The Legend of Earth (The Human Chronicles Saga -- Book 5) Read Free

moving to within a palm’s length of Adam’s face. He tolerated the man’s foul breath; he was sure they all suffered from the same malady. “They’re just going to kill us when we get to Juir,” the man finished.
    “Maybe, maybe not,” Adam said.
    “What the fuck does that mean?” the man asked. Adam remembered his name was Simpson – or something like that – and he was one of the Australians.
    “The Juireans have been a victim of the Klin’s manipulations, just as we have. I think we have a good chance of convincing them that we’re not really their enemy—”
    “Bullshit!” McCarthy said, replacing Simpson in the face-to-face standoff with Adam. Tobias and Riyad moved up to flank him.
    “It’s okay, guys,” Adam said to them. “We’re just having a discussion.” He turned his attention back to McCarthy. “Whatever’s going to happen on Juir is a couple of months away. Until then, we have run of this ship and time to assess our situation.” He looked over at Simpson. “We may find a way to escape – I’m not opposed to that – but we can’t jump headlong into something until we have all the facts. Most of us have Special Forces training. We know better than to simply react to a situation.”
    There was an awkward silence in the room, as McCarthy’s team looked to him for guidance. Eventually, the hulking, ginger-hair man smiled at Adam. “Fine, we’ll do it your way – for now. But get one thing straight, mate, you’re not in charge of me or my men.”
    “Roger that, Mr. McCarthy, but we are on the same team. We have to work together.”
    The space opened up some around the two men as people in the room began to relax. Adam held out his hand to McCarthy and smiled.
    Nigel gripped the hand tightly, squeezing it hard in a macho act dominance. Adam matched his grip – and then reeled off a powerful left hook to McCarthy’s jaw.
    McCarthy fell heavily to the deck, as tensions soared once more between the two opposing teams. Adam jumped back and raised his hands. “I owed him that!”
    “Stand down!” McCarthy commanded from the floor, while propping himself on one elbow and massaging his jaw with his other hand. He grinned up at Adam. “Good form, Mr. Cain. I guess I did deserve that.” He rose to his feet. “But that’s the only free one you’ll ever get.”
    McCarthy turned away, shoving his way through the throng surrounding him, heading off into the ship; his men followed like a gaggle of steroid-enhanced geese.
    Adam looked over at Sherri and winked.
    “Men,” was all she said.
     

    McCarthy and his nine-man team claimed the ship’s forward compartments for their own, with McCarthy in the captain’s quarters and Carter Thomas in the XO’s. This area was reserved for the ship’s Juirean contingent and therefore offered more-spacious and better-appointed accommodations.
    As the ranking officer onboard, Adam should have been able to claim the captain’s quarters, but he chose not to make an issue out of it. Instead, he and his people took the more modest quarters found mid-ships. Soon a tense equilibrium was established between the two camps. In fact, the less interaction Adam and his team had with Nigel’s, the better.
    If McCarthy didn’t get them all blown to vapor over the next two months, Adam would have time to think. He needed that time, because a germ of an idea had begun to percolate in his mind….
    For much of the first two weeks aboard the prison ship, Adam’s two alien companions, Kaylor and Jym, had done all they could to find a way around the Juirean’s safeguards, but with no luck. And once the convoy entered gravity wells for the journey to Juir, there wasn’t much more they could do except sit back and enjoy the ride.
    Unfortunately, that was easier said than done, since all the prisoners knew only death awaited them at the journey’s end.
    Being the eternal optimist, Adam chose to spend his time working on an endless array of alternative endings