Child of Time (26 page)

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Theo was making scans as he flew and was beginning to
think that they would have to search the entire pacific before they
found the missing boys. Just before they decided to turn and widen
their search area along the path they had taken Atlas informed them
that the drones he had sent down had found an island a little
farther on. It seemed to be the only one in that region. It took
the dragons a few more minutes before the island came into sight.
Landing on the island they shifted back to humanoid forms.

“Remind me never to try racing those boys.” Ray
flexed as the last scales disappeared.

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“We could build a spaceship that is warp capable in
just under fifteen years by my calculations. The longest part would
be isolating exotic matter for the warp drive.” Kiyan was a little
depressed by the calculations. “On the other hand a beacon would
take just under two months but could bring the drakken.” Kiyan
paused as he thought he sensed another signal. Closing his eyes he
stretched his senses out. There were two people on the beach that
had been lifeless only a short time earlier. It took a moment to
recognize Ray. Opening his mind Kiyan sensed Theo's presence also.
Forgetting to tell his companions the good news Kiyan bent the roof
open and propelled himself up onto the beach.

“Wow, I turn around and you grow up.” Theo joked
after recovering from the surprise of the side of the mountain
exploding and Kiyan flying out.

Kiyan looked at himself for a minute. He discovered
that his memories of being in the Avenger and the last six years
needed to be reconciled. He had the memories of a thirteen year old
fresh in his memories yet he had the memories of growing up on
earth as a "normal" human. He was in the body of a nineteen year
old. The reunion completed they returned to the ship. A time jump
later and they were back to the Avenger.

Chapter Twelve: Doubts

The first glimmers of consciousness began to wake
Drovak from sleep. The memory imprints were the first to present
themselves to his thoughts. The flood of training, information
about directives and skills necessary to operate a ship passed
through his mind. A sense of loyalty and pride to the empire was
the last thing to be forced into his thoughts. Finally able to use
his mind for himself he discovered the other memories. The ones
that were from his previous clones. The false memories melted when
he remembered having died many times over. He thought back to the
first life he had memories of, a base level bridge officer. His
last memories were as a second in command of a frigate. His gut
twisted as he remembered Grolar firing a blaster round into his
chest for delivering his food cold. He had been under Grolar for
his last ten lives and had died at Grolar's hands nine of those
times.

Drovak shouldn't have memories from past clones. Each
clone was supposed to be a clean slate imprinted with the memories
needed for it to perform a duty. Some genetic profiles worked
better at different duties so each time that they died a new clone
would be grown from a genetic code unique to that clone line.
Drovak was an aberrant to the norm. He was more intelligent than
most of the other clone lines. Sometime a long time ago the dark
one had instructed his disciples in gene manipulation and they had
attempted to make a better clone. An immortal clone line. They had
created a biological sub telepathic neural encoder. The code for
this device was spliced into Drovak's DNA and was supposed to
transmit the neural patterns of a clone to its unwoken replacement
clones. In the event of death the clone would wake up in a new body
with only a short pause. Immortality of a kind. After trying for
some time without any effects the dark lords gave up and forgot
about the experiment. It took a few more clone generations before
more than vague memories carried through but Drovak didn't tell
anyone.

“Wake up piece of filth.” The snarls of a drakken
broke Drovak's revelry. “The dark lords have seen fit to make you
captain of a ship.”

“What of Grolar?” A drakken clone being promoted to
take command was nearly unheard of.

“What do you care, must not have got the updated
imprint.” The drakken appeared indifferent but continued in a
minute after disconnecting several tubes and wires from Drovak.
“The word is that the dark lords caught him taking riches that were
rightfully theirs. His clone line has been discontinued. Your new
ship should be coming through the portal within the day. Too bad
those pathetic energy beings managed to close the old portal. Your
orders are to lead an elite strike force and destroy a lone
protectorate vessel.”

Drovak thought for a few moments without answering.
The old portal had been safe for organic matter to pass through but
the new one had far too much radiation. Any organic matter was
destroyed by the crossing. Ships would be sent over and manned by
drakken cloned on this side. He also thought about the time he had
been sacrificed to the dark one and the insatiable hunger he had
felt as his life energy was drained away. Then there was the time
he had been sent on an assassination mission and met an ascended
face to face. He had not survived the encounter yet the pity on the
face of the woman had been burned into his memory. His was to obey
the orders of the dark lords as they spoke the will of the dark one
on his quest for power. But there was a chance all be it a slim
chance. To fail meant the end but if he succeeded he might be free.
The plan began to form.

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Dreams. Strange dreams. Dreams of loss and failure.
An all pervasive sense of hopelessness. A glimmer of hope but too
faint to notice. Life and death and life again, an unending cycle
of fear and rage. A choice. Orders are given, resistance is
useless. A choice between freedom or servitude, resistance is
useless. The final death would free me from them. I don't want to
die, I want to fight them. A star in a sea of darkness, one two
three stars glimmer. One is drowned by the flood and two remain.
Hope remains. There is a chance, if only they knew. Resistance is
useless. Darkness comes like a river but one is not. When the star
dies where the ocean is in a drop.

Kiyan woke gasping for breath with the taste of bile
in his throat. The strangling sensation of the dream faded as he
remembered where he was. Something was wrong but Kiyan wasn't sure
what. Some of his dreams were little more than dreams but some were
cryptic warnings about things that could happen. Connecting with
Alec for an update on the progress of the survey Kiyan climbed out
of bed and prepared for the day. He thought about telling Theo
about the dream but decided that it could wait for later.

Breakfast was a testament to Alec's culinary skill.
The foods that Kiyan remembered from his time on earth had been
reproduced and tasted better than they had ever tasted. Kiyan
thought about the state of earth when he had left it to rejoin the
war. The protectorate had been winning every battle but was losing
the war. There was simply too many drakken agents infiltrating the
time line. The ascended couldn't try repairing the timeline as long
as there was reinforcements coming in an unending flow. After the
drakken foothold in this universe was taken care of then and only
then would they be able to focus on repair. Kiyan acknowledged the
alert on his HUD when Savos entered the dining hall.

“How has your training been going?” Kiyan beckoned
Savos over after he had gotten some food.

“The bio neural interconnect is incredible. I have
learned more in a week than I could have in years. Draxos has been
teaching me more earthbending through the simulator from his ship.
Ray is going to be teaching us some advanced self-defense
techniques.” Savos appeared to be enjoying his time on the
Avenger.

“I think you might be ready for bridge duty soon at
this rate.” Kiyan finished his toast with a bite while he watched
Savos' face. The look of surprise mingled with fear made Kiyan
laugh. “Don't worry, Alec will be there to handle anything you
can't.”

“Since you're speaking of me, I have a report for you
commander.” Alec's hologram made Savos jump when it flashed into
the room beside their table. “There is a system nearby surrounded
with a dense asteroid field. I detected a planet but can't classify
it. The Avenger isn't able to pass through without disturbing the
field and some sort of radiation is disrupting scans and remote
drone control.”

“So what you are saying is that if we want a full
scan someone needed to pilot a drop ship into the system manually.”
Kiyan picked up his dishes and took them back to the kitchen.

“In essence. My long range scans were unable to
detect any sign of drakken but that doesn't mean that there aren't
any. This planet could be uninhabitable or terra formable. Perhaps
even a hiding place in an emergency.” Alec offered a couple of the
crew onboard as possible candidates.

“Why don't you just pilot the drop ship in one of
your androids?” Kiyan was thinking about alternatives.

“I would not have bothered you if I could do it with
certainty of success. The radiation has a detrimental effect on my
data link and higher quantum functions. If I go offline I need an
organic to be able to complete the mission.” Alec seemed as
embarrassed as an AI could get about admitting a deficiency.

“I will do it.” Kiyan was getting tired of staying on
the ship going over scan data and was looking forward to some
change of scenery.

“Commander! I highly recommend that you stay on board
the Avenger. There is a chance that the drop ship could be damaged
by an asteroid and be stranded.” Alec made his objections very
clear.

“Do you honestly think that I would let one of my
crew become exposed to danger that I won't?” Kiyan smiled at Alec
with a mischievous grin. “Besides what is the chance something
could go wrong?”

“0.07% chance of threat.” There are other factors I
might have missed in my calculations. Alec grudgingly let Kiyan
aboard the drop ship when he was unable to convince him to stay but
decided to send four repair drones just in case something went
wrong.

“I will meet you up with you along the scan route
when I finish here. You will get a subspace message if I need help.
Besides you will have one of your androids with me the whole time.
What could go wrong?” Kiyan was looking forward to the trip.
Unexplored alien worlds awaited.

Leaving the Avenger went uneventfully. Looking back
at the massive ship Kiyan was still surprised at its size. Watching
the Avenger return to warp he piloted a course through the asteroid
field. Raising shields and activating point defense systems took
care of any rouge meteors. Emerging on the other side of the
asteroid belt they saw a dwarf star orbited by a single planet.
Closer examination revealed a cratered planet. Flying over the
surface of the planet they made scans and determined that the
planet was in the safe zone and was terraform able but an asteroid
lattice would need to be constructed before the surface would be
safe to inhabit. Closer scans detected large deposits of raw
materials but no trace of life forms on the surface. Finding a
relatively flat plain, Kiyan landed to take samples. Alec was
operating intermittently so Kiyan donned the environmental suit and
proceeded to take some samples. Bathed in the bluish light of the
sun the landscape was something from a dream. Looking up Kiyan felt
insignificant under the jet black canopy broken only by the dwarf
star.
A sea of darkness.
It must be the asteroid belt
blocking the stars out. Kiyan stood searching the darkness for a
single point of light to break the dark expanse.

A broken transmission from Alec recalled him to the
present. The best that Kiyan was able to make out was some sort of
warning. Kiyan wondered for a moment what it could be before he
sensed the hail of meteors approaching. A glance told him that the
drop ship was too far away to reach before the hail struck. The
first meteor exploded some distance away throwing up a plume of
dust that floated back to the ground. The next one was closer. The
environmental suit made movement on any level of speed difficult.
Kiyan's HUD showed a green line around the drop ship where he would
be safe. Sensing another rock flying at him, Kiyan instinctively
bent it safely away. Only a few feet more before Alec would extend
the ship's shield around him. Sensing a large meteor closing in on
his position he bent everything he could at it but only succeeded
in splintering it into a dozen pieces.

Kiyan braced as the ground around him erupted on
impact, flying with the shrapnel Kiyan landed a couple hundred feet
away. Catching his breath all he could see was dust. When
everything settled he realized that there was nothing between his
face and a vacuum. A quick mental query indicated that his
cybernetic environmental system had a 99% charge remaining. The
oxygen scrubbers indicated full operation. Deciding that the
environmental suit was worthless Kiyan tore it off and sprinted to
the safe zone. A flicker and the next meteor exploded harmlessly
against the shield.

“I didn't...... know....... how integrated..... You
were.” Alec was having difficulty operating in spite of the
shielding around the ship.

“It's a promising planet but it definitely needs some
sort of asteroid defense before anyone tries to do anything with
it.”

“Affirmative..... leave......... sensors........
malfunctioning.” Alec appeared eager to escape the system.

Kiyan interfaced with the controls and lifted off.
Retracting shields to only cover the ship he dodged what he could
and blasted what he couldn't. Leaving the cloud of debris behind he
climbed into a high orbit and prepared to exit the system. Sensors
began to indicate various erroneous readings over a wide range
indications. Flickers and flashes covered the view screens until
Kiyan turned off the scanners and switched to optical navigation
data. The ship notified Kiyan that scanners and com systems were
damaged and charge levels were low. There was more than enough
energy left for navigation out of the asteroid field and a jump to
the Avenger's location so Kiyan wasn't too worried.