"Let's go find Becky, Big K." Jaric rose quickly. "Hey, let's take the fighters out again and do some mock dogfights. I'm sure that'll get you in a better mood."

"Sounds like fun. Let's go fly circles around Mother. Maybe if we shoot a couple of blasts over her bow, we can get her p.i.s.sed enough to dogfight with us. You know, teach us another of her lessons in aerial warfare!" "That'd be supercool! If Mother knows anything, it's how to fight."

The two young men strode for the door at the other end of the empty bay, opened it, and entered the corridor leading upward.

Mother thought long and hard about the conversation, a.n.a.lyzing it even as she maneuvered in mock combat with the single-man fighters the children flew.

In a way, she felt bad. The boys had thought all these years that they were alone in the lower storage bay, far from any of her optical viewers. But Mother's audio systems as well as her security systems were located in every section, including storage bays.

She had never told them. She had shared all of their boyhood secrets-and now the whispers of their young manhood.

But their words caused her more anguish, which she did not know exactly how to deal with-even with the knowledgebase of humanity at her disposal.

Their search continued.

Chapter Eight.

The Leader cla.s.sgathered in the dark interior, among the dark flowing folds. The fighters and frigates from the decimated Third Fleet had been no match for the Iron Huntress. Now, one of their cruisers had even fallen to the Huntress's mighty weapons. This news shocked the T'kaan.

Worse, the l.u.s.t that was the third stage had almost arrived.

But now the l.u.s.t for killing must be high. For the only thing that the T'kaan loved more than mating and eating...was war.

Guttural voices joined in unison, as the one thought became clear.

"A ship to build, a ship to match. Kill the Huntress, her false life to s.n.a.t.c.h!"

"Mother she is, creation of man. Trickster are we, kill her we can. As vain their search, as great our plan!"

The new T'kaan ship began to take shape-faster, more advanced, with stronger engines and mightier weapons. A ship that could match the deadly Huntress, engine for engine, weapon for weapon. But it would take time.

A second plan to trick and trap the Huntress came to fruition first, while the work on the new ship continued apace.

Chapter Nine.

The children werenow fully in their adolescent stage. They were now teenagers.

Mother had found the actions of the children frustrating before; now they were frustrating to a totally new degree. At one moment they were joyful, full of glee and happiness. In less than a moment, they would become sullen and even angry.

Moody.

At other times they showed great anger toward her-for no obvious reason. Mother's processors spiked with hyperactivity at these times, trying to reference the vast knowledgebase for help as well as trying to decipher the underlying motives for the children's odd behavior.

And their illogical behavior.

Mother completed her scans of the world they now orbited. The knowledgebase provided its name-Nuevo Mundo, a very appropriate name.

Mighty oceans covered over two thirds of the planet's surface. Only one other world had been so favored, the human home-world. Even more than its namesake, this world had been treated with much more respect for its natural resources and beauty, as humankind had populated it. It had proved a beautiful place in which to live.

Before the T'kaan.

Kyle, Jaric and Becky entered the bridge together.

"What'cha want, Mother?" Jaric's tone echoed his normal enthusiastic manner.

"My sensors have detected something out of the ordinary. They could be signs of human survivors."

"What have you got?" Kyle shouted as he and Jaric rushed to one of the consoles. Becky continued to stare at the viewscreen and the planet it now displayed. Mother began displaying the sensor data from the planet's surface. Kyle and Jaric became so excited that they accidentally cleared the data and rebooted the console. They rushed to a second one as Mother downloaded the data there.

But Mother's optic focused upon the still silent form of Becky.

"Why are you silent?" Mother asked.

Becky walked closer to the viewscreen, a flicker of a smile appearing on her lips. She brushed her long, blonde hair absently. "It's just so unreal. I mean..." She shook her head, smiling at her own embarra.s.sment. "This is what we've wanted all these years, and, and..."

Jaric and Kyle both looked up and waited for her next words.

These excessive pauses caused Mother extreme pain. Seconds were almost an eternity to her. So, to prevent her cycles from being wasted, Mother began a complete diagnostic on her engine and sensor systems, as well as cross-referencing this planet with every known file in the human knowledgebase.

Three hundred thousand and fifty-seven references had been read and stored for her a.n.a.lysis when Becky again spoke.

Seven seconds had pa.s.sed.

"I don't know. It's just that, well, now that we may have found somebody else..." She paused, a puzzled expression her face. "Well, I'm a little scared." Becky smiled at the optic uncertainly.

Mother once again took note that humans reacted to data primarily with emotions. How odd. But even more strange, their emotional reactions only seemed to increase as they entered their teenage years.

Kyle and Jaric laughed and turned back to the console. Becky took a place close beside them.

"What exactly has Mother found?" Becky asked in a tentative voice.

Jaric pointed at the screen. "There's an active power grid on the planet's surface."

"So?" A puzzled look grew on Becky's face.

Jaric began typing rapidly. "All of the other decimated planets were turned into vast breeding grounds for their mean, maggot young. All signs of technology were destroyed along with the planet's inhabitants."

Becky moved next to Jaric which only seemed to increase his activity at the console. "If a world was not used by the T'kaan for laying their eggs, its population centers were simply destroyed as well as the planet's ecosystems-making them forever uninhabitable."

"Along with the poor populations," Kyle added. "The people. That part is a little more important."

Jaric's face reflected shock. "I didn't mean it that way. I mean, if the cities are all destroyed, I mean, the cities are only destroyed because the inhabitants themselves are the..."

"Okay, Jaric. It's okay. We understand." Becky glared at Kyle, who had caused this unnecessary outburst.

Jaric sighed with relief. "Well, anyway. What Mother's sensors have discovered is an active power grid.There seems to have been a rather large underground complex just outside the remnant of this city on the southern continent." Jaric pointed to the viewscreen as Mother focused and brought up a more detailed view. "See, right," he paused as the details of the individual buildings came into focus. "Right there."

The three leaned closer, each of them holding their breath without realizing it.

"It's a human complex, alright," Kyle said. He tweaked the sensors for more detail. "I'm getting power signatures-from human technology. Something was left running." He paused, a sudden gleam in his eyes.

"Or somebody's kept it running."

"Why would the T'kaan keep a human complex operating?" Jaric wrinkled his face questioningly.

"They'd build their own complex," Kyle added. "After they destroyed everything else!"

"Yes. So, perhaps in this surface building, or probably in an underground complex..." Jaric began.

"Are humans!" Becky shouted.

Mother found herself hard pressed to suppress the children's actions. After a more thorough scan to ensure no T'kaan ships were in the immediate vicinity or that there were no signs of T'kaan life forms or their maggot young on the planet's surface near that point, Mother landed herself just outside the north entrance of the surface building from which the power readings emanated.

"Guardian, you will position yourself inside the building at this major juncture of the main corridors. From this position you can maintain contact with myself as well as with the children as they make their initial sweep of the uppermost underground level." Mother paused, recreating over a million possible scenarios and their ultimate outcomes. "I must have more data before I can allow you to search further underground, out of my sensor contact."

"Come on," Kyle said. He grabbed Jaric and Becky each by an arm and pushed them toward Mother's open door.

"Guardian, please proceed," Mother ordered. "I will provide direct communication to enhance your programming. But if you perceive a loss of communication, please backtrack until an active signal from me is obtained."

Guardian nodded wordlessly as he pa.s.sed through the door. The robot's huge gait enabled it to catch up to the three humans just as they entered the reinforced door of the building.

Jaric held the hand-held sensor before him, pointing it inside. He completed his sensor sweep of every part of the building inside within range.

"Anything?" Kyle asked tersely.

"No signs of life. Nor any recent traces," Jaric sighed.

"Let's go inside." Kyle began walking inside.

"Wait," Becky said. "Let Guardian go first."

"Why?" Kyle asked. "Because." Becky shrugged. "It could be dangerous."

Kyle ignored her and walked inside, drawing the blaster from the holster at his hip as he disappeared into the darkness.

"Idiot," Becky whispered.

Becky and Jaric heard Kyle's footsteps echo eerily from out of the black interior as he continued onward. Suddenly, they stopped. From the midst of darkness, a bright beam of light ignited.

"Come on. There's nothing here. I want to get down another level." Kyle began walking deeper into the bowels of the building. As he walked, his beam of light pierced and probed up to the high ceiling and back down, then side to side as he entered a side corridor. Just before he entered, he turned to the others.

"Hurry up."

Jaric started forward but stopped short as Becky grabbed his arm.

"What?" Jaric asked.

"Something's weird," Becky whispered. "I don't like it."

Jaric repeated his sensor sweep as Becky clung to his arm. The light beam on the sensor unit had automatically switched on as they tentatively stepped inside the dark interior. In the far, far distance, almost at the edge of their hearing, they could just make out the low thrumming of machinery.

"There's n.o.body in here, Kyle's right," Jaric said.

Becky reached down to her waist and pulled out her blaster, still hanging on to Jaric's arm with her other hand. "Something's not right about this. Promise me you won't let Kyle get us into trouble."

Jaric chuckled out loud. "If I can see it first with my sensor, then we won't get into trouble."

"That doesn't make me feel better." Becky urged Jaric forward with a nudge.

They joined Kyle. The three of them proceeded behind his dancing beam of light . The large room they first entered led them to a network of seemingly endless corridors.

Everywhere the light illuminated revealed a jumbled array of strewn furniture and other debris that littered their path. It seemed to be the remains of some terrible tragedy, but nowhere did they detect the slightest evidence of recent habitation.

The trio felt a gnawing doubt growing at the back of their minds.

Guardian followed without hesitation, communicating his visual sensors to Mother instantaneously. But just as Mother had deduced, as the children found the dusty stairwell and began descending, Guardian's communication link with her became disrupted.

"Stay at that point, Guardian. Children, do not proceed out of range from Guardian's sensors with youor I will lose contact with you completely." Mother's voice emanated from Guardian's mouth. The battle robot's speech program was as primitive as the Fixer's and because his system programming had been devoted to battle algorithms and not to AI, he could only communicate the most basic commands via speech. At most times, Mother spoke through Guardian's systems with the children when they made planet-fall.

"Sure," Kyle said with a confident smile. He turned and continued onward behind his dancing beam of light.

"There's something weird here," Becky repeated as she looked furtively around into the forbidding darkness. The stairwell they stood next to was located at the far end of another large empty room after they had exited the main corridor.

"Well, my sensor reads nothing. So there can't be anything too weird," Jaric whispered.

Jaric followed Kyle down into the well of darkness, the piercing light from his own hand-held light unit sending out a narrow beam that revealed their path for only a few meters ahead.

Becky took a deep breath, shook her head, and followed. She reached to her belt and pulled her own light unit out and flicked it on. Pointing the light with her left hand, she kept the blaster pointed down the beam of light with her right as she stepped down.

Guardian's red visuals watched as Becky disappeared into the darkness. This information was simultaneously routed to Mother. Now he tracked the children's sensor readings as they reached the first underground level. But as they began walking away from the staircase, their readings faded mysteriously-as if the children themselves were disappearing.

Mother's processors spiked with super-activity.

"Guardian, I have recalibrated my sensors to their greatest degree of detail." A long pause of almost a millisecond ensued. "I have detected the faintest, almost distorted presence of T'ka..."

In that instant Mother's sensors were almost blinded as the hidden gun emplacement powered and fired, already pre-charged.