The Copernicus Deception (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 15) Page 6

  Copernicus smiled at the guard. “Looking forward to it. Back home, I have a beast like that for a pet. You just have to let them know who’s the boss.”

  The native blinked several times, not knowing how else to react to the comment. Eventually, she shoved the trio forward.

  At the wooden landing of the nearest building, more prisoners sprayed water on their mud-caked boots before allowing them to enter, yet even with the quasi-cleaning, the inside floor was covered in a combination of wet mud and dried dirt. Two older Visidorans sat at a counter. The Humans hovered above the guards.

  The supervisors wore dirty, once-white striped shirts, while the other guards wore uniforms with orange stripes. One of the seated officials had a red circle sewn onto the top stripe. She looked up from a computer screen and surveyed the new prisoners.

  “This indicates you to be Humans?”

  “That’s correct, we are Humans,” Copernicus replied.

  “We have never had Humans here before. As a fact, I have never seen a Human before in true life. Are the markings on your face some form of camouflage?”

  “No, those are bruises, a gift from your Juirean masters.” Copernicus threw out his chest in a show of defiance, wearing his injuries as a badge of honor.

  The native guard huffed and glanced at her counter-companion. “Yes, the Juireans…but they are not our masters,” she said with a frown. Then she grinned. “As Humans, it will be entertaining to see if you are all your reputation claims you to be.” She looked back at Copernicus. “From my first analysis, I would say the stories have been…embellished.”

  “We wish to cause no problems while here,” Adam said before Copernicus could reply. The starship repairman was angry and eager to boast about the superiority of Humans. Adam knew that was not the smartest tact to take in this situation. “We are not responsible for the stories you have heard. We are just simple creatures who wish only to get along with other species.”

  The guard frowned. “Yet the Juireans fear you enough to have you sent here.”

  “You know how the Juireans can be,” Adam said. “Always trying insert themselves into other people’s business.”

  The native nodded, as did her partner. In their eyes Adam saw not only fear, but also contempt. The Juireans had that effect on people, no matter what species you were.

  “That alters not the fact that you are to be held here until further notice. As you witnessed outside, there is a constant demand for laborers to maintain the facility. If Humans are as portrayed, then you will become an asset in our fight against the growth. You will be given quarters and then assignments; you begin in two standard hours. Rest…if you can.”

  ********

  Beyond the check-in station the Human trio was led into a long open bay barracks with double rows of bunks ending at a door at the far end of the room. The cots were filthy, with brown stains on the fabric mattresses and dirt on the floors. There was a small, open shelving unit between the head of the bed and outer wall, were prisoners stored extra clothing and toiletries. Only about a third of the bunks were occupied at the time, although nearly all of them appeared to be claimed.

  A guard directed the Humans toward the far end of the room.

  “You two can take these,” said the rare male guard to Adam and Riyad. “One of the bunks has only recently become available.”

  The two Humans looked at each other. Only recently become available—as within the past ten minutes?

  A little further along, the guard assigned a bunk to Copernicus, this one also appeared to be occupied, yet possibly no longer.

  “Shift change at night4. Wear what you have on, or scrounge through the prior occupant’s possessions. What you acquire there—or from others—is all you will have available.”

  Adam and Riyad sat down on their respective cots, facing one another. “I didn’t see Jym or Kaylor in here,” said Riyad. “They could be in another building or on their work shift.”

  “They shouldn’t be hard to find,” Adam said. “There looks to be about a five to one ratio of natives to aliens here. Our two friends should stand out—”

  “What the hell! Leave that alone!”

  Adam and Riyad followed the sound of Coop’s voice, seeing him standing chest-to-groin with a beast that towered close to ten feet tall. This was one of the other aliens in the prison, and of a species neither of them had seen before. Copernicus looked tiny compared to the huge creature.

  A long and narrow head, sporting a menacing-looking snout, glared down at Copernicus. He was not only tall, but easily twice the width of the Human, with arms reaching nearly to his knees. The creature wore a surprisingly clean set of shirt and pants, and looking past where the two were facing off, Adam noticed a veritable oasis in the form of a segregated bunk area, obviously made to accommodate a being of gigantic proportions and elevated status.

  When compared to all the other prisoners Adam had seen, this creature would be the natural apex predator, and as such, had staked out his territory with little resistance from the others—including the guards. Now he had taken an interest in what was in the open cabinet at Coop’s bunk.

  “I will take what I want—Bordis is dead. His possessions are now mine,” the huge beast growled.

  “That’s not how it was explained to me,” Copernicus countered.

  The creature looked past the scrawny Human and at the four guards in the room. The natives turned quickly and left the room without a backwards glance. Adam and Riyad rose to their feet, noticing eight of the other prisoners slowly closing in on them. Only two of their stalkers were the shorter natives. The rest were taller, meaner-looking aliens.

  Adam and Riyad looked at each other. “So much for trying to play it cool,” Riyad sighed, flashing his trademark grin.

  Adam turned to the advancing aliens and held up his arms, palms out. The aliens stopped advancing. Then he swept his hands downward and turned, making a presenting motion to where the face-off between the giant and the Human was about to come to a head. The outcome of that confrontation would determine if Adam and Riyad had to get involved.

  The giant was surprisingly fast for his huge size, managing to lift a tree-trunk size arm and wrap it around Coop’s slender body before the Human could react. Yet it was his smallish stature that allowed him to slip down and out of the grip with little effort. But then the second arm came swinging around like a bat, catching Copernicus off guard. The impact was tremendous, sending the Human tumbling to the other side of the room and into a series of bunks. Two prisoners were standing next to the beds; they grabbed Copernicus by the arms and shoved him back in the direction of the giant.

  Using the prisoner-provided momentum-assist in the light gravity of Visidor, Coop leapt from the floor, extending a bunched up fist ahead of him as he formed a Human-size dart in the air. The fist landed squarely on the tip of the giant’s long snout, crushing bone and cartilage upon impact. Then the full weight of the Human fell into the shocked alien. The pair tumbled backwards, the giant’s body crushing an adjoining bunk under his incredible weight.

  Copernicus was now on top of the huge beast, delivering blow after furious blow to the creature’s head. The beast was dazed, yet still managed to clamp an umbrella-size hand over Coop’s head and pull him away. Then the creature stood, holding the Human by the head, his feet dangling a good three feet above the floor.

  Adam was about to intervene when he saw Coop grab hold of a thick finger and bend in back. A loud snap was followed by an agonizing scream. The giant released Copernicus, who landed lithely on the floor, crouched and ready for action.

  Yet the giant didn’t counterattack; he was preoccupied, cradling his broken finger in his good hand, eyes wide, a loud whimper escaping his mouth.

  Copernicus didn’t hesitate. With a textbook spin-kick, he whipped around and planted a mud-caked boot into the alien’s left knee, a target that was just below chest-high to the Human. The force of the kick shattered the kneecap. The giant cried out again
as he stumbled backwards, tripped over the broken cot and fell on his back onto two more prison beds. These, too, shattered under his weight.

  Copernicus snatched one of the broken bunk’s metal support rods off the floor and hopped onto the remnants of the bed. He stood over the writhing beast, lifting the metal rod in preparation of the final blow—

  Suddenly, Coop dropped the rod and grabbed at the collar on his neck.

  Adam and Riyad mirrored the movement, as powerful electric charges rattled their brains and blurred their vision. All three Humans collapsed to their knees clawing at the rings.

  The shock ended, leaving a deep burning sensation in its wake. Guards rushed up, flash weapons held steady on the Humans. The Visidoran with the red circle on her uniform walked up to Adam, who was just beginning to stand.

  The supervisor surveyed the rest of the room, pausing as she did at the diminutive Copernicus Smith, now standing above the still moaning giant. She turned back to Adam.

  “Truth revealed, so it seems,” she proclaimed. “Within the bay rules are set by the prisoners. We do not interfere unless it escalates beyond a certain point. Normally, we would have let your fellow Human complete his action, yet the Salken is a—how do I term it—an associate of ours. His presence maintains a certain order. Without a barracks hierarchy, chaos would rule. However, that responsibility must now fall on you.”

  She reached out and tapped the collar around Adam’s neck. “Quite effective, are they not? No matter what happens in the barracks, let it be a reminder as to who has the authority here.”

  She turned to the other guards, ordering them to remove the whimpering Salken giant from the room. Ten minutes later they were gone, leaving the three Humans alone to face the other prisoners.

  Fortunately, none of them were anxious to follow in the footsteps of the fallen giant.

  Chapter 11

  With matching grins, the trio of Humans decided it was all together fitting and proper that they should occupy the giant’s oasis, at least until he was released from the hospital—assuming they even had a hospital in the prison. There was plenty of room for all three of them and additional cots were moved into the segregated area, and without a word of protest from the other prisoners.

  Once settled in, they huddled together.

  “That was some fancy spin-kick you made, Mr. Smith,” Adam said suspiciously. “They teach you that in Army motor-pool school?”

  “A man picks up a few self-defense skills along the way, Cain. Don’t read too much into it. The bigger question is how are we going to get out of here with these damn collars around our necks?”

  Adam looked at Riyad. “That won’t be a problem—when the time comes. But first we have to find Kaylor and Jym.”

  Coop nodded. “Okay, you guys seem to think the collars aren’t an issue—that’s fine. But what if we do find Kaylor and Jym and manage to escape? It took us two hours by transport to reach this god-forsaken place. So either we steal a truck and try to make our way back to the spaceport over the only road through the jungle, or we go cross-country. You did notice that they have dinosaurs here, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, and I understand you have one as a pet back home, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Coop smirked. “Seriously, what’s your plan?”

  Adam looked around the room to make sure no one was watching. Then he reached up and removed his security collar.

  Coop’s mouth fell open. “How…how the hell did you do that?”

  “The same way I manipulated the light switch on your ship. A little gift from the Formilians. Never leave home without it.”

  “So it is true!”

  “What’s true?” Adam replaced the collar and activated the latching controls through his brain-interface device.

  “That you have—for lack of a better word—special powers.”

  “It’s just technology, Coop, nothing more,” said Riyad. “I used to have one, too.”

  “One what?”

  “Never mind,” Adam said quickly. “Let’s focus on the matter at hand. In an hour we’re going to be put to work. Keep an eye out for Kaylor and Jym, while making sure nothing reaches out from the jungle and eats you alive. That would really screw up my plans.”

  “I’ll do my best not to inconvenience you, Mister Cain,” Coop said.

  “For the record…it’s Captain Cain to you.”

  “In that case, you can call me Sergeant Smith.”

  Both men looked at Riyad.

  “Ha!” he said, flashing his trademark white smile. “I’ve got you both beat. They used to call me General Tarazi back in the days of the Fringe Pirates. So I guess that puts me in charge.”

  “In your dreams,” Adam said with a smile. “In your friggin’ dreams…General.”

  ********

  On cue, a gaggle of mud-caked and weary prisoners entered the barracks at the end of their shift, while guards rousted others from their beds and began to herd them out the back door.

  The new prisoners took notice of the occupants in the small, segregated compound at the end of the room and mumbled conversations could be heard during the changeover.

  Two guards approached the oasis.

  “You two…to work,” one of them said, pointing to Adam and Riyad. “You will remain in the barracks to maintain order.” She pointed at Copernicus.

  “I want to go with them,” Coop protested.

  The guards looked at each other with shock before turning stunned faces back to Copernicus. “You wish to work rather than remain here? That is not logical.”

  “They are my friends.”

  “That still does not make sense. Only one of you is required for security. You may rotate between yourselves, but two of you are going to work.”

  “We’ll go,” said Adam. “But give us a moment with our companion to discuss the rotation schedule.”

  The guards hesitated, but eventually moved on, guiding the other haggard prisoners outside.

  The Humans huddled. “I didn’t see Kaylor and Jym come in with the shift change, so Riyad and I will go out and look for them in the other work crews. If we find them, I’ll make the power in the barracks flicker once. That will be your cue that we’re ready to go.”

  “What about my collar?” Coop asked.

  “I have it identified. When the time is right, I’ll neutralize it.”

  “Just make sure you do. We may be supermen, but, damn, it really hurts when they turn these things on.” Coop grabbed Adam’s arm as he turned to go. “What if they’re in one of the other barracks?”

  “We’ll deal with that when the time comes. We have some additional status here already. We may be able to intermingle with the other prisoners, especially at mealtime.”

  “You make a lot of assumptions…Captain Cain.”

  “It’s called contingency planning. You always need a backup for the backups, and so forth. Now just chill. We may not find them on our first work detail, but I’m sure we will, eventually. And one last thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t go killing anything without checking with me first.”

  “I’ll try…but no promises. And you guys watch your asses. If you get eaten I may be here for the duration.”

  ********

  It was deceptively cold outside the stuffy barracks, and Adam and Riyad were thankful the guards allowed them to keep their full-length capes. They placed the hoods over their heads and cinched down cords. It helped, but the frigid, biting wind still swirled in from underneath the garments.

  What was surprising was that the other prisoners wore very little protective gear. The reason soon began apparent.

  The two Humans joined a parade of prisoners headed for the perimeter of the compound, where they took turns picking up chainsaw-looking devices from several long tables. Watching the others around them activate the cutters, they found they were indeed a form of chainsaw, yet with tiny laser points instead of tines for cutters. Without being directed, t
he compliant prisoners formed a line at the imposing jungle and began to hack at the obscenely huge leaves and vines. In the eerie shadows, the jungle wall appeared to be encroaching on the cleared space at a rate of about a millimeter every few seconds. If one stood still long enough, the progression could be seen; stand long enough in one spot and you would become part of the jungle.

  The saws were amazingly light for the Humans. The gravity of Visidor was .57 that of Earth, making Adam’s one-hundred eighty pound weight only one hundred three on the planet. Normally gravity that light also meant a greatly reduced surface air pressure and corresponding lack of oxygen in the atmosphere. But the abundance of jungle growth on the planet provided ample oxygen, and although both Humans suffered from irritating inner-ear pain, it was something they could tolerate, at least in the short term.

  Adam and Riyad set to work, swiping their laser-tipped chainsaws back and forth against the jungle. Within minutes they were soaked to the skin in the watery spray from the cut vegetation. The physical activity forced them to pull the hoods from their heads and unbutton the front of their capes. Visidor was an enigma. The high humidly provided both a penetrating cold along with a profusion of sweat. Adam knew it wasn’t healthy to sweat in colder climes; that could lead to hyperthermia. So the Humans began to pace themselves, seeing that they were vastly more proficient at clearing than the other prisoners. They took the opportunity to scan the work line, looking for signs of their alien friends.

  Kaylor was a Belsonian, with light blue, almost translucent skin. He stood about two meters tall, so he would stand out in the line of shorter workers, just as did Adam and Riyad. Jym, on the other hand, was about four feet tall and covered in a coat of fine black hair. Adam often compared him to a little black bear, walking on two legs. He would be even shorter than the native Visidorans. So Kaylor was the beacon they were looking for.