She felt a disturbance in a portion of her memories and quickly identified it.

One was the time when Becky had almost been killed. If it had not for the heroic role Guardian played in her rescue, she would have surely died. Another had been when Jaric had flown a captured T'kaan ship and had inadvertently put it into homing mode toward a large cruiser.

She had almost lost that battle in her effort to rescue Jaric. That near, total failure had haunted her near-term memories for weeks.

But there was the matter she feared most.

The matter of telling them that, with the results of over ten years of searching, Mother had finally come to the conclusion that her childrenwere the last humans alive in the universe.

She accessed her knowledgebase once again on the subject of human psychology. Becky was now seventeen Earth years old, the boys two years older. But what she had to tell them was very terrible indeed, and she again wondered if they would be able to accept it emotionally and mentally.

But the increasing attacks, along with the increasing number of enemy ships, were precipitating this dreaded conversation. Mother would have to reveal the terrible truth to the children. She would have to do it soon.

Chapter Sixteen.

Mother's processorsburned with intense activity as she came into orbit around Kittim and once again found no signs of human life. She focused her sensors and started a more detailed sweep as the children entered the Command Center. Mother observed them carefully as they reviewed the data.

"I don't like it," Kyle said as he concentrated on the sensor readings. "There's no sign of the enemy."

He shook his head as he stepped back. "I don't like it at all."

"Yes, the T'kaan should have attacked by now," Mother said.

"What if they're not here," Jaric suggested excitedly. "That would explain it."

"And that would mean we might really find someone," Becky shouted.

Mother ran through her memories of the catastrophic war and how each of the human planets had been taken. She spoke almost without pause after Becky's last words.

"Kittim was the thirty-third planet taken by the T'kaan. So they have been here, and the carnivorous young are rampant on the surface. Check my sensor data." Mother paused.

"That means the Hunter and Scout ships at least are here, to protect the maggots," Kyle said.

"Which takes us back to the original point-why haven't we faced an attack by now? We have been in orbit over an hour." Mother paused, allowing the children to absorb her words.

The hopeful look on Becky's face had disappeared, to be replaced by her normal serious features. In a flash even that was replaced as her breathing suddenly grew uneven. Mother took note of the alarming changes.

"Are you feeling well, Becky? Perhaps we should postpone the landing?"

Kyle and Jaric turned to Becky, immediately both realized she was fighting back her tears. A distinctuneasiness filled the room.

All three felt the same deep-seated fear now, the horrifying thing each knew but were afraid to give voice to.

Mother comprehended their fear.

"It is doubtful our search will be successful on Kittim."

The young people turned simultaneously with strained but silent looks.

"From the effectiveness of the alien war, I calculate that we will find no survivors here," Mother paused briefly. "Or on any planet." Mother's voice faded to be replaced by an ominous, pressing silence.

A ghostly sigh escaped Becky.

"What are you trying to say, Mother? What do you mean?!" Jaric's voice cracked with his extreme agitation. He looked desperately over to Kyle and Becky.

"She means we're never going to find anyone." Tears rolled out of Becky's eyes.

Kyle closed his eyes and looked away without saying a word.

Mother watched them carefully, noting the signs of nervousness and tension each was showing in varying degrees. Unknown to them, she began cooling the room in order to make them more comfortable. But her next words were spoken seemingly without a pause.

"It is best we leave the remains of the Human Worlds. I have determined three possible directions that will not only take us to sectors not yet attacked by the T'kaan, but they also have a high probability of sustaining other intelligent life..."

"You're wrong, Mother!" Kyle's anger, felt in every syllable, caught even Mother off-guard.

"We've got to listen to her, Kyle." Becky's voice faded away.

"Shut up." Kyle lashed at her with renewed vehemence.

Becky looked questioningly over to Jaric for support.

But Jaric could only shake his head in despair.

Kyle's rapid breathing slowed as he tried to gain control of his emotions. He froze a moment, deep in thought. Finally, he nodded.

"It's time I took over. We'll go ahead with the landing and initial search patterns." He cast a challenging look at the optical viewer. "I'll start giving the orders around here now."

Mother remained silent.

Jaric finally shook himself out of his deep pit of depression. "We can't do that, Kyle. She's our..."

"Mother?" Kyle shouted angrily. He pointed accusingly at the optical viewer still watching them. "She's not our mother, she's not even alive. She's nothing!"

Becky began crying silently as she slid slowly down to the floor, as if all of her strength had left her.

Both men looked away in embarra.s.sment, trying to ignore her tears.

Mother was not unaffected either, though not in a way a human could understand.

"We'll search to the end of time. I swear it," Kyle said through clenched teeth. "All our power will be directed to destroying the T'kaan as we continue to search for survivors."

"Perhaps..." Mother began.

"n.o.body ...wants your input anymore!" Kyle began pacing in a frenzy of overpowering emotions.

"Land us...now! " Kyle uttered the last word as an absolute command. "I'm going to prepare my fighter, anyone who wants to go with me can come on."

Becky continued to cry silently while Jaric stared aimlessly at the floor.

"Fine!" Kyle shouted. "I'll go by myself!" He stormed through the door and disappeared beyond.

Mother observed him as he walked down her corridors, each turn he made bringing him into the view of another one of her optical viewers. But he deliberately looked away from them all. As he neared the hangar that housed the last five fighters she carried, she again tried to reason with him.

"Kyle, you are angry because..."

He glared at the optical viewer above him. "I hate you. I hate your cold logic. I hate your...perfect answers. But I tell you this,machine! " The last word was stated as the vilest of insults. Kyle screwed his eyes shut, fighting back his burning tears. "I'm going to make them pay for this. I'll make them pay..." He covered his face in a vain attempt to shield his tears.

"Or I'll die trying."

Mother continued to watch as he reached his fighter and prepared it for launch. For the first time in her existence, she felt helpless at the events unfolding around her. Still, she obeyed Kyle as she entered the atmosphere of Kittim. A few minutes later, she landed.

As soon as her engines began powering down, Kyle ordered the sequence and the bay door opened.

His fighter roared out into the wide-open sky.

"Jaric, Becky. You must go with him."

Jaric shook his head, as if to rid himself of his overwhelming sadness. Then, with a ghost of a smile, he walked over to where Becky was still slumped on the floor, her back against the wall. He reached out to her. "Let's go, Becky. Somebody's got to watch out for hothead." A half-smile lit Jaric's face.

Becky closed her eyes tightly, but a moment later she forced a smile. She placed her hand in his as he helped her up. In a flash, they were tracing Kyle's steps.

Mother had already instructed Fixer2 to prep their fighters, so all they had to do was strap in and begin take-off sequences. Within minutes of Kyle's hasty departure, the two arrowhead-shaped fighters were roaring in hot pursuit of Kyle's now distant fighter.

Mother's latest scans for the enemy still came up empty. Now, for the sake of the child most damaged emotionally, she began her search patterns for any possible human survivors.

She already knew what the results would be, but she would do it for Kyle. Perhaps her prompt actions would show how much she did care.

Almost immediately her scans came upon the ruins of a once mighty research complex on the planet's surface, and so she lifted and began the several hundred-kilometer trip to investigate. Still, she felt strange-it was as though she could not gather enough processing power to concentrate on this seemingly simple task.

It was perhaps her extreme state of internal disarray which explained why she did not pick up the powered down enemy ships all waiting in ambush.

"Kyle, there's something else we're leaving out here. It's not just our decision on how we live," Jaric's voice pleaded over the comm.

"What are you talking about? If Mo..." Kyle bit back the last word. "If themachine is right, we're it. So we decide how to do things now. And I say weare going to keep looking for survivors."

Jaric sighed, still wrestling with the intense aura of loneliness that threatened to paralyze him again.

"Listen a minute to me, Kyle! Maybe Mother, well, maybe she's not our biological mother. But without her intelligence, her power, well, we'd have all been dead long ago. And...she is sentient. She has a right to her own life." Jaric heard Kyle begin to break in, but he spoke faster. "We owe her, man. Even if she's not alive by human standards, well, she's alive where it counts. I think..."

"I've got targets."

Becky's voice, strangely calm, jerked both men to their screens.

"I've got multiple targets from three directions."

Kyle began punching b.u.t.tons.The T'kaan never fought like this. They had always used their superior numbers in overwhelming frontal attacks ...

"Kyle, form up with us!" Jaric shouted.

Kyle was already turning hard and pushing his engines, but he knew as he did it that he wouldn't make it to them in time. Over fifty ships were closing on Becky and Jaric, and there were that many more closing from two directions on his lone ship. As he again banked hard toward the nearest grouping of enemy ships, he spoke into his comm.

"Send the distress call. I'm engaging the enemy here."

Jaric and Becky complied, and then the T'kaan fighters were on them.

The three human fighters twisted and turned among the throngs of black ships as they attacked.

Everywhere they turned, enemy fire met them. But the humans fought as though possessed-they fought to avenge the death of their race now. They screamed their primal fury as they pressed their trigger b.u.t.tons over and over again.

T'kaan ships began to fall from the sky.

But the alien fire was taking its own toll.

Far away, Mother continued to obey the futile search as the distress call reached her.

She powered her engines on and was in flight milliseconds later. Quickly, she calculated how long it would take her to join the battle with her offspring as her sensors picked up the battle far away. She noted with concern that all three of the children's ships had taken hits, and worse, two had shield strengths below fifty percent. Her calculations finished with a sobering answer.

She would not make it to them in time, even at maximum speed.

She had failed.

But worst of all, she would never see her children again. Never communicate with them again. Never be with them again.

Even at maximum speed.

The answer was coldly mathematical. Kyle's words echoed again in her near-term memory-her logical answers, her machine solutions. Mother's processors burned with sudden super-activity as she pushed her sub-light engines to maximum power.

She roared just over the land surface for several long seconds, and then she did something that made no logical sense.

She pushed her engines past the red line.

It was not cold logic that caused her to do this. The readouts showed plainly that long-term, perhaps even permanent, damage was being done in those twin powerhouses of sub-light energy.

The engines began to scream and howl.

She continued to ignore the multiple alarms and warnings that vied for her attention and instead powered up her weapon's arrays. Her guns pushed their steely barrels outward through the opened doors, primed for battle.

Suddenly, she performed an action that defied all logic, all logic except that of areal Mother. The mighty warship redirected all shield energy to either weapons or the engines.

No shields.

Mother would go in naked before the enemy guns. This would save a few precious seconds and get her to her children that much faster. Her guns would be primed to an enormous, hull-splitting level on their first firing.