A Clash of Aliens (The Human Chronicles Book 13) (19 page)

“And what of J’nae—the
Queen
J’nae?”

“She is but one creature. As our ships darken the skies of Kor, all she will be able to do is watch while her empire crumbles around her. It will be as it was five thousand years ago on the planet that is her namesake, when her people first made their deadly presence known to us. And even though she may survive the devastation, it will be you, Adam Cain, who will leave her with nothing to rule. Is that not worth your time and effort?”

Adam looked once again at the anxious faces staring at him, hope and concern in their eyes. And he smiled. Even before he spoke he knew they wouldn’t understand, but he said it anyway. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

“You had me at hello.”

Chapter 18

Syrus Jacs had departed Panurland with a shopping list of items the mutant needed to complete his conversion of the
Najmah Fayd
. He would be back in six days.

Within days of his leaving, Riyad was climbing the walls, growing ever more panicked with each passing hour. He had no idea how long Adam would last in the Sol-Kor universe, and now days were turning into weeks. Sherri wasn’t faring much better.

“You must leave the engine room immediately and let me work in peace!” Panur ordered. “You cannot help, and your continued presence here is slowing me down.”

“C’mon, Panur,” Riyad said, “here are two extra sets of hands. Surely we can do something to speed up the process.”

“No, surely you cannot. Now go before I am forced to take more drastic measures.”

Sherri tugged at Riyad’s sleeve. “Let’s go. He’s not going to complete the conversion anyway until Syrus gets back.”

“Obstinate little bastard,” Riyad said under his breath.

“I have extremely acute hearing, Riyad.”

“I said
obstinate little bastard
!” He yelled it this time.

“I heard you before. Now go!”

The two Humans ended up on the bridge, having passed by the common room and conjured up a couple of powerful drinks from the processor.

“I normally do not partake,” Riyad said as he gulped at the drink, “but that arrogant alien has me breaking my religious convictions…again.”

“Well there’s nothing in
my
religion that precludes me from getting shitfaced. Maybe with the binge and the hangover, time will pass a little quicker.”

“Did you do this?”

Sherri frowned as she pulled her glass from her lips. “Do what?”

“Leave a message. There’s an indicator light.”

“Wasn’t me. Check it out. That’s a priority signal.”

Riyad pressed the button and the gaunt image of Admiral Andy Tobias appeared on the main view screen between the two forward observation ports. “Contact me, dammit! I know you’re receiving my links. Answer me!” The video ended.

“I didn’t know he’d called,” Riyad explained.

“We haven’t been on the bridge for a couple of days. Should we call him? We’re still not sure he wasn’t behind the tracking device.”

“It couldn’t have been him. He’s the one who told me at the beginning that there would be forces out to stop me. He said not to trust anyone.”

“Himself included?”

“Do not go all paranoid on me, Sherri. Andy is our friend. We’ve been through a lot together.”

“So call him. He could have news about Adam.”

Riyad nodded, then punched in the security code for Andy Tobias, Admiral of the Fleet over all Union military forces. The signal was routed through the continuous wormhole comm center aboard the
Najmah Fayd
, before entering an intra-dimensional realm of compressed space and time. It found a matching relay close to Earth, and then established a stable and secure link with the station assigned the access code. They would have nearly an hour of continuous talk and video before the shifting of cosmic forces placed the comm slightly out of phase, requiring a new link.

Earth was located twenty-two thousand light-years away, yet the animated and red-faced image of Andy Tobias popped onto the screen instantly, glaring out at the two Humans seated on the bridge of the Mark IV-prototype starship.

“It’s about good goddamn time! I didn’t give you the most advanced starship in the galaxy just so you’d ignore my calls.”

“Sorry, Admiral, but we haven’t been on the bridge in a couple of days.”

“Where the hell have you been?”

Riyad hesitated answering. Then he said, “Just hanging out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Andy’s thick Georgia accent became even more prominent when he was mad. “Where are y’all?”

Riyad looked at Sherri.

“Don’t look at her…look at me!”

“We’re with Panur—”

“
Panur!
I have a report sitting on my desk that says he was killed.”

“He can’t be—”

“Shut up! You know what I mean. So he survived, and is up and moving around?”

“Yessir.”

“Did the two of you have anything to do with that?”

“It’s what the mission is all about, Admiral,” Riyad barked back. “And we know we’ve been tracked, something that started at your end.”

Riyad saw the veins in the thin neck of the fleet admiral begin to pulse. His face was now the color of a firetruck.

“I’m not saying you knew of it,” Riyad amended quickly, before the boiling anger within his longtime friend caused him literally explode right before their eyes.

“You’re not? It sure sounds like you just did.”

“Then it had to be Arness,” Sherri offered, to Riyad’s surprise, knowing that Secretary Arness was Sherri’s friend.

“Don’t even start with me, young lady. I learned after the fact how you used Arness to manipulate your way aboard the Mark IV-prototype. And as far as that bumbling politician goes, he just signs papers. He doesn’t even know what’s in the documents. It wasn’t him.”

“Then who?”

“If I knew, I’d do something about it.” Andy’s blue eyes bore into his two long-distant subordinates. “Look, I’m glad the two of you are okay, but you can’t imagine the shitstorm you’ve caused for me back here on Earth. The Mark IV may have had a tracker aboard, but it’s my skinny ass who gave you the ship in the first place. Sure, the bad guys wanted me to so you’d lead them to Panur, but that puts my name right at the very top of the hit list when all this goes south. Now tell me, what’s going on with that mutant bastard? Is he going to help you cross over to the Sol-Kor universe or not?”

“That’s what he’s working right on now.”

“Good. Another TD portal?”

“In a way.”

Now the square jaw of Admiral Tobias became even more pronounced, appearing as if the bone were about to burst through the skin. “Are you intentionally trying to piss me off, Tarazi? If so, belay that bullshit. If y’all hadn’t noticed, we’re on the same side.”

“We are for now.”

“Meaning that what you have to tell me might change that?”

“That’s a possibility.”

Tobias turned his attention to Sherri. “Someone had better start giving me some straight talk. I control the whole got-dang military of the whole got-dang Union. Y’all don’t want to get me on your bad side.”

“It’s just that you may not believe it, Andy,” Sherri said. “It’s not that we don’t want to tell you.”

“I’ll give you until the count of three…two…”

“He’s converting the
Najmah Fayd
into a TD portal.”

“What the hell’s a Najmah Fayd?”

“It’s what Riyad calls the Mark IV,” Sherri explained.

“What the hell does it mean?”

“Star Panther,” Riyad answered.

“Cute. Now did I just hear right? Panur’s turning the Naja—the Mark IV—into a TD portal? What exactly does that mean?”

“It means that if he can do it, the ship will be able to slip between universes without the need of a master portal, or any outside assistance at all for that matter.”

The look on the admiral’s face was astonishing. One moment it was beet red, the next a sickly pale white. His mouth hung open slightly and he didn’t blink going on a full minute.

“Are you okay, Andy?” Sherri asked, wondering if the image on the screen might have frozen.

But then he blinked—once—while a prominent Adam’s apple pogo-sticked under  the leather-like skin of his neck.

“I’m just a simple country boy,” Andy began, “but I see all kinds of trouble that something like that could cause.”

“Only if the Sol-Kor learn how it’s done,” Riyad defended quickly.

“If you hadn’t noticed, dipshit, they also have a genius of their own, who just happens to be sitting on the throne. Now you’re telling me Panur can make your ship into an individual transit portal, meaning that with that technology, any other ship comparably equipped could do the same? Have y’all even taken the time to think this through?”

“It’s the only way we can get to Adam in time.”

“If he’s still alive. And even if he is, the risk is too great.”

“It’s Adam we’re going after, Admiral,” Sherri said.

Tobias stared at the blonde. “I know that. And y’all also know Adam and I go back long before the two of you renegades came on the scene. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize a chance to rescue him…but not this way. You’d be just one ship in an entire universe of Sol-Kor. The odds of them
not
getting this technology is what’s astronomical.”

“If it comes down to that, we’ll self-destruct,” Riyad said defiantly.

“Just showing up will tip your hand to the technology, and then that alien bitch will figure out how it’s done. Riyad, you’re the one who told me personally what we’re up against. Don’t do it, son. I can’t allow it.”

“Can’t allow it?” Now it was Riyad’s turn to get angry. “Dammit, Andy, this is our best chance to save Adam. He once risked his life to save me from the old queen—and with no help from the Union, I might add. I owe him the same effort. Besides, if there is a way of turning starships into TD portals, then that’s going to happen eventually, whether we hide our heads in the sand or not. It would be better if we have an invasion fleet ready before the SK’s can rig one of their own. This is going to happen, Admiral, whether you like it or not.”

Tobias stared at the two of them for several long, awkward moments. When he spoke again, his voice was low, calm. “So it’s come down to this? I didn’t want this to happen, but seeing that it has, I have nothing to lose.”

Riyad felt his ass tighten up.

“Yes, I was one of the people behind the tracker on the Mark IV.”

“What the fuck, Andy!” Sherri exclaimed.

“You backstabbing bastard!”

“Yell all you want. It won’t change the fact that I sent you out to find the mutant so we could eliminate his threat once and for all. We—the Union and the Expansion—have managed to isolate the Milky Way from the SK’s, and now you not only want to open the gate again, you want to knock down the whole damn wall! It would not be a wise tactic to allow that to happen. Riyad, Sherri, this is what we feared the most about Panur, that he’d create some new game-changing device or weapon and we’d be right back at square one. Dang, I hate always being right.”