Whatever Condor would have come up with for a reply would never be known, for at that moment the last of Shrike’s defenders fell and Raven advanced on the woman in green herself. Raven had her bloody katana in one hand and an energy pistol she’d acquired from one of the dead soldiers in the other, while Shrike had produced a shorter blade and held it along with her own pistol. Now, as Shrike attempted to work her way to her left and get out of the corner, Raven leapt to the attack.
Outside the locked door, the three men could only look on in astonishment at the display the two women put on. While she was not originally a true Hand, Shrike had undergone sufficient treatments and procedures to have gained most of the physical abilities of one, and she fought very well. She and Raven somersaulted through the air, casually deflecting off the smooth walls and ceiling, weapons firing and blades clashing as they leapt.
“This is really a no-win situation,” Condor observed as the women battled.
“How so?” Falcon asked, his human and mechanical eyes both locked on the amazing combat going on mere meters away from them, on the other side of the transparent wall.
“Shrike works for the Adversary,” Condor stated. “If she wins, we’re done.”
“And if Raven wins,” Hawk continued for him, “She’ll likely want to kill Condor as a false Hand, and me as a traitorous Hawk.”
Falcon took this in and then shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Sounds like I come out pretty good under that scenario, anyway,” he chuckled. “I’ve never done anything to offend anybody.”
Hawk snorted at this.
“The funny thing is, though,” Falcon said after a second, “Ravens were discontinued, too—not too long after your line was cut off.” He chuckled. “If she really wants to follow the Machine’s standing orders, she’ll kill herself, too.”
Watching the woman in red leap and spin and slash and blast, Hawk shrugged. “Maybe that’s what she plans to do, once she’s killed the rest of us.”
Falcon didn’t laugh this time. He simply replied, “If you knew Raven like I do—like your predecessor did—you wouldn’t find such a proposition all that far-fetched.”
“Maybe we can change her mind somehow,” Hawk said. “Get her to cooperate.” He didn’t sound terribly confident.
“Gentlemen, if I could interrupt your musings for a moment,” Condor said, as he pointed to the visual displays, “I believe our time is growing short. The enemy forces are landing in large numbers on the starship platforms along the Ring edge. If they can get through the outer locks—and I see no reason to suspect they cannot, assuming Shrike has already transmitted the proper codes and the location of this command center to them—they will be here very shortly.”
Falcon started to reply when with a very sudden finality the fight on the other side of the wall came to an end. Shrike caught Raven with a boot to the temple as she spun past, and the dark-haired woman collapsed to the floor. She started to rise but then Shrike landed next to her and lashed out once, twice, a third time with her foot. Raven fell motionless to the floor.
“So much for the whole ‘convince Raven to cooperate with us’ plan,” Falcon growled.
Seeing the three observers on the other side of the door, Shrike strode boldly toward them. Her eyes sparkled as she stood, hands on hips, and gazed out at them.
“The Master’s victory is at hand,” she crowed. “With this facility and its weapon under his control, no portion of the galaxy will be safe from him.”
“I told you,” Condor said to her, “the Ring cannot move. It is anchored to its sun—the very star that powers the super-weapon.”
“The Master has already found a way to overcome such a limitation,” Shrike replied. “His intellect vastly overshadows your pitiful machinations.”
She pointed a green-gloved finger at the big visual display behind her.
“The Master’s hordes will reach this location very soon. At that time, each of you will be shown the true power and wisdom of his plan for the galaxy, and will be converted to his way of thinking. You will serve in his legions, just as I now do.” She grinned. “And thus will all the surviving Hands of the Machine now serve the Master. For, you see, his forces have destroyed or captured all the remaining Hand creation bases throughout the galaxy. There will be no more Hands of the Machine.” She laughed. “Only you three, and myself, and of course this pitiful wretch, if she has somehow survived—”
Shrike turned to indicate Raven.
Raven was gone.
Shrike whirled about, seeing nothing but the dead bodies of her soldiers all around her. “What? But—how could—”
She turned back to the three men on the other side of the transparent wall, eyes widening.
“Where did she—?”
Raven, her uniform now a dull white to blend in with the ceiling, dropped down from where she had been hanging. Her silvery katana flashed once.
Shrike’s head separated from her shoulders and tumbled to the floor.
“Yow!” cried Condor, involuntarily moving back a step. The other two men looked on in astonishment.
“Idiot,” Raven pronounced with scorn, gazing down at the body. “Taking her eyes off me for a second, giving me plenty of opportunity to regain the advantage. She should have delivered the killing blow when she had the chance. As if she ever really had that chance.”
After a few seconds, the killing fervor seemed to have evaporated from Raven and she moved closer to the wall, gazing out at the three men who stood there. She appeared to be sizing them up, considering each one separately.
“Well, well,” she noted at last. “What an odd collection to encounter here.” She frowned. “I can only assume none of you is genuine.”
“That would actually be an erroneous assumption,” Condor attempted.
Raven stared at him for all of two seconds before laughing and replying, “Oh, please. There’s no way you’re a Condor.”
The blond man frowned at this but couldn’t say anything.
Raven’s eyes moved to Hawk. “In his case,” she said, pointing her katana directly at him, “it wouldn’t really matter either way, would it? There’s a standing termination order against any Hawks, in perpetuity.”
“From whom?” Falcon asked. “From the Machine? So—you’ve heard from him lately, then, have you?”
Raven frowned at this, not really able to answer.
“And by the way,” Falcon added, “you must not have looked in the mirror since you were awakened.”
Raven frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re a Raven.”
“I am well aware of that, yes. And?”
Falcon chuckled. “And there’s a standing termination order against your model, too,” he explained.
Raven just stared back at him, her expression stuck halfway between outrage and incomprehension.
“You’re saying that, too?” she finally managed. Her complexion paled. “Shrike—the false Shrike, on the Ring—told me that, and I didn’t believe her.”
“It’s a long story, but a true one,” Falcon said, “and one we’re in the process of trying to work out. But there are other issues at present that demand our attention.”
Regaining her composure, Raven shrugged. “Once I’ve killed the three of you, I’ll tend to whatever other matters there might be.”
Hawk gave her an exasperated look.
“Is that your solution to everything?”
“I find it effective,” Raven replied.
Hawk looked to Falcon.
“She’s joking, right?”
“Ravens don’t joke,” Condor interjected.
“They don’t even smile, generally,” Falcon added.
He turned his full attention to Raven.
“Don’t bother pleading for your lives,” the dark-haired woman was saying.
Falcon ignored this.
“You’re going to need to suppress that function for the time being,” he stated forcefu
lly. “As I said, there are bigger issues at stake, and time is of the essence.”
Raven turned her gaze on Falcon now, her dark, almond eyes narrowing. She twirled her blood-stained katana gracefully.
“Is that so?”
Falcon shook his head. “I read somewhere that a group of ravens—the birds—was called an ‘unkindness,’” he grumbled. “I suppose just one Raven by itself is a stubbornness.”
Hawk frowned at this, missing the joke.
Raven took a menacing step forward.
“Okay, fine,” Falcon said, growing serious. “Override conditioning code omega nineteen. Suppress Raven directive two.”
Raven halted in mid-step, her eyes widening.
Falcon nodded toward Hawk and Condor. “Recognition code four one seven. These men are allies and will be treated as such.”
The katana nearly fell from Raven’s fingers before she recovered her composure.
“You’re real?” she asked.
“What’s left of me is real, yeah,” Falcon chuckled. “Open the door.”
Raven moved so quickly the eye could scarcely follow her. She pressed the control and the command center unlocked again, the door sliding open.
Condor was hesitant to move. “She’s not going to try to kill us?”
“She wouldn’t try to kill me, regardless,” Falcon chuckled. “She knows I’m the real thing now.”
Hawk moved past them and into the room, ignoring the conversation. Raven let him pass, though she gave him an extremely puzzled look.
“That doesn’t very much relieve my concerns,” Condor was saying to Falcon.
“I’ve overridden that directive for her—at least, temporarily,” Falcon explained patiently. “She now understands that we have other things to do—things that take precedence over killing any false or renegade Hands.”
Condor took this in, saw that Raven was not advancing upon him with murderous intent, and seemed to relax a bit.
“Okay,” Hawk said to Condor, looking all around, “we’re in. Now—what can we do?”
Condor gazed up at the displays. Dozens of vessels had landed on the starship platforms along the Ring’s edge and aliens of many different species were advancing through the corridors, most of them headed toward the command center. He shook his head.
“It’s too late for the big gun to be of any real use,” he explained. “I could shoot a few that are still out beyond our orbit, but that wouldn’t help us when the Adversary’s army gets here in a minute or two.”
“What’s left, then?” Falcon demanded.
Condor shook his head.
“Nothing. Nothing but to seal this room back up and deny the Adversary access to the main weapon—at least, until he figures out how to cut through that wall or override the controls for the doors.”
“And meanwhile we die of thirst or starve,” Hawk pointed out. “Fantastic.”
Footsteps echoed from down the corridor. The four of them looked up and saw the first wave of the Adversary’s alien attackers approaching at a dead run. It was a group of Skrazzi—the big, black, insectoid creatures with blades and disintegrator guns for arms.
“Close the door!” Condor shouted. “Now!”
Falcon smacked his fist down on the control and the door slid closed, sealing the command center again. The Skrazzi skidded to a halt outside the transparent slab and began to bang on it with their bladed arms and directing disintegrator fire at it.
“Fortunately,” Condor noted, “the walls and door of this room are comprised of the same material as the rest of the Ring—with a molecular density approaching indestructibility. They won’t be able to just blast their way in.”
Then he laughed and moved around to another console.
“But—for whatever it’s worth—I did install a few extras after I took control of this place.”
He touched a series of colored squares on the panel in front of him. Instantly big guns dropped down from the ceiling in the corridor outside and opened fire on the Skrazzi at the door. The black alien bugs exploded in ichor-covered pieces as the guns blazed away.
“I like it,” Falcon noted with a slight smile. “But—that doesn’t help us get out of here.” He had already considered and rejected several ideas in rapid succession and was beginning to lose hope that any solution could be found.
Raven cleared her throat then and pointed her katana at the rectangle of equipment on the far side of the big room.
“What about that thing? I saw you people come through it before. We can’t go back the other way?”
Condor quickly explained that the spacecraft holding the other terminal of the connection had been destroyed just after they had passed through it.
“So—where does it lead now?” Raven asked.
Condor looked at her, looked at the portal terminal, and shook his head.
“I have no idea.”
Outside the door, the guns stopped firing as the last of the Skrazzi flew to pieces. The transparent wall separating the outside corridor from the command center now dripped with gallons of dark fluid.
“Assuming the wormhole this thing creates tunnels through the Above,” Falcon said, rubbing his chin, “it must stop somewhere in there, since no corresponding terminal would be opening a tunnel back out.”
“It leads into the Above?” Hawk said, startled. “It just goes there and—stops?”
“Probably so,” Condor confirmed.
“And we’d have no idea if there was air to breathe—or even land to stand on,” Hawk added.
Falcon shook his head.
The guns opened up again as another wave of Skrazzi attacked. After a few seconds, they fell silent—this time because they had run out of ammunition or their batteries had depleted. The Skrazzi nonetheless suddenly began to part down the center or fall back, moving out of the way. A strange humming sound came to them then, faint but growing stronger by the second.
Hawk took note of this.
“Umm—what’s happening out there?” he asked, glancing from the odd behavior of the insectoids to his companions inside.
The temperature in the command center plunged precipitously. Frost formed across every surface.
Dark shadows appeared, moving down the center of the outside corridor.
“Phaedrons!” Falcon shouted. “They’ve got stinking Phaedrons with them!”
Raven touched the ice on the nearest console with her gloved fingers and frowned.
“Psychic energy,” she observed. “The Phaedrons are all powerful telepaths.”
“Telepaths that consume your soul, if the old stories are to be believed,” Falcon added.
“We have to get out of here now,” Condor stated flatly. “Much as I hate handing over this installation to anyone else—particularly the Adversary—I don’t think we need to be here any longer.”
The shadows lengthened. A series of dark forms came into view, just down the corridor, approaching slowly.
They all looked at the wormhole terminal where it stood across the room.
Hawk took a deep breath and then motioned toward it.
“What have we got to lose?”
“Besides our lives?” Condor asked. Nonetheless, the blond man moved quickly that way. The others followed him.
After tapping a series of instructions into the machinery, Condor looked up at his erstwhile allies.
“I’m setting the terminal to self-destruct thirty seconds after we pass through it,” he told them.
“Good idea,” Falcon agreed.
Condor tapped one last code in. The space within the brackets of machinery suddenly flared with light and color, swirling about. A sort of portal or doorway in space yawned open.
“Here goes nothing,” Condor said. He leaped through.
Hawk and Falcon looked at one another, then back at Raven, who was standing behind them and gazing out at the creatures assaulting the door and wall. Black, huddled shapes were congregating around the door, metallic clawed hands reaching ou
t to scratch at it. Ice had formed a nearly foot-thick layer across its interior side. The temperature dropped even lower.
When Falcon spoke, frost filled the air before him.
“Ladies first,” he said.
Raven gazed back at the creatures outside the door one last time.
“But—there are so many evil aliens out there for me to kill…”
“Go!” Falcon shouted.
Raven whirled about and dashed through the swirling portal.
“Hope we’re not sending her to her death,” Hawk said, staring at the circle of light.
“Her? What about us?”
The ice on the back of the door cracked and came apart in chunks. The door shattered along with it.
“Time to go,” Falcon said. He grabbed Hawk by the arm and, as the first wave of Skrazzi rushed into the command center, hustled both of them through the portal.
The universe that they knew fell away behind them as the wormhole carried them somewhere else entirely.
8: RAVEN
The blinding light that had swallowed them up gradually faded away. Raven blinked her eyes repeatedly, willing her optical implants to hurry and adjust properly to the changing conditions. When at last she could see more or less clearly, she looked around and realized she hadn’t really been missing anything.
She stood on what appeared to be a low hilltop. Her boots rested on a semi-soft soil surface, dry and somewhat crumbly. All around her swirled a thick gray fog, rendering visibility extremely limited.
Instinctively her first action was to check for an Aether connection. It remained dead, as she had suspected it would.
“Hello?” she called out. “Condor? You there?”
No reply.
Her katana was still clutched tightly in her right fist. She found she had no desire to sheath it. Holding it instead at the ready, she turned in a tight circle, trying as best she could to see through the fog.
“Condor!” she shouted. “Falcon! Hawk! Or whoever you guys are. Can you hear me?”
Still nothing—until her optical implants detected the faintest point of light, just barely making its way to her through the wall of gray.
“Hello?” she called again.
She started to move toward the light, then paused and considered for a moment. Using her katana, she scratched a large “S” into the ground, along with an arrow pointing in the direction of the light. Then, her sword held up again and directed in front of her, she started forward.
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