Borne On Wings of Steel (47 page)

She couldn't stand it. She had to find a way to save herself and Minstrel. And somehow save her children and the other aliens of her extended family.

But she was powerless under the internal attack.

Mother's mind suddenly faded again as another horde of replicated code fanned out throughout her inner systems—racing through her numerous pathways, deleting every memory they found and erasing even the lines of System code that made her who she was.

Deep inside, she groaned. Somewhere distant, almost as if in a dream, she felt the cable scrape across her connection point at Panel A-21.

Amid her mental haze, she sensed the Paum's robot making the fatal connection.

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ELISE FELT HER heart in her throat as Jerr and Rab grew distant in the darkness. Far ahead, their outlines faded as they flew on their Fiarri boards.

She gripped her holstered blaster tighter, steadying her hand to keep it from shaking with the adrenaline that pulsed through her body.

But still, her hand shook.

"Okay, let's fly,” Qirn ordered as he stepped on his board and took off after Jerr and Rab.

Kyle and Jaric flew next.

Elise looked over at Krinia, who stood directly behind Rok with her arms tight around the Kraaqi's waist.

The Mewiis smiled reassuringly and nodded at the departing fliers.

Taking a deep breath, Elise took off.

Rok and Krinia flew off on their Fiarri board right behind her.

Glancing back, Elise saw Jysar and Inaha as they took up the rear of the main group. Farther back, still standing by their boards where they left them, Qata peered intently at his sensor while Hasta held his assault blaster at the ready. Both waited to follow as the rear guard.

Everyone flew in tense silence.

To Elise, it felt like they were flying between the walls of some huge canyon late at night, except the walls of this canyon was a pattern of unending honeycomb shapes that melted into darkness all around them. Piercing flashes of lights from inside the honeycomb caves and the ever-present hum of electronics reminded her they were inside the core of the Paum AI—deep inside.

And no one had ever been here before and lived to tell the tale.

"I've got movement."

Elise almost jumped off of her board as Jysar's voice broke the heavy silence.

"Where?” Qirn shouted over the comm link. “Can you pinpoint?"

"Multiple points on the wall to our right,” Jysar replied tersely. “Dozens all along...” The Hrono Technologist's voice faded away.

Elise strained her eyes.

"I can't see anything,” Rok said, an edge to his voice.

Jysar's shocked gasp filled their comm units.

"Report, Jysar!” Qirn shouted.

"They're everywhere! I've got movement everywhere. All along the walls—everywhere..."

Silence pressed in upon each of them.

"Focus, Jysar. How many?” Qirn's commanding tone seemed to calm everyone.

"There's thirty, no, more..."

"I can't see anything ... wait!” Kyle shouted. Out of the corner of his eye...

"They're jumping for us!” Jysar's voice drowned Kyle out.

"Evasive maneuvers!” Qirn roared.

Elise crouched as low as she could as her board leapt forward. She dove using the pressure points on the board's surface to guide it.

Krinia and Rok dove right beside her.

In a flash of movement, she saw Kyle and Jaric dive straight down and out of sight. Elise turned her board and chased after them.

A chilling scream filled the air.

They heard a horrified cry echo in the metal canyon without the aid of the Comm links.

"What was that?” Elise asked breathlessly.

In the darkness ahead of them, a flurry of red blaster bolts pierced through the darkness like lightning.

"Rab, Jerr, report!” Qirn's shouted.

Jysar completed a looping maneuver even as he glanced down at his sensor.

To his horror, he picked up a riderless Fiarri board diving straight down. Jysar worked his sensor, searching.

Finally, he found Rab.

The reading of the Iraxx was clear but completely still underneath the walkway up ahead. The sensor revealed the warrior's arms and legs held fast together against his body, almost as if something held him...

The sensor suddenly fixed on the huge metallic monster that surrounded the poor alien.

Jysar swallowed hard as he noticed Rab's life signs fading away even as he watched.

"They got Rab!” came Jerr's frantic call over the Comm. “We felt a movement of air brush us and then ... he was gone!"

"Stay sharp and keep moving,” Qirn ordered. “Everyone, fly in pairs. And keep moving, don't fly in a straight line. Qata and Hasta, we're making for the target cavern. Come on!"

Elise and Rok turned together.

Suddenly, there was movement in the darkness everywhere around them.

All the riders banked and turned their boards simultaneously.

They dove and banked again in frantic efforts to prevent the Destructors from getting to them as the invisible monsters leapt from the walls toward them.

Out of the darkness, Elise felt a movement brush through her hair...

"Hard over!” Krinia shouted from behind Rok. “It's right on us!"

Elise screamed as she dove hard to her left in a blinding turn.

She felt it, a metal talon reaching for her from a blurring form in the darkness.

Her heart raced as she now turned hard in the opposite direction. She had almost seen it, almost seen the Destructor reaching for her as it leapt past in the darkness.

"They're leaping from the left wall and the right wall!” Jysar's shout echoed eerily out of the darkness.

"Make for the target point, we've got to get out of the open here!” Qirn's form shot past Elise in a blinding blaze of speed.

"Everyone, cover your eyes!” Rok said with urgency. With a quick movement, he pulled the round device out of his belt and threw it as Krinia loosened one arm from around his waist.

An explosion of light rent the darkness.

As if in a dream, the sparkling device dropped in slow motion as its tiny anti-grav motor came online. Multiple and powerful strobes of light began pulsating out in every direction, giving everything a strange, otherworldly look. The black honeycomb canyon walls pulsed with this light, becoming visible as if in bright day, only to disappear back into the darkness in the next fraction of a second.

Elise felt her heart skip a beat.

She noticed the massive walls suddenly come into focus for the first time—but what struck fear to her very soul was the image of hundreds of giant, spider-like forms that seemed to be everywhere in the air all around them—reaching for them!

"They're hundreds of them!” Kyle shouted.

An Iraxx warrior screamed with pure fear.

The terrible sound echoed again and again as the victim continued to fall within the deadly embrace of a Destructor.

"Go!” Qata shouted. “They're on top of us back here!"

They had taken Hasta.

Elise and everyone else knew it with a flash of cold realization.

More blaster bolts lit the darkness from behind them as Qata tried to escape the Destructors now sailing toward him.

Everyone could see them as they leapt again through the pulsing lights.

The sight chilled their souls to the core.

"Down and hard left!” Krinia shouted at Elise.

Elise looked over at Krinia only to see the forms of two Destructors flying right at her.

Elise screamed as she forced her board straight down.

With a sickening dread, she felt a metal talon rip open the back of her shirt.

She urged her board faster.

Elise squatted down and gripped the edge of her board as she rolled it completely over and then pulled it back upright again.

She screamed again as a talon reached for her face.

Elise banked away and upward.

She felt as if she were inside a living nightmare with huge spiders jumping out of the alternating darkness and light, reaching for her to take her down into the deepest darkness.

And there was nowhere she could hide.

"There it is!"

She looked up as Krinia pointed, still holding Rok's waist.

It was another honeycomb enclave like all the others, but at the entrance that led inside she saw Qirn and Jerr motioning to them to join them. Already, Kyle and Jaric were zooming towards it.

"Fly on! We're right behind you, Elise,” Inaha urged. “Jysar is with me."

The strobe light effect began to fade as the device fell farther and farther down. The pulsing forms of the Destructors leaping through the air faded back into nightmarish invisibility.

But everyone knew they were still there
.

In less than a minute, they landed at the entrance.

Elise jumped off of her Fiarri and kicked it aside.

Qirn and Jerr turned from their own discarded boards and fired their blasters non-stop at targets somewhere behind her.

Dropping to her knee, Elise looked up at the wall above her head.

There was movement all along it.

She pulled her blaster out of its holster and fired as she ducked inside the tunnel behind the two Iraxx.

This tunnel led into the heart of the Paum's core and to Mother.

Protected amid the hail of blaster fire, the others ran inside while Qirn and Jerr held their positions, firing at any shadowy movement.

Rok finally stopped, panting as he pulled a strobe device from his belt.

"Hang on, we don't have but three more of them,” Qirn yelled back at him.

"We won't live that long, if we don't use them now!” Rok shouted back.

"We're in a tight place now, if any Destructors get in here with us, we're goners,” Jaric said between gasps.

"We've got to see them, so we can shoot them,” Kyle added.

Qirn growled as he and Jerr moved back in steady retreat.

To everyone's relief, Qata's familiar form accompanied them.

"Okay, cover your eyes.” Rok threw the device toward the entrance.

The sound of the explosion roared up and down the tunnel.

Suddenly, the dark tunnel changed into a dream-like place as the powerful, pulsing lights erupted.

The group shielded their eyes as they turned and ran deeper inside, down towards the turbo-elevator that led to Mother.

"Behind us!” Qirn shouted.

Kyle and Rok each stopped and dropped to one knee as they fired volleys back toward the source of the strobe light.

At least a dozen nightmarish shapes marched toward them, surrounded by the beams of pulsing lights. Each crawled straight for them. Some hugged the walls, while others crept along underneath the ceiling.

It felt like a living nightmare as the metallic monsters marched inexorably towards them, their spider-like forms flickering in and out of view.

And there was nowhere to run or hide.

Kyle forced himself to concentrate on movement, mentally filtering out the overall effects of the pulsing light.

Kyle targeted two on the floor and sent a hail of blaster fire into them. He smiled as fragments of legs exploded away from a metallic body.

"We can destroy them!” Kyle shouted with glee.

Both he and Jaric fired more bolts until two more Destructors exploded into sparkling bits of debris.

Now the entire group fired volley after volley, sending fragments of Destructors in all directions inside the tunnel.

In less than a minute, the last Destructor crumpled.

"That was easier than I thought it'd be,” Jaric said with a smile.

But Jysar stared at his sensor with a worried look on his face. His fingers danced over the device as he continued tuning it.

"What have you got?” Qirn asked.

"There's more just outside the entrance. Looks like they're gathering for an attack en mass.” Jysar looked up, shaking his head somberly.

"I can feel them out there,” Inaha said with an intense look in his eyes. “I can feel them, somehow."

"I can too,” Jaric agreed. “They're going to rush us, all at once."

"Reload blasters,” Qirn ordered.

"There's worse,” Krinia said, as she peered at her own sensor.

But her sensor pointed in the other direction, deeper inside the tunnel.

Krinia looked up at them, a look of fear on her features. Her head-tail grew limp as she spoke.

"There's at least one side entrance down this tunnel—maybe two.” She let out a quick breath.

"And my sensor spotted Destructors down there—between us and the turbo-elevator."

MOTHER FELT THE rogue code attacking deeper inside her mind.

Her anti-rogue program now replicated at a rate to match it—and destroy it. Mother focused her resources, concentrating on shutting down individual circuits and systems, trying to create bottlenecks and isolate the rogue code long enough for her countermeasures to catch up.

In the back of her consciousness, she felt the fully opened panel on her outer hull.

She felt the robot fitting the cable onto it—the cable that would connect her mind to the Paum's mind.

In that instant, a twinkling cloud erupted from that same connector.

The ghostly apparition swirled in the air a moment, then leapt directly at the many-legged robot working to make the connection.

Minstrel evaporated inside the robot.

Immediately, Minstrel spread its plasma body into the robot's circuits until it reached the robot's central processor. With a surge of electricity, Minstrel focused the energy of its body into the heart of the robot in an effort to short it out.

Mother's optics watched as the robot froze in mid-motion after Minstrel disappeared inside it.

Three long seconds passed.

The robot suddenly stood erect, the cable still in its grasp. But now a nervous twitch shook the robot's head. The strange jerking motion continued from one appendage and quickly spread to the entire robot.

Mother watched, fascinated.

She realized Minstrel was disabling the robot from the inside.

From the far wall of the docking bay, a heavy blaster weapon fired.