Heart Of The Machine (Soulmates Book 2)

by Don DeBon

  They all turned towards her in quick succession. "Okay, what did you do?" Otis asked.

  Minerva smiled. "You recall when I took control of the Valiant before?"

  Deven snapped his fingers. "Of course, they hadn't changed the command codes, which allowed you access."

  "Yes, all those ships still have the old codes. I have deactivated their weapons."

  Deven cocked his head. "And the Valiant?"

  Halburn blinked. The battle was going their way. The Defiant and Mechand carrier didn't even move, much less put up a fight. Even more strange, the carrier had moved under the Defiant and she had extended her shields protecting them both. He expected them to be laid waste by now. Yet they were still here absorbing a barrage of energy blasts no ship should be able to take. Nothing human anyway. Slight shimmers in the field occurred at various points where the shield generators overlapped. They couldn't take much more and he knew it. Then everything stopped. "What are you doing? I didn't give the order to cease fire."

  "I don't know sir, I am unable to communicate with the rest of the fleet," Naud said tapping several unresponsive controls.

  "Is there something wrong with our systems?" Halburn's eyes flashed. "The Nexus! It is pulling the same stunt as before freezing the Valiant. I thought you disabled that system?"

  Naud's fingers flew over his console. "I did, but we had to re-enable it or the avionics were affected at high speeds. I changed the access codes though."

  "Want to bet the Nexus cracked them?" Halburn growled. "Flaky avionics at high speed is better than frozen now. Disable that thing for good, and open fire." He looked to Rechert. "Next time tell me when something affects maneuverability."

  "Sorry sir." Was all Rechert could manage.

  "Don't worry about it. We will get the controls routed around the node later." He turned back to Naud. "Did you kill that thing yet?"

  "Yes, though it was more difficult this time."

  "Well? What are you waiting for? I want those ships full of more holes than you can count!"

  "Yes sir," Naud said activating the weapons. Concentrated energy blasts ripped from the Valiant's cannons and slammed into the Defiant over and over again.

  Deven had his answer when one lone ship lashed out with another barrage of energy blasts hitting the Defiant's shields head on.

  Minerva frowned. "I am sorry. I was able to access the Valiant's systems, but they have locked me out. I will keep trying."

  "Don't bother. If I know Halburn, he ripped out the control unit and threw it overboard this time," Deven said.

  The communications device on Dakarth's belt beeped. He pulled it free and the small screen popped open to reveal two Lytherians on either side. "We have managed to reactivate the overdrive systemssss. It will not last long, the nanos are too busy keeping the shields operational."

  Dakarth looked up. "I ssssuggest we leave now."

  Galina smiled on her screen. "Thank you Lytherians!" But when she tried to activate the overdrive the green light went out. "Dang it! We have a problem here."

  Minerva frowned. "Indeed. While overdrive appears to be online, when I try to power up the system, it fails."

  Down below Leon hit the nearest intercom. "I think I know what is going on. Give me a few seconds."

  "We might, but I am not sure about Halburn," Aleshia groaned.

  Leon ran over to the modified power core. It had grown and had little resemblance to the previous system. He ran a quick diagnostic and smiled. "Got it!"

  The Lytherians nearby cocked their heads. "Got what? We do not undersssstand."

  "No time." Leon disconnected one of the three larger cables running from the power core to the engines. "Galina, can you hear me?" Leon shouted.

  Minerva routed the signal down to engineering. "Yes. A little faint but I hear you."

  "Get Gregory."

  "I can do that," Miles' voice came through the speaker.

  "I am here," Gregory said out of breath. "What do you want me to do?"

  "Okay, listen carefully. Pull one of the power lines going from the core to the Defiant's engines—"

  "Just one?" Gregory asked.

  "Don't interrupt! Yes just one. And when I tell you, plug it in."

  Gregory ran to the other side of room and pulled one of the cables. Sparks several flew from the end and he could smell ozone. "Done."

  "Galina, hit the overdrive in three seconds. Gregory plug it back in a half a second after." Leon shouted.

  "But—"

  "Do it!"

  "Okay overdrive in three … two … one …" Galina hit the button on her console. The overdrive system started to light up, then began to dim. Leon and Gregory plugged in their cables in perfect synchronicity. Power flowed into the engines causing them to glow brighter and brighter.

  "That did it!" Galina said. "I have a green light and overdrive is powering up. Minerva, make sure you are linked, this is going to be dicey. I have to drop the shields at the same second we jump."

  "Of course. Link is operational. The Phoenix is ready when you are."

  The Valiant was joined by several other ships increasing the energy barrage. "Looks like some of them have figured out how to override Minerva's shutdown. Galina, get us out of here!" Aleshia said.

  "Overdrive needs more time to charge. Perhaps another twenty seconds." Galina blinked as the power indicators shot off the chart. "Or not, thank you Lytherian power core! Hang on we are jumping!" She jammed on a button and the microsecond the shields dropped both ships leapt into overdrive leaving nothing but fading blue streaks in their wake.

  Halburn slammed his fist on the arm of his command chair. This time he left a dent and he rubbed his hand. "How could they have got away? How? We had them! Their shields were failing, and you told me their overdrive was offline."

  Naud cleared his throat. "It was sir. But I am sure it wasn't when we arrived."

  "It can only mean one thing. The aliens are helping increase the power of those ships. Their shields should not have lasted that long, let alone have enough power for a jump. We need to find them before they complete those enhancements."

  "How sir?"

  "I will be in my quarters, making a call." Halburn turned and started towards the hatch. He took three steps then looked back over his shoulder. "And make sure the rest of the fleet disables that control node, for good." He climbed down the ladder as the hatch closed.

  In his quarters Lavine's eyes narrowed on Halburn's data tab. "I am not pleased. I gave you another chance, and you failed me even with an entire fleet at your disposal."

  "I know, but hear me out. I saw the Defiant take more weapons fire than it ever did before without so much as a scratch. Those aliens are either helping Deven or they have taken the carriers to add to their fleet."

  "For what purpose? From what I have seen, they are not in need of any ships."

  "I don't know, but it has to be important to their plan or they wouldn't have bothered modifying them." Halburn sat back in his chair as he turned it back and forth. "Also, neither ship so much as fired a shot. I feel like we are missing a large piece of this puzzle." He sat up. "Can you find the Defiant with the satellite?"

  "I think we have gained orientation access. Give me a minute." Lavine tapped several buttons on the console to his right. "Yes, it is accepting but it is slow." After several minutes the view changed to show less of the space ships above and more of the Earth. "There, it pitched down, but I don't find them at the moment. They could be out of its range."

  "Out of its range?" Halburn cocked his head several times. "How? If it could detect all those ships—"

  Lavine grinned. "You do realize a planet is in the way, right? I can only scan what it can see, which is limited at any given time. The satellite is in a fast moving orbit, but it will take a while to scan the whole planet."

  "A pity we don't have more of them."

  "Yes. This one must be before the Nexus was built. While the Nexus had several relay satellites in orbit, after we
witnessed her emergence, I had what remained of the network destroyed."

  Halburn chewed the inside of his cheek. "We couldn't trust them even if they were around. I witnessed my entire fleet held in place even though the codes had been changed, I have doubts we could maintain control of those satellites without direct access to the hardware."

  "Yes, it is not worth the risk." Lavine tapped several keys. "I have narrowed down where they could be." Lavine pressed another button and Halburn's screen split showing the areas outside of the satellite's range. Almost half of the planet still remained unknown.

  "That is a lot of area. It would require splitting the fleet into several divisions, and I don't want to if I can avoid it. Even the entire fleet failed to take them down, although we were close. I can only imagine them laughing if fifteen or so ships encountered the Nexus carrier, let alone the Defiant."

  Lavine turned back to the screen facing Halburn. "Very well. I will keep hunting for them, and I trust you will do the same."

  "Of course. And I have a hunch where to look."

  The Defiant's overdrive fluctuated under the strain sending everyone aboard careening from one side to the other. Gregory stumbled onto the bridge. "Galina, what are you trying to do? Shake us apart?"

  "No!" She spat while gripping the controls tighter. "When the Lytherians said the engines weren't ready, they weren't kidding! It is like trying to drive a truck through two feet of mud at high speed. We're sliding all over the place."

  Miles' camera turned. "And our navigational link to the Phoenix is causing them to have increased difficulty. They are trying to match our erratic movements in addition to their own."

  "Miles, drop the link."

  "If I do, they will crash out of overdrive, and it may stall their engines entirely."

  Gregory grabbed onto a chair and pulled himself into it. "They would go down like a stone. At this speed no way they could restart before becoming a giant crater."

  The camera turned to face Gregory. "Correct. The odds of survival are very low."

  Alarms screamed and several screens flashed red causing Galina to swear but she didn't dare take her eyes off of the controls. "What now?"

  Miles' camera turned. "The engines are overheating. I estimate less than 30 seconds until failure."

  "Failure? You mean until we explode!" Gregory said.

  "I believe I said that," Miles stated in his usual calm voice.

  "We need to drop out of overdrive now."

  "Not yet. If I do now, Halburn will be on us faster than you can say 'I'm back'."

  "But if you don't, there won't be enough of us to even shoot at."

  Galina gritted her teeth. "Come on you bucket of bolts. Just a little further."

  Deven grabbed a console as he tried to keep himself from being thrown across the bridge. Not everyone was as quick causing Otis and Dakarth to be hurled into a bulkhead seeing stars. Aleshia grabbed a chair with her mind and pulled herself to it. "Minerva! What are you doing!?"

  "I am sorry, it is unavoidable. The engines are not stable. I am trying to compensate but it is having little effect."

  Dakarth rubbed his head. "I told you, they were not ready."

  Leon stumbled onto the bridge. "What have you done to my engines?"

  Minerva's eyes narrowed. "You mean my engines."

  "Who cares at this point. This is going to rip us apart. Cut overdrive now."

  Minerva shook her head. "We are still linked to the Defiant. If I do that—"

  "It will stall the engines and we go down like the Titanic."

  "Correct. Although much faster than that ancient ship."

  "We have to do something. Contact Galina, tell her to stop."

  "I cannot, communications are offline."

  "Fine, I'll use mine." Deven whipped out his data tab and tapped a button to call Galina, only to receive an 'unable to establish connection, please try again later' message. "What the heck?"

  Leon gripped the arms of the chair he managed to reach. "The engines must be so unstable they are throwing off one massive interference wave."

  "Can we break through?"

  "Sure. Shut down the engines so I can fix them."

  Deven gritted his teeth. "I'll take that as a no. Aleshia, can you contact her?"

  Aleshia held on to her chair as her eyes came up to focus on Deven's. "Do you think I can concentrate in this?" She said as another bone jarring lurch shook through the Phoenix.

  "Great. Talk about being up a creek …"

  Galina yanked the controls but they still refused to respond quick enough. The ship continued to rock, shake, and shudder. "Come on, a little more."

  "The Defiant can't keep this up. She's going to shake herself to pieces," Gregory said.

  "Don't have to. We're close enough. Hang on!" She slammed her hand on the emergency stop and even with the warning it sent Gregory flying from his chair. He picked himself up from the deck plate that left a temporary impression on the one side of his face. The Phoenix emerged next to them a microsecond later.

  "Geez! Next time give me more warning would you?"

  "Will try."

  "Where are we anyway?"

  "Antarctica."

  "Again? Are you nuts? This will be the first place Halburn will look."

  "I doubt it. That is the reason he won't"

  "Huh?"

  "It doesn't make sense to go where we were before, which is why he won't check. At least not for a while."

  "That's crazy."

  "Maybe, but right now a little crazy is what we need." She tapped the communications and a moment later a screen was filled with white noise. "Minerva? Are you there?"

  The screen flickered and flashed before Minerva's face appeared. "I am. There was some damage, but we are intact."

  The screen split as Leon's face inserted itself. "Yeah no thanks to your driving."

  "Hey, next time you try driving this tub with engines trying to do the opposite of every command."

  "You just need to think three steps ahead."

  "Uh-huh, and it is a problem when you can only see two."

  "Details, details," Leon said with a wave of his hand. "Gregory, get down to the engines, I want to know their status."

  "But can't the Lytherians take care of—"

  "And who got us out of there? Hmm?"

  "You did." Gregory coughed and glared at her. "Er, um team effort. But I don't understand what happened."

  "Simple. Do you remember reading about how ancient cars had a choke on the fuel supply to get an engine started?"

  "Yeah, but our engines are nothing like those."

  "True. But the new power core was dumping a lot of energy into the cold engine, and because the upgrades weren't finished, it was way beyond its normal tolerances causing it to shut down. What we did was a jump-start of sorts. Allowing enough power to start, but not flood it."

  Gregory nodded. "Of course, and it would have stalled once started if we didn't plug the other line back in."

  Leon smiled. "You got it. The Lytherians may have superior technology, but they don't know these systems like we do."

  "Or like you do at least."

  "Hey, you're getting there. Now get down to the engines and see what needs to be done. Coordinate with the Lytherians and myself."

  "You got it." Gregory said getting up.

  Deven's face came onto another screen. "I'll be right over. I'm sure Gregory could use a hand."

  "The main landing bay has several obstructions. It will need to be cleared," Miles said.

  "How about one of the smaller secondary bays?"

  After a second, Miles responded. "Bay C-3 is still operational, however the entrance won't accommodate your current vehicle."

  "I can use one of Minerva's fighters. Ready the bay," Deven said before his image disappeared.

  "Miles, next time let me answer," Galina said through pursed lips.

  "But you would have asked me anyway."

  "That is not the point."
<
br />   "I fail to see the logic in this."

  "It may not be at times, but is how we do things. It is called command structure, learn it."

  "But I thought—"

  "Miles?" Galina grumbled as her eyes narrowed.

  The camera focused in on her face. The iris went wide then contracted. "Acknowledged."