When Earth Reigned Supreme (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 12) by T.R. Harris Page B

Here!” he yelled, ducking into a side room where a number of unarmed Sol-Kor were quickly cut down, all except for the one Adam shoulder-butted to the floor. Sitting down atop the alien’s chest, Adam placed the hot barrel of his weapon against the scaly skin of the creature’s face. The Sol-Kor jerked away from the hot metal.
    “Where is the Queen!” Adam yelled at his captive, unambiguous as to the alternative for not answering.
    The creature frowned. “The Queen…she is not here.”
    The confused look and spontaneous response made Adam believe him. “Where is she?”
    “In her chambers, where else?”
    Adam burned the alien again with the barrel of his weapon. “Okay, smartass, where are her chambers?”
    “My name is not smartass.”
    “Where is she!”
    “Below…as she has always been.”
    “Where below?”
    Sensing another touch from the hot barrel if he responded with the obvious, the alien provided more detail: “She is at ground level—but you will never penetrate.”
    “Why are her chambers at ground level?” Adam asked, confused and not the least bit upset with himself for assuming the Queen would be at the top of the pyramid.”
    “The chambers are what all other parts of the M-1 is built around. Without my Queen, there would be no M-1.”
    Adam felt a sour taste in his mouth. “That makes too much sense,” he said to the alien. ”I should have thought of that. Is there an express elevator to her chambers from here?”
    “Express…I do not understand.”
    “Is there a quick way to get from here to there?”
    A defiant look now came to the face of the alien. “I believe you wish her harm, so I will say no more. You can kill me, but I will n—”
    At such close range, Adam was bathed in the alien’s blood, something that had become common in the life and times of Adam Cain.
    He stood up. “Sorry, guys, but we have to go back down.”
    All of the men had heard the brief interrogation within their visors, and as Adam removed his visor to wipe away the alien blood, they exited the office and began moving back to the elevator.
    A soft alarm could be heard now, a slow, cyclical wailing that was so soft as to be almost silent. It seemed to be coming from very far away.
    “Maybe the alarm is sounding in the Queen’s Chambers and not all the way up here?” Riyad offered. He notice the sudden grimace on Adam’s face. “Don’t blame yourself, my friend. I would have made the same guess. For Humans, we always prefer the top of anything.”
    “But we have to look at this place as a hive. The Queen will be at the very center, or if not, then the most-protected part. She’ll be at the very center of the pyramid, and—as I just learned—on the first floor.”
    “So much for the element of surprise,” Birdman Drake said over the comm.
    “Drake’s right,” Adam said. “But we still have superior weapons and fighting skills. Just be judicous with your ammo. There’s a lot more targets here than we have bullets.”
    They were back in the elevator lobby and no other Sol-Kor had come in. “There are four elevators. Let’s split up and take two of them, stagger our arrival at the bottom. If the first squad runs into trouble, the second should be able to help. Load up.”
    Adam was surprised the elevators hadn’t been locked down, until he realized that the Sol-Kor, especially within their main hive and on Kor, had very few security concerns. There was no crime within the species, and any other aliens on the planet were mindless slaves, hardly a threat. The Sol-Kor simply didn’t have to make security arrangements, at least not throughout the bulk of the structure.
    But they did when it came to their queen.
    As Adam had guessed, when the elevator car reached the ground floor and the doors slid open, fifty flash bolts splashed off the back wall. It was here that the first men fell, as Specialist Juan Garcia and Master Sergeant Javier Hernandez bought the farm. Even with their enhanced