The Unreachable Stars: Book #11 of The Human Chronicles Saga (26 page)

A quick survey showed the remainder of the long corridor to be empty. He sprinted along its length, slowing at each adjoining hallway to scan for other Sol-Kor. He managed to reach the fourth hallway without incident.

After a quick look-see around the corner, Riyad spotted the cluster of guards filling the hallway outside one particular room. They were fifty feet away and with absolutely no cover between here and there. After checking the charge on his flash weapon, Riyad stepped boldly into the passageway and began walking quickly and with authority straight for the assembled guards. His weapon was in his right hand and hidden behind his back.

He made it halfway to the door before being noticed, and even then, his confident stride gave his spotter reason to pause before raising the alarm. Riyad produced the flash weapon from behind his back and filled the corridor with brilliant flashes of accurately-aimed plasma bolts. All four guards lay dead before the first one could even draw a weapon.

Riyad looked through the window and saw a relaxed Adam Cain seated on the deck with his back against the wall. He was looking at the window, having been alerted by the flashes and panic voices coming from the hallway. Now a wide grin stretched across his face. He climbed to his feet, brushed off the seat of his pants, and walked leisurely for the door of his prison. When Riyad activated the controls, Adam step out of the room, and without hugs or fanfare simply accepted the flash weapon Riyad had taken from one of the dead guards.

“I assume Kaylor and Jym are back at the
Pegasus
.”

“Wouldn’t leave home without them.” The brilliance of Riyad’s teeth competed with that of the flash bolts from earlier. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Not without Panur.”

“Here’s a newsflash, my friend. He’s already been returned to the Sol-Kor.”

“He’s somewhere aboard this ship, probably with the captain.”

“Oh, that’s good. I thought he’d be someplace that might be heavily guarded—like the captain’s quarters. Seriously, Adam, I have Kaylor and Jym getting the
Pegasus
ready to lift off. Let’s just blast this ship to pieces as we make our exit. That will keep him out of the hands of the Sol-Kor.”

“He’ll survive, and then the rest of the Sol-Kor will be around to find him. We don’t have a choice, we have to go get him. C’mon, we’ve been aboard beamships before. We know where the captain’s quarters are located.”

Riyad looked up and down the corridor. “You’re right, and if I recall, it’s three levels up and about thirty meters forward.” He bent down and picked up the flash weapons from the four guards. “Here, we’re going to need these. There’s no getting around it, we’re going to have to fight our way out of here.”

“I think I’m getting aroused,” Adam said with a smile. “Now let’s go. Time to kick some alien butt.”

“That’s the Adam Cain we all know and love. Lead on, my friend.”

********

High-Noslead Lonnis Huon got the first call regarding a disturbance aboard his ship a few minutes later. At first the reports were vague, concerning weapons discharge being heard in various sections of the ship. Then they became more detailed. A pair of rampaging Humans were shooting up the place, and since most of the crew did not carry weapons while performing their everyday duties, the death count was climbing rapidly.

He glared at Panur, who was sitting on a large couch, looking small and insignificant, his short legs barely reaching the edge, his feet shifting side to side as if to some musical beat heard only by him.

“Looks as though you have a cancer within your midst,” Panur said to Huon.

“Are they coming for you? I do not understand. Why risk their lives for a creature like you?”

“That’s a rather condescending comment to make,” Panur scolded. “Do you not believe I could have loyal friends?”

“Friends? They are aliens.”

“Everyone is an alien to me, High-Noslead, including you.”

“That may be so, but I will not allow them to take you from me, not when your return will mean so much to my Queen.”

He moved to his desk and withdrew a plasma weapon, but when he looked at the couch again, Panur was gone. In a panic, the officer spun around and found the mutant standing on his desk, now at eye level with the much taller Sol-Kor officer. He had a wicked grin on his face.

Lightning-quick, Panur’s arms stretched outward far beyond their normal length, and with the consistency of metal rods imbedded themselves into the chest of Huon, sending spasms of electricity coursing through the officer’s body. When Panur withdrew his appendages, Huon fell to the floor, still carrying the telltale signs of the shock he’d absorbed, even as the wounds were cauterized by the heat of the high voltage.

Calmly, Panur walked to the refreshment station in the captain’s cabin and cleaned the blood from his arms. Then he hid the body behind the desk and stationed himself in a chair facing the main entrance to the cabin.

Moments later, the door burst open and Adam Cain dove in, rolling once before rising up on one knee, scanning the room with the barrel of the plasma weapon pressed against his right cheek. Riyad Tarazi then appeared at the doorway, dodging flash bolts while returning fire at an unseen enemy down the corridor.

“Are you okay?” Adam shouted.

“Of course. Since word of your quest reached me, I have been waiting patiently for your arrival.”

“Where’s the captain?”

“I don’t know. He rushed off after the alarm went off.”

“Good, then follow me. We’re running low on battery charge.”

“Then allow me to lead the way. I can serve as an effective shield, and I would truly enjoy absorbing some raw energy in the process.”

“Great idea. You first!”

********

During the fight back to the hangar deck, Panur absorbed four direct plasma hits, and now his pale skin was literally glowing a light pink color, his eyes lit up like something out of an old sci-fi movie, pure white and evil-looking.

The trio entered the open hatchway of the
Pegasus II
, which closed a moment later, activated by Kaylor. They poured into the pilothouse.

Kaylor and Jym stopped what they were doing to stare at the tiny mutant. Adam couldn’t blame them. His body was radiating an inordinate amount of heat, making it nearly impossible to get within five feet of him.

“Dammit, Panur, isn’t there something you can do to shed some of that excess heat?”

“Why would I want to shed it? This is magnificent!”

“But you’re cooking us alive in here.”

“Then I will retire to some aft compartment as I let the four of you attend to our departure from the beamship. I’m sorry I’ll miss it. I’m sure it, too, will be magnificent.”

After he’d left the pilothouse, and the temperature began to return to normal, Riyad turned to Adam. “That is one crazy sonofabitch.”

“No argument there. Kaylor, Jym, how’s the ship?”

“Welcome back, my friend,” Kaylor said. “We have disconnected the dampening device they placed on the engines. Everything else is in working order.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Through the doors or the bulkhead?”

“Seeing that we’re pointed toward an exterior bulkhead, let’s try that for a change.”

“Agreed. Opening blast doors always seemed problematic.”

He nodded to Jym, who, seated at fire control, unleased a stream of plasma bolts at the nearby wall. Sparks flew, metal shredded, and prodigious rivers of atmosphere escaped through the breach. The glowing red edge of the hole grew even wider as Jym spread the stream in an ever-widening circle, until the gap was large enough to allow the
Pegasus II
to pass through.

Kaylor activated a small gravity well directly in front of them just as the escaping atmosphere set the ship to moving. They shot out into open space as fractures appeared on the weakened hull of the beamship, spreading spiderweb-like to infect the entire aft section. The back of the Sol-Kor ship blew outwards, sending the forward section tumbling off in the opposite direction. Evidence of small internal explosions could be seen through portholes and ever-growing cracks moments before the beamship evaporated in a fire-less explosion.

Adam took the co-pilot’s seat and activated the dimensional phase-shifter, launching the
Pegasus II
into a green-tinged tunnel of hyper-faster-than-light velocity. The lead beamship had been located within a cluster of twenty or more Sol-Kor ships, yet before any could react, the
Pegasus II
was far beyond weapons range and racing toward the huge wall of stellar gas forming the nearby nebula.

“Where to?” Kaylor asked.

“There’s a channel just below us,” said Adam. “You’ll see it. We’ll slip out that way.” He looked around and took in the faces of the other three people in the room. “And thanks, thanks for everything. I don’t know what I would do without you guys.”

“You would die—that is obvious,” Jym blurted in his usual unabashed manner.

Riyad just shrugged his agreement, while Kaylor was too busy seeking out their escape route to comment.

Chapter 26

Eight days later, Adam and the
Pegasus II
were back on Castor, having ripped up space to get there using Panur’s revolutionary new space drive. They’d been granted a limited diplomatic waiver by the Expansion while the details of the latest encounter with the Sol-Kor continued to be sorted out. There was a lot of confusion as to what the attack on the Human fleet truly meant. Was it a repudiation of the immunity offer, or just a defensive action on the part of the SK? Comm lines were burning up trying to find out which.

Spy ships in the region of the portal array had detected an almost frantic search taking place near where the lead beamship had exploded, apparently looking for Panur’s body. So far the SK’s hadn’t accused the Humans of still having the mutant, so Adam was keeping him under wraps for the time being.

Panur had long since returned to normal—whatever normal was for him—and was once again able to be around the rest of them without setting anything on fire; however, the energy he’d absorbed was still apparent in his eyes, which glowed an unnatural white. Adam had seen him take an even greater energy hit before, and without such long-lasting effects, so he suspected the tiny alien was taking surreptitious hits off some of the MK weapons they had around the ship. He was conflicted as to whether he preferred a drunk alien to a radiating one. Both were hard to be around.

Panur’s white alien eyes met his, at which point a sheepish grin stretched across Panur’s lips.
Damn, the alien’s reading my body language again.

Adam looked at his watch. “Isn’t Tobias due here about now?” he said, changing the unspoken subject.

“That’s right. And Arieel and Regina, too, with my ship,” Riyad confirmed.

“Arieel’s coming here?” Panur’s tone was serious now.

“Yep. She wants to speak with the admiral. Trimen and her are serious about returning to Formil, but they’ll need a lot of support from Andy for that to happen.”

“And what of her daughter?”

Adam hesitated before answering. “She insisted on coming along. She’s on the
Crescent Star
with Arieel.”

“What are your feelings about that?”

“My feelings?” Adam asked. By now the truth was known to all that Lila was his daughter, even as none of them had pursued the subject much beyond that.

“Let’s not go there, okay?” he said. “I have no expectations. What will be, will be.”

“I would be more curious about how
you
feel about Lila,” said Riyad to Panur. Adam tensed as his friend had broached a subject that had been taboo until now. “You and she appear to have some weird connection.”

“She is a unique individual, as am I. She is definitely a subject worth study.”

“She’s a kid, Panur,” Adam said defensively.

The mutant shook his head. “That she is not, not by any definition of the word.”

“Just leave her alone.”

Panur leaned back in his chair. “Spoken with true paternal instinct. Believe me, Adam, my intentions are purely honorable.”

“Yeah, even so…stay away from her.”

“I’m afraid that will not be my choice. Lila finds me as fascinating as I find her. We are both curiosities…to each other.”

With Adam’s status in the Expansion—and the Union as well—in a state of flux, Castorian officials had cloistered him away from the general population of Krune. They didn’t want to take the chance of any residual bounty hunters taking action against him, not if there was a pardon in the works. At Adam’s suggestion—and he was surprised the place was vacant—the three of them were now kicked back in Seton Amick’s old home. It was a palatial estate at the very edge of a mountainside, with underground access through the exclusive avenues of a restricted enclave, and with a magnificent view of the stark outside world through its fifty-foot-wide observation window.

The home had been through a variety of owners over the past twenty years. Ironically, the immediate prior owner had been a business executive unlucky enough to have been on one of the worlds the Sol-Kor attacked, there to negotiate a new trade deal for Castor. This was before the SK’s had acquiesced to attacking only non-member worlds. Unfortunate for the Castorian, but a stroke of luck for Adam and the gang, as they were enjoying the hell out of the place in the meantime.

Without knocking, a parade of Human military personnel entered the estate. Stern-faced guards took up positions at the doors and around the huge great room, and Adam and Riyad stood from the couches, tense and frankly concerned. Were they about to be arrested, all bets off? Considering how Adam’s past couple of months had gone, he wouldn’t be surprised.

Admiral Andy Tobias entered next, followed closely by a thin civilian wearing glasses and a sour expression. Adam knew the man to be Jack Hardy, the scientific attaché to the Union. Adam had been in meetings with him before. The man was an asshole.

Andy grasped Adam’s hand warmly, and then Riyad’s. “Well, let’s get this thing settled out, shall we?” he said, cutting right to the chase. He looked over at Panur, who was still seated on one of the plush sofas in the great room.

“Do you know the location of all the Sol-Kor portals?” he asked the alien, leaving no doubt that he was
demanding
an answer, not requesting one.

“Yes, I do,” Panur said calmly.

Tobias glanced back at Hardy, and then to Panur again. “Are you going to give them to us?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not my friends are completely exonerated of any crimes, both in the Expansion and Union, and that a very public proclamation be made to that effect.”

“That will have to wait,” Hardy interjected. “Knowing the locations of the arrays may have some value, but only if the immunity offer has truly been revoked. It remains to be seen whether or not it was a true deception on the part of the Sol-Kor, or a consequence of your actions.”

Tobias cast an angry glare at the bureaucrat. “Let me handle this, Jack.”

“I’m just letting them know the official position.”

“It is so far, but that’s subject to change.”

“Why do you still insist on taking the side of the Sol-Kor in this matter?” Panur asked. “I—and my friends—have just gone through an incredible ordeal just so you can have the means to keep your galaxy safe from the Sol-Kor. Why would we have done that if there was an alternative?”

“There is an alternative,” Hardy growled. “Just turn your ass over the Queen.”

“You did that already, and they still attacked. Are you that blind to the truth? It has always been like this, and yet you simple-minded beings refuse to listen to the truth. The Sol-Kor only want you for food—not partners, not allies, not even slaves. You are a food crop to them.”

“Simple-minded beings? Why, you arrogant—”

“Can it, Hardy!” Tobias said. “This delegation is under military authority. You’re along just to observe and advise. Now shut the fuck up!”

Adam smiled. That was the Andy Tobias he knew…not the compliant yes-man some had been trying to turn him into. “Admiral, it’s been over a week since the events at the nebula. Have the Sol-Kor attacks backed off any?”

“On the contrary, Adam, they’ve intensified. And there appears to be a flood of new ships coming through the one portal we know of. They’re stepping things up, and have already hit two member worlds on the edge of the Union.”

“Doesn’t that tell you all you need to know?”

The eyes of the two Navy SEALs met. “To me it does,” Tobias stated firmly.

“Then take the damn coordinates and let’s go kick some Sol-Kor butt. It sure beats kissing it.” Adam looked at Jack Hardy.

“You can’t do that, Tobias!” Hardy cried. “Just take the mutant and turn him over to the Sol-Kor. Say it was a misunderstanding, the actions of a rogue group without official sanction.”

Adam stepped up to the shorter man. “Then what? The frickin’ Queen blesses us with a stay of execution while we continue on with our lives like nothing’s wrong, like there’s not a trillion hungry aliens just waiting for their chance at the buffet table? Even if they would grant us some form of immunity—which I know they won’t—I don’t want to live like that. Not when we have a way of kicking the bastards out of our galaxy for good.”

“Spoken like the true warmonger you are—”

It had been a while since Adam had hit a Human, and it felt good flattening the loud-mouth without fear of killing him. Hardy was now squat on the floor, his glasses broken and sitting cockeyed on his face, blood pouring from a broken nose.

“You will pay for this, Cain!”

“And you need to be more careful. There are a lot of things around here for you to trip on.”

“Trip…?”

“That’s right, Jack,” Tobias said. “That was rather clumsy of you.”

Hardy turned toward the four military guards in the room. To a man, they each smiled and shrugged.

“Fuck you…all of you!” And then he climbed to his feet and stalked out of the house.

“Such language,” Riyad said through his wide smile. “Some may find it offensive.”

“You know what I say to them?” Adam began. “Fu—”

“Now, Captain, play nice.” Tobias turned to the very-amused looking alien mutant. “Shall we get started? I have a war to wage.”

Panur smiled. “Against an unbeatable foe?”

“Among the unreachable stars,” Riyad waxed-poetic.

“That is
my
quest,” Adam said under his breath, before turning toward the huge observation window that looked out across the bleak landscape of Castor. Outside the growing shadows of early evening were painting the distant red mountains on another alien world orbiting one of those formerly unreachable stars. Every time Adam allowed himself a moment to step back and put things in perspective, the scope of it all took his breath away.

In the sky above the ruddy mountains of Castor, stars were beginning to wink on. From here they were mere dots of light, yet Adam knew better. Around a fair number of them were the homeworlds of countless struggling creatures, all with the same wants, needs, and desires as everyone else. Those tiny lights seemed to beckon him, seeking his attention, his strength.

Adam felt an incredible weight fall on his shoulders, and wondered at what point had Humanity become responsible for the wellbeing of all those living souls?    

The task—nay,
the quest
—before them would be daunting. The Sol-Kor were beefing up their forces, and it would take the combined military strength and resolve of the entire Milky Way galaxy to shut them down.