Leonator

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  “Robot defenders, someone should have thought of those!” Leonator muttered as he ran to join the others at the slope down to the structure. As he passed by the enclosure they built around the Hibernation Cell, his eyes wandered to it. To his shock and surprise, he found Qiana with her back to him as she stood by it.

  He stopped and looked at the walls, shaking his head. “What in the name of the stars!? What’s she doing now? The only reason she could be there is to….. no. She wouldn’t, she couldn’t! Not now and with this happening!”

  Without another word, he ran towards the opening, his mind going dark places. If he was right, then Qiana was doing something that was both brave and stupid.

  As soon as he reached her, he exploded. “Tell me that you’re not doing what I think you are! Are you mad?! You’ve got to get out of here. We can’t let this person out now, I mean really!”

  He had been expecting her to have been stunned by what happened, but she turned to look at him with a glare. He took a step back as Qiana just glared at him.

  “I won’t leave this person trapped in this thing!” Qiana said with a snarl on her face

  Leonator looked at the Hibernation prison and tried to muster up anything to say, anything to turn her away from this. He had known true doctors in the past, and none of them would let a patient die. And he couldn’t say anything that he was against this. All it took was one stray shot from any of those robots, and the person inside was dead!

  But was this even safe to open? They didn’t have any idea who or why this being was in this thing! For all they knew, it was someone who had done what the hunters said, done a crime even Outlaws wouldn’t allow! But at the same time, it could be anyone who had just gotten the wrong person mad.

  “Okay, but do you even have any idea how to open it? Or how long it will take to defrost her?” Leonator asked, trying to get her to see the reason. But the only thing he got from Qiana was a hard stare that made him sigh and shake his head.

  “There’s the code on the side. That has to mean something!” Qiana said with a scowl.

  “KEEP FIRING!” Duncan’s voice from the slope caused Leonator to turn towards the battle.

  “I WANT A FIRING LINE ALONG THE SIDES! EACH ONE, KEEP THE OTHER SIDE CLEAR OF THOSE CLIMBERS! EVERYONE ELSE, FIRE DOWN!” Duncan roared over the sound of blaster fire.

  Leonator looked up not hearing anything about anything that got away. So far, the sky of the shield was still free of anything. That was something that could change in a heartbeat. And if those flying robots destroyed just one of the shield emitters, who knows what would attack them next?

  And then there was the chance that the robot would target the Hibernation Prison. If that happened, then the person inside was dead. The wrong damage would cause this whole piece of tech to fail in an instant.

  “There has to be a chance that the code is the method to kill whoever this is, you know that right?” Leonator said softly as he looked Qiana in the eyes. He saw her will, and how much she felt that this was the right thing to do. And he didn’t want to stand against her.

  “I KNOW! But still, this is the only chance that this person has! If we don’t do this, they might pass on asleep!” Qiana said with a hard tone. “I understand that this might just kill them. But better a small chance than nothing!”

  “I agree with you,” Leonator said, nodding.

  “And another thing! Wait, what?” Qiana asked, staring at him in shock.

  “I said I agree with you, we’ve got to open this thing now! With the robots attacking us, any stray shot could destroy this. As much as I want to argue, we don’t have any other choice,” Leonator said as he crossed his arms and looked at her.

  Qiana only blinked for a moment, then she laughed and turned around. As she walked towards the Hibernation Prison, Leonator looked up, aiming his weapon at the sky.

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  “Okay, this looks like a normal kind of control keyboard console. Nothing out of the ordinary and the code has all the same numbers as the code. No interface for jacking in anything, so it has to be how the code is used. And nothing on what the code is on has any marks that hint at a deeper code. So this has to be it,” Qiana muttered as she looked at it again.

  “Just put the code in, we might not have a lot of time!” Leonator barked his back to her. Looking up, he kept sweeping the sky.

  “I’m going as fast as I can! I might have only one shot, I have to get it right!” Qiana said, an edge to her voice.

  Leonator only nodded and winced as he heard the sounds of more blaster fire.

  “Keep firing! We can keep those things from getting up here! Wait, are they? STARS AND NOVA, FIRE!” Duncan roared, an edge to his voice.

  From the way that Duncan was yelling, the robots had done something that he hated. And he had a terrible idea just what it was.

  “What’s happening now!?” Qiana asked a tiny bit of panic in her voice.

  “Nothing that we can affect! Just get that thing open, we can worry about the others later!” Leonator said an edge of anger in his voice.

  “I’m going, I just wanted to be sure! I mean, this might be a death code!” Qiana said, exasperation in her voice.

  “You want to get Duncan?” Leonator asked, a note of hope in his voice. He understood where that thought had come from, and he hated that he had given it to her.

  “No, we have to do this now! They pushed those things back, they’ve had to! But now is the only time we can do this!” Qiana said.

  Leonator turned and looked at her, seeing the anger and fear in her eyes. He took a breath and nodded at her. “You were right, we have to wake them up, so let’s do it!”

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  ?????????

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  Ever since the being had been captured, all it could feel were the emotions around it. Usually, the only emotions that those around it felt were greed, anger, lust, or wraith. But after a while new emotions had appeared, so many that it couldn’t count them all! There had been happiness joined plus lust, pride and joy, and love and kindness. This continued for a while, a year at most from what it could tell of time.

  But then the number of emotions that it could feel plummeted. From the few beings that it could sense, they were feeling hope, fear, courage, and despair. Then others appeared, and these beings felt hunger, as in the need to feed. Its limited awareness in its slumber was still high enough to tell it that something had changed. But just what was it? Where was it now? And what had happened to everyone else? There was a small bit of time in its mind that it just couldn’t remember, and that had never happened to it since its capture. And then that was enough for the being to feel fear as well.

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  Duncan

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  Duncan scowled and looked down at the remains of the robots, at least those that remained. Everything seemed normal, the climbers had come out first, the flyers after them. But then the flyers had stayed back and pulled the remains into the ship. They had to be recovering resources to create more of themselves. But what did that mean!? Was the opening that the survivors made near a machine shop? Did they have a basic robot model that could repair the damage that they had done? Either way, this was shaping up for a long afternoon.

  But what was worse, was that the worst idea might be true. The way these things changed their plans, from attacking to recovery? That meant that something had made a choice. And that meant that something might happen, something that he might not see coming. And his worst fear was that there might be another way these things could attack them.

  He looked around and saw that most of the other deckhands had made combat lines and were firing down. He even saw some of them moving the dirt to try and create a barrier to duck down behind. No matter what happened, Duncan had to admire their guts. He saw Dalila working on one of the few reaming shield emitters. He had to wonder, they had set the others up where they were by building them there. The biggest problem now was how to move the thing! The only thing that made sense was to move the null gravity generator, and then move the emitter. But what could the robots use the field for? It burned him that there was no good answer here, but bad ones that he could plan for.

  “CHIEF!” Vivian’s voice called out to him.

  He turned and saw her dashing towards him, and for a second he wondered what she was doing here. Then he saw the woman behind her and he blinked, and then blinked again. She was the last person that he had ever expected to have been here. He locked eyes on her as she and Vivian reached him.

  “Chief, I don’t how to …..” Vivian began only for Duncan to hold up a hand.

  “I don’t need to be introduced to Miss Tatrina, Vivian,” Duncan said as he crossed his arms and looked at Tatrina.

  “You don’t?” Vivian asked shock in her voice. She turned and looked at Tatrina, her eyes wide and her mouth dropped open.

  “We ran into each other during the last war. But I bet you never expected to see me again like this?” Tatrina said, a grin forming on her face.

  Duncan shook his head, chuckling as he looked at Tatrina.

  “No, I don’t. So what’s one of the best of the armed forces investigators doing on my ship?” Duncan asked, grinning. “And why didn’t you make yourself known before now woman?”

  “I left the army a few years back Duncan,” Tatrina said with a shrug.

  “Wait, you what!? Why?!” Dunce asked with shock in his voice. “The way that you talked about the force!”

  Tatrina only shrugged as a flash of pain went over her face for a second. “Long personal story. I’ve been an investigator for the ship’s company for a few years now. And my current case was who was using the cruise ships to smuggle contraband. And what do I find, but those weapons, the shields, and that Hibernation abomination!”

  “Hey, Duncan?” Vivian asked uncertainty in her voice.

  Duncan saw her looking down at that hole and the marks the wrecked robots had made. He was sure she was looking at the few remaining metal pieces here and there.

  “What happened to the team that went into that thing?” Vivian asked.

  Duncan only sighed and shook his head.

  Then he felt Tatrina grab his shoulder and turn him around. She looked at him with hard eyes and smiled evilly. “Mind telling me just what that thing is?”

  “That’s why we sent people down there! And they were attacked by robots!” Duncan said with a glare of his own.

  Tatrina only sighed and turned around, then she went still. “And would you mind explaining those three!?”

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  ????????????

  <>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

  Report from observation unit. Specimens have changed technology-based energy shield to block all observation equipment.

  Was observation unit discovered?

  Negative. Possible reason an attack by a Bio Weapon Platform that used light to bring in enemy units to feed on.

  Observations through the shield?

  Negative as of this time. Request that specialized unit moves into range to scan and allow this unit a data feed to continue observations.

  Specialized Observation units were deployed to defend the complex from attacks by rogue units along void approach. Orders from command, keep station. Report all changes