“I’m better now.” She refrained from mentioning her trembling legs, her aching chest, or the muscles that had barely stopped cramping. If she had enough air in her lungs, she could think clearly, and mental energy was what he needed from her.
“This is the core of the Zin brain. We have to find an access panel.”
He’d brought them to the clear window of a control center.
Inside, the medium-sized control center was filled with dials, buttons, knobs, and blinking lights. No vidscreens. No Zin either. The place looked fully automated and empty of life. The clear doors that guarded the only entrance were at least one foot thick. Shooting their way inside didn’t appear to be an option, and she saw no handles or manual locks to pick, either.
But as alarms sounded, she pulled her blaster, and her gaze shot straight to Kirek. “Now what?”
“IT’S TIME TO transfer my psi.” Kirek ignored the blinking red-and-orange swirling alarm lights, the shrieking whistles, and the ominous metal shutters descending from the ceiling to prevent them from seeing through the clear glass doors.
“What should I do?”
“Let me inside your shield. Then push my psi out of your head. Try not to drop the shielding until I’m all back.”
He spoke as casually as if he was telling her how to drive a flitter into a garage. Although she understood her goal, the exact process by which she was supposed to follow his directions eluded her. Between the flashing lights and the whistles, her awareness of how much was at stake—including their lives, and her fear of failing, panic started to creep in.
She clamped her hands over her ears and closed her eyes—not even bothering to use her suit. Angel could only use her psi for so many things, and the shield was critical. So was giving Kirek back his psi.
Steady.
First she spread the shield around him. In her weakened state, accomplishing the task was more difficult than when she’d first raised it hours ago, but she managed. “The shield is covering you, but not as strongly as before. I’m not certain how long I can—”
“Do your best.”
Easy for him to say. “I’ll try.”
Angel figured if she expanded her own psi, it might push his out of where it had lodged in her mind. So she gathered her psi from where it had merged with his then tried to unfurl his, hoping his psi would expand toward him.
Slashing pain ripped through her head.
Gasping, she staggered to her knees.
Kirek grabbed her and stopped her from toppling to the floor. “Angel!”
Gnashing her teeth, she squeezed down hard on her psi. The pain eased, leaving her with a throbbing headache and a great reluctance to try again. But the alarm, now once again loud in her ears, reminded her of the urgency. She didn’t have the luxury of time to recover.
Zin might show up at any time. So she tried building a force field around Kirek’s psi, then gave it a gentle nudge. Nothing happened, but she didn’t feel any pain either. So she pushed a little harder. And it gave way.
“It’s moving,” she panted.
“Good.” Kirek’s tone was gentle and encouraging, as if she had all the time in the universe.
Angel shoved his psi with more force, directing it toward Kirek. For some reason, his psi resisted. She pushed harder, and when it didn’t hurt, she pushed as much as she could, but his psi seemed snagged and stuck. Sweat poured from her body and trickled over her flesh, which the suit cleaned up, but her energy was failing.
“We’re halfway there.” Kirek held her steady as if he feared she’d collapse. “I can feel my psi pulsing.”
“Take it.” She had no more strength left. If she used any more, the shield would snap.
“Just a few more seconds, sweetheart.”
Kirek pulled and his psi zapped from her and into him. With relief and glee, her own psi expanded into her entire mind, but the effort had left her weak and drained.
God … the shield. She had to hold the shield. She braced, but she had no more strength. Without Kirek’s psi to help, she couldn’t hold on. And gasped. “I’m losing it.”
“It’s okay. You can let go.”
Exhausted, Angel wearily opened her eyes to find herself sitting on the floor, her back against a panel where Kirek must have lowered her.
Kirek stood in front of the barred glass, his palms flat on the metal, his face rigid with determination. She heard a creaking groan. Somehow, Kirek bent the metal and pried opened the doors.
He must have used his psi—although she had no idea how.
“Come on.” He leaned down, tugged her hand, but when her weary muscles failed to gather her feet under her, he again scooped her up and set her down inside the control booth.
Then the doors shut behind them.
Had the Zin trapped them? Or had Kirek closed the doors to protect them? Angel didn’t know. But several seconds later the blasted alarms stopped ringing, and she took a few reviving swigs of water from a supply packet.
Angel didn’t bother Kirek with questions. Knowing he had only a short amount of time to insert his psi into the Zin core and take them out, she didn’t want to distract him.
Kirek strode to the middle of the controls. He placed his hands on a screen and spoke under his breath, concentrating on his task. With his shoulders squared and his jaw thrust forward, he looked every inch the proud warrior going into battle. Only his battle would be one of the mind—pitting his psi against the entire Zin home world, a planet made up of billions.
She prayed Kirek’s psi was powerful enough to do the job. And wished she could do something to help, wondered how long the mental battle would take.
Because the Zin had found them.
Angel stared in horror as machines crawled, scooted, and flew into the metal and glass, pounding and congregating around the doors. Kirek didn’t move, and she wondered if he was even aware of them. He appeared to be in a trance.
Outside the control center, Zin dropped from the ceiling, rolled, stepped, and careened down the corridors, even drilled upward from the floors, their movements quick and coordinated. Some Zin were so tiny she barely could make out their shapes, and those tried to squeeze in through cracks, attempting an attack from every angle to protect the core.
Angel fingered her blaster. One huge Zin began to drill between the bars. Others tried a variety of weapons from torches to cutting lasers. None seemed effective.
Yet, the Zin did not give up.
They tried acids, gases, and concoctions she didn’t recognize. They bombarded them with sound, electromagnetic waves, and sonar. They tried searing heat and frigid cold.
But their own system prevented them from getting inside.
If Angel had had the energy, she would have paced. Instead, she broke into her rations and ate an energy bar as she watched the Zin’s lack of progress.
As busily as the Zin attacked the control center’s perimeter, Kirek remained still and silent by the controls. What was taking him so long?
Had the Zin booby-trapped their core—like they had the labyrinth? Were they overpowering Kirek? As he stood there as still as a mountain, were they attacking his mind?
She wished there was something she could do besides wait and looked around for other weapons—but saw none. However, the big Zin with the drill seemed to be bearing down hard. White smoke from the drill bit curled into the air outside.
How long would it take the Zin to break through?
At the sound of heavy-duty glass cracking, Angel wearily pushed to her feet and aimed the blaster. To prevent the drill from melting, the Zin had poured cooling fluid over the bit. The combination of heat and cold was cracking the thick glass. Tiny spiderwebs now extended out from the center.
As if sensing victory, the Zin pressed forward. A replica of the first Zin driller jammed another drill up against the glass and then another. Angel imagined them creating Zin drillers from the parts room upstairs and sending them down here to attack.
The huge glass held, but th
e cracks spread, deepened. The only wall separating them from the Zin shattered. Glass fragments blasted inward.
Instinctively Angel stepped in front of Kirek and raised the shield around them both. She’d rested but had by no means recovered her full strength.
She might have used up all her adrenaline, but fear powered her shield. The Zin advanced right up to the edge of her shield. One tested the force field with his clawlike hand. Her shield sheared off the limb. Another used a flamethrower, and when the shield reflected back the heat, the Zin melted. Three others advanced to take its place.
And Angel weakened. Her limbs shook. Her gut tightened. Fear grabbed her by the throat and she drew on it, used it to fuel her psi.
She called on every last shred of resolve to hold.
But the shield was failing … and even with her blaster, she estimated they had mere seconds left to live.
KIREK HAD INSERTED his psi into the Zin brain with ease. However, once inside, finding his way to one central switch that he could turn off proved frustrating. One link after another led him into dead ends or areas in which he had no interest. He hadn’t expected the brain to have such complexity, with so many duplicate systems.
He was aiming for the core identity, the place where the Zin ego lived. Once he found the Zin essence, he could cut off that part from the rest, because while each Zin unit was an individual, their resolve came from the core. Without resolve, the Zin would simply stop … and die.
Part machine, part neural matter, the brain used the best of both animal and computer to survive and dominate its surroundings. Eons of history were stored in the brain and Kirek followed the link back to the beginnings of the Zin, before their conquest of the Andromeda Galaxy.
He wasn’t surprised to discover that the Zin had once lived in the Milky Way. After all, the Zin had altered Jarn DNA and made that race spy for them against their will. But what rocked Kirek was learning that the Perceptive Ones and the Zin had once been the same race. The Perceptive Ones had evolved to a pure energy state and had left their bodies behind. The Zin had chosen a less spiritual evolution, combining living DNA with machines.
The ancient races had clashed. The Perceptive Ones had thrown the Zin out of the Milky Way and had built giant Sentinels and sent them to the rim to stand guard. But the Zin believed the Perceptive Ones had stolen their galaxy, and they’d been trying to invade for a millennium.
While the information fascinated Kirek, his findings didn’t help him find the Zin essence he needed. Even as he plunged deeper into the brain, he noted a growing presence in his own. At first, he tried to keep out the presence, fearing the Zin had mounted a counterattack to stop him. But the psi inside his head seemed familiar … and panicked.
Kirek. It’s Angel.
He shook off the mental communication, fearing a trick.
Damn you. Listen to me. The Zin broke through the glass doors. The only thing standing between us and death is my shield, and it’s fading.
I haven’t found a way to turn them off. I need more time.
There is no more time. Unless …
Unless?
Merge our psi. Lend me strength.
Merging will slow my search.
If we don’t merge, there will be no search. We’ll be dead. Open your eyes. Look at what’s going on around us.
He didn’t have time. He’d found the core. A neural nexus so tight, so sophisticated that he sped from nerve cell to nerve cell with hyperspeed. But even as he went in, he merged their psi. Immediately, he was inundated with images of Angel’s past.
Trapped images of sitting by a sick woman’s bed. Guilt at how badly she wanted to leave. Guilt and sorrow when her mother died.
And the marvelous freedom of space. The Raven was the only home Angel ever wanted. She relished the freedom, reveled in the adventure.
As Angel tapped his psi and he felt her growing stronger, he found the Zin “off switch.” But as he began to shut down the Zin, he noted an ethics program. An ethics program with a flaw that caused the Zin to believe they never had enough and would always need more.
Greedy domination was programmed into the Zin mindset.
If he could change the programming—alter their flaw—he wouldn’t have to kill them.
No.
Even as he thought to avoid killing, Angel read his thoughts.
If you are wrong, we will die, and they will win.
If I’m right we all win, he countered.
You’re betting all our lives. And the Zin have redoubled their efforts to break our shield. You don’t have time to mess around. Turn them off.
Kirek didn’t heed the logic of her words. As much as he yearned to live, as much as he wanted to save his parents and friends and the Federation, he finally knew why he was here at this moment. Making the right decision … was his destiny.
With a psi thrust, Kirek changed the flaw. He rerouted a few chromosomes, altered the DNA that made the Zin invaders, conquerors, warlike creatures who wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than total domination.
Kirek withdrew from the Zin brain. Zin of all sizes and shapes attacked the shield. With no regard for their own safety or lives, the Zin threw themselves at the shield, dying as the force field fried their brains. Relentless, the Zin paid no attention to the deaths of their comrades. They kept advancing, from above, from below and from every side.
Kirek joined Angel’s efforts and poured his strength into the shields, but he didn’t have much left.
Why were the Zin still attacking? Had his alteration of the flaw been a mistake? Were they going to die because he abhorred violence and death?
By now the mother brain should have sent out orders for the Zin to cease their attack. But the Zin advanced with a ferocity that didn’t let up, throwing their bodies against the shield. And dying. Dying. Dying.
Each death stole some of Kirek and Angel’s energy. Growing weak, Kirek grabbed his blaster. Had there been a duplicate strand of DNA that he’d missed?
He’d failed. “I’m so sorry,” he told Angel.
“You did your best.”
“I’ve killed us all.”
Suddenly the Zin stopped their attack.
Angel whispered. “Are they dead?”
“I’m not sure.”
Angel kept her blaster aimed at the Zin. They began to move again, clearing away their dead. Then dozens of them resumed the attack. “Oh … Stars. Here they come again.”
Each death depleted Kirek and Angel’s psi energy, draining them until Kirek knew they would soon lose the shield. He shouldn’t have gambled every life in the Federation against the hope he could cure the Zin of their aggression. He’d had no right to play God. Now everyone would pay for his mistake.
Their psi was failing. He tried to send more energy. But his tank was empty. He grabbed Angel’s hand.
Then their shield failed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
AT THE SHIELD’S failure, Angel braced for death. Determined to go down fighting, she held Kirek’s hand and blasted the advancing Zin with the other. The Zin, who clearly sensed victory, threw themselves into her blaster heat with a frenzy. Metal bodies fell, and the Zin behind them climbed over the dead.
A Zin reached for her foot. Angel shot it and stepped back, only to find she had no place to retreat.
She let go of Kirek’s hand. Her back against Kirek’s, they blasted the Zin, but even if their firepower didn’t run out, they couldn’t outfight millions of Zin. Surrounded, there was no place to run.
When her blaster ran out of juice, she threw it at the Zin then pulled her knife. Slashing and slicing to keep the Zin at bay, they had just moments to live.
It would have been fitting to say something heroic to Kirek before they died, but she couldn’t spare a breath. Her psi exhausted, muscles weary, lungs burning, she was about to keel over.
She shifted to evade a claw, and then the Zin—all of them—suddenly stopped advancing, stopped moving. As if rooted into the
deck, they ceased rolling, flying, and tracking. Pinchers and claws and hands ceased attacking.
Were they going to clear away their dead again? Was it a trick to get them to let down their guard?
Or had Kirek succeeded in turning off the Zin?
But although they had ceased to advance, their eyes still moved, their limbs twitched. She waited, breathing hard. But the Zin didn’t clear away their dead.
Stars! This time, they didn’t resume their attack.
Baffled, she looked over her shoulder to peer at Kirek. His face flushed from exertion, his eyes sparkled deep violet and red. His lips relaxed from a feral grimace into a pleased smile.
She slowly lowered her knife. “What’s … going … on?”
Kirek’s face glowed with satisfaction. “We will soon reach a peaceful agreement with the Zin.”
“What?” He hadn’t turned them off, so he must have … “What did you do?”
“They possessed a flaw in their programming that made them overly aggressive.”
She snorted. “No kidding.”
“We eliminated the flaw.”
“No—you eliminated the flaw. You reprogrammed them, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I would have shut them down.” So many emotions washed through her that she didn’t know how she felt. Relief to be alive. Distrust of the Zin. Furious that Kirek had taken such a risk with their lives—with everyone’s lives.
And the disappointment that she had lost the greatest salvage opportunity of all time paled compared to the fact that Kirek may have lied to her. She spun to face him but didn’t quite turn her back to the Zin. “Was that always your mission—to fix them? Did you lie to me from the start?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t even know about the flaw until I entered their brain.”
“Let’s be clear. You had the chance to shut them down?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know you succeeded in reprogramming them?”
“We’re still breathing, aren’t we?”
He had a point. “Maybe they’ll pretend to be our friends for a while then turn on us again.”
Rystani Warrior 04 - The Quest Page 27
