D'Mok Revival 1: Awakening

by Michael J. Zummo

  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 diff
icult. 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!”

  They gathered around and looked at her display. There was a single recognizable symbol on the screen.

  “Nukari?” Mencari whispered.

  “Yes, but look,” Toriko said pointing to the corner. “Powered by… Bansa.”

  Toriko’s fingers summoned her holographic cube which bloomed into a virtual interface. She quickly patched in, scoffing. “This isn’t even my sister’s work. They call this encryption?” One by one, four little red areas on her screen turned green.

  “Got it!”

  The area under their feet began to tremble. As the dust cleared, Toriko saw a small circular opening. “We wouldn’t have an operation out here,” she said, her voice annoyed. “But it looks like it has a recent system patch. The Nukari must be farming out the tech developed at Bansa.”

  Mencari nodded. “Making the most of what they got from your world, aren’t they?”

  “Yep. Which means I can crack it!”

  They peered down the brightly lit tube before entering, Toriko first. As she reached the bottom, she found a port and was able to jack into it while the others followed. As the last one climbed down, the surface hatch closed.

  “I put it on a delay,” she said, as the others looked at her. “Don’t worry. I should be able to get us out without any trouble.”

  Something on the floor had caught Allia and Ichini’s attention. Mencari looked to see but couldn’t make anything out.

  Suddenly, the glow around them began to fade.

  “There must be some artificial atmosphere here,” he said.

  Using her holographic interface, Toriko called up a display not much bigger than the width of her two hands side-by-side.

  “What are you doing?” Mencari asked.

  “The port on the surface was only hooked up to the hatch, but this one . . .” She looked at the display as if it was taunting her. “There’s more here. Just a second . . . There!”

  The display began to cycle through a series of information panels.

  “Okay,” she said. “I have the floor layouts!”

  A hologram of the current floor layout appeared before them. She pointed to a section in the northwest corner of the map. “This is where we are now.”

  “Anything else on what’s inside?” Allia asked.

  Toriko looked up gleefully, then back at her armguard. “Looks like there’s motion detectors installed. Let me see . . . Wait . . . blips moving along the hallway. Not people, but robot patrols. Sentries, maybe?”

  “I don’t like staying in one spot too long,” Allia said, glancing around.

  The young girl stared at the display. “They seem to be moving in rhythm. Regular routes. Can you record their movements? So we could predict where they’d be at a certain time?”

  Toriko looked up, then down again, as her fingers danced around the hologram. “Can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

  Again Mencari caught Allia looking at the floor, her gaze intense. He was about to ask her what she was looking at when Toriko popped her plug from the port. “All set.”

  The foursome scurried to a closed door at the end of the hallway. They watched the hologram, waiting until a robot-guard’s blip tracked well past their door, then they eased open the door and peeked into another long hallway.

  In the distance, a robot moved lazily away from them along a track of colored light. Allia stared at the beam, amazed. Toriko nodded at Mencari, then mouthed, “Simulation’s dead-on.”

  When the robot disappeared from view, Mencari motioned to them. “We need to stay together. Let’s go.”

  They made their way down the corridor toward the intersection.

  They kept themselves pressed against the wall, a few steps before the intersection, as Toriko sidled up to the corner. Allia’s eyes were drawn to the room at the end of the intersection. The grinding noises they’d heard seemed much louder here.

  Toriko motioned all clear, and the group darted through the intersection and into the room. Inside, they watched Toriko’s hologram in silence as another small dot outside approached, then moved past the room without a pause.

  “Seems like a bunch of low-tech patrol bots,” Toriko whispered, “Not that I’m complaining.”

  Feeling more comfortable, they began looking around the room. Toriko found another access port near the entrance, pulled out her holographic interface cube and connected in. Mencari looked over her shoulder at the strange displays and virtual control panels, as Allia and Ichini wandered to the far corner where a window jutted out.

  Allia attracted his attention and motioned him over. He saw a cavern on the other side of a small canyon. Machines seemed to be grinding rocks, and carts disappeared into the darkness of a tunnel.

  “It’s a mine,” Toriko whispered.

  She sat on the floor, reviewing a new holographic panel. “This port has more access.” She smiled triumphantly. “The reports say it’s operating about fifty-percent output.”

  “What are they mining?”

  “Doesn’t say. The systems are mostly maintenance reports, very utilitarian.”

  He looked back out the window, spotting heaps of colored ore. “From those piles, it all looks the same.”

  Allia tugged at his shirt and pointed to a small robot about her size, with oversized drills for arms.

  “Mining bots,” he said.

  On the canyon floor, a half-dozen similar robots marched along. Joining the first one, they continued into the mine shaft.

  “We should see if we can bring back a sample,” he said.

  “Gimme a minute.” Toriko looked up from the display, as her hands continue to work the holographic interface, a wily grin on her face. “I’m just returning the gift they gave to Ujaku . . . with a little enhancement.”

  “We’re not done here yet.”

  “It’s time-release, don’t worry.”

  Mencari cringed.

  “Are we going down there?” Allia said, eyes wide.

  He was about to confirm when Toriko called out, “Wait. A message. No, an alert. Something about a robot found destroyed. Other bots have been dispatched to investigate.”

  “But we didn’t destroy any robots!” Allia said confused.

  Mencari examined the cavern map Toriko pulled up. A targeting symbol converged on a spot deep inside the mine. “According to this, it happened pretty far in,” Toriko said.

  “Things fall in caves all the time,” Allia said, relieved. “It probably got smushed.”

  Mencari frowned. “Regardless, they’re on alert now. We need to be careful. Let’s get the sample and get out of here.”

  Toriko popped her plug and stood. A hologram appeared before her, scanning for routes down to the mine area.

  “There,” she said. “There’s another maintenance shaft, not far from the one we used to get in.”

  He waved a hand forward. “Lead on.”

  They gathered around her to watch the floor lay
out with the sentinel dots, moving along their programmed paths. On schedule, the hum outside the door grew as the holographic dot approached their position. When the patrol bot had passed safely by, they slipped out of the room and headed toward the maintenance shaft.

  When they located it, they found a ladder leading down a hole to a lighted area below. Nothing seemed to be moving around. Ichini leapt down ahead of the group. The lower they went, the more rumbling they heard from the mining machines. Their descent ended on a metal plateau.

  As Mencari was about to step off the ladder, he noticed a few loose bolts along with scuff marks on the ground. He pointed to them and whispered, “Looks deep, like something heavy’s been dragged here.”

  His eyes traced along the markings as he hopped off the ladder. Allia traced his gaze and found a small side panel, went over to it and crawled inside while Ichini stayed with the others.

  They heard metal clanking, and the sound of something being hit.

  Worried, Toriko called out, “Allia?” When there was no response, she went over to the cubby and peered into the dark. A robot head popped out, causing her to yell and flail backwards. Losing her balance, she hit the floor hard.

  Allia’s laugh echoed from inside the robot’s head before she pulled it from her face. “Look what I found. It’s all busted up, though.”

  Toriko scowled at her. “That wasn’t funny.”

  Mencari looked behind Allia, struggling to make out details in the dark. Strewn across the storage area were the mangled parts of a patrol sentinel. “This isn’t right,” he said. “They’re already looking for one destroyed robot, right? Something else is going on here.”

  He peered farther down the crawlspace. “How far are we from the ore we saw, Toriko?”

  She checked her map. “We’re very close.”

  They made their way down a second ladder, which ended in a room-sized chamber that opened into the mines. Toriko opened the door to reveal piles of ore sitting mere feet from them.

  Mencari looked out, confirming no bots were lurking around. He dashed out to a pile and grabbed a few pieces of the ore. He turned to sneak back to the others.