Her ride wobbled. She yanked the handle grip brakes. A yellow blast from the farthest away of the two remaining creatures changed her course. Her bike slammed into the eight-foot tall robot she had intended to decapitate, knocking it over and her from her mount. She fell amidst a pile of twisted, blackened metal beams.
Sword in hand, she staggered to her feet, ignoring the sting of a laceration in her upper arm and fighting a wobble in her walk.
The creature she had collided with remained on its back for the moment. Nina swiveled about to spy the other robotic guardian, the one that had scored a near-hit on her hover bike. It stood fifty yards away with its gun barrel preparing to target her again.
Before it could fire, Gordon Knox zipped in behind the monster on his own ride, pulled his automatic cannon, and with both hands gripping the pistol he fired again and again and again at close range. The heavy shells tore through the robe and into the machine-body beneath. A series of electrical surges burst from the thing, knocking off its hood and revealing a frying brain and chattering jaw.
The creature stopped working and froze in place.
Nina's eyes found Gordon with the intention of saying thank you. He, however, urgently pointed behind her where the last guardian rose to its feet like Dracula rising from his coffin in a melodramatic horror movie.
Just as important, the clean-up craft approached. Dust and debris kicked into the sky. The tubes hanging from the floating wing cast their shadow over the two people and the one remaining machine.
The suction pulled off the robot's hood. She saw the blood and juices of a living brain hardwired into the circuits and metallic chassis of a humanoid robot.
Its jaw dropped open in what might have been a smile. Its gun rose.
Nina leapt forward, her sword slashing in both hands. The blade struck into its shoulder and slid across into a solid neck. Sparks burst; part of the robe caught fire.
As she jumped onto her hover bike to escape, the damaged guardian was caught in the suction of the giant eraser machine, disappearing with the rest of the junk to be crushed and sifted until nothing but dust remained.
With time running out, Nina and Gordon moved to the last remains of the Centurian facility. They found control panels and bulkheads, the nose cone of a transport, and computer equipment. But most important, they found the melted remains of bodies, little more than black goo stuck to tattered red and white body armor.
Gordon found the upper half of an armored Centurian intact, save for legs. He threw it on the back of his ride and they rocketed away. A minute later, the massive machine sucked in the final pieces of the Centurian base cleansing it from the Earth.
The two investigators stopped in the foothills beyond the cleaner's reach. There Gordon removed the dead alien's helmet, revealing big black eyes and fine green skin…fine green skin covered in red blotches. "What do we need to find?" Gordon pulled out a hunting knife and sliced open the fried corpse. "Those blotches are the first clue, remember? Now if we're lucky…"
The skull fell apart in Knox's hands. There amidst the decaying remains of the alien's gray matter he found what he sought: a petrified little creature-also long dead-about the size and shape of a slug.
"And there you have it, Captain."
Nina gazed at the tiny thing, knowing that at some time in her past two such creatures had violated her body and mind; that such a creature had robbed her of a year of memories.
She said, "I've never seen this before. I'm just saying, I never heard of them infecting one of the other aliens, only humans."
"Me neither," Gordon agreed as he wiped a glob of sweat from his forehead. "But whatever way you cut it, it wasn't the Redcoats who assassinated Trevor, it was The Order."
"What is going on?"
Knox said, "I don't know for sure, but I've got a feeling we're running out of time."