Spirit of Empire 4: Sky Knights (56 page)

Her eyebrows lifted. “You sent medical people out into the corridors?”

Tsarnov nodded. “I doubt if any of them has fired a weapon since their initial training, but I don’t need them to stop the critters. I just need them to give us a little warning.”

Claire stared into hard eyes, appreciating the harshness of the choice he had made. Her people had made hard choices over the years as well, including the choice to blow themselves up rather than be taken by peicks.

“Stay with her,” Tsarnov said, nodding his head in Atiana’s direction. “You might be her last layer of defense. She has quite a reputation as a fighter, and so do you. The two of you will make a good team.”

Claire stood up and returned to Atiana. “Scouts are in place. The countdown has started. If we haven’t heard otherwise, we’ll think about getting you into the net in an hour or so. In the meantime, let’s see if we can set up our own defensive position here.”

“I won’t leave the tank undefended,” Atiana said.

Claire nodded in understanding, though she disagreed. “Your Majesty, the peicks will have no interest in a tank. If they come here at all, it will be for you. I suggest we get you as far from that tank as possible.”

Atiana considered, but she knew what Claire meant. “If they understand my purpose, it will be to their advantage to keep me alive.”

Claire’s eyes rose to the ceiling in thought. “You’re right. I don’t really understand, but I overheard Galborae telling Sir Josh about some Leaf People who feared these super peicks. He said they had gone to a lot of trouble to make certain they never spread to the Empire. Does that clarify anything?”

Atiana’s lips firmed as she mentally reviewed the steps the Leaf People had taken to reach this point, including Galborae’s final vision. She nodded to herself, then focused back on Claire. “It means the peicks must not leave this place—ever. No matter what. I will do my part to keep the ship alive, but if the peicks have a clear win, I will withdraw.”

Claire took her hand and nodded, then the two embraced briefly.

“What kind of barrier will stop them?” Atiana asked, looking around at the loose equipment.

“Nothing will stop them, but we don’t have to stop them. We just have to slow them down long enough to know where they are.” She pulled Atiana to her feet, and the two of them went in search of the right kind of hiding place.

* * * * *

Lex’s body was injured, but his mind was not. He stayed on the floater, pushed by a marine to an officer’s stateroom. There, marines would guard him and another Great Cat while they went into the net.

Great Cats rarely went into the net—their thought processes tended to drive individuals of most species crazy—which meant they were not experts, but they could get by. He pulled on the helmet and lay back while the net did its thing, then he was in.

But what was he in? There was no net. Instead, a vast, misty swamp surrounded him, seen only vaguely through a weak light. He looked out over small, brackish ponds separated by mounds of grass and moss. A larger lake lay off to his right in the distance. Scraggly, mossy trees, their branches mostly bare, clumped here and there. His mind automatically categorized them as potential places for cover, though they would provide cover to his enemies as well.

He looked up, but there was no sun. Even so, the light felt like twilight just after sundown. There was no smell, though there was never any smell in the net—smell was not a strong point of computers. Great Cats smelled their way through life, and the absence of odors always came as a blow. Lex felt like he was operating with a severe handicap.

Nor was there any sound, at least not yet. He growled low in his throat, and discovered that, yes, sound did exist in this strange place. Still, he sensed no other life in this place that should have been filled with people, sounds, and ribbons of trons to follow through the net.

He turned, searching, and saw his brother, Kas, materialize nearby. Kas instantly flattened himself to the ground and began a careful search just as Lex had. His gaze crossed Lex’s, but he gave no indication. His eyes continued their search. Lex saw his nose and ears searching as well.

Which way to go? The only abnormality that really stood out in this amazingly abnormal net was a slight red glow on the horizon to his left. He looked to Kas, and Kas nodded toward the red glow. The two moved out in their prowling mode, knowing they were somewhere on a battlefield, but knowing they did not know the rules of the battle or the dimensions of the battlefield.

That was okay with them. Great Cats were users of high technology, but that did not mean they understood it. In fact, none of the Protectors had a detailed understanding of the world in which they practiced their craft. Their real world, their home world, was a more primitive place of continual sensation, constant threats, reward for the strong, and death for the weak. Great Cats tended to feel their way through life along pathways of sensations tempered by logic, but in this place of non-real which civilized people called the net, Great Cats had to fall back on a more fundamental instinct: will.

He and Kas traveled perhaps a mile in their hunting mode when suddenly a streak of red light appeared low down in the sky. The streak struck Kas in the head and he went down with a scream, but he was back up in an instant. Another streak came from the same place, high up in a tree ahead of them. Lex leaped sideways, and a streak intended for him missed, but another streak right behind it hit him in the head. He screamed inadvertently and went down.

The streak had not wounded his body, it had wounded his mind. He felt weaker for it.

He and Kas split up and raced for cover. Lex found a small mound behind which he could lay while he recovered. He was a survivor, and his mind focused just on survival for the moment. How could he have been wounded inside the net? The net did not exist in reality.

Then he reconsidered—the net did not exist in his reality, but it did exist theoretically, meaning it existed within scientific laws he did not understand. So it did exist in reality, but weapons here would not be physical, they would be more like theoretical, a creation of the mind.

Maybe that’s why he and Kas and taken hits to their heads. The red streak had struck his mind.

If the super peicks were using weapons of the mind, could he?

He looked hard at the top of the tree from which the streak had come. He could not make out a physical creature, but that made sense since the peicks blended in so well in the natural world. However, he saw a dim red glow near the top of the tree. He focused on that glow, then thrust his hand out toward it, grunting as he put all his will behind the thrust.

A bright red streak much stronger than the one from the peick left his hand and crossed the distance, striking the tree but missing the red glow. Still, he heard a shriek and the red glow moved quickly down the tree and disappeared, so it must have affected the super peick.

Hmm. Interesting. He looked hard for more dull red glows, saw none, and raced over to Kas. The two of them conversed, then split up again.

Since this was a place of the mind, Lex tried another tactic. He visualized the rest of his brothers in his mind and sent a thought out into the void. Kas let out a brief snarl which might have meant he felt the message, but Lex did not know if anyone else received it. Still, it was worth the try. They would be stronger if they could team up.

He and Kas continued toward the red glow on the horizon. It might have gotten a little brighter, but he believed they had a long way to go. He missed his sense of smell, and he was forced to rely mostly on vision. His eyes never stopped moving, always looking for movement of any kind, but especially red glows. He spotted one peripherally, and Kas must have seen it as well because they both sent red streaks toward it. The streaks traveled fast, but not so fast that he had difficulty following them. His struck first and there was an instant shriek. Kas’s struck a moment later, and something heavy fell to the ground.

He and Kas raced toward the felled creature, but when they got there they could not find anything.

But something found them. He and Kas both took hits from different directions. Each shrieked, seemingly an unavoidable effect of the streak hitting their minds. They both went to ground briefly, then moved to better cover and sighted in on the sources of the streaks. Before Lex fired, another streak came from his left, not toward him but toward his intended target. The streak hit solidly and something screamed. Another streak hit right behind the first and something fell to the ground with a thud.

Lex let out a low snarl, and two more Great Cats joined him.

“So it’s a mind game we play,” he said to them in greeting.

“Not so much a game,” Rose replied. “We do not know our target.”

“True. Kas and I are in agreement that we head for the glow on the horizon. We have no idea what it signifies, but we have no other clues.”

“The woman said the peicks could be defeated in the net. Maybe that’s how crew members were supposed to find them.”

“Maybe. It might be possible to defeat peicks, but I’m not certain we can defeat these super peicks. Nevertheless, that’s our task until we learn otherwise. Their weapons weaken us, and maybe ours weaken them as well. If so, it will be a battle of willpower, our strong suit. Move out.”

Four Great Cats spread out. Lex sent out another call, and before long the two remaining team members joined them. Six Great Cats was a formidable force, no matter who the enemy was. They were able to move more quickly now. The number of attacks against them increased, though in every case effective retaliation came from a neighboring Great Cat. Their strength decreased with each strike, but they had no choice—they had to continue.

Lex had no way of knowing for certain, but he believed the increased number of attacks against them meant they were drawing the attention of more peicks. If true, it might enable Lady Akurea to move more freely. Atiana’s name was also on the list of people who could stop the countdown, but in view of her severely limited understanding of the net, he doubted if she would have any success at all in this strange place.

* * * * *

Prior to her Knighting, Akurea had spent most of her career in Fleet Maintenance. When Lady Krys discovered her on Grnlee, she was commanding a major ship overhaul facility. She knew ships, but she was in no way a scientist. In fact, she proudly described herself as a mechanic and was most comfortable with her hands full of tools.

The net into which she found herself made no sense to her. To begin with, it was not really a net. She had access to only a tiny portion of the net, the part most fundamental to the AI, and she felt that access slipping away.

She confronted the AI and initiated the Korban program with her Imperial override. She made certain the program provided a two hour window for the countdown and that if any one of the individuals on the list entered the net during that two hour window, the countdown would be cancelled. If at any time after that any one of the individuals was again not in the net, the program would begin another countdown. The program would continue resetting itself until properly cancelled. She received acknowledgement from the AI, then she turned back to confront her adversaries.

She never even saw them. They literally thrust her aside, expunging her from the net effortlessly. They probably did the same to the rest of the ship’s crew.

She removed her helmet and considered: she had not seen anyone else in the net, so the countdown had probably begun the moment she was pushed out. The ship and everyone on it was doomed unless she could find a way back in. She tried the helmet again, but it was dead. She left her quarters and went to another room. There, she put on another helmet and attempted to go back into the net from a different physical location in hopes that the super peicks might not notice her.

She wasn’t sure if it worked or not. AI’s could create many different scenarios within their nets but this one made no sense. There was no ship at all, a first in her experience. She found herself in a misty swamp. She crouched down, then turned in a circle looking for any clue at all that might give her some kind of orientation.

She tried contacting the AI, but there was no response. She felt like she might be in the net, but it was almost like the net had not logged her in, like it did not recognize her. The thought horrified her—she could not reset the countdown without contacting the AI, and she had no idea how to do that.

What were these super peicks, anyway? What powers did they have? Claire said they had been designed to not only take the net away from the Chessori, but that they had the ability to defend their hold on the net. Well, they had taken control of the net from her, that much was certain. This strange place must be their method of defending that control.

The code Claire had given her was the only way to turn off that ability. Claire had mentioned a control panel, but Akurea had no idea where it was.

A screech sounded off to her right, how far away she could not tell. Then another screech in the same direction. A dim red glow lit the horizon in that direction and she wondered if it might be the Great Cats fighting super peicks. She headed off in that direction as stealthily as she could, moving between copses of gray, rotting trees. She had sent the Great Cats in here for a reason, to forge a way in ahead of her, so she had best take advantage of their efforts.