Becky rushed out of the room with a flash of movement. She had finished brushing her disheveled hair long before Guardian completed his first a.s.signment.

Several weeks pa.s.sed in relative peace. Mother noted that the children now seemed happier. She had structured their day, giving them a.s.signed times for each of the subjects and providing them with daily and weekly goals. They dove into their studies with surprising energy, especially with Guardian's a.s.signment and Mother's weapons for the new game.

The boys learned easily and soon became proficient in their newly acquired skills. Even Becky, mostly due to the compet.i.tiveness she had developed with the boys, learned this new skill with surprising quickness.

Soon Mother had Guardian teaching the boys hand-to-hand combat, in case the T'kaan ever boarded her. During this time, Mother downloaded Guardian's entire operating system and began enhancing it so he could now complete his new functions with more skill.

But now Mother found herself in a new situation and a new series of problems had developed, all due to the delicate nature of the children.

She had promised them.

Mother knew the implications of this word, but it had seemed the only answer to her problem at the time. The children had started to become frantic, even extreme, in their actions whenever they sensed they might not find or return home. Mother had become afraid they might physically harm themselves.

Under the burden of this fear she revealed additional facts to the children. She started with the fact that the human race had lost the war with the T'kaan. The fact that each and every one of the seventy-seven planets and moons that had been colonized by humanity had been attacked and captured by the T'kaan.

Months had gone by, and Jaric was quickly showing himself to be the thinker of the three. He had confided with both Becky and Kyle before they had approached her together.

The ship had been forced to acknowledge that there was a high possibility that the children were the onlyhumans that had survived the war.

Their reaction had been quick and explosive. Instantly Mother remembered her mistake in telling them the fate of Rita and how they had been damaged internally.

Mother quickly enhanced her answer, explaining to the children that she did not have complete access to all of the facts. She was not sure at this time if every human had been destroyed on every planet. Until she had searched every planet and scanned for humans, the answer could not be determined with absolute accuracy or certainty.

That answer had calmed them.

So now Mother had changed the nature of their search, a much more dangerous search now, to gather those facts. In order to determine if any of the captured worlds contained human survivors, they would now begin a systematic, though unpredictable, search among the captured human worlds. Mother's only solace was that the majority of the T'kaan fleet had been destroyed. Yet, with each pa.s.sing month the T'kaan seemed to be growing stronger and with that fact grew the possibility of her own destruction as well as that of the children. She would have to calculate a search so random that the T'kaan could not predict her next move. But even that gambit would not prevail forever.

Additionally, Mother knew the odds of finding other human survivors long before they ever approached the first world. But she would wait and not divulge this data. There was still so much she did not understand about the children and their emotions. There was so much she did not yet know.

Mother's processing power also focused on searching the ma.s.sive human knowledgebase. Not simply to help the children and not just to ensure she was completing her tasks as a mother, but something much more personal....

Mother began a more personal search, a concept that had been taking up more of her processing cycles lately. It was something that had dawned inside her after she had awakened the Guardian robot.

Was she alive? Was she a living being? Or was she just another robot?

Eighteen months pa.s.sed in relative peace.

Chapter Six.

The planet wascalled Eden, once the home to many billions of humans. Sensors revealed it as a lush, tropical planet of dense rain forests that covered every continent. Huge, rushing rivers girdled the entire world and fed into dozens of fresh water oceans that were interspersed between the huge green continents. Mother's sensors picked up the ships rising out of the atmosphere to intercept her. Immediately she began jamming their communications as she altered her course to engage them.

She quickly identified them as Hunter cla.s.s fighters, the larger and more dangerous type of T'kaan fighters. There were thirty-three of them, three times more than she had antic.i.p.ated. The enemy's strategy was changing. Instantly she set aside some of her processing power to ponder this new fact.

Jaric and Kyle were playing together with Guardian in the main living quarters. Becky, with her doll Alice, was with Fixer1 in the kitchen.

Red lights pulsed as the all too familiar alarm sounded.

"Alright!" Kyle shouted. "It's time to playThe Game again!"

"Yes!" Jaric shouted in agreement as both boys raced each other to their favorite gun emplacements.

Becky, still carrying Alice, sighed audibly as she meandered slowly to her a.s.signed gun. Mother noted again her lack of enthusiasm. This was bad. The enemy showed no mercy, so the children must defend themselves. It was necessary.

There was another reason why the children's survival was so important. But they could not yet handle this horrific possibility. A possibility, which was steadily turning into probability with each desolated planet they visited.

Even from this distance, Eden showed no signs of human life.

"Hurry, Becky. There are more of the enemy than normal."

Becky frowned.

The deadly black-horned ships broke into three groups, as was their way. They drew closer. They were almost in range when suddenly the three attacking waves broke into eleven formations of three ships as they fell on Mother with bright laser lances of death.

"Watch it, Jaric! There's a lot of them this time." Kyle shouted into his Comm as he squeezed the twin triggers.

"Just more to blow up." Jaric shouted gleefully.

Mother shuddered as multiple explosions blossomed across her shields. Her shields dropped twenty percent as the remaining guns under her control returned fire with deadly accuracy.

"Got one!" Jaric shouted as the ship disintegrated in his sites.

The fighters swarmed around Mother again and again on their deadly runs. Her green lasers bolts crossed the red and orange of the T'kaan.

The attackers were fierce in their pursuit as Mother's shields fell precariously low under more direct hits.

It was no game to her. "I got one up on you this time, Kyle."

Kyle snarled at the smiling face in the monitor below his targeting screen.

"Ain't no fat lady sang yet."

Mother's voice spoke as Becky sat by her still silent gun.

"If those ships strike me enough... I will be destroyed. You must play the Game, Becky."

The little girl became deathly still. She felt her heart begin to pound with this shocking realization of Mother's mortality.

Becky grabbed the triggers with sudden intensity. Within seconds, she had nailed two fighters with deadly accuracy.

Jaric's mouth dropped in open admiration.

"Wow." Kyle shouted.

Mother turned hard to avoid the remaining ships and twisted over to give Becky a better angle. As Becky's blasts began peppering a third ship, Mother began taking out the rest.

In another few minutes, the only thing left was debris floating in chaotic disarray. Mother retracted her gun nozzles and began identifying and repairing the damage she had sustained. It would take time, but she would have all damaged systems fully functional before landing. She made a mental note to be extra vigilant during this period.

"Take inventory of the food and mineral items needed. I will scan the planet's surface before we land."

This had become their normal routine whenever they landed upon a planet. Long ago, the food stores that Ron and Rita had placed in her holds had run out. They had soon discovered that the T'kaan completely destroyed the animal life on each conquered world, leaving the corpses as food for their maggot young when they hatched. Because of this the only food source left for the children was vegetable and fruits plants that they could locate in the wild.

The minerals were for her, for the renewal of her engine fuel as well as raw material that could be processed for structural repairs. Deep inside her hull, near the heat of her powerful engines, the Fixers could cleanse these raw materials and ready them to be used and shaped as needed.

The children rushed down the halls and began the task with cheerful laughter. Planet-fall was always exciting to them, although they knew there were dangers. But Mother and Guardian were always there to protect them.

Soon they were running down the ramp and stepping onto the rock-strewn ground. Outside the protective hull of Mother, they paused as their eager eyes took in the new planet.

Mother's external optics observed the children.

Jaric had gotten so tall and lanky. Mother kept encouraging him to eat more to gain weight, but his high energy metabolism kept his physique racing slim. As he ran, he began unb.u.t.toning his shirt to allow realair to hit his dark skin. He laughed as the warm air caressed him.

Mother noted how his face had also changed in subtle ways these past years. His large brown eyes now sparkled with his growing intelligence. Mother knew from her a.n.a.lysis of his personal studies that Jaric's mind was powerful and could absorb many new concepts with lightning comprehension. If he really applied himself, there was nothing he could not achieve.

His handsome face reflected his easy-going nature and a bright smile almost always graced his high cheek bones and sharp jaw. But he needed a haircut, his thick black curls were almost growing into untidy dreadlocks and Mother did not find this becoming.

Always rough and ready, Kyle suddenly overtook Jaric and raced ahead. Kyle had also changed with time. His body was fast becoming that of an athlete; his chest had already grown broader than his waist and his arms had also thickened with muscle. Mother thought he spent an inordinate amount of time exercising when he should be developing his mind. Like Jaric, Kyle had allowed his short, curly blonde hair to grow too long. Mother quickly sent a haircutting task to Fixer3 scheduled for the end of the day.

Kyle's green eyes glanced over at the running figure of Guardian as he easily kept pace with both boys.

Kyle's face was round and well defined, a face full of character that complemented the growing strength of his body.

Becky was last. Her jumpsuit was now a pretty pink in color, a request that Mother had a.s.signed Fixer1 after Becky had outgrown her second jumpsuit. The boys still enjoyed the starship gray color the humans had utilized in their navies.

Her blonde locks had grown long and swirled around the middle of her back as she ran. Unlike the boys, she had learned to take care of her hair as well as the other maintenance tasks of her body on a daily basis. Her eyes were now as blue as the sky of old Earth, shining sapphires of light and happiness.

Becky's face and body had also begun the first subtle changes to maturity. It was becoming apparent she was going to blossom into a beautiful young woman. But hers would be more than simply a stunning natural beauty, for her inner heart of love and kindness would surpa.s.s her mere physical appearance.

Mother deduced this last from her knowledgebase as she compared Becky's personality to profiles of women of the past.

Thunder rumbled ominously overhead.

"I will try to identify mineral deposits and dispatch a Digger to a.s.similate. All of you must gather raw food plants for the cooking processor." Mother's calm voice paused as another rumble of thunder echoed in her sensors. She calculated the sound with the resulting flash, factoring in the wind direction.

"You must hurry, the storm will break within the hour. We will complete our unfinished tasks after it pa.s.ses."

As the seven-foot robot known as Guardian led the children to the gra.s.s-covered hills before them, Mother flashed a message to him to watch the children closely. Her sensors had detected a grouping of dead humans nearby and she was scanning them. But what disturbed her most was an odd static fuzziness interfering with her sensors, which she initially surmised was from the gathering storm.

Guardian acknowledged.

Guardian's sensors directed them to the first detected area with edible plants where they all began to digenthusiastically. Soon they had filled the first holding bag Guardian carried and were walking to another patch of ground and a second patch of edible roots called potatoes....

The children talked happily among the tall gra.s.s while Kyle and Jaric munched on some of the wild carrots as they brushed the brown dirt off of the knees of their jumpsuits.

Guardian's red eyes gazed disapprovingly at the two boys as Fixer1 was silently instructed to scan them after their scheduled bath later that evening for unwanted bacteria.

In the meantime, Mother's sensors detected a deposit of iron near the planet's surface as she quickly dispatched the Digger along with Fixer4 to obtain a fixed amount. They could work during the coming storm with no degradation. All was going according to their normal routine.

An hour had almost pa.s.sed now. Guardian and the three children had meandered a good distance apart from each other on the gra.s.sy hillside as the attack began.

The unknown aliens began firing immediately as they appeared above the tall gra.s.s where they had been hiding. Two blaster bolts struck Guardian full in his chest, but his thick body-armor caused them to ricochet harmlessly away leaving only two dents etched with carbon scoring. The huge robot dropped the bags of gathered plants he held and, within a split second, drew the two blaster pistols holstered around his waist.

Guardian felled three of the aliens and rushed forward to avoid the hail of blaster fire aimed at him. He dove into the thick gra.s.s and rolled under its cover to a different position, then jumped up and fired again.

Two more aliens fell. The rest disappeared back into the waving gra.s.s. Guardian fired his blasters in rapid succession at points where the gra.s.s waved with the motion of the alien's movements as they tried to avoid his deadly aim.

Cries of pain rose into the air as Guardian's aim proved true time after time. Suddenly the air erupted with blaster bolts as the aliens renewed the attack. Guardian's body rocked from multiple hits as he tried to return fire but the aliens closed from all sides-their bodies still hidden among the thick gra.s.s.

Still, Guardian managed to avoid most of the fire and had only taken eleven direct hits. Immediately his battle algorithms started planning a counterattack as his sensors discovered the total number and exact positions of the enemy. The robot rushed toward a concentrated group as his blasters pumped bolt after bolt at them.

The children, remembering their training well, had dropped and were crawling back toward Mother's last position as the blaster bolts sizzled all around them through the tall gra.s.s.

Kyle suddenly felt an iron grip around his throat.

Immediately, the alien stood with his blaster pointing at Kyle's head. Kyle tried to struggle, but found he had trouble even breathing against the attacker's numbing grip.

"Stop! Or the child will die."

Guardian turned his glowing red eyes onto the strange alien holding Kyle. Instantaneously, he transmitted the images to Mother.

Mother noted that the alien wasn't T'kaan. This was something different, something unknown to her. It stood on two legs like a human, but it had a long tail trailing behind it, while over its head there was a large helmet with dark, oversized goggles that stared blankly back at Guardian. The rest of its unkempt and tattered uniform seemed fit more for a refugee than that of a s.p.a.ce-faring race.

Mother silently transmitted an order for Guardian to drop his weapons as another alien stood up holding the struggling form of Becky.

Her concern quickly increased to a level she had never experienced before. It was not an emotional reaction. She was, after all, only a warship.

What her concern meant was that the vast majority of her processing power, as well as all other activities, were now directed to this single task. Anything unrelated to the current situation of the children was now disabled or put into a very low priority thread.

One thing, and one thing only, occupied her immense powers-she had to save her children.

"Yashan, power down the robot."

Mother instructed Guardian to quickly survey the surrounding area as she planned her strike as well as identifying the number of creatures threatening her children. But the strange creatures were approaching too quickly and suddenly all went dark as Guardian's main power pack was removed.

Mother tuned her audio sensors until she picked up the sound of the distant creatures. As they chattered over the dead bodies of their comrades and probed the silent robot, she quickly calculated how long it would take her to power up her engines and fly to a spot where she could begin her attack. She tested her engines.

"What was that?" One of the aliens said as it looked around hurriedly.

Mother powered down quickly, her processors again humming with super-activity. It would take her several long seconds to power up, and then more seconds to fly over the hill to where they were located.

The attackers would be able to take action before she got in position, maybe even killing some of the children.

Kyle's voice became audible.