Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare (36 page)
Read Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare Online
Authors: Susan Kearney
You cannot
.
You will die
.
We have no other option
.
Wake Kirek
, Ranth suggested.
He will lend his strength to ours
.
No
.
He must be at full strength to get past the Sentinel’s guard
.
Split again
.
Do it
.
Dora’s mind fractured into multi-streaming ribbons. Each ribbon wormed through cracks in the Jarn shields, sought out command and control and altered the drive.
Disable
.
Destroy
.
In the far recesses of her mind, she weakened, drew on last reserves of energy. Single-minded, she held one thought first and foremost. One goal.
Demolish the fleet
.
Save Zical
.
He must live.
As she used the final supply of her humanity, she finally understood what Zical had been trying to tell her. On the verge of losing her life, she’d never appreciated living more. On the edge of losing her future, she wanted to live to bear her child. She wanted to raise their child with the man she loved.
She loved Zical.
Even as she destroyed and killed and attacked, she pushed herself, harder, longer, to save him, his ship, his mission. She loved him. She fed on that love, letting the strength of the emotion push her past her last reserves, until the Jarn fleet was no more. She loved him. That’s why she’d picked him out among the billions of entities. She’d always loved him—she simply hadn’t recognized the emotion.
Now she was certain of her love.
Llike a burst of energy that flashes too hot, she was done. Finished.
Goodbye, my love
.
ZICAL HELD DORA in his arms, hugging her close. Tears streamed down his face. Stars. He hadn’t known that losing her would feel like a part of him had been lost. Shattered. He hadn’t known that his insides would churn like raw acid. That the agony would rip his heart to shreds.
She’d paid the ultimate price to take out the Jarn fleet and to save them all. While her heart still beat and her lungs drew air, Ranth had informed him that it was only a matter of time before her body gave out.
She’d stretched her mind past the snapping point. Not even a healing circle could bring her back. They’d tried, but there was nothing of her spirit left to gather.
He would lose her, and it tore at him worse than any pain he’d ever suffered, worse than losing his first wife and unborn child, worse than losing his parents. He couldn’t believe that once again he’d failed to protect his unborn child. What had he done to deserve such sorrow? No man should have to grieve over so many losses.
Even as he swallowed the lump in his throat, he regretted that Dora would never know that she’d embraced the totality of becoming human. Because nothing could be more human than to give one’s life for others.
Yes, she’d risked her life to save Kirek on Kwadii, but, no matter how slim, they’d always had hope of success. But against the Jarn, Dora had known there was no chance for her survival. None. Absolute zero. Yet, she’d gone ahead, putting the mission first.
Arms shaking, feeling broken, Zical held her inert body, missing the beautiful spirit he loved, the life in her dancing eyes that flashed red when she laughed with happiness and glowed violet while they’d made love. Never again would she tease or argue or advise. Never again would she chuckle or smile or catch his gaze from across a crowded room to share a moment.
The grief of losing her was a burden he would carry for all his days. Like a fool, he had wasted so much of their time together with his uncertainties and his doubts. Now, when it was too late, he wished he could have back all those days, to appreciate her like she should have been appreciated. As his tears fell unchecked onto her cheek and he gently rubbed them away with the pad of his thumb, grief and sorrow clawed at him.
He wanted to rail at fate. He wanted to pound his fists until his knuckles bloodied and the outward pain distracted him from his anguish and heartache.
He didn’t want to go on without her. He couldn’t imagine going through his days … or his nights … without knowing she was close by. Now he’d never have the opportunity to change her mind about becoming his wife. Oh, how he yearned to join her. Depart this life. But then her sacrifice would be for nothing. To honor her death, he must live. He must complete this mission. Somehow he had to find the courage to go on alone.
But not yet. As Vax flew the
Verazen
toward Guranu, Zical held Dora close, breathing in her womanly scent, running his fingers through her silky hair, wishing that there had been some other way to overcome the Jarn. But there had been none. Dora had known she was the only person standing between the destruction of their ship and the total failure of their mission. She’d done what had to be done.
As he must.
He couldn’t console himself with the complete victory over the Jarn. Not with what the victory had cost, taking from him the one woman so precious and dear to his heart.
Zical kept waiting for a measure of grief to subside and for anger to sear through the agonizing pain of losing Dora, but as he cradled her in his arms, he marveled at how she’d come to mean so much to him, capturing not just his heart, but his admiration and respect, in so short a time.
“Captain?” Shannon entered Dora’s quarters, her voice hesitant and gentle. “Sir, we’ve picked up several Jarn survivors. They are locked in the cargo bay. Vax says we’ll dock at Guranu within the hour.”
Clearly, Vax had ordered Shannon to find the captain, but she was reluctant to interrupt his mourning. He nodded, hoping she’d go away.
Hesitantly, she placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll all miss her, but we need you in charge, Captain.”
“Thank you.” He didn’t need a reminder of his duty, yet her sympathy and kindness urged him to release Dora and shove to his feet. “Ranth, let me know when it’s time to say a final goodbye.”
“Compliance.”
The captain led by example. His crew might sympathize and mourn Dora’s loss, but they expected him to go on as he always had—at least outwardly. But inside, he’d never be the same.
NO ONE HAD told Kirek what had happened to Dora. He’d been with Avanti and Decker through the battle and had come back to their quarters to find Zical grieving over her body. At the sight of Zical’s tears, Kirek had squeezed his own eyes tight, pretending he didn’t see the captain’s agony. Meanwhile, he’d contacted Ranth through privacy mode.
Ranth filled him in, and Kirek cried his own tears. Dora could never replace his biological mother, Miri, but nevertheless he and Dora had shared a special bond that was more than friendship. She’d held him when he’d needed comfort, understood that his four-year-old body housed an adult intellect in a way most of the crew couldn’t comprehend, and she’d risked her life to save him. Twice.
“Why didn’t you inform me?” Kirek demanded of Ranth. “I could have added my psi to hers.”
“Dora refused. She said you needed your full strength to deal with the Sentinel.”
Had she believed her own words? Or had she wanted to protect Kirek from the battle? From causing death?
He shuddered and tried to contain the sobs welling inside him. Ever since he’d sneaked aboard, he’d known he would face danger, but he hadn’t expected anyone to die in an attempt to protect him, especially not Dora.
He should have been there, fighting with her. Yet he suspected she’d known how much Kirek detested the idea of killing. Of fighting. Of violence. While he understood the necessity, he preferred to aid in other ways. Not because he feared injury to himself, but because taking a life seemed an abomination, a permanent blackness on the soul.
Kirek stared out the vidscreen for a long time, gathering his thoughts. As the giant space station slowly filled the view, he felt fate pressing on his slender shoulders with a heavy weight. Guranu spun between the galaxies, shaped like a barbell with two rounded poles connected by a central axle where giant conical machines docked—the Sentinels. There must be thousands of Sentinels attached to Guranu, all of them staring outward, their triangular bottoms like violet yolks in gray eggs.
Kirek’s stomach tightened. Especially once he noted the dimensions of scale. In the vastness of black space with no planet or stars to use as comparison, he had no idea of the immensity of Guranu. But according to Ranth’s precision sensors, each Sentinel was ten times as large as their ship. And Guranu was planet-sized.
The sheer immensity of the project was amazing. Guranu might be the largest man-made structure in the universe. To think the Perceptive Ones had built Guranu eons ago and that the space station still functioned boggled the mind.
Despite his sadness over Dora, Kirek’s pulse quickened. He’d always sensed that the Sentinels and he were linked by fate. But as the
Verazen
drew closer, that connection strengthened. It was as if the Sentinels were living entities. Collectively wise. All-knowing.
Yet, the Sentinels were not perfect. A Sentinel had wrongly judged them as the enemy because of the Jarn aboard. He reminded himself that the Sentinels would conclude Kirek was an enemy, too.
Yet, not only must Zical and his crew work past the Sentinels’ sophisticated defenses, they had to reprogram the machines. To reach the delicate computer systems that ran these machines, the task must be done from inside. Yet, if the Sentinels could destroy two planets from halfway across the galaxy, he couldn’t even imagine what kind of powers would focus on anyone who tried to board.
Clearly, the Perceptive Ones would have taken all kinds of precautions, using technologies far beyond their understanding. Yet, Kirek’s special gift was that he simply didn’t register on machinery. He would have to go in alone.
The idea chilled him to his bones.
Everyone was counting on Kirek. That’s why Dora had protected him. For this moment.
But suppose he failed?
AFTER KIREK DEPARTED the
Verazen
through the docking port to Guranu, he couldn’t maintain a link with Ranth, which meant he remained out of contact with Zical and the ship. Zical fretted over the boy going alone into Guranu and hoped for the best. He didn’t doubt Kirek’s courage, intelligence or ingenuity, but he lacked strength, and Zical feared that he couldn’t overcome any physical boundaries placed in his way.
Waiting for Kirek’s news on the bridge, Zical didn’t allow himself to pace, yet he couldn’t hide the tension in his eyes. His crew knew him too well to bother him with inconsequential details. Time passed slowly. There was no talk. No action. The tension thickened as minutes ticked by, and it seemed like days, but it was only a few hours before Kirek finally contacted them through Ranth.
“I’m in,” Kirek reported. “Ranth?”
“Linking.” Ranth tapped into the psi communication and gave Zical an update. “Kirek climbed aboard a repair bot and crawled from Guranu into a Sentinel without registering on the machine’s sensors. He’s turned off all offensive weapons. You’re free to join him, Captain.”
Zical broke into a smile of relief. “Kirek, great job. We’re on the way.”
“Captain, the Sentinel is monitoring our verbal communications,” Kirek informed him.
“I understand.” However, Zical didn’t like it. Alien machines that had already proved hostile kept him wary and alert.
“The Sentinel has requested that you come alone,” Kirek told him through the com link.
“Why?”
“I’m … not certain.”
Zical could be walking into a trap. Perhaps the Sentinel was only pretending that its armaments were disabled. Once he entered, the machine could trap him, zap him, kill him. Now that they’d arrived, their next task was to reprogram the giant machine, starting with making it comprehend that they were not the enemy.
“Ranth, cut the com link to Kirek for a moment.”
“Compliance.”
“Is this a trap?” he asked the computer, hoping the Sentinel’s sensors couldn’t reach into their ship and monitor their conversation.
“I don’t have enough data to give an informed opinion.”
“Ranth, open communications. Kirek, I’m on the way.” Zical figured that he’d led his people here. If the Sentinel took his life, then the engineers and scientists would know to be wary. It was no longer imperative he stay alive for the sake of this mission. If necessary, the others could carry on without him.
So he climbed through the hatch into Guranu, amazed at the orderly chaos in the smooth-floored corridor that appeared to continue in both directions for as far as he could see. Weightless bots of all sizes and shapes zipped by carrying equipment, but Zical had to scrunch down to fit his tall frame in the almost too-bright passageway. Squinting against the brilliant white lights, he adjusted his suit to allow less illumination to filter through and changed his null-grav to a comfortable strolling level.
Which way and how far
? he asked Ranth.
But the alien that was the Sentinel responded, obviously linking communications through Guranu.
Follow the blinking green light
.
The psi link revealed an ancient essence—wise, implacable, judgmental. But Zical also sensed an infinite patience and an indomitable will. He supposed an entity whose life spanned the eons would have many self-protective mechanisms. Had Kirek really fooled the ancient machine’s sensors, or was that what the Sentinel wanted them to believe?
Zical wished Dora were with him, not just for her instinctive comprehension of machinery and computers; he would have taken comfort in holding her hand. He shut the thought down. He must keep his wits about him, and dwelling on the woman he’d lost and how much he missed her company would only put his mission in jeopardy.
Zical followed the blinking green light to an intersection of two corridors. Apparently, he was to turn right and was pleased when the corridor both widened and increased in height, allowing him to stand upright.
More suited to your size
? the Sentinel asked.
Yes
.
This route is longer
.
How much longer
? Zical had the notion the Sentinel might send him in circles for centuries if he didn’t question the directions. Perhaps he was paranoid. However, he didn’t like being inside a machine. He didn’t like machines that were left in charge of a galaxy. Odd, he’d depended on Dora when she was a computer—yet her taking human form and linking with Ranth had bothered him. When she’d stared glassy-eyed into space, ignoring everyone around her, she’d seemed to lose her personality and humanity—but that hadn’t been the case. Dora had been just as human and his perception had been wrong. Yet his relationship with Ranth was comfortable. But even a surface psi conversation with the Sentinel made Zical feel as if he needed to look over his shoulder. As if an attack could come at any moment, from any direction.
Up ahead, Kirek waved, his small frame wriggling atop a bot. The space station and the Sentinel seemed to merge into one another with seamless precision, each section of the long corridor looking much like all the others.
Increasing his pace, Zical hurried forward. Kirek’s expression looked relieved, the earlier tension when he’d set out for the Sentinel was now replaced by exuberance. Instead of using psi to communicate, Zical spoke to the boy, turning off the translator in hopes the Sentinel couldn’t comprehend. “Are you certain all weapons are nonfunctional?”
“I am certain of nothing.” Kirek hopped off the bot and pointed to a place where huge cables entered a compartment. “However, this is the mainframe and I’ve just isolated this Sentinel from all the others. It can no longer communicate with Guranu, either.”
“Good work.”
The Sentinel interrupted their conversation, revealing it could comprehend spoken language.
You have disabled my weapons and communications, leaving me no choice but to self-destruct with you inside
.
No
. Zical realized the Sentinel had tricked them. All along he’d suspected a trap, but he’d seen no other option but to do as the Sentinel had asked. Since the machine still believed they were the enemy, he had to find a way around its logic circuits. If only he could persuade the Sentinel to give them time, perhaps Ranth could find a way inside.
We must talk first
.
You are the enemy
.
I destroy the enemy
.
We are allies
, Zical countered. Meanwhile, he urged Ranth to seek a way into the machine.
It is true that the Jarn aboard my ship was programmed by the Zin
.
But the Jarn obey the Zin masters against their will
.
The machine paused as if to digest his words or perhaps to contend with another distraction. Finally it sent an implacable thought. The Jarn seek to destroy all Sentinels.
“Captain,” Ranth spoke through the com. “Before we annihilated the fleet, the Jarn found a way into the Sentinels’ programming. Dr. Laduna spoke the truth. The machines are slowly turning themselves off.”
“Reverse the process,” Zical ordered.
Ranth’s tone was solemn. “I’m sorry, sir. I cannot do so without the Sentinels’ help, but they are freezing me out. Very shortly, the only Sentinel that will remain awake is the one you are inside.”
Zical shot his psi into the Sentinel.
We came to help
.
You are the enemy
.
You are in error
. Zical feared that with all the other Sentinels turned off and this one about to self-destruct, they had failed. The machine wouldn’t believe his words. If only it could see inside him. An idea flashed into his mind. Twice before the Perceptive Ones’ machines had scanned him as he stood in a golden cone of light. Hoping the Sentinel had the same capability, he straightened and demanded,
Test me
.
A deep scan will kill you
.
If you self-destruct, you will kill me and the boy and everything your creators worked to protect
.
Scan me
, Zical ordered.
A golden cone of light shot down from overhead, trapping Zical like hard, sucking tentacles. Much like the light in Mount Shachauri, the light probed his mind, the alien presence shifting through the layers of his brain, burrowing deep to test his true essence, motives, and spirit.
Despite his horror at the invasion, Zical didn’t fight the intrusion. He allowed the Sentinel to sift his memories and intentions, all of them, the good and the bad, permitting the machine to see they really were on the same side.
As his vision narrowed and he blacked out, even as he prepared to die, Zical hoped the Sentinel had dug deep enough into his core to find and recognize the truth.
ZICAL AWAKENED with every nerve in his body tingling, his hormones raging for sexual release. His first instinct was to search for Dora, but with the memory of her sacrifice, and Kirek worriedly bending over him, he tamped down the cone’s side effects, which this time wasn’t so much a sudden charge of sexual need as much as a yearning to hold and love Dora.
Kirek’s hand rested on Zical’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Zical spoke the truth, so I allowed him to live,” the Sentinel intoned. “You are genuine descendants of the Perceptive Ones.”
Zical shoved to an elbow. “Will you allow our computer to reprogram—”
“Reprogramming is no longer necessary.”
“I don’t understand.” Still groggy, Zical stood, hoping his head would clear, trying with all his might not to recall the last time he’d been probed by the light, when Dora had been in his arms.
“My system has already reprogrammed itself to fit the new data we retrieved from your scan. However, this one Sentinel cannot protect the galaxy from the Zin, so I am awakening the others. Soon we will all be back at our posts.”
Kirek whooped and pumped his small fists into the air. “Captain, with your permission, I’m sending a message home to my parents.”
Zical nodded and Kirek raced through the docking portal back to the ship, likely forgetting his parents would be very old, if indeed they even still lived, by the time his message arrived. Sounds of celebration from the bridge echoed back to Zical as Ranth relayed the news that the Sentinels would return to guard them all. Zical’s heart ached with emptiness at the thought that Dora would not be there to celebrate their success. She more than anyone deserved to know they’d succeeded—but she never would. Although the rest of the galaxy, perhaps even the Jarn, would eventually be joyously celebrating, Dora would never know that giving her life had saved them all.
Vax spoke over the com link. “Captain, the Sentinels are waking and leaving Guranu. They appear on course for the Andromeda Galaxy.”
“Understood.”
“Captain,” Cyn broke in, her voice excited, “the Sentinels’ speeds are incredible. If we could find a way to tap into their power source—”
“I’ll ask,” Zical promised.
Relief that the galaxy would be set right staggered Zical, and if not for a psi thought to stiffen his suit, he might have fallen. He’d never expected the journey to end so successfully. Yet, how could he celebrate without the woman he loved at his side? He should be filled with elation, jumping up and down with jubilation, but success without Dora was bittersweet.
“Can you help outfit our ship with your hyperdrive?” Zical asked, more because his crew deserved to continue their lives than for any desire to return to Mystique, where every breath would remind him of Dora. He could not think only of his own selfish need to grieve and mourn, his crew deserved better. With the Sentinel’s knowledge and advanced technology, perhaps he could reward his crew for a job well done by returning to Mystique as quickly as they’d come and afford them the chance to continue their lives.