“It’s disgusting!” Adam countered back. “How do we get out of here?”
The Hyben stood silent for a moment, looking insulted, letting large droplets of the goo flow down his body. “You are just like all the other non-Hyben. You do not know a good thing when you’re swimming in it. But over here; we can get out this way.”
Adam and Sherri slogged after the Hyben, who didn’t seem to have any trouble navigating through the thick liquid. They soon felt a series of small steps under the surface, which lifted them out of the pool and into another room. Poul motioned with his forearm. “There are water showers over there if you wish to clean off.” He made no move toward the showers himself. Instead, Adam saw the plates of his back carapace vibrate slightly, squeezing more of the goo out from between them as they did so. Adam thought he would vomit.
Sherri ran past him and activated the powerful jets of fresh water in the first shower station she came to. Adam was only a step behind. They both feverishly scrubbed and washed their fully-clothed bodies, with Adam also rinsing off his MK and flash rifle. Luckily, the bolt launchers were more-or-less impervious to water damage, but he still wanted to get the smell off of his weapons — if possible!
While still in the shower, Adam called over to Pouclass="underline" “Where to from here?”
“There is an exit to the outside. It comes out in a hanger next to the administration building. I still can’t understand why you don’t enjoy this.”
With their clothing now soaked with sulfur-smelling water, Adam and Sherri followed the dejected Hyben up a long series of steps until they reached a small room at the far end of an enormous hanger. Holding their weapons at the ready, the two Humans cautiously entered the hanger, looking for any threats. The building appeared to be empty, but Adam knew the authorities were right behind them, and the trail of dripping water from their clothing wouldn’t be hard to follow. Once their route was discerned, a simple radio call would send a squad of armed Hyben into the hanger.
“We’re just improvising here, Poul, but is there anywhere we can hide out nearby?”
The Hyben’s head made a weird wobbling motion, causing Adam to recoil slightly. “I cannot think of a place. The Mulinni — our police force — will keep looking throughout the compound. They will expect us to go back into the town.” He was becoming very agitated.
“What’s on the other side of the yards, away from the town?”
“Just the jungle, but that is dangerous and impassable. Hiba vipers and other nasty creatures reside there.”
Adam looked at Sherri and grinned. “Sounds perfect; they wouldn’t think to look for us there.”
“But I hate snakes!”
“Don’t sweat it. Cooked right, they are quite tasty.”
Just then an old saying popped into Adam’s head, a variation on a quote from the bible, actually: Yea thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil — ’cause I’m the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the valley!
Chapter 8
“Adam Cain, are you certain?”
The Juirean Overlord nodded almost unperceptively at the question posed by the most supreme Juirean of them all, Council Elder Hydon Ra Elys.
“Yes, My Lord. Several witnesses have verified the name, and the physical description we have appears to confirm it. Although reports place him at three other locations at once, this sighting appears to be the most reliable. And we have also discovered a disabled shuttle not far from the scene of the attack so there is a strong possibility that he is still on the planet.”
Hydon thought for a moment. If this was indeed Adam Cain, the leader of the Human terrorists, then all efforts must be made to either capture or kill him. This was what Fleet Marshal Relion’s counter-insurgency group had been assembled to accomplish, yet until now they had not had any significant impact on the activities of Cain and his Raiders, as they called themselves. If Cain was indeed still on Hyben then the Juireans could drop a net over the planet and send in all necessary resources to find him.
“Lord Relion, have your teams converge on Hyben. I don’t care if you have to excoriate the planet and kill every living thing there — I want Adam Cain either dead or captured. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly, My Lord, yet if there are substantial civilian casualties, it may not play too well politically.”
“Let me worry about that. You just bring me the heart of Adam Cain, beating or otherwise.”
Chapter 9
Juirean Overlord Kackil Fe Nulon received the communication with an air of detached inevitability. Forward scouts had detected the Human fleet at the edge of the Barrier, entering Sector 17 precisely where expected. As the senior Juirean in the Fringe, he understood his role in the upcoming encounter, and he would do what was necessary. It was the only way to assure victory in the long-run.
The Juirean fleet had assembled at the edge of the Void, near Melfora Lum, and consisted of just over two hundred first-line Class-4 and Class-5 battlecruisers, with a few Class-3’s thrown in as well. It was a formidable force, one which would have withstood any assault within the Expansion over the past thousand years. And yet it was only one-quarter the size of the fleet that had been utterly destroyed by the Humans off their homeworld of Earth. As such, Kackil had no illusions as to the outcome of the impending battle.
The scouts had reported a force of just over one-thousand ships entering the Void and heading his way. Initially determined to be much smaller vessels than his battlecruisers, he nonetheless could not underestimate the firepower that each of the Human ships carried. In fact, he had been surprised — even shocked — to hear that the ships the invaders manned had actually been designed and built by the thought-to-be-extinct Klin, a race of beings whose memory haunted the dreams of every Juirean.
It had been over four thousand years since the days of The Reckoning, a time when the Juireans had performed genocide on the Klin race. Since then, a sort of racial guilt had permeated the Juirean consciousness over the extermination of three billion Klin, without warning or mercy. But The Reckoning had been necessary — all Juireans knew this — as revenge for the senseless killing of millions of their own people as a result of Klin lies and deception.
Yes, the destruction of an entire race of beings was a horrific thing. Yet the Klin had deserved what they got, and the Juireans, through the millennia, had made a tenuous peace with their conflicted emotions.
But even then, the Juireans knew that a few of the Klin had survived. And now, after four thousand years of silence, they had reemerged as allies of the savage Human barbarians. Kackil had studied the reports provided by the Council and he knew the Klin were still few in number serving more as technical advisors to the Humans rather than as active participants in the battles to follow. Still, with the scientific wizardry of the Klin — the basis for the entire technological foundation of the Expansion — this meant that the Humans would have the most-advanced starships ever built, along with their accompanying weapon systems.
So even small in stature, the warships of the Human/Klin fleet were not to be taken lightly.
In face of this reality, the Juirean Council had offered the Overlord with two very distinct battle plans for the upcoming confrontation, and it would be Kackil’s responsibility, made in the heat of battle, to determine which to follow.
Kackil had read with growing anger the report detailing the battle that had taken place off the Human’s homeworld. It was obvious that the Juirean fleet had been tricked, and not afforded the opportunity to engage the Humans in head-to-head combat. Instead, Overlord Yan’wal and his fleet had been ambushed by the Humans, waiting in orbit already in dark status. The fleet had been attacked by ships previously undetected and fired upon from point-blank range. His brother Juireans never even had a chance to fight back.