A Clash of Aliens (The Human Chronicles Book 13) (28 page)

Chapter
28

There was a tremendous amount of radio chatter on the comm line of the mining ship. Translation devices helped to sort out the mass of orders being issued. Every ship, whether military or not, was being summoned to M-1, either to be assigned planetary defensive duties or to bolt into space to form a skirmish line half a light-year away.

If the mining ship had been reported stolen, it wasn’t being broadcast over open lines, or was lost in all the chaos taking place on Kor. As a result, Adam was able to mesh with all the other vessels streaming into the area without being challenged.

Although thousands of ships had already departed the M-1 spaceport for the assault on J’nae—the planet—it was rapidly filling up again with craft from all across the planet. Adam set his crew to work at trying to spot the
Star Panther
from the air, but there was just too much traffic in the air and on the surface.

“I don’t see it,” Sherri said. “You would think it would stand out.”

“It should, if it’s still there. Look around in the air. It may be in flight.”

“The place is thick with ships,” Riyad said.

“Then I’m heading over to the pyramid.”

“Are there landing areas up there?” Riyad asked. “I didn’t see any before.”

“Either she’s moved it up there, or off planet. If it’s left Kor, then we’re shit out of luck.”

“Watch out!” Benefis cried out.

Adam reacted a split second later, just in time to avoid a collision with a huge beam platform rising up from below.

“This is crazy,” Adam said. “I’m going to gain some altitude.”

He steered the ship toward the pyramid, which was now about five thousand feet below him.

“There!” Arieel cried out. “On the other side, in the shadows.”

Indeed the sun of Kor was beginning to set, casting the east side of the huge structure into deep shadows. The
Najmah-whatever
was black with a solitary silver strip running along each side, so it was miracle Arieel had even spotted it.

“Great job, Arieel! It looks like J’nae is setting the ship up as her emergency escape plan if things go bad.”

“Does this piece of junk even have any weapons?” Sherri asked. She couldn’t read Sol-Kor, and there was nothing graphically that would indicate a weapons console.

“I do not believe there are any weapons,” Lila said. “I have studied the operations manuals and there is nothing to indicate weapons capabilities.”

Adam racked his brain for an idea, anything short of crashing the mining ship into the Mark IV. To do that, he’d have to drop off the crew and then leave one person aboard to make the ultimate sacrifice. And of course that person would be him.

Then it hit him. “This is a mining ship!”

“And your point is?” Sherri asked.

“Lila, how do they do the mining? Is it with lasers, explosives, what?”

“Primarily with gravity drills.”

“What are gravity drills?”

“They are microscopic black holes operating in pairs that are used to break apart large asteroids. From there, huge collection ships pass through the region clearing the debris.”

“Where are the controls for the gravity drills?”

“Sherri is sitting at them.”

“Do you mind taking over for her?”

“Of course not.”

Sherri grinned at Adam’s mutant daughter as they traded seats.

“I must warn you, the gravity drills are not meant for such small targets.”

“They’re not? So what would happen if we sent one down to the Mark IV?”

“Besides causing a massive shockwave that would reach us, there is a chance half of the pyramid would shatter.”

Adam looked around at the rest of the people on the bridge and smiled broadly. “I’m okay with that. Hell, why don’t we take out—”

The mining ship suddenly lurched to port, before turning on its side and plunging toward the top of the mountain ridgeline.

Sherri and Lila went flying across the bridge, not having had time to buckle in when they switched positions. All Adam could see out of the forward viewport was the darkening sky of Kor. They were dropping like a rock, and tail first.

“What happened?” he cried out.

Lila had somehow managed to grab hold of bulkhead support and was pulling herself towards a console. That’s when Adam noticed that she also had Sherri firmly in the grip of her other hand—and that her arm holding Sherri was about ten feet long, growing shorter as she drew them both towards seats with restraints.

Sherri’s head was wobbling, and there was blood on the side of her face. But her eyes were open and her hands were reaching out for one of the attached console seats.

Lila’s arms were back to normal, and she buckled into a seat at the nav station. Even at a forty-five degree angle, and fighting the effects of their falling, she was able to access a computer.

“We have been shot, apparently by a ground-based defensive bolt. Without any shields, the entire aft section of the ship is gone. We have no flight controls.” The report was delivered in a calm, matter-of-fact tone, which was what one would expect coming from someone who couldn’t die. Adam’s report would have been a little more…dramatic.

“Do we have any way of steering this thing?”

“Attitude jets are all. Four are still operational.”

‘Great, which ones?”

“I have highlighted them on your screen.”

Adam saw yellow lights appear on a graphic display of the mining ship, two on each side. He figured they were falling from their portside at about a forty-five degree angle, sliding slightly northward because of the aerodynamics of the ship. He also could sense that along this glide path was the huge M-1 pyramid.

He activated the two jets on the port side, feeling an almost immediate slowing of their descent and a leveling off of about ten degrees.”

“That’s not going to help much,” Riyad said.

“It’s something. Everyone, prepare for impact. I think we’re about to crash into the pyramid.”

Adam had to congratulate himself on his superb situational awareness. What he hadn’t figured on was that they’d land right smack dab on top of it.

Two months ago, as a result of Adam’s commando team attack on the nursery of the Royal Zygotes, the domed roof of the uppermost point of the pyramid had broken open. Weak still, the dome crumpled completely now as the mining ship crashed into it and landed nearly flat along the portside fuselage. This floor, plus four more below it, pancaked from the impact of the falling starship. At each level the pulverized debris served to slow the ship’s descent. Eventually, it came to a rest nine levels below what had once been the Zygote nursery, firmly imbedded in a cradle of jagged stone, metal, and concrete.

The noise in and around the mining ship was deafening, the twisted and deformed hull squealing in tortured agony, being battered by even more falling debris.

The forward
viewport
was now a gaping
opening
to the outside, and even as the stunned and battered occupants fought to regain their senses, large chunks of building were tumbling through, one barely missing the head of the Juirean Benefis Na. He ducked away from the falling debris well after the fact, revealing a dust-filled halo of wild white hair sticking out from his head in all directions, as if he were under the influence of some powerful static electricity field.

“How is everyone?” Adam called out. There was light in the room coming from outside, reflecting off the two huge orbs above that were the moons of Kor. One by one, a roll call was taken. Miraculously, everyone was still alive.

Sherri appeared to be suffering the effects of a mild concussion, while Riyad now had a matching bruise on the left side of the torso, along with countless cuts to his bare chest and back. Arieel’s hair covering her entire head, she flung it back with a shake, and with the hair out of the way it was revealed that the front of her outfit the Hal’ic had provided her with had ripped open and she was now proudly displaying what nature—and the universe—had rewarded her with. She seem oblivious to this fact.

Lila was unbuckling herself, looking none the worse for wear. She could have been sliced in two by the crash and there would be no way of knowing it, except maybe by her own torn garment.

Adam unfastened his own restraint buckle and climbed out of the pilot’s seat, having to stand at a thirty degree angle against consoles and twisted bulkheads. He didn’t sense any injuries at all, just a tenderness where his shoulder straps had pressed hard against his skin.

Then he noticed the smell. All eyes turned to Benefis.

“What?” the alien said. “It is a condition which I have lived with my entire life.”

“It doesn’t mean the rest of us have to.”

“Unfortunately you must, since all the grooming stations appear to be inoperable.”

“In that case,” Adam said, “remain downwind from us.”

“And which direction might that be?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll know it when it happens. C’mon, everyone, the Sol-Kor are going to be swarming all over this place as soon the shock wears off. It seems as though we’ve made the old frying pan into the fire leap. Let’s see what other trouble we can get ourselves in.”

Chapter
29

Panur and J’nae were thrown to the ground by the violent quake. Immediately, both mutants sourced the explosion and tremor as having originated above, within the pyramid.

J’nae didn’t wait around to find out what had happened. Seizing the opportunity to get away from Panur, she ran from the room through the open main doorway. Panur recovered a moment later and took off after her.

The Queen was suddenly surrounded by dozens of armored and armed Sol-Kor defenders, part of the huge security detail tasked with protecting her at all costs. Panur appeared around a corner and a dozen bolt weapons were brought to bear.

“No…don’t shoot!” J’nae ordered.

But it was too late.

Eight level-one balls of white hot plasma slammed into Panur’s body. His clothing evaporated and his back arched to an impossible degree. His skin glowed a bright red, even as his eyes became orbs of pure white energy, with beams of light radiating out from them.

He recovered somewhat, straightening his back and looking toward the shooters. Two of them fired again. Having already absorbed considerably more energy than these last two bolts, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked back at the stunned guards once again.

“That…my friends…is better than sex,” the tiny mutant said breathlessly. “Or so I can imagine. However, I do not have time for such sessions. Perhaps another time I could have all of you shoot me again?”

Panur shifted his attention to within the cluster of guards. He didn’t see J’nae.

He approached the defenders and they separated, giving him a wide berth. The Queen was gone, and with her unnatural speed and intimate knowledge of the structure, she could be anywhere.

Dejected and disappointed, Panur turned to the ranking officer among the guards and asked: “Did something crash into the building?”

********

 “Look, I can see it from here!”

Adam had climbed out on the very tip of the twisted remains of the mining ship and was looking down over the side of the pyramid.

“The
Najmah Fayd
?” Riyad asked.

“It’s right below, or more correctly, about a thousand feet below us.”

“There will be no rappelling down this time, my friend. And the conduit lines are a mess, as well.”

“I suppose we could just wait for a hovercraft to come along…again.”

Adam climbed back to the crumbling ruins which held the mining ship firmly in its grip. “Everyone grab what weapons and ammo you can. It looks like we’ve got a fight ahead of us. And sorry, Lila, but I’m going to ask you to lead the way.”

“That is a wise strategy, Father.”

Adam nearly fainted. It was the first time he could remember Lila calling him
father
. And he was asking her to act as a shield against enemy attack. A volcano of emotions erupted inside him. Sherri noticed him stagger and fall against the side of the rubble.

“Are you okay?”

Adam squinted up at the woman as he fought against the reality that had suddenly hit him. “Yeah, I will be.”

“What just happened?”

“It was Cassie. I suddenly realized I had one daughter who was so tender and vulnerable, and now I have another that is the complete opposite, someone who will outlive…everything. I only wish Cassie had had even a trace of Lila’s immunity to death…”

Both Adam and Sherri jumped when they found Lila standing next to them, having heard the muted conversation with her enhanced hearing. “I wish that had been so too, Father. I sincerely wish I could have met her.”

“You would have like each other,” Adam choked out.

“I would have loved her,” came Lila’s simple and sincere statement. Sensing that this subject was better left buried, Lila took her Xan-fi flash rifle and belt of power packs and darted through the nearest opening in the shattered walls of the M-1 pyramid. Everyone else followed, with Sherri and then Adam being the last ones through.

Adam shook off the unexpected emotional escapade, knowing he couldn’t afford distractions, not when entering a building full of a million desperate and determined aliens, all preparing for a fight. They would shoot at anything foreign, and the six beings who had just entered their sanctuary were the most foreign of them all.

Adam had confidence they would survive, mainly because they had Lila on their side. Yes, his daughter was a mutant, but she was a good mutant. And then he cringed, knowing that somewhere within the ugly black pyramid there were two other mutants who weren’t so good. Where they were, and what they were up to at the moment, Adam had no idea. All he knew for certain was that their paths would cross again, and when that happened, he prayed his daughter Lila would be there at his side.