A Clash of Aliens (The Human Chronicles Book 13) (30 page)

Epilogue

“So what happens next?” Sherri asked, stepping up next to Adam. The Kor sun had set and the sky was quickly turning a deep navy blue, almost black, even as the twin moons coated the landscape around them in a soft, ethereal glow.

Adam continued scanning the winking stars above, trying to formulate an answer for Sherri. The Mark IV was gone, but he was searching the heavens for any sign of the first invading Hal’ic starships. They would be coming soon, which meant he and his team were vulnerable being anywhere near the M-I pyramid. He would have to lead them away from here, and as quickly as possible.

 “I don’t know what happens next,” he finally said. “Only one person really does.” He pointed into the sky.”

“God?” Sherri said, frowning.

“No, the big author in sky.”

“Oh, him.”

“Yeah,  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what he comes up with next.”

“I hope we won’t have to wait too long,” Sherri said, also staring into the night sky. “You know how I hate waiting for sequels.”

The End…for now

Read on for an excerpt from

Battlelines

The Human Chronicles Saga #14

ComingJune 15, 2016

Click here to purchase the pre-order of Battlelines

BATTLELINES

The war with the Sol-Kor within their home galaxy has finally begun, spearheaded by the revenge-seeking Hal’ic, whose massive fleet of warships is commanded by none other than Admiral Andy Tobias.

In the meantime, Adam Cain and his gang are stranded on Kor, trying to survive the battering the planet is taking at the hands of the Hal’ic. But soon they’ll find their way to Silana, the second capital of the Sol-Kor, to where Queen J’nae has taken Panur, along with the prototype trans-dimensional starship the
Star Panther
.

It’s a desperate race to save Panur and reclaim the starship before J’nae can learn its secrets and begin construction of a war fleet capable of going anywhere at anytime…including all the way to the blue skies of planet Earth….

Prologue

Two hundred thousand starships!

Admiral Andy Tobias shook his head each time he thought of the mind-boggling number. He tried to put it in perspective. The combined fleets of the Orion-Cygnus Union and the Juirean Expansion would come in somewhere near eighty-five thousand warships. Throw in all the other miscellaneous militaries in the Milky Way galaxy and one could stretch that number to one hundred thousand.

But the Hal’ic fleet, created on one world and in secret, was twice what an entire galaxy could muster.

Tobias was just glad the Hal’ic were on his side…and that he was the supreme commander—the
Veritis
, as they called it—of the whole kit and caboodle.

“Admiral, mass forces are approaching Kor,” the Hal’ic liaison reported. The native had been prompted by his superiors to use Andy’s Human military rank, even though Veritis was the official position he held. “There are inadequate defensives to prevent our objectives. Shall I give the order to proceed?”

“Hold one,” Tobias said. “Any word from Captain Cain and the others?”

“None,
hallon
.”

He’d only been the head honcho for three days, but he knew the Hal’ic word
hallon
meant sir. Andy specifically requested that his translation bug keep the native pronunciation, out of respect for native military customs. Besides, the sooner he became acclimated to life on the planet J’nae, the better. It looked like he—along with the other five Human members of his staff—would be here for very long time.

“And no trace of the Mark IV starship?”

“The same, hallon.”

This made the admiral’s jaw tighten. He had told them—repeatedly—and now it looked as though his worst case scenario was being played out.

Tobias addressed Tier-Five Miszn Obli. “Proceed to Phase One. Time to first contact?”

“Eighteen minutes.”

“Any status report on the portal assault?”

“Thirty thousand ships should be arriving on station at the remaining three transit portals within the next six hours. The twenty thousand destined for the inter-dimensional cluster will take another three days to reach target.”

“Very good. Feed continuous reports from Kor to my second, Lieutenant Commander Paulson.”

The alien scooted away quickly.

Andy lifted a cup of what passed as coffee on the planet J’nae and drank the last of it cold. He hadn’t slept in going on thirty hours, and the invasion of Kor was just beginning. It was going to be a very long day.

Since having command of the Hal’ic fleet dropped in his lap, Tobias had already made an impression on the inexperienced native officers. Through a cautious release of his forces he had managed to get the Sol-Kor to commit far too many of their assets in a failed attempt to squelch the Hal’ic defenders. As a result, the home planet of the Sol-Kor was now left virtually defenseless. Tobias had to snicker. Even if it wasn’t, the prospect of warding off over fifty thousand enemy warships would have been impossible in anyone’s book. Only now it would be more of a cakewalk for the Hal’ic.

But the invasion of Kor was only the first campaign in what was surely to be a Titanic endeavor, and that was why Andy already had Phase Two underway: The isolation of the battlefield from reinforcements.

In his brief tenure on J’nae, Andy had learned of the existence of three major transit portal arrays nearby. These were the facilities which maintained contact with the other universes the Sol-Kor operated within; there had been four, until Andy destroyed the transit portal to the Human universe. In addition, he had learned of over ninety other portal arrays which were used to move ships between points within the Sol-Kor universe. He had no idea this type of portal even existed, but when one thought about it, it made sense. Journeying from galaxy to galaxy was still a long and arduous process, requiring dozens of years even with the most-advanced starships. Long ago, the Sol-Kor had made these treks and then built linking portals back to their home galaxy. Now they were able to hop around their universe with relative ease.

The Hal’ic had extensive intelligence on the Sol-Kor war machine, and as Andy scanned the numbers on his first day on J’nae, he felt like throwing up. The Sol-Kor numbered over one trillion individuals in their Colony, and each one was essentially a soldier. They also had vast manufacturing centers and access to unlimited raw material from across multiple universes. But the most sobering number of all—even though it was was only an educated guess—was the estimated eight
million
warships the Sol-Kor had available—if they could be accessed.

And that was why Andy had fifty thousand of his own ships heading off to destroy the portal arrays of the Sol-Kor.

If Phase Two was a success, then the home galaxy of the Sol-Kor would be on its own against the Hal’ic forces. But the galaxy was also the most-populated and settled by the flesh-eating aliens, with an estimated five hundred thousand ships available. Even then, with the impending destruction of Kor, there was a very good chance the Hal’ic could deliver a crushing blow to the Colony, at least in the near-term. It would take time for the Sol-Kor to organize an effective counter attack. The Hal’ic were better prepared, and now with more experienced leadership.

Defeating the Sol-Kor, at least in this galaxy, could be done. Then with time, the Hal’ic could build defenses against the inevitable arrival of other Sol-Kor forces from the isolated regions. The SK could be beaten, just not in this lifetime, or several more to come.

To the Hal’ic, this was an acceptable tradeoff. Their race had been one of the first to be harvested by the Sol-Kor when the invaders departed their homeworld in search of new crops on distant worlds. That was five thousand years ago, and during all that time, the survivors of that first harvest had gone on to build a thriving and technologically superior civilization beneath the ruins of their once great cities. And for all that time, the Hal’ic had planned for this moment, designing and building weapons of war to be used against the evil Sol-Kor horde. They were in it for the long haul.

Even so, their moment of destiny had been thrust upon them unexpectedly only two months before, when word was received that the Eternal Queen of the Sol-Kor was dead, having been assassinated by none other than Adam Cain and Riyad Tarazi. That was great news. But add to that, all the Queen’s potential successors had also been killed. The Hal’ic saw this as the opportunity they’d been waiting for. Ancient battleplans were dusted off, and plans set in motion.

And that was when the Hal’ic Scribes decided they needed experienced and seasoned leadership to pull off such a major undertaking. All the native warriors had been trained by simulator, without a single live battle to their credit. So after learning that one of the Queen’s assassins had been captured by the Sol-Kor, the Hal’ic rescued Adam Cain and brought the Human to J’nae, placing him in charge of their massive fleet….

Until Admiral Andy Tobias had been unceremoniously—and unexpectedly—sucked into the Sol-Kor universe. At that point, Adam deferred to the admiral’s superior skill and experience, and within minutes of arriving on the Hal’ic homeworld, Andy found himself at the very pinnacle of the single largest military fleet anyone had ever seen. It was heady stuff for the sixty-nine-year-old Navy SEAL, but now the inevitable unknowns of war were beginning to surface.

And this last bit of news from the native liaison could easily send even the best laid plans of the Hal’ic to hell in a handbasket, and in spectacular fashion.

Andy had seen it coming.

The Mark IV prototype starship—the one Riyad Tarazi called the
Star Panther
—was missing and now presumed to be in the hands of the new Sol-Kor queen. At first blush, that didn’t sound too serious. After all, it was just one ship.

However, the
Star Panther
was the only starship capable of making independent trans-dimensional transits. All other ships were required to pass through huge rips in space created by planet-based arrays, whose towers climbed over a kilometer above the surface. Because of their size and complex construction, there were very few of these portal arrays around, which made them easy to target and destroy. Currently, Andy had fifty thousand warships tasked with doing just that.