The cold of space would have quickly killed him had there been any real life in his android body. Now only the incomprehensible surging of a computer mind remained. The body was hacked to sheds, and the final blow had disintegrated his primary power supply along with his main efferent signal processor.
Vale’s functioning mind was trapped in a body he could not control. The attempt to bait the human through its pride had failed. His mind raced at incalculable speeds searching for errors in his own performance that may have caused the outcome. But it was a pointless race to run, for now he was nothing but wreckage floating in the cold black void of space.
Something tingled. Something probed his computer mind, not invading, but washing over him and through him. A voice spoke inaudibly to him. It was familiar and mechanical in nature. Vale’s mind responded to its call. He began to move swiftly through space. The voice reassured him without words.
It pulled him across the vast expanse to itself. Vale discerned no movement, but he calculated five hours from the first contact with the voice until he saw himself pass through an opening into a vessel. The voice of the Sphere called for him to release all data and merge with it. There was no resisting the call.
Within microseconds, the Vale android became one with the Sphere. A vast memory of the Sphere’s travels across different worlds in pursuit of the Vorn opened up to him. The Sphere had returned home to this planet as it followed the Vorn across space, destroying them everywhere they were found, just as the Makers had planned. And yet, for Vale the android, the Vorn were his masters, having sent him on his mission after the Barudii warrior and his companions.
A problem presented itself-opposing goals and masters. The only way to reconcile the two was to fulfill both objectives. The Barudii warrior and his companions had to be exterminated along with the Vorn. The Vorn had not restricted the android from targeting them. And nothing in the creator’s directives to the Sphere denied it the privilege to exterminate rebels of any race. Simple. All objectives would be met. Failure was not an option.
Vale and the Sphere were one. There was so much power and so much data available between them. They knew where the Barudii ship was located. The Sphere had been tracking it all along. Vale watched it through the eyes of the Sphere, seeing through its scanning mechanisms.
The Barudii ship approached the planet on the far side, away from the Sphere’s current position. An invasion force was already prepared to decimate Vorn cities on the planet surface, to rid the Maker’s home planet of the infestation by their enemies. And now Vale’s memory provided further information.
The Sphere now understood what the android’s mind had known-that the Vorn had been in the process of trying to escape across the local phenomena known as the transdimensional rift. And they currently occupied a conquered planet similar to the Maker’s home-world here. It would be necessary then to travel across the rift to destroy the Vorn at that location as well.
Now was the time to launch the first wave of the invasion force. If the Vorn were able to counter the attack by some means then subsequent waves would be modified to overcome the problem and finish the objective. Now, Vale could finish his objective as well. The Sphere had been refitting his chassis since the time it pulled his torn body inside itself. And it had duplicated his android body with a pair of automatons able to function as extensions of his body, but directly controlled by their conjoined minds. The Barudii warrior would lose the advantage he had gained at their last encounter.
The trip through the planet’s atmosphere was uneventful with shields operating at maximum. Orin scanned the planet for topographical and geographical data as the Saberhawk cruised swiftly at sixty thousand feet.
“I’m picking up twelve large cities with functional energy signatures and many more appear to be on fire or have sustained major damage. It’s like a war is taking place. At this point on the map, sweeping to this area, all these minor cities are destroyed, while those with major structures have sustained heavy damage. Wait a minute, what’s this?”
He tapped the display next to an alert code for the geographical data search. The screen complied by showing a match to the ships database. Orin released the information.
“I…I can’t believe it.”
On the screen it read, planet: Castai. Orin began looking for specifics in the data. There it was. Mt. Vaseer appeared on the compiled data map. He could not have mistaken it for anything else. Orin knew the place he had called home, better than any other location on Castai, and yet, here it was on a world across the rift.
Upon scanning this city, Orin found a great deal more damage than the old city inhabited by Estall and his Aolene back home. He keyed in comparison data from his home world and matched them together. Orin saw clearly that this city of Vaseer was actually less complete than back home. Somehow this planet was a duplicate of his home world.
“What is it, Orin,” Tiet asked?
“This planet is somehow a duplicate of Castai.”
“What?”
“I know…but I’ve already located Mt. Vaseer and confirmed other topographical comparisons. The oceans, the mountains and almost every major landmark are the same.”
Silence held them captive.
“But the Vorn inhabit this planet,” Dorian said.
“We could really use some answers and the Vorn aren’t likely to give them to us. I think we should go to this planet’s city of Vaseer and see if the people on this world left any records. The city is deserted according to the scan data. I don’t know what else to do at this point. “This isn’t what we expected to find.”
“Well, we had better do something,” Millo said. “This ship isn’t invisible, you know. Somebody will be shooting at us sooner or later if we just fly around up here. I vote for Vaseer.”
Tiet and Dorian nodded in agreement.
“Course plotted. E.T.A. is twenty minutes.”
The Saberhawk’s thrusters boosted them away toward the mountain city. Thick cloud cover provided good visual cover for the ship, but most likely they were already being tracked by the Vorn. The question was, could they reach Vaseer and find out what they needed to know before they were intercepted by attack ships?
The reconstruction of Vale’s body and the construction of his duplicates took a little time even for the automatons and nano-builders at the Spheres’ control-but soon enough the work was complete. At ten hours, fifty three minutes and twenty seven point seven eight seconds, Vale’s repaired body and his new duplicates came online.
The Vale-Sphere mind held control over all three bodies simultaneously. The three androids moved without delay to join the waiting invasion force. In one of the launch bays within the huge Sphere, the Vale androids boarded a carrier vessel about to launch to the planets surface. The drones were miniatures of the Sphere itself. Each attack drone was fully armed with phased plasma weapons and shield generators for defense.
Many of the drones transformed into large surface attack robots, more suited to close quarters fighting and rooting out combatants able to evade the airborne attack force. A spherical carrier drone closed around the three Vale androids and hovered off the deck of the launch bay to join the other mini-spheres leaving the main ship. The first target would be a multiple objective-the Barudii ship on course for one of the ancient cities of the Makers and a large contingent of Horva clones on their way to the same location.
A Horva clone of regal stature and advanced intelligence sat astride his grevasaur, surveying his army. The general expected a mighty victory today. The Sphere doomsday weapon would take his bait, thinking this army to be sent by the Vorn. It had decimated their forces at every encounter with the powerful drones it employed, as well as the powerful weapons used by the main Sphere itself. But General Grod was certain the machine was in orbit around Castai. Sensor scans had failed to locate it, and the orbiting satellites able to detect its presence had been destroyed.
But now, by employing his new plan, Grod felt confident that not only would they soon have its location but they would finally put an end to its reign of destruction. After all, if the Sphere were to eradicate the Vorn, he and his elite Horva would also be included. Besides, Grod didn’t want their former masters destroyed, but subjugated.
The Vorn were still useful to him, but they would soon learn who the real masters were. Their resistance to the uprising of his fellow Horva would soon be crushed and the balance of power would rest with himself and his fellow clones.
The general’s command group began to break away from the rest of his forces as they approached Mt. Vaseer from the north. They would make there way up the mountain to a preplanned area overlooking the valley on the other side. The valley would be the perfect battlefield to have their showdown with the drones and draw them out into the open, so that his plan could be properly executed. One thing about computers, they always made predictable movements. He knew the drones would take the bait and the electronic signals employed to control them would help identify the location of the Sphere itself.
Grod’s second in command, Malec, personally escorted their special surprise. Grod looked back over the ten-thousand-man army marching toward the pass around Vaseer with satisfaction. “Victory!”
Those within hearing replied in kind and the cry spread across the entire army. These cloned men believed Grod would lead them to victory. He had bolstered their pride as elite warriors. They had finally grown tired of being the muscle for the physically weaker Vorn. The Horva, as clones, had never received any of the glory or power. This had always been reserved for their Vorn taskmasters alone. That time was coming to an end.
Grod was their ideal, sitting upon his grevasaur, physically powerful and more menacing in his appearance than any of the elite Horva. When the Vorn had realized the danger of intelligent Horva, with their greater physical power and tenacious love of fighting, they had gone to cloning a new breed of more easily manipulated Horva. These dumbed-down brutes were easy to control. This had been the final insult to Grod and his brother clones. The Horva made during Grod’s time had at least held some dignity. They were elite warriors. But now, the clones which were generated were less than human. And they were treated as completely expendable.
Rebellion had been the only recourse. Grod prodded the grevasaur, urging it on toward the rest of the command group who rode ahead with their equipment in tow. The beast moaned deeply as it complied with its rider’s commands.
Grod knew if he could just eliminate this threat to Vorn and Horva alike, the balance of power would continue in his favor. And the spoils, which they had always been denied, would finally come to the true heroes of the war with the Castillians.