Heart Of The Machine (Soulmates Book 2)

by Don DeBon

"What would—"

  Aleshia rolled her eyes. "Never mind!"

  The Phoenix stopped its shaking and Otis opened an eye. "Are we dead?"

  Dakarth's lips parted in a wide grin. "If that wassss true, you wouldn't be talking."

  "No, we have made it through the upper levels of the atmosphere," Minerva said.

  "We made it?" Otis said.

  "Of course, what else would it mean?"

  The large screen crackled with white and grey pixels before they reformed into Deven's face. "Phoenix! Come in! Please respond!"

  "We're here." Aleshia said letting her grip relax on arm rests for the first time since they started the decent. "It was a rough ride, but we are here."

  He blew out a breath. "Oh thank God, when communications failed, I feared the worst."

  "I told you it was increased ionic disruption due to the extreme heating of the atmosphere," Miles' voice came through the speaker.

  Deven turned his head. "Yes I know Miles, but you have been wrong before."

  Behind Deven, Miles' camera iris contracted then expanded. "When?"

  "What? Do you want a list?"

  "Yes, as I am not recalling such incidents. Such a list would be appreciated, preferably alphabetical."

  Deven glared. "Miles?"

  "Yes?"

  "Drop it."

  His iris shrank and enlarged again. "Dropped."

  Deven turned back. "Now where are you? We don't see you in the vicinity."

  "Yeah, Minerva had to nose us down to protect the rear shields. She said we were going to be out over the ocean," Aleshia said.

  "That is correct." Minerva paused checking her systems. "If you are at the previous coordinates, we should rendezvous in fifteen minutes. Once my overdrive comes back online."

  Deven cocked his head. "Why is it down?"

  "I had to channel all available power into the shields. I thought they would fail, but Leon said they would hold. He was correct."

  Leon smirked. "I had a hunch."

  "Glad he was. See you in a few." Deven's face disappeared as the connection cut.

  Chapter 19

  Far from Earth, slightly closer to Mars a large aperture formed. At first it appeared as a tiny blue speck. But like any baby it grew quickly until it was larger than the Lytherian Command carrier. The circling storm of energy flashed red and a large Celloid ship emerged from it. The energy storm flashed again and another large ship emerged. The pace increased until all the Celloid fleet materialized. With the last ship clear of the storm, the warp crashed shut, sealing itself.

  Several alarms flashed and Karthish knew before Gakon, his second-in-command spoke. "Sir, the Celloids have arrived and are approaching at top speed."

  "I know. Get Dakarth and his team up here now. They are needed. And start redeploying the fleet to put us between the Celloids and Earth. We cannot allow even one ship to get past."

  "Yes sir."

  On the Phoenix Leon sat with Dakarth discussing the best way to upgrade Halbrun's fleet. Otis stood nearby listening intently, while Aleshia's eyes had glazed over a few seconds after they began comparing mathematical models. She sat in one of the console seats to the side, trying not to fall asleep. She didn't want to appear rude, but even with the unpadded seat, it was a struggle to stay awake. Aleshia wanted to try out the new telepathic system, but Dakarth assured her it would work.

  A device on Dakarth's belt beeped in a higher tone than usual. He sighed knowing the alert signal. He pulled the device free and flipped it open, expecting the worst. "I assume the Celloids have arrived?"

  "Yes, Karthish wants you back aboard as soon as possible."

  Dakarth nodded. "Understood, we will leave in a moment." He flipped the device closed and replaced it on his belt. "I am ssssorry, we must leave."

  Minerva blinked. "What I don't understand is, if they have arrived, how will you have time to get back without being shot out of the sky?"

  "It is quite ssssimple. You see when Celliods make a jump, they have to concentrate all of their energy to do so. At arrival, their ships are in a state of energy depletion. They will need to replenish before launching an attack. Celloid ships always arrive some distance from target and after a large thrust, remain dormant, recharging their systems if you will, before attacking. This gives us some time. But not much. Several of your hours. I was hoping we could upgrade the rest of your ships. But we no longer have the option."

  Leon sighed. "We will have to make do with what we have."

  "I hope it is enough," Dakarth said heading for the hatch.

  "It will have to be," Leon muttered.

  Back on the Defiant, Deven stood by the bridge window and watched as the two Lytherian shuttles left heading for the Command Carrier. Miles' camera turned. "Deven? We are receiving a call from the Valiant."

  Deven checked chronometer on his console. "Almost one minute. Odell is getting slow. Put him on."

  One of the larger bridge screens flashed as Halburn's face appeared. "Mind telling me what is going on? I see our help is leaving."

  "The Celloids are here."

  "What?" Halburn spat. "Where?"

  "They have emerged from their jump and will arrive in a few hours. Dakarth and his team are needed back aboard."

  "Now what?"

  "Now we prepare the best we can. You and your fleet go to the night side of the planet and we will stay on the day side. If anything gets through the Lytherians, we will take it out."

  "Sounds like a plan. But I don't like we are out-gunned."

  Deven sighed. "Neither do I, but I hope you won't see any action on the night side."

  "Why would night make a difference?"

  "I had a discussion with Karthish, and it seems the Celloids can use sunlight as a boost to their internal power generation. They never attacked at night, always during the day. You should be fine."

  "What about you?"

  "We have the better weapons remember? We will take them out. But with luck, neither of us will see anything."

  "Luck huh? And how good are you in a casino?"

  Deven chewed the inside of his cheek. "You don't want to know."

  "That is what I was afraid of."

  High above, some distance from Earth, the Celloids encountered the Lytherian fleet. They spread out deploying their smaller ships in a large wall of biologic mass approaching at great speed.

  Karthish watched them from inside his Command carrier. The holographic display showed everything in deadly, real-time. "Get the Phoenix! Tell Aleshia it is time."

  A large screen flashed as Minerva's face appeared on one side, while the other showed Aleshia sitting in the chair. But a few seconds later she frowned. "I can't feel anything. Nothing at all."

  Karthish frowned. "How can this be? You touched our ships at much greater distance." He heard muttering off to the side.

  Minerva's eyes narrowed. "I have traced the problem to the relays. Leon says he can fix it. We need a few minutes."

  "We will try to give you that time." The screen went dark and Karthish turned around. "Tell all ships to open fire."

  Gakon blinked. "But sir, in the past we have waited until they initiated the attack."

  Karthish glared at him. "What do you think they are doing? Coming to say hello?" He pointed to the wall of ships approaching. "I know we normally wait for them, but this time we do not have the option. Now, do as I say!"

  "Yes sir."

  Every Lytherian ship lashed out fire in a massive unified energy blast that ripped through the line of Celloid pod fighters incinerating most of them, with the rest being taken care of on the second barrage.

  Karthish frowned. "That was too easy. I wonder what—" He didn't get a chance to finish before he saw the three Celloid carriers change course and sent out tendrils towards each other. In a moment he watched in horror as the three individuals merged becoming one gigantic ship heading for the center of the Lytherian deployment. He knew this new ship's shields would be greatly increased, also its wea
pons. "Concentrate all fire on that ship!"

  Energy blast after energy blast lashed out, causing damage but failed to slow the Celloid down. "Sir, the ship isn't slowing. We aren't causing enough damage."

  Karthish's eyes narrowed. "I can see that. Deploy the Makers. Hit the thing head on."

  "But we need them to rebuild—"

  Karthish spun around and jabbed his hand forward. A talon thrust through the hologram of the Celloid. "If that thing makes it through, we won't need to. And this is something they won't expect for the same reason."

  "Yes sir, deploying the Makers."

  The massive Lytherian Makers, until now sat some distance away from the battle, glowed to life as their engines ignited. They formed up and cranked their engines to maximum thrust. They barreled headlong past the line and slammed into the Celloids. Much of their forward hull crumpled showing extensive damage, but the Celloid stopped in its tracks. Karthish was about to order the ships into a different formation when his eyes went wide as the Makers began firing at them!

  Karthish winced realizing what had happened. He sighed and hung his head. "Fire our main cannon at the Makers, aim for their power cores. Destroy them."

  "But sir—"

  Karthish pointed to the image hovering in the air. "Don't you realize what has happened? They have accessed the Makers and if we don't stop them, the Celloids will have access to all of our technology! We won't stand a chance. Now, obliterate the Makers!"

  "But sir, they are too close. The energy backlash might destroy us, along with them."

  "And if they get away with our technology, we are just as dead. Do it now!"

  "Yes sir," he said giving the commands to the crews. Every light aboard the flagship dimmed as the energy was diverted into an accumulator deep inside the Lytherian Command carrier. The power built exponentially until it reached forward slamming into the nose of the ship. A micro second later a massive blast rammed free hitting the Makers and Celloid head on. The outer hull of the Makers evaporated away as the beam intensified. In a brilliant flash, all three of the Maker's cores went critical and destroying themselves along with the attached Celloid. The energy envelope continued to expand, reaching back towards the Lytherian fleet.

  "Divert all power to shields!" Karthish shouted.

  "We don't have enough! That shot took all available power except for emergency life support for two units."

  "Use it!"

  Karthish's engineers diverted all remaining power as the outer layer of the expanding energy bubble impacted the hull. Panels blew as they overloaded, several cables on the bridge came down sparking. Karthish dove out of the way as one almost hit him in the face. The front of the hull buckled, main super structure cracked, but the ship managed to hold together. Karthish stood up coughing at the black smoke billowing from several areas all around the bridge. "Status report?" But there was no response. He looked around at the devastation that used to be his bridge and found Gakon impaled by a fallen piece of jagged metal. It stuck out of his chest, with his head slumped to the one other side. Three other Lytherians lay on the floor unconscious, blood oozing from several wounds.

  Karthish jumped over the sparking cables, broken structure supports, and his fallen crew to Gakon's console. He tapped communications. "Assess all damage and deploy repair crews. I need medical on the bridge."

  The line crackled and Akrath appeared. His chief medical technician insignia was obscured by blood, but not his own. "I will have someone up there as soon as I can."

  Karthish's eyes closed fast and opened very slowly. "How bad?"

  "I can't even begin to give you an estimate. I will as soon as possible. Akrath out." The screen went black. An unstable green glow drew his attention up and saw the tactics hologram flicker, disappear, and reform several times to display the largest Celloid ship he had ever seen. He wondered why they didn't detect this ship before. The sides opened up and many, smaller, armored pod-spreading ships began to emerge. He hit a button on Gakon's console "Deven are you there? Are you receiving me?"

  No response.

  Karthish slammed his palm on the sparking console. "Deven? Can you hear me? Please respond."

  The screen flashed with several layers of colored static before resolving in a glitching image of Deven's face. "We receive you, but barely. What happened?"

  "We managed to stop the largest part of the Celloid invasion, but it has left us incapacitated. And now the biggest Celloid ship we have ever seen has deployed more pod carriers. They are heading your way. You must stop them."

  The screen split and Aleshia's face appeared alongside. The static returned to obscure some parts of words. But it was enough to make out. "Leon thinks he has fixed the problem. We will try again in a minute."

  "Yeah, you can tell Dakarth his frequency was way off," Leon's voice came from off to the side. "Not his fault through, our ancestors had many years of extermination and data he didn't. I am glad the nanos had shut down or they wouldn't have let me rip out a couple of components and install my own. We should be good to go now."

  Karthish sighed. "I will, if he is still alive."

  "It is now up to us," Deven said.

  "Yessss. I am sorry."

  "Don't be. We wouldn't have had a chance without you. We will see you after we toast some Celloids."

  "You bet we will," Aleshia said smiling.

  "I hope so. And good luck." The screen went black and Karthish moved several pieces of debris from a chair and sat as he watched the ships approaching Earth. He turned to look at his remains of his fleet, everyone of them blasted and adrift. Wincing, he sat back in the chair gazing down toward the deck plates. "I hope you can, for all our sakes."

  Deven drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Next to him a screen showed Aleshia sitting in the chair and a ring reaching out to encircle her forehead. She sat with her eyes closed. He hated he wasn't with her. He felt he should be at her side, especially now. But the Galina and the Defiant needed him more. He glanced over at the screen again. "Anything? From what Karthish said, we should be detecting them at any moment."

  Aleshia never opened her eyes. "No, it is all very fuzzy. I'm having difficulty locking on to anything particular."

  "Leon, did you check the interface itself?" Deven overheard Otis say.

  "Yes, of course! This should work. I don't understand it. I replaced the components that were throwing the frequency off." Leon's voice came through muffled from under the chair.

  Deven saw Otis appear from behind the chair and bend down. "Here, let me help. I have an idea."

  Deven watched Leon pop out from under the chair and stand up. "Fine, see what you can do."

  Miles' camera turned. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I have detected the Celloids. We need to activate overdrive now if we are to intercept them. Galina, Minerva, I have sent you the coordinates."

  Minerva's face appeared on another screen. "Confirmed. Navigation is linked to Galina's control."

  Galina tapped her controls. "Yep I got them. Overdrives are online. Hang on everyone." She tapped her console and both ships disappeared as they leapt into overdrive. "We will be on them in less than two minutes. Any luck with the chair? I think we're going to need it."

  Leon's face went red on the screen. "No kidding!" A spark shot out from beneath the chair. "Otis! What are you doing?"

  Another spark shot out. "Oh you know, a little of this, a little of that," Otis said.

  "This isn't a cooking vid!" Leon spat.

  Otis poked his head out from under the chair. "Have a little faith." His head shot back under. "Just one more connection …" Another spark. "… there. Aleshia try it now."

  Aleshia's brow furrowed. "It is a little better, but still hard to see."

  "Dang, I thought for sure that was it."

  "Otis get out of there, and let me in," Leon said.

  "Let me try something else. One sec."

  "We don't have time!"

  Both ships shuddered as they dropped ou
t of overdrive in front of the Celloids. "Otis! Let Leon in there," Deven grumbled.

  Three more sparks in quick succession. "Okay, Aleshia try now!"

  "That did it! I can see the ships—"

  Leon stood there cocking his head back and forth. "What in the world did you do?"

  Otis' head popped out from under the chair as he extended his hand. Leon grabbed it and he helped him to his feet. "Simple, you know hardware, but I can spot a buffer overflow problem from a mile off."