Scorched Earth: (The Human Chronicles Saga Book #16) (10 page)

“As predicted, they’re gone.”

“Don’t we have some super-secret torpedoes onboard?”

“There are nine. But they were designed for truly long-distance attacks, able to jump through space much as the Mark VII.”

Adam grimaced. They still had a long way to go before reaching Juir. It would be nice to keep as much of their major firepower in reserve for future battles. Of course, they had to survive
this
encounter to make it any future engagements.

“Prep a torpedo. If we can take out just one more ship, that should send the last two scurrying away.”

“Ready for launch in thirty seconds.”

“More incoming,” Paulson reported. “Shields at full, but two hits on one screen and the official phrase is
we’re all fucked
.”

Adam twisted the
Vengeance
again, overloading the compensators once more. He glanced over his shoulder to see Sergeant Morgan with his arms thread through the belt to his trousers, which he’d removed and looped around a console support leg attached to the deck. He lay on the floor, smiling at Adam, giving him a thumbs-up.

Two bolts struck the
Vengeance
again, both on the portside, second aft screen. It went down. A damage control crew could repair the shield within minutes, but Adam didn’t have a DC team. He also didn’t have minutes to spare. The screen was down, and would remain so for the duration of the battle, however long that was.

“Incoming!” This time there was concern in Tom Paulson’s voice.

“Commander…launch torpedo. It’s guided. We’ll send the target coordinates once it’s on its way.”

“Yessir.”

On the forward screen graphic, the torpedo was shown leaving the
Vengeance
—and then it disappeared.

“What happened?” Adam asked the room.

“The torpedo jumped, Adam,” Pogo replied.

“Shit! Can we still contact it?”

“Yes. It has CW communications.”

“Send it a damn target before it gets too far away!”

Moments later, one of the last Juirean warships vanished from the threat screen. Yet it wasn’t simply hit; it was consumed in a huge fireball, one that reached out as far as its wingman and beyond, taking out that ship as well.

Now a roiling fireball came churning toward the
Vengeance.

Fortunately, Worak-nin had a moon, and it was dead ahead. Adam aimed his ship for the gray ball of rock and whipped around the horizon just as the leading edge of the huge nuclear explosion raced by. The radical maneuver sent Sergeant Morgan once more banging against the rear bulkhead and deck, straining to hold onto his life-saving leather belt.

“And then there was one,” Riyad said. He looked at his screen. “Remaining bogie is bugging out.”

Unlike in the movie
Top Gun
—where the same news was met with an eruption of cheers in the CIC—there was no celebrating aboard the
Vengeance
, just a lot of tired sighs. The team’s mission was barely off the ground—literally—and already their laser weapons were down, and they’d spent one of their nine deadly torpedoes, to the point of almost being consumed by its way-out-of-proportion explosion.

There were a lot more enemy warships between them and Juir. They were going to need all the resources they could muster.

Adam was going to need a new plan. Then he laughed under his breath. He never had an actual plan to begin with, let alone a back-up plan. A
first
plan-of-action would come in handy about now.

Chapter 9

“This, my friends, is Pogo,” Adam said with pomp and ceremony, holding his hands out to the tiny, greenish metal globe sitting on a console in the engine room.

Lt. Commander Paulson frowned. “What is it, a type of compact super-computer?”

“Technically, it’s called a personal service module, created over three billion years ago by a long-extinct race of super-beings.”

“Bullshit…sir.”

“No, really. This was what Copernicus Smith was after and why he got me and Riyad to leave Worak-nin in the first place.”

“What does it do?” Travis asked. He reached out a hand and touched the orb with his finger.

“A lot of things,” Adam answered, “but primarily it can produce energy out of empty space, in fact, enough to power the laser beams you saw.”

“Speaking of that, Captain, what was that all about?” Paulson asked. “I’ve never seen anything that powerful in a laser weapon.”

“It’s something T&D’s been working on. It sends flash bolts along a laser beam, causing them to increase in energy, and with about six times the range of conventional cannon bolts. Pretty cool, huh?”

“If they don’t burn themselves out after a couple of shots.”

Adam grimaced. “Yeah, that’s something we’re going to have to work on. As I mentioned, the
Vengeance
is experimental. Until now, it’s basically been a boondoggle for lack of a powerful enough energy source. Pogo has solved that problem. Of course, there are some bugs that have to worked out of the systems.”

“It communicates through the computers?”

“Actually, he can talk to me through my ATD—the brain-interface thingy, as Tom so aptly refers to it. But recently he’s found a way to tap into the computers so the audio feature can broadcast his words.”

“You keep referring to it as a
he
?”

“That’s because Pogo has a sophisticated form of artificial intelligence—”

“It not artificial, I keep telling you that,” Pogo interrupted, his voice booming from the speakers on the console.

Adam smiled. “He also has feelings and quite the irascible personality.”

“Should be a
she
in that case,” said Paulson. The two newest crewmembers looked at each other and shrugged. “What now, Captain?”

Adam looked at the orb, getting the feeling Pogo was looking back at him. “First of all, we have to find replacements for the laser firing circuits. They’re our most-effective weapon against the mane-heads, but not if the boards get fried every time we fire.”

“It could be the same solution as with the jump-drive,” Pogo offered. “A reduced power input could reduce the heat moving through the circuits.”

“What will that do to range and efficiency?”

“Range will be reduced, possibly in half. But the intensity should be the same. It would be a tradeoff of sorts.”

“Ten thousand miles is still almost three times the range of conventional flash bolts,” Paulson offered.

Adam nodded. “Okay, reduced input will work. But now we have to find replacement boards. Pogo, have you checked the onboard inventory?”

“There are none. Recall that the laser weapon was non-operational when placed within the ship. There was no reason to include replacement parts.”

“Any workarounds or substitutes?”

Pogo hesitated before answering. “As I said before, this kind of work is not what I was built for. I supply energy—and other things—to my master, yet I am not what you refer to as a super-computer. Other devices were made for that purpose. I’ll do my best to come up with a solution, but don’t be disappointed if I fall short.”

The three Humans looked at each other, thin grins on their faces. “It’s all right, Pogo,” Adam said. “You’re doing a great job. Just do the best you can and I’m sure everything will work out fine.”

“I recognize patronizing when I hear it,
Captain
Cain,” said the orb.

“I’m being serious.”

“Sure you are. Now…I will get to work. I’ll do my best; I always do. However, I would appreciate some help, if it’s within the Human’s capacity to provide any.”

“Snarky little thing, isn’t he,” said Sergeant Morgan.

“Now be nice, Mister Morgan,” Adam said. “Pogo is doing the best he can. He can’t help if his abilities are limited.”

“Nice try, Adam. But it won’t work. Now leave me alone to think, since I appear to be the only entity aboard the ship with the ability to do so.”

Paulson twisted his face into a painful grimace. “As I said: he should be a she.
He
sounds like my ex-wife.”

Chapter 10

With four men aboard and only two staterooms, hot-bunking became the order-of-the-day. Adam was alone in the one he shared with Riyad when he contacted Pogo through his ATD.

You there, buddy?

So now we are buddies?

Don’t take it personally,
Adam thought.
We kid you only because you’re part of the team now. It’s how we show acceptance.

Very strange behavior, yet I appreciate being considered a member of the team.

So…anything yet? Can circuit boards from other modules be used on the lasers?

That was a simple survey I did, and the answer is no. These boards are very specific.

Well, we can’t got back to Earth for spare parts.

If you are willing to travel—other than to Earth—I may have a suggestion.

Adam perked up.
Of course I am. Go ahead.

The Incus.

Where have I heard that name before?

They are the race of beings who found me originally, and who were working on a method of duplicating my power panels when I was stolen by the Gradis Cartel.

Go on, I’m listening.

They have a sophisticated level of electronic technology—at least for this age.

You think they’d have the necessary circuit boards?

Most probably not, yet if given the opportunity, I could provide them with plans to construct boards that could overcome the heating problem.

They won’t do it voluntarily, and aren’t they in the Kidis Frontier? That would put them under Juirean jurisdiction. If they’re as advanced as you say, I’m sure the place will be swarming with mane-heads.

It was just a suggestion.

I’m not saying we won’t pursue it, just that it won’t be easy. Where is Incus from here?”

One-thousand, eight hundred light-years, near the Rison Void.

Adam knew the Rison Void was the far side of the Kidis arm, opposite the Orion-Cygnus spur.

Six hundred jumps. Can the Vengeance handle that at full power?
he asked Pogo.

It may take a slight modification of that figure, possibly a thousand. But by reducing the jump distance, the recycle time could remain the same. The trip could be done in thirty-three Earth hours.

Is Riyad still on the bridge?

Yes.

Give him a plot and tell him I said it was okay. Get us going. We don’t have any time to waste, and just floating here above Worak-nin is doing just that.

Aye, aye, Captain Cain, sir. See…I’m learning.

Well done, Mister Pogo. Carry on.

********

The next day-and-a-half were spent carefully monitoring the power levels for the jump-drive, making sure they didn’t burn out another battery pack. Pogo’s more careful feeding of the generators appeared to be working.

Adam modified their flight path some, adding another day to the journey. Knowing that the Juireans had transit buoys out monitoring traffic throughout the Frontier—and the jump-drive
did
leave a trail—he jumped towards Visidor first, before switching to conventional gravity drive for the remainder of the trip to Incus. With the laser weapon down, it wouldn’t pay to walk into a hornet’s nest of angry mane-heads, all expecting their arrival.

The crew also spent the time trying to find out if the Mark VII experimental starship had any other secrets they didn’t know about. The laser beam weapon was a coup, if they could get it working again. And the nine—now eight—super-torpedoes was another. Yet after an extensive reading of the data files in the computers, they didn’t find anything else.

Of the three revolutionary advances the ship offered—jump-drive, laser beam weaponry and super-torpedoes—two had already given them problems and one had limited utility. That was to be expected of a prototype. But since the team was relying on working systems and weapons to achieve their mission objectives, they were keeping their fingers crossed that nothing else broke down or burned up.

Juir was twenty-four thousand light-years away. At a more conservative two light-year jump distance and two minutes of recharge time between jumps, the
Vengeance
could make it there in just under seventeen days—which was phenomenal in its own right. Even so, they couldn’t get there before the ship carrying Arieel and Sherri arrived. What would they do then, sit around playing poker with the friendly, seven-foot-tall natives?

No, that wasn’t in the cards. They had four months to work their way to the capital of the Expansion, and if the
Vengeance
could be made to work the way it was designed, Adam and his men could create a heluva lot of chaos along the way. The so-called scorched earth campaign. At least then, even if they failed to rescue the women, they’d have something to show for their effort.

Riyad was in the pilot seat when they neared the Incus star system. It was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, not only at the far side of the Kidis Frontier, but out toward the end of the minor galactic arm.

This had better be worth it,
Adam thought as he watched huge planets of swirling gas slowly slip by. Then he shrugged. What choice did they have? Without the laser weapon working, they were just one small ship with limited firepower—after the torpedoes were spent. And that wouldn’t get them halfway across the Frontier, let alone all the way to Juir.

“As suspected, I’m picking up the signatures of at least a dozen Juirean warships in orbit. There’s another eight under drive, some coming, some going, and this isn’t counting what’s on the surface.”

“Thank you Mister Tarazi for that very informative report,” said Adam. He stood behind his friend, letting his legs stretch for a moment before assuming the co-pilot seat. Riyad was every bit the pilot Adam was, and although it was hard to give up control, he would let Riyad perform the magic tricks this time around, if it came down to a mad scramble for survival. A person could only play the hero so long before needing a break.

“Any challenges, yet?” Adam asked Sergeant Morgan. The young man had set up a separate comm station along the rear bulkhead, going so far as to bolt a seat to the deck—with a harness. He wasn’t anxious for a repeat of his last bumper-car-ride. The bruises hadn’t even begun to heal.

“Nothing, sir. There’s a lot of traffic around the planet. Seems to be the happening place. That’ll play to our advantage. Also the fact that it’s so far from the Union. Hopefully they won’t be expecting us.”

“And the
Vengeance
won’t show up on any of their surveys,” Riyad added.

The tiny metal orb known as Pogo was now on the bridge, sitting on top of the pilot monitor and blocking Riyad’s view of the forward screen.  “Do you mind, Pogo. I can’t see.”

The globe faded away and reappeared on the nav console where Tom Paulson sat. He leaned back in his chair. “Damn, that’s so cool when he does that,” he said. “Like something out of
Star Trek
. Beam me up, Scotty.”

“Yeah, too bad we can’t adapt that technology to star travel,” Morgan added.

“I can only teleport one hundred feet at a time, and it takes incredible energy to do so.”

“Do you think teleportation is something possible for Humans, if we had enough power?” Adam asked.

“It’s been tried before, and by beings much smarter than you. Living organisms cannot survive the process. My parts can simply be reassembled and they work fine. It’s not the same with cells, neurons and the like.”

“I hate to rain on this parade, but we’re going to have to do our business here the old fashion way, by landing on the planet and going out in public,” said Riyad. “Any idea how we’re going to pull that off?”

Adam nodded to Travis, who stood up and unfolded a long white cloth. “I made this out of a bedsheet.” He placed it over his head and tied a small cord around his neck. “I call it a burqa-for-men.” The garment covered his body from head to toe, all except for a narrow slot left open for his nose and eyes. There were slits on the sides for their arms.

“It looks more like a KKK robe than a burqa,” said Tom Paulson.

Adam snickered. “It does, doesn’t it? Hopefully none of the natives will make the association. With so many new aliens roaming the streets, I’m hoping no one will question the outfit, believing it to be some weird religious garb. Travis sewed up the edges of the opening so it wouldn’t look like he simple cut a couple of eyeholes in a sheet.”

“Which I did.”

“Hey, we’ve all been on too many alien worlds to count to know that alien clothing comes in wondrous varieties. I’m sure we’ll be able to get by wearing these things,” said Adam. “Besides, they’ll conceal a lot of armament. Now Pogo, why don’t you tell the rest of the team where we’re going?”

With mental access to the computer, the ancient device sent a graphic of the planet Incus to the forward screen. “The planet reminds me a lot of your Earth,” he began. “There are huge land masses broken up by vast seas. The native population is over eight billion, with thousands of settlements—cities. I was kept in one called Eniss, which is located here.” A red circle appeared on the map and the image zoomed in. “It’s in the northern hemisphere and is where the main weapons facilities are located.”

“Weapons?” Travis said. “They make weapons here?”

“Yes,” Pogo confirmed. “That is why I came to be found. The natives have been trying to compete with the Maris-Kliss and Xan-fi companies. Yet since they lack the raw materials to produce enough devices to meet the demand, they have gone off-planet searching for such. It was during one of these mining operation that I was found embedded in an ancient fragment of the Aris homeworld—the beings who created me. The Incus currently have the largest economy in the Frontier, yet it’s very small compared to the major worlds of the Expansion. They hoped to change that by learning the secrets of my power-accumulating abilities to power a new line of portable energy weapons. They were unsuccessful.”

“That looks like a really big city,” Tom pointed out. “I assume its serviced by several spaceports. Once we land, where do we go?”

“The scientific laboratories where I was held and studied are located here.” The image zoomed in and moved to the west. “This is the main research facility for the Incus government. Unlike the other two major weapons manufacturers in the galaxy, this one is solely government-owned.”

“And what about the laser circuits?” Paulson asked. “I’m assuming they have the facilities to make what we need in the complex?”