Children of the Aris

The Adam Cain Saga Book 9

T.R. Harris

Set in The Human Chronicles Universe

Copyright 2020

by Tom Harris Creations, LLC

All rights reserved.**

Cover design by Matthew Kadish

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Novels by T.R. Harris

The Adam Cain Saga

The Dead Worlds

Empires

Battle Plan

Galactic Vortex

Dark Energy

Universal Law

The Formation Code

The Quantum Enigma

Children of the Aris

The Human Chronicles

The Fringe Worlds

Alien Assassin

The War of Pawns

The Tactics of Revenge

The Legend of Earth

Cain’s Crusaders

The Apex Predator

A Galaxy to Conquer

The Masters of War

Prelude to War

The Unreachable Stars

When Earth Reigned Supreme

A Clash of Aliens

Battlelines

The Copernicus Deception

Scorched Earth

Alien Games

The Cain Legacy

The Andromeda Mission

Last Species Standing

Invasion Force

Force of Gravity

Mission Critical

The Lost Universe

The Immortal War

Destroyer of Worlds

Phantoms

Terminus Rising

The Last Aris

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Contents

The alien with an attitude is back!

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

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Novels by T.R. Harris

The alien with an attitude is back!

The Adam Cain Saga Continues

Adam Cain and friends are back!

Let the adventure begin!

Prologue

On the windswept escarpments of the Silorus Highlands, the three figures stumbled over rocks and scrub brush, their hands filthy, matching pale yellow robes caked in mud. They were on their own at this point; the others had gone ahead to prep the starship for departure. The trio was not used to such physical labor, although it did not bother them; however, most tasks surrounding them were accomplished by machines and servants. Their status dictated such. But desperation changed many things. And desperate they were—not to be running for their lives, but running for their freedom.

They struggled to gain altitude and distance, keeping ahead of their pursuers; an army of robots and Technicians. The Aris had recently overrun the last bastions of the resistance on Voskin’or and were now relentlessly searching for the leaders of the failed rebellion, along with their precious cargo.

Garus never intended to lead an uprising against the most powerful race of beings in the Second Epoch; however, Nunki left him no choice. The Aris must not be allowed to reacquire the device. For three hundred years after its discovery, only the Luz were aware of its existence. And then the code was discovered that brought everything to light. The Luz programmed the stack and initiated the first constructions; the three beings now awkwardly scaling the loose rock and gravel of the mountainside.

Another two hundred years passed before news leaked out about the immortal beings. Then the Aris swept in and confiscated the Formation and the Masters. It made sense. The Luz were the discarded members of the Aris race from their failed attempts to create immortality from their own kind. Now, here were three immortals, born from the genetic material of the Luz. Undoubtedly, Aris genius would allow them to assimilate this ability into the bodies of the Privileged. But that was not to be. After hundreds of failed experiments on the Masters, it became apparent the material was not compatible with that of the Aris. Garus knew why; Nunki was only now coming to suspect.

In a desperate act, the Masters then stole the Formation disks and fled to Voskin’or, to be hidden by the Luz.

Then came the conflict.

By then, Nunki had other plans for the Formation, one that he and others believed could ultimately fulfill their goals. At that point, they cared not for the Masters. All the Aris wanted were the disks.

* * *

The Aris's desire to suspend change to their bodies was what brought them to the point of killing tens of thousands of their own blood, even if that blood had a slight genetic variation from the original. To Garus, this was a form of genocide, destroying that which you had created. The Luz were as much Aris as were the Privileged, certainly more than the Technicians. Their genius proved it, their accomplishments well noted over the past thousand years.

What the Privileged sought was not possible through the Masters—that had been proven. But it was possible through the Formation. And that was why they would never possess it. Not if Garus had his way.

The goal of biologic immortality had been an obsession of the Aris for thousands of years. Although every attempt failed—with the mutated results exiled to Voskin’or—what the Aris inadvertently created was an offshoot species, one that eventually began mating among themselves and developed a society independent of the Aris. By this time, the Aris had foregone most reproduction, satisfied with what they had become and determined to keep it that way. They feared evolution, believing it would change who they were, what they had become.

The fear was justified. Over the million years of their civilization, the Aris of old bore no resemblance to the Aris of today. The ancients were looked upon as less than Aris, more animal and certainly not the galaxy's dominant lifeform. And therein lay the paradox. Nunki and the other Privileged could not accept that the Aris of the future would look back on them in the same light. In their opinion, the Privileged were perfect. The goal then became to remain that way—forever.

Only immortality would make that happen. Once a creature became immortal, evolution was no longer necessary. The organism would remain in its perfect state for forever—or until it evolved into something different. And that produced another quandary. The Aris needed not only to create an immortal Aris but also find a way to retard evolution.

At first, they sought to alter the genetics of existing Aris, using the Technicians for their experiments. The Luz—which in the Aris language means Results—were less than satisfactory. At first, the exiles to Voskin’or were horribly deformed creatures that did not survive long. Others were mindless oafs who suffered the same fate. But then a more stable form of Luz was created, and soon the population began to grow, even as the Aris stagnated. Over a thousand years, the Luz developed both technology and a desire for exploration, another quality currently lacking in the Aris. After a million years of civilization, the Aris had been everywhere and done everything. But not the Luz. They traveled the galaxy, marveling in the wanderlust and discovering things that were new to them.

It was during this age of discovery that the Luz found the Formation.

The Luz discovered the strange organic wafers several hundred years before they knew what they were. When additional artifacts were found, the Luz began to realize what they had. They programmed the stack according to the initial instructions, and the Masters emerged. From then on, the Masters controlled all experiments with the Formation while guiding the development of the Luz.

When finally revealed to the Aris, the Masters were welcomed into their culture, something they had not done for any of the Luz before them. But this was just a ruse to learn their secrets of immortality and not to make them true members of society. At first, the efforts were subtle before turning more overt. When everything else failed, the Aris held the Masters prisoners and did unspeakable experiments on them, as if Garus and the others were consciously keeping the power of immortality from the Privileged.

After their escape, the Masters returned to Voskin’or, secured the elements of the Formation, and then led a defense of the Luz, which the Aris viewed as a rebellion.

At first, the Aris did not fare well in the conflict. They had not fought a war in over two hundred thousand years, and with their diminished numbers, the Luz prevailed in the early battles. But then the overall genius of the Aris began to manifest. Although the Luz were intelligent and accomplished—and much more physically savage—only the Masters were of equal or greater intellect as the Aris. Technology soon became the determining factor in the war, not the strength of numbers or even the will of the participants. Eventually, the Aris gained the upper hand.

And then it came down to this final battle on the Silorus Highlands, a battle lost by the Luz. But the war wasn’t over. Garus, Docem and Panof had already made plans to escape the planet. There was another world, one that had been established as a backup to Voskin’or. There, the Masters would hide the Formation while using its incredible power to rebuild the Luz race, or perhaps something different, something guaranteed to defeat the evil Aris.

There! said Docem, pointing. No sound was heard in the Highlands' thin air, only the voice in the heads of his companions. I see the vessel. We are almost there.

* * *

When they arrived at the waiting starship, Garus found it strange that no one was inside. Eight of their most loyal subjects had been sent ahead to prepare the vessel. Instead, all they found was a cold engine.

Garus wasn’t worried; all three of the Masters could easily pilot the vessel; after all, much of its design was based on their imagination. What frustrated him was the abandonment by his servants. That was unforgivable. They would suffer consequences for their disloyalty.

The Masters removed the eight boxes containing the Formation wafers from pouches in their robes and set them on a counter behind the control station. They then assumed takeoff positions, with Garus as the pilot. He was the First Master, the leader. He would take command.

He initiated the warmup of the engines.

And that’s when he discovered the true depth of his servant’s treachery.

* * *

Garus, I know you can hear me.

The First Master instantly recognized the thought as that of Nunki, the leader of the Aris Privileged. He frowned. The telepathy transplants allowed for this form of communication, but not at such distance. Nunki either had to be using an extender … or he was near.

The other Masters were linked into the conversation. They froze at their stations, curious why the Aris leader was contacting them at this point? Did he know their location?

I hear you, Nunki. You should know you are too late. I will never let you have the Formation again.

Garus could feel the frustration in Nunki’s thoughts. Why do you insist on such delusion? You know it is only a matter of time before you are caught. As Masters, I would imagine that thought should not frighten you. Although you know you will be imprisoned, you will outlive your captors.

So you say, Garus replied telepathically. We know what Aris imprisonment means. We have experienced it firsthand.

And yet still you live.

We continue our flight because we cannot predict the future. We exist today only because you have not yet figured a way to strip our bodies of our essence and assimilate it for yourselves. However, I give you credit, Nunki, that one day you may find the solution. And even if that day does not come, you will not leave us to our own means, not while you and your kind lay helpless in your artificial coffins, awaiting a future that will never come.

You have no faith in Aris genius. The Grand Experiment has been proven to be viable.

Proven through your billion-year extrapolations. As I said, we cannot predict the future, and neither can you. You can model all you want, but there are too many variables in your plan. And that is why you cannot allow my kind to survive while your race withers away in a prison of your own making. Because of this, you will devise some form of permanent jail for us, as well. That is your genius. Our fleeing demonstrates our respect for your creativity.

That is not respect, only your paranoia speaking, Nunki thought. The Aris have never sought hostile discourse with the Masters or the Luz. We do not now. All we want is the Formation so we can move beyond this unfortunate chapter in our history. And for that, I am offering integration.

It is too late for that. There are only the three of us.

Then it is fortunate that we have determined that the Masters are to be the only Luz acceptable to the Aris.

Are you offering us full integration into Aris society, unlike before? Panof asked.

Is it not worthy of discussion?

Do not trust him, Docem thought. It is a ploy. They offered this to us before.

I need not ploys to capture you. But capture is not what I seek. It is only the Formation.

Then why this conversation? Garus asked. We are not going to surrender, and we will never let you have the Formation. We will destroy it before we submit. He cast a glance at Panof. He was the weakest of the three.

I know better than that. I know now what the Formation means to the Masters. I know where it came from, where you came from.

It is but a guess, Garus replied.

An educated guess. And it is because of my ability to discern your true nature and intentions that I knew this would be your response to my offer of integration, even before I persuaded your servants to abandon you.

He knows where we are! Garus thought to himself. He must be near.

Garus desperately tried again to engage the engines. As before, there was nothing. The ship had been sabotaged. There was no way off the planet.

Do not fear, Garus, Nunki thought. All you need to do is accept the inevitable. I am told the process is painless. And as you have already deduced, it is also forever…

Garus cast a panicked look back at the eight boxes of Formation disks. They disappeared before his eyes, leaving a concave indentation in the metal shelf on which they were placed.

A teleportation beam, Garus thought.

Nunki has the Formation! Panof exclaimed. We have failed; there is nothing left for us.

We must move, Docem said. A teleportation beam cannot capture us if we are mobile.

The trio raced from the control room and out of the ship, back into the cold mountain air.

Just then, Garus felt his body lock up. His legs and arms could still move; however, he was stationary, feeling a tremendous weight on his chest.

He knew what it was. Although invented by the Aris, Garus had developed his own version of a quantum anchor, an improved version.

He looked around in the growing darkness, seeing his companions also held in place. Yet something was strange about these anchors. The frequency was wrong, more intense, feeling almost like multiple beams intersecting his body.

What is this strange sensation? Garus asked Nunki, knowing that the unique brainwaves of each entity would open the connection.

A recent discovery, Nunki answered. A combining of beams to open a—

Quantum portal, Garus finished the thought.

Precisely. I can only theorize what lies beyond the portal, but I do know that existence as you have known it is over. And since it will involve the quantum universe, I fear it will have no beginning and no end, not for you and the others. It appears your early musings regarding a permanent prison were prophetic—as if you could foretell the future. Farewell, Garus. You are immortal; enjoy your eternity.

* * *

Garus’ eyesight was going grey, and not the result of the rapidly approaching night on Voskin’or. There was only a brief moment of total darkness before his vision began to clear. However, in that most fleeting of moments, he felt a deep dread, bordering on panic. But now, the sensation was passing. He felt more stable, more … real.

As his vision came into focus, he found not the windswept greyness of the Silorus Highlands … but a wall of support beams and sheet metal only feet away. His awareness was still unclear, murky, and it took a moment for him to make out more detail. He was in a rectangular chamber filled with various crates and benches. A quick check found Docem and Panof beside him, each looking equally perplexed.

Nunki teleported us somewhere, was his first thought. It would make sense after watching the Formation cases disappear. But teleportation was not done on living beings; however, the Masters were not living beings in the traditional sense. Even so, something wasn’t right. There were memories—fragments only—that had not been there before. Where did they come from, and what did they mean?

Then Garus remembered the quantum anchors and the strange sensation that filled him while in their grasp. He understood the quantum universe—as much as anyone could. He knew what Nunki was trying to do. But perhaps he needed more power and a sophisticated facility to effectuate the Master’s transition into what was expected to be a quantum prison for the trio. But this was no research facility. Instead, it looked to be a cargo hold.

And that’s when Garus noticed the three strange creatures standing in a cluster staring at him. The beings were tall and robust figures with black skin. They took the general form of the Aris and the Luz, although taller and broader, more muscular. The Aris had evolved beyond the need for physical strength, so these creatures must be primitive. Guard animals of some sort? Whatever they were, Garus did not recognize the species, and he knew every species that still existed in the galaxy. A few rogue races survived at the end of the Second Epoch, but none were as developed physically as these three.

One of the aliens was speaking, yet using verbal language rather than telepathy. Garus sought a mental connection but found none. However, there was something…

Who are they? Panof asked rhetorically. They are strange, primitive. However, notice the control panels and displays, the clothing they wear and the instruments they carry on their person. We would have known of such a breed.

For understanding, we must gain verbal communication skills, Docem stated. The mastery of which we have not used for quite some time. He looked at Garus and repeated aloud in the Aris's ancient language the words he just thought. I have done it! The sensation in my mouth and throat is stimulating. So much goes into forming spoken words!

And that was when Garus stepped forward and ripped a small electronic device from behind the ear of one of the aliens. The flesh tore easily, although the extraction process proved messy and resulted in the death of the strange creature. Garus returned to the others with the blood-covered device.

It appears to be an electronic transmitter of primitive design, said Docem. Even so, I believe we can adjust our implants to interface with the programming.

“Languages,” Panof said aloud, also testing his verbal ability. “It connects to a database of languages. But so many.” He seemed satisfied with his first effort at speaking since … since his creation. “It must be an instinctive memory,” he said to the others.

The Masters synchronized their telepathic implants to the database, and moments later, had absorbed several hundred languages, with thousands more to ingest. Thousands of languages. Garus found it amazing. From where did they come? Was he in the quantum universe? Was this an alternate reality full of strange beings, thousands of them?

He would think on that later. At the moment, the aliens' words could now be understood and carried within them all the frenetic emotion one would expect from such primitives.

“Why did you do that?” asked one of the tall aliens in his native tongue. “You killed him! Do you have any concept of what you have done?”

The aliens recoiled in fear as the Masters stepped closer.

“We understand the concept of death,” said Garus, reveling in the glory of his voice. It had been so long, as an experiment hundreds of years ago when last he spoke. At the time, it seemed such a waste of effort. Now, it was almost magical since there was a purpose to this form of communication. And that purpose was understanding.

“Who are you? Where is this place?”

The aliens stared back in silence as they slowly moved away.

“Do not flee,” Panof said. “We seek information.”

“Then why did you kill Pontus?” one of the creatures yelled, again displaying copious amounts of raw, primal emotion. That, too, was refreshing to Garus.

“To learn your language; all languages,” he answered. “There is an enormous variety. Are these from different species?”

“Yes, they are. Who are you? Where did you come from?”

“Understanding is still being processed,” said Docem. He looked around the cluttered room. “We are aboard a vessel of some kind.” It was a statement, not a question.

“You were reassembled from a quantum beam if that helps with your understanding,” the alien continued. “Did you come from Woken?”

“We know not of Woken,” Docem said, “but we understand the quantum beam.”

Garus looked to the others. He spoke to them telepathically, sensing that it would be a more private communication, even though the Aris language was not included in the alien database. Nunki placed us in a quantum portal; that much we know. Whether the transfer was complete is unknown, but we cannot deny that a transfer of some kind has taken place. However, this does not have the feel of a quantum reality; there is too much finality, too many objects that appear familiar.

The creature said we emerged from a quantum beam, Panof pointed out. Could it have been the original beam created by Nunki?

I do not believe so, Garus said. My most recent recollections say this new beam was different, more diffused, less focused. It could have been a simple carrier beam, and somehow we got caught within.

Caught from within the quantum universe? Docem asked. That is logical since I have a myriad of new memory fragments I did not have before.

It is the same for me, Garus confirmed. There was a passage of time where events took place. At the moment, we cannot remember them clearly. Perhaps in time, we will. For now, we must assume we did pass into a quantum reality, and now we have emerged from it. If so, was it planned for us to reappear, or was it a mistake on Nunki’s part?

Nunki does not make mistakes, said Docem. We were placed in the field for a purpose, and that purpose was permanent imprisonment. As such, we should not believe anything we see and hear as first presented. All of this could still be part of the universe in which we were transferred. Or it could be part of a plan by Nunki, for what reason, I do not know. However, let us summarize what we do know. I will begin. As first evidence, the alien stated we reassembled from a quantum beam. I believe this was not Nunki’s intention and that we should never have reassembled. As further evidence: Time for us has not passed. Although we carry phantom memories, there has been no sensation of the passage of time. It is as it was only seconds ago on Voskin’or. But we must accept that we are no longer there. Indeed, we may be in another universe—if not quantum then traditional, or perhaps even at another time in our own. Regardless, we cannot dismiss the possibility that Nunki is attempting to warp our minds and perspective with a false narrative. He looked away at the two frightened aliens. We need to determine whether these beings are real and if they are affiliated with the Aris. If this is still part of Nunki’s plan, then are they to be our jailers?

They die too easily to be jailers, Garus said. Then he looked to the aliens.

“Understanding is coming,” he said aloud in the native language of the creatures. “We know now from where we came. Where are the Aris? Are you with them?”

“The Aris?” one of the aliens stammered. The question caught him off guard. “There are no Aris, no longer. You know of the Aris?”

“No more Aris?” Garus was shocked; however, Docem’s warning was foremost in his thoughts. This could be a ruse. “Where are they?” he asked. “What happened to them?”

“They died off—at least most of them—three billion years ago. A few survived in hibernation pods, but even they are now gone.”

Garus stepped forward, unable to contain his shock. Can we believe what we just heard? he asked the others.

Time is variable in the quantum realm, thought Panof. It is possible—however, three billion years. Even the Masters were astounded by the statement.

That was the projected time for the Grand Experiment, Docem pointed out. It is possible Nunki conducted his experiment and failed at creating a natural immortal, leading to his demise. Even so, these creatures could be the result of Nunki’s seeding program.

Garus refocused his attention on the black-skinned aliens. “You say three billion years have passed since the time of the Aris. How do you know?”

“There have been artifacts found and ancient bases located.”

“And the Aris homeworld?”

“Gone; however, our homeworld is the closest to where the Aris world once existed. We are called Gracilians. We believe ourselves to be the true children of the Aris.”

Garus found humor in the alien’s remark. If indeed three billion years have passed, these creatures could be the product of Nunki’s experimentation; with the Formation, he did have the means to implement his vision. But these creatures are not of the Aris, not directly. That distinction is reserved for the Luz.

“You? No, you are not the children of the Aris.

A thought then came to Garus, one that caused his system to spike with excitement. Could it be? Could it still exist?

“Now I ask,” he said pointedly to the alien, “where is the Formation?”

The alien expressed shock, not confusion.

That is revealing, thought Panof. He is familiar with the device. After all this time. How can that be?

“How do you know of the Formation?” the alien asked nervously, confirming his knowledge of the device. “Very few are aware of its existence.”

“That matters not,” Garus barked. “You say the Aris are gone, as is their homeworld. Yet you speak of the Formation as if you have seen it.”

“I … we have.”

“Where is it?” Garus’s heart leaped. Could it be that the Formation still exists? Of course, it was possible; after all, the device originated in the First Epoch and survived to the Second. Why would it not survive to the Third?

“The last we saw it was at the ancient Aris base. I would now assume the mutants have it. They have most all Aris artifacts.”

“What mutants?”

“They are called Panur and Lila, and they reside on the planet Navarus.”

“That is where the Formation will be found?”

Garus could feel the excited thoughts of his companions. Could it be that the Formation still exists, and the Aris do not? Could it be possible for the Masters to recover the device and conduct their experiments without interference from the Aris? If so, then fortunes had changed in a heartbeat, a heartbeat lasting three billion years.

“If it is anywhere, that is where it is,” the alien answered. “All Aris artifacts are sent there.”

“You will take us there.”

“To Navarus? That will not be possible. We are not welcome.”

“You will take us there,” Garus ordered for a second time. He would not be deterred.

They are resisting, Docem thought. Notice the equipment behind them. There would be star charts and navigation assistance within.

Garus looked past the aliens at the control console and lit displays. Data was streaming, and it looked …

The panels have a familiarity to them, he thought to the others.

Yes, Docem agreed. The readings resemble teleportation and anchor modulations. These beings must be affiliated with the Aris. They have spoken lies.

The passage of time could have given them this knowledge, Panof countered. And be grateful that they have discovered quantum beams. If not, we could still be confined to the nothingness of our quantum prison.

The trio slid past the terrified aliens to survey the control consoles.

We are confirmed, said Docem. Primitive technology, yet functional. This must be the equipment that freed us. Even so, one would think that after three billion years, these creatures would be more advanced.

He worked the controls until he had the operational procedures memorized. Data streamed on the screen, which took longer to decipher since it was written, not spoken. But soon, patterns were recognized, and the written language became understandable to the Masters.

“This is a teleportation station,” Docem said aloud for confirmation. “Extremely crude, yet functional.”

“The question as to function is still open,” an alien replied, seemingly disappointed. “We have not been able to attain focus.”

“That is the fault of the operator, not the equipment—”

Without warning, a loud, repeating sound filled the chamber, startling the aliens. The shorter of the creatures stepped to the control console behind Docem.

“Pardon, that is a proximity alarm. Vessels are approaching. I need to get to the screens.”

Docem and the others stepped aside. They understood the concept of intrusion, and not knowing the environment in which they now existed, there would be dangers they had yet to discern.

The alien silenced the annoying sound and set to work at the controls.

“How did they find us, and so soon?” one asked the other.

“Your vessel is sending out a repeating signal,” Docem told them. He detected the signal as he surveyed the readings.

“A homing beacon? Who would have planted such a device?”

“The Human must have done it. What do we do now?”

“We must surrender.”

They cannot surrender, Panof said.

Of course, they cannot, Garus concurred. Not until we recover the Formation.

“You will take us to Navarus,” the First Master repeated.

“We cannot, even if we wanted to. These are police vessels representing legal authority. Do you understand?”

“Yes, we do.”

“We are outlaws. They are here to arrest us.”

“You cannot let them do that,” Garus stated.

“We have no choice. We have no weapons strong enough to defeat the Enforcer warships.”

Garus looked at the control console. “You have a quantum beam generator.”

The creature seemed not to understand the statement. “How will that help? It is a guidance beam for the teleportation field.”

“Is that all for which you use quantum field beams?” Docem asked. “They are weapons. They were designed as weapons.”

“How, how do we use them?” the creature asked.

The other alien stepped forward and grasped the shoulder of his companion. “Even if the beam can be used as a weapon, do we dare fire on Enforcers? Our crimes to this point are minor. Let us not make them worse.”

Docem had heard enough. He shoved the aliens aside and sat at the panel. He brought the intruder vessels up on a screen and worked the targeting controls

Large sections of the hulls began to be ripped away by the quantum anchor's interaction and the motion of the source signal. He moved the beam across the hulls in large swaths, but only for brief moments. Already, catastrophic pressure explosions were erupting from within the spaceships, moments before chemical propellant ignited. Brief flashes of light blinded the screen before it recovered, now showing a rapidly thinning debris field against the black of space.

Next, Docem isolated the rogue repeating signal and disabled it.

He looked up at the two shocked aliens. “The tracking device has been disabled. Now, you will take us to the planet Navarus.”

This time, neither alien protested.

Chapter 1

The planet Navarus had been Adam Cain’s home for the past nine years. But this time, as he returned, he felt a strange sense of foreboding, like he’d never seen it for what it truly was—the center of evil for this part of the galaxy.

He knew he couldn’t blame a ball of rock in space for what happened here four days ago. But it seemed that so many crappy things had happened since he arrived that he felt the planet was jinxed. And with it, so was he.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Navarus was to be his retirement home, a quiet, out-of-the-way world with a temperate climate, a beautiful crescent-shaped bay and alien palm trees swaying in the breeze.

Now, as he made the short walk from the transport vehicle to Lila and Panur’s laboratory, he had a sinking feeling that it didn’t matter where he went in this god-forsaken galaxy. The whole place was a cesspool. Maybe peace and quiet just weren’t in the cards for Adam Cain. No wonder people accused him of having a bad attitude. But it was justified.

Adam led a small entourage, including Riyad, Monty Pitts, Mike Hannon and the Juirean, Tidus Fe Nolan; Sherri had just pulled up in a transport of her own, coordinating her arrival with that of the team’s at the Enforcer Spaceport.

The jovial mood they all shared after the affair with the Expansion Banks and the Dark Matter Collectors was now a thing of the past, replaced by a morose dread. No sooner had one crisis been overcome that a new one showed up on their doorstep. It wasn’t fair. They didn’t even have time to catch their breath.

Summer Rains met them in the research facility's main room, where only days before the team had watched on a video monitor in stunned disbelief as Lila and Panur were teleported away. Although it was Summer’s five-foot-two-inch frame that met them, it was the confident, almost otherworldly voice of the immortal entity J’nae who spoke to them through her.

“We have received no word from the Luz,” J’nae stated without greeting. There had been near-constant communications with the team since the teleportation event. Since then, J’nae had been scouring the mutants’ data files looking for clues to what happened, paying particular attention to anything she could learn of the mysterious Luz. “They came first for the Formation, and when that failed, they took Panur and Lila.”

“But it was the Formation that they really wanted,” Adam concluded.

“This is correct. Therefore, we should expect a ransom demand, the Formation in exchange for Panur and Lila.”

“If that is the case,” Tidus asked, “what will be your answer?” Being a Juirean, Tidus didn’t feel the same compassion as did Humans … for anything.

Adam looked at the tall, green-skinned alien. It was a good question.

“What can we do?” he began. “It’s the same old story; J’nae believes the Luz will use the Formation to create more of their kind so they can take over the galaxy. Why would they want to do that?” Adam snorted. “Heaven only knows. But even if they got the Formation, it would take a long time for them to create a population big enough to do what they want. In the meantime, we know what’s happening to Panur. He’s dying. We need to get him back so his brain cells can be recovered from Summer. Both cases are serious; however, one is long-term and with potential to affect the entire galaxy, while the other is short-term and with no time to spare.”

“There’s also the chance that the Luz could get the Formation even if we don’t turn it over to them to get Panur and Lila back,” Sherri pointed out. “In that case, we wouldn’t have two of the greatest minds in the galaxy working with us to stop them. On the other hand, we’d be simply giving the Luz the Formation. It’s a Catch-22 either way we look at it.”

“Catch-22?” Tidus asked.

“A dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions,” J’nae quoted. Being a six-hundred-year-old alien genius had its perks.

“A perplexing situation, for sure,” Tidus said. “However, there has been no demand to date. We cannot offer a trade without opening a dialogue. I agree; this contact will come eventually. Merely having control of the mutants is not a substitute for the end goal of the Luz. Either that or they will make another attempt at acquiring the device directly, perhaps with a more violent assault on this facility.”

“They would have to get here first,” Riyad stated. “We’ve alerted every Enforcer ship in the area to be on the lookout for the freighter. It would be virtually impossible for them to land on the planet without us knowing.” He looked at Summer/J’nae. “What else have you learned about the Luz? And how did we learn about them in the first place?”

“From Lila and Panur,” J’nae said. “They were mentioned in the ancient Aris documents.” She looked at the odd cut out section at the other side of the room where a perfect sphere had been extracted, taking with it part of the ceiling and floor, along with the two most powerful beings in the galaxy. “I am just now beginning my research. I have found that Nunki, along with the leaders of the Luz—

a trio of hybrid aliens called the Masters—did fight over possession of the Formation. Nunki was victorious and then used the device to seed the galaxy with primordial life. Further, the Masters were then placed in a form of quantum suspended animation for their crimes. This is all documented. Before the recent teleportation event, Panur and Lila reasoned the Luz were freed from this quantum prison by a confluence of Q-beams used in the Expansion Bank robberies. At the time, it seemed a surprising leap in reasoning. Since then, however, I have come to agree with their conclusion that this is the work of the three-billion-year-old Luz.”

Adam pursed his lips. He was so over the term three-billion-years. First, there were the three-billion-year-old artifacts, then artificial worlds, then crazy service modules, insane Technicians, and now the Luz. He got it; they were old, literally older than dirt. But why do they insist on showing up in his time and ruining his day?

“How much time do we have before Panur reaches the point of no return?” Riyad asked J’nae.

“That is a concern,” she began. “Not only does he and Summer have to be in close proximity for the mind-meld to take place, but he also has to retain the ability to shapeshift. That takes energy. Although he may retain some cognitive functions, his body will reach a point where it cannot physically perform the mind-meld. And then there is the extraction itself. That will take time and even more energy. I do not understand the process completely to know how much control Panur has over the extraction, but I have to assume he will have some.”

“So, how long?” Riyad repeated.

J’nae hesitated before answering. Then she sighed. “Not more than eight days, and even that is a guess.”

“Eight days!” Sherri exclaimed. “The damn Luz could be that far away from us already, so, even if we could give them the Formation for Panur, we still wouldn’t get to him in time.”

“My guess is they’re still close by,” Adam said. “Four days ago, they were in orbit around Navarus. I don’t think they’ll go too far away from the Formation. They’re close; I can feel it.”

Then a thought occurred to him, one that caused his stomach to tighten.

“What if the Luz call us; can we even get into the vault to give them the Formation? And what form is it in? When I first found it, there was just a set of boxes with disks inside. Then Panur and Lila built a whole big device out of it.”

“Maybe if we could turn off the Lerpiniere field, they could just teleport it out, like they tried the first time,” Monty said, speaking for the first time. He’d been listening to the discussion for the past four days, when all he was concerned about was his daughter, Summer. She still had an alien entity inside her, and if something happened to Panur, it would be like that until the day she died.

“We have to be careful about that, Monty,” Adam said. “That’s our leverage over the Luz. We can’t let them get the Formation unless we get something in return.”

“And now you’re saying if we can give it to them at all,” Mike Hannon said, joining the conversation. “Sounds like you’ve already made up your mind that that’s what we should do.”

“What do you mean we?” Sherri asked the assassin. “Since when are you part of the team?” Adam could see the anger on her face, knowing that much of it stemmed from the fact that she once imagined a relationship with the handsome young man. Knowing now that he nearly started a galactic war between the Humans and the Juireans and then masterminded the whole Expansion Bank affair had shown her what kind of man he really was. But Adam knew Sherri. She was more upset with herself than with Hannon … because she was still attracted to him, maybe even more so now that she knew what a bad boy he was.

Mike shrugged and gave her an alluring grin. The man knew how to work her. All the smile did was set Sherri’s jaw even tighter.

Adam looked around at the dejected faces of his team.

“Mike’s right. I don’t think we have a choice. We have to get Panur back, first and foremost. After that, we’ll deal with the consequences, whatever they may be. As Sherri said, I’d rather face the future with a healthy Panur than without him. J’nae, Riyad, Tidus, see if you can find access to the vault. And check on the Lerpiniere field. Can we even turn it off if we want to? You know our mutant friends will have the best security available; that’s why I think it may be a waste of time. But we have to try. Otherwise, Panur and Lila will have to let us know how to get to the Formation if the trade is to take place. And in that case, the Luz may decide to go for it themselves and screw the trade. So much of this is up in the air at the moment.

“With only eight days to get Panur back, we don’t have time to sit around and wait for the phone to ring,” Sherri said. “We need to get proactive, start sending out some messages, see if anyone answers.”

“That’s a good idea, although be careful letting the Luz know how important Panur and Lila are to the galaxy. We don’t want to give them any ideas.”

“And I must assume they will contact you, Adam Cain,” Tidus said, “since for some reason, everyone seems to think you’re in charge.”

“Believe me; I wish I weren’t.”

“That makes two of us,” Sherri said softly before looking embarrassed. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say that aloud?”

“Humor, at a time like this?” Adam asked.

“Humor? I was serious. I’m always serious.”

Chapter 2

“What have we done?” Crin whispered from a corner of the freighter’s cargo hold. “We are scientists, not fighters.”

“We have done nothing wrong,” Solon assured him. “All we have done has been forced upon us.”

“What of the robberies.”

Solon shook his head. “That was a past indiscretion. I am speaking of recent events. We did not initiate what happened on Navarus, and neither did we cause this to happen.”

He waved a hand toward the center of the room, where the two most powerful beings in the galaxy stood suspended in a field of shimmering blue held in place by quantum anchors. The fact that the creatures in the dirty yellow robes had manipulated the beam to produce such a restraint on the mutants demonstrated the incredible intellect of these newcomers, the beings that had materialized out of a quantum beam. Were they inhabitants from another reality, a quantum universe? Did whole civilizations exist on a plane that few could even imagine? The questions were many, the answers few.

Although Crin was a scientist of some note on Gracilia, he felt humbled to be in the same room with these creatures. He was hoping his insecurity would show he was not a threat to them. Solon was another matter. He had a more devious mind. Leave it to him to do something foolish.

“You must restrain your desire to act, Solon,” Crin warned. “We are interacting with forces we do not comprehend.”

“I understand,” Solon snapped back. “All I was saying is that we cannot be held responsible for this. This is the doing of the quantum beings.”

The two Gracilians were alone in the cargo hold with the mutants, staying as far from the shimmering field as possible. The three other creatures were in the pilothouse, placing the freighter on a large asteroid in the Dinis star system. The aliens had learned to fly the starship in a matter of minutes, no longer trusting the Gracilians to do so. They also learned star charts as fast and thoroughly as they had the Gracilian language.

Crin was apprehensive about remaining this close to the Liave star system and the planet Navarus, home of the Enforcers. By now, alerts had gone out for every ship—Enforcer or not—to be on the lookout for them. It was wise to land somewhere and get out of the star lanes where gravity trails could be detected. But they were only nine light-years from Navarus, only a day away. And after both the abduction and the failed attempt to transport the Formation, Navarus would be the center of attention. Adam Cain would make sure of that.

The Woken operation was supposed to pay the Gracilians a fortune in stolen credits, enough for them to settle anywhere in the galaxy and live like Juirean Elders for the rest of their lives. However, something went horribly wrong. And it all had to do with the traitorous Human Mike Hannon, as well as the ubiquitous presence of Adam Cain. The Gracilians had been suffering the effects of Adam Cain’s activities for many years, going once from being the most powerful race in the galaxy—however fleeting—to being the pariahs of the Dead Zone. The race was now quarantined on their homeworld and only able to travel by special permission.

Crin and Solon—along with their late companions—had been fortunate to be off-planet, serving the needs of the MK Regional Director, Wolfgang Stimmel, at the time of the lockdown. They’d been recruited to accompany him to the ancient Aris Technician base to set up a device known as the Formation. That was how they knew of the machine, although what it did still escaped them.

When the masterminds behind a series of Expansion Bank robberies—Vodenik and Kovach—needed more Gracilians to assist in their scheme, they called on the only group of Gracilian scientists not under quarantine, including Crin and Solon. At first, the pair considered it an honor, and one with the potential for a fabulous payoff. Looking now at the entrapped mutants, their calm and unblinking eyes watching the Gracilians with accusatory stares, they knew it was the worst of scenarios that had befallen them, and certainly not an honor.

The female was beckoning to them. Her name was Lila Bol, an alien of mixed heritage, and although she was being held in place, she could still move her arms and legs.

“Do we dare go near?” Crin asked. “You know of her.”

“Everyone knows of her. But look at the other one, the creature known as Panur. If not for the force of the beam, he would be on the floor at the moment, unable to stand.”

“And what if he dies while aboard the ship with us present?” Solon said. “Surely, we would not escape blameless.”

“Then go, see what she wants,” Crin prodded, although making no moves himself. “I am sure she will ask to be freed. That we cannot do, even if we knew how.”

Solon decided to risk it. Crin was wrong. If he had a chance to free the mutants, he would take a chance on them against the yellow-robed aliens. After all, they killed Pontus, and with no following remorse.

He moved ever closer, alert to any approach by the quantum creatures.

“What is your name,” the mutant Lila asked. Her tone was pleasant and without stress.

“I am called Solon. Let me apologize. It was not us who initiated your capture. We are as much prisoners as you.”

“That I realize. But Solon, look at Panur. You know who he is.”

“Of course, as I know of you.”

“He is not well.”

“I thought you were both immortal. That is what we have been told.”

“Even immortals have our weaknesses. Panur’s condition is only temporary, or it will be if he can be returned to Navarus soon. Can you help? Can you release us from these anchors?”

Solon shook his head. “We have discussed this. We cannot; we do not know how.”

“Of course, you do, Solon,” Lila said with a grin.

“I do?”

“Yes. Simply cut the power to the field generators. And if that is too complicated, cut the power to the ship. Not for long. I do not need much time. No harm will come to you during the brief power outage.”

“I … I cannot. If the quantum creatures find out, they will kill me. They have already killed one of our companions.”

“I will protect you. The engine room is in the next compartment. Go inside, cut the power and wait ten seconds. That will be enough time for me to be freed. After that, you know what I can do. All I need is to be released from this field.”

Solon thought for a moment. It did seem like a simple plan. And ten seconds; not enough time for the aliens to move from the bridge to the engine room. For four days, the mutants had been prisoners aboard the freighter, and during that time, the quantum beings had not revealed their intentions. But with each passing hour, as the beings learned more about the starship's operations, Crin and Solon’s usefulness diminished exponentially. Even now, Solon wondered why the quantum beings kept them alive? All they were was a security risk.

And that was about to be proven by the decision Solon just made. He would help the mutant; by his reasoning, he had no other choice.

He nodded to Lila and then went back to Crin, outlining the plan.

“The creatures will know; they can monitor all parts of the ship. They are probably already aware you were talking to the mutant.”

“Then why leave us in the room together?” Solon asked. “Of course, we would converse. It would be unnatural if we didn’t. Now, I will move casually, as if going to the galley for food. I must pass the engine room to go forward. I will act before they realize what has happened.”

“And then what?”

“Then I trust that the mutant Lila can protect me. She once ruled the Expansion. She is a being of incredible power.”

“Who allowed herself to be abducted—with our help.”

“It was our equipment, nothing more. Now stop being so negative. This is our only chance of not ending up as did Pontus. I go now.”

And he did, moving slowly away before heading for the forward compartment door and the spine corridor that ran the length of the ship. Altering his plan slightly, Solon went forward to the galley first, where he assembled double servings of food for both he and Crin. It was what would be expected if he were under surveillance. During the return trip, he would pass into the engine room and cut the power.

The door was up ahead and on his left. Solon had been in the freighter’s engine room dozens of times since coming aboard. He knew the opening sequence, and he ran it through his mind again and again until he boiled over with confidence. He knew where the master cutoff switch was and approximately how many running steps it would take to reach it. It could be done, and before anyone on the bridge could stop him.

The moment came. Solon dropped the food, pulled up on the lever and then pushed, entering the engine room half-a-second later. Five steps would be all it would take to reach the power switch. He made one … before the ship suddenly lost gravity.

His last running step was a powerful one. Unfortunately, when the internals went off, his muscles propelled him high into the room, where he bounced off the ceiling before grabbing a power duct to keep from banging against other components running along the overhead. He looked down, spying the power cut off switch. The quantum beings knew what he was doing. His only chance was to reach the panel and release the mutants. Anything else would result in his death.

He shifted around in the zero gravity, lining up on the power panel, ready to push off with his legs. His muscles tensed, and he released the power conduit—just as the ship’s gravity returned.

Solon’s fall was hastened by his shoving off from the ceiling, accelerating even faster before slamming into the metal decking below. It didn’t kill him, at least not right away. Instead, he broke his neck, back, left shoulder and left arm. Fractured ribs punctured his lungs, and blood poured from his gasping mouth as he fought for breath.

A moment later, the flow of grimy yellow robes appeared in his rapidly fading vision. He couldn’t move his head, nor anything else for that matter. All he wished for now was a speedy end to his life.

One of the robed creatures bent down.

“Your courage is admirable, even your tact. We watched, speculating as to what you would do. But when you moved to the galley first, our respect for you grew. And now, because of that respect, I will end your life.”

The flash of light came from the palm of the alien, from a source unseen. Solon only had a fraction of a second to notice the light before it was the last thing he ever saw.

* * *

“Your companion is dead,” Garus announced when he and the others entered the cargo hold. The Gracilian was hiding somewhere in the stacks of crates, undoubtedly trembling from fear, expecting he would be next. “Show yourself. We will not harm you. At the moment, your utility to us is unknown, but we prefer to keep a servant around for when needs arise. Will you be our servant?”

The alien slipped out from between the crates.

“Yes! Yes, I will be your servant!” the creature cried out. “I will do anything you ask. It was Solon’s idea completely, Solon’s and the mutant Lila. I was not complicit.”

“We know that. Now attend us. We wish to speak with the mutants.”

The three Masters approached the shimmering screen.

“There is much data regarding the two of you in what’s called the Formilian Library. It tells a fascinating tale which we find almost unbelievable.”

“You cannot believe everything you read,” the being Lila replied.

Garus looked at the other creature, the grey mutant that was even shorter than the Luz. He frowned.

“Observing what we do now, I tend to believe you, Lila Bol. It is said that the mutant known as Panur is immortal and that it has been five thousand years since his creation. He is said to be even more powerful than you. However, look at him now. What is wrong with him? He appears to be in the throes of death.”

“You just caught him at a bad time. This is only temporary.”

“A molting perhaps?”

“That will suffice. Now, you are the Luz, and I would assume the three referred to as the Masters. Apparently, a confluence of quantum beams freed you from the prison Nunki placed you within. What are your intentions now that you are free?”

Garus looked at his companions, startled.

“You are remarkably well-informed. How could you possibly know what you know? Indeed, I shall say what has been written about you appears to be true.”

The female now glared at Garus with an intensity that caused her eyes to glow white. “Then you know that of which I am capable. I know you came for the Formation, not for us. Free us now, and we will come to an accommodation. Otherwise, you will have to face my wrath.”

This is delightful, Garus thought to the others. See how she attempts to intimidate us with the glowing eyes.

If she is what the reports say she is, then Lila Bol could be of value, Docem thought.

This would be true if we intended to use the Formation in the traditional manner, Panof thought. But for our purposes, a biologic is not necessary.

Observe! Docem exclaimed. Does it appear that the female can hear our thoughts?

Garus suspected the same thing. There was a tell-tale shift in her glowing eyes toward the Master who was communicating, along with other subtle facial twitches observed, especially when Docem made his statement of discovery.

You can hear us. Garus stated.

I can hear you.

Truly amazing. You not only can communicate with us telepathically without an implant, but you can further decipher our thoughts into a language you can understand.

I understand all languages.

But not Luz; how could you? It has been a dead language for three billion years.

Mental visualizations help with the translation. The rest was simple extrapolation.

Yet it is something even we cannot do.

Which brings me back to my original point: I am much more powerful than you. Your only chance for survival is to set free my companion and me.

Garus smiled. “And yet you remain held in suspension by the anchors.” He spoke aloud, preferring now to hear his words of defiance echo off the metal walls. “If you are so powerful, then free yourself. If you can do that, then we will submit.”

The mutant remained silent.

“I thought so. Now, let us dispense with this bombast. Our goal is not to hold you and your companion, but rather the return of our property. If you are so well informed, you know it was the Luz who first discovered the Formation. The Aris stole it from us and then used it to create life in this Epoch. I congratulate Nunki; I did not think his project would succeed. But looking at you now, the organism the Library database refers to as The Apex Being, you are the culmination of his Epoch-long experiment. However, the fact that you are here tells me Nunki failed to assimilate you as much as he failed to assimilate the Masters. So, in the end, Nunki’s project was a failure. And yet the Masters survive.

“And now we need information. As I said before, we do not want you or the creature Panur—whose history is even more intriguing than yours. And we do not need your immortality. All we want is the Formation. I ask you, will your companions trade your freedom for the device, or shall we use more direct—and violent—measures?”

“I believe they will trade.”

“That is good to hear. Now a second question: Will you and your companions leave us alone should this transfer take place, or will you attempt to reacquire the device?”

“I believe you already know the answer to that question.”

“I had to ask.”

Garus looked to the others. Then let us make arrangements, he thought telepathically. And we should make haste. Regardless of what you say, Lila Bol, your friend does not look healthy. The Masters are not cruel creatures, only driven. Now, give us the contacts so arrangements can be made.

Chapter 3

Adam’s communicator chimed; he had it with him day and night and answered it before the second beep.

“Father.”

Adam stared at the tiny image on the screen, his heart racing with joy. “Lila! Are you okay?” Although she was immortal, he still worried about her, and with the Luz knowing how to insert someone into a quantum prison, there was always the chance he could lose her forever. He’d already lost one daughter; he didn’t want to lose another.

“Of course, father. I am calling to give you instructions for the exchange. I assume you have been expecting such a link.”

Adam was in the laboratory; he now waved an arm frantically to get everyone’s attention. They came running. Using his ATD, he linked the image to the large monitor on the wall. Lila was standing in the middle of a dimly-lit room with crates lining the bulkhead, the cargo hold of the freighter. She was enclosed in a shimmering blue ball of soft light—the Lerpiniere Field—while being suspended a few inches above the deck by an invisible quantum anchor. She was alert and healthy, as he expected. But next to her and hanging limp in the air, was the unconscious figure of Panur.

“Yes, we’ve been expecting the link. I’m glad it’s come this soon. How far are you from Navarus? How is Panur?”

“We are not far, although I am unable to disclose the exact location until the proper time. As for Panur, he is resting, conserving his energy. Now, about the transfer of the Formation in exchange for our freedom.”

“Yeah, about that. We’re going to need your help getting the disks. We can’t get past your security measures.”

“I reasoned as much. The features were designed to be impenetrable, although a password will disengage the Lerpiniere field and other measures to gain access to the vault.”

“What’s the password?”

“CASSIE.”

Adam gasped when he heard the word. So did Sherri and Riyad, although none of the others understood the significance.

“That’s amazing, Lila. Thanks.”

“She was my half-sister; she is due proper respect.”

Summer/J’nae was at a computer with the security file already open. For the past two days, the immortal genius had been trying every combination she could to break the code. She would never have thought of Adam’s long-deceased daughter, Cassie. Now, she plugged in the letters, and the screen opened up. There were six layers of security; even so, thirty seconds later, the chamber four stories below them was now accessible. Earlier, the team discovered a video feed to the room, showing that the Formation skeleton was still assembled; however, the disks had been removed.

“The disks are in a separate safe within the room,” Lila said. “You will need another code for access.”

“Let me guess … Maria?” Adam said. Maria was the name of his late wife and Cassie’s mother. Both had died during the first alien attack on Earth by the Juireans over thirty years earlier.

“Very close, father, but incorrect. It is DAVID.”

“That was my second choice.” David was Adam’s father, the former Navy Master Chief who still lived in Northern California.

With the codes revealed, Riyad and Monty set off for the elevator and the subterranean vault.

“Okay, now what?”

“The Masters inform me that all they want is the return of their property. In their reality, the disks were taken from them only a few days ago. The feeling of loss and betrayal is still strong. I assume you have had J’nae studying our research for more information on the Luz. You know the trio holding us are the Luz Masters, the immortals in the race. Direct action against them would be futile and a waste of time. I propose we make the trade without incident.”

“No problem,” Adam said. “All we want is to get you and Panur back here safely and as soon as possible.”

The video image shifted, spinning away from Lila to center on the head and upper torso of another creature. Adam recognized him immediately as an Aris—or correction—a Luz which had sprung from the Aris’ early immortality experiments. The being was pale-skinned, slender and almost sickly looking. Knowing what he knew of the Aris, the Luz would be about five feet tall. He was dressed in a filthy pale yellow robe. Someone else was operating the camera.

“I am called Garus. I am the First Master the Luz produced with the Formation, and therefore, the default leader of what is left of my race.”

“I’m Adam Cain—”

“Yes, I know who you are.” The alien scanned the other faces looking up at the wall-mounted camera in the mutant’s laboratory. “And this is your team, your companions who have helped generate hundreds of fantastic tales found in the Formilian Library? Such a small group of individuals for the impact they have had on a galaxy.”

“We do what we can to keep the masses entertained,” Adam said snidely.

“I also understand you are the father of Nunki’s Apex Being, Lila Bol. Imagine my shock when I discovered who we abducted.”

Adam tensed. Was he going to insist on keeping Lila for her genetic material? Wolfgang Stimmel tried that when he controlled the Formation. But these Luz were already immortal; however, would they want all the new Luz they produce with the Formation to be immortal as well?

“Both Lila and Panur are returned, or you get nothing.”

Garus looked confused. “Of course; that is the understanding. I only mention the Apex Being because I speculate how the pairing came about that produced her. I find it fascinating, and wonder how that came to be?”

“I don’t know how the Luz do it, but we call it knocking pooch, or rumpty dumpty, bone surfing, bumping uglies or plain old doing the nasty.”

The blank look on the face of the three-billion-year-old immortal alien was priceless, and the reaction Adam was going for. “But that doesn’t matter. It happened. Now, let’s get down to business. You want the Formation, and we want the mutants. Where do you want us to deliver the disks?”

Appearing relieved, Garus gathered his thoughts. “Very well. I had hoped to learn more about the Humans—one of the pivotal races in the Epoch Nunki and the Aris built—but I see that will be impossible until we develop conversation parameters. As it stands, there is too much useless banter and an emphasis on humor.” The Luz Master grinned.

Adam was surprised by the expression but accepted that the Luz had not inherited the Aris complete lack of emotion, at least as it pertained to the Privileged. The Technicians were another matter; while they survived, they had more emotion than they could handle. Witness the Mad Aris Kracion and the temper tantrum he threw against the Milky Way.

Garus sighed. “For specifics: There is an asteroid cluster in the Dinis star system. A planetoid within the cluster is designated CD-126868 in the star charts. It will be easy to find. Come to that location. And we require more than just the Formation before the mutants will be released.”

“What is it?”

“A new starship; a faster starship. I understand there are vessels powered by so-called dark matter. Provide such a craft, along with the disks and your people will be released. You come alone. Land at the beacon that will guide you in. The transfer will take place there.”

“And then what? You take the ship and leave me—”

“Yes, to be recovered by the other vessels you will undoubtedly have in the area, and do so before your air supply runs out. But let me detail more of the rules you must abide by. You will not follow or track the dark-matter vessel. We will be allowed to leave. And be assured, we can detect any tracking device placed on the spacecraft. There will be a shelter erected on the planetoid. There you will find the mutants and will make the exchange. However, to assure your compliance, a quantity of explosives will be placed under the shelter. Should you attempt to stop us from leaving or track our departure, we will detonate the explosives. Once we have left the system, you can bring in your ships for recovery. But do not delay. You will be allowed only one tank of air.”

“Understood. All we want is Lila and Panur.”

“And all we want is the Formation, as well as a more appropriate ship than this cargo freighter. How much time will you need to acquire the dark energy starship and reach the Dinis system?”

“We have dark matter ships here on Navarus. In a ship like that, we can get to Dinis sooner than by conventional travel. I can be on station in about—” he looked at J’nae, who had already done the calculations in her head.

“You can be on-site in seventeen hours,” she said to the room.

“That is acceptable. Arrangements can be made on our end in that time. And Adam Cain, the timeline you have offered is now firm. There will be no delays, no early arrivals, and no stray vessels casually arriving in the asteroid field beforehand. You have seventeen hours from now.”

The screen went blank as the link was severed.

Adam didn’t waste time. Almost before the image of Garus faded on the screen, he was on a link with General Todd Oakes, commander of the Human Garrison on Navarus. He had three of the Gracilian-designed DM ships at his small annex on the Enforcer base, part of the research carried on by Earth into using dark matter as a power source for more starships. Adam crossed his fingers that at least one of them would be operational; scientists had a nasty habit of tearing things apart to see how they work. Reassembly was another issue.

Riyad and Monty bolted out of the elevator a moment later carrying eight small cases, each about three inches thick by eight long. They appeared to be made of wood, but Adam knew better. They were made of an exotic material that had never been identified, material that had survived for over ten billion years, from the time of the First Epoch. They protected the thin wafer disks that, when combined, created the Formation. Or many Formations. That was the wonder of the device. There were eighty disks, and depending on how they were stacked, a different biological substance would emerge at the end of the filtration process. And that was what the disks were—filters—but more. They not only distilled organic material but altered it as well, depending on the stack created. Adam had absolutely no idea how any of that worked; that was what he had immortal mutant geniuses around for. And now, this mysterious and powerful device would be turned over to another three immortals. Adam desperately hoped that his immortals were better than the Luz immortals; otherwise, the future of the Milky Way could become a murky mess.

He snickered. So, what’s new? he thought. Just another friggin’ day in paradise…

Chapter 4

Adam piloted the DM ship to the Dinis star system as another ten Enforcer vessels trailed behind, one of them carrying Summer/J’nae, ready for an emergency mind-meld the moment they could get Panur aboard. Adam wasn’t messing around, not this time. Heroics would come later. All he wanted to do was get Lila and save Panur.

The DM ship made good time and arrived within minutes of the deadline. Adam had the coordinates of CD-126868 programmed into the nav computer, and he was taken right to it. The asteroid was a typical nickel-iron rock about one hundred eighty miles long and seventy wide, performing a slow roll on its multi-year journey around the star Dinis. The surface was a uniform grey, except for a tiny dot where a homing beacon was active, guiding him in.

A small survival dome had been erected—standard issue aboard most starships, including freighters. A generator was outside the habitat, powering equipment inside.

The DM ship landed nearby, and Adam was out the airlock before the dust settled back to the surface, drawn in by the asteroid's micro-gravity. He was encased in a military-grade pressure suit with an air supply regulated for four hours. Tiny air jets in the suit's shoulders kept him anchored to the surface as he made his way to the shelter fifty feet away. A satchel attached to a utility belt held the eight containers with the Formation disks.

A fine powdery surface marked his boot prints as he made the trek to the shelter. Other tracks surrounded the structure, left there by those who constructed the dome only hours before. And somewhere beneath the shelter was a supply of high-explosives. Adam didn’t doubt the word of the alien. It made sense that they would do something like this. He had to trust they wouldn’t detonate the bomb after getting the disks. They had no reason to do so.

The dome had an airlock, and it was active, showing an atmosphere inside the structure. If that were the case, then what was all the talk about his air supply running out? Honestly, he hadn’t been counting on the dome being pressurized, not since he was the only person present that required life-support. He cycled through and entered the open interior.

A small equipment cluster was set to the left, generating the various electronic signals that held the two mutants suspended in the center of the circular space, defined by the shimmering blue ball of the Lerpiniere field, which was used to insulate the pair from outside interference. An L-field worked by phase-shifting the space inside the sphere slightly out of sync with the existing dimension. Although it appeared to be in this universe, it wasn’t, not entirely. This kept electronics such as flash bolts and teleportation beams from making the transition. Quantum anchors didn’t have that problem. They could work anywhere and in any time.

Lila and Panur hung a few inches above the floor, held in place by the anchors. Panur was awake now—which was encouraging—although he didn’t look well. His eyes were vacant, and his normally grey skin was almost white. He barely acknowledged Adam’s presence.

A small figure in a pressure suit stepped up to Adam. It was the Luz named Garus. Adam found it strange that the immortal creature would be in an environmental suit.

“If you are wondering, I am alone; my companions are in the cargo freighter monitoring us. Should the explosives be employed, my frozen body will be recovered by my companions, and I will resume my normal life. You will not share the same fate.”

“I told you, all I want are the mutants. You can have the damn disks.”

Adam unhooked the satchel and handed it to the alien. Garus placed it on the floor before opening the flap and checking each box to make sure they contained disks.

“Let’s get on with it!” Adam prodded.

Garus looked up at him and frowned.

“Such urgency. The mutant Panur’s condition must be more serious than previously related.” He glanced down in the satchel again before closing the flap and standing up. Satisfied, he set off for the airlock.

“Wait, what about Lila and Panur?” Adam asked. “Aren’t you going to release them?”

“They will be released once I am clear of the Dinis star system. When I am, the fields will go off, and the atmosphere in the dome will vent. Although the immortals will not die, their flesh will begin to freeze immediately. It is for that reason I now wear this suit. I prefer not to have my body freeze as I make my way to the dark matter starship.” He looked at Panur. “In addition, I suspect that with the emergency medical procedure you will undoubtedly perform on the mutant, you would prefer him to be thawed at the time. Although you and your offspring have been circumspect about his condition, I know this is not normal and that it is serious. From what I have learned of him, it would be a catastrophe for the scientific community if he were to expire. My colleagues and I have discussed at length whether the teleportation process did this to him. Knowing he was created in a foreign dimension, that was a possibility, even as your offspring did not suffer the same morbidity. Still, our discussions were inconclusive. Now I will leave. Be cognizant of the explosives, Adam Cain. Do nothing until I am clear.”

“How will I know when you are?”

“As I said, the fields will go off, and the atmosphere will be vented. Then it will be a race to get your vessels here in time to stave off most of the freezing. Now, I thank you for the return of the Formation to its rightful owners.”

“What do you intend to do with it?”

Garus stopped at the airlock, looking back at Adam. “We are going to change history, Adam Cain.”

“What does that mean?”

Garus didn’t respond. Instead, he entered the lock and was gone.

Adam stepped up to the Lerpiniere field; Lila looked down at him, sadness in her eyes.

“There was no other decision. Once we are freed, and Panur has recovered, we will begin the search for the Formation. As cryptic as the Luz stated purpose for the device might be, I suspect no good will come from it. Now, although your recovery vessels are not allowed to follow the Luz, there was nothing said about not placing them in position for a timely recovery. They can be stationed away from the asteroid until we are freed, making their arrival only minutes away. We must get Panur to Summer as soon as possible and with the least amount of exterior freezing. Garus was correct; he needs to be conscious for the meld to begin.”

“So, how is he, really?”

“He is in grave condition. The deterioration has accelerated even beyond the worst-case scenarios. If this transfer had taken place even a day later, I am afraid it would have been too late. He would have been too weak to assist with the extraction. And I can only do so much. Now, bring your ships near. We must be ready to act quickly and decisively when the time comes.”

* * *

Adam coordinated with the ship carrying Summer, changing the recovery parameters to deal with a pair of near-frozen mutants. That wasn’t something he planned on having to do. Now he had a rapid response team in place for the moment the ship touched down on CD-126868.

Fortunately, dark matter ships are the fastest in the galaxy, and Garus was able to get it away from the Dinis system in record time. Even so, no one dared track the ship's odd energy signature for fear the Luz would detect their efforts. An hour after leaving the planet, the vessel was a ghost, lost among the stars.

The Lerpiniere field and quantum anchors dissolved simultaneously while a torrent of atmosphere gushed from the shelter. Everything happened within a second or two. Lila and Panur fell to the floor, caught off guard by their sudden release. Lila popped to her feet; Panur remained still on the floor.

The ship carrying Summer was only ten thousand miles away. Now it sprinted toward CD-126868, landing fourteen minutes after activating its chemical engines in about the same spot as where the DM ship had once sat. The rapid response crew shot from the rear landing bay the moment it touched down, and using air jets in their suits, flew in the micro-gravity to the dome, arriving twenty-seconds after the ship touched down. Adam had the airlock open and waiting for them.

Lila and Panur were already beginning to suffer the paralyzing effects of the near absolute-zero cold. Lila’s normally bronze skin was ashen, and Panur’s was now pure white. The team raced to them, spreading out a large plastic sheet before moving the mutants to the center. Then using sets of zippers, they began connecting sections until the pair was enclosed in a deflated plastic bag. A worker attached a flexible hose to an outlet, and the contents of a pressure tank began to fill the bubble. Other connections were made, and thin wires along the sphere's inner surface began to heat up. Within a minute, the ball was inflated, pressurized and heating the air.

It took a few more minutes for Lila to recover enough to where her stiff limbs allowed her to stand. She effortlessly took Panur’s limp body in her arms.

The crew then set to work cutting away a portion of the dome's exterior wall, a section large enough for the bubble to pass through; the airlock was too small. And then Lila began walking. The crew members accompanied the slowly rolling sphere, keeping it on the ground and on course for the starship. They steered it to the rear loading ramp and helped move it up the shallow grade. The moment everyone was inside, the door closed, and a welcoming atmosphere was pumped into the chamber.

The ship lifted off even before the landing bay was pressurized, not wanting to stick around if the Luz decided to set off the explosives.

The moment the light in the landing bay turned green, Adam had a knife out and was slashing at the thick plastic bubble, freeing his daughter. There was no time for greetings. Lila pressed through the opening and fast-walked her cargo from the bay to a room nearby set up as an operating suite. Soon, Panur was laid gently on a table, butting head-to-head with an unconscious Summer Rains. Adam gawked, seeing Summer’s shaved head. She was diminutive as it was. Without hair, she looked like a miniature figurine, a doll instead of a living being.

Lila leaned over Panur’s white body. His eyes were closed, and his chest still. Adam knew that didn’t mean anything; he didn’t need to breathe to live.

“Panur, wake up,” Lila spoke close to his ear. No response. “Panur, please. Awaken.”

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked.

“He is non-responsive.”

Lila stripped away the top of Panur’s grey jumpsuit, exposing his featureless chest. Then she reached for a set of standard defibrillation paddles.

“You’re kidding?” Adam said. “Will that help?”

“Not in the way you infer. You recall, he feeds on pure energy. This is what he needs.”

She cranked the dial to one side and waited for the charge signal.

The zap was incredibly powerful, sounding like a small explosion. Panur’s body arched up and then fell again to the table. Without checking his vitals, Lila charged the machine again and gave him another jolt.

Panur lay still.

Adam could see the panic in his daughter’s eyes. She looked around the room for something more powerful.

“An energy weapon! Get one for me.”

Sherri was in the room with them. She now stepped outside, remaining gone for much longer than expected, close to a full minute.

She raced back into the room, looking frazzled before frantically handing an MK-17 to Lila. She looked at Adam. “There’s never a weapon around when you need one.”

Adam shrugged.

Lila dialed the weapon up to level-1, then placed the barrel directly against Panur’s chest. Adam had seen the mutant take dozens of energy bolts in the past. They didn’t hurt him; in fact, to the mutants, they were like crack to an addict. And with enough hits, his body would glow white-hot, keeping everyone away until he cooled down.

Lila fired all five of the bolts into Panur before the battery pack ran dry. His torso was glowing, and from where he stood, Adam could feel the heat from the mutant’s body.

“We need another one,” he said to Sherri, who turned away to leave the room again.

“No, wait!” Lila cried out. “Although this has the potential of working, he cannot gain more heat. Summer’s body will not tolerate it. Her brain would be fried.”

“Is he coming to?” Sherri asked.

Lila shook her head. “He is close; I can sense his brainwaves. But he needs more … more.” She stopped at looked at Adam. “Static electricity! He can absorb static electricity without the heat accumulation. Father, I need you to produce a cluster, the biggest ball you have ever made.”

“Will that work?”

“There is a chance. As I said, I am linked with his mind. It is weak. It needs only a little more incentive. Please, do as I ask.”

Adam concentrated, caught up in the fervor of the moment. Sparkling flashes of light appeared before him and continued to grow by the second.

“More! We need more.”

Adam’s Artificial Telepathy Device was designed by the mutants, superior to even those built by the Formilians. As such, he had magnitudes more power and could attract an even greater cluster of static electricity from the surrounding air than ever before. Unfortunately, as the ball grew, random bolts of static discharge began to lash out, striking the room's metal walls and connecting with the deck. Every hair on Adam’s body shot outward. Sherri tried to leave the room, but she was met with a brilliant flash of burning light when reaching out for the door handle. She flew through the air, landing on the deck before sliding into a wall. Her hair now splayed out in every direction, giving her the look of a mad witch on Halloween.

“Are you okay?” Adam asked, temporarily distracted. The ball diminished slightly in intensity.

“Uh-huh; I think so,” Sherri stammered. Her jaw hung slack, drool draining from the side of her mouth.

“Father!”

Adam was jolted back on mission. He concentrated again, building the ball back to its previous glory. And glorious it was. Easily three feet across, it was the largest static electricity ball he’d ever created and with the greatest density. He used more wide-spread clusters to compress air into near-solid objects, which he then used to float on, calling them his magic carpets. But this was different; all this energy was concentrated in one spot.

And it was hot. Not as hot as level-1 flash bolts, but hot, nonetheless. Adam hoped Lila knew what she was doing. Frying Summer’s brain was not part of the bargain.

“Now, father,” Lila yelled. “Deliver the charge!”

Like a wizard in a fantasy story, Adam waved his hands from one side and then the other, manipulating the ball's movement, before finally directing it at Panur’s chest with all the flourish of a master magician. Typically, something this hot and this solid would blast away a target. But with Panur, the massive concentration of electricity was absorbed instantly into his body. His chest heaved up and began to glow white. Even so, the resident heat in the room dropped to a tolerable level.

Panur had just absorbed an incredible amount of energy. The question now: Would it work?

Panur moaned, and his eyes flickered open. Adam let out a sigh of relief and went to help a groggy Sherri Valentine to her feet. Her hair had settled down somewhat.

Lila hovered over Panur, gently stroking his bald head.

“You are safe. Can you proceed?”

Panur focused on Lila, and a weak hand reached out toward her. She took it. Panur glanced up at the mirror on the ceiling, giving him a view of the operating arena. His and Summer’s heads were nearly touching.

He nodded slightly.

“Give me a moment. I must concentrate.” He closed his eyes again.

The skin on Panur’s face began to vibrate, losing definition and firmness. It started to move in frenetic waves until the top of his bald head deformed, turning viscus and reaching out toward Summer’s.

It was creepy and vaguely disgusting, but also necessary. This wasn’t like a Star Trek mind-meld. This melding involved flesh merging with flesh as only a shape-shifting immortal was capable of doing. As Panur had once explained, what made him immortal was the ability for his body to regenerate instantly, producing enough material to rebuild his entire body in a fraction of a second. Yet Panur could also control much of this regeneration, allowing him to form his body into just about any shape as long as the masses were compatible. He could stretch his limbs, absorb gunshot rounds and even mimic other people. He did just that once—becoming a whole second Adam Cain—in a gladiator match with a Nuorean from the Andromeda Galaxy, a battle Adam would have surely lost.

Now the grey blob that was the top of Panur’s head enveloped Summer’s shaved scalp, covering a full third of it down to her eyebrows. And then the material began to be absorbed, not all of it, but most.

The meld was underway.

And that’s when Lila did something unexpected.

She stepped forward and reached out her hands, placing them into the goo that was the part of Panur’s head now covering Summer’s. Her hands and wrists were soon covered in the same gelatinous grey matter, and her eyes began to roll back in her head.

Was she becoming part of the mind-meld? A meld-a-trois, Adam wondered? It appeared so.

“Lila, what—” Adam began.

“Leave us!” she snapped. “Must concentrate. Take time. Go.”

He didn’t have to be told twice. He took Sherri by the arm and guided her out of the room.

No one had thought to use a camera or place the operating suite in a room with a window. Adam stood in the passageway, next to Sherri, Riyad and Monty Pitts, waiting in silence with no idea what was happening in the operating suite. From experience, this could take hours; it had when Panur removed the stray brain cells from Adam’s body, and that was for the relatively few cells Adam had inside him. Summer had a thousand times more. This could take … days.

Chapter 5

And days it did. Two, to be exact.

But even after Lila emerged from the room to announce success, it was several hours more before Summer and Panur awoke from their respective comas.

Summer had a flowery bandana wrapped around her bald head, looking stylish. But her eyes betrayed something else.

The team was in a conference room aboard the Enforcer starship, heading back to Navarus. They would be arriving in an hour. Panur was present, but he didn’t look as stylish as Summer. He was wrapped in a blanket, still looking weak and frail. It would take time for his recovered brain cells to integrate fully with his body.

Adam watched the grey mutant, ruminating about what a strange creature he was.

After being abducted by the Klin, Adam spent many years in the galaxy without witnessing anything he could term supernatural. Sure, there were a lot of things he didn’t understand, but they didn’t rise to the level of being so mysterious as to be in a class of their own, something bordering on magic. That all changed when he met Panur. Here was something that defied logic and warped the senses. First of all, Panur came from another dimension. By itself, that wasn’t supernatural; the multiverse had been theorized even with Earth’s primitive understanding of nature. But Panur found a way to travel between dimensions. He was also a construct—a mutant—a being created from another using a process that was nothing short of magic. But after Panur explained to Adam how each cell in his body was essentially a brain cell, that was when things got really weird. It also helped explain his genius. Even his big toe was working on a problem at the same time as was his brain. It was a joint effort involving his entire body.

And now, Adam had even more crazy crap to add to his list of the unexplainable. The Luz, quantum prisons, the Formation. To Adam’s amoeba brain, each appeared to be more magic than science. It was easier for him to accept that conclusion rather than agonize over his inability to understand on that level; very few people could. However, three people who were capable of understanding on a higher level now sat at the table with Adam and the rest of the mortals. It was both a frustrating and humbling experience.

“You guys have no idea how stupid I feel at the moment,” Summer Rains was saying. “It was like the blind suddenly given the miracle of sight, and then having it ripped away.”

Adam nodded. “I experienced a little of that myself, but not to the same extent as you.”

“Did it work?” Monty Pitts asked Panur. “Is she strong enough now to do that extraction thing?”

Monty was concerned for his daughter; he’d been in agony for several years, ever since J’nae was introduced into Summer’s body.

“There is the possibility,” Lila answered for Panur. “However, there can be no guarantees, and especially with Panur’s weakened condition. He will need time to recover before we would dare attempt the procedure. If the process begins, he needs to be able to gauge Summer’s strength so he can abort if need be.”

“When will you know?” Monty asked.

“I will need several days, maybe even a month, before my system regains balance,” Panur said. “In the meantime, we will continue to monitor Summer for the inevitable transition she will go through.”

“What transition?” Summer asked.

Panur looked at Summer “Your body’s adaptation to what it has experienced. It is what will give you the ability to endure the extraction process. But there will be more.”

“What do you mean more? More of what?”

“Your long-term response is unknown at this time. Adam had my cells in his body much longer, giving his system more time to adapt. You had many more cells, but for a shorter period. Adam gained strength, durability and a slight rise in his mental capacity—very slight.” Panur grinned at his joke. Adam could tell he was feeling better. “I will be curious to see how much your body retains. Only time will be the determinant.”

“So we sit and wait?” Monty almost shouted. “That’s a bunch of bullshit.”

“The other option,” Lila began, “is for Panur to attempt the extraction and find that Summer’s body still cannot withstand the ordeal. In that case, she would die unless Panur is well enough to monitor the process and abort if necessary. Acting prematurely could have severe consequences.”

Monty slumped in his chair as Summer placed a reassuring hand on his arm.

“Relax, dad; we’ll get through this.” Summer looked around the table. “Besides, I don’t think you have much need for me at the moment. Everyone wants J’nae. Fine, I’ll just sit in the background and keep my mouth shut.”

What emotion was on Summer’s face suddenly vanished as J’nae was brought to the surface. Monty withdrew his arm, knowing it was no longer his Human daughter touching him, but, instead, some alien freak that could survive as a vial of green liquid before invading the body of an unsuspecting innocent.

“And now the question at hand: How do we recover the Formation?” It was J’nae speaking.

“That’s a good question,” Adam said. “But the good news is we have time. That’s a rarity in our line of work. The Luz have to find somewhere to build the framework for the Formation, then begin the process of creating more Luz. And how fast can they do that? Do they make a bunch of embryos and then grow them in Petri dishes? Then once they have enough mature adults, they have to start mating and grow a massive population. That will take generations. Also, they haven’t said anything about the Formation code device. We still have that. How are they going to do anything with the Formation without knowing the various stacking orders? The Luz may have ambitious plans, but they can’t be in a hurry. And if they expect us just to sit back and do nothing in all that time, they have another think coming.”

“The Masters are the product of the Formation,” Panur said. “I would imagine if they needed the Formation code device, they would have included that in their negotiations. The fact that they didn’t tells me they don’t need it.”

Panur looked at Lila, noticing her brow was furrowed and her eyes intense and unblinking.

“Is something troubling you, Lila?” Panur asked. “You have a different opinion about the Formation code?”

“No, that is not it,” she replied. “There was a particular statement I heard when the Masters did not know I could read their thoughts. It could be a clue as to their ultimate use of the Formation.”

“What was it?”

“The being known as Panof made a statement when they were discussing the fact that I am the Apex Being and what importance I could be to them. He said: This would be true if we intended to use the Formation in the traditional manner. But for our purposes, a biologic is not necessary. I found that remark to be inconsistent with our speculation as to their intended use.”

“What did he mean, the traditional manner?” Mike Hannon asked. He was still tagging along with the team, much to Sherri’s chagrin. He was also the least-informed about the functions of the Formation.

“The Formation is used to distill organic matter and then create other combinations, other life,” Lila explained. “At least that has been its traditional function.”

“But he said a biologic is not necessary,” Panur continued. “This could change our entire perspective on what they intend to do with the device. If organic material is not needed for what the Luz plan for the Formation, then what else could be fed into the system? The disks are living organisms in their own right. What else could they filter?”

Adam shrugged. If Panur and Lila couldn’t figure out the answer, he wasn’t even going to try. Instead, he would sit back and wait for the revelation he knew was coming. Even so, Adam did have an ace up his sleeve, one that he’d been dying to pull out ever since the ransom trade took place.

He grinned.

“Well, whatever they have in mind for the Formation, they might have a little trouble making it work without this.” He reached into his pants pocket and removed a shiny silver disk about the size of a silver dollar. “I slipped one out before turning over the satchel to Garus.” He held up the Formation disk, displaying it proudly.

He didn’t get the reaction he was expecting.

Panur snickered. “You do realize they don’t need all the disks to make it work? Depending on what they want to do, they can get by with as few as six disks. Of course, unless you have a guidance disk. May I see it?”

Adam handed the object down the table to Panur. He examined it and then set it on the table in front of him.

“I will hold onto this.”

“Well, is it one of the guidance disks or not?”

“I will have to examine it more closely, but it appears you may have gotten lucky. There are eight such disks. You may have one.”

“Cool, then they can’t make it work.”

“They have seven others; of course, they can. As I said, it depends on what they want to do with it. And if they don’t intend to send organic material through the filters, they may not need the guidance disks at all. There are still many questions to be answered. However, in the case they do need this disk, we may have to go through this entire circus again when they discover it’s missing.”

All eyes were on Adam, and they weren’t kind.

“What were you thinking, dickhead?” Sherri asked. “Besides what Panur just said, you could have gotten yourself blown up if Garus discovered what you’d done. Hell, you could have gotten us all killed.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“What is done is done,” Panur chided. “If they do come for the disk, we have to be better prepared. All this does is add some priority to finding the Luz and getting the Formation back.”

“For what good it will do us,” Riyad said. “The damn Luz are immortal. If we take it back, they’ll just keep trying again and again. They have all the time in the universe to do so.”

“Then we must find a way of stopping them, as did the Aris.”

“With quantum prisons?” Sherri asked. “How the hell do we do that?”

“There are other ways,” Lila stated. “Quantum anchors, for one, along with the more traditional methods we have used before; freezing or by casting them into a star. Immortals cannot die, but they can be stopped.”

“So, what do we do next?” Tidus asked. “And what time constraints are we working under?”

All eyes turned to Panur. “First of all, the Luz will have to build a framework for the disks, along with all the other paraphernalia that goes with it. That cannot be done aboard a starship, especially a DM ship. There is simply not enough room. Even the freighter would be insufficient since the distillation platform will have to be free of vibration for the filtration to take place. They must find a land base, and not another asteroid—they need sufficient gravity. In addition, they will need access to a substantial power grid and a small workforce. Then depending on the purpose, they will start stacking the wafers, at which time they may come looking for Adam’s missing disk. They tried kidnapping before; they could do that again. Therefore, we need to protect the entire laboratory with an L-field.”

“That assumes they’ll come for the two of you again,” Riyad said. “What if they took Sherri, for example.”

“Then all your troubles would be over,” Sherri smirked.

Riyad laughed. “Praise be to Allah for my good fortune. Be that as it may, others may feel obligated in that case to make the exchange.”

“That is a question for another time,” Panur said impatiently. “For now, let us begin the tracking. As you know, DM ships leave a distinctive energy signature. We were not allowed to track the ship as it left the Dinis system, but we can begin to look for traces elsewhere. The most logical location: a planet with a compliant population.”

“That would have to be Gracilia,” Adam said. “The Luz are working with the Gracilians now.”

“That cooperation does not appear to be on a volunteer basis, however,” Panur said. “Even so, for Garus to get to Gracilia could be a problem. The planet is on lockdown with your Enforcers keeping guard. And as you have demonstrated, it would be the first place we would suspect.”

“Still, it’s worth a look.”

“I agree. Go then, while Lila, J’nae and I begin scanning gravity wave disturbances around the Dinis system so we can at least get a direction in which they departed.”

Sherri leaned over toward Adam. “I suppose you’re going to beg for Riyad and me to go with you to Gracilia. You are so needy.”

“A superhero needs his sidekicks—”

And that’s when she slapped him up the side of the head.

Chapter 6

With time of the essence, Adam borrowed another DM ship from General Oakes and outfitted it with weapons and other provisions for a prolonged mission. Gracilia may be just the start, and he was determined not to stop looking until he’d recovered the Formation disks—all of them.

What people didn’t realize at the time was that Adam was very close to making a momentous decision. The Formation had been a royal pain in the ass since its discovery, and so far, Adam didn’t see any practical use for it. He was contemplating its destruction. Lila mentioned at one time how fragile the disks were, meaning they could be broken, shattered into a thousand fragments each. He wasn’t going to tell anyone about his leanings; the mutants would surely try to stop him, considering the ancient device too unique to destroy. But it was more trouble than it was worth, at least in Adam’s opinion. His mind wasn’t entirely made up; in fact, it probably wouldn’t be until the time came. But as he, Sherri and Riyad set off for Gracilia, he knew which way he was leaning at the moment, and it didn’t bode well for the future of the Formation.

* * *

The journey to Gracilia took six days by DM ship. In that time, Panur and the others detected dozens of residual dark matter gravity wave disturbances surrounding the Dinis star system. That was also when the mutants discovered these disturbances lasted much longer than traditional gravity trails, many months in fact. That complicated the matter. Dark matter-powered starships once saturated the Dead Zone, with nearly all of them originating from Gracilia. That meant there was so much clutter in the space between the planet and Dinis that it was almost impossible to separate the signals. More in-depth analysis of the trails would be needed, based on the residual intensity.

The good news was that the mutants couldn’t detect too many fresh tracks leaving the Dinis system and heading away from Gracilia. Still, Garus could have changed course or even went to Gracilia and then left when he found he couldn’t land on the planet.

Either way that left Adam basically shooting in the dark. But it was a place to start. And Adam Cain was a man of action, even if that action involved running around in circles.

* * *

The being known as Garus was also a creature of action, although, at the moment, his companions did not approve of the actions he was taking.

“We have the Formation,” Panof was saying. “We should now bide our time, move away from this region and find a more secure location to perform the experiment.”

They were aboard the huge cargo freighter with the dark matter starship crammed into the largest loading bay. The craft fit, but barely. The lone surviving Gracilian was busy dismantling equipment and transferring it to the smaller vessel. The freighter would be destroyed once the task was complete.

“I have waited too long for this moment, Panof,” Garus barked at his companion. The Masters had taken to speaking verbally, something instinctive that they now accepted as normal. Telepathy was only one of the many enhancements their implants gave them, but it wasn’t natural. “If successful, then we will be safe, safer than we have ever been.”

Docem was taking the center road in the discussion. “We are immortal, Panof; we are safe even here. However, you are right that there is no hurry. The Aris are gone, so there is no one to stop us.”

“There are the mutants we set free,” Panof corrected. “We have come to a time with many unknowns. Had we thought of it, it would have been very unlikely that other immortals would exist, and ones of such variety and power. The creatures Lila Bol and Panur are both immortal; however, they were created by two separate processes. One natural, one artificial. We would not have conceived of that.”

“We are artificial constructs ourselves, Panof, and we are immortal,” Garus pointed out. “And we all know the incredible effort the Aris went through to create their Apex Being, and all for naught. So the existence of other immortals was not unpredictable, just improbable.”

“Even so, they are a threat to us.”

“They are a threat to you, Panof, a threat because of your lack of courage,” Garus said.

“Courage does not come into play. I am speaking logically.”

“Do not succumb to the Aris reliance on logic. Logic is often an excuse for the weak. We are the Masters; we choose our actions based not only on logic but on the strength of will. I will not delay the building of the Formation, nor will I tolerate hesitation to conduct the experiment. It is not what I wish to do. And being who I am, I do not have to accept anything other than my own desires.”

“What of our desires?” Panof asked, letting his residual anger rise to another level. “You may be the First Master, but we are Masters, as well. We have been a union of leadership for two hundred years. Why now do you make demands of us to follow your will, and only yours? What has happened to you recently?”

“What has happened?” Garus shouted, surprising the other Masters with his emotional outburst. “I had my most sacred possession stolen from me before my very eyes. I witnessed formerly loyal servants turn against me, lured away by my mortal enemy. I was imprisoned in an endless void for an unimaginable time.”

“That happened to us, as well, Garus,” Docem said, his voice calm, soothing. “You were not alone in experiencing such setbacks.”

“I take exception to your statement. Witness your reactions,” Garus began. “I do not believe you experienced the same effect regarding events as have I. The two of you are accepting of these events and betrayals as if you are not the masters of your fate. We are the Masters; no one can treat us as such and escape unscathed.”

“I understand,” said Docem. “But our war was with Nunki, and he is long departed. As such, our war is not with this time and this reality.”

“But it is! All around us, we see the products of Nunki’s treachery. He used our device to make this galaxy. He stole our vision and made it his own, while at the same time exterminating the Luz, denying them their destiny. We were to lead that destiny. It was why we were created. But you cannot see that. You and Panof do not have the vision that created the Formation in the first place. How can you even consider yourselves Masters?”

“Your speech is bordering on hysteria, Garus,” Docem warned. “You are crossing a line which is doing nothing more than alienating your companions, your equals, the only other members of your race.”

“You are not my equals! You were never created to be my equals. As were the Luz and the Aris before them, you were created to be my servants.”

“Enough!” Panof yelled. “It is obvious your time in the quantum universe has corrupted your mind to the point of insanity. You were not like this before.”

“But he was,” Docem corrected. “We just could not see it. Garus has always considered himself better than us, superior in every way. But look at you, Garus. You are physically like us; you carry the same implants that give you strength and power as do we. And now you stand here before us, more machine than living being—just as we are—and proclaim that you are a god of some kind. I concur with Panof; you are displaying signs of insanity. You should surrender yourself to our care so we can manage your recovery. You do not want to go through eternity in your present condition.”

The manic expression on Garus’s pale face faded, and his shoulders slumped.

“I am of an intellect that can consider your arguments and observations dispassionately; therefore, I must concur. I am not acting rationally. Allow me time to contemplate my actions.”

He looked to the doorway into the landing bay. The Gracilian Crin had been standing there for a few minutes, listening to the conversation but understanding none of it. It had been spoken in ancient Aris, a language that had not been assimilated into the Universal Language Database.

“The transfer is complete,” the alien said sheepishly. Although he couldn’t understand the language, Crin sensed that an argument had taken place between the Masters.

“Very well, Crin,” Garus said in Gracilian. “I will test the circuits to assure you have everything I instructed.”

“Yes, master.” The moniker was one Crin adopted a while back that brought satisfaction to Garus. At least the alien knew his place. “We can launch when you instruct. What is our destination?”

Garus looked to his companions.

“We will be leaving the Zone, transiting above the ecliptic. We must find a new base.” Then to Panof and Docem: “I hope that is agreeable?”

“Perfectly,” Panof said.

Garus nodded. “Before we abandon the freighter, we need surplus power modules from the engine room.” Garus said. “They require some disassembly and are heavier than the Gracilian can do on his own. You can retrieve them while I test the circuits. We shall leave when your task is complete.”

“The alien can use mechanical assistance—” Panof said.

“That will be acceptable; we will retrieve the power modules,” Docem interrupted. “Let us now complete the arrangements to leave the freighter. Come, Panof, we have a task to complete.”

Once Crin and Garus entered the DM starship, Garus raced to the bridge and took the pilot seat.

“The anchor and teleportation equipment is in the aft hold, master.”

“I know. Strap in.”

The engines were already primed, and now Garus began operating the controls, locking the entrance to the launch bay and evacuating the atmosphere. The single exterior door panel began to slide away.

Garus, what are you doing? Docem asked telepathically.

I am following my path, the Master’s path. You may follow your own … eventually.

This is insanity!

The DM starship rocketed into space. When it was only ten miles away, Garus sent the command that detonated the explosives set throughout the freighter. There was a brief flash on the screens and then nothing.

“Master, what have you done?” Crin asked incredulously.

“I have eliminated an obstacle.”

“But they were your companions—and are they not immortal?”

“They are, but for the time being, they will be frozen immortals. Eventually, they may be recovered, but by then, my destiny will have been fulfilled.”

Crin sat silent for a moment until he noticed Garus working the navigation controls. “Are we not heading out of the Dead Zone?”

“No, Crin, we are not.” Garus turned to the alien. “I will now reveal a secret to you that the others refused to disclose. You mentioned how Gracilia is the closest inhabited planet to where the ancient Aris homeworld once existed. You further surmised that your world must have been one of the first seeded with life at the beginning of the Grand Experiment. You were right about the location but wrong about the seeding. The Aris did not seed Gracilia.”

“They did not?”

“No, Crin. But there is more you need to know. The Aris did not seed Gracilia because it had already been seeded by the Luz. The world you know as Gracilia was the planet on which the evil Aris exiled the Luz. Crin, my brother, your homeworld is also my homeworld. And now we are both going home.”

“Then we are the chosen people,” Crin gushed.

“Yes, you are. And now, I will need the help of my distant relatives to not only fulfill my destiny but also to fulfill the destiny of the Gracilians.”

Chapter 7

No starships are allowed to land on Gracilia without first checking in with the Enforcer station in the capital city of Lanacon. After the native’s deadly affiliation with the renegade Maris-Kliss Regional Director Wolfgang Stimmel, the Gracilians were looked upon as the bad boys in the Dead Zone and restricted to their homeworld. But since the planet was still in the process of recovering from Kracion’s attack many years ago, they were allowed supply shipments of critically-needed goods they couldn’t provide for themselves. This included food since the soil was not fully recovered by this time. However, the Gracilian population was still relatively small, compared to what it had been pre-Kracion, which made the task easier. The current population of Gracilia was estimated to be about three million, mainly scattered around Lanacon and the surrounding temperate area, leading toward the desert to the west.

In reality, most of the Gracilians who returned to their homeworld weren’t a threat. They were the desperate refugees, those who were barely getting by in exile. The wealthier refugees who managed to leave the planet before the attack chose to remain exiles in other parts of the galaxy rather than return to their once-irradiated world. But the others, when allowed to return home—and under the protection of the powerful Maris-Kliss executive—chose to do so. Then Stimmel met an untimely death, leaving the natives with neither protection nor a sponsor. And now, a screen of Enforcer ships orbited the planet, not to keep the peace but to remind everyone who was in charge.

Even so, the Enforcers weren’t that rigid in their duties. They knew their role was more for show than substance. As a result, many of the officials were not beyond a little bribe here and there to supplement their Enforcer pay.

The Gracilian Crin was by now a loyal—almost worshipping—devotee of the Master Garus. He saw him as a long-lost father figure, powerful, authoritative and wise. After all, his qualities and traits were those of Crin’s as well, although three-billion-years removed. Still, it was enough to get him to contact friends on the surface and grease the right palms, allowing the DM starship to land at the refurbished Lanacon spaceport after a little notation was made to the file reading ‘food supplies.’ Upon landing, other Gracilians appeared with towing vehicles and moved the vessel into a metal hangar and out of view of prying eyes in orbit.

A small crowd of the impressive looking, black-skinned creatures stood silently as Garus recited more of the story of how the Luz and the Gracilians were related. He emphasized that although it was only the Luz ancient genetic material that went on to create the Gracilian race, there was a common bond between them and the pale-skinned immortal entity standing before them. Crin then told an edited version of how the Masters appeared from a quantum beam, having survived for eons in another existence. He didn’t speak of Solon or Pontus's death, or how Garus blew up the freighter with the other two Masters aboard. That happened before Crin understood his relationship to the god-like creature.

But now they needed partners in the great challenge to come. Garus had a plan for leading the galaxy, and his ancient offspring—the Gracilians—would be there to share in the glory—and the power—that would result. It was as the Gracilians had always imagined it should be.

To the person, the thirty-one Gracilians in the hangar vowed their allegiance to Garus and swore they would recruit more to their cause. The Master explained how he needed a protected work area to construct the Formation—a magical device that the Gracilians had in their possession for many years before Adam Cain stole it. And Garus needed more than scientists; he needed fighters.

Fortunately, many of the Gracilians who survived after Kracion’s attack on their planet were of heartier stock, the labors, the merchants, even the soldiers of the civilization. Many knew how to fight, and it would be those who would be recruited. Garus could handle the science part.

After the crowd dispersed, Garus and Crin met in private.

“I know of a facility in the desert to the west of here,” Crin said. “It is far away and secluded. It is where the dark matter starships were first built.”

“Who knows of this?” Garus asked.

Crin grimaced. “Unfortunately, Adam Cain and the Enforcers know. There have been battles fought there.”

“Is it defensible?”

“Yes. The facility is underground and with few entrances, unseen from the air.”

“I do not need much room to build the Formation; however, I need the quantum beam generator and ample power supply.”

“There is adequate power at the facility.” Then Crin hesitated. “I can look for other locations; I am sure there are others less well-known to our enemies.”

“I will not need much time. And once my experiment is complete, we will have nothing to fear from Adam Cain—or anyone else. Yes, make arrangements to move me to the facility. And Crin, I need an army to protect it. Should Adam Cain and the mutants learn I am on Gracilia, they will come for the Formation. They must not get it. Is that understood?”

“Yes, master. My brothers—our brothers—will provide you with the army you need, and fighters, not thinkers.” Crin smiled. “Even I will take up arms in your defense.”

“It is not my defense I am concern with, Crin. It is defense of the Formation. It is the most important device to have ever existed. And you will share in its glory.”

“I am honored, master. I am ready.”

“Then go, make arrangements.”

As the alien scurried away, Garus shook his head. They are so easily manipulated, so easily fooled.

Chapter 8

Adam Cain was nervous as a cat. It had been seventeen days since the exchange on the asteroid, and he was banking everything on the hope that Garus went to Gracilia. He feared that with a DM starship and the Formation, there was literally nowhere in the galaxy Garus couldn’t go. Adam had been trying to convince himself that without the Formation code sequencer, there wasn’t much the Luz Master could do with the device. But Panur made sense. The damn thing created the guy; he may not need the code to know how to make it work. And without needing it for a biological process, who knew what he would use it for?

The only thing working in his favor was that no stray DM signals had been detected heading away from the Dinis star system in a direction other than Gracilia. That still didn’t mean that’s where he went, and if he had, that he was still there. The planet wasn’t the most developed place in the Zone, and it was under constant guard by his Enforcers. If he were Garus, this would be the last place he would go.

But where else could Adam start? At least it was something, and it was better than sitting around waiting for Garus to come after his friends again once the alien learned Adam took one of the disks. At the time he took it, he was hoping it would screw up the Masters’ plans. Now he was praying it wouldn’t. But the only sure way of protecting his friends for sure was to find the damn Formation. And Gracilia was a good place to start. Hell, it was the only place to start.

* * *

Adam, Riyad and Sherri spent an extra day in orbit above Gracilia before landing, tracking DM trails and relaying them to Navarus for analysis. With more refined readings, the mutants were better able to determine the signals' residual strength, even as there were more here than anywhere else in the galaxy. Finally, they were able to detect a fresh trail that descended toward the Lanacon spaceport. This was the most active landing field on the planet and had only been reopened a year ago. By then, fewer DM ships were in use, making this trail an exception to the other ghost traces they picked up. This had to be Garus.

And the good news, no strong signals were detected leaving the planet, meaning he was probably still there.

Adam’s ship landed in the VIP section of the spaceport, close to the Enforcer station, and to warehouse row where sorely needed food stocks were stored until they could be moved around the planet.

Adam nearly gagged as he stepped out of the starship. The place smelled like shit—literally, like shit. To be more exact, cow manure. The smell was an after-effect of MK’s fertilization efforts to bring the Dead Worlds back to life. For years, the company dumped trillions of cubic meters of the stuff from orbit onto the land below. It reminded Adam of driving on I-5 in California past the infamous Harris Ranch, and smelling the aroma from thousands of cattle grazing along the roadside. Later, MK became more discerning with their deposits after colonists and natives began occupying the planets. Adam wasn’t sure what went into the foul mix, although he was pretty sure it wasn’t made from cow shit. The result, however, was the same. Nearly all Dead Worlds smelled like this and would until the soil recovered enough where prodigious amounts of fertilizer were no longer needed. Although Adam could see a significant greening of the landscape in and around Lanacon, the ecosystem was still many years from replenishing the land with the life-giving nutrients the deadly neutron radiation of the attacks had removed.

At first, MK provided the fertilizer showers for free, seeing financial opportunity in the revitalized worlds. Now it cost to have the fertilizer brought in. And at one time, Gracilia had been owned by the Maris-Kliss Regional Director Wolfgang Stimmel. During that brief time, he doubled, even tripled, the efforts to bring the planet back to its former glory. Unfortunately for Gracilia, his efforts were cut short when he was sucked into a miniature blackhole, one initiated by none other than Adam Cain.

And that was why there was an Enforcer Garrison at the spaceport in Lanacon. The Gracilians had sided with the wrong Human, and now they were paying the price. Even so, the natives didn’t much appreciate what happened to their generous patron. Many construction projects had been abandoned half-completed, providing a nest for the miscreants of Gracilian society to flourish. Many blamed Adam for their plight, and on the half dozen or so visits he’d made to Gracilia since Stimmel’s death, the natives showed no propensity toward forgiveness. If anything, the animosity the natives felt for him had only festered more.

The trio of Humans entered the modest two-story building that housed the security and customs detail at the Garrison, receiving only a modicum of attention from the dozen or so Enforcers in the main room. Although everyone knew who they were, the plethora of aliens who made up the security contingent didn’t seem too impressed that the co-leaders of the Enforcers—along with the Vice-President of the Zone—had just walked into the building. However, the ranking officer—a major—did come out of his office to greet them, although his demeanor was more bored than impressed.

“Captain Cain, we were not told of your visit,” said the burly Estrancan, a former refugee from a Dead World who was off-planet when Kracion attacked his homeworld. “We would have made better preparations had we known you were coming. “ His name was Juron Kilous, and he’d bounced around the Kidis Frontier for several years before coming to Navarus to join the Enforcers. Adam remembered him from his prior visits to the planet after the lockdown.

“There was no need, major. A spur of the moment visit,” Adam said. “We’re looking for a dark matter-powered starship that landed here about ten, maybe twelve days ago. I need to know where it’s parked.”

The alien frowned, shaking his head.

“I recall no such vessel. They are unique and draw attention. Of course, I have not been here continuously. We shall survey the logs.”

They went into Juron’s office and checked his computer. He was right. As far as the logs went, no ship matching the description had come to the spaceport in months; in fact, the last DM ship to land at Lanacon came with the Enforcer Commander aboard.

It came here, I’m sure of it, Adam said to Sherri and Riyad through his ATD.

They’ve doctored the records, Sherri thought. Probably a lot of that going on around here.

Remind me to fire this asshole when we get back to Navarus, Riyad added.

Then aloud, Riyad asked, “Anything unusual happen around here recently?”

“Examples?” Juron asked.

“I don’t know; any ships you remember trying to land without authorization, pirate activity, contraband being seized.”

“All of that happens daily, Commander. As you know, most of our activities take place in space, monitoring all incoming and outgoing traffic. But once a ship makes it to the surface, we quickly lose contact with the crew and cargo. Do not misunderstand; the quarantine is effective at keeping the Gracilians confined to their homeworld. But other beings are free to come and go, as long as they have business on the planet.”

“So, nothing out of the ordinary?” Sherri reaffirmed.

“Only recent labor disputes, but that has nothing to do with the Enforcers.”

“What labor disputes?” Adam asked.

“Most Gracilians are desperate for employment, and working at the spaceport is one of the most coveted positions. The pay is exceptional, supported by off-world interests. But recently, there was a mass work abandonment by the natives.”

“How massive?” Adam asked.

“Over thirty Gracilians quit on the same day. They have since been replaced, but at the time, my counterparts at the port thought it unusual.”

“When did this happen?”

“Ten days ago … yes, ten days,” Juron answered.

“Where did they work? Were they scattered around the facility or in one department?”

“Most were from warehouse maintenance and storage.”

“For the food stock?” Adam questioned. With how scarce food was on the planet, he was sure workers in that department got their share of extra rations. Leaving such a cushy job would have been foolish.

“No, these were mainly for ship storage.”

Adam perked up. “Which warehouses?”

* * *

Most of the former employees had worked a bank of fourteen huge Quonset-shaped hangars where spacecraft were stored or worked on by their owners. There weren’t many vessels in the spaceport requiring storage, not like the pre-Kracion era, so most were empty. Still, it was worth a look.

Something about the mass walk-off didn’t sit right with Adam. Employment in Lanacon was near one hundred percent, minus the colonists and natives who refused to work or had other conditions that made them unemployable. But for thirty-plus natives to simply quit their jobs had to mean they were offered something better. And in the area, there was no place better to work than the spaceport.

After a quick check to verify that no new construction projects had been started in Lanacon over the past two weeks, projects that could lure away a fair number of workers, the Humans began checking the hangars, splitting up to cover more territory.

Adam knew the DM ship was here somewhere—gravity waves didn’t lie—although his Enforcers may.

Juron was correct about the workers having been replaced. The block of warehouses had plenty of activity around them. But Adam and the others weren’t looking for people, but a thing—a DM starship. If it wasn’t visible on the tarmac, and it hadn’t left the planet, then it had to be in one of these hangars.

After checking out three hangars with no hidden DM ship inside, Adam moved up to the fourth. The main access door was closed, although three fierce-looking Gracilians stood outside a smaller side door.

Adam didn’t fear Gracilians; for the most part, they were pacifists. Even so, he always thought they would make great warriors, with their thick muscles and imposing presence. Although generally harmless, these three didn’t look like your typical cerebral natives. It was something about their eyes.

“I’m Adam Cain—”

“We know who you are,” one of the Gracilians snarled.

Adam grimaced. He got that a lot, and not the doting ‘we know who you are’ kind of greeting as with hero worship. This was spoken more with a disgusted ‘yeah, we know who you are’ tone of voice. The bulk of intelligent life in the galaxy had never seen a Human, but if they could recognize any individual from the race, it would be Adam Cain. Sometimes that came in handy; most times, it didn’t.

“Good,” Adam replied with a grin, careful not to fully expose his teeth; the natives hated him enough already that they may take a death challenge seriously. “Then you know I have the authority to check this hangar.”

“The hangar is closed,” said the self-appointed leader of the group. “What is it you seek?”

“I just want to look inside.”

“The hangar is closed.”

“You mean like locked? If so, do you have a key?”

“It is not locked, just closed.”

The hair was up on the back of Adam’s neck. These were more than just spaceport workers; they were guards. He glanced down at their waists; and armed guards to boot.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Adam said. “I just want to take a look inside. You know you can’t do anything to stop me. I will get inside, so it’s best for everyone if you cooperate.”

The three natives looked at each other. The other two nodded to their leader.

“It is agreed, you may look inside. The lights are off. There is a control panel on the wall toward the right.

Adam was already scanning the interior with his ATD. As he’d been told, he could tell the lights were out as no energy signals were coming from inside the hangar. If a spaceship was there, then it was shut down and the engine cold.

The natives stepped aside and let Adam pass. He opened the door and looked to the right, using the light through the door to locate the power switch. He could have used his ATD to turn on the lights, but at the moment, he was busy using the implant to sever the firing circuits on the guard’s MK-17 flash weapons.

Unfortunately, one of the Gracilians had brought a bat to a gunfight, and he used it to bash Adam over the head from behind.

It doesn’t matter how super of a Human you are, but getting clubbed over the head with a wooden bat hurts like hell. Adam fell to his knees, seeing stars. In that brief moment, he forgot about his ATD and that he could call Riyad and Sherri for back up. Instead, he was dragged by his arms farther into the hangar and tossed into a corner.

But the Gracilians weren’t done with him. Two of them took to kicking and punching him, while the one with the alien Louisville Slugger would step in occasionally to whack him again in the head.

In the past, Adam had survived such attacks based on the thinner density of alien wood. Having evolved on worlds with half to three-quarters Earth’s gravity meant most organic material—such as wood—didn’t have to be as strong as the terrestrial variety. The bat the native was using on Adam must have been an exception, or else it was imported from a heavy-gravity planet.

But it was the initial blow that did the most damage, and once Adam’s head began to clear, he went on the offensive.

He was on the ground, which meant his legs were free to join in the fight. He kicked out, hitting one of the natives in the stomach, buckling him over. Unfortunately, the Gracilian just had lunch, and now he showered foul brown and green liquid onto Adam. He slumped to the ground, out of the fight, still heaving his guts out.

Adam blocked another blow from the bat with a forearm, which he immediately regretted. It didn’t break the bone, but it did break the skin. Adam then reached out and took the bat in his hand, easily ripping it from the native’s grip.

Fearing now for their lives, the Gracilians pulled their weapons and began fingering the triggers over and over. Ignoring them, Adam leisurely climbed to his feet. That’s when the aliens threw their useless MKs at Adam, with one hitting him in the forehead and the other in the mouth.

“Jeez, knock it off, will you?” Adam yelled at the pair.

But they didn’t. Instead, they rushed him, confirming Adam’s belief that Gracilians would be marvelous warriors—if they set their minds to it. The muscular creatures with thick, triangular-shaped shoulders and necks slammed into Adam’s still groggy body, knocking him to the floor again. They were coordinated, too. And rather than like in old action movies, where a group of fighters would attack the hero one at a time, these two ganged up on him in unison, landing blow after blow on his face. One even aimed for his groin, barely missing. Or perhaps he wasn’t familiar with Human anatomy.

Adam rolled away, breaking their grips. He continued to roll as fast as he could until he had room to spring to his feet. Adam was still shaky from the hit to the head, but that was clearing. He placed himself in a fighter’s stance and prepared for the next bum rush.

The Gracilian’s charged, with neither of these two injured in any substantial way. Adam knew it would only take one clean hit from a Human to put them down; he just hadn’t had the opportunity. Now he did. One of the Gracilians led a little sooner than the other, allowing Adam to concentrate on him. Adam easily blocked an incoming fist and then countered with one of his own to the alien's solar plexus—or whatever the solar plexus was called on a Gracilian.

Eyes bulged out, and he gasped for breath. Stunned by the punch, the alien was a sitting duck for Adam’s next hit against the jaw. He didn’t mean to kill the Gracilian, but that was the result. The neck snapped, and the creature twirled away before falling to the smooth concrete floor, performing a half-spin before coming to a final rest.

The last Gracilian—the spokes-alien for the group—had seen enough. He ran for the door.

Adam didn’t let him get too far. He tackled him by the legs, spinning as they fell, before coming up on top of the Gracilian, pinning his arms under Adam’s knees.

“Are you done? Can we have a little talk now?”

“You are not going to kill me?”

“I don’t know; I may. That depends on what you can tell me about that…”

Adam pointed to the black-hulled dark-matter starship taking up about a third of the hangar. He’d seen it clearly during the battle, thrilled that he’d found Garus’s ship; but he’d been otherwise occupied at the time.

Sherri, Riyad, I found it, he announced through his ATD. I’m in Hanger 13. Oh, and bring a med-kit if you have one.

Adam pulled the native up by his shirt and pushed him toward the DM ship.

“You were left to guard it, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“By the Luz?”

“By the Master.”

“Where are they?”

“They? I do not know.”

Adam pulled the native closer. “Tell me what you do know.”

The Gracilian wrinkled his nose and glanced down at Adam’s shirt. It was covered in alien vomit, which stuck to him like Velcro.

“I know that you stink.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know. Where is Garus—the Master?”

“Truly, I do not know. Others were tasked with finding a location to hide him. Others were sent to recruit more to his cause.”

“What cause? Why would the Gracilians want to work for puny creatures like the Luz.”

The Gracilian begged to be separated from Adam before he could talk more, explaining that the smell was debilitating. Adam released him. They both knew the native couldn’t get away from the Human.

“You will find that many Gracilians will join his cause because his mission is our mission. He explained how Gracilia was his ancient home at the time of the Aris. We have always believed ourselves to be the children of the Aris. In truth, we are the children of the Luz. Now the Master has come to lead us to our destiny.”

“Let me guess: galactic domination, one race to rule them all.”

The Gracilian batted his eyes. “Eh, yes, that is precisely what we seek and that the Master has promised.”

“And how does he expect to fulfill this promise?”

The native smirked. “I do not know. I only saw him for a moment, as he and another Gracilian named Crin explained our combined heritage. They are working on a project together; that is all I know.”

“Where?”

“I said, I do not know.”

“You keep mentioning him. Did you see the other Masters?”

The Gracilian was shocked. “More Masters? There are more? I only saw one.”

This could be problematic, Adam thought. Perhaps the other two were still in the freighter, also up to no good.

“How long have they—the one Master—been gone?”

“Ten days. I was left to guard the Gracilian-designed starship.” The native spoke with undisguised pride, letting Adam know he was aware who built the dark-matter warships. “Others have come back periodically to retrieve equipment from the ship.”

“When did they last come?”

“Not for six days.”

Adam grimaced. If Garus was removing equipment from the ship, he had to have someplace to take it. And as of six days ago, he had all he needed. Adam knew how long it took for Stimmel’s Gracilians to build the Formation framework at the ancient Aris Technician base. That had only taken a few days to complete, and they weren’t Luz Masters making it. There was no doubt Garus had already completed his work by now. But where was his base of operations?

Sherri and Riyad came running through the door, stopping for a moment to look first at the DM starship and then at the two bodies on the floor. Then they gawked at Adam.

“Losing your touch there, aren’t you, ace?” Sherri asked. She reached up and touched the lump on the side of his head, the one that was still bleeding. And there were the bruised cheeks, black eye, bleeding arm and split lip.

“Hey, one of them had a bat.”

“And a severe case of indigestion, from the smell of it.” Sherri wrinkled her nose and stepped away.

“Ah, reminds me of home,” Riyad said, moving closer to the alien. “Even so, let us speak over here.” He pulled the Gracilian even farther away from Adam than he already was.

Riyad put a hand on the muscular shoulder of the surviving Gracilian. “You are lucky, my friend,” he said, flashing his trademark white smile at the native, who recoiled in fear at the death challenge. “Adam Cain usually kills a trio of aliens before breakfast. He must like you.” Then turning to Adam, “What have you learned.”

“I learned that six days ago, Garus had everything he needed from the DM ship and took the equipment somewhere. He also said he only saw Garus. The other two could still be on the freighter. My very truthful friend here doesn’t know where any of them are. At least that’s what he says.”

Riyad squeezed the alien’s shoulder tighter, using his latent Human strength to dig into the flesh. The Gracilian grimaced and bent over toward Riyad. “Perhaps he can call some of his friends, see if they know anything.”

“Good idea.” Adam stepped closer to the Gracilian, who tried to pull away, not from fear, but from the smell. “You’ll help us, won’t you?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Sherri snickered. “He’s smarter than he looks,” she said. “No, you don’t. Now, get to work. We need a location. Oh, and by the way, your life depends on it.”

Chapter 9

Adam trailed Sherri and Riyad—along with their Gracilian prisoner—back to the DM ship parked outside the customs office. Even in the foul air of the planet, Adam’s stink was more than they could handle. Once aboard, Adam took a shower, changed his clothes and burnt his old uniform. Twenty minutes later, they had the native parked in front of a comm station, ready to begin calling his fellow conspirators.

The Gracilian was named Sorark, and he was more than willing to help. He kept watching Sherri, terrified of the blonde more than either Adam or Riyad. Adam couldn’t blame him. He and Riyad were terrified of her, too.

The Humans set the commlink aimed at a non-descript wall and sat off to one side, monitoring the conversation.

After speaking with a few underlings, Sorark was connected with a Gracilian named Crin, Garus’s native partner-in-crime. Frowning into the screen, it was apparent Crin didn’t recognize the guard.

“You are Sorark? You were guarding the dark-matter ship?” Crin asked.

“Yes, I was. Enforcers raided the hangar. My two companions were killed. I barely escaped with my life.”

“Where are you now?”

“I have sought refuge in another part of the spaceport. I seek instructions. What are we to do about the vessel?”

Crin waved a hand before the screen. “It matters not. The Master will no longer need the starship. There was no harm in its discovery. You did well, Sorark, although I regret the loss of your companions.”

“What should I do now?” Sorark asked. “I still want to fight for the Master to help our vision come true. Can you bring me in? I wish to join the rest of the army.”

“Of course. Are you familiar with the Poranic University grounds?”

Sorark grimaced. “I regret that I am not. I was with the Gracilian Military before, and not within the science class.”

“That was why you were recruited. The Master needs fighters; your skills are much needed. That is why you must now join us. You can find the university?”

“Of course, I do know of its location, but not the layout of the facility.”

“Find the Central Lecture Hall. We are below the main forum. It is a large room reserved for only the most special presentations. That is where the Master has constructed his apparatus. Come to the south entrance of the Lecture Hall. More loyalists will guide you below. There is still work to be done. How soon can you get here?”

Sorark had been prepped for this by the Humans. Already, Major Kilous was assembling a strike force of Enforcers, ready to reach any part of Lanacon in less than an hour.

“I must be careful as I proceed, but I can be there in an hour.”

“Very good. Take precautions. We shall see you in an hour.”

The link was cut, and the Humans surrounded the alien.

“You did well, Sorark,” Sherri said, placing a reassuring hand on the Gracilian’s back. “Now, you’re to come with us, help get us past the guards. And to assure you won’t set off any alarms, I have just placed a microscopically-thin explosive on your back. Do not touch it or attempt to have it removed; it will detonate. Let’s get going.”

The alien trembled from fear. He was led out of the ship and placed in the back of a transport van carrying twenty Enforcers. Forty were assembled and ready to make the raid. The Humans and Juron Kilous took a separate vehicle to the University.

“I sure hope that explosive doesn’t go off in the truck,” Riyad said with a grin.

“What explosive?” Juron asked, concerned.

“Nothing to worry about, major,” Adam said. “Just a little game Vice-President Valentine is playing on our prisoner.”

“He did fall for it pretty easily,” Sherri said. “I just hope he doesn’t stroke out before we get through security at the University.”

* * *

The drive only took twenty minutes, during which time the trio of Humans pulled up the schematics for the Lecture Hall and located the lower assembly room.

“Three entrance points,” Riyad pointed out. “Fortunately, we have these sloped walkways in the building, easier to move large crowds other than elevators. We can get the troops in here, here and here.”

“Sorark mentioned an army of recruits,” Adam said. “By now, it’s a pretty good bet Garus has more than the original thirty who walked off their jobs to join him. And these could be more of the Sorark type, fighters, not thinkers.”

“My troops can handle up to a hundred armed Gracilians,” Kilous said with confidence. “And we, too, are fighters. I am anxious for such activity. It has been far too long.”

Maybe I won’t fire him after all, Riyad said through his ATD. The alien has balls. He snickered in Sherri and Adam’s minds. Big, hairy, alien balls.

Sherri shook her head. I can’t believe I was once married to you.

They were the best seven months of your life, my love.

You’re right, Riyad, Sherri thought, to both Adam and Riyad’s surprise. They showed me just how bad things could get. It’s good to put things in perspective now and then. But once was enough in your case.

If I didn’t know better, Adam thought, I would swear the two of you are still in love. Now, let’s get back on mission. Then aloud: “Sorark will be sent in ahead to draw out any of the guards, then the Enforcers will move in. Don’t be too concerned with Garus. He’s immortal; we couldn’t kill him, even if we wanted to. Just clear out the Gracilians.”

“The target is immortal?” Kilous asked. “Another immortal?”

“Yeah, but the bad kind of immortal,” Adam said reassuringly.

“Like Kracion?”

“No, not like Kracion. This one is just a leftover. Nothing to worry about.”

Adam hadn’t thought about that before. Garus was immortal, but did he have any special powers Adam wasn’t aware of? Until now, all he’d done is use conventional methods to get Adam and the others to do what he wanted. That was when Adam realized he didn’t know anything about the Luz Master except that he was immortal … and an asshole.

“Just get in and secure the device, major,” Adam continued. “We’ll deal with the immortal.”

We will? Sherri asked through her ATD.

Trust me. Once we’ve taken out Garus’s so-called army, we’ll get the Formation back. Even if he escapes, we’ll let Panur and Lila—and J’nae—worry about him after that. You know, a little immortal-on-immortal action. We just need to get the disks.

I could go for some hot immortal-on-immortal action, Riyad said.

“Men,” Sherri said aloud. “Particularly Human men.”

“You have made a statement?” Kilous asked. “I do not understand.”

“Don’t worry, major,” Sherri said. “Neither do I.”

* * *

With the troops deployed, Sorark was sent in after Sherri once again put the fear of God in him. The University wasn’t in session at the time; there weren’t enough natives on the planet seeking higher education to make it cost-effective. That would come later, as the population returned to its pre-Kracion level.

In reality, it made a perfect location for Garus to build the Formation. It had a dedicated power supply, large rooms and spacious grounds protected by a concrete wall defining the area. The domed Central Lecture Hall was in the middle of the facility, next to the Administration Building and science center. Very few Gracilians were on the grounds, making Adam believe they were part of Garus’s security screen. If they were, they were very good at their job, casually strolling between the buildings.

With skill, the Enforcers moved in and took down the guards, whisking them away to a holding area. The Gracilian then entered the main building, where he was confronted by a single guard. The microphone attached to Sorark’s clothing transmitted the conversation.

Sorark was cooperative, fearing the non-existent bomb on his back.

“You are Sorark?” the lone sentry queried.

“Yes, I am here to meet Crin and the Master.”

“Were you followed?”

“No, I was cautious.”

Trusting his word, the guard nodded and then led Sorark down the sloping runway two levels to a large room below the Lecture Hall. A tiny bug camera revealed no other guards along the way.

Major Kilous moved in his troops, silently descending the walkway before taking up positions at the three entry doors to the meeting room.

“This is too easy,” Adam said from the back of one of the trucks that had transported the troops. “One guard to watch the whole place? I’m not buying it.”

“Since we’ve come this far, we might as well have a look inside,” Riyad said.

Major Kilous was leading the troops in the building. Adam and his team would let the Enforcers face off against the main force before dealing with Garus. How they would do that hadn’t been worked out yet. They would play it by ear, depending on how many Gracilian troops were on site. So far, there was only the one.

A bank of small monitors in the truck relayed images from various cameras mounted on Enforcers helmets. The troops were geared up in almost mech outfits, armored from head to toe and carrying Xan-fi flash rifles. Although Gracilians weren’t known as great warriors, those protecting Garus and the Formation were ex-military, a rare breed of native. And if Adam were a judge of their fighting abilities, it could get nasty inside the subterranean meeting hall.

The door was opened, and Sorark and the other Gracilian entered the room. It was dark inside; even so, Kilous didn’t waste time. He ordered his people to breach.

From three entrances, the Enforcers rushed into the room, lights on the ends of their rifles stabbing the darkness inside. For a moment, it was hard to see what was happening on the monitors; the light beams chaotic and confusing. From what Adam could see, there were rows of seating surrounding a central stage. But nowhere in the flickering illumination was there the skeletal framework of the Formation; in fact, the room was empty.

“Where’s Sorark?” Sherri asked through the commlink with Major Kilous.

“Unknown,” came the answer. “There is nothing here. Wait—a stairway leading down. Sorark exited through there. I will follow—”

“No, Kilous!” Adam yelled into the microphone. “Get your troops out of there!”

But the warning came too late.

* * *

The explosion blew out the windows in the Central Lecture Hall before collapsing the dome over the structure. Shattered clumps of concrete and steel fell into the empty chamber, crashing through the floor and onto the room beneath. The building continued to pancake, crushing most of the Enforcers under tons of debris.

Adam and his team were safe in the back of the truck, although a cloud of ash and dust soon spread to where they were parked a block away. They were out the back a second later, sprinting into the torrent, barely able to see or breathe.

A few bloody and dust-covered Enforcers staggered from the ruins, hands desperately reaching for help that wasn’t there. As the cloud cleared, Adam could make out a deep hole in the ground where the Lecture Hall once stood. The explosives hadn’t been placed below ground but on the main floor where the falling building would do most of the work. Adam looked around, counting six surviving Enforcers. Four more were on guard duty, watching the Gracilians they’d taken prisoner. Adam now believed them to be innocents, in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that meant thirty of his forty Enforcers were buried below in the rubble. Some may be alive, but none would emerge uninjured.

Riyad was on a communicator, calling the Garrison, having all military and civilian rescue and medical units sent to the location. Alarms blared from somewhere on the university, and the few Gracilians not caught by the Enforcers before the raid stood gawking at the destruction.

“How much do you want to bet Sorark and the other Gracilian escaped before the explosion?” Sherri said.

“Even if they didn’t, it was a sacrifice any devout freedom fighter would gladly accept,” Riyad added.

“Garus was able to put all this together in ten days,” Adam remarked, coughing as he choked on the dust.

“This, and probably the Formation, too,” Riyad said. “But he didn’t do it here.”

“You’re right,” Adam said. “We’ll let the locals take care of this. Let’s get back to the Garrison. Garus knows we’re here and looking for him. We need to find out where he really is and not make such a show out of it when we do. I’m running out of Enforcers.”

Chapter 10

Over the next day, Adam, Sherri and Riyad grew increasingly frustrated. They knew Garus was on the planet, while the other two Masters were somewhere else working on their part of the grand plan. Every day that went by gave them more time to put everything together, whatever that thing was.

After the disaster at the University, there was a lot of mess to clean up. As it turned out, out of the thirty Enforcers caught in the blast, twelve survived, with eight in critical condition. Major Kilous was one of the fortunate ones. He and a colleague had just started down the stairway under the conference room when the ceiling collapsed. He suffered a broken right arm and numerous cuts and bruises. He was back on the job the next day and mad as a viper. With Riyad’s backing, he began recalling every Enforcer that could be spared from orbit to form a response force against Garus and his army of Gracilians. The next time they would be better prepared.

Panur, Lila and the others still on Navarus took the last DM starship General Oakes had and headed for Gracilia. They anticipated a showdown with the immortals. Besides, they were pissed—especially Panur and Lila—over being abducted. They were looking for a little payback.

The three Humans on Gracilia still had the problem of trying to figure out where Garus had set up shop. Adam was sure it was the abandoned military/manufacturing facility in the desert, seventy miles to the west. It was perfect.

The base was built long before Kracion’s time, serving as a headquarters for the Gracilian ambitions for galactic domination. At one time, the Gracilians were the foremost experts on all things Aris. They had the most artifacts and had deciphered more of the ancient technology than anyone, believing themselves to be the rightful heirs to the Aris legacy. They had dark matter collectors and knew how to power equipment with the ubiquitous form of energy. They had learned the secrets of teleportation from the tiny Aris service modules they dissected and reassembled. They designed and built a fleet of six hundred dark-matter warships, which were the most advanced anywhere in the galaxy. They had the pilots, and the war plan worked out. All they were waiting for was the “Go” order.

In reality, the Gracilians had an excellent chance of making their aspirations come true. And then, in a case of ultimate irony, it was the Mad Aris Kracion who put a stop to everything. Gracilia was one of the first worlds he attacked, with little warning or discrimination. The planet had mere hours to prepare, allowing people like Arik Jroshin to escape with a supply of dark matter collectors.

It would be five years before Jroshin returned to Gracilia to reinitiate the plans for a galactic war. But this time, he came with a force of knock-off Aris service modules as pilots for the DM warships, of which all six hundred still lay dormant in the underground hangar in the desert. The modules had the ability to teleport, along with a sophisticated level of artificial intelligence. They were based on the internal workings of a particular ancient Aris module called CN-9, or Kanan.

Unfortunately for Jroshin, Kanan took exception to the constant ‘torture’ the AI was subjected to at the hands of the Gracilians. The module took his revenge on Jroshin and then hijacked the DM fleet for his own plan to resurrect the Aris race.

Adam was contemplating his life in outer space as he and Sherri were in a small two-person shuttle on the way to check out the base. When stacked one on top of another, he grew weary at the series of events, not only recently but throughout his entire life. He’d have to write a book about it someday—hell, a series of books. But who would believe it? It was too much crap to happen to one person.

Riyad had stayed behind in Lanacon, putting the final touches on the Enforcer strike force while Adam and Sherri took the one-hour flight. The mutants would be on Gracilia later in the day. Now all they needed was a target.

Adam was at the controls, coming in low over the rolling hills, heading for the rapidly setting sun of Gracilia. He had the nav system engaged, leading him to the base. The landscape wasn’t anything as he remembered, with less desert and more yellow-green pastureland. The MK fertilization project was working, but it did make it hard for him to recognize landmarks.

The base was the worst-kept secret on Gracilia. In its day, it was kept hidden from outsiders, although nearly every Gracilian knew of its existence, if not its specific location. It was to be the headquarters from which Gracilian domination of the galaxy would begin and be coordinated. It was the NORAD, the Pentagon and Central Space Command all rolled up into one. Or at least it had been until Kracion.

Adam had been to the facility twice before but never spent any significant time getting to know the layout. The schematics were still a closely held secret among the natives, although fragments were known. Sherri scanned the density readings on the equipment they’d brought, letting out a soft whistle.

“This place is a lot bigger than we once thought,” she reported. “I’m picking up readings even this far out.”

“They not only stored a fleet of six hundred ships here, but they also assembled them,” Adam pointed out. “They had local manufacturers, plus those in other parts of the galaxy, all making parts without knowing what they were for. Then they all got shipped here and made into DM ships. There had to be ways of bringing in all those components and then assembly areas to do the work. In its day, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had ten thousand Gracilians or more working here.”

“Well, it could handle them, that’s for sure. Are you picking up anything? My learner’s permit ATD isn’t any good for stuff like that. I won’t get a real ATD until daddy Panur thinks I deserve one.”

Adam chuckled. Sherri and Riyad had been griping about their basic-version ATDs ever since Panur and Lila gave them to them. They figured they’d paid their dues with the devices, having carried the Formilian-designed models within their bodies for several years, even decades. And if that wasn’t insulting enough, the mutants gave Adam the top-of-the-line ATD, the most-advanced model ever devised. Adam savored his unique place in the hearts of the mutants, but he was careful not to rub it in too much with his friends. They really did resent not getting the Cadillac version.

“I am detecting some signals,” Adam reported, turning serious. “We need to continue for another few minutes before landing. We’ll go the rest of the way on foot. There’s a good bet they have scanners out watching for aircraft.”

Adam brought the shuttle in along a tangent, making it appear the vessel was only skirting the base and not heading straight for it. They flew for another five minutes, leaving the base's airspace before dropping to barely twenty feet above the rolling landscape and circling back. They landed ten minutes later.

Sherri was looking for an access scuttle she’d discovered the first time they’d been to the facility. It was an emergency ingress/egress point located about a mile from the main spacecraft hangar.

As they hiked in, there was nothing to see above ground. To the uninitiated, it was just a broad expanse of semi-arid desert. Even with the fertilizer supplements, this area would never fully transition to useable land; there wasn’t enough rainfall, sheltered as it was by the tall mountain range to the west.

* * *

“This sucks,” Sherri said.

She and Adam were lying on the cold ground of a low hill, looking down on what appeared to be nothing but barren volcanic soil, now covered in a light coating of sickly-looking grass. The Gracilian sun was just dipping below the mountain range, and the temperature was dropping even more, hastened by the crystal clear sky above.

“You found the entrance last time; you can do it again,” Adam reassured her.

“Yeah, but that was a few years ago. Since then, the sand has been blown around. And now this.” She pulled up a small patch of the scrawny grass. “Not much of a desert anymore.”

“But we do have these,” Adam said, lifting a short wand attached to a small box clipped to his utility belt. “Aren’t you glad I suggested that we bring along metal detectors?”

For an answer, Sherri waved her wand in the air. The needle jumped on her meter.

“We already know there’s a massive underground facility here, dickhead. The whole place is made of metal. The readings on the ground aren’t very trustworthy.”

“The strength of the signal will tell us where the scuttle is.”

“Well, we can’t very well stake out a grid and start walking it, not out in the open like this. You’re super-duper ATD has already detected flash weapons and machinery running. We know someone’s down there, and they’re watching. Why don’t we just call it a day and come back with the calvary?”

Exasperated, Adam sighed. “I want to get a look inside, see what we’re up against. I don’t want any surprises, not like the last time. Who knows how many Gracilians have bought into Garus’s bullshit? Just do your best. Try to line up landmarks or something.”

Sherri scanned the horizon. The sun was setting, dipping below a low mountain range to the west. She racked her brain, trying to figure out how she found the hidden entrance the first time. She didn’t want to admit to Adam that it was pure luck.

“Okay, it could be farther to the left, just above that depression. I’m sure it wasn’t in a valley. Water might accumulate there and leak in.”

“Water, in the desert?”

“Yeah; it does rain in the desert, occasionally. You ever heard of a flash flood?”

“Okay, let’s go. Dammit. I knew I should have brought Riyad along instead. I’m having trouble dealing with the attitude.”

“You think I have an attitude—”

“Never mind. Let’s go. It’ll be dark pretty soon, and then all we’ll have are the metal detectors to guide us.”

The pair slipped down a shallow slope and then climbed another of the former sand dunes now covered in the coarse grass. They kept waving their wands over the surface in wide swaths. Their meters showed a constant presence from the buried base beneath their feet.

“Okay, I’m picking up a stronger signal,” Sherri said.

Adam moved over next to her. They began a sector search before stopping in front of each other, looking down.

“This has to be it,” Sherri said.

Adam stomped his foot on the grass, feeling for something hard and hollow. He was rewarded with a dull clang.

The pair dropped to their knees, and using K-BAR knives they had with them, began digging into the soft soil.

A few minutes later, they’d uncovered the circular access hatch and pulled the dirt out from around the wheel that would open the door. Adam tested it. It moved easily.

“There are electronic circuits connected to the hatch,” Adam announced after scanning with his ATD. “Really faint, so probably just a passive alarm system.”

“I’m not picking up anything,” Sherri stated before scrunching her lips together. “My ATD isn’t as good as your ATD,” she bitched.

Adam smirked. “I can bypass the alarm. Now, since I’m the macho, manly hero type, I’ll go in and have a look. You stay here and keep watch, staying in touch with our ATDs. Maybe have dinner ready when I get home.”

“That’s fine.”

Adam recoiled. “That’s fine? No big argument about equal rights and all that?”

“Hey, there’s an army of Gracilians down there, led by an immortal superbeing. I’ll stay up here and work on my tan.”

“There’s no sun.”

“My imaginary tan. Now, go. Keep in touch. I’ll relay what you see back to Lanacon; get the calvary heading this way. Oh, and be careful. You’re the famous Adam Cain, and we need you.”

“You don’t mean that,” Adam said with a grin.

“Nah, but contractually, I’m obligated to say it once every adventure.”

* * *

After bypassing the alarm circuit with his ATD, Adam spun the wheel and pulled up on the hatch door. He shined a flashlight down the deep shaft. It was dark, with no signs of life. At one time, the base was manned by hundreds of Gracilians, giving them plenty of alien-power to stand guard in the base's more obscure regions. But Garus only had a few days to build an army, move it to the hidden base, and build the Formation.

Adam winked at Sherri and then dropped into the opening, scurrying down the bar ladder to the base of the shaft. He scanned for energy readings and found none nearby. But when he scanned farther in, the energy readings skyrocketed. The base was ablaze with power, including from generators, air recyclers, lights and heating, along with a plethora of flash weapon readings. Either there were several hundred armed Gracilians inside, or each of the soldiers carried multiple weapons. It seemed like a massive operation for something culled together over ten days. Adam had to give Garus kudos for his organizational skills.

I’m in and moving toward the main base, he reported through his ATD.

Excuse me; I was doing my nails, Sherri replied. Bother me only when you have something interesting to report.

Ten minutes later, Adam was to the point where he was dodging enemy energy signals, avoiding the inevitable guards walking an inter-perimeter of corridors. There weren’t many; most of the energy weapons were clustered together in an area Adam knew to be the central hangar platform. It was where the DM ships had been stored. A three-football-field-size door could then be rolled away, opening up the chamber to the open sky, allowing the vessels to cycle through and head off into space. Since there were no longer any DM ships in the facility, the hangar was being used as an open-bay barracks for Garus’s budding army. Believing themselves to be hidden, they appeared to be sitting around, biding their time. An army with no one to fight. Not yet.

Adam avoided the hangar and followed other energy signals.

Most of the corridors were wide with high ceilings, allowing for electric carts to transport personnel and material throughout the base in a more efficient manner, back in the day when it was operational. The Gracilians had been planning on their blitzkrieg attack on the Kidis Frontier long before Kracion came on the scene. Again considering themselves the rightful heirs to the Aris legacy, they would settle for nothing less than galactic domination. And with the secret of dark matter and dark energy firmly in their grasp, they had a pretty good chance of making that happen. They had the technology and six hundred unstoppable super warships to get the ball rolling.

And then Kracion showed up and irradiated the planet, stopping their plans dead in their tracks. Aric Jroshin resurrected those plans several years later. He got things rolling again, but by then, Adam and his team had set up shop on Navarus. They stopped his evil plan … followed quickly by the renegade Aris service module Kanan … and now the Luz Master immortal Garus. Jeez.

In the corridors of the hidden Gracilian base, Adam shook his head at his musing. If not one thing, it was another, and then another. Perhaps Adam was the trouble-magnet. Then he shrugged. At least it keeps my fans happy.

He was heading for a significant concentration of electronic activity to get a better look. Since all the Gracilians carried charged energy weapons, it was easy for Adam to avoid trouble using his ATD. And fortunately, his path to the energy concentration was relatively consistent and threat-free. He was making good time and feeling confident. All he wanted was to see if the Formation was there. He wasn’t planning on taking out the thing by himself. If he did, he’d be besieged with hundreds of Gracilians and one angry immortal. No, he would call for backup. Panur and the others should be arriving on Gracilia anytime now. With confirmation that the Formation was here, they’d be on shuttles to the base in a heartbeat. Then let the immortals deal with the immortal.

This is almost too easy, Adam thought. Every time a patrol would show up blocking his way, they would change course and move away. He was deep within the facility by now, probably deeper than he’d ever been in the past, and farther underground than ever before. This was his third visit to the facility, and he never realized how extensive it was. He was nine stories below the surface. He didn’t know it went that deep.

How you doing there, sport? Sherri asked. Her voice sounded distant and weak in his mind.

I’m fine. This place is a lot bigger than I thought. Your signal is getting weaker.

Blame our friend Panur for that. You’re coming in loud and clear. But with all the metal between you and me, my K-Mart Special ATD must not have the range.

Stop griping. I’m just about to the primary energy source. I’ll take a quick look and then start making my way back to the surface. I haven’t run into any trouble so far. In fact, it’s as if the waters of the Red Sea have parted and …

He stopped in mid-thought, considering his path to this point. It really was like the sea had parted, not so he could get to the power source, but leading him to it.

He scanned behind him, seeing that most of the corridors he’d just travel now had sentries there, blocking his exit. He stopped for a moment, taking in the surrounding passageways. They not only contained armed Gracilians, but the troops were slowly closing in. The only way to go was toward the main power source—the way Garus wanted him to go.

Sherri! I’ve been found out. It looks as if Garus has known I was here for a while. Sherri?

He detected no return thought. Was he out of range for her ATD? If so, then could she still hear him? He had no way of confirming.

Ah crap, he thought to himself. How did he know?

Adam continued along the corridor before passing through a large portal and into a central work area with a high ceiling and ample light. He already knew there were at least twenty guards with flash weapons in the room, but he still entered. They were expecting him.

Garus was standing in the center of the room, dressed in another yellow robe, but this one clean and new. With the alien’s skin tone, a darker color might have worked better…

“We meet again, Adam Cain,” the immortal said. And then telepathically, Or should I say, we meet again. You see, I, too, have an implant allowing for telepathic communications. Yours was easy to detect and quite sophisticated for such a primitive species. Perhaps a product of your mutant friends? I cannot see your Human race having such technology.

“How long have you been tracking me?” Adam asked aloud.

“Since your arrival topside. The signal is quite powerful. I noticed when we first met on the asteroid. When I sensed it again, I knew it was you.”

No mention of Sherri, Adam noticed. Perhaps her signal is too weak for him to detect.

So, you have me, Garus, Adam announced through his ATD as loudly as possible. He didn’t know if it was louder than usual or broadcasting on all wavelengths at that point. He just wanted to make sure Sherri got the message—if she could still read him.

Garus waved a hand at Adam. “Although I prefer telepathic communications, I cannot allow your unit to remain functioning. As I said, it is quite sophisticated and appears to have many additional features rather than simple communications. It assembles into one unit what I have multiple implants to serve. Therefore, I will disable it.”

As with other times his ATD had been either turned off or destroyed, Adam felt a sudden shock as if he’d lost most of his senses, leaving him in a fog of awareness. The ATD was omnipresent, feeding him information constantly, whether he was aware of it or not. Now it was gone. It took some getting used to.

Garus stepped closer, feeling no fear of the Human. And why should he? He was immortal; Adam wasn’t.

“I know your people have tracked me to Gracilia, and currently, there is much activity at the Lanacon spaceport; more Enforcers coming. I must warn you, the Gracilians have been easy to recruit to my purposes. All it has taken is to feed their fantasies and stroke their pride. They are gullible to a fault, yet willing partners, no matter the risk. I have made certain promises to them, which I intend to fulfill. When I do, they will have nothing to fear, not from the Enforcers, the Humans … no one.”

“So, what are you going to do with the Formation?”

“Good question. Allow me to show you.”

Chapter 11

Garus led Adam from the huge, circular room and into a more private workstation deeper in the complex. Not surprisingly, the Formation framework was here, although of a different configuration as Adam had seen at the Aris Technician base. Rather than being vertical, this one was horizontal, with the frame supported by metal brackets resting on thick pads on the concrete floor. On closer examination, there were very few of the disks in the holders, sinking Adam’s hopes that without the missing disk, Garus couldn’t complete his build.

Adam stepped closer to the apparatus, and when he did, he received a powerful shock to his back.

The sensation was incredible, reaching every part of his body instantly. He tensed, still standing, but unable to move. A minute later, most of the effects were gone, and he was able to speak.

“What the hell was that for?” he yelled at the short immortal.

“A demonstration.” Garus displayed his palms to Adam. “For generations, the Aris enhanced their bodies with various implants. The Luz did the same. There were implants for telepathy, for weapons, energy absorption, nutrient distribution, strength enhancements, and more. The Aris and Luz wanted to have powers they did not possess naturally. So, they gave themselves artificial powers, making them appear to be natural. It may have been believed that they evolved to the point of not needing to ingest food for energy, but that was not true. Instead, they created an implant that bypassed the process. The Luz adopted all those practices and installed them in the other Masters and me, although most were not necessary.”

“Speaking of the other Masters, where are they?” Adam asked, his body still tingling from the strong electric shock.

“They are no longer with us.”

“You put them back in a quantum prison?” Adam asked aghast. “Why?”

“I did nothing that elaborate. They are simply floating in space as frozen lumps of immortality. Although I have never experienced such a state of being, I can imagine their minds would stay active for all the time they are frozen. It is a fitting punishment for their betrayal.”

“What betrayal?”

“They believe me insane, affected by the quantum universe we spent so much time within. That is not the case. I am perfectly sane. But the direction I wished us to take was not what they could envision. Where I saw an opportunity to act, they saw an opportunity to retreat. Why would one retreat when he is the Master, when he has all the power?”

Garus glanced at the Formation.

“I now have all the power, Adam Cain. I am sure not even Nunki and the Aris imagined everything that the Formation could do. As creations of the device, the Masters could—or at least this Master could.”

“If you are not going to use it to filter organic material, what are you going to send through it?”

Garus was shocked. “How could you possibly have deduced that from what I have said?”

Adam remained silent, forcing a grin to his still twitching face.

Garus studied him for a moment before shrugging. “It matters not, since I will have you here for a demonstration of the experiment I have been proposing for a hundred years—correction—three billion, one hundred years. You see, for me, I am still living in the time of the Aris, when Nunki and his kind thwarted my efforts at every turn. I would have performed the experiment long before this if the Aris had not confiscated the Formation from the Luz. They had their own selfish needs for the device, while the Masters were tasked with correcting the timeline of existence.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I will explain, but first, the demonstration.”

Garus moved to a control panel and called in assistants.

Three Gracilians entered, including one Adam recognized as Crin.

“Although nearly all the Gracilians at the base are warriors, I have retained a few of their more enlightened scientists,” Garus said. He placed a hand on Crin, who beamed with pride from the attention. “This was one of the scientists who helped build the Formation before. He and his companions will control the filtration process while I guide the quantum beam.”

“The quantum beam?”

“Yes, Adam Cain. You have questioned what I will pass through the Formation. Now you know.”

“What is that going to do?”

“That is the question, is it not?” Garus smiled. “That is what it means to experiment. However, I assure you I do not regard experimentation as does your primitive race. Experimentation to me is simply a display of already predicted results.”

“That didn’t tell me anything,” Adam said. “What do you think will happen?”

Garus walked the short length of the Formation. It sat in the middle of the room, but it wasn’t the only piece of high-tech equipment on display. At the feeding end was a bulky stack of electrical components with tubes and wires running into them. Vents were in most of the units, allowing excess heat to escape. And pointed toward the Formation was a short snout-like attachment with a ruby lens on the tip. Adam knew that quantum waves were used to guide teleportation beams during the recent rash of bank robberies, but he’d never seen an actual quantum beam generator.

“A quantum beam is like a light beam, made up of various frequencies,” Garus announced. “The Formation, as I have it configured, will serve as a prism and break the beam down into its constituent parts. What I seek is the most refined quantum source available, that which makes entanglement possible. I will not even attempt to explain how this works, but you must have some understanding of entanglement pairs by now, how information can be duplicated at both ends of a quantum beam. Interstellar communications function using this technology.”

“Of course, I do,” Adam lied, nodding.

“The issue comes from the contamination of various other frequencies to this transfer of data. By stripping away everything except for pure quantum energy, I will be able to transfer not only data but also energy through the beam.”

“Like a super powerful laser?” Adam asked.

Garus raised a thin eyebrow, nodded his head and smiled. “Not even close. Lasers only concentrate light along certain wavelengths. It can only transmit elements of itself. My quantum beam will carry all kinds of energy, including physical energy, and from one source to another. That is the key. My beam must be linked to an energy source and then paired with another.”

The immortal moved to the other end of the Formation. “The other aspect of the experiment is the temporary storage of the refined quantum beam. That is what this device is intended to do. For your information, I assembled the Formation in less than a day. It was building these accessories that have taken the most time. Not only that, but I have had to build relay dishes to transfer the beam. If the storage unit works, I will be able to transport the beam energy to other parts of a planet, a space station or a starship. From there, I can link energy sources from all across the galaxy.”

“And what happens when you do?” Adam asked. “You make it out to be some monumental achievement. Are you able to transfer power through space to provide it at places that don’t have it? That sounds like a good thing, rather than this sinister-sounding way you put it.”

Garus continue to grin at Adam. “Crin, please energize the circuits. Let us test our setup for our skeptical guest.”

Equipment began to hum, and the temperature in the room climbed instantly. Cool air blew down on Adam from the ceiling. It helped, but the generators in the room were producing a lot of residual heat.

“This will be a simple one-way transfer,” Garus narrated. “Crin, initiate the sequence.”

The quantum beam generator spun up a notch, increasing the frequency of the hum. Adam took a step back from the Formation, not sure what to expect.

“The storage will be only for a few minutes, but time enough for me to set up the link,” Garus continued.

And then a soft blue glow appeared on the tip of the generator’s ruby lens. It was a strange effect, as the beam of light grew slowly. Adam had never seen anything like it. It was as if the light was a solid and growing in length until it entered the Formation focusing rings and landed on the first silver-dollar-sized disk.

The wafer absorbed the blue light, with tiny sparkles flashing on the surface. Then the light emerged from the other side, reaching toward the next disk. By now, the color was slightly darker blue. The process continued for much longer than Adam anticipated. He thought the beam would shoot into the Formation at one end and instantly shoot out the other. That wasn’t the case. At each stage of the six-disk stack, the color of the beam changed. What came out the other end before disappearing into another electronic array was pale green. Even so, the shaft extended from the Formation at the same speed it had entered, extending until it met another lens in the collection chamber.

And now things got really boring. The beam continued to be fed into the Formation and out the other end for several minutes with nothing else happening. Adam looked at Garus, who was thoroughly enamored with the workings of his device. Eventually, the quantum generator beam ended and slowly moved through the Formation like a rope through a person’s hand. When it had disappeared entirely into the collection chamber, Garus checked a panel on the device and made some adjustments.

The humming decreased, and the beam generator was shut down. However, the collection unit was still active. Garus moved to the control console and spent several minutes working the computer and gauges. Even Crin and the other two Gracilians stood aside as he did so, leaving the fine-tuning to the Master.

He eventually pushed away from the console.

“There has been success. I have captured the entanglement beam in the chamber and can now aim it more efficiently. Come, Adam Cain. Let us move to the control room. You will find this fascinating.”

Adam didn’t notice the command given, but four new Gracilians entered the chamber with MK-17s aimed at him. Garus saw Adam glance at the weapons.

“It is unfortunate that you are so well-known, Adam Cain. There is prodigious data available about you and your race in the Formilian Library. For instance, how Humans are resistant to the lower energy levels of these weapons. Therefore, the guards have theirs set at maximum. I suggest you not entertain the idea of attacking them. It will not end well for you. Now, come along. As I said, you will find this fascinating, in several ways.”

* * *

The control room was a multi-tiered command center with dozens of screens and seating for a staff of operators. It reminded Adam of pictures he’d seen of NORAD headquarters during the Cold War. It was probably built at a time when the Gracilians believed they would soon be at war with the galaxy, guiding their deadly fleet of dark-matter ships to victory upon victory. That never happened, but the command center remained.

Now it looked absolutely bare, with only a handful of Gracilians and Garus seated at the controls. There was a bank of observation seating in the rear, and Garus directed the guards to place Adam there and keep an eye on him.

Screens lit up, including one gigantic monstrosity that dominated the forward wall. It had to be forty feet wide by thirty high. What it showed at the moment was a graphic, not an actual image. It showed a stellar system, which Adam identified as Gracilia by the placement of the various planets. He’d studied enough navigation charts going to and from the system to be sure he was right. There were labels on the various objects, but they were in Gracilian, which Adam couldn’t read. But he did recognize the native spelling for their homeworld. That was plastered everywhere around the planet.

“This is the Gracilian system,” Garus narrated, unnecessarily. “Now, I will concentrate on a particular sector.”

The image changed to show a region of space where the Nasien Asteroids orbited the star. Nearly every star system had at least one asteroid belt, a place where either destroyed planetoids or the unformed remnants of the accretion disk resided. The Gracilian system had a large one in the outer system and a smaller one closer in. Garus zoomed in on the outer cluster.

The field of view got tighter until the graphic changed to an actual image of one of the larger asteroids, something the size of Ceres in the Solar System. The Nasien belt had several Ceres-size planetoids.

A second image box appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the main screen. It showed a live image of the blazing Gracilian star.

Garus spun in his seat toward Adam.

“I find it strange that I am enjoying this moment so much with your presence. I had not planned on this to happen, but now that you are here, I gain great pleasure from explaining what I am doing. Is that odd?”

“No, it happens to me all the time.” Adam even had a name for it: The James Bond Syndrome, where the bad guy gives Bond—James Bond—an elaborate tour of his lair, basically telling him how to defeat the evil doctor when the time came. So far, Garus hadn’t revealed that part of his evil plan. Just keep talking, asshole.

Garus looked confused at Adam’s remark. “It does?”

He turned back to his controls.

“The refined quantum beam I have distilled through the Formation will now link the Gracilian star with this planetoid. If the experiment is successful, the two bodies will exchange energy. Of course, the star will transfer a trillion times more to the asteroid, while the star will experience no ill effects. The planetoid, however, …”

Garus initiated the effect, somehow able to release the trapped quantum beam into space where—as shown on the graphic representation of the link—it attached itself to the star and the asteroid spontaneously. The live image of the asteroid zoomed out, giving perspective to the event. It happened in a split second. The Ceres-size asteroid—about a quarter of the size of Earth’s moon—was suddenly shattered into a cloud of stellar dust. Adam was expecting something like this, but seeing it live was a shock.

“The two objects became an entangled pair thanks to the quantum beam,” Garus explained. “In addition, I have the ability to regulate the flow of energy through the beam, from one object to the next. What this means is I can vary the force moving between matching energy sources with the same potential energy, giving one more than the other.”

“Meaning you can blow things up?” Adam cut to the chase.

Garus swung back around to him.

“That is precisely what it means. But in this case, it means I can blow up similar objects, as well as unlike sources, such as a star and an asteroid. Or I can destroy one star or a pair of stars. And Adam Cain, because of the extent of the quantum universe, I can direct my beams at any location in the galaxy from this single room. All I need is the correct beam refinement to cover the distance. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, that’s basic high school physics where I come from.”

Garus smirked. “That I very much doubt. I have not been in your time for long, but I do understand the technological level of the galaxy. You have no concept of what I can do, except to say I can blow up things. But that is not the main question you have for me, is it, Adam Cain?”

Is this a test? Adam asked himself. What is the main question? Damn, what if I get it wrong? Then he shrugged. The only thing that came to mind was, “Why?”

“That is exactly right! Why am I doing this? Why would I want to destroy any object I want in the galaxy, from an insignificant lump of rock to the largest star? I will tell you. It is to erase all Aris-inspired life from the galaxy.”

Adam recoiled. “Okay, that’s pretty ambitious. And it begs a follow-up question: Why, again?”

Garus walked over to Adam. “The answer to that question will come later, after I have had time to reset the Formation for the final test, requiring the placement of more disks within the stack. This one will involve greater distances and require more filtration. I must leave you now so I can attend to my duties. We will meet again when I am ready. It will be then that I reveal to you the secret you did not even know I harbored. Guards, place the Human in a secure room. Provide him liquids and nourishment and a place to rest. And I suppose he will have to relieve his excess waste. But beware. There are countless stories of him escaping from captivity. Make sure this is not one of those stories, or you will have to answer to me.”

The guards were serious and professional, ex-military Gracilians. They weren’t intimidated by the threat. They had no intention of letting him escape. And with an inoperable ATD, that would probably be the case. Adam was deep in the bowels of the base, with no way to communicate with the outside world, surrounded by hundreds of dedicated soldiers and with no idea if Sherri was even alive to call for help. And to top that, Garus just said he needed to use more disks for the next phase of his experiment. Maybe then he would discover the missing disk, possibly foiling his plans. What would he do in anger at that point?

Have you had one of those days where it felt like the whole world was crashing in around your shoulders? Today was such a day for Adam Cain.

Chapter 12

The Gracilian guards didn’t bother testing his blood for safety before bringing him a plate of cooked meat and soggy greens. Adam doubted if the meat came from Gracilia; livestock was rare, and certainly not to be served to prisoners as possibly their last meal. The liquid he was given was water, just plain old H2O, hopefully sufficiently filtered to remove any trace of lingering radioactivity.

He was in a barracks room, leftover from when the base had a much larger population. The cabin was designed for a single person and probably reserved for a mid-level officer. There was a dusty cot, which Adam had to beat into submission to remove enough dirt for him to lay on. Then he had a coughing fit from the lingering dust cloud in the room. The ventilation was poor, and the room was cool.

There were no windows, a basic grooming station and a single metal door. There was no lock since the room hadn’t been designed to be a jail cell. But with four hulking guards outside, each armed with Xan-fi weapons set on level-1, Adam knew he would be here for the duration. Even if he got past the four Gracilians in the passageway, he had no idea where he was by now. Swarms of more guards would come looking for him. And the final factor in his decision to stay put was that Garus didn’t need him for anything. All he was doing was showing off, experiencing an emotional high he’d never felt before. Adam would ride that train for as far as it took him. It fed him information and gave the calvary more time to get here—if they were even coming.

He lay down on the still dusty cot and thought about what he knew so far.

Garus had a weapon that could strike anywhere in the galaxy and destroy whole stars. He hadn’t said anything about trying to resurrect the Luz race; as a matter of fact, he had effectively done away with the only other Luz alive except for him. Obviously, Garus wasn’t too concerned about having more of his kind around. And other than trading the mutants for the Formation, he hadn’t made any demands for power, not so far. Perhaps once he conducted this additional test, he would let the galaxy know what a badass he was and start making demands.

Adam thought back to Kracion. The Mad Aris began as a mortal, but became an even greater threat once he became immortal. He wanted to be the god of the galaxy, to rule everyone and everything forever. Was that Garus’s goal, as well? If so, then was this something systemic in being immortal—seeing yourself as a god? But Adam knew other immortals—and except for the original J’nae—Panur and Lila weren’t like that. Maybe it came from their upbringing. Spare the rod and spoil the immortal, as Adam’s grandmother used to say. She didn’t actually say that, but that was what came to his mind at the moment. But what if Garus’s goal was something other than galactic domination? He promised it to the Gracilians, but he also told Adam how gullible the natives were. Was it something else?

Adam closed his eyes. He’d been trained—seems like a century ago—that sleep was a weapon. Not being immortal himself, he needed rest to stay alert and sharp. At the moment, all he had were his wits, along with a semi-malleable immortal. Adam would play to Garus’s ego, keeping him interested in having Adam along for the ride, someone to show off for. If he did, then Adam’s opportunity may present itself. But how, when? He had no idea.

But first, he needed sleep. Sleep would keep him strong.

* * *

Adam had no idea how long he slept, but sleep he did. But then the guards rushed into his room and dragged him out by his arms, taking him to the Formation room.

The moment he entered, he had a pretty good idea what all the hassle was about.

The Formation was now easily four times as long as before, with a multitude of holders for more disks. The first time, only six had been used. This time, a lot more, and probably enough for Garus to realize one was missing. The alien glared at him as he entered.

“Where is it, Adam Cain? I know you took it.”

“Took what?”

“The disk, the missing disk.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve been under guard since I got here.”

“You took it before turning over the Formation to me on CD-126868. You were being clever, figuring you could disrupt my plans by retaining one of the disks from the total.”

Adam grinned. “I take it I was right?”

Garus walked to a mid-point in the stack and pointed at an empty disk holder. “You took a transition disk, one that would tie several others together.”

“I don’t know what any of that means.”

“It means I will have to adjust my plans, if only slightly. I see on your face you are disappointed. You should be. You had hoped to make the Formation dysfunctional, but that is not the case.”

Garus walked from around the device to stand in front of Adam. “You have asked the question why I am doing what I am doing? I will now tell you. It will put into perspective all the things to come. First, you believe the term Masters to mean leaders. You are wrong. I—and my colleagues—were created to be masters for what type of life was to be created next, a new race of beings that would populate the Second Epoch. We were programmed into the Formation by the creators, the Allanni. It was the end of the First Epoch, and life was coming to an end. The Allanni built the Formation as a way of seeding the new Epoch with beings like themselves. Therefore, Adam Cain, I am an Allanni, not a Luz.

“But then something unforeseen happened—a war perhaps, or a natural catastrophe. The plan did not develop properly, and when the Masters were created, it was toward the end of the Second Epoch, not the beginning. We had been imbued with a form of genetic memory, which provided us with context as to our role. The realization as to what had happened was devastating to us. We were to be used as the genetic material that would spawn the new Allanni and all the related species to come. Now, imagine our disappointment when we discovered that the Aris were the dominant lifeform at the end of the Epoch and that billions of years had gone by with no input from the Allanni. Then to add to this insult, the Formation was found and utilized not by the Aris, but by their genetic castoffs, the Luz.”

When Garus turned away to walk across the room, Adam almost grabbed him by the arm to beg him to continue. He was intrigued by the story, with many of the voids being filled. Fortunately, Garus wasn’t done with his narration.

“Knowing who and what we were, the Masters began to work with the Luz to salvage what we could of our lost destiny. We had the Formation and the genetic material necessary to resurrect the Allanni race, but not in the Second Epoch, but the Third. That was what we were working on when the Aris learned of the Formation.

“The Luz were the Aris’ failed attempts at creating immortal versions of themselves, and then they discovered immortal creatures were living among the Luz. They wanted that for themselves. So the Aris took the Formation and the Masters and began a long and extensive effort to learn our secrets and assimilate our uniqueness. But that could never happen. Our genetic makeup is different from the Aris. In addition, we were created to provide an endless supply of Allanni material to rebuild the race, not Aris. That was our purpose, not to simply live forever. We regenerated to provide a constant supply of raw material.”

Garus removed a disk from its holder and held it up to the light.

“Within this wafer is the essence of my people. They live on in these eighty disks.” He glanced over at Adam. “In all eighty of them. But Nunki took our creation and used it for his own bastard purposes. The Third Epoch is an example of his wild aspirations. He used the Formation to seed the galaxy with far more life than should be here and of a genetic construction foreign to the Allanni. He infected the galaxy with a disease.”

He looked at Adam, his eyes burning with passion.

“You ask why I am doing what I am doing? I have a method of destroying this disease, of ridding the galaxy of Nunki’s infestation. I will destroy thousands of stars, perhaps millions, wiping out the innumerable children of the Aris without pause or remorse. I do this because I still exist, as does the Formation. With that combination, I will have time before the end of this Epoch to fulfill my mission, to populate the galaxy with the children of the Allanni.”

He placed a hand on the skeletal framework of the Formation.

“The next test of my quantum weapon was intended to remove from the galaxy a symbol of Nunki’s arrogance, his stealing of the Allanni dream to be replaced with his. I was to link a nearby star with one many light-years away. It would be a demonstration of the range of the weapon, as well as a means of studying the storage properties of the quantum beam itself. Adam Cain, the star I am targeting is Formil.”

Adam staggered. Formil, the star from which the planet Formil got its name. The home of Arieel Bol and the birthplace of his daughter, Lila.

“Yes, I will destroy the star of which the homeworld of Nunki’s Apex Being orbits. She was his greatest achievement and his greatest failure. After all that time and effort, he failed to turn the Aris immortal. Now I will make an example of him and his ambitions.”

Adam was gasping for breath. Could Garus really do this? And could he do it within the next few minutes? Then anger swelled up. Garus noticed the emotion and waved a hand at the guards.

“Be cautious,” he said. “The anger within the Human is cascading.”

“You’re not as smart as you think you are, Garus!” Adam yelled. He had nothing to lose. All he could hope to do was dash the illusions of the immortal. “I have news for you—Nunki didn’t fail. He became immortal, as did the remainder of the Privileged.”

“You lie. The Apex Being survives.”

“That’s because he found another way, another source for his immortality. Lila survives because he didn’t need her.”

Garus studied Adam for a moment, searching for a clue if he was telling the truth. “Even so, what you say will not save the planet Formil from destruction.”

“It’s true. And you know it is. Why else would you not find any Aris here today? They would still be working on their Grand Experiment, never giving up. Hell, even an insignificant Technician named Kracion became immortal. That’s why Gracilia is the way it is today, as are all the Dead Worlds. They were killed by the Mad Aris Kracion after he became immortal. You should have read about that in the Library. You obviously missed that entry.”

“If so, then where are they, where is Nunki? Immortal implies he lives forever. Why are there no Aris in the galaxy today?”

“Because they moved to another dimension, to pursue everlasting learning and knowledge.” Adam didn’t feel it necessary to tell him that all the Aris now were dead, all except Kracion.

“It was the creature Panur! That is how they did it. He is immortal; they learned the secret from him.”

“I’m not going to tell you. There is so little you know about the galaxy of today that I’ll leave that up to you to find out. So you see, you’re too late. Nunki and the Aris fulfilled their dreams. Destroying the life they created in the galaxy won’t bring back the Allanni or undo anything the Aris have done. All it would do is demonstrate the depth of your insanity.”

“I am not insane—”

“To even contemplate killing all advanced life in a galaxy is insane. If you can’t see that, then that just proves my point.”

Garus looked at the Formation, and Adam noticed much of the anger fade from the alien's face and body. He nodded. Then he turned back to Adam.

“I accept that there is still much I have to learn about what you call the Milky Way galaxy, at least how it is today. But it is also you who are wrong to believe that your theft of the disk in any way disrupts my plan. I will continue with my mission. It is not one of senseless killing, but one of single-minded purpose. I will dispatch all traces of Aris lifeforms from the galaxy and replace them with that of the Allanni. I am Allanni, not Aris and not Luz. So, what I do is simple; it is logical. I do this not out of revenge or spite or a childish temper tantrum. I do this because I must. It is what I was programmed to do—what I was created to do. And although you have put a wrinkle in my current plans, I am not beyond making amendments.

“Yes, I need the missing disk to create a beam of the proper intensity to reach from here to Formil. Unfortunately, I cannot do that now, not without moving the transmission point closer to my target.”

Adam breathed a sigh of relief. Had he just save Formil from destruction, if only temporarily?

“However,” Garus continued, “the only reason I cannot experiment on the Formil star is because of distance, not the efficacy of my weapon. Fortunately, noticing where Gracilia is in relation to another target I have in mind, this new target becomes much more practical. It is much closer than Formil and easily attainable with the disks I do have available. All it will take is a little realignment to the stacking order.”

Adam’s knees went weak.

“Yes, Adam Cain. There is another star I could target quite easily from here. It is one you call Sol.”

Chapter 13

“No, you can’t.” Adam gasped.

Garus held up the Formation disk he still carried in his hand. “But of course, I can. It will take less than an hour to adjust the stack, based on the distance to Sol. Then once the beam is refined, the experiment can begin. But unlike a star interacting with an asteroid, this will be a star with a star. And by a slight shift in the potential energy flowing between the bodies, both stars will go supernova in a few short hours, as matter is transferred to one and taken from the other. I believe I shall have Sol receive the minority of this new matter, causing its gravity to decline, allowing for a swelling of the outer shell. Afterward, it will collapse inward, causing the star to implode, crushing the core and releasing a spontaneous explosion of epic proportions. Any planetary body within a hundred million miles will be incinerated within days. Not only will your homeworld of Earth cease to exist, but so will your entire stellar system. And then I will simply move from star to star, planet to planet, targeting all Aris worlds until there are none left. I will be mobile by then, bringing all stars and their accompanying worlds within range. So, you see, taking the disk has been an inconvenience—a fortuitous one at that—seeing your visceral reaction to the impending demise of Earth. It has given me much more satisfaction than the destruction of Formil. I thank you for making it possible.”

At that point, Adam had nothing to lose. He lunged toward the Master, only to end up on the floor, hit from behind by the stock of a Xan-fi flash rifle. He tried to stagger to his feet but was hit again and again.

“Enough!” Garus yelled. “Take him to his room. I wish him to be alive when I destroy his homeworld. I will call for him when I am ready.”

* * *

Adam still hadn’t fully recovered from the hit he’d taken to the head in the Lanacon hangar. This second hit didn’t help. He was sure he had a concussion, evidenced by the throbbing pain and blurred vision. But he had to do something. He couldn’t stay in the room and let Garus destroy the Earth—and so much more.

He went to the metal door and began banging on it, for what good it did. He couldn’t break it, and the guards weren’t going to open it. He could tell from the eyes of the Gracilians that they understood what was going on. The great Adam Cain was about to witness a horrific event, followed quickly by his inevitable death. They got a lot of satisfaction out of that. And hearing what Garus had in mind for the galaxy didn’t seem to worry them. They considered themselves part of Garus’s plan, to be spared in the final analysis.

Adam laughed—causing the pain in his head to spasm. Garus said the Gracilians were gullible. He was right. The Master had just come out and admitted he wasn’t Luz, the beings from which he said the Gracilians evolved. He was out to destroy all traces of advanced life, not only Aris but also Luz. If the guards were smart enough to see it, they would know Garus had lied to them. What other lies had he told?

His only hope lay in Sherri and whether she was able to get word back to Lanacon. Was help coming? Even if it were, he couldn’t count on it. He had to have a plan, just in case.

As was his custom, Adam looked around the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. Fortunately, the room wasn’t built to hold prisoners, so no security cameras were watching him. He went to the cot and tossed away the mattress. A metal framework would provide him with blunt instruments and possibly even cutting weapons from the lateral supports. He set to work dismantling the frame, using brute strength to break some of the struts to begin the process.

He had to stop occasionally when the room began spinning so hard that he threw up. He didn’t care. Garus said it would take about an hour to reconfigure the Formation. He didn’t have time to suffer from his injuries. All life on Earth depended on him finding a way to stop Garus.

Soon, he had a length of thin metal, that when pulled across the neck of a Gracilian, would cut the skin. And with Adam’s added Human strength, it could undoubtedly slice to the spinal cord. A leg of the bed would make a good club; in fact, two would be better. He would keep one tucked in the back of his pants as a backup.

The problem was the four armed guards. They had been very good at guarding Adam up to this point. Two would flank him, while the other two lagged behind, out of reach and keeping watch. They also kept the Xan-fis at the ready. A flash rifle bolt was already more powerful than one from an MK handgun. But a Xan-fi set at level-1 was downright deadly, even to a Human.

He revised his attack plan. The cutting strip would be tucked in his pants. He would go out of the room with a cot leg in each of his hands. He needed the reach and to be able to strike in multiple directions at the same time.

But then he thought again. His enemy wasn’t the guards or even Garus. It was the damn Formation. It was the device that made possible all the evil about to happen. The previous vacillation he’d felt early over its destruction was gone. It had to be destroyed and at all costs.

Adam leaned against the wall, a metal rod in each hand, counting the minutes. As he did so, Garus was at work on the Formation to produce a quantum beam that could destroy the Earth. And all Adam could do is wait.

The door handle moved and then began to open inward. Adam was behind the door; he let it open about halfway before jabbing his foot into the metal surface, sending it crashing into the person on the other side. He was around the door a split second later, a metal rod gripped tightly in each hand.

The Gracilian guard opening the door was thrown back into another, just as Adam planned. He barreled into the pair, swinging wildly with both clubs. Contact was made, and a moment later, two of the guards lay on the floor bleeding.

Just then, a brilliant flash filled the passageway, followed by a burning sensation across Adam’s right shoulder. Combined with his concussion, the flash bolt was enough to send him to the deck, writhing in pain. The bolt wasn’t a level-1, possibly a three at most. Although it burned like hell, it wasn’t meant to kill.

The two remaining guards hovered over him, the barrels of their weapons aimed at his head.

“The Master anticipated you would attempt an escape,” said one of the guards. “He wants you alive. Now, get up. We will saturate you with stun bolts if you continue to resist.”

Leaving his clubs on the floor, Adam used the wall to help him get to his feet. His shoulder hurt, but it was more the spinning of his vision that was the problem. He had to get over this, or else he would vomit again.

The guards herded him along, past the Formation room and back to the command center. The shoulder of his light grey Enforcer uniform was still smoldering, with the side of his head and much of his neck covered in blood from the early head blow. And the front of his uniform was soiled with vomit. Garus looked at him with disgust.

“It appears as though death would be welcome at this point, Adam Cain.”

“Then get it over with!” Adam snarled.

“Oh, I cannot, not until the grand display. That event will not only mark the end of this stage of my experimentation but signal a new era in the galaxy as a whole.”

Equipment hummed, and screens were lit, telling Adam the final preparations had been made, and all Garus was waiting for was the audience—the audience of one.

“Resisted, did he?” Garus asked one of the guards.

“Two were killed, but we managed the situation.”

“Yes, you did. Very good. Now, place the Human in the chair next to the central station. His vision appears to be fading. I want him to have a clear view of the destruction of his homeworld.”

The main screen displayed a graphic again, which Adam recognized as a slice of the Far Arm and the Kidis Frontier. Two points were highlighted, one an unknown star in the Kidis and the other undoubtedly the Sun. A line ran between the two, colored white. CGI would have to do since there was no time to send a ship to observe the actual event.

Garus moved a little closer to Adam.

“I shall say with confidence; you do not look to be in good condition. Rest assured, my Human friend, you will not have to suffer much longer. The adjustments to the Formation have been successful, and now the appropriate beam is in storage and ready to be linked. The local star I have chosen is not too far from here, making this event one with added significance. You might have heard of it. It is the star Liave, which nourishes the planet you now call Navarus. Imagine how in one episode, I will eliminate not only your homeworld but also your adopted home. Not only that, but I will dispense with the mutants, not killing them, of course, but burying them forever in the debris of the star. Perhaps in the Fifth Epoch, they may reappear again. Maybe not even then. Either way, they will be gone and no longer a threat to me, as once my former colleagues considered them. Now, shall we proceed—”

Mustering all the strength he could, Adam sprung from the chair while pulling the metal cutting strip from the back of his pants. Garus may be immortal, but he was not very coordinated or fast with his reactions. Adam was on him before anyone knew what was happening.

The piece of bedding lattice was run across his neck, slicing into the skin and ripping into a good portion of the collar of his flowing yellow robe. The pair tumbled to the floor as Adam’s weight overwhelmed the much smaller creature.

No blood flowed from the wound; instead, a gooey, green-colored liquid oozed out. And it didn’t flow for long, only a moment before the cut closed up, leaving only a bright red line in the pale flesh.

Knowing the metal strip was useless, Adam tossed it aside, gripping Garus by the neck while pulling back with his right hand to deliver a crushing blow to the alien’s face. The only problem; Adam didn’t know which face to hit. There were two—now three of them—each equally fuzzy and ill-defined.

Adam didn’t have to be shot again, nor did Garus have to use his palm energy weapons on the Human. Adam passed out on his own, toppling forward before rolling onto his back with a heavy sigh.

The guards were on him a second later, lifting his limp body and shoving it into the chair again.

“There is no damage,” Garus said to the guards. “He cannot hurt me. Bring him water, and summon medical personnel to tend to him. I want him conscious and aware before I initiate the entanglement. But hurry. He does not have to recover fully, just enough so he knows what is happening. I will not be denied my satisfaction.”

The guards rushed off, leaving Adam alone with Garus in the command chamber.

Well, that worked, Adam thought as he blindsided Garus with a strong right cross against the side of the alien’s head. After the hit, he took Garus’s hands and pressed them tight against the Master’s chest, palms down. If he were to fire his hand weapons, they would only affect him.

Garus didn’t resist. He lay under Adam, looking up at him and grinning, the hit to his head having had no effect.

“What do you hope to accomplish with this, Adam Cain? You cannot kill nor hurt me. And even now, I toy with you.”

Adam felt the alien’s hands begin to press against his, more forceful than expected. Adam strained to keep them down, but even with his Human strength, he couldn’t.

“I have been fitted with muscle enhancers that give me the strength of ten Humans. And you already know of my energy projectors. I have a multitude of ways to subdue you, even to kill you if I wish. I won’t do that, not yet. I am glad that you will not require medical assistance before I can continue with the experiment. Now, get off of me before I throw you off.”

Adam blew out a deep breath and then reluctantly did as he was told. He plopped back in the chair as the small alien stood before him.

“You have shown me many future possibilities, and for this, I am grateful.”

“What possibilities?”

“It is the thrill I get from having an audience, someone with an emotional tie to my activities. For so long, it has only been Docem, Panof and me. And remember, in my timeline, it was only recently that I was on Voskin’or, fighting against Nunki, watching thousands of Luz die around me. I have not had the opportunity to experience having someone who can appreciate what I am doing.”

“Appreciate isn’t the right word for it.”

“But it is. You realize the magnitude of what I am doing and how it will affect you personally. That is the appreciation I seek.” Then Garus grimaced. “However, once I destroy both Earth and Navarus, you will have reached the end of your usefulness. But because of you, I will seek out others to share in my future activities. I am sure I can find dignitaries on each world I plan to destroy who would appreciate the chance to witness the final minutes of their homeworld. So many others will have no idea what is happening until it is too late. To me, that would be a hollow victory.”

“Damn, you really are insane … and a sadist. These Allanni of yours must have been devils in their day. I, for one, am glad they’re gone. I just wished they’d stayed gone for—”

Alarms sounded in the command center as a voice blared out of a speaker.

“Master, we are under attack! Several shuttles are landing above. Enforcers, hundreds of them!”

Chapter 14

Sherri met the first shuttle as it landed not far from where she was hiding. She’d guided it to her, linking with Riyad’s ATD. Now, he came bounding out of the back of the landing craft, leading a squad of armored and armed Enforcers.

“Take over, captain,” he said to an officer. He went to meet Sherri.

“Adam’s still inside. As I told you earlier, I could hear him fine up to a point; then it just went dead. He was with Garus when it happened.”

Riyad handed her a heavy overcoat. She’d been lying on the ground for over four hours waiting for the Enforcers to arrive. She was visibly shaking from the cold night air. “Don’t worry,” Riyad said. “He didn’t kill him; that’s not how heroes die, especially someone like Adam.”

“I wish I had your optimism. What’s the plan?”

Riyad looked over the open plain, colored a mottled grey and black under the night sky. The landing jets of a dozen shuttles lit up the landscape momentarily as they descended in unison, forming a line around the perimeter. They came with schematics pulled from secret Gracilian records reluctantly provided to them after Panur threatened to pull the spines out of the tight-lipped native officials. The strike force knew the layout of the underground complex, as well as the various entry points. However, all would be barricaded.

“We’re going in through the main hangar, using explosives to open an access point,” Riyad told Sherri.

Another shuttle landed nearby, and Lila and Panur stepped out to join the two Humans. Once it was learned Garus was on the planet, the mutants took the last dark matter ship General Oakes had available on Navarus—and along with Monty Pitts, Summer Rains and Tidus—set off for Gracilia. Everyone except Lila and Panur stayed in Lanacon, bowing out of the coming battle. J’nae was still trapped in Summer’s mortal body, making it too dangerous for them to engage in any outright firefights, and Monty wasn’t about to leave Summer. Tidus simply chose to sit out this fight. He wasn’t getting paid to participate.

“Major Kilous is ready to go,” Panur said as he stepped up to the Humans.

* * *

Garus went to a comm station. “Crin, we anticipated this. Deploy the troops. It will take a grand effort for them to penetrate—”

The ground shook as a tremendous explosion reverberated throughout the complex.

“Master, the main hangar has been breached. They are within the base.”

“Maintain the plan. Block all the corridors down here if you must.”

“Yes, Master.”

Garus turned back to Adam, only to find an empty chair. He shook his head and returned to the control panel. He would initiate the countdown with or without an audience—this time. But after this, he would make sure he didn’t invite a Human to watch. They were more trouble than they were worth.

* * *

No sooner had Panur spoken than a tremendous blast rocked the landscape, lighting up the night sky. Swarming squads of armed and armored Enforcers ran for the breach in the hidden metal panel covering the underground hangar bay. Lights on their weapons danced briefly before disappearing from view. Immediately, flash bolts were seen lighting a point in the darkness.

“Can you detect Adam through his ATD?” Sherri asked the mutants. “We just lost contact. If he’d been killed, the ATD would still work, wouldn’t it, at least for a while. It has its own power source, doesn’t it?”

“That is correct,” said Panur. He’d help build the device; he should know how it works. Still, he turned to Lila. She had more natural telepathic ability than he.

“I sense the device, but a block has been put on it,” Lila said. “This is undoubtedly the work of Garus. However, the power signal is strong. There does not seem to be a drain, which would signify that the device was not supplementing its power from a living organism. From this, I would conclude my father is still alive.”

“Can you turn it back on?” Riyad asked.

“Not remotely,” Lila answered. “But I can locate him. Let us enter the complex. The Enforcers may need our help.”

Sherri smiled as they set out to join the rest of the Enforcers. She was in good hands, surrounded by Riyad and two of the most powerful creatures in the galaxy. She was content to let them lead the way.

* * *

Adam sprinted down the passageway, bouncing off the walls as dizzy spells hit him. The Formation room was down one level from the Control Center, and he made it there without running into any of the Gracilian soldiers. They were busy elsewhere in the complex.

Upon entering, Adam focused on the equipment Garus had referred to as the storage unit. It was at the end of the Formation array and was active, with lights and meters on a series of control pads on the surface. Finding nothing else to use, Adam picked up a chair and began bashing the metal boxes with it. He was a mad man, screaming with every blow. If the unit still contained the pent-up quantum beam, then Adam needed to release it somehow, break the containment field, whatever was holding it in place. And he had to do it soon. Garus didn’t have to be in this room to initiate the firing sequence, but he did need the beam.

Metal seams began to break, as did the chair. Now all Adam held in his hands were two back support rods. He set to work on the box with these, jamming them inside cracks made to the unit. He poked and prodded, trying to destroy the inner workings, to short-circuit what he could. Sparks flew out, burning his arms.

He then discarded one of the rods and forced the other into the opening, pushing down with all his might while a side panel bent away. The interior of the box was exposed, showing an elaborate series of circuits, power boxes and electronic switches. Many were broken, but still, the unit hummed.

Power cords ran up the walls before branching off to run the equipment in the room. Adam reached up and took hold of one of the corrugated conduits. He pulled, placing a leg against the wall for more leverage. He gnashed his teeth, groaning from the effort, finally screaming until the cable broke loose at the ceiling, showering him in even more sparks.

Adam dropped to the floor with the still-sparking wire in his hand. He jabbed it inside the box, initiating an explosion from within the unit. The blast threw him across the room, where his already battered head struck another wall.

Lights flickered, either from the sporadic power feed or from his intermittent eyesight. But the one thing Adam was sure of: The lights were off in the collection unit. Not only that, but a third of the Formation skeleton was a crumpled mass of bent tubing.

That’s when Adam noticed all the disks were gone from the stack.

Dammit, Adam thought. His next target was the Formation. But it did him no good to destroy only the frame. He needed to destroy the disks.

He had been so busy with the storage unit that he hadn’t noticed the almost constant booms and vibrations that continued to rock the underground complex. The battle was still going on. That was good—as long as the good guys were winning. But Adam wasn’t done with his fight.

He had no idea if he’d stopped the destruction of Earth or not.

And that’s when he noticed them; eight elongated cases, placed on a shelf near the front of the Formation.

Adam rushed to the cases, pushing them off the shelf and onto the floor. Some opened, spilling their contents, while others remained closed. Adam knelt, surveying a variety of broken and twisted pieces of metal that lay on the floor, the product of the explosion. Adam picked up one of the larger rods, a part of the Formation frame.

For a moment, he looked reverently at the disks on the floor, some of them already broken. Before him were probably the oldest objects in the universe, and the fact that the mutants said they were alive made them even more unique.

Could he do this? Could he destroy such a rare and powerful commodity, the creator of life itself, what many would consider to be God?

Hell, yeah!

Adam let loose with the rod, crushing the thin wafers into dust. Then he moved to the next box, and then the next. It only took thirty seconds to destroy ten billion years of life contained in the Formation disks.

* * *

Rope ladders were strung from the jagged hole in the metal roof of the hangar. It was a good ninety-foot drop to the main level. Riyad recognized it instantly as the part of the hangar complex that once housed six hundred dark-matter warships. Now it was empty and dark, lit only by illumination balls thrown about by the invading troops. However, all around were empty cots, food containers and spare clothing, left in a rush by the soldiers using the area as a barracks. Riyad made a quick count. There had to be three hundred Gracilians in the complex, and he was sure they were here to guard the place, not to participate in helping Garus build the Formation. These would be warriors, not scientists, and from the brief encounters the Enforcers had had so far with the defenders, they were competent warriors.

A bandaged Major Kilous ran up to Riyad. He eyed the mutants nervously, knowing who they were before giving his report.

“Commander, eight main corridors lead away from the hangars and then a series of stairs, elevators and ramps to reach the lower levels. The Gracilians have welded barricades across all but one of the access points, forcing us to take that route. That is where they have concentrated their defenses. We tried to force our way through but had to withdraw. We are going to have to blast our way in, but as we do so, we risk collapsing the tunnel.”

“Let me help you with that, major,” Panur said.

He smiled back at Lila and then set off with the officer for the front of the Enforcer line, appearing almost anxious for some flash bolts to his body. He would absorb them with almost sexual pleasure.

An injured Major Kilous had called in every Enforcer he could spare, both from the surface and in orbit, to form the small army he had, numbering about two hundred troops. He was spitting mad after what happened at the University, frustrated that he had lived while many in his unit had not. He was determined to get revenge. But now he was facing an enemy that was dug in, prepared and outnumbered them almost two-to-one.

Riyad followed the mutant and the officer, seeing the anger on Kilous’ face. Sherri and Lila trailed behind, showing no such concern.

The Enforcers were bottled up at a wide vehicle ramp that led off the main spacecraft hangar. There was little cover here except for connecting passageways at the ramp's top and bottom, separated by about fifty yards. The Gracilians had stationed themselves at the base of the ramp, at the next level down. They’d erected two rows of metal barriers across the opening, set back about twenty yards from each other, and giving the defenders plenty of cover. Kilous was right; the only way to get through the barriers would be to send rocket-propelled grenades down the ramp. The explosions would risk collapsing the roof, leaving the Enforcers digging to get through, either here or at the other blocked passageways.

The Gracilians were disciplined, holding their fire until they had a target to shoot.

Panur obliged them, beginning a lonely walk down the ramp toward the first barrier.

The battle scene became graveyard quiet. The Gracilians knew who Panur was, although mainly by reputation. Very few had seen him in person. In the flesh, the nondescript grey alien wasn’t a very intimidating figure. Besides, like all reputations, the stories could be exaggerated. Nevertheless, no one was willing to take the first shot. Panur was within ten yards of the barrier before the Gracilians finally opened up.

Twenty natives were manning the barricade, with another twenty stationed at the second barrier. During firefights using flash weapons in tight quarters, many combatants wore thin, pull-down sunglasses to protect against the blinding light. In this case, no degree of sunglasses could safeguard against the star-bright flash of multiple bolts being released simultaneously from twenty Xan-fi rifles and at a single target. Everyone at the top of the ramp turned away, covering their eyes, everyone except Lila.

In the corridor, Panur instantly glowed white-hot as he arched his back and extended his arms out to his sides in a display of ecstasy. It had been a long time since he’d had an energy intake like this, and it was just what his body needed as it was still integrating his free-form brain cells. The energy intake would speed up the process.

The firing only lasted fifteen seconds. The bath of light now blinded targeting computers that had been locked on Panur a moment before, while radiant heat blistered the barricade's metal surface. Gracilian troops shrieked from pain as their skin met the hot metal. But even before this, they were falling back, unable to tolerate the heat coming off the mutant’s glowing body. They tumbled over the next barrier, prompting a wholesale retreat by the Gracilians at both locations.

Panur walked up to the barrier, finding trouble with his footing as each step sank into the red, near-liquid metal of the floor.

I believe it is time for us to take over, Lila said to him in his mind.

I believe you are right. I will retire to an anteroom to cool down and allow you and the others to pass. And, my dear, that was invigorating. You should try it.

The battle is still early; perhaps I will have the opportunity. I will let you know when we find Adam and Garus.

* * *

Adam sensed a movement behind him. He sighed and then turned around slowly.

“I did not think you would do it,” Garus said softly. He was remarkably calm, considering what Adam had just done. The Gracilian Crin was standing next to him, looking aghast.

“It was the only way to stop you.”

“Master, what are we to do now?” asked the native.

Garus shrugged. “That is a good question—”

“He hasn’t told you the truth, Crin,” Adam blurted. Although he was about to die, Adam wanted to take one last stab at Garus, perhaps turn his loyal sidekick against him. “He lied when he said the Gracilians are descended from the Luz. They aren’t. He only said that so you’d help him.”

Crin hesitated for a moment before anger filled his face. “It is you who lie!”

Garus stood passively by with a thin grin on his face, letting Adam talk.

“He’s not Luz; Garus is something called an Alinie—”

“It is pronounced Al-in-ni,” Garus corrected.

“Whatever!” Adam yelled. “It just means that he lied to you. He’s been lying to you from the beginning.”

Confused by Garus’s calm manner, Crin turned to him. “Is this true? Have you lied to me?”

“It matters not if I have; I have accepted you as my servant, the only one of your race I have done so.”

“Why would you lie? Is it true; are we not Luz?”

“I am disappointed in you, Crin. You are supposedly one of Gracilia’s greatest scientists. Have you not realized the fallacy in what I told you?”

“What fallacy?”

“Consider, three billion years ago, Gracilia was barely a billion years old. The environment on the planet at that time would be toxic to life forms such as the Luz and the Aris. There is a possibility that the Aris seeded your world, but they surely would not have exiled creatures such as themselves to Gracilia. They would have died. But all this means nothing in today’s reality. I am here now, and you and the Gracilians have been offered a place at my side. Make a decision, Crin. Do you serve me, or do you die here with the rest of the Gracilian fighters?”

It only took a moment for Crin to pronounce his undying loyalty to the Master. To Adam, the whole scene was sickening.

“Very good, Crin. And now, with Adam Cain’s mutant friends in the complex, I suggest we leave.” He turned toward the doorway.

“But what of him; what of Adam Cain? He … he must be purged!”

Garus looked at Adam and grinned. “I sense this will not be the last we see of each other. I will let him live, for the time being. If he is to die by my hand, I want it to be while he watches something he truly cares for is destroyed. Besides, this timeline is much more interesting with him in it. I will keep a close watch on this one. Now, let us go.”

And with that, the immortal being—the last surviving remnant of the First Epoch’s dominant lifeform—simply turned and walked away.

Chapter 15

Even with Panur standing in a side corridor, the residual heat at the ramp's base was still problematic, at least until the Enforcers got past the barriers and into cooler air. The Gracilians hadn’t anticipated such a rapid and decisive breakthrough at the barricades, and now they formed impromptu defensive lines at doorways and intersecting corridors as they retreated deeper into the facility.

Riyad had a Xan-fi rifle and an MK-88 with him, along with a backpack of extra battery packs. He was anxious for some action and forced his way to the front of the Enforcer line. Lila stood back, not wanting to get hit as Panur had. She needed to keep her body cool so she could lead the troops to Adam.

Following her lead, Riyad pressed forward. The Gracilians still outnumbered the Enforcers, but in narrow, underground corridors, that didn’t matter. Only so many guns could be brought to bear on the advancing troops. And the Enforcers had mutants. That demolished the confidence of the defenders. No matter what they did, they would not be able to kill the immortals. At this point, they were simply fighting for their lives.

Only token resistance met the Enforcers at each bottleneck. Riyad and the others would saturate the air with flash bolts, giving the defenders an excuse to fall back. They dropped down through stairways and ramps, seeking refuge in the deeper depths of the complex.

Riyad had no idea it went down this far. But he continued to follow, with Lila telling him through his ATD that they were on the right path to finding Adam. The signal was stationary and about a hundred yards ahead and two levels down.

Eventually, someone in the Gracilian force took command and told everyone to surrender. They were burying themselves deeper in the complex with no way out and against an unbeatable foe. Riyad’s Enforcers rushed ahead and began to disarm the Gracilians. For a moment, the passageways became cluttered with prisoners and their guards, impeding any forward progress. Riyad shouted to make way, and a path was cleared for him, Sherri and Lila.

Lila stepped forward, leading the way. She knew where she was going.

* * *

When the trio entered the Formation room, they didn’t notice Adam at first. He was slumped down on the floor, surrounded by the crushed remains of the Formation disks.

Lila stepped up to him.

“Are you okay, father?”

He nodded. He was bloody, his uniform torn and smelling of vomit, which was becoming a habit for Adam Cain. His head felt as if it were about to explode, and his vision was questionable.

Sherri and Riyad knelt next to him, examining his head and other injuries. After a moment, he brushed away their annoying hands.

“I’m okay, dammit. I just need some sleep.”

“Not with a concussion like that,” Sherri said. “We need to get you back to Lanacon and a hospital.”

“For what good that will do,” Riyad said. “We need a place that knows how to treat Humans. The Garrison back on Navarus is the closest.”

“I will help tend to him here,” Lila said. “There are medical facilities in the complex.” She wasn’t looking at her father, but rather the shattered remains of the Formation disks.

“This appears to have been a deliberate act, father.”

“It was,” Adam admitted. “I knew you’d be pissed, but Garus was using the Formation to refine quantum beams.”

“What for?” Sherri asked.

“So he could connect stars anywhere in the galaxy and cause both of them to explode. He was set on destroying all Aris-created life in the galaxy using the beams. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Why would he want to do that? I thought he was going to recreate the Luz race?” Riyad asked.

Adam shook his head, which made him wince and close his eyes. The room was already spinning enough.

“That wasn’t it; I came to find out. It seems our friend Garus was not Luz after all, but something called an Allanni, the people who built the Formation in the first place.”

“The Allanni built the Formation?” Lila asked. “The documents said the Luz created the Masters using the Formation, making them out of Luz organic material.”

“To a point. But the Allanni already had the three Masters programmed into the disks. They were the first to emerge so they could provide Allanni genetic material to resurrect not the Luz or the Aris, but the Allanni. Yeah, the Masters have a little Luz in them, but not enough to make a difference.”

“What does this have to do with Garus destroying life in the galaxy?” Sherri asked.

“He wants to start the process all over again, take us back to the beginning of the Second Epoch when it was supposed to be Allanni and nothing but the Allanni.”

“What stopped that from happening?” Lila asked. “I have not read any of this in the Aris documents.”

“He didn’t know either. One day, he and the other two Masters just appeared, and most of the Second Epoch was over, with the Aris in control. By the way, it’s masters with a lowercase ‘m’, not uppercase as in a leader. They were to be the source of all the genetic material to make a new race. That’s why they’re immortal.”

“Where is he?” Lila asked, her voice firm. “And the others?”

Adam snorted. “Yeah, the others. He shot them out into space somewhere, hopefully, frozen for all eternity. As to where Garus is now, he left with his Gracilian crony, Crin. I have to assume he had another way out. He knew you and Panur were in the complex. By the way, where is Panur?”

“Cooling off,” Riyad said with his trademark white smile. “He made quite an impression on the Gracilian defenders.”

Lila looked around the room. “This is where Garus built the Formation and refined the quantum beam. Did he have a chance to carry out any of his threats?”

Adam laughed weakly. It even hurt to laugh.

“I’m going to ask for a bonus for this, but he was only minutes away from destroying both the Sun and Liave. I was able to stop the beam by blowing up the containment chamber.” He motioned toward the twisted hunk of metal across the room.

Riyad smiled while placing a hand on Adam’s scorched shoulder. Adam winced again. “Before the requisition for the bonus can be submitted, we will need verification of such heroic deeds, witnessed by three impartial observers and notarized. Otherwise, all you will get is a pat on the back.”

“The story of my life.”

* * *

The mutants weren’t anxious to leave the underground complex before they had a chance to study Garus’s quantum beam generator and learn what they could about how he stored the beams. The Formation was gone, but the technology still fascinated them.

There was a decent-sized MedLab in the complex, although it had not been in service for many years. Even so, Adam was moved there, and Lila examined him closely, using her almost supernatural abilities to perform a CAT scan without having a CAT scan machine. She isolated the microfracture in his skull and where his brain was swelling the most. Medicines were flown in from Lanacon, and four days later, Adam was ready to be moved to the main spaceport for the flight back to Navarus.

The mutants had all they needed from the base—at least for the time being. There was plenty of room for the trip back to Navarus, seeing that they had Garus’s, Adam’s, and the mutant’s DM ships to get back to the planet. All three of the super starships were on loan from General Oakes, and he threatened to bill them for any loss or damage that might come to them. Fortunately, they were being returned without a scratch, so they were expecting to get their deposits back.

Adam was feeling much better by then, not only from his medical care but also from the small amount of revved up healing he’d inherited from Panur.

And as for Panur, the intake of energy from dozens of Xan-fi flash bolts had sped up his recovery time. He informed Summer and J’nae that he could perform the extraction as soon as they returned to Navarus. He would be able to monitor Summer during the procedure. But from all indications, she was ready; in fact, Panur would have performed the extraction during the five-day-journey back to Navarus, but he didn’t have one of his tiny grey master bodies to place J’nae into. They were stored back at his lab.

All in all, it was a bittersweet victory against Garus. He was still alive, but his plans had been stopped cold, at least for the time being. What he would do now was anyone’s guess. But with the Formation gone, there wasn’t much damage one Allanni Master could do.

Chapter 16

They had no problem entering the base and making it to the building without being noticed. Even the two guards at the entrance posed no problem. Although the sentries were professionals, there wasn’t much chance someone would dare invade the private sanctuary of the mutants. Hell, even the guards had no idea whether or not Panur and Lila were in the laboratory. They seldom left, and they didn’t need food supplies brought in. Besides, pity the poor creature who wanted to go toe-to-toe with either Panur or Lila Bol.

A mild stun bolt from his hands was enough to put them under, enough for Crin to move in and make their sleep permanent. Even the locking mechanism to the building was simple for the Master to circumvent.

Once inside the main room, Garus recognized it from the link when he negotiated for the Formation disks. He stepped over to the concave hole cut in the floor, with a matching dome above, the place where he, Docem and Panof had abducted the mutants using a teleportation beam. The mutants installed a modified Lerpiniere field over the building after that, but it mainly prevented transport beams from entering. It didn’t stop people from walking through it.

Now Garus and Crin surveyed the rest of the room, looking for the main vault. Computers were active but password protected.

“The Humans took the lift to where they got the disks,” Garus said as he stepped up to the elevator. He looked inside. There were only four buttons. “We shall start at the lowest level.”

A few minutes later, the pair stood outside a ten-foot-wide by a nine-foot-high metal barrier. An elaborate security box was on the wall next to the door.

“Try the word CASSY,” Garus told Crin.

He tried the code. It didn’t work.

“Now KASSY.”

Again, no success.

“Perhaps they changed the code,” Crin said.

“Perhaps, but we still have more combinations to try.”

Two attempts later, the code CASSIE worked.

The vault door slid aside, revealing a large empty room lined only with equally empty counters and shelves.

“There is nothing here!” Crin exclaimed. “We have come here for nothing, risking our lives.”

“Risking your life, Crin, not mine,” Garus corrected. “But there is more to this room. There is a safe, a smaller vault.”

“There!” Crin pointed. It was a simple grey-metal panel about three feet square embedded in the concrete wall. There was an electronic code box on the door.

“Try the word DAVID.” Garus said.

The door did not unlock.

Garus thought for a moment before stretching out a sinister grin.

“Now try MARIA.”

Crin had no idea where Garus was coming up with these codes, but he followed directions. He punched in M-A-R-I-A….

The pair was out of the laboratory five minutes later, hurrying to get away before the dead guards were discovered.

Chapter 17

The three DM starships landed at the Enforcer spaceport, not far from the mutant’s lab. It was night in this part of Navarus; Adam had lost track of local time while away on Gracilia.

He was anxious to get home and into his own bed, but that wasn’t to be, not yet. Lila and Sherri insisted that he go to the Garrison hospital to be looked over by Human doctors with Human medical equipment. He reluctantly agreed, but only after the mutants stopped by their lab to drop off some of Garus’s equipment they’d salvaged from the Gracilian base. Lila wanted to go to the hospital with him, but first, the lab.

Even before they got to the building, they knew something was up.

Amber and red lights flickered from the tops of security vehicles outside the laboratory, while a dozen Human and Enforcer personnel stood outside.

The small caravan carrying the team pulled up, and Panur and Lila jumped out ahead of everyone.

“What has happened?” Panur asked the senior security guard. The man was familiar with Panur. He wasn’t intimidated, but he was worried.

“Someone killed the two guards and forced their way into your building,” the man reported. “We just discovered this about fifteen minutes ago. No one has entered your laboratory. I was just getting ready to call you.”

Panur and Lila rushed past everyone, followed closely by the rest of the team. No one stopped them; they were all well-known to the security detail.

Once in the main room, Lila ran to a computer terminal while Panur raced to a side room. Adam followed, knowing this was where the floor vaults were that held the three dark-matter-collectors. Panur fingered a combination and opened the first safe. He looked up at Adam.

“It is still here.”

He checked the other two before the pair returned to the main room.

“All the DMCs are safe.”

Adam knew dark-matter-collectors were the most dangerous things in the galaxy, especially in the hands of evildoers or just the ignorant. One of them had enough power to destroy a third of the galaxy; all three, and poof, nothing would be left of the Milky Way.

“It had to be Garus,” Lila said from her computer station. “He knew we were on Gracilia and got here before us.”

“If so, then he barely beat us here,” Adam said.

“He took a conventionally-powered starship,” Panur said. “If we had not insisted on staying at the base after the battle, we would have beat him here in the DM ships.”

Adam had never seen Panur so disappointed—in himself.

“So, what did he take?”

“That I have not figured out,” Lila said. Then she leaned in closer to the computer screen.

“The main vault has been accessed.”

She didn’t wait for the others, instead rushing to the elevator. Only Panur, Sherri and Adam made it in the car before the doors closed.

“How did he get into the vault?” Adam asked.

“Because I did not change the code.”

“And he heard the code when I was talking to him on the link,” Adam concluded.

“Yes, and he remembers everything.”

“Why didn’t you change the code,” Sherri asked, cautiously. It wasn’t her place to second-guess Lila.

“We installed the Lerpiniere field, but since there was nothing in the vault at the time, I did not see the need to do it before leaving for Gracilia.”

“He’s after the last Formation disk,” Adam announced. “Why, what good would one disk do him?”

Before the mutants could answer, the elevator reached the bottom floor. At the main vault, Lila punched in the code, and the door opened. She and Panur raced to the wall safe, finding the door locked and secure.

“I did change the code on the wall safe,” Lila stated. “I did it when we placed the remaining disk inside.”

Adam relaxed—somewhat. The tension was so high in the mutants that it was contagious. He still didn’t know what the big deal was. What could Garus do with a single disk? Panur once said it takes six disks to make the Formation do anything.

Lila fingered in the code and opened the door. Her shoulders slumped. Then she reached inside and pulled out a lone piece of rare paper. Not many people used paper these days, but somehow a piece had found its way into the safe.

Lila read the message before handing the sheet to Adam.

“It is for you.”

Adam took the paper, and with Sherri looking over his shoulder, he read the writing. It was in English.

The message read: “Your first guess was right. I thank you. Now … until we meet again.”

“What does he mean: My first guess was right?” Adam asked Lila.

“I recall the conversation, as did Garus,” she began. “When I said the code to the safe was DAVID, you said it was your second guess. Your first guess was MARIA. Maria was the new code.”

Adam looked in the safe. It was empty.

He looked at the forlorn mutants.

“I still don’t get it. Garus only has one disk. Why is that such a tragedy?”

Panur leaned in. “Because, Adam, you forget the one key feature of the Formation disks. They are organic.”

“Which means what?”

“It means Garus will be able to grow another set of Formation disks.”

Adam and Sherri were stunned.

“Another set?” Sherri asked for confirmation, not believing what she just heard. “Like a whole new set of disks, everything he will need to destroy all advanced life in the galaxy?”

“The disks are alive,” Panur said. “They are living organisms, made of Allanni material, the same material as Garus. Given enough time, he could do it.”

“How much time?”

Panur smirked. “That I do not know, not for sure. It could take a year, or it could take a thousand.”

“But he wrote: Until we meet again,” Adam pointed out. “He thinks it will happen in my lifetime. Is that possible?”

“I suppose it is,” Panur answered. “But your lifetime or beyond, what difference does it make? Garus is immortal. He has all the time it will take. And when he’s done, he will be able to build another Formation and another quantum beam generator.”

“And with them, he could replace all advanced life in the galaxy with his own,” Adam sighed, paraphrasing what Sherri had just said.

“To put it bluntly, yes.”

“Well, damn,” Adam Cain said. “Looks like this story isn’t over, not by a longshot.”

The End

(for now)

More Adam Cain Adventures to follow…

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Novels by T.R. Harris

The Adam Cain Saga

The Dead Worlds

Empires

Battle Plan

Galactic Vortex

Dark Energy

Universal Law

The Formation Code

The Quantum Enigma

Children of the Aris

The Human Chronicles

The Fringe Worlds

Alien Assassin

The War of Pawns

The Tactics of Revenge

The Legend of Earth

Cain’s Crusaders

The Apex Predator

A Galaxy to Conquer

The Masters of War

Prelude to War

The Unreachable Stars

When Earth Reigned Supreme

A Clash of Aliens

Battlelines

The Copernicus Deception

Scorched Earth

Alien Games

The Cain Legacy

The Andromeda Mission

Last Species Standing

Invasion Force

Force of Gravity

Mission Critical

The Lost Universe

The Immortal War

Destroyer of Worlds

Phantoms

Terminus Rising

The Last Aris

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REV: Rebirth

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The Enclaves of Sylox

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Day of the Drone

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Captains Malicious

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