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

So Kyra had time to herself as she swept away some of the gore over an odd-looking triangular port set high above an interface screen with many virtual buttons.

It hadn’t been covered, at least not entirely, for the Hadarak tissue had been plugged into the triangle port along with several others on the sides. Kyra scanned them all, then decided to go for the main port up top as she peeled back the armor over her Human hand and the tips of her fingers broke open with a splattering of blood that quickly sealed off. Out from her fingers little mechanical tendrils extended into the triangular port as she attempted to reconfigure them in a manner that would give her at least partial access.

She failed multiple times until Nevantha stepped in and analyzed the mechanism, then he fed her the data on the best configuration her limited hardware would allow, but it was enough to establish a connection.

Her mind split, with part watching her surroundings and the other going into the machine world inside…only to find it was enormous. This wasn’t just a facility of strategic importance. It was a city designed for living software…except it was totally empty and in powered-down mode. It told her as much as a program greeted her arrival and inquired as to how it could be of service at typical software speeds, meaning the conversation took less than a second.

Kyra got the basic layout of the physical facility, the virtual one, and a brief history of the Hadarak presence here and before that, at which time Nevantha requested control of her body…which she granted, peeling back her defensive blocks and allowing herself to serve as a conduit for his enormous intellect.

It burned her, for there was so much data passing through her both ways that she couldn’t mentally keep up with it all, nor the speed of the transfer, but Kyra tried to assimilate as much as she could without blacking out…which would stop Nevantha’s connection, for she did not have override technology in her for him to use. That had been a reward of her rescue of him. So if she blacked out his connection would be cut until one of the drones plugged into another interface terminal.

A machine race…one that could reproduce technologically…predating Hadarak invasion…succumbed to natural disaster…forced to leave galaxy…toxic radiation…killed any who remained behind…infrastructure remaining…overlooked by Hadarak until recently…used to produce surveillance drones...low lag data feeds from multiple systems…Hadarak unable to access majority of facility’s purpose…

Handshakes were made, passcodes hacked, databases explored. Nevantha was pouring through the high level security the Hadarak could barely understand, let alone crack, and even though it was foreign technology operating on physics that were beyond the PanNari computer technology, he learned quickly and efficiently…and within an hour he had full combat command of the complex as the battle above the planet grew more dire.

Before Kyra got a summary from the Elloquim, courier ships were launched from Nevantha’s hull and raced through the battlelines heading for the binary stars at system center carrying an urgent message for the PanNari.

Nevantha was ordering the other Elloquim and all PanNari assets to immediately retask to this location in order to hold it permanently. The future of their race depended upon it…

Kyra fired her beam cannons, one from each shoulder mount, at the small, fast moving Hadarak minions pouring down the now sealed access shaft from the surface through the cracks as bipedal drones processed rubble from the cavern ceiling on the exterior of the Gahana Complex and turned it into makeshift building material to cover the entrance. Kyra and several combat drones too large to enter held perimeter as the fast moving ‘zerglings,’ as Star Force called them, rushed to get at them as they fell like rain out of the sidewall where the orbital bombardment from Nevantha had collapsed Kyra’s escape route just prior to his escape from orbit.

The Hadarak were too many in this system for him to take alone…or at least in stationary combat. He needed to use strategy to defeat them, and standing still was not the best way to do it. Kyra had lost her link to him, but her mission was clear.

Hold the Gahana Complex until reinforcements arrived. Protect Cranium Tovi, who was now inside the Complex and plugged into an interface port with drones building defenses around his vulnerable position as he sought to activate the factories inside the complex to produce Gahana defense drones…but that would take hours at the minimum, even if he knew how to operate the equipment. Learning was taking time, for he was not as robust in intelligence or processing power as an Elloquim was, but Tovi was far better suited to the task than Kyra, and together they were the only two living PanNari left on the planet along with an army of their own dwindling machinations that seemingly endless Hadarak units were slowly diminishing through attrition.

Kyra couldn’t seal all the entrances…the complex was far too large for that…but they could lock down the ones nearest to Tovi, at least temporarily, and as soon as she got the signal from the Craniem she stopped firing, turned around and ran towards the barely Human-sized hole left in the entrance aperture.

She dove through it head first, with the drones sealing it over from the outside as well as in, stranding themselves and the combat models above the complex as they continued to build layer after layer onto the blockage and killing more and more minions until the inevitable occurred and they were overwhelmed…but that wouldn’t happen immediately, and Kyra was not expendable. Nevantha had decreed as much before he left, mandating that she preserve herself at all costs, even if it meant abandoning the immobile Tovi who was nothing more than a two meter wide sphere at this point that was now firmly attached to the structure…meaning he couldn’t run if he wanted