Dark Energy: Set in The Human Chronicles Universe (The Adam Cain Saga Book 5) Read online

  Dark Energy

  The Adam Cain Saga - Book #5

  T.R. Harris

  The Human Chronicles Universe

  THC

  Tom Harris Creations

  Copyright 2020

  by Tom Harris Creations, LLC

  All rights reserved.**

  Three Free Books

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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 (coming May 2020)

  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

  The Human Chronicles Box Set Series

  Box Set #1 – Books 1-5 in the series

  Box Set #2 – Books 6-10 in the series

  Box Set #3 – Books 11-15 in the series

  Box Set #4 – Books 16-20 in the series

  Box Set #5—Books 21-25 in the series

  REV Warriors Series

  Rev

  REV: Renegades

  REV: Rebirth

  REV: Revolution

  REV: Retribution

  REV: Revelations (coming soon)

  REV Warriors Box Set #1 – Books 1-3 in the series

  Jason King – Agent to the Stars Series

  The Enclaves of Sylox

  Treasure of the Galactic Lights

  The Drone Wars Series

  Day of the Drone

  In collaboration with Co-Author George Wier…

  The Liberation Series

  Captains Malicious

  Available exclusively on Amazon.com and FREE to members of Kindle Unlimited.

  Contents

  The alien with an attitude is back!

  Adam Cain

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Next Up — Universal Law

  Author’s Notes

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  Novels by T.R. Harris

  The alien with an attitude is back!

  The Adam Cain Saga

  If it’s not one thing, it’s another. And now it’s an ancient Aris service module named Kanan who’s causing all the problems. In the continuation of Galactic Vortex, Adam Cain and Co. are trying to save The Dead Zone from Kanan and his fleet of super warships piloted by an army of deadly service modules.

  Employing a weapon of unbelievable power, Kanan is on a mission to destroy all Union and Expansion forces in the Zone, even if he has to destroy whole planets in the process.

  So, how does one defeat an impossible-to-destroy, three-billion-year-old artificial intelligence with an unbeatable fleet behind him? You call in your mutant friends, Panur and Lila, that’s how!

  That’s right, the gang’s all here, including Copernicus, Summer, Monty and Tidus, along with the regulars Adam, Sherri, Riyad, Kaylor and Jym.

  It’s a cast reunion for The Human Chronicles, back for another round of thrilling space opera adventure.

  Adam Cain and friends are back!

  So, let the alien ass-kicking commence!

  Adam Cain

  is an Alien with an Attitude

  His story continues…

  Chapter 1

  “I’m going to personally strangle each and every one of those lying Gracilian bastards!” Copernicus growled. “They set us up. They’ve been working with Kanan all along.”

  “Get in line,” Adam Cain said. “You’re not the one who was this close to being sucked into a blackhole.”

  Coop laughed. “Well, seeing that you were draped over my unconscious body at the time, I was right there with you, buddy. We would have shared the bliss of eternity together.”

  Adam shuddered. “I hadn’t thought of that. I can think of quite a few other people I’d rather have my atoms fused with than you … buddy.”

  The pair had just entered the tactical command center at the newly designated Camp Forrester on Navarus. Since the facility was now the largest military base in the Dead Zone, Earth felt it deserved more of an identity than simply Fleet Operations Center—Navarus. John Forrester was someone who had done something way back when and was now being honored with a military base named after him. Adam was okay with that. He’d grown weary of calling it The Garrison. And besides, with the influx of funds and fame, the hospital had been beefed up, making it the only place in the Dead Zone that catered almost exclusively to Humans.

  Both he and Copernicus were brought to the hospital the day before after the evil Aris service module Kanan nearly shocked them to death with bolts of dark energy. Fortunately, Adam’s newly-acquired artificial telepathy device—his ATD—saved both their lives. It absorbed the energy and then vented it through a miniature blackhole within the pencil-sized device embedded under his right armpit. The problem: It nearly overloaded in the process, which would have sucked Adam—and everything within a twenty-foot circumference—into the microscopic singularity. To everyone’s relief, Adam’s immortal mutant friend Panur showed up at the last second and saved his life, along with Coop’s—and probably a lot more.

  The injuries they suffered were minor, and they were released from the hospital earlier that morning. They’d come to the operations center to witness what they hoped would be the final few minutes of Kanan’s miserable existence.

  The day before, Kanan and four of his subservient modern service modules had escaped Navarus in one of their dark-energy warships. To do so, they had to pass through the strength of the Union forces around the planet. Their sudden departure caught most of the defenders flatfooted, and the ship slipped out of the star system and into clear space before bolting away faster than any of its pursuers. But now other Human ships from within the Zone were moving in, attempting to box in the vessel and destroy it with overwhelming firepower. A full squadron of Union starships was about to unleash Hell upon the single Gracilian vessel, hopefully putting an end to Kanan and the havoc he was
wrecking on the Zone.

  “Where is he?” Adam Cain asked as he and Coop entered the dimly lit command center. There was frenetic energy in the room as officers and enlisted studied their scopes and screens, analyzing data sent in from sixteen light-years away.

  “He’s passing the DZ-18 star system,” a lieutenant colonel reported. Although Adam wasn’t officially in Earth’s military any longer, he still commanded a fair amount of respect and deference at the Human garrison. “We have twenty-eight ships moving it to block him. As you know, his damn dark-energy warship is a lot faster than ours; the only way we’re going to get him is by trapping him within a containment formation.”

  Adam grimaced. Good luck with that, he thought. He didn’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but he knew Kanan wouldn’t allow himself to be trapped—not unless he wanted to be. Although Adam sincerely hoped for victory, he was also pragmatic. Deep inside, he was having trouble believing the coming engagement was going to work out to the Union’s advantage.

  During the brief time Adam spent in the hospital, a number of questions nagged at him. First was the fact that Adam and Copernicus had been incredibly lucky at luring Kanan into a trap, allowing them to capture him and transport the evil machine to Navarus. The trip back from Tarenuga had taken six days. Then upon arriving on Navarus, they discovered that the supposed containment field the Gracilians scientists had built to hold Kanan and the other service modules was nothing of the sort. The field had been a sham, part of a plan to do what, exactly? Get Kanan to Navarus? It was a sobering thought that Kanan could have killed both he and Coop anytime he wanted. Luckily, he waited until the ship returned to Navarus to try. That was when Panur stepped in.

  However, for the past eighteen hours, the question ‘Why’ was bugging him. Why did he come all the way to Navarus to do something he could have done anytime over the prior six days? Not only that, but Kanan and the four newer service modules would then be stuck on Navarus, all alone, and with their main fleet over six hundred light-years away. What did Kanan hope to gain by coming all the way to Navarus?

  “What about the rest of his fleet?” Adam asked, referring to Kanan’s nearly five-hundred-unit strong force of super-starships. “Any movement?” After Adam and Coop’s supposed abduction of Kanan, the fleet left the planet Tarenuga and moved to Saloc, on the other side of Arret. Why they had moved was another question that needed answering.

  A petty officer first-class answered. “No sir, still on Saloc. That appears to be where Kanan is headed.”

  Colonel Todd Oaks stepped up to Adam and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Just be glad the fleet isn’t headed for Navarus, captain, at least not yet. It gives us a little more time to prepare.”

  Adam and Copernicus shook the hand of the base commander.

  “I’m glad to see the two of you are doing better,” said Oaks. “It’s really sickening what happened to Jack.”

  He was referring to Jack Brown, the senior intelligence officer for the Orion-Cygnus Union within the Dead Zone, and Coop’s immediate supervisor. Kanan killed him the day before with a blast of dark energy. Adam felt responsible for the death, figuring the bolt was intended for him and not Jack. There was no reason for Kanan to kill the master spy.

  A Navy commander stepped up to the group. Oaks turned to the officer.

  “Mr. Smith, I’m sure you know Commander Rob Rigby. He was Jack’s second-in-command. He’ll be assuming his duties until Earth can get a replacement out here.”

  First Coop, then Adam shook the commander’s hand.

  “I’m glad someone is taking over who knows the lay of the land,” Copernicus said. “Hopefully, they’ll let you stay in command.” Coop and Rigby had worked together before.

  “I appreciate that, Mr. Smith,” the officer said. “But I’m not sure if I want the job. The Zone is the center of the universe at this point. It could explode at any moment.”

  Adam knew the man didn’t mean it. From the glint in his eyes, Adam could tell the Naval officer was addicted to the adventure.

  Oaks turned to the room and the myriad of scopes and screens that cast the occupants in an eerie greenish glow.

  “Hopefully, this will work. We know Kanan is the key to everything. Either we defeat his fleet or we defeat him. The fleet is proving to be nearly invincible; just ask the Juireans. And now Kanan has given us a chance to focus our efforts on him exclusively. We know where he is. All we have to do now is finish the job.”

  Again, Adam grimaced. If only it were that simple.

  But now the game was about to start. On half a dozen screens, a mass of white lines were about to intersect with a red one, getting closer by the second. From the look of things, Kanan’s ship was boxed in, to a degree. Even so, would twenty-eight ships be enough to take out the dark-energy-powered Gracilian warship, with its superior speed, weaponry and shielding? He would know soon enough.

  “Reports coming in,” said the first-class. “Change in course; Kanan’s lining up for a counterattack.”

  Adam bit his bottom lip. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t going to turn out good for the allies.

  Adam scanned the graphic display of the battlefield. Even with twenty-eight warships closing in around him, with his superior speed Kanan still had multiple escape routes available. The fact that he was lining up for an attack of his own meant he was confident with the outcome. And if so, then he was just being a dick, willing to take a few Union warships with him when it wasn’t necessary. It was time to find out of his confidence had merit.

  Bubbles flared on the screen, signaling the first contact. Immediately, two of the Human warships winked out on the monitor. Then another two. The remaining twenty-two vessels began to regroup, their formation disrupted by the rapid movement of the Gracilian warship and its unexpected counterattack. The squadron began to cluster together, consolidating firepower against the solitary target. In response, Kanan sent his ship streaking away before making a wide overhead loop, now coming at the cluster of allied vessels from port. A moment later, the dark-energy ship entered the formation, blasting away with dual sets of high-powered flash weapons, each rated at fifty-percent stronger than anything the Humans could bring to bear.

  The Human formation was in a state of confusion. The enemy was within their midst, preventing the allies from taking clean shots without the risk of hitting a friendly. Although a few captains panicked and lit off flash bolts at the rapidly transiting enemy warship, they were quickly told to stand down as their bolts struck the screens of allied vessels.

  By the time Kanan emerged from the other side of the formation, another six Human warships were either destroyed or damaged to the point where they would have to be towed back to base for repairs. Ten out of the twenty-eight warships were now out of the fight, and all against one enemy vessel. Such was the challenge the Human forces faced in the Zone against Kanan’s super warships. Only a little over a week ago, the Juireans lost eight hundred vessels to take out a hundred of Kanan’s force. The attrition rate was horrific. At the current rate, it would take a combined armada of ten thousand or more to wipe out his units, and only if the battle was carried out within a unified battlefield where Kanan would allow his fleet to go head-to-head against the allies. Adam was sure he wouldn’t let that happen. Even if the allies could muster such a large fleet—and at the moment that was several months away before coming together—Kanan would never send his ships against such a large force. He wasn’t that stupid.

  After having made his point, Kanan turned his vessel and bolted away, much to the relief of the ravaged squadron. None of the remaining sixteen Human warships took up the pursuit—they knew they wouldn’t be able to keep up with Kanan anyway, making a rematch a possibility only if Kanan chose to have one. Instead, captains began to tend to the wounded, tethering their ships to the damaged vessels while others scoured the debris field for survivors who might be drifting in the vacuum of space.

  The initial spirit and enthusiasm in the comma
nd center had drained away by this point, leaving in its wake a thick cloak of despair. This was the first encounter between Human forces and those of the insane Aris service module. It didn’t bode well for the future.

  The battle ended as abruptly as it began, and now Colonel Oaks was on a link with Admiral David Adkins, the area commander for the Human forces in the Dead Zone. The admiral had watched the battle from his flagship in orbit around Navarus, and now the two officers were discussing what should happen next. Once Kanan linked up with his fleet, they wouldn’t stay stationery for long. And with the current state of the Zone, there weren’t a lot of options for Kanan to attack. It came down to three: The Human base on Htay-Win, along with the planets Dasnon and Navarus. That was where most of the allied forces in the Zone were assembled, besides the random units on patrol duty. Kanan would surely make a move against the strongholds. Over the past few weeks, even before the Juirean battle, Kanan’s forces were raiding the planets of the Zone, killing innocent colonists without hesitation or remorse. It was also unnecessary. But still he did it, probably as a way to get the allies to act, to send out flotillas to engage his fleet in smaller skirmishes, battles that would have a guaranteed result.