Alien Assassin (4 page)

In fact, there had been seventy-nine other Humans on the Klin ship with him, but they had all been killed by the Klin rather than have them fall into the hands of the Fringe Pirates. Riyad had logically surmised that there must have been hundreds of such trips made by the Klin that had successfully navigated through The Void unmolested, shuttling abducted Humans from Earth to some secret location. The pirate had further advanced the theory that the purpose for abducting so many Humans must have been so the Klin could build a Human army capable of defeating their mortal enemy – the Juireans. Why else would their race be so important to the Klin?

It all made sense, but
how
the Klin expected a singular, non-spacefaring race like the Humans to defeat a galaxy-wide empire encompassing 10,000 systems, was way beyond Adam’s limited comprehension. Still,
his
existence in this strange universe – as well as Riyad’s – meant that something
was
going on.

In fact, just before the nuclear bomb on the Klin ship had detonated, killing the Juirean Overlord, Counselor Deslor and Riyad, the technicians had been able to activate the Klin computer core. In the files, information had been revealed about the Humans that had actually scared the Juireans, members of the mightiest race of beings in the galaxy! For a moment there, just before Riyad had taken the Juirean Overlord hostage, the two Juireans had expressed more fear of the
Humans
than they did for their archenemy, the Klin.

Adam and his two alien companions had been fortunate to escape the Klin ship when they did, and Adam had seen his first nuclear explosion in space. But before they escaped, Adam had heard a word –
Annan
– that had profoundly affected the Juireans. It had to be important.

In his research, it wasn’t too difficult to find numerous references to the word Annan, the most-common of which was to a now-extinct, plant-like animal from Klinmon, the homeworld of the Klin. The creature had been quite remarkable. It was a small animal that would dig a shallow burrow in the ground and then separate into four or five equal parts, each with its own brain and higher body functions. Once separated, the Annan would send electronic signals through the ground for up to half-kilometer away, signals which carried the full memory of each individual part of the animal. Each separate segment of the creature would then absorb these signals and integrate the memories into its own existence. This way, the creature could survive the death of any of its separate parts, with fully intact memories and abilities. Only destroying all the sections could one completely kill the creature. Fortunately, Annan were herbivores, and therefore no threat to the other creatures around them, otherwise they would have been quite formidable.
 

So why would the Juireans have such a reaction to a harmless, extinct animal? Adam did not know, but his research had also produced other references. Annan also meant the strategy of diversifying your base of command, making it harder to be completely defeated should one of your bases be destroyed. Adam was no idiot, so he reasoned that the surviving Klin must have adopted an
Annan
strategy for survival after the attack by the Juireans on their homeworld. There would be no
single
Klin hiding place, but rather numerous ones, and unless the Juireans could locate and destroy all of them, the Klin would remain an on-going threat to them.

Adam wasn’t out to defeat the Klin; all he wanted was their knowledge, and possibly a little revenge. As far as he knew, the Klin were the only creatures in this part of the galaxy who knew the location of Earth. So rather than head off into the unexplored Far Arm in a futile search for an unknown world, Adam began to concentrate on finding one of these Klin bases first.

Besides, for interrupting his comfortable life back on Earth, Adam felt the Klin owed him –
a lot
.

Chapter Three

Giodol felt good being back on his ship. It had been sixty-four days since he had last come aboard. With his duties as the Interim-Overlord of Sector 17, he barely had enough time for adequate sleep periods, much less to leave the planet and travel up to his flagship, in orbit around Melfora Lum. In fact, he still wore the light-green mane of a Guard, rather than the blue of an Overlord. He had not even had time to display the privileges of rank.

The duties of Overlord were well above his training and abilities. He knew it, as did most of the others who had to deal with him on a regular basis. This included his two Junior Counselors.

With Juirean society so rigid and planned, it was very rare for a Guard, such as himself, to be elevated to the rank of Overlord. From the earliest age, all Juirean males were screened and analyzed to determine their best role in the society, based upon aptitude, intelligence and physical abilities. They would then spend their early, formative years, studying for that role exclusively. Since before he could remember, Giodol had been trained as a Guard, not as an Overlord.

The Guards were the soldiers, the backbone of The Expansion, manning the fleets and the ground forces, and doing the bidding of Counselors and Overlords, as well as the ultimate wishes of the Elites. They were the order-keepers of The Expansion.

Giodol had been perfectly content with this arrangement and quite proud of his life-long role and accomplishments. He was now an elder Juirean, nearing 173 standard years in age, and he had spent the majority of that time aboard starships. Before the unfortunate incident with the derelict Klin spaceship, Giodol had been a Fleet Commander, a glorious, if slightly misleading title for the head of the 16-ship Juirean contingent in Sector 17 – commonly referred to as The Fringe. It was a hapless assignment, and one only a Juirean nearing the twilight of his career would even covet. Nothing ever happened in The Fringe. It was a slow and boring existence. But Giodol had been okay with that.

That all changed when the Klin ship exploded, killing the young Overlord Oplim Ra Unis and his Senior Counselor Deslor Lin Jul. That devastating event had left a gaping void in the Juirean hierarchy in the Sector, and sent a ripple effect throughout The Expansion. Even then, there were not a lot of volunteers from other parts of The Expansion rushing to fill the void.

So Giodol had been advanced – although temporarily – to the rank of Overlord, along with all the duties and responsibilities that the job entailed.

And if all those responsibilities weren’t enough, it was all about to get a lot more complicated…

Giodol stood before the massive viewport of his flagship and watched as the newest members of his fleet came into view and took up positions near his ship, their chemical engines spitting out blue tongues of gas as they slowed to a stop. The space before him was littered with spaceships of all sizes and classifications, including one massive ship, larger than anything he’d ever seen before. In the span of an hour, his small fleet of 16 ships had more than tripled.

The jewel of the additions was the
UN-444
, the only Class-7 starship he had ever seen. It dwarfed his own flagship by a factor of ten, and actually carried in its massive hold six light battlecruisers, the kind of which made up the bulk of his own fleet.

Overlord Yan’wal was aboard the
UN-444
, a freelance Senior Overlord and personal envoy of the Juirean Council. He was legend among the ruling class, destined for a position on the Council itself.

And he had come to see Giodol.

Since the Juirean race was so regimented and serious regarding their role as leaders of the known galaxy, rank normally did not intimidate them to any large degree. The vast majority of Juireans had their life-long designated positions, and went about their jobs as efficiently as possible. They therefore had no fear of superiors. And since their positions within the structure had been bred into them from an early age, ambition for advancement was also very rare. Juireans advanced solely through ability and accomplishment – and occasionally, through circumstance. That was the reason Giodol was more uncomfortable than he had ever been in his life, and this strange feeling made him even more unsure of himself. He would say he was nervous, if he understood the concept.

At the proper time, Giodol and his contingent boarded a shuttle for the short journey to the
UN-444
. For a moment, as he marveled at the immense size of the starship, Giodol forgot his trepidation. He had served aboard dozens of ships in his years but he had never seen anything as glorious as this. Each layer of the hull was built of progressively shorter lengths, with the longest section making up what would be the keel of the ship. Then each subsequent layer grew progressively shorter, and offset slightly toward the stern of the ship. Finally, the skewed pyramid was topped off with a massive bridge section, aglow with light from its expansive, 180-degree forward viewport. The bridge section itself was nearly half the size of Giodol’s entire flagship.

Once aboard, it was still another ten minutes before his group made it to the enormous priority quarters where the Overlord was staying. The ante room was easily thirty meters across, with ceilings reaching ten meters high. The sheer volume of the room, especially aboard a spaceship, was quite awe-inspiring.

His group was escorted into a smaller conference room, where the Overlord was waiting.

Giodol had been notified that Lord Yan’wal was not coming to The Fringe to replace him – another Overlord would soon arrive for that. Yan’wal was there to coordinate the search for the Klin.

The new Overlord was surprised to hear this news, coming as it did several months ago now, and only days after the death of Overlord Oplim. As far as Giodol knew, no one had relayed any communication to Juir regarding the possible existence of the Klin. Further, he had learned that Oplim and Deslor had hidden any information regarding the Klin from everyone in their command – including Giodol. It wasn’t until he received the frantic link from Lord Oplim, just moments before he died, that Giodol even had any knowledge of – or belief in – the continued existence of the Klin.

It was common knowledge among all members of The Expansion that nearly 4,000 years before, right at the beginning of the Juirean rise to power in the galaxy, the Juireans had attacked and exterminated the Klin race. The Klin – the default leaders of the Seven World Common Alliance, the precursor to the Juirean Expansion – were the technological wizards of the Alliance, and it was their tight-fisted and unfair control of this technology that had made them the mortal enemy of the Juireans.

Yet the Juireans would get the last laugh.

At the time of
The Reckoning
, the Juireans raided the Klin homeworld and wiped it clean of all life forms higher than that of a rodent. Even now the planet was used primarily as a storage world for raw material coming into the Juirean production centers near the Core.

Of course, rumors still persisted through the ages that some of the Klin had survived, and were in hiding, just waiting for the right time to make their presence known. Giodol had heard all these stories, but he had never heard nor seen any concrete evidence that would prove the rumors true.

Not until Oplim’s link.

Forever etched in Giodol’s memory would be the image of the beaten and bloodied Overlord, his great mane of blue hair matted and burnt, staring wide-eyed from the screen and declaring,
“The Klin exist!”

Even then, the ramblings of the Overlord were quickly dismissed, at least in The Fringe. Yes, the mysterious ship he and Counselor Deslor were aboard had exploded, taking with it any proof of its origin. Yet the simple fact that all records of the ship had been removed from the Library only added to the mystery.