Universal Law: Set in The Human Chronicles Universe (The Adam Cain Saga Book 6) Read online

  Universal Law

  The Adam Cain Saga Book 6

  T.R. Harris

  Set in The Human Chronicles Universe

  THC

  Tom Harris Creations

  Copyright 2020

  by Tom Harris Creations, LLC

  All rights reserved.**

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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 (Coming June 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!

  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

  Epilogue

  The Formation Code

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  Novels by T.R. Harris

  The alien with an attitude is back!

  The Adam Cain Saga Continues

  In this latest adventure…

  With the Dead Zone in turmoil, it’s up to Adam Cain and his Enforcers to keep the peace. Unfortunately, that’s becoming more difficult as the gigantic corporation Maris-Kliss has moved in and begun buying up the Dead Worlds, while also denying the former natives the right to go home. This has created dozens of minor wars on the MK planets, complicating Adam’s life even more. His tiny police force wasn’t designed to be both local enforcement as well as a Zone-wide peace-keeping authority.

  And to top that, a diabolical plot is underway with Adam as its primary target. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. When the plot is finally revealed, Adam finds it stretches from the highest centers of power in the galaxy all the back to before the time of ancient Aris race, over seven billion years ago.

  There are mysteries of the universe still to be revealed—if Adam and his friends can live long enough to figure them out. But you should know by now to never underestimate our heroes’ propensity for getting out to tight jams—and coming out winners in the end.

  Adam Cain and friends are back!

  Let the adventure begin!

  Chapter 1

  Adam Cain took a probe from the exam kit and placed the metal rod through a hole in the shattered skull, before gently pulling back the flesh and exposing the bloody mush that had once been a brain.

  The sickening injury was caused by what the natives called a mulquet, a type of weapon that was draped over a victim’s head and then made to squeeze with equal pressure in all directions until bone fractured and eyes popped out. The skull fragments stayed together—somewhat—encased now in a flaccid bag of skin, while the brain turned to mush.

  And this was just one of the various methods the natives of Lindahl employed against their enemies. Scattered about the crime scene lay the victims of their latest terrorist attack—nineteen in all—and with few displaying the same method of execution as the others. Lindahlese were nothing if not creative when it came to their killing techniques. They initially shot a few of the workers with energy weapons before herding the rest of them into a park where they were systematically executed with an assortment of hand tools, including bludgeons, blades, presses and more. It was a truly horrific scene, even for Adam.

  But as he discovered, this was more than just a simple attack by vindictive natives against the Maris-Kliss employees now occupying the planet. This had been a ritualistic sacrifice of grotesque proportions, designed not only to rid the planet of the occupiers but to instill terror in those who refused to leave. Adam thought this kind of ritualistic mutilation was a thing of the past on the more civilized worlds in the galaxy, but looking around at the bloody killing field, he could see he was mistaken.

  “How could sentient beings do such savage acts of cruelty?” said the MK representative, a hair-covered creature named Janor Kram. “To rip bodies apart with such apparent gust and glee.” His yellow eyes were manic with both fear and anger. The victims were part of his local work crew.

  Adam didn’t look up, preferring to keep his attention focused on the murder victim. Still, he gave an embarrassed shrug. Yeah, how could living beings do such a thing? he thought. Maybe I should start by asking the Human race? In the scheme of things, the Lindahlese didn’t have an exclusive on sadism. Not when considering Adam’s background.

  Although the cause of death varied, each of the dead had their right foot cut off and was now missing. Trophies, Adam wondered? If so, then pretty cumbersome keepsakes. He would have to learn more about Lindahlese ceremonial killings before he could give a definitive answer, but it was a good bet. He rose to his feet, allowing the angry MK supervisor to step in front of him.

  “The natives should have never been allowed back on the planet,” he barked at Adam. “They have no right to be here. MK owns Lindahl now.”

  “The title transfer is being
challenged,” Adam said unnecessarily, which only inflamed the hairy alien even more.

  “MK negotiated in good faith with the lead refugee group for the purchase. We followed all universal laws. These terrorists are the disgruntled natives now disputing that transaction.” Janor managed a tight grin. “And if they expect their rights to supersede those of MK, I assure you, that will never happen.”

  “I’m not here to decide the politics of the situation,” Adam said. “The refugees say they have a right to repel invaders to their world, and MK says it’s not their world anymore. Either way, you can’t go around killing each other, not on my watch.”

  “Your watch? A timepiece? I do not understand.”

  “Never mind,” Adam said impatiently, waving off the comment. He looked to a small group of Lindahlese huddled in a group, guarded by a combination of his Enforcers and the mercenaries MK brought in to help squelch the terrorist activity. On the ground next to the guards were the bodies of six natives. According to Janor, the refugees had been caught nearby, although none carried weapons or showed signs of having been in a battle. But because they were found hiding within the local buildings, they were rounded up, tortured, and some killed. To MK, any native was a trespasser and subject to its own form of justice.

  That wasn’t the standard by which Adam and his Enforcers operated. All parties, including the Juireans, Humans, refugees—even MK—had agreed to a uniform set of basic laws that governed the Dead Zone. And since MK was operating as a company and not a government, it didn’t have the right to make its own laws when it came to capital punishment. Both acts—the terrorism, as well as the torture and murder of the prisoners—were against the law. Adam’s law. And since he was visiting the planetary Enforcer station at the time of the attack, the whole mess was dropped in his lap. Although he had a local deputy who was officially in charge of the investigation, he felt obliged to go along for the ride. As the Marshal of the Zone, he was now a convenient target for the MK official’s growing anger.

  “You must order all natives to leave the planet,” Janor continued. “Use your resources, or else MK will use ours.”

  “I can’t do that. We didn’t authorized the refugees to return to Lindahl,” Adam said. “And according to the law, they haven’t been denied access, either. If they get to the surface, we can’t remove them unless they break the law.”

  “Lindahl is our property. We can restrict access as we see fit.”

  “That’s true. If you catch any of the natives, you must detain them until my Enforcers can take custody. But you can’t indiscriminately kill people simply for trespassing. And if you or your hired muscle insist on murdering innocent—”

  “Innocent!” Janor exclaimed. “Look around you, Marshal Cain. Everything we have done here has been in self-defense.”

  “Did the six dead natives threaten you in any way? They weren’t armed. And did any admit to being part of the raiding party?” Adam asked.

  “They are savages, they admit to nothing. But they are here, and my crew is dead. They were involved.”

  “And that’s what the investigation will determine.”

  Adam signaled for his field commander, a huge Rigorian named Jov, to begin loading the prisoners into one of the transport trucks. The MK mercenaries tensed, refusing at first to allow the natives out of their custody. If the Enforcers had not shown up when they did, Adam was sure all the prisoners would be dead by now. With a nod from Janor, the mercs backed away.

  Adam sighed as he surveyed the tragic scene once more. He was caught between a rock and a hard place, being able to sympathize with both sides of the conflict.

  First of all, years ago, Maris-Kliss moved into the Dead Zone, and on their own dime, began decontaminating whole worlds of the radiation left over from the attacks of the Mad Aris Kracion seven years earlier. Then they sprinkled potent fertilizer on the surface, allowing nearly all of the one hundred worlds in the Zone to recover ecologically much faster than they would have naturally. But MK didn’t do this out of the goodness of their heart. They wanted something in return.

  Recently, the company began offering the lead refugees from dozens of worlds lump-sum buyouts for ownership of their homeworlds. Most of the refugee groups were already in the process of stripping their planets of anything of value and selling it off throughout the galaxy. This was great for the leaders, the elites from the planets who fled ahead of Kracion’s attacks with most of their wealth intact. They were only adding to it now.

  But the core groups seldom numbered over two hundred individuals from each race, sometimes leaving a million other refugees with the scraps that dribbled down to them. And now the elites were being offered an extravagant sum to surrender their worlds to MK. The lower tier refugees protested, with the vast majority wishing to return to their homes eventually. They had never been keen on the salvage of their worlds, but as intense radiation ravaged the planets, they had little choice. That changed when MK cleaned up the planets. But now their so-called representatives were in the process of selling them out completely, leaving the remaining refugees high and dry.

  When the majority of the refugees protested, the elites simply signed the agreements with MK, took the credits and snubbed their noses at their fellow natives. Hundreds of thousands never saw a chip from the transfer, while their betters made off like bandits.

  In the meantime, Maris-Kliss took their highly questionable deeds and proceeded to stop all salvage operations and evict anyone who wasn’t an employee or contractor of the company, including a fair number of natives who had repatriated to their homeworlds despite no legal standing to do so.

  At first, the refugee groups elected new leaders and sought recourse through the legal system. But when fighting against the largest corporation in the galaxy, more significant than even the Human Orion-Cygnus Union and second in wealth and influence only to the Juirean Expansion, there wasn’t much hope of them finding justice.

  Some of the outside negotiators—the Humans included—asked why the refugees couldn’t return to their homeworlds as employees of MK, thereby liberating them from a life in exile? But the regional Director of the company would have none of it. He wanted only loyal employees working his worlds and felt the returning natives would not have the same dedication. They would feel more privileged, more entitled. As he said, more like citizens rather than employees. Adam smirked when he first heard that. They would act more like, well, natives, beings who had sprung into existence on the worlds and later evolved over billions of years to become the top of the food chain, the prime indigenous species on a planet. That was until MK and their lawyers came along.

  So, instead of an endless and costly battle in the courts, many of the natives chose to slip back onto their reclaimed homeworlds and launch violent resistance actions against MK and their employees, along with the mercenaries they hired to maintain security.

  Adam could see the motivations on both sides. MK was owed something for all the effort and money they’d spent bringing the worlds of the Dead Zone back to life. But the native refugees also deserved to be allowed to return to their homeworlds, and not merely as worker bees. However, Adam thought it unfair that a handful of highly-placed, wealthy, and influential refugees could make the decisions for all the survivors of a particular race. The full populations were never allowed to vote on whether or not to sell their planets to MK. And by then, the elites had already written off their former homeworlds, as evidenced by the wholesale salvage taking place throughout the Zone.

  Yes, Adam understood the arguments—on both sides. But as he told Janor, he was not there to render judgment. Instead, he was there to enforce the law. And until the powers that be made a definitive ruling in the case of the Refugees vs. Maris-Kliss, he couldn’t allow each side to go around massacring one another.

  The responsibility fell to him and his Enforcers to maintain some semblance of peace. Expecting tranquility to go along with the peace was asking far too much.

  Chapter 2
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  One of the drawbacks of Adam’s artificial telepathy device—even the enhanced ATD he currently carried—was that it didn’t operate on auto mode. For example, for him to detect flash weapon energy signatures, he had to search for them consciously. Fortunately, he’d began monitoring the weapons of the MK mercenaries moments before when Jov began moving the native prisoners to the transport, keeping an eye on the signals in case the mercs had any surprises up their alien sleeves.

  That’s when he noticed the line of additional energy signals encircling the crime scene. There were far too many for them to be rogue mercenary units. Besides, they were coming from within the buildings of the city, and from all directions.

  Adam engaged his throat mic.

  “Jov, alert your troops. We have hostiles closing in, all directions, approximately fifty or so, armed with energy weapons.”

  “Natives?” the Rigorian inquired, his voice deep and rough as gravel.

  “Probably. They must be using the first attack to lure in more targets, targets with weapons. The workers had none. Set up a defense at the trucks. We’re surrounded. I’ll tell Janor.”