D'Mok Revival 1: Awakening (23 page)

Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Ujaku entered the command center and watched while Osuto and Mencari consulted over a projected star chart. Nearby, Seigie and Toriko reviewed the information streaming across communication channels and short-range sensors.

With a smile, the young fellow made a direct line toward Toriko.

“Morning!” he said.

“Hi, Ujaku. How’s the workshop coming?”

“Slowly. I’m building out more than I expected. But otherwise, good—”

His forehead furrowed at Toriko as he looked her up and down. “Hey, your hair’s all the same color. And where’s your headband?”

She glanced down at her neatly pressed jumpsuit, then looked back at him red-faced. “Well, I sort of got to thinking about it . . . and I decided that all that XoXo stuff was fine in college. All the students were doing that. But now . . .” She waved her hand over the command center. “Now, I’m into much more serious stuff. So I thought I’d dress the part.” She pointed around her neck, then around her forearms. “Even integrated my old components. You can hardly even tell they’re on me!”

He smiled. “It suits you. But I’m still gonna miss the red hair-tips.”

“Besides, I know I need to take things more seriously.”

“Seigie’s fine, you know.”

“I know, just… Next time it might not be fine.”

“Good morning, Ujaku,” Osuto said, entering the room.

“Say, how’s Allia doing?” Ujaku asked. “I know she
said
she’s all right, but . . . this place is far different from where she grew up. And . . . I know she’s not a typical kid, but she’s still a little girl.” Ujaku grinned at Toriko. “And I’m the kind who worries about people I like.”

Seigie broke her gaze on the data and looked over. “Better. She’s been training with Osuto and me. Her levitation’s weak, but she’s learning fast. And . . . we’ve spent some time in my crystal labs. She’s fascinated with that.”

Mencari nodded. “Probably because she grew up in a cave.”

Toriko looked away. “This is all pretty crazy to me. It can only be harder for her.”

Seigie turned back to the screens. “She’ll make it. She’s a Defender.”

The elevator down the hall opened with a hiss, and Allia and Ichini made their way into the command center. Osuto smiled as she entered, noting the young girl looked far more relaxed than when she first arrived. Ichini, as always, looked perfectly calm, padding next to the girl with a steady trot.

The pair headed right for Toriko. Since their initial rocky meeting, Allia seemed resigned that Toriko, like Seigie, was a mentor she should listen to. Toriko, for her part, seemed thrilled to not be the youngest person in their group anymore.

Osuto and Mencari turned back to the projection table.

“Given what we know about the mercenaries,” Osuto said, “checking out the area where Ujaku was attacked might be a good place to head. While we can’t be certain, I have a feeling that asteroid nearby might be in cahoots with the Nukari.”

“Oh?” Disapproval reflected in Ujaku’s eyes, but he didn’t explain.

Mencari said, “We know the mercenaries were using Terconian technology, because of the virus they bugged your ship with. And on Allia’s world—we retrieved some vials of liquid from the smugglers’ stock marked with the Nukari emblem.”

Ujaku hesitated. “Going back to the scene of the attack? I don’t know . . .” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a memory card, looking for a place to plug it in.

Mencari motioned to a nearby port.

As it slid in place, a new display appeared. “I still don’t think you should go there, we have such a small group yet,” Ujaku said while it loaded. “But if you are, you’ll need all the information you can get.”

“We have to do something,” Osuto said. “We just have to be wise with our moves. First, we’ll observe the area for a while, see if anything looks out of place.”

Mencari sat back, observing. He noticed how close Toriko sat to Ujaku, much closer than she needed to review the display in front of him. When she was close, Ujaku appeared to have a permanent smile. Something was clearly developing between them.

Toriko looked up and caught Ujaku looking at her. They locked eyes for a moment, until his fond smile caused her to blush and look away.

Ah, young love.
Mencari smiled slightly.

Allia look around, bored. Gazing at Seigie’s console, she asked, “What are
you
doing?”

Seigie began to explain the information she was reviewing. Mencari noticed with some relief the effort the reticent woman of stone was making to help Allia feel at home here. Though, it wasn’t exactly obvious. Unlike Toriko, Seigie never smiled.
Could she even smile?
Mencari wondered what her stony face would do if she tried.

New projections drew Mencari’s attention.

“These are star scans from my own ship,” Ujaku said, pointing at them. “That asteroid field was pretty dense in places,” Ujaku said. “And here’s where the ships that attacked me came from.”

“And what’s that?” Mencari said, pointing to a significant mass.

“I don’t know. It’s big . . . the mother of all asteroids, maybe?”

“Whatever it is, those scouts must’ve been guarding it,” Osuto said, placing a gnarled finger on where Ujaku first pointed. “Look at the positions they came from.”

“Then we need to find out why they care so much about it,” Mencari said.

“All due respect, but you don’t know what’s there,” Ujaku said. “I didn’t either, and I almost died because of it. Do you really think you’re ready to attack them?”

“Why do we have to attack?” Mencari reasoned. “All we want to do is find out more about that area. We can handle a recon mission.”

He looked over the others. “We’ll need Toriko’s technical skills for the ship and the scanners.”

Allia reached up and tugged on Mencari’s arm. “Can Ichini and I go?”

Would she be ready? he wondered.

“I’ve seen what you’re capable of. But you’ll be in a different environment. Very different from your homeworld. Are you ready?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “And Ichini!”

Mencari chuckled at Allia’s insistent tone. “And Ichini.”

“And Spark!” Toriko added playfully.

He rolled his eyes at Toriko. “And Spark.”

He waited a second, then looked back at Seigie. “Seigie, you don’t mind staying here to help Ujaku and Osuto, do you?”

Seigie nodded, that ever-cool look etched across her face. “Gladly.”

“But you don’t even have a plan,” Osuto said.

Mencari looked at him. “Not much to plan. We won’t know anything more until we get there. We find out if there’s anything worth guarding on that particular asteroid, and we come back. That’s the plan.”

Osuto sighed.

Allia looked up. “Osuto, when we get there, we’ll check for other scouts. Once we know how many there are, we’ll be able to plan how to get closer without getting into trouble. If we can’t get past ’em, we come back, still knowing a lot more than we do now. I don’t think any of us would engage an enemy force, unless we were certain we’d win. We’ll just collect as much information about the location and quietly leave.”

The group looked down at the littlest Defender. Ujaku said, “Who programmed
her
?”

Mencari grinned. “Wait until you see her—and Ichini—in action.”

Osuto nodded to Allia with a smile. “All right. So, when are you planning this . . . reconnaissance trip?”

Mencari looked at Toriko. “Your ship all set?”

Toriko smiled. “A classic like that? I tidied up and polished everything as soon as we returned.”

“That’s reassuring,” Seigie said, her crystalline eyes glued to the monitors.

* * * * *

The com channel chirped, then opened, projecting Osuto’s image.

“One more thing, folks,” the image said. “Toriko installed a frequency scrambler, so we can keep communications open longer. Check in now and then, so we know how things are going. These blackouts are nerve-wracking.”

“Yes, Mom,” Mencari replied.

This brought a smile. “And like your mother, Mr. Mencari, if you do anything foolish while you’re out there, you’ll have to account to
me
when you get home.”

As the image faded, Toriko entered their first destination, the spaceway. Mencari looked back out the window, watching the stars blur by.

Soon, they approached the outer rim of the asteroid field. Using the perimeter boulders as cover, Toriko worked their way stealthily inward, picking her way through the field toward the center, and the coordinates found Ujaku’s scans. Allia visually monitored the ports for any scout ships.

As they closed on the great asteroid that was their destination, they found two ships patrolling. Using the maze of tumbling asteroids as cover, Torkio managed to slip past them without incident. Soon, they approached their target. A ring of matter surrounded the massive rock.

“A particle ring?” Toriko said. “It’s generating its own gravity?”

Allia peered at the ring from her port. “What do you mean?”

Mencari explained, “The ring around it. wouldn’t be there unless there was some gravity to the asteroid. But what’s it made of? Space junk?”

They watched as plumes of dust erupted from the surface, jettisoning rock from various areas around the asteroid.

“Must be what created the ring,” he said. “But that can’t be natural.”

Toriko shook her head. “The particulates are solid rock, not liquid. There’s no way it’s from an active molten core.”

Mencari looked closer, squinting to make out details. “I can see a spaceport or something on the asteroid itself,” he muttered. “Something’s there.”

“Look at this,” Allia said pointing to a surface schematic of the asteroid. “There’s a natural outcropping of rock. If we approached from the other side, we could use that as cover—get close enough to investigate from surface level.”

“See what we can see, and get out,” Mencari said.

“Are we going to spacewalk down?” Allia asked.

Mencari nodded.

Toriko’s necklace flashed. “Spark is ready to pilot the ship. He has the updated interfaces. With all the surrounding asteroids, there should be plenty of places for the ship to stay hidden until we’re ready. I can use my mobile signal dampener to help keep us hidden from anything, even if they have detection ability on the asteroid’s surface.”

The group went to the airlock while Spark maneuvered the ship as close to the asteroid as possible from their cover.

Mencari looked at Allia. “Just like Osuto showed you, okay?”

The foursome began to shimmer with soft golden light as the pressure inside changed. Following Mencari and Toriko before her, Allia awkwardly floundered at first. Ichini seemed stable, as always. Mencari’s head shook as he fought his own vertigo. As each applied their training, however, they gained control and moved together away from the ship.

“Focus on the asteroid,” he said. “Dulls the spinning feeling.”

The group headed for the huge rock. As they touched down, they made quickly for a crater with a rock overhang. Huddled beneath its protection, Allia and Ichini watched for the scout ships while Toriko pulled up a holographic interface. After a few seconds, her armguard chirped with another update.

“We should be safer now,” she said.

“The signal dampener thing?”

Toriko nodded at Allia’s question. “It’ll keep us invisible to their scanners.”

Mencari turned to Allia. “But not to someone who actually sees us.”

She grinned. “Thanks, Rhysus, I think I knew that.”

Toriko referenced the surface map from the ship’s computer. She pointed. “The first entrance we’re looking for should be this way.”

Alternating between running and flying, they carefully made their way, trying not to kick up dust as they moved along. The light gravity was enough to make running too slow, and just enough to make flying difficult. Allia and Ichini appeared the most natural, mastering the varying conditions with ease.

As they approached their destination, they found a vent-like structure covered with chunks of rock and carbon.

“This must be one of those spouts we saw on the way in,” Mencari said.

Toriko nodded while kneeling to get a better look. “What if it starts ejecting rock—”

A gigantic fireworks show of rock and sparks erupted from a different vent a few hundred feet away.

Toriko backed off from the vent quickly. “Um, yeah, I don’t trust this.”

“Let’s find other options,” Mencari said, floating off.

They’d taken only a few steps when Allia stumbled and yelled, “Ow!” Ichini whirled around and raced back to her.

The others turned and saw her holding her leg. Mencari determined it was only a light scrape, as Toriko examined the obstruction.

“This is a command console. If I can . . .” She pulled a small connector from her armguard and pushed it into a familiar slot in the rock. “Oh, Eudora!”