Cyberdrome (20 page)

“With systems
off,” Javid said, “we have no defense against the enemy.”

“A while back
you asked me to trust you. Now you must trust me. I know what I’m doing. All
power off. Quickly.”

“Accepted.”

Alek quickly
turned off all systems: main drive, shields, weapons, navigation, and scanners.
His Tracer dropped to the ground with a thud. He couldn’t see Javid’s ship, but
he hoped he had done the same.

The energy
charges approached and Alek braced for impact. Instead of detonating, they
passed all around him. One passed right over his head, missing his ship by less
than a meter.

“Your plan
worked,” Javid said, using low-power, ship-to-ship communications, “but we
cannot remain here forever. What do we do now?”

“We wait,” Alek
replied.

“Wait for what,
exactly?” Javid asked.

“For them to
make the next move.”

o     o     o

“We’ve been
sitting here for over an hour,” Alek finally said, breaking the long silence.
“Has your ship repaired itself yet?”

“Yes, physical
contact with the floor actually boosts the power transfer. My ship is fully functional
now.”

“We obviously
missed our rendezvous with the KaNanee. How will they get back to their own
sector if we don’t make it back to help them across the border?”

“There is much
you still do not understand, Alek.”

“Oh, I
understand more than you know,” Alek said, unable to contain himself any
longer. “I understand that you jeopardized our lives to blow up that stupid
Replicator. I understand that you never intended to bring the KaNanee out of
this sector when you left. You have sentenced the CeeAut here to death by
giving the KaNanee Tracers. What the hell kind of a Sentinel are you?”

“You know
nothing of the CeeAut,” Javid said flatly.

“I know more
than you think,” Alek blurted out. “An hour ago, when I told you my communications
were damaged, I was actually speaking to them. They seemed like a peaceful
people, at least compared to the KaNanee. They told me that you were going to
allow the KaNanee to stay here. Were they telling me the truth?”

“I did not
promise the KaNanee they could remain in this sector. My agreement was to give
them Tracers in return for their assistance.”

“So, you think
they are going to take the Tracers and just leave the sector. You can’t be serious.”

“The KaNanee may
be a violent people, but they are honorable.”

“What if they
don’t leave? What about the CeeAut? Giving the KaNanee Tracers is condemning
the CeeAut to death.”

“If you truly
knew the CeeAut, you would realize that they have little to fear from the
KaNanee. What the CeeAut lack in size and strength, they make up for in
intelligence and cunning.”

A light appeared
in the distance, abruptly ending their conversation. It wasn’t an energy weapon
this time. It looked more like a searchlight.

“Do you see
that?” Alek whispered.

“It appears that
the creatures have grown tired of waiting for us,” Javid replied. “Your instincts
have prevailed again, Alek.”

“Now let’s see
if we can follow them out of here.”

One of the
lights passed near them. Alek and Javid powered up only their main drives and began
to follow the light. They left all other systems turned off, which seemed to do
the trick. No one shot at them as they followed the light. What was actually
living in this dark place—or the source of the light it carried—was anyone’s
guess.

A few minutes
later, Alek remembered his promise to Persis and the CeeAut. He called up the
menu for his ship’s towing beam, and silently released one of the Tracers
behind him while retaining the other two. He looked out his window in the
direction of Javid’s ship. It was dark out there, and with scanners offline,
Javid would not know what he was doing. He felt bad for deceiving Javid, but
what the Sentinel was doing was unfair. Maybe it was a human frailty, but he
was human after all. He shouldn’t have to answer to a program regardless.

They followed
the creature for over an hour in silence. It appeared to be in a search
pattern, zigzagging back and forth in the darkness. Eventually, they saw a rim
of faint light in the distance. They took a chance and headed in that
direction.

When they broke
through the border wall into the next sector, the ambient light of the Core
blinded Alek temporarily. This sector looked quite different from the last.
Instead of a flat ground littered with a few blocks of various sizes and
shapes, the ground here seemed to be covered entirely by blocks. They formed a
rough terrain consisting of blocky hills and valleys. Since the Tracers floated
on a magnetic field, they would probably be able to cross over it, but the
going would be slow.

It finally
dawned on him that his Panspermia bomb was probably to blame for the changes he
had seen in the Core as well. The closer they got to the point of origin, the
more cluttered and broken up the ground had become.

“One of the
Tracers is missing,” Javid said.

“What?” Alek
asked with as much astonishment as he could muster. After glancing down at his
scanner, he added, “Maybe something happened when I powered down my systems
earlier.”

“That leaves
only two for the KaNanee,” Javid said. “That may be a problem.”

“I’m sure it
will piss them off,” Alek said. “But then again, we probably won’t be seeing
them for a while.”

At that moment,
a huge Mantis stepped out from behind a nearby block wall. Alek’s mind jumped
to his weapons control then realized that it was the KaNanee transport. It had
blast marks on its sides and one of its legs was missing. Alek wondered if the
damage had come from battling the Raptors in the last sector, or from crossing
the border as they had.

Without a word,
two KaNanee slid down ropes and ran toward them. As they passed his ship and
headed for the Tracers, Alek realized that it was Jas Kaido and Kay Broon. They
were both carrying cloth bags and Kaido had some sort of metal club strapped to
his leg. They climbed into the Tracers as if they knew what they were doing.

“Do you need instructions,
Kaido?” Javid asked.

“We agreed on
four ships, Sentinel. Where are the other two?”

“Lost in
combat,” Javid said. “Do you wish to terminate our agreement?”

“I am
considering it.”

“Then let us
make a new agreement,” Javid said. “We are about to embark on a bold mission to
search for other Sentinels, and we will be facing dangers unlike you have ever
experienced. A great warrior like you would find many challenges on such a
mission.”

There was a
pause before Kaido spoke. “What is the remainder of the deal you are making?”

“Simply that you
remain with us until our mission is completed. Then you may return and rejoin
your people.”

“Agreed,” Kaido
said without hesitation.

“And your people
must agree to avoid hunting the CeeAut until you return.”

This time there
was a long pause before Kaido answered, probably because he was talking to them
on another channel. “My warriors agree. No hunting until I return.”

“Then it is a
pact,” Javid said. “All ships switch to Warrior mode and follow my lead. The
deeper we go into this sector, the more enemy we will find.”

“We will devour
them,” Kaido said.

Alek wondered if
the KaNanee could be trusted, as he lined his Tracer up behind the Sentinels’
ship. The KaNanee then moved their ships to either side of him, making a sort
of arrow formation. When all ships reported ready, Alek switched to Warrior
mode and followed the Sentinel deep into the sector where it all began
.

TEN

T
hey traveled in
this mode for several hours, during which time no one spoke at all. With their
ships all in Warrior mode, they didn’t move very quickly. Then again, as
complicated as the terrain had become, they couldn’t move fast anyway. Alek
realized that there would be no quick escapes in this sector. Just then, Javid
signaled them to halt and all four Tracers slowed to a stop.

“What’s up?”
Alek asked hoarsely, his throat dry from lack of use.

“I have located
possible Tracer signatures ahead.

“It’s them,”
Alek said. “Let’s go.”

They moved
toward the signals with the KaNanee paralleling their course, but remaining a
short distance to either side. Alek wanted to get there as fast as he could,
but at the same time, he wasn’t looking forward to having to tell Maya about
Lorena’s betrayal.

“Hold on,” Javid
said. “I am now detecting more Tracers ahead. At least one hundred signals and
they are spread out over a large area.”

“That’s not my
team then,” Alek said. “They only had five ships.”

“Then it may be
members of mine,” Javid said. “Perhaps I am not the only survivor after all.”

As they crossed
over a slight rise in the terrain, they discovered the truth. A vast
battlefield lay before them. Large pieces of twisted metal from several types
of Predators lay strewn across the ground. Here and there, he could see the
remains of Tracers as well.

“A great battle
was fought here,” Javid said. “I found similar remains when I was here before,
but nothing as large as this.”

This is where it
happened
,
Alek thought. He tried to imagine what Javid was thinking at that moment, but
realized that he could not. He had never experienced such a massacre.

“Is this your
team?” Alek asked.

“No,” Javid
replied. “My unit was decimated by the intruder itself. These appear to be
members of a secondary strike force. Apparently, some of them survived the
wave—only to be destroyed here.”

Alek surveyed
the battlefield. “You didn’t see all of this when you were here before?”

“I was severely
damaged, and I have only fragmented memory of that period. How I made it out of
this sector is still a mystery to me.”

Alek decided to
let it drop as they all moved silently through the debris field. Once, he saw
something move, but realized that is was just a bodiless spider leg, twitching.

“We should move
on,” Alek said. “My team’s obviously not here.”

“I must check
for signs of other Sentinels who might still be functional,” Javid said solemnly.

“No one could’ve
survived this,” Alek said.

“I did,” Javid
said. “It is my duty to check, but you may go on.”

“We’re a team,”
Alek interjected. “We’ll cover it faster if we split up.”

“Agreed,” Kaido
said. “We will travel in groups of two. I will go with Javid Rho. Kay Broon
will travel with Alek Grey. Agreed?”

Javid signaled
his agreement and then began driving slowly across the damaged landscape followed
closely by Kaido’s ship. Kay Broon moved her ship so close to Alek’s that they
almost touched. He looked out his window and saw her staring at him. What the
hell was she trying to do? If Javid was right, just being near Kaido’s mate
could get him killed.