Maty, Aer-ki Jyr [top 20 books to read .txt] 📗

Her body was Human, for her infiltration mission had been into Star Force territory. That is what she had been designed for, but now she had a new purpose. Nevantha had adopted her as his personal field operative, and while he could have relied on drones entirely for this mission, he was sending her down along with them for enhanced efficiency as well as the possibility that his remote link could be cut as far deep underground as he had drilled.

Kyra flew in a small invader pod along with hundreds of others carrying combat drones inside down through the still smoky bore hole…not that the surface of the planet was any different with all of the Hadarak infestation having been vaporized into dust that would choke the planet for some time. Her mission was not up there, and the destruction was merely cover for her to do her job.

A few scout drones preceded the pods, giving Kyra and Nevantha eyes up ahead, though she wasn’t the only living being going down here. There was one other, a Craniem tasked with drone coordination on site, and his now fully mechanical mind was held inside a well armored canister implanted in one of the pods by itself. It appeared identical to the others, including in mass, but inside were heavy shield generators, engines, communications equipment, and a handful of weapons. Its purpose was not combat, but to keep the Craniem alive through the dangerous mission, for he was not expendable the way the PanNari machinations were.

As they descended the Craniem, whose name was Tovi Sha Neum, selected points on the wall and had certain drones drill in and attach, becoming weapon mounts and comm links while the bulk of the pods descended down all the way to a mass of goo that was leaking out into the bottom of the shaft and forming a small superheated pool that was effervescing up the column over top the undamaged construct below.

That construct was not known to exist here, nor did Nevantha predict what it was, but he had calculated the presence of something in this system, and once he arrived his magnificent mind had located it through inference alone, though Kyra had never had any doubt. Becoming an Elloquim was the highest honor, and most sacred trust, within the PanNari race, and his skills were not exaggerated. If anything, the PanNari did not truly know the might of the Elloquim as Kyra did, having lived inside him for most of her life. She had been responsible for freeing him from his prison, and ever since he had given her higher security clearance than a QuipNari deserved, but she hadn’t argued. She served him now, and both of them were eager to figure out how the Hadarak were organized so effectively without any visible means of interstellar communication.

Limited telepathy was used, and had been calculated, but it too had a long lag. Essence-related communication boosts had been discovered and explored, but still there was something in this region that was causing the fiercest resistance to the Grand Border, and Nevantha had backtracked the reinforcement flows coming from the Galactic Core to this transfer area. Something else was here increasing their accuracy, and the armor below that was powerful enough to resist the coring beam appeared to not be of Hadarak origin…but to have their organic mass covering it within the planet’s crust.

They had probably discovered it and infested it as well. One of the drones landed in the pool and moved through it, making physical contact with the armor in an attempt to analyze it…but it could not. The surface was entirely non-reactive to the probes being used. It was there, but what it was made of could not be determined.

“Not of known origin,” Nevantha’s voice said inside Kyra’s head as she was crammed in chest to butt along with the ground drones inside one of the pods, stacked like equipment rather than a person…but that didn’t matter to the PanNari. They liked being equipment, and even Kyra could tolerate the lack of movement as her mind was plugged into the PanNari shared link, and she could see through any viewpoint of any drone if she wished, including the pod’s sensors and even Nevantha’s when he allowed her, though at the moment he was blocking her view of the orbital battle in order to keep her focused on the task at hand. “It may be a relic.”

“Retrieval?” she asked, knowing that ‘relic’ referred to the growing number of advanced technological remnants being discovered in this galaxy that were not connected to any known or previous civilization. And most of the relics did not correspond to each other, though most were fragments that had not decayed over the eons. How old they were was unknown, and Nevantha had been pursuing knowledge of them even more fiercely than the Architects in the PanNari, who served as the organizers of their race, while the Elloquim were essentially their Gods tasked with combat, defense, and whatever else was required of them.

“Size must be determined. Excavate Hadarak infestation until access point discovered,” he said, for both her benefit and as orders to Tovi. There were 732 other Craniems onboard Nevantha, available for assignment as he wished, but they rarely left the safety of the ship. Yet that was their function, for Nevantha could not. He was the ship, and could never leave it. Nor would he want to. But communications range was limited with regards to drone control, and if he needed to be on another planet he couldn’t remotely interact through forces here, so a Craniem would be left behind if necessary to do that…for Elloquim were not just combat ships. They were true warships, and could spawn infrastructure and entire civilization on planets if they so chose. Everything that was necessary to build up additional war units, resupply centers, and