The Copernicus Deception (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 15) (9 page)

Chapter 12

The guards seemed unconcerned as the trio began to thread their way down the line, as long as they hacked at the growth as they went. Five minutes later Kaylor was spotted, his skin seeming to glow as the powerful lights hit him from behind.

He was so engrossed in his trimming that he didn’t notice when Adam and Riyad moved up and flanked him. Adam then reached into the jungle with his chainsaw and took a huge chunk out of a thick vine. Riyad mirrored the motion, leaving the area in front of Kaylor clear of any growth. The Belsonian paused, looking at the huge cut.

“I thank you…but—”

He glanced to his left…and at Adam’s grinning face. He dropped his cutter in shock, before whipping around to find Riyad’s full-face grin staring back at him. Then his gaze shifted to a more-modestly grinning Jym.

“I do not understand?”

“I figured I owed you for saving my life aboard the Klin ship, way back when,” Adam said. “Time to pay up.”

Kaylor spun around. “You…have come to save my life?”

“That may be a little overdramatic. We’re actually here to rescue you. If that means saving your life, well all the better.”

“Resume your labors!” a loud voice boomed from behind them, projected from a loudspeaker on one of the guard carts.

Kaylor quickly picked up his chainsaw and the four of them began hacking at the jungle as they talked.

“They came with Copernicus,” Jym offered with a sour tone in his voice.

“He is the reason you are here?”

“No, the two of you are the reason we’re here,” Adam corrected. “He came looking for our help when you got arrested.”

“I thought you were in the Sol-Kor universe? That is the last we heard.”

“All done. You won’t have to worry about the Sol-Kor anymore.”

“You were victorious?”

“Of course, Kaylor. Could there be any other outcome?” Adam continued to take wide, powerful swipes at the jungle growth.

“You could have been killed. I suppose that could have been another outcome.”

“Didn’t happen.”

“Where is Copernicus?”

“He’s back at the barracks. We’re now the barracks kings.”

“Which barracks?”

Adam turned and pointed to the building.

“We are in the one next to it. What happens from here?”

“I’m going to signal Copernicus when it’s time for us to make our break.”

“Where to?”

“Thought you could help with that,” Adam said. “Would it be possible for us to make it all the way back to Swiv in a stolen transport?”

“There is but one road, and with clearing crews along its entire length. There would be ample opportunity to stop us during the journey.”

“Then overland?”

Kaylor stopped his cutting and stared at Adam. “Surely you cannot be serious?”

“I am…and don’t call me Shirley. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

“I am confused.”

“Never mind. But I
am
serious. We saw the beasts that live in the jungle, but it may be the only way.”

“You saw only one of the beasts. There are many others.”

“Well, we can’t stay here. We have these cutters—and we are Human. That may be all we need.”

“How do you propose to signal Copernicus?” Jym asked.

“I’ll make the lights flicker in the barracks. That will be his signal.”

“With your secret Formilian device?”

Adam nodded.

“And our collars?”

“I’ll deactivate them.”

“You will have to remove them,” Jym said. “They have a battery backup in case of power failure. If that happens, then they produce a half-charge shock to keep the prisoners in line until power can be restored.”

“What about the towers?” Riyad asked.

“They have battery reserves as well.”

“Can you unlatch our collars?” Riyad asked Adam.

“I can for us here. You’re close enough for me to identify the locking circuits. But all I noted was the power supply on Coop’s, not the locking mechanism.”

“You have been warned,” said a voice from behind them. They turned to see two guards with angry looks on their faces. “Now you will have to be disciplined.”

The speaker reached for a small control panel strapped around her left arm. Adam took a step forward, lifting his chainsaw as he did so. The aliens reacted with remarkable speed, drawing their flash weapons, one pointed at Adam, the other at Riyad.

Adam lifted his free arm. “Wait, I didn’t mean to—”

The round eyes of the guard met Adam’s, and in that brief moment, Adam knew she was going to fire. As fast as he could, Adam mentally locked on the weapon’s fire control circuits and broke the connection using his Formilian artificial telepathy device—his ATD—preventing the weapon from firing. The guard was confused when she depressed the trigger and nothing happened.

Yet the other guard wasn’t confused, just trigger happy. He was a male, and he fired at Riyad.

The blinding plasma flash could be seen across the entire prison compound. It struck Riyad on the right side of his chest, slamming him backwards and to the ground, a perfectly round hole burned through his cape and inner garment all the way to the flesh. The Human’s thick skin kept the level-2 bolt from breaking the skin, but it did create near third-degree burns within a four-inch diameter circle. Riyad didn’t cry out, but he did groan and gnash his teeth quite a bit.

Adam reacted to the shooting of his friend by lifting the chainsaw and triggering the rotating laser points. The blade sliced through the alien’s arm without even a trace of resistance, sending the limb falling to the muddy ground with the MK flash weapon still held firmly in the hand. The Visidoran didn’t cry out, either. Instead, he held up the stump that was now his right arm and stared at it with disbelief. Then he passed out.

To Adam’s surprise, the other guard had produced a meter-long machete from somewhere—probably a necessary part of her gear while working in the jungle. She made a jab at Adam with the shiny blade.

Adam reacted with blinding speed, dodging the weapon as he swung the chainsaw horizontally at the guard. Again the flat, spinning tongue of the cutter found flesh and sliced through it like warm butter. The guard was cut in half, yet only when her feet collapsed beneath her and the body fell, did the two pieces separate.

All along the prisoner line, screams rose up and bodies fell to the ground—including Adam and his friends—as crackles of electricity filled the night air. Ignoring the cold mud, Adam rolled and clawed at the collar. His mind was frazzled by the shock, but still he managed to concentrate on the process for unlocking the device through his ATD. The shock ended the moment the collar fell to the ground.

He rolled on his stomach until he saw Kaylor and Jym, their bodies spasming from the continuous shock. With his mind now clear, Adam located the control mechanisms for their collars and unlocked them. The recovery time for the two aliens was longer than it was for Adam, so for several seconds their eyes remained rolled back in their heads.

Next, Adam looked for Riyad. He had fallen into the first layer of jungle growth and only his boots were visible, his legs jerking from the shock his body was experiencing. Adam projected his awareness into the jungle, locating what appeared to be a bright spot in the foliage. He commanded the ring to open and a moment later the spot was gone. Riyad’s legs were no longer jerking.

Adam crawled through the mud until he reached his friend.

Riyad’s face was a study in controlled agony. He had recovered from the shock well enough, but now he suffered from the burns of a level-2 bolt.

“Hurts, don’t it?” Adam said.

“You could say that!” Riyad grunted.

“You know, Kaylor shot me once? It was our official introduction.”

“And you’re still friends?”

“Best buds.”

“Well, I’m not about to bond with that fucking guard.”

“Don’t worry. There’s not much left for you bond with.”

“Copernicus…!”

“Yeah, let me get on that. Here.” Adam grabbed a handful of cold mud and slapped it onto Riyad’s burn. “That will help. Now, please excuse me. I have more important things to do than treat your minor scratches. You’re such a crybaby.”

Adam couldn’t make out Riyad’s reply as he crawled back to the tree line, not over the moaning of the prisoners and the sirens going off in the compound. But he was sure it was graphic.

He looked to the barracks building. Within it, he located the signature for the collar around Coop’s neck. He cut the main power to the ring, knowing now that the battery backup would kick-in. Even that would be enough to incapacitate.

He tried his best to maintain focus on Coop’s collar, yet failed to find the weak signal of the locking control through all the surrounding clutter. He was picking up hundreds of stronger signals, both from the full-power prisoner collars, and also from security lights, computers and dozens of flash weapons.

He had to figure a way to cut the main power. That would give Adam time to make it back to the barracks

The problem was he didn’t know where the cut off was for the entire compound. He could see the main line where it entered Coop’s barracks. Under the original plan, it would have been easy for him to interrupt the power momentarily, flashing the lights and signaling Copernicus. But with the back-up charge triggered within the collar, he still wouldn’t be able to move.

Adam followed the power line the other direction, away from the barracks. It ran underground and met up with trunk lines from the other barracks, before joining an exceptionally bright contact beam that descended deeper below the surface. All the power ran to what appeared in Adam’s mind as a big box filled with glowing light. With more concentration, Adam was able to identify several control servers within the box. Out of desperation, he began to sever them all.

It took nearly thirty seconds before the last of the bright spots disappeared from his inner vision. By then, the agonizing screams of the prisons had been reduced. They hadn’t gone away, but having the shock of the collars drop by fifty percent had to be an incredible relief. The main lights in the prison had gone off as well, replaced now by battery backups at about one-third the prior illumination.