The Copernicus Deception (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 15) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Copernicus. “You know what I mean.”
    “It’s actually a neat little place called Liave-3. You’d love it. My shipyard is right on the shore of a huge sea. Great waves, but I wouldn’t recommend surfing there.”
    “Why not?”
    Copernicus smiled. “The planet never had one of those giant asteroids crash into it, so there are still dinosaur-like beasts roaming around, along with fifty-foot-long sharks.”
    “What about the natives?”
    “Those are the natives. Off-worlders have come to the planet, though, so there’s a fairly large city nearby where I get my miscellaneous labor and parts from. Also, you’d be surprised how tasty T-Rex steaks can be.”
    “Sound great. So how did you get your training? Military?”
    “How’d you guess? But even before that I was always tinkering with cars and other things. That’s just what you did in Texas when your nearest neighbor was five mile away. Found a pretty good home in the service, though. Got to the rank of Tech-Sergeant before deciding to leave.”
    “Why was that?”
    “Partly because of you.”
    Adam raised his eyebrows. “Me?”
    “Yeah. I was in the Army at the time Earth ruled the Expansion; I was stationed on Juir when you made your little speech giving the galaxy back to the Juireans. By the way, thanks for that.”
    Adam didn’t know which way to take that, so he let it drop.
    Copernicus continued. “After that, me and a few buddies decided to stick around. We began to pick through the derelicts from past space battles—mainly places in your wake, I might add. It was pretty lucrative for a while. We not only had hundreds of ships to salvage, but all the spare parts were just drifting around in space. We’d fix up the ships and sell them off. Made some good coin, for a while. Then the big boys moved, including those MK assholes. You know they make more than just flash weapons, don’t you. They’re into just about everything now. Kind of the Amazon of outer space.
    “Anyway, that’s how I came into contact with some of my current customers. They’re always looking for reliable—and cheap—transports. When word got out who we were selling most of our inventory to, things got a little too hot for me in the Expansion. So I took my skills and worked my way to the Frontier. It’s been about four years, and no regrets.”
    “Any run-ins with the Sol-Kor?.”
    “Fortunately, no. Not quite sure why. They did hit Kidis here and there.” Copernicus smiled. “But since they seemed to be attracted to more advanced civilizations, that more or less exempted the Frontier from the menu. I missed all the really juicy action.”
    “You’re lucky, Copernicus…trust me on that one. It wasn’t pretty.”
    Copernicus shifted in his seat. “I guess we should get something straight. Very few people call me Copernicus. Most call me Coop.”
    “Not Cop?”
    “No, Coop. It started about the time I got big enough to kick everyone’s ass in high school.”
    Adam grinned, and held up a hand in surrender. “Fine, I’ll call you Mortimer if that’s what you want to be called. It’s your name.”
    “Coop will do.”
    There was a long moment of awkward silence before Coop spoke again. “So, what’s it like to be in another universe?”
    “About the same as here. Supposedly there are countless dimensions. The one where the Sol-Kor live is just like this one. Don’t really know why there has to be so many?”
    “So no universes inhabited by real-life Disney characters or creatures made out of Legos?”
    Adam smiled. “None that I saw.”
    “That’s too bad. At least that would have made it more interesting.”
    There was another lull in the conversation until Adam changed the subject. “What about Kaylor and Jym? How did you meet them?”
    Copernicus snorted. “I ran into them in the Fringe. I was over there for a series of meetings with my primary customers. You do know that the Sileans, Castorians and the Rigorians run most of the contraband