Last Species Standing: The Human Chronicles Saga #20 Read online

  As it turned out, he didn’t have to. Nolan did it for him. Bringing up their six, the Marine colonel sent a spray of M-101 bullets into the two aliens as they appeared at the top of the stairs. Eventually the word would get out that there would be a heavy price to pay for trying to collect the bounty on Adam and his team. So far, the message hadn’t been received. Not yet.

  Five flights below the ground floor, they came to a secure door made of shiny metal. Arieel used her powers to unlock and open the door and the team rushed through to the other side. On its own, the huge panel swung shut behind them.

  They were in a large room with a wide corridor running away into a gloomy darkness. The walls were made of metal, looking nothing like any catacombs Adam had ever seen or imagined, especially something that was supposed to be a thousand years old.

  “These are catacombs?” he asked Arieel as she slid off his back.

  “No. This is the connecting tunnel to the catacombs. If we had constructed the building over them, they would have crumbled from the effect. Follow me.”

  Arieel led them into the dimly lit corridor.

  Although she and the aliens ran as fast as they could, eventually they had to climb back on the Humans to make better time. Adam took the lead, his enhanced strength allowing him to move twenty yards ahead of the others before he had to slow down to let them catch up, even with Arieel on his back. That’s when he came to a barrier in the corridor made of metal bars running from the floor to the ceiling.

  Adam picked up speed and momentum before lowering his shoulder, preparing for impact.

  “Wait!” Arieel yelled.

  Adam hit the barrier and the bars deformed, creating a near-perfect relief of his body. But the barrier didn’t fall.

  Adam recoiled and fell to the floor, Arieel crushed beneath him. He rolled off her. “Are you okay?”

  Arieel’s eyes were wide, her mouth in the form of an ‘O’. She coughed. “I will survive, with effort.” When she recovered, she glared at her former lover. “That was reckless!” she yelled. “The bars continue through the floor and into the ceiling for many feet. You cannot break through. They were designed that way.”

  “So how do we get through?”

  “Like everything else, I can activate the controls…if given the chance.”

  Adam heard a whine coming from the right side of the corridor, where the barrier met the wall. The barrier began to slide to the left, but was stopped when the bent metal bars met the wall and couldn’t pass into the recess opening.

  Riyad and Coop were at the narrow gap on the right side. They applied their combined strength to bend the bars a little more, at least enough for them to squeeze through.

  “What the hell is this barrier doing here in the first place,” Adam asked out of frustration.

  “It is here to separate the catacombs from the access tunnel to the O’lac Building.”

  Adam could see that on the other side of the barrier the walls changed to ancient stacked stone, with an arching ceiling and a dirt floor. This was more like it. It even had the musty smell Adam expected from real catacombs.

  They passed through the narrow opening and began to make their way down the long tunnel.

  “How far to the spaceport?” Nolan asked.

  “It is quite a distance. We will meet up with another tunnel that runs to the right. This tunnel, if we continue, will run under the Temple.”

  Adam gripped his Colt 1911 in his hand as he began to make out figures in the dim distance of the tunnel. There were creatures down here—aliens—and not just Formilians.

  “I thought you said we could make it to the spaceport without being seen?” he said to Arieel. “Who are these people?”

  “I said we could proceed without being seen on the surface. And these are the homeless of Formil.”

  “I didn’t realize Formil had any homeless,” Sherri said.

  “It is true. Formilian technology is so popular and crucial to the galaxy that any Formilian who wishes employment can get it. Yet there are some who rebel against such conventions and choose to live independently.”

  “Here in the tunnels?” Kaylor asked.

  “Yes. And they have been joined by others who have migrated to Formil. We have attempted to clear them from the catacombs, yet they always return.”

  They were passing scattered clusters of filthy creatures, who pressed against the stone walls and stared at them with wide, unblinking eyes. There was more light here, provided by a string of bulbs along the ceiling.

  “This is where you move dignitaries from between the Temple and the Government Building?” Sherri asked, still confused.

  “That is only upon rare occasions. The people in the tunnel are harmless.”

  “My Speaker,” someone spoke as if on cue.

  Arieel smiled at the female Formilian who had addressed her. Adam was shocked. Even though the female was homeless and dirty, she had a magnificent figure and perfect face. In other words, just your typical Formilian woman.

  Adam sensed a flash weapon ahead. And as he expanded his awareness, he detected several more. He couldn’t tell if they were aimed in his direction or merely carried by the some of the inhabitants of the catacombs. He couldn’t imagine how the people in the tunnel would even know of the bounty or if they would recognize him and his team if they saw them. Still, he had to be on his guard.

  Up ahead, the signature of one of the flash weapons moved. In his mind’s eye he saw it come up, from holster height to firing level. Adam severed the firing controls in the weapon.

  He came upon a fiery-eyed alien of unknown origin, who glared at Adam as he walked past. The creature held the dead gun at his side, obvious frustration on his face. Fortune had presented itself seconds before, only to taken from him just as quickly.

  Adam’s troubles didn’t end there.

  It was like a wave moving throughout the tunnel, as dozens of communication devices activated. Adam looked at Arieel. She detected the electronic signals as well, and there were far too many for them to disable one at a time.

  It seemed as though nearly all the homeless creatures in the catacombs had cellphones—or the Formilian equivalent of cellphones. The word was spreading like wildfire.

  Adam Cain and his team were in the catacombs.

  8

  Fifteen minutes later they were still in the main tunnel. It was becoming crowded, as the catacombs filled with new arrivals drawn here by the comm calls. Most of these creatures had better clothing and clean faces, along with communication devices and weapons. Adam had once reasoned that very few creatures would take up the Nuoreans’ offer of a bounty, believing that the bulk of the galaxy was more civilized and not killers at heart. Seeing the growing mob in the tunnels made him re-evaluate that thought. Adam and his people were aliens, and if these aliens had the same attitude he had on the subject, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill a creature that was not of their own species, especially for the promise of life-altering wealth.

  Adam stopped when the tunnel became blocked by a wall of determined creatures. Arieel stepped in front of him.

  “Please, do not contemplate this,” she cried out.

  “My Speaker, we respect and adore you, yet you must not stand in our way,” said a Formilian male in the front row. He had an MK-17 held firmly in his left hand.

  “You must not succumb to the will of the Nuoreans. They are manipulating you to do such an act,” Arieel pleaded.

  “The reward is too great to be ignored,” said the male.

  Adam stepped to the side of the tunnel and slammed his arm into the stone wall. The rock crumbled, sending a reverberation running along the corridor as dust and pieces of stone fell from the ceiling.

  He walked up to the defiant alien holding the flash weapon.

  “None of your weapons will work against us,” he said, leaning in only inches from the alien’s face. “And do you really want to meet us in hand-to-hand combat?”

  The Formilian looked at the broken
section of wall and then back into Adam’s burning eyes. He moved to the side, setting in motion a slow motion parting of the seas in the now-quiet mob.

  Adam nodded at the alien before leading his team into the opening made by the separating crowd. Arieel placed a hand on the Formilian’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said sincerely.

  Somehow the message was received, even as the hundreds of creatures in the tunnel remained silent. Adam and Arieel continued to disarm all the weapons they could detect as fast as they could, even though there were far more than they could handle. Fortunately, none of the creatures in the tunnel made a move toward them and the mob continued to open up.

  That’s when a solitary figure appeared in the middle of the tunnel, dark and ominous.

  With his enhanced eyesight Adam focused in on the figure.

  It was a Human male, huge and muscular, wearing an armored vest and with a hulking CL-60 mini-gun on his waist, held by wide straps across his shoulders. A belt of 60-cal rounds dangled from the deadly weapon and coiled on the dirt floor of the catacombs.

  “Cover!” Adam yelled as he dove to his right, tackling Arieel and Sherri and driving them into the startled crowd of aliens.

  The gunman opened fire, filling the tunnel with an ear-piercing scream of supersonic ordinance that shredded the dozens of aliens. To Adam, it felt like someone had turned on a faucet, as he and the two females were drenched in hot liquid. But it wasn’t water; it was blood.

  The crazed Human gunman sprayed the width of the tunnel with more heavy metal slugs. Riyad and the rest of team also sought cover within the huge mob. They dove for the floor, as the aliens still standing were cut down. There was no chance to fire back as the crush of bodies fell on them, providing cover, yet also restricting their movements.

  With the gunman’s focus on Riyad and the others farther down the tunnel, Adam stood up and took the arm of a dead alien. He pulled the body from the pile and threw it at the Human assassin. Unfortunately, it was only half of an alien, but it worked to distract the killer.

  He ducked as the bloody remains came at him. By then, Adam had another dead alien in the air and flying toward his attacker. Adam ran forward using his enhanced speed, while sending a constant stream of alien body parts at the Human gunman.

  Adam crashed into the man, sending both of them to the dusty floor of the tunnel. The assassin triggered his weapon, sending a torrent of heavy slugs into the ancient stone ceiling. It began to crumble, sending a shower of rock down on the pair of fighters. Adam shrugged off the falling rock and laid a strong right fist into the jaw of the Human. That was all it took. Bone shattered and the neck snapped. The man was dead a second later.

  Adam climbed to his feet, to be met a moment later by the rest of the team, all drenched it thick, red blood.

  “Leave it to a Human to bring the biggest damn weapon he can carry to a fight,” Riyad said, half out of admiration, half out of regret.

  “Hurry,” Arieel said, interrupting the quiet wake for the fallen Human. “The tunnel to the spaceport is just a head. There should be fewer people there.”

  “Yeah, that’s what they all say,” Sherri said.

  The team ran off, leaving behind at least a hundred dead aliens, along with one nameless would-be Human assassin.

  9

  It took half an hour to reach the spaceport. Adam and Arieel could detect a massive crowd carrying communicators and weapons clustered around the four starships, consisting of Adam’s luxury yacht, along with Nolan’s jumpship—the Biddle—and the two Human escorts ships brought from Earth, the Rutledge and the Skipjack. Josh Nolan, contacted his ship.

  “Are you secure?” he asked his second-in-command, Major Duncan Turner.

  “Yessir. All the ships activated their anti-theft features. No one’s gotten in, but that doesn’t mean they can’t just blow the ships to bits if they want.”

  “Hopefully that won’t happen,” Nolan said.

  “Yeah, that would be preferable.”

  Adam came up beside Nolan. “Hold one, Mr. Turner,” Nolan said into the communicator. “I’ll be right back.” He muted the speaker.

  “I’ll go on ahead and cause a diversion,” said Adam. “When the time comes, get the rest of the team to your ship.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll be fine. Get ready.”

  Adam turned to Sherri and Riyad. “Make sure everyone gets to Nolan’s ship. I’ll lead the mob away from the spaceport and then meet up with my ship.”

  They didn’t need to ask how he’d do that; they just knew he would.

  “Be careful, my friend.”

  Adam called Arieel over. “Do your best with the weapons outside, there’re a lot of them.”

  “I will.” She reached up and kissed him on the lips. He didn’t resist.

  Then Adam Cain raced down the tunnel at superhuman speed.

  Only a couple of minutes later, he was beyond the spaceport and paralleling the Temple Complex walls in the subterranean catacombs. He came to a set of steps leading up and figured this to be a way out.

  It was dark when he emerged from the tunnels…but he wasn’t alone.

  The main thoroughfare running between the Temple Complex and the grounds of the spaceport was crowded, either with people curious about what was happening at the spaceport, or with more would-be assassins looking to cash in on the bounty. Either way, he was spotted the moment he exited the small block chamber set in the wall of the Temple Complex. Creatures began to shout and communicators activated.

  Adam sprinted across the road and into a field south of the spaceport. As with most airports, the area around the facility was kept clear of major development in case of a crash or mis-landing. It was the same on Formil. He had a clear field ahead of him, even as several aliens ran after him.

  The boundary of the spaceport was a wire fence, and Adam could see the angry mob encircling the four ships of his small fleet. Word was spreading that Adam was in the field to the south and already large swaths of the crowd were peeling off and heading in his direction.

  Just then, Nolan’s ship sent out a hot blast of chemical liftoff jets. The roiling cloud of white smoke engulfed several of the creatures who remained near the ship when the majority of the crowd left. Now they scattered, allowing Riyad’s group to make for the starship.

  The rear landing bay doors opened and the team entered, moments before the doors closed behind them. The ship was airborne before the doors sealed.

  The Biddle and the two escorts ships took to the air.

  Nolan raced onto the bridge where Major Turner gave him a quick salute.

  “Welcome back, sir,” the officer said, giving up the command seat.

  “Thank you, Duncan. Helm, stay low over the city. We have a screen overhead waiting for us to bolt for space. Instead, head for the mountains north of here.”

  A yessir greeted him, and the three-ship squadron banked over hard to the left.

  “Do you see Adam?” Sherri asked as she peered through the forward viewport. “There!” she said, pointing and answering her own question.

  He wasn’t hard to see; just follow the massive crowd and the occasional streak of a flash bolt. He was the tiny dot just ahead of the mob.

  Just then, the luxury starship, which Adam had re-christened the A.C. Tobias, blasted off from the tarmac in its own cloud of white exhaust gas and flame. Adam had accessed the controls with this ATD and was guiding the ship to a landing directly in his path. The rear bay doors opened for him as well and he sprinted in without breaking stride. The vessel lifted off, leaving the hundreds of creatures chasing him defeated and disappointed—and broke. There would be no bounty collected today on Formil.

  Adam’s small ship joined up with the other three skirting a few thousand feet above the surface, making for the towering mountain range to the north of the city. Ships in orbit would be changing position in an effort in intercept.

  Nolan was on the comm with his escorts.

  “Are yo
u with us or against us?” he asked the commanders point-blank.

  Immediately, Lieutenant-Commander Danny Hanson responded. “I didn’t join the Navy to get rich, sir. I’m with you.”

  The other commanding officer hesitated.

  “Simpson?” Nolan said.

  “Sir, let’s end this here. All you have to do is set the ship down and we’ll do the rest. It’s a hell of a lot of money. We’ll all share in it.”

  Nolan bit his bottom lip. “Don’t do this, Commander. It’s mutiny if you do.”

  “Sir, I have fifteen men aboard this vessel. We’ve all decided to take our chances. It’s hard to turn your back on billions of dollars.”

  “Even if it means killing the people who have saved the Earth on more than one occasion? That’s pretty fucking ungrateful if you ask me.”

  “That may be, but we’ll get over it—”

  Arieel had heard enough. Through her Gift, she accessed the computers of the escort ship Skipjack and went to work shutting down systems, including the chem and gravity drives. Nolan wasn’t aware of anything she’d done until he heard the frantic voices of people screaming through the speakers. They were losing control and the ship was falling, diving for the surface of Formil from an altitude of three thousand feet.

  It was over a moment later. Cameras aboard the jumpship picked up the crash as a tiny puff of yellow and white to their rear.

  Nolan looked at Arieel. She met his gaze with a calm detachment in her eyes. “You did that, didn’t you?” he said.

  “I did what I had to do.”

  “Damn,” was all he said.

  Riyad walked up and put his arm around Arieel. “Not only beautiful, but deadly,” he said with a grin.

  “There were fifteen Humans aboard that ship,” Nolan snapped back.

  The smile vanished from Riyad’s face, replaced by a cold, hard countenance. “Casualties of war, Mister Nolan. They should have made better decisions.”

  Riyad’s tone cut like a knife through the people on the bridge, punctuating the reality of their desperate situation. Riyad and his people were survivors. That had been proven many times over. There was no room for compromise or compassion. This was a game of life or death, with no gray area.