by T. R. Harris
“Hold on!” Adam yelled back to Arieel. He knew how to get the lifting jets going, and a moment later, the ship was airborne and angling for space.
“Look out!” Arieel yelled.
Adam turned as a brilliant flash of light filled the room from behind. Arieel’s body was silhouetted by the light as she took the full brunt of the charge. Her body was thrown past Adam, landing hard on the deck before rolling onto her side. Light smoke wafted up from the charred mark on her chest.
Adam was in shock. He’d seen the same effects on the dead mercenaries on Gracilia. The electrical shock from the Aris was lethal. Arieel Bol was dead.
He still had a ship to pilot, yet with Arieel lying lifeless on the deck, anger replaced reason. He spun in the seat, growling at Kanan standing in the entrance to the bridge. The alien’s clothing was in shreds, yet he seemed to be otherwise unharmed—and unaffected. The cannon bolts had missed him, but not the resulting explosions and falling debris from the building.
At the moment, Kanan didn’t seem anxious to finish off Adam, choosing instead to gloat over his victory.
“The feelings are stimulating,” the alien said. “But now it is time to return to the surface immediately.”
“Why, just so you can kill me there? Screw that.”
Adam whipped back around and grabbed the control stick, determined to press it full forward. “This may not kill you,” he said, “but at least I’ll die believing it did.”
A movement then caught Adam’s eye. His mouth fell open and his heart leaped. Arieel was getting to her feet—and she had the BAR in her hands.
“No, don’t!” Adam yelled, realizing what she was about to do. The BAR had sat idle long enough for it to default to standard armament, which was energy bolts. She was thinking she was about to riddle Kanan with bullets, but that was not the case.
It was too late to stop her. The tight, blue flash bolt shot from the barrel and struck Kanan in the side of his head. Adam leaned back, waiting for the glowing heat he knew would come when beings such as Kanan took in a full charge of plasma energy.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, Kanan spasmed, his eyes wide, his mouth forming into a silent scream. And then his body crumbled to the deck.
Adam sat in shock for several seconds, overcome by the confluence of unbelievable events that just occurred. This was too much for him to take in at one time. First, Arieel was alive! And second, Kanan appeared to be dead. Two of the most unexpected events he could have imagined only seconds before.
And to top that off, the Gracilian warship was plunging back into the atmosphere with only seconds before impact.
Adam pulled back on the control stick, but the supersonic air streaming over the fuselage fought against him, keeping the ship in a steep dive. The forward monitors told the story. Six seconds to impact.
With a reach across to the weapons station next to the pilot seat, Adam angled the four flash cannon turrets ninety degrees down, placing them perpendicular to the ship. He fired all four at once.
The resulting recoil pushed against the descent angle, allowing the ailerons to bite into the air. The starship leveled out, skimming only feet above a turbulent black sea. They bucked and bounced, skipping off the surface and plowing through waves churned up by the wind and rain.
A moment later, calm returned as the ship gained altitude, blasting through the low cloud cover and into the clear air of the upper atmosphere. They were in space a few seconds later.
With a moment to relax, Adam scanned the bridge for Arieel. She was back on the deck, lying unmoving on her stomach. Adam unbuckled and jumped from the pilot seat. He went to her and gently rolled her over. Her eyes were shut. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
Adam bent down and placed an ear against her chest, listening for a heartbeat. It was there. She sucked in a deep breath.
Adam sat her up, cradling her head in his arm.
“I thought you died,” he whispered as he stroked her luxurious hair.
“I might have. It was a possibility.”
Adam shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Please, place me in a seat. This decking is cold.”
Adam obliged, placing her in what was the co-pilot/weapons station next to him at the pilot’s seat.
“How … how did you—”
“Another upgrade with my Gift,” she said, having trouble catching her breath. “Able to absorb energy bolts. A means of protecting the Speaker from assassination attempts.”
Adam smiled. “Who would want to harm the beautiful Speaker of the Formilian people?”
Arieel looked down at Kanan’s body. “An evil ancient Aris, for one.”
“He was trying to kill me, not you. I told you it was too dangerous for you to come along.”
“Are you not glad that I did?”
Adam nodded emphatically.
A chime sounded on the command console.
Adam looked down, trying to identify the source. He knew the basic controls for the starship, but not every bell and whistle.
Then a screen flashed in front of him. It was a proximity detector, showing a cluster of contacts at extreme range.
“Screw this,” Adam said. “I’m not looking for another fight. We’re far enough ahead of them and in a ship of equal speed. I’m kicking in the gravity drive, going to max. Unless they follow us all the way back to Navarus, we should be okay.”
Arieel fluffed her hair, a simple movement that brought her back to her glorious beauty.
“So, does this mean we can now have the second half of our vacation?” she purred. “All this excitement has aroused my desires. I must feed on these emotions. You should join me.”
Adam sighed. There was no denying it: Arieel Bol was insatiable.
Chapter 7
With the dark-energy ship in gravity drive and of equal speed, their pursuers gave up and turned back to the planet Arret. Adam relaxed and looked down at the body of the Aris on the deck next to his station. Arieel did the same.
“We need to make sure he’s dead,” Adam said. “And if he’s only unconscious, then we need to push him out of an airlock before he comes to.”
“I agree. Priorities matter.”
Adam slipped out of his seat and knelt down next to the body. He felt around the neck, searching for a pulse, knowing this was inconclusive with an alien. Then he felt his chest for a heartbeat. Nothing, but that could also be a false reading.
“Let’s get him to the common area. We’ll have more room to work on him there.”
Adam took the alien under the arms and attempted to drag him from the bridge. He hesitated. “Damn, he’s a lot heavier than I thought.” It didn’t stop Adam from getting the body out of the room, but it did raise concerns.
The common area was one of the most-open areas in the cramped starship, with seating lining a central area and the galley just down the corridor. A low table was bolted to the floor in the middle of the room. Adam hoisted the heavier than normal body to the table and began his examination.
He pulled open the eyes. There was no reaction and the dark pigment of the pupils had gone grey. Next, the mouth. He detected no breath coming from the body.
“He appears to be dead,” Arieel commented.
“He does,” Adam agreed. “But there doesn’t seem to be as much blood as I would expect.”
The blood wasn’t from the flash bolt he’d taken to the head, but from the battering his body received as the cannon bolts slammed into the Da’sor research building. There were major cuts all over the body, with large slabs of flesh dangling precariously from a dozen wounds. Each had a fair amount of blood associated with them; however, Kanan had lived on after the injuries, which should have continued to pump blood into the wounds. Adam peeled back a wide flap of skin and probed inside with his bare fingers.
“That is disgusting!” Arieel exclaimed. “I believe I will be sick.”
“Then how about finding me some towels? This is going to get mess
y.”
Adam studied the flesh. It was normal tissue but with a strange spongy underlayment. He’d never done an autopsy on an Aris before and he was curious what they had inside. This species had survived longer than any other in this same general form. He wanted to know what made them tick and what special organs they might have that allowed them to live off pure energy.
“Oh, and I’ll need a knife,” he called after Arieel as she headed aft, toward the galley.
Adam continued to probe the deep wound with his fingers. The gash was incredibly deep, making him wonder why it hadn’t killed the Aris. He could feel bone now, but an odd kind of bone. Through the blood and sinew, he went strictly by feel. The bone felt smooth, smoother than normal, but with thin thread-like veins coming from it that were flexible to his touch.
Arieel returned with a stack of towels and a knife, wrinkling her nose at the sight.
“We will not be eating on this table during the return trip.”
Adam took the knife and opened the wound a little more. He was able to look inside to the strange bone-like material. A flash of light reflected off something inside the body.
Adam took one of the towels and shoved it inside the hole, soaking up the blood. His movements were quick, almost panicked. When he withdrew the rag, he had his confirmation.
The bone was metal, with tiny fibers connected to it, holding the spongy subdermal material and with the tissue attached to the underlayment.
“Is that metal?” Arieel asked, suddenly growing interested.
“That it is. Just what I thought.”
Adam took the knife and cut a long slice into Kanan’s skull. Then with flourish, he gripped the skin and pull, peeling it away from what was a shiny metal base.
“It’s a robot.”
“Kanan is—was—a robot?” Arieel gasped.
“And a very sophisticated one. That explains a lot, like why he couldn’t speak at first and why he was having trouble walking. He must have just been completed or rushed into service when we showed up.”
“But why in the form of an Aris?”
“That’s a good question. The service modules must have made him. But from what Jroshin said, the modules he made are just basic AIs. Kanan had the memory of the Aris. He must have been designed by one of the older models, the ancient service modules, like Will and Grace—”
A thought occurred to Adam. He took the knife and tapped on the metal skull. As expected, it sounded hollow. He set to work peeling away the rest of the skin. Arieel didn’t flinch. Now that she knew this wasn’t the body of a once-living being, she was no longer appalled by the blood.
Adam examined the head until he found a series of small joints fused together. He set to work with the knife, chewing away at the welds until the head could be separated into spheres. Inside was what he expected—a perfectly spherical cavity approximately four-and-a-half inches in diameter.
“Kanan is a service module,” Adam announced. “He teleported into the head to control the robot.”
Adam suddenly leaned back in a panic and began scanning the room, including the overhead.
“What is wrong?” Arieel asked.
“He could still be here. When you shot him, it must have fried some of his circuits so he teleported out. He could have gone somewhere else in the ship.”
“Then why has he not made his presence known? It has been several minutes since the attack.”
“That’s a good point. And another thing: he said the Gracilians did not see him as an Aris. He must not have been in the form of a robot at the time. This is something new. He was still just a service module, and like all service modules, he could still deliver a deadly electrical shock. You’re probably right. He’s not onboard, otherwise we’d be dead.”
Adam reached out a hand to take Arieel by the arm. She recoiled from his bloody hand.
“Sorry, I just wanted to thank you for shooting him. It must have rattled him enough that he just shot off—somewhere. And now that we’re over a light-year away, we’re out of his teleporting range. That’s good to know. He can be affected by flash bolts, unlike real Aris.”
“This is all good to know,” Arieel began, “but what now? Why did Kanan build a robot, and does he intend to build more?”
“I’m not sure. But the machines were still running in the underground laboratory, even after he had a completed model.”
“Do you think the laboratory survived?”
“Probably. It was two floors below the surface, and the flash bolts only hit the building above ground. In a way, I hope he does build another robot. It makes him easier to spot. And if he teleports away, the robot collapses. He’ll probably try to stay inside for as long as he can, unless he has a bunch of extra robots lying around.”
“So, Kanan lives,” Arieel stated, a cloud coming over her pretty face.
“It seems so.”
“Then we have accomplished nothing during our mission.”
Adam smiled. “I wouldn’t say that. We got a lot of good intel, including who we’re up against. And we also have an idea where the DE fleet is hiding. We need to get this information back to Navarus.”
“Yes, and I must make a link with Formil.”
“That’s good. Let them know you’re okay.”
“That … and more.”
Arieel rushed away toward the bridge. Adam watched her go before raising his blood-soaked hands in front of him. He definitely had to clean up before he did anything else. Artificial robot blood would stain.
Chapter 8
“No shit?” said Jack Brown on the comm screen. “A robot?” The spymaster shook his head. “Even so, I don’t see how that changes things. It’s the armada I’m worried about. I have a call into Ambassador Euker to see if she can light a fire under the Juireans.”
“The Juireans?” Adam asked. “You’re not taking lead on this?”
Brown smiled. “We can’t. It’s the Juirean’s job to protect the Zone, if they’ll do it.”
“Or mine, if the Juireans refuse. You know my Enforcers can’t take on the dark-energy armada.”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves, Adam. But I agree, Kanan’s definitely a threat. I just received a report that the colonists on Arret were all but wiped out by a surprise attack. It seems your Kanan character is about to make his breakout.”
“But the colonists weren’t a danger to him.”
“It didn’t matter. The Gracilian ships destroyed most of the settlements. What we’re learning about the attack is coming from the few survivors.”
“So, it’s starting,” Adam said. “I knew he wasn’t going to sit on his fleet forever. It’s too tempting not to put it to work.”
“That’s why I think the Juireans will want to step in. The dark-energy ships are a threat to more than just the Dead Zone. What’s your ETA? We have work to do.”
“Three days. The DE ship we’re in is faster than an EAV. It won’t be long now.”
“Good,” Jack said. “Copernicus should be back by then. He’s bringing with him a couple of the lead Gracilian researchers who worked with Jroshin in designing and building the new service modules. They should give us some insights on how to destroy them.”
“And, hopefully, what they know about Kanan and his plans.”
Jack nodded. “In the meantime, I’ll get some ships out in the area to see if we can get a line on the fleet, a way to monitor its movements.”
“That’ll work,” Adam said. “But I’m more curious about Kanan himself. He’s one of the ancient service modules. I’ve had personal contact with three of them before and none of the others acted like him.”
“What were they like?”
“They wanted to serve, and when an Aris wasn’t around, they served us. They didn’t seem dangerous, until now.”
“Things change. Hurry back, buddy. Now that Kanan is flexing his muscles—robotic or not—I feel there’s a storm coming our way.”
Jack Brown met Adam and Arieel as they land
ed the second stolen Gracilian warship at the Human garrison on Navarus. There was no longer a need to hide its existence. Ambassador Jeanne Euker had contacted the Juireans warning them of the threat the DE ships posed, not only to the Zone, but to the galaxy as a whole. According to Jack, the Juireans went ballistic, upset that the Humans hid the threat from them for so long. They had a point, right up to when they declared this was an internal threat and beyond their purview.
“At the pace of stealing a DE ship every eight months, you should capture the entire armada in about four hundred years,” Jack Brown said with a grin. “You may want to pick up the pace.”
“Yeah, well, it was a target of opportunity. Besides, if we’d taken the EAV, we wouldn’t be here for you to joke about. The DE ships are a lot faster than ours.”
Jack turned serious. “Come along, both of you,” he said. “Copernicus has the two Gracilian scientists in a conference room. I’ve gotten a preview of what they have to say. It’s some unsettling shit. Hurry. No rest for the wicked.”
“I am not wicked,” Arieel protested, having taken Jack’s euphemism literally, as most aliens had a habit of doing.
Adam gave her a wicked grin of his own. “I beg to differ, honey. You’re about as wicked as they come.”
“So, that is a good thing?” She frowned.
“In this context, it is.”