fine, I’ll call you Mortimer if that’s what you want to be called. It’s your name.”

“Coop will do.”

There was a long moment of awkward silence before Coop spoke again. “So, what’s it like to be in another universe?”

“About the same as here. Supposedly there are countless dimensions. The one where the Sol-Kor live is just like this one. Don’t really know why there has to be so many?”

“So no universes inhabited by real-life Disney characters or creatures made out of Legos?”

Adam smiled. “None that I saw.”

“That’s too bad. At least that would have made it more interesting.”

There was another lull in the conversation until Adam changed the subject. “What about Kaylor and Jym? How did you meet them?”

Copernicus snorted. “I ran into them in the Fringe. I was over there for a series of meetings with my primary customers. You do know that the Sileans, Castorians and the Rigorians run most of the contraband throughout the galaxy? Kaylor and Jym were on Silea at the time. I’d heard of them, of course, and a meeting was set up. I have to say, the way they were portrayed in the movie was quite a bit different than in real life.”

“Sorry, I never saw the movie.”

“There have actually been three made so far. I guess after your latest adventure, a fourth will be in the works.”

“God, I hope not.”

Copernicus smiled. “Then stop going around saving the galaxy and killing grotesque bug-like alien queens…or having sex with gorgeous extraterrestrial females.”

“You know about that?”

“Hey, I’ve seen the pictures of that Formilian hottie” Coop’s smile turned into a lecherous smirk. He just nodded at Adam, approvingly. “Oh, and Sherri Valentine ain’t no slouch either. Is she seeing anyone these days?”

It was Adam’s turn to smile. “Go for it, dude. She’s free as a bird.” He decided he didn’t like Copernicus enough to warn him of all the baggage that came with dating Sherri. He wouldn’t believe him if he tried.

“So…you met Kaylor and Jym….”

“Yeah. They’re always looking for work, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt having a couple of celebrities on the payroll. I offered them a pretty good salary, plus a hefty share of the towing fees, since they’d be using the
FS-475
.” Copernicus snorted. “It also seemed that some people in the Fringe weren’t so enamored with their celebrity, and a change of scenery was just what they needed. They’ve been with me for about two years.”

“Do they know you’re bringing in me and Riyad to help get them released?”

“Nope. Haven’t had a chance to speak to them. The Visidorans are real assholes. They’ve sided with the Juireans in this whole annexation thing, so there are a lot of the mane-heads running around their world, calling the shots.”

Adam frowned. “If they’ve sided with the Juireans, then why do you think we can help get them out?”

“Because, like I said, the Sol-Kor harvested worlds in the Frontier, too, and some very close to Visidor. I’m banking on a little gratitude on the part of the Affiliation for what you did to stop the threat. Besides, Visidor society is run by the females, and we all know how well you do with alien women.”

Adam let the sour look on his face fester for a while. It seemed Copernicus had been grasping for straws when he contacted him and Riyad for help.

“And what if they won’t let them go?”

“I’ll deal with that at the time. I have a legal team on retainer who can bring up a whole array of issues about the liability of service personnel. But I really want you to try to the get the ships back, both the
FS-475
and my client’s ship.”

“Who’s your client?”

“Sorry, Cain, confidential info.”

“What about the crew? Where are they?”

“Hell, the moment the ship broke down they hightailed it out of the area. Kaylor and Jym got there just ahead of the Visidorans. By then they knew it wasn’t a simple fix and had the ship under tow.”

“And you really don’t know what’s aboard?”

“How could I? I’ve never seen the ship. I just got the call about the breakdown. Most times the ships can be pieced together enough onsite to get them to the nearest safe harbor. This one was something even Jym couldn’t fix, and you know what a wizard he is with starships.”

Adam shook his head. “Like I said before, we’ll do what we can to get Kaylor and Jym released. But as far as your client’s ship goes, I can’t make any promises.”

“We’ll see,” said Copernicus. “Maybe I have more confidence in your persuasive powers than you do.”

“Don’t bet the farm on it.”

“Unfortunately, I already have.”