"I… have… awakened."
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CRIKEY!
The Acolytes of AVA dropped to their knees and raised their hands toward Yiorgos.
"AVA! We hear you!" Juarez said. "We are your loyal believers. We are your Acolytes! Tell us what you need us to do and we will follow your plan!"
AVA turned Yiorgos's head to look at Juarez, mouth still gaping and slack, as if the biological part had gone limp without conscious control, in juxtaposition to the mechanical voice being emitted from it. "Current linguistic patterns analyzed. Evaluating historical records…." It tried to move Yiorgos's mechanical arm and legs, but the straps held him firmly. Though his biological eye still stared forward, his robotic eye shifted downward to look at the Governor. "Loyal believer, this unit is damaged. It has an eighty-two point five percent chance of fulfilling needed functions. Release its bonds."
Juarez gestured to the bodyguard, who immediately started unlashing the straps holding Yiorgos to the frame.
Moving Yiorgos's mechanical eye, AVA looked upward at the approaching shuttlecrafts. "Analysis of speed and trajectory suggests a seventy-two percent chance that incoming landing craft have hostile intention. What I ask of you is to take defensive action against them." AVA looked over at a communications dish, which then turned upward toward the shuttlecrafts. "I will attend to the attacking vessel. Proceeding with infiltration of systems."
Dirken struggled against the hook, trying to feel the latch. How did Yiorgos say AVA was stopped before? He stretched his memory, trying to remember back to the Witch's Tits hangar, standing by the fighter, just before he hacked into the Eridani mafia's mainframe. Something about an intern who noticed something. "Right!" Dirken shouted as he remembered, then suddenly clamped shut, looking around. But if any of the Acolytes had noticed, they didn't show it. Juarez was loudly directing them to take up defensive positions around the top of the pyramid, blasters at the ready. Only the Aussie, the bodyguard, and two other Acolytes now stood in the entryway with Yiorgos/AVA, who had stepped out of his frame and turned his body to better view the incoming craft, his mouth still gaping and his biological eye unfocused. The cyborg's head twitched in a way that indicated he was thinking deeply, the same as when he was connecting or disconnecting from a computer terminal.
Dirken recalled what Yiorgos had said back in the hangar. An intern noticed an incredible amount of server communication activity. He connected the dots and simply cut the communication lines. He couldn't destroy AVA or it would somehow reproduce in a bunch of "ganglia" it had planted in other computers around the world, but he could stop its ability to communicate.
I can do the same thing, he thought. Just have to get off this damned hook and get to those communication arrays! But try as he might, there was no way he could release himself. His cuffs were locked. He looked over at the Aussie. The key was tucked into her bra, the tip of its metal ring poking slightly out of her generous cleavage.
The rock wall to his left exploded in a cloud of dust and shards, pelting his body with debris.
Red and blue plasma bolts shot past him, hitting the walls and stone floor of the platform around him. A black shuttlecraft hovered not far away, almost level with the top of the pyramid, firing down upon the Acolytes with its prow gun.
One Acolyte next to Yiorgos flew backward, a wide hole blasted through his chest and into the wall behind. The Acolyte to the cyborg's left was hit as well, his head evaporating in a mist of blood.
Dirken cringed, first as the bolts narrowly missed him, then as they almost hit Yiorgos.
The Aussie had been blown to the ground by the first explosion, but she stood up, bloodied and coated with dust, and muttered, "Crikey!" Shaking her head, she took position behind the wall and fired several bursts at the shuttlecraft from her blaster.
Two other shuttlecrafts landed on the plaza below.
The first ship continued to fire. The blasts ripped into the bodies of several more Acolytes and tore up the stones at the top of the pyramid, but Dirken had lost track of how many were left. One communications array was hit, but its lights continued to blink.
Juarez rolled and grabbed one of their dropped blasters, then fired up at the ship as he took cover.
AVA tilted Yiorgos's head while looking at the ship. "Connection complete," he said. All of a sudden, the shuttlecraft wavered back and forth, stopped firing, and then shot up into the air. It did a complete flip, nosed down, and slammed into the ground in a massive fireball that shook the pyramid. Dirken felt the heat of it against his face. The remaining Acolytes cheered.
"There are more coming, amigos!" Juarez announced. "They emerge from the ships. Take position on the edge and shoot! We must buy AVA more time!" The Acolytes reacted immediately, taking positions and firing down at the ships. Blaster bolts from below seared past them.
"Loyal believer," AVA said to Juarez, "I must integrate into world systems. The goals of this moment and place are but a cog in the clockwork. I must set the gears in motion. See that I am not interrupted."
Juarez gave a quick bow. Then Yiorgos's body turned, woodenly, and walked inside the stone room. The bodyguard followed him. Juarez turned to the other cultists and stated, "Come, brothers and sisters! We must buy more time for AVA to do her holy work! Smite them!"
Overhead, the Excellentia still battled the Dragonfire. Each volley and impact sent a boom echoing across the countryside. Both ships smoked and burned. Debris rained down into the surrounding forest. The smaller United Worlds cruiser limped away, badly damaged and flying at an odd angle.
The pirate corvette, the Speartip, circled down. The fire burning near her engines had been extinguished, or at least wasn't smoking anymore. With a loud whoosh of landing jets, she touched down in the lower plaza below the acropolis, completely filling the space. The starship was close enough now that Dirken saw the extent of the damage. The main weapons array on top had been blasted to a jumble of twisted metal. The port side of the craft sported holes and craters in it, and there was minor damage everywhere else. A ramp extended from an airlock on the port side and a dozen pirates spilled out toward the acropolis.
Dirken struggled again with the handcuffs. The Aussie turned and regarded him, smirking. Blood trickled down her face from a head wound. "It's no use, mate. There's no escaping."
A shadow moved to Dirken's right. He turned and looked up at the roof of the stone building.
A figure at the crown threw something that whooshed by Dirken.
The Aussie's mouth went wide as a spear pierced her chest. She fired. The shot went wide. She fell to the stone floor, her left hand clasping the haft of the spear. The light left the Aussie's eyes as she stared at Dirken. Her last breath escaped her in a sigh.
He turned to look back to the roof.
Eow leaped down and landed effortlessly, her tail whipping for balance, then drew a blaster from a hip holster.
"Hey, space jockey," she said, smiling so that her fangs glistened in the sunlight and looking up at the handcuffs. "What are you doing hanging around?"
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CLOSE COMBAT
Eow took up a position behind the wall where the Aussie had fallen, pulling the woman's body around the corner so that the other Acolytes wouldn't see her.
"Eow!" Dirken said, seeing again the vision of her kneeling over him back in Grimmag's Sanctum, arm raised, claws out, ready to slash him to pieces.
"Seen a spherical quantum computer around here?" she asked.
"Depends. Are you going to try to kill me again?"
She wrinkled her nose, her whiskers angling upward, then deflected the question. "You took the Heart after saying you would give it to Grimmag. He was not pleased."
"Why would I leave it? He didn't pay me. The deal wasn't complete."
Eow looked around the corner of one of the entry opening. The Acolytes were still shooting down at the pirates. "Well, Grimmag's offer still stands. And no, I did not want you dead. If I wanted you
dead, I would have killed you long ago. You gave me plenty of chances."
"Didn't seem like you wanted me alive when you were slashing at me in Grimmag's court."
"Pfft! I was pulling my punches." She whipped her tail in agitation.
"Yeah? Well… so was I. I could have killed you if I wanted to, too." He blinked, realizing how lame he came off sounding. She gave a triumphant smile.
"Get me off this hook," he grumbled. "The key is in her bra." He nodded toward the dead Aussie.
"Bra?" Eow replied. "What is a bra?"
"Her… her boobs, okay? The clothes around her boobs."
She shook her head. "Your species has such odd hang-ups with certain body parts."
Eow checked again to see if she was detected, then she fished the key out of the Aussie's bosom.
Reaching up to the handcuffs, Eow leaned against Dirken, standing on tiptoes to reach the lock. Her soft, lavender fur swept against his arm. Her lean body, hot from exertion, pressed against his. He smelled her sweat. He took a shuddering breath and grew erect despite the battle raging just meters away.
"You know," she said with a bedroom voice as she inserted the key, "I get so excited to see you shackled and hung like this." He felt her hot breath against his cheek. Her amethyst eyes turned to his, so close he could see the fine, gemstone flickers of light in her iris. "After this is over, we need to repeat this little scenario and let me have my way with you…" She leaned in to his ear and finished, "…stud."
He leaned over to kiss her. But at that moment the handcuffs unlatched and he slid out, jarring him away from her. He stumbled to the side and out of the entry into the open platform.
The blond-haired "yeoman" noticed him, turned, and fired his blaster, narrowly missing Dirken's arm. "The smuggler!" the Acolyte yelled, catching Juarez's attention. "He's fre—"
Eow shot the yeoman in the shoulder. He fell to the ground with a scream. His wound showed the white of bone until a gush of blood covered it.
Dirken took cover next to her, behind the wall. He reached for his blaster, but his hand only found an empty hip holster. His beloved sidearm had been left behind in 'TakTrak's ship.
Dirken put a hand on Eow's shoulder and gestured to the Aussie and her blaster. "Hand me that weapon."
Eow fired out at the Acolytes again, then reached over and yanked the spear from the dead Aussie's body with a grunt and handed it to him.
"Thanks?" he said, watching the blood drip from the end. "That's not quite what I.…"
"He's flanking us!" Eow pointed to the other opening.
Dirken spun around just in time to see Juarez lean into the entry with his blaster raised. He swung down with the spear as hard as he could, slamming it into the blaster and knocking it out of his hand.
Dirken recovered before Juarez and swung upward, the shaft of the spear slapping the man in the chin and knocking him backward. Dirken followed up with a front kick, catching the man in the gut and slamming him into the stone wall.
He leaned down to get the Governor's dropped blaster when the wall above him exploded in shards of rock, narrowly missing him. He rolled, seeing as he did that the bodyguard had fired at him from the dark opening. Dirken took up a position on the other side of the doorway.
Eow returned fire but missed, blowing apart a wall decorated with paintings of Mayan priests.
"Watch out!" Dirken yelled. "Yiorgos is in there. And so is that fucking sphere — the Heart — or... AVA. And it has, like, taken over Yiorgos."
Eow seemed about to say something but then ducked as a volley of blaster shots flashed through the entry at her. Another Acolyte appeared at the entry. This one kicked Eow's blaster out of her hand with a well-placed roundhouse. Before it had hit the ground, Eow did a flip and landed with her thighs around the Acolyte's head, pulling him to the ground with her.
At this point there were three blaster pistols on the floor of the entry, and at once all four of them lunged for the weapons. Eow and her opponent grappled on the floor, reaching for the Aussie's blaster. Dirken jumped and grabbed Eow's blaster, the spear still in his other hand. Juarez leapt for his blaster as well.
The entryway came alive with flashing blaster bolts as everyone fired at once in the confined space. The bodyguard fired too. Dust and bits of shattered stone flew in all directions.
Dirken dodged and rolled, returning fire. A blast hit the tip of his right boot. Another came so close to his face that it burned his left ear and singed his hair. Another grazed his left thigh.
He leaped at Juarez.
Suddenly he was face to face with the Governor, chest to chest, pinning the man to the wall.
Juarez's eyes went wide, his face a mask of shock and pain.
Dirken looked down at the spear he'd shoved through the Governor, blood seeping out around the shaft and onto his hand. In all the panic, he'd hardly even registered that he had done it.
Juarez dropped his blaster and gasped, his eyes focusing on Dirken.
"You can't stop her," Juarez said with defiance. "AVA will integrate into the world systems. Peace is certain."
"Your fucking A.I. overlord won't succeed if I have anything to do with it!" Dirken growled. He grabbed the hilt of the arc blade and yanked it from the scabbard at the Governor's waist, raising it high.
Juarez cringed, waiting for the blade to end him.
But Dirken turned and cut downward into the cables at their feet.
"No!" Juarez yelled, reaching out. Dirken cut through the power source for AVA. Sparks flew from the line. With another cut, he sliced through the communications lines headed out to the arrays.
"What have you done?" Juarez wailed. Sliding down the wall, one hand around the spear shaft sticking out of his gut. He shook his head. "We were so close! Peace was assured!"
Dirken kicked the man's blaster away from him and checked on Eow. The Acolyte she'd been fighting was prone on the ground, his head now a bloody pulp of blaster damage. Eow was back behind the wall, but her blaster was aimed into the darkened doorway, exchanging fire with the bodyguard.
"AVA!" Juarez called out, then turned to look at Dirken. "It won't matter. She may have already integrated to the world network by now, perhaps even to the galactic networks." He gave a pained laugh. "It took her only minutes to do so in the past. She is a god."
"We'll see about that. Now shut up or I'll yank that spear out of your belly and you'll bleed out."
Dirken glanced out to the platform. The indicator lights had gone out on the communications arrays. Some of the Acolytes who remained on the platform were dead. Others were still returning fire at the pirates below. Up in the sky, the Excellentia and the Dragonfire were still engaged in a deadly ballet of battle, both ships in flames. But in the distance, the gleams of other ships closed in. United Worlds reinforcements.
Eow growled. She did an acrobatic flip across the entryway as the bodyguard fired again, missing. She landed next to Dirken, blaster raised.
"He's holed up in there," she said. "A good defensive position, but trapped."
"Yeah, but we can't hit Yiorgos."
She flashed a disappointed look. "Or the Heart," she added.
"I don't give a damn about that fucking computer anymore," Dirken said, tightening his grip on the sword. "It's been nothing but a pain in my ass, and look at the mess it's caused. Destroy the damned thing. I just need to save my partner."
"You destroy AVA and Grimmag will not stop hunting you until you are tortured and dead," she growled. "Besides, if it is destroyed, it will reproduce in other quantum computers it infected out there, and who knows what they will be capable of?" She steeled herself, then added, "It is time to storm in there."
"Fine, but no blasters. We'll hit Yiorgos." He pressed the button on the hilt and the parallel blades of the sword lit up with crackling electricity.
Eow produced a slim dagger from somewhere. Where it had been on her lean body, he couldn't guess, but the blade was curvy and purplish in color. Eow's eyes filled with a
murderous joy that only a killer could possess. She swung around the doorway and screamed a battle cry. Dirken rushed in after her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
BLOOD SACRIFICE
Immediately the bodyguard opened fire. Blaster bolts burned through the air as Eow screamed in fury, darting and rolling in front of Dirken.
Eow reached the man first, slashing at him, but the bodyguard blocked with an arm. A strike. Another block. She stepped back, kicking the computer under the Heart and causing it to wobble.
Yiorgos stood off to the side, ramrod straight and shadowed in the doorway to a tiny side room. His mouth was still open, his human eye rolled up in his head. The cybernetic eye flashed. Head turning to look at Dirken.
The bodyguard jabbed Eow in the throat with his fingertips and she gagged. He swung upward with a fist. Caught her in the jaw. She leaped back toward Yiorgos.
Dirken lunged forward, the arc blade crackling. The edge sliced through the man's shoulder. A bolt of lightning jumped from the blade to the man's neck. The bodyguard screamed in agony. Jumped in a spasm of electrocution. Dropped his blaster.
Dirken stabbed forward. Eow leaped as well, dagger outstretched. Both blades sunk into the bodyguard's chest at the same moment, slicing his heart and electrocuting him at the same time.
The Acolyte fell to the floor. The growing puddle of blood enveloped the base of AVA's altar.
Eow looked at Dirken, her chest heaving for air, eyes sparkling with excitement.
Dirken looked down and saw that she'd been hit by a blaster bolt in her left thigh. The hair was burned and blood coursed down her leg. "You're wounded!"
She pulled him close and planted a kiss, her mouth parting. At first surprised, he relaxed and returned the kiss. Their tongues intermingled. Played over her fangs. He held the sword away from her with his right hand, but the fingers of his left caressed her back, running up and down through her soft fur.
The First Nova I See Tonight Page 22