Artificial Intelligence

by Rena Marks

  ARTIFICIAL

  INTELLIGENCE

  Rena Marks

  Artificial Intelligence

  Rena Marks

  The Sirian galaxy has blown itself up during a war that mimicked that of the destruction of her own planet, Terra. No stranger to slavery, Arian has escaped from the planet Zeta where she’s been raised to breed royalty.

  The Artificial Intelligence is a collective unit from the Sirian Planet B. They’d warned the leaders that a civil war would destroy the galaxy to no avail. In order to escape being destroyed along with the rest, they inserted their intelligence into the computer system.

  Imagine Arian’s surprise when she encounters a huge piece of chipped planet, which her computer claims to have ancient Sirian artifacts buried in its hollowed core.

  Nothing can possibly be alive. The contamination gases from the nuclear war have destroyed everything in sight. But Arian is a scavenger, and these are ancient artifacts…

  Unfortunately, her hacked computer never tells her the artifacts are actually metal skeletons whose bodies need to be grown into dangerously hot men.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chasing Violet

  Abducted

  Stranded

  Taken

  Captive

  Stargazer Series

  The Hunter

  Shared By Wolves

  Demonic Passions

  Demonic Pleasures

  Demonic Power

  Kiss Me Before I Die

  About the Author

  Also by Rena Marks

  Chapter One

  The space hub was crowded, noisy, and just plain obnoxious. Smells of various foods permeated the air. Traders tried to speak over each other as they flagged down patrons to approach their individual stands.

  Arian pulled her cloak tighter as she walked slowly toward the higher end of the market. It was important to allow herself to be seen by all. And yet she had to have an escape plan. If she could pull this off, who knew what she could bring home?

  “Girl, over here. We have dried seeds from your planet.” The reptilian creature who spoke used the universal language of light. It was a sing-song language when spoken—sometimes sounding like a series of clicks, and every being who traveled the stars was versed in it. But his sing-song was exaggerated as he tried to coax a sale from her.

  The trader was elbowed by his partner, who stood next to him. His whisper was harsh. “You don’t speak to her unless she speaks first. She’s Zetan property.”

  It was a rookie mistake, and one that was only made once. Arian couldn’t believe her luck. She turned to look at the reptilian trader, dropping the hood of her cloak deliberately. His green skin paled when he caught the view of the tattoo on the side of her face. It began on the hairline at the temple and wound down the side of her face, dipping onto her cheekbone, and wrapping down the side of her slender neck. She was more than property. She was one of the originals. A rare being that had status among the vicious Zetans.

  “I am sorry. I did not realize.”

  She tilted her head to the side, knowing the tattoo was more pronounced. “You have violated my household treaty.”

  “Please. He is new here. He was unaware. He meant no harm.” His partner jumped in to defend him, as she had already spoken. That one knew the score, his nervousness so tangible she could almost taste it in the air.

  Arian continued to stare them down.

  “We can make you a deal.” The partner was trying to smooth this over as best as he could. Apparently he was trainer to the reptilian and was forced to take responsibility for the blunder. No one expected a lone Zetan property to show up at the trading post.

  The smile barely touched her lips. “Please. Continue.”

  Beads of sweat gathered along the brow of the reptilian’s partner. “We do have seeds from Terra. Originals. They were found in storage from someone who escaped after the war.”

  She played down her excitement, and shrugged carelessly. “I hardly know if the seeds would be viable. Besides, I have grown used to eating Zetan food.”

  “We’ll throw them in for free, then.”

  “Why do you think seeds alone makes my violation worthwhile?” she asked outright, bored with the negotiations.

  The yellow reptilian’s eyes grew rounder. “We have a shipment of mestascia,” he whispered. His green partner looked outraged.

  “How much?”

  “One cargo.”

  They were traders. That meant there were two or three other cargos stashed for sale.

  “I’ll take it.”

  “For you we’ll sell it at half price.”

  She raised her well-shaped brows. “For the treaty violation, my owner can take your entire stash. For free. It is up to you whether I share your indiscretion with him.”

  She watched their reactions.

  “Come on, here. We have to make a living,” the first reptilian trader said.

  He was stupid. She’d give him that. “I hate trading,” she confided. “When I grow bored, or do not get a good deal, I simply have to mention why and the Zetans will swarm all over you before you can even think of hiding. Let’s cut the bullshit. We both know you have more than one cargo. We both know you will double the price and tell me you’re giving it to me at half. So it stands to be more than fair that you will give me one of your cargos for free, you are allowed to double your other stashed cargos for sale, and I will keep your carelessness to myself. My owner will be more than pleased with my transaction.”

  With one smooth movement, she lifted the robe from her neck, baring her shoulder. It proved the tattoo wound from her neck down her shoulder. She was even higher in status than they originally thought.

  The smarter of the traders nodded immediately. “Agreed.”

  He began to ring the sale. She held out her left hand for the bill of sale to be scanned onto the top of her lily-white hand. It shone brightly in a glow of orange.

  “You are all set,” he said carefully. “Cargo bay 15 is ours.”

  “Are we seriously not getting anything?” The yellow reptilian’s eyes were incredulous.

  His partner ignored him as if he didn’t exist. “Please, take the Terran seeds anyway. On us.” He handed her the precious commodity, and she nodded.

  Obviously he wanted to get her the hell away from them so he could explain to the reptilian trader the level of danger they were in. He’d have to explain her status, how rare it was to have a tattooed Terran in this day and age. How she could order them both killed on a whim.

  Arian turned abruptly, heading toward the receiver bay.

  “Cargo dock 15,” she said aloud, instructing her computer on where to autopilot the ship. She had to pick up her load and get the hell out of here before real Zetan beings showed up. She took her hood and brought it back up over her head, covering the tattoos from the rest of the curious eyes. The more people who knew she was present, the harder it would be to pass off as mass hysteria that a Zetan had been among them. No one would remember that an actual born Zetan hadn’t been present with her. It was such a contradiction, because a certain number of people needed to know. But not too many.

  The loading bay was just as crowded as the marketplace. Her ship pulled into bay 15, and the loading doors opened automatically. Several house robots were in attendance to load her ship. One manned the pallet of heavy blocks.

&
nbsp; Mestascia was a prized metal recently discovered. It was black in color, heavy, and stronger than any other metal out there. But when it was melted down, it turned white and changed texture, becoming a light-weight, airy cross between metal and plastic. Malleable, yet with the strength of metal. Once it cooled, it could stand extreme temperatures and would never re-melt. It was indestructible. It was invaluable. And she’d obtained it for free.

  A rotund avian species approached, glancing at her hand where her bill of sale glowed.

  She spoke first. “Thank you. The one cargo is all I will obtain today.”

  He nodded. It was a plausible for her to be alone. It also stood to reason why they were in the luxury vessel that had just been loaded. Zetan beings didn’t travel in sunlight, instead choosing to sleep through the day while the Terran slaves cared for them. “Where are you headed?”

  Naturally he assumed the planet Zeta, so she gave him what he would want.

  “We shall return home.”

  “Be careful going through the Sirius galaxy. You should go around it. There are strange things that occur, vessels that disappear in space and sometimes show up months later without realizing they’ve lost time.”

  Arian nodded, trying not to roll her eyes. “I have radiation protectors on my ship.”

  Her own planet, Terra, used to have an area where vehicles were rumored to disappear if they flew into the skies, or even traveled the waters where the triangle existed. It was amazing that in this day and age similar legends still existed.

  Plus, she had no choice. If a real Zetan did show up, they too would take the long route around the annihilated galaxy. Not that the unemotional species worried about ghosts and such, but they were wary about the radiation and the strange electrical screw-ups that others claimed occurred in the long-exploded Sirius galaxy. Zetans were all about their technology and anything unexplained that could mess with it was to be avoided at all costs. Plus, she couldn’t risk someone here pointing out that they should have a load of mestascia coming home. She had no intention of every going “home.” No, she had a new planet now.

  Besides, going the long route would take her weeks longer to reach the Apleagian planet—where they’d settled—to dump her load. Her people needed this as soon as possible.

  With a nod at the man, she entered through the ship’s cargo doors.

  “Close the doors, Tess,” she instructed her computer. “Prepare for takeoff. Straight course through the Sirius galaxy. Radiation shields up.”

  “Done, Arian.”

  Arian hung up her hooded cloak, and made her way to the main hull of the ship. She sat at the empty captain’s chair, and sent an encrypted code to her planet.

  Mission accomplished. On way.

  She placed the bag of vegetable seeds in a storage unit, where Tess would check them for replicable ability. Anything original could be replicated, but if a copy of a copy was duplicated too many times, it became a pale imitation. Flavor, nutrition and hardiness in the plants were lost. However, if they were original seeds like the trader claimed, they would be invaluable. The original seeds could be kept and replicated, using the first generation replications to plant with. Since she had several weeks of travel to return home, saplings could be started just in time.

  Their new planet could have fresh food soon.

  * * * * *

  Within two days she reached the dangerous Sirius galaxy. Arian cut the engines to low, allowing the vessel to drift as she navigated through the debris. So sad, and exactly what had happened to her own planet, Terra. On a much smaller scale than the disaster that was Sirius, of course. Terra consisted of a planet ruled by different continents and governments. Yet the inhabitants fought constantly. Eventually, the planet blew itself up in a huge world war.

  Unbeknownst to the Terrans, who had no idea that space travel existed, other alien vessels watched from the skies. Other life forms knew of a similar catastrophe on the Sirius star system. Sirius had two planets that warred with each other, and when one planet decided to bomb the other, they miscalculated the strength of the weaponry compared to the atmosphere they traveled. The resulting explosion grew to magnificent proportions, and the entire star system was destroyed instead. The missing sun threw off the gravitational pulls, changing the planets to instant lava rock, all life forms obliterated from one planet alone. Those few who managed to escape the second planet eventually died out a horrific, radioactive death, as there weren’t enough survivors to procreate, even if they could.

  When Terra was about to destroy herself on a smaller scale—a massive, nuclear war—other alien vessels beamed away as many females as possible before it blew. Groups of women were beamed aboard, and set on other planets to grow and thrive. At least the lucky ones were. Others were taken by not so friendly species.

  That was decades ago, when Arian was a small child. Time slowed now, it was nothing like when she lived on Terra and could count days with the rising and falling of the lone sun.

  To her right, Arian noticed a large chunk of…blackened planet. What the hell? Surely that couldn’t be any of the leftover planets from the Sirius civil war. Yet it was covered in a red gas, which in all probability were the radioactive gases she’d heard about.

  “Tess,” she called. “Probe.”

  The computer answered. “Probe shall be completed in ten seconds, Arian.”

  She waited, strumming her fingers, and then the voice continued. “It is a piece of planet containing its core. It once belonged in the Sirius galaxy, and was known as Planet B. It is no longer inhabited by organic life, however, it does contain artifacts from the time during existence. They seem to be confined in the hollowed core.”

  Arian’s mind whirred. What could she find on the planet? The artifacts would be invaluable, if she could land safely. “Please state radiation levels.”

  “The outer core of the planet is at the dangerous level. Your shields could not last more than ten minutes. If you were to land in a crater, the radiation levels are mild to the point of non-existent, depending upon the depth of each crater.”

  “How can that be?”

  “The radiation from the weapons used to blow the star system is known to rise. That unknown factor is what caused the strength of the scalar technology, which affected the entire star system instead of destroying one planet. There is no gravitational weight in space. Therefore, the radiation cannot lower to get into the craters.”

  “How many craters are there and how large are they?”

  “The craters are an average of 150 kilometers wide, large enough to hold your vessel. They are twenty-five kilometers deep. Also, the core of the leftover planet has been physically hollowed.”

  “Explain.”

  “There is no explanation. My sensors indicate a hollow core. It seems to be a burial ground. I detect objects of organic and non-organic materials inside.”

  “Yet no life?”

  “None.”

  “Prepare for landing inside one of the craters. I want a puncture pierce, so that I may explore the core.”

  “I will set the lasers to pierce a tunnel that will be directly under the ship. The angle will allow for you to walk upright.”

  There were a series of whirs as her engines returned to full strength. Her vessel was navigated to a giant crater she could see on the screen, and then she flew in.

  The shields held as the radiation gases swirled in a shade of coppery-red that was not able to come close to the walls of her vessel. The ground on the planet was desolate, shades of black and gray rock that looked like it had been burned beyond belief and was now a petrified mess. As she entered the crater, the color of the terrain inside changed to a lighter yellow brown. There were no more swirls of radiated gas.

  “Check oxygen levels,” Arian commanded.

  “The crater is in an oxygen pocket compatible with Terran life forms, and the core of the planet is oxygenized. The gravitational pull is low, so the ship is anchored into the ground. A first level suit ma
y be worn.”

  A first level suit was easy to move around in. It had gravitation boots that would adapt automatically in weighted levels. Arian wasn’t sure about moving about a strange planet covered in radiation without full gear, but her computer knew best.

  The door to the ship opened. The only lighting inside the crater was produced by her vessel. The radiation levels that swirled the planet above the crater were impossible to see through, so any light from distant stars or approaching ships would never penetrate. Who was she kidding? There were never any approaching ships. No one but she was stupid enough to enter this godforsaken galaxy. There were rumors that it was haunted by the deaths of billions of Sirian souls. Another rumor had it that the galaxy was impossible to navigate around, as it continuously moved within a black hole.

  Arian snorted. That brought the folklore back to the similar rumor of an area called the Bermuda triangle, back on Terra.

  Slowly she moved, dropping to her knees to feel the dirt. She gathered it in her hand. Beneath the glow of her skin, the dirt glittered. It had a metallic substance mixed into it, perhaps gold.

  The ship was on extended landing gear that pierced the ground, anchoring it in. It allowed for a four to five foot gap between the hull and the planet. Right in the center of her ship was the hole it had dug at an angle, like a tunnel. With a flick of her wrists, Arian switched on the flashlight beams under her sleeves and headed for the dug-out area.

  The laser had cut cleanly, and the dust had settled. She shined her lights to look inside, and made her way in. The tunnel was small, just an opening big enough to snake a full grown person through. The walls seemed to be the same substance as the loose dirt of the crater. Further she walked, and checked her wireless link with the computer.

  “Notify me if I get too deep to reach you.”

  “Command set, Arian.”

  “How far down the tunnel until I reach the core of the planet?”

  “You have nearly reached it.”

  Just then, the lights at her wrists picked up a larger, cavernous room.

  “High beams.”