Child of Time (38 page)

Drovak shook his head and moved on. The trip across
the cavern had given Drovak time to isolate connections to the
power distribution system that could together draw enough to
destabilize the core. By his calculations it would take days to
become stable enough to draw energy off it again. By then it would
be too late. A couple workers averted their eyes as Drovak passed
them. He took a side passage when he saw a guard approaching. There
were a couple near misses before he had to kill another guard. This
time he was able to surprise him and break his neck without causing
an outcry. The body was safely stored in a storage room and Drovak
continued.

Drovak realized he was lost when he turned a corner
that looked the same as the last. He wasted several minutes
wandering a labyrinth before he spied a couple drakken carrying
plates piled high with various foods. Drovak realized that foods
that lavish could only be meant for one person. The workers almost
dropped the trays when they saw Drovak following them through the
maze. The guards ruled the rest of the drakken in the palace with
fear. They disappeared through a small door as Drovak rounded a
corner. Cautiously stepping through after them he found he had made
a mistake. Eight or nine guards drew blasters before Drovak had a
chance to move.

“How did you get that uniform?” The question was as
much an accusation as an inquiry. Drovak glanced around the room at
the lavish metal work that decorated the wall. Scenes of epic
battles were depicted on the walls. Probably battles the dark lord
had planned and won.

“I killed its owner.” Drovak held his hands over his
head as he surrendered his blaster and blades. He didn't tell them
about the hidden blades they missed or the force blades. He looked
up to the pile of cushions where the dark lord was reclining.

“You want me to believe that you killed one of the
dark lord's personal guard?” There was incredulity in the tone of
the guard. Drovak scanned the dark lord with a glance. He showed
signs of the physical defects from over engineering. Thin legs
Drovak doubted could support much weight led to a thin bony body
with scales that hung loosely. The spindly neck was topped by an
enormous head. Frail hands with curled shriveled claws held a
morsel of meat as he nibbled. Cloudy watery eyes strained to look
at Drovak. Looks were deceiving though. His real strength wasn't
physical. His intellect was what made him special.

“I killed three on my way here.” Drovak watched the
glares that met his claim. “I have information for the dark
lord.”

“You do have information I want.” The raspy voice of
the dark lord broke the awkward silence. “When I had this place
built I played out a thousand scenarios involving an infiltrator.
None of them made it past the mazes. Few made it farther than the
front gate. You must have followed the food servers. My guess is
that they took a forbidden path through the maze to avoid the
guards. I will have to revise the imprinting protocols preventing
them from taking unsanctioned routes.” He flicked his hand at them
and two flashes from blasters left smoldering corpses of the food
servers. “If I do this to my own drakken what makes you think I
will treat you any better?” Drovak noticed one eye drifted absently
away from where the dark lord was trying to look.

“I told you I have information that you need.” Drovak
eyed the guards that still held blasters on him.

“You must be the pilot of the frigate that warped in
earlier.” The dark lord was silent for a few seconds before
continuing. “You can't be from the other dark lords offering an
alliance. They fear me so they hate me. They wouldn't give up a
single ounce of power for fear I would defeat them all. You might
have been sent to kill me but you have failed in that besides the
dark one speaks to me and would kill anyone that harmed me. A
defective drakken might be a possibility but they are called
defective for a reason. If it was something important that the
other dark lords knew I would know. My spies have been deep within
their command for years. Tell me what are you then?”

“I escaped from the protectorate.” Drovak decided a
half truth was more believable than a straight lie. “They raided a
cloning facility and stole equipment and my clone sequence. They
used the equipment to implant memories but they didn't know the
memories made me a loyal drakken. I overpowered my feeble captors
and used their technology to teleport through the portal onto one
of the ships about to pass through.” Drovak resisted the urge to
shiver at the sight of the smile that crept onto the face of the
dark lord.

“That explains a lot. You must have been implanted
with the memories of one of my spies. That would explain your
skills and loyalty to me but not everything.” The drakken paused as
he thought about the information. “This means there could be other
clones in the hands of the protectorate and that they have the
ability to send agents into our universe. They must have a ship
near the portal for you to teleport through. If you could use their
tech to teleport to a ship on this side it means that they have
technology capable of scanning between dimensions.”

Drovak used the opportunity to disable one of the
nodes on the distribution network. The lights went out for a couple
seconds before the loss was compensated for. By then three of the
guards were dead and a fourth soon followed. Drovak was strong and
had heightened reflexes but the guards were also enhanced. Another
guard fell with a throwing knife sticking out of his face before
Drovak was engaged in hand to hand combats with the remaining four.
Drovak blocked one blade against a force blade on his right while
he sliced through another blade into the gut of one of the guards.
He ducked and missed a swing at his head but felt a blade slice
across his back leaving a burning cut into his muscles. He lunged
forward and ripped through the neck of another guard leaving two
circling on both sides.

He saw a blaster jerk on one side in time to duck.
The blast took the other guard full in the face vaporizing half his
head. Drovak was acutely aware of the hum of his force blades, the
pain across his back and the green blood splashed over him head to
foot, some his and some not. He swung his blades at the blaster
before it had a chance to recharge for another attack. There was a
spray of sparks as his blades sliced through metal. The guard
recovered remarkably fast and countered with a short blade in
either hand. Drovak saw the opening in the charge and planted a
force blade through his opponents face even as he felt the blade
slicing through his shoulder. Looking around at the corpses strewn
around the room as he did a damage assessment. He was already
feeling weak from the loss of blood so the cut on his back must be
deep. His arm hung uselessly at his side and more blood streamed
from the gash in his shoulder.

“You don't fit into any of my scenarios. Something is
wrong.” To Drovak's surprise the dark lord still didn't comprehend
his situation. “You can’t defeat eight of my guards. The odds are
too high that you die. You died. This isn't possible.” The raspy
muttering stopped with a piercing scream as Drovak planted a blade
in the drakken's chest. Rays of dark shadows began flashing from
the drakken's eyes and wound. The drakken came to his feet to the
surprise of Drovak. Shadows played from his fingers. He waved his
hand at Drovak and lashes of blackness reached out and burned
Drovak throwing him across the room. Drovak landed with a thud and
a crack. He gasped for breath and tried to struggle to his feet.
One leg refused to support his weight and the burning in his side
told him his ribs were broken. Combat in this state was impossible.
He pawed at the computer activating the protocols he had
preprogrammed. The lights began to flicker as the drain on the
power grid increased.

“I will feed on your life force and pry all your
secrets out of your pathetic mind. The voice was not that of the
dark lord but another more sinister.” One of the guard’s blasters
lay nearby and in an instant Drovak grabbed it and fired it at the
advancing dark lord with what little strength he had left. The
blast barely phased the dark lord as shadows poured out of the
blaster burns. Lights flashed and flickered as the power drain
increased. A black hand reached out and Drovak felt like his head
was being crushed and exploding at the same time when the hand
touched him. The last thing Drovak heard as the lights went out was
a scream filled with rage and frustration.

The room was light again and the pain was gone but it
was different. The white walls greeted him as he glanced around the
room. Drovak moved his arm finding all signs of the debilitating
injury gone. There was a glimmer and both Kiyan and Prometheus
appeared out of thin air. Realization began to dawn on Drovak as
the implications of his surroundings sunk in.

“It was all a lie! You didn't send me there.” Drovak
felt the taste of victory changing to an empty achievement. “I
didn't kill him.”

“Actually we are pretty sure he is as good as dead.”
Theo offered Drovak a hand getting up. “You weren't actually there
but you were in a way.”

“It all felt so real. I was dying.” Drovak had died
many times before so he knew the feeling. “How was that not
real?”

“You physically were here the whole time.” Kiyan
tried to explain. “We made a nanite construct of your body. It was
as real as it could be without being alive. We connected your mind
to it and sent it to the drakken universe in your place. You
experienced everything that happened to it like if you were
there.”

“I didn't kill him. He was too powerful.” Drovak
confessed his failure.

“You killed him with the knife in the chest. Even if
that hadn't killed him all the dark energy flowing through him from
the dark one would have killed him.” Silence filled the room before
Theo continued. “We think you got disconnected because some sort of
shielding was raised.”

“That makes him dead on three counts.” Drovak rubbed
his shoulder where he had been stabbed. “One of the systems I
activated must have been the planetary shields. That much energy
drain without several reactors would be many times more than the
geothermal generators could handle. It would destroy the
planet.”

“There shouldn't be any traces of what we did then.”
Theo mused on the implications.

“I should return to my cell.” Drovak made for the
door before Kiyan stopped him.

“I don't think that is necessary. We can find some
better quarters if you would like. Theo needs a tactical officer on
his ship and we think that you are more than qualified for the
position.” Kiyan watched as Drovak’s face lit up.

“I am honored. I will serve to the best of my
ability.” Drovak saluted both of them with a fist clenched over his
chest.

“We are the ones honored by having you join our
ranks.” Kiyan returned the salute. “So how did it feel killing one
of you old masters in cold blood?”

“It felt liberating.” Drovak smiled at the memory.
“Besides drakken are reptiles so we are cold blooded. I always kill
people in cold blood. Don't you kill people in warm blood or is it
the other way around?”

“Feeble captors eh?” Theo teased Drovak as they left
the simulator.

“I lied. I was trying to add credence to the theory
that I could have escaped if I tried.” Drovak's grin revealed a row
of sharp pointed teeth.

“Another thing is that we don't go around killing
everyone that annoys us.” Kiyan activated the transported and they
found themselves in the mess hall.

“Ahh, no worries. I only kill drakken that annoy me.”
Drovak asked Alec for one of the dishes he saw.

“Well we have some plans to make since the dark lords
are in disarray.” Kiyan watched Drovak sample the food he had
ordered.

“There are several drakken held planets that could be
liberated.” Drovak paused to speak between mouthfuls. “That would
eliminate some of their capability to crew their fleets. They have
limited clone sequences but they could very well be trying to
hybridize new sequences to supplement their numbers.”

“That reminds me why haven't they already developed
new clone sequences?” Kiyan inquired.

“The drakken have always been a warlike people. We
left our home world in ruins and conquered several worlds. The
other races united against us and a huge war was started. At that
time we reproduced with conventional means. They began to lose the
war as drakken numbers began dwindling. They took drastic measures
to regain the edge in the war by cloning warriors and using an
artifact we had discovered to transfer the memories from their best
warriors to the new warriors. They had to use the DNA of living
drakken in order to make a functional clone. Every drakken clone
out there came from a normal drakken that was born lived and died
many many years ago. They may be able to enhance a clone but they
haven't found a way to change the base DNA without corrupting it
and making it useless. We can no longer reproduce without cloning.”
Drovak finished the last of his food and wiped his mouth with the
back of a hand. “Now is the best time to take advantage of the
chaos left in the wake of the dark lord's death. News should be
filtering out about the incident.”

“You are right. What do you recommend we strike
first?” Theo spoke to Drovak but he was looking at Kiyan as Terra
came into the mess hall. He remember the same light coming into his
eyes those days so long ago on earth when he had met Kendra. “Hey
Kiyan if it’s all the same to you I can debrief Drovak by myself. I
will fill you in later.”

“What? Oh yeah that sounds good.” Theo thought to
himself that Kiyan would have been next to useless in the debrief
anyway with his mind elsewhere. “I will catch up with you in a bit.
I just have to talk to Terra about, uh, something.” Theo laughed as
he watched Kiyan walk across the hall to Terra.