Tristin

by Immortal Angel

  Taking in the scale of this project, she would bet this wasn’t his only facility. She stepped forward, almost in a trance, to examine the closest cylinders. She was wondering exactly how much less advanced they were.

  “It’s a good plan. But we don’t know their programming, how advanced they are, how far along in their training. We don’t know that they can fly the ships.”

  “That’s fine, Chihon is connecting them all to the same program so Aria and I can fly them all. The cyborgs can just ride along if they can make it there.”

  “Could we do something to make them trust us? What if they try to kill us?” Corin asked.

  “Besides the fact that we’re a bunch of cyborgs?” Mordjan shrugged. “Who knows.”

  “We don’t have time for debate. I can’t believe the Ardaks haven’t discovered us yet, but I need to get to that crystal before they do.” Tordan nodded at Aielle, who created a new portal.

  But as he tried to enter it, Mordjan grabbed his arm. “You nearly died last time. This one is stronger. Even I can feel it.”

  Tordan shrugged Mordjan away. “There’s no choice, is there? We can’t let the Ardaks use these ships or these cyborgs against Aurora. We must free them and take them with us.”

  “Wait, if you’re taking out the crystal, who’s running your team?” Tristin asked.

  “Simban. Valdjan took over his team.” Tordan disappeared into the portal, and she saw them reappear at the far wall next to the crystal.

  “Taking down their control crystal doesn’t give them their memories back,” Mordjan said.

  “It also doesn’t open the cylinders,” Tristin said.

  Corin ducked behind a computer terminal, his fingers flying over the keys faster than her eyes could follow. “All right. Their charging stations are set to wake them in six hours. I brought it forward to wake them in five minutes, hoping Tordan will have the crystal off by then.”

  “We shouldn’t all just stand around waiting,” Tristin said.

  “Casin, Corin, back to your ships.”

  Mordjan turned to Tristin. “I’ll stay here. You get up to Chihon and see what you need to do to fly these ships out of here. You and Aria are the only ones who have a chance in hell of saving most of them.”

  Tristin’s gaze fell on her, bleak knowledge on his face. “I don’t want to send you back down here alone.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she reassured him.

  “And she won’t be alone,” Mordjan growled. “Should I be insulted?”

  “You definitely should. I vote for pistols at dawn,” Casin said.

  Tristin’s purple eyes focused on him. “Shut your mouth or you won’t live till dawn.” The warmth in his voice belied the harshness of his words.

  Casin heaved a dramatic sigh but winked at her.

  Their portaler created a portal and the three of them disappeared into it.

  Then Kirelle created a portal back to the control center of their team’s ship, following Tristin through.

  “Be safe,” he told her. “Portal out of there if you get trouble.”

  She nodded and created a portal back to Mordjan. Once back, the seconds passed slowly, and she found herself starting to shake with nerves. “I wish Casin hadn’t waited five minutes,” she said to Mordjan. “I feel like I’m waiting here as bait for the Ardaks. Or possibly the cyborgs.”

  “You’ll be glad he waited once they wake,” Mordjan’s deep voice intoned. “If they woke before the crystal was shut down, they would almost certainly try to kill us.”

  “I see. But you have exoarmor and they don’t.”

  “That’s a good point—wait a minute. I can’t believe they are making cyborgs without armor—let’s see if there are some suits around here somewhere.” His closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Kirelle, can you take me down one level?”

  She formed the portal to the floor below and Mordjan stepped through. But halfway through, he stepped back.

  “Close it now,” he ordered.

  She waved it shut.

  “Fuck!” Mordjan’s eyes focused on the rows of cyborgs. “When we have company, we’re going to have a lot of it.”

  “We knew there were fifteen thousand Ardaks,” she said.

  “Yes, but they didn’t know we were here.” Mordjan ran a hand through his hair. “Now, I think they do.”

  “Jaffete.” There was no other word left to say.

  Mordjan went still and silent, and she knew he was warning the others.

  The sound of a thousand clicks at once alerted them, and they turned outward to face the bay. The cyborg canisters were open.

  “This is bad,” Mordjan whispered, his glance going to Tordan and Aielle, who both had their hands on the glowing crystal. “The voices are still going. Portal us over there so at least I can buy him a few seconds of defense in case they attack.”

  She did so and Mordjan held up his arms, readying his lasers with one, an Ardak sword glowing red in the other. Nothing happened for long moments, then, almost as one, the cyborgs’ eyes turned toward them.

  And every set of eyes glowed red.

  “Open the portal to the ship,” Mordjan ordered, raising his arm cannons.

  “Should we try to talk to them?” Kirelle asked quickly. She didn’t want to be killed, but she also didn’t want to leave without trying to rescue them.

  The first cyborgs began to run toward them.

  “Hell no! Get through that portal. Now!” Mordjan roared.

  Kirelle raised her hands, opening the portal right next to them.

  Mordjan took the red-bladed sword and cut the crystal from the wall, grabbing Tordan and Aielle and pushing them through the portal in front of him.

  He pushed Kirelle through next, firing his arm cannon several times behind them.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Tristin

  Tristin saw two cyborgs catch Tordan and his mate as they fell through a portal.

  Kirelle ran through the portal next, and Mordjan came through backward, firing.

  “What the hell just happened?” Tristin demanded.

  “The cyborgs woke, but they’re under ‘forced override’. Tordan wasn’t done by the time they attacked, so I cut the damn thing from the wall.” Mordjan replied. “Hopefully the voices will stop if there’s no power to them.”

  “Get them to the med bay,” Tristin ordered the cyborgs. “What is forced override?”

  “A stronger type of mind control. Their eyes glow red, and they pretty much kill everything that moves. They won’t really remember what they’ve done, even later,” Mordjan replied. Then over the frequency, he said, “We need healers to the med bay on Tristin’s ship for Tordan and Aielle, unconscious from a bad crystal.”

  “Chihon, how is the programming coming?” Tristin said next. “We’re going to have company shortly.”

  “Pretty good,” Chihon replied. “What’s holding me back are the variables. I need them to follow Tristin’s or Aria’s instructions, but then I need them to break control if a cyborg comes along to pilot them. And we need to be able to control them as a group, as well as individually.”

  “Simban, Valdjan, we need that powder and the exit open.”

  A solitary Adak appeared at the end of the bay.

  “We’ve got company. We may have to forget about the computer program and just take off with the ships we have. How much longer until we can simply fly?” Tristin demanded.

  “Almost there,” Chihon replied tersely.

  Suddenly, the voices in his head went silent.

  Mordjan’s gaze found Tristin’s. “Talk fast.”

  Tristin broadcast over the frequency. “Cyborgs. My name is Tristin, and I am also a cyborg created by the Ardaks. You are imprisoned on one of their moon bases, and we have come to rescue you. If you have exoarmor, find it, or a weapon. Then band together and come up to level B1 as fast as you can. Jump into the first spaceship you can find. We’re escaping.”

  A cacophony of voices ca
me back over the frequency all at once, trying to shout over each other. Some raised in anger, some in fear, all laced with confusion.

  “Find exoarmor or a weapon. Come up to level B1,” Tristin repeated.

  Some of the voices stopped, but others howled and shouted in his mind. He understood their pain and fear, and there were no friendly faces to help them through, only other cyborgs who were just as confused and frightened as they were.

  “Damn, that noise hurts,” Corin yelled over the frequency.

  “Tell your chip to turn it down,” Casin replied just as loudly.

  Tristin did the same, and the noise lessened.

  “Shit,” Chihon exclaimed. “The system just locked me out.”

  “Can you get back in?”

  “Yes, I just didn’t expect it. They must know what we’re doing. I have the ships almost ready, I just needed to send the unlock code. I’ll need a few minutes. What’s a good five-digit number?”

  “Make it easy. 10101,” Tristin replied. “How long will you need?”

  “Give me five.”

  Ardaks began streaming in through the far end of the bay.

  “We don’t have five. They’ll get to us in less than a minute,” Tristin said.

  Mordjan eyed them, then turned to him. “What do you want to do?”

  He grimaced. “We need to distract them long enough for the cyborgs to get to the ships. Chihon, do we have control over this ship?”

  “We don’t have control of anything until I can get in again.”

  “We can’t use the ship’s weapons anyway or risk damaging the base and letting the poisonous air inside.”

  “That wouldn’t be bad if it were just Ardaks. But a bunch of cyborgs are on their way.”

  “Simban, what’s your status on that door?” Tristin asked.

  “We’ve almost got it.”

  “Valdjan, where’s that white powder?” Mordjan demanded.

  “Roihan and I are finished with it,” Valdjan answered. “Three minutes until the air compressors kick on.”

  “Shit.” Tristin ran a hand through his hair. “Three minutes until the white powder, five until we can fly. We need a backup plan.”

  Several loud cries began to sound over the frequency, and Tristin saw that the first cyborgs had reached the bay and were running toward the ships. Some had armor, some had weapons, but others were simply running. The Ardak took out two cyborgs in seconds, swiping the first cyborg in the abdomen with its knifelike claws, then grabbing the second by the throat with its fangs.

  “The Ardaks will pick them off one-by-one at this rate,” Mordjan growled.

  “All right, we’re in exoarmor. Let’s get out there and provide cover.” Tristin ordered over the frequency. “Kirelle, open a portal to the front of the ship. We’re going to provide cover for the cyborgs.”

  “What about portalers?” she asked. “We could station a few at the entrances and portal them directly to the ships.”

  “No way.”

  “I can shield. And I have fire.”

  “We have armored suits, dammit!” Seconds were passing by. “All right, take us to the entrance over there.” He pointed to where the cyborgs were entering. “But stay behind me. We’ll protect you and the portal.”

  Kirelle raised her hand and opened a portal.

  Tristin went through first, followed by Mordjan, and finally Kirelle. She held the portal open.

  “Into the portal,” Tristin ordered, and several cyborgs ran into it.

  “It’s working!” she cried.

  Tristin glanced behind him and saw that several other portals were open at different entrances of the bay, doing the same thing they were.

  Growling sounded in the hall, and the first Ardaks appeared at the door.

  “Fall back!” Tristin ordered. “Take your teams back to the ships!”

  “No, we can’t leave them now,” Casin said. “They’re fighting for their lives, trying to come with us. It’s all of us or none of us now.”

  Several cyborgs came running up from behind him, and he didn’t recognize them. “Who are you?”

  “We were portaled to a ship by an elf. But we want to fight! We want to save the others.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Damien.”

  The Ardaks reached them then, and he realized he hadn’t succeeded in getting Kirelle back to the ship, or dissuading the Auroran warriors from fighting. But the cyborgs from level 13 were fighting, too, increasing their number.

  He stood in front of Kirelle and engaged the Ardaks, firing the lasers from the arms of his exoarmor.

  Soon they were joined by more and more cyborgs who had obviously figured out the Ardaks were the enemy. Some had exoarmor, some didn’t, but all the cyborgs fought like enraged beasts. Yells and screams filled the air, and ray guns, swords, knives— whatever they had found on their way up from the cyborg level to the ship bay—filled their hands.

  Their lasers were firing as fast as they could make them, but the Ardaks’ sheer numbers were working against them. He pulled his sword, and began using the lasers and sword in tandem, thrusting his sword or kicking out with his feet so the Ardaks would move back far enough for him to shoot.

  Some of the Ardaks leaped upward and tried to jump down on them from above, shooting down into the cyborgs. More than a few of the cyborgs were dying every second.

  One of the Ardaks got through their lasers and pierced Damien’s arm with his sword. Damien gave a bloodcurdling scream, then picked up the Ardak and hurled him into a group of Ardaks with a roar that almost matched theirs.

  Tristin knew instantly who it was. “When is the white powder coming?”

  “Thirty seconds,” Valdjan answered.

  All at once, the Ardaks stopped fighting. They began backing away, giving the cyborgs room. Tristin was tall enough that he could barely see to the back, where the Ardaks were parting down the middle, each stepping aside to make way for those coming through.

  Tristin’s stomach tightened. “Fuck. I’ve seen this before.”

  “When?” Mordjan asked.

  “When we escaped the first time. They’re making way for him.”

  “Who?”

  He didn’t need to answer, because the last few Ardaks parted.

  The king stepped through, his fangs bared in outrage. “Omega,” he snarled. “I should have known it was you. And Kirelle. An elf too smart for your own good.”

  At that moment, there was a huge sound like something cranking up.

  The king looked up and stared in silence for a long moment as white powder began to descend over the bay in a thick fog from the ceiling.

  It reminded Tristin for a moment of snow on his world of Tuorin Andala. Snow that had turned red when the Ardaks deployed their Red Death.

  At that moment, he felt a small sense of vengeance. Of justice for his people and his sister.

  Then the king’s tail twitched and his eyes narrowed on Tristin.

  His death was in them.

  Chapter Thirty

  Kirelle

  The Ardak king threw back his head and roared, a long, anguished sound. “I’ll kill you for this, Omega! Kirelle! You won’t leave this base alive.”

  The Ardaks scattered, heading for exits in every direction. But there was no escape. Even those who headed for the exits would be hit with the powder in the halls.

  The king’s roar became a high yowl, echoed by all the other Ardaks in the bay. They snarled and yowled as it touched them, making her wonder if it burned.

  Kirelle covered her ears to block out the yowling screams, but when Tristin turned to her, she read his expression and raised her hands, forming a portal into the ship.

  Tristin pushed her through the portal first and she held it open for the others to run through. After Savar brought up the rear, another cyborg that she hadn’t seen before ran through.

  An Ardak ran through after him, weapon raised, his expression turning one of shock when he realized he’d ju
st run through a portal. He hesitated just long enough for her to shoot him point-blank in the chest with a fireball. His fur exploded in flame and he yowled in pain.

  The new cyborg pushed the Ardak back through and she shut the portal.

  “Good work, Damien,” Tristin said.

  “The Ardaks aren’t happy about the white powder,” Damien said dryly.

  Tristin turned to her. “Take me to Chihon.”

  She opened a portal and they stepped through.

  “We need these ships now, Chihon.”

  There was a moment of silence as Chihon’s fingers flew across the keyboard. Then all at once, he looked up. “I’m done. But all the ships are going to take off at once, so everyone needs to be on board.”

  Tristin was quiet for a moment, his eyes distant. “I told everyone to be on board in two minutes. Fuck. Team two needs a portaler.” His eyes focused on her. “Take us there.”

  She called up the map in her mind’s eye, opening a portal. Tristin went through and she followed, stepping out into a small, round room just as the door flew open and Ardaks flooded in. Simban was holding an unconscious Irielle in his arms.

  She threw up her hand and made a portal back to their ship, and Simban ran through, followed by Roihan holding another cyborg, then by the rest of the team. A few others were also carried through, unconscious.

  She glanced back over her shoulder to see Tristin fighting another Ardak through the open doorway.

  The two opponents didn’t meet so much as collided, the Ardak’s teeth and fangs bared. But before the Ardak could reach him, Tristin used his momentum coupled with a punch straight to the center of the chest.

  The Ardak’s eyes opened wide and he flew back across the space, landing on the floor, eyes unseeing.

  “I think you stopped his heart,” she said, disbelieving.

  “That was the plan,” he replied, pushing her through the portal in front of him and she closed it behind them.

  When they arrived back in the ship’s control room, Tristin went toward the highest console. In three leaps he was there, his fingers going over the buttons.