"Ranth," Dora said. "Approximate Guranu's position and estimate the turnaround time to Federation s.p.a.ce under normal hyperdrive conditions."

"Five hundred, eighty-seven point four three years."

"So if we go out there, there's a good chance that none us will ever return home alive?" Zical asked.

Dora's hand went to her womb. "With an estimated life span of one thousand years, our child would be middle-aged by the time this ship could return to Mystique."

"Unless you wish to attempt to contact the Sentinel again, we don't have a choice."

Zical's face was hard, stoic, but eyes revealed a flash of desperation, and Dora gulped back tears.

The choice facing them was terrible. They owed it everyone on Mystique to complete their mission. From start of the journey, they'd been aware the odds would be against them as they traveled into unknown s.p.a.ce, but that she'd have to choose between her own life and her unborn child's and the lives of everyone back home was a terrible dilemma. She already felt worse for the tiny life growing inside her than she did over the fact that if they continued their mission, the likelihood of the seeing Mystique alive again was almost nil.

How could she allow her body and the child she carried in her womb to die? But how could she abandon their mission and risk the lives of everyone back home?

Zical explained the terrible options to his crew on the bridge and allowed those off duty and the scientists below to sit in through the holovid system. Under usual circ.u.mstances, he might not inform the crew of their situation. But these weren't normal times, and with the stakes so high, he wanted to hear the others the opinions of those he trusted most.

227.

Zical kept his shoulders squared, his chin high, knowing others would take their cue from his demeanor. "So, people we have to decide whether to turn back, risk another contact with the Sentinel, or venture between she galaxies in the hopes that Guranu may help us reprogram the Sentinels. I'm open to opinions."

Vax didn't hesitate. "We go to Guranu."

Zical had never appreciated his second in command more. Although Vax didn't have a wife or children on Mystique, his elderly parents still lived. But he'd always put the mission first, and Zical relied on his steadfast belief that they could make a difference by committing to what would essentially be a one-way trip.

Shannon, his communications officer, shot him a thumbs-up. "I'd like to go where no Terran has gone before."

"Cyn?"

His chief engineer frowned. "You're asking a lot of my engines, Captain. But we're good to travel."

Zical was proud of their selflessness. He only wished he didn't have to ask them to make this kind of sacrifice. And although his heart might break over the child that would likely never know a home planet or have the support of a real family unit beyond this crew, he could ask for no better companions and could do no less than his duty. He owed it to his people to make the ultimate effort. Too much was at stake to do less.

Dr. Laduna. spoke up. "No. No. No. We're throwing our lives away for nothing. I don't mind dying for a good reason we have no idea this Guranu can help us. We are gambling our lives on the thinnest of theories. We should turn around, go home.

Rea.s.sess."

"With the utmost respect, I disagree with Dr. Laduna," said another scientist somewhat heatedly. "We all knew the risks. We came out here to do a job. We should finish it."

Many of the other scientists cheered. Dr. Laduna shook his head, the Jarn's fish eyes sad and soulful. However, while the Jarn's was the only dissenting vote, the ship wasn't a democracy. The decision was Zical's and he made it with a heavy heart. "Ranth, plot a course for Guranu."

"Compliance."

They spent three days in hypers.p.a.ce accelerating into the void. Cyn kept careful watch on her precious engines, but without even the smallest particles of matter to slow the them, their speed encompa.s.sed thousands of light-years per second. Zical didn't even try to keep track of the vast distance in light-years. Instead he consulted the stars and verified their progress in ma.s.sive sectors as they approached Guranu.

He occupied his time by keeping up morale with steady encouragement and sending back a detailed log to Mystique, even as be questioned if he'd made the right decision. During the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep, doubts a.s.sailed him.

Doubts that they could successfully complete the mission. Doubts that he should ask so 228.

much from his crew. Doubts that he and Dora would live long enough to solve their problems. And Zical worked harder than ever during the day. While it might take weeks or even months for messages to reach home, at least the Federation would know what had happened to them and what they planned to do. So if they failed, another course of action could be tried.

If Zical and his crew didn't succeed, the Federation would send yet another ship, ask another crew to sacrifice their lives. His determination hardened with every pa.s.sing light sector. They had to succeed. As the time approaches to drop out of hypers.p.a.ce, Zical's antic.i.p.ation skyrocketed even as the crew became slightly oversensitive. No crew had ever spent this long in hypers.p.a.ce and the continued a.s.sault on their senses made them irritable And with the gamble they were about to take, where the stakes could not have been greater, be wished to steady his people and had ordered Ranth to exit hypers.p.a.ce within a half-day's journey from Guranu. Traveling the remaining distance in regular s.p.a.ce would give them time to settle down and to explore from afar -although he wondered how much that would protect him since the Sentinel seemed to have fired on his ship from half a galaxy away. Still, he'd rather approach the unknown slowly, giving their sensors time to a.n.a.lyze, his crew time to a.s.sess. With the fate of everyone knew at stake, he and his crew could not afford to make errors.

And Zical worried that perhaps, just perhaps, the Sentinel had been correct when it called them an enemy. Ever since they'd left Kwadii and discovered the problem with the hyperdrive that had delayed them, he'd wondered if they had a saboteur aboard.

While Zical would bet his life that his crew was loyal, he could never be as certain of the scientists-whom he didn't know as well. And yet, what would any of them have to gain by slowing the drive? Why not just dismantle it? But perhaps they hadn't the time. Perhaps they wanted to turn around as Dr. Laduna had suggested.

Or he might be suspicious for no reason at all. Without more to go on, he tried to put treachery from inside the ship from his mind. Between the Sentinels and Guranu he had enough real problems.

"Ten seconds to n-s.p.a.ce," Vax warned the crew.

As the countdown to leave hypers.p.a.ce and enter normal s.p.a.ce ensued, Zical kept his eyes on the vidscreen. ''Ranth, place long-range detectors on priority."

"Compliance."

"Five seconds."

Zical braced for the change, anchoring his body firmly to the deck with his psi. The ship wouldn't so much as vibrate during the transition, but the effect on the senses could an unwary traveler to stumble.

"Entering n-s.p.a.ce."

Zical braced for the black emptiness of s.p.a.ce, trying to prepare himself for the void between the galaxies. Out here were no planets, no stars, no universal dust.

So he was astonished when the klaxon sounded. "Purple alert. We are under attack."

Chapter Twenty-two.

Dora heard the klaxon in her quarters. Kirek was with Avanti and Deckar, helping them to learn to use their psi and operate their suits, so she had no obligations to the boy at the moment. Even as Zical ordered her to report to the bridge, she used her psi to go there, her muscles tense, her nerves on edge.

Now what? Had Guranu turned against them and attacked? As if they hadn't already had enough problems on this journey, they now had another emergency to deal with, and it seemed as though fate were stacked against them. Ever since Zical had first stumbled upon the ancient machinery inside Mount Shachauri, and their close calls on Kwadii, and the Sentinel firing upon them, she'd figured they were due for some good luck for a change.

But once she saw the viewscieen with warships dotting the void between the galaxies, she realized the alarm hadn't been another computer glitch-like the problem with the hyperdrive-as she'd first thought. Nor had their bad luck changed.

The crew were at battle stations, alert and calm, but for some reason unknown to her, Dr. Laduna was also on the bridge. And one of the crew held, a weapon on the cowering scientist, who stared at the giant vidscreen with terror.

Her gaze went to Zical for answers, but she didn't interrupt his battle preparations.

The captain stood on the bridge his back to her, issuing precise orders, yet with uncanny precision he seemed to know the moment she arrived.

"Ranth?" Dora asked. "Why is Dr. Laduna under guard?"

"Those are Jarn ships."

"Jarn?" Dora turned to Dr. Laduna, and suddenly she understood who had slowed their mission after they'd left Kwadii. Dr. Laduna had tampered with the engines to allow the Jarn fleet to arrive ahead of them. But why?

Dr. Laduna's expression was grim and his entire body trembled. "I am sorry."

Zical finished giving orders, then turned from Vax to Dr. Laduna, his anger ready to erupt at the man whose people were responsible for attempting to stop his mission.

Zical placed his hands behind his back and closed his fingers into fists, but be fired words like ammunition, his tone harsh. "Why are your people trying to stop us?"

"We had no choice." Dr. Laduna's fish eyes blinked at him, his amphibious scales turning an odd shade of green.

Rystani warriors did not take betrayal well. Zical's eyes burned, as if he had to contain the savage urge to pound the Jarn's head against a bulkhead until his brains spattered. But the captain held himself in check. "Explain."

230.

"Eons ago, the Zin and the Perceptive Ones warred for supremacy of our galaxy.

The battles were fierce. Billions of us lost our lives.'' Dr. Laduna''s voice lectured with methodical precision as if he stood in a lecture hall, but his trembling didn't stop and his color turned even paler.

In no mood for a history lecture, Zical demanded, "Get to the point."

"The Zin pierced the Perceptive One's defenses, stormed the Jarn homeworld, defeated our soldiers, quashed our independence, and subjugated our world." The Jarn spoke quickly. "The Zin technology was superior to ours and they enslaved my people by encoding a self-replicating data chip into our DNA. That chip carries orders that every Jarn knows and must obey from the moment of birth."

Dora had no idea if such a thing were possible, but she wouldn't discount the possibility that the Zin possessed advanced technology far beyond what the Federation had to today. Dora burned with questions and asked the one pressing on her conscience. "Dr. Laduna, the Sentinel detected your DNA aboard our ship from halfway across the galaxy and fired on us."

"That is their maximum range of detection."

And that would explain why the Jarn had penetrated the Perceptive Ones' facility on Mystique without attracting the Sentinel's notice. "But how is it the Sentinel didn't also fire on your fleet once it arrived here?"

"Our ships have a cloaking device to deceive the Sentinels."

Zical glanced at the menacing fleet of Jarn ships on the vidscreen, then back to Dr.

Laduna. "What are the instructions in your Jarn DNA?"

"Our orders were to infiltrate the worlds around us, pretend we were one with the descendants of the Perceptive Ones."

"Why?"

"To bring down the Sentinels for our masters, the Zin."

Zical's eyebrows rose in scepticism. "You're saying that eons ago, the Zin antic.i.p.ated our mission and planted this DNA coding inside the Jarn to betray us?"

"No one could envision that the machinery on Mount Shachauri would break down or that your entrance would accidentally trigger the ancient mechanisms to recall the Sentinels. Our orders are simply to destroy the Sentinels from within. We waited for hundreds of thousands of years, living peacefully among you, hoping that the opportunity to obliterate the Sentinels would never come. However, each time we sp.a.w.ned our young, we pa.s.sed on our DNA and the coded chip, along with the Zin's commands to the generation. Until this mission, we could not act. We didn't have the means."

Fury at the Zin' s scheme and the Jarn's willingness to ally themselves with an enemy that had enslaved their world left Dora with little respect for these people. Never had she been so angry, and that anger had her shaking to do violence. If she'd had the 231.

opportunity and the strength, she might have squeezed his scaly neck until he was no more.

Zical, however, renamed calm. "So you were the one responsible for slowing us down in hypers.p.a.ce so that the Jarn fleet would arrive before us?"

"Yes, Captain." The Jarn spoke in a rush. "Captain. We have no choice. If we fail to carry out our orders, the chip changes our body chemistry and we die."

"The chip can't be removed?" Horror at the Jarn problem softened Zical's tone, and it served to divert some of Dora's anger from the Jarn to the Zin, for putting an entire race in such a difficult position "The chip's part of our DNA. We've spent a millennium studying the problem, trying to remove it from our biology. Obviously, we failed or we would not be having this discussion."

"How does the DNA know whether or not you work with the Zin?"

"We don't understand the process. We only know that once a Jarn thinks of a task that the Zin consider an order, we die if we ignore it. We don't consider the Zin our allies, but our masters, whom we must serve and obey."

The Jarn had been used by the Zin, but surely after so much time a way could have been found to alter their biology-if only they hadn't kept the fact a secret. Dora frowned at Laduna. "Why did you not ask the Federation for help with your problem?"

"Our a.n.a.lysis showed that Federation science could not help us, and your most likely reaction would be isolation, or extermination. Besides, we most sincerely hoped that the Sentinels would remain in place forever. You must believe that we did not antic.i.p.ate what has happened."

Dora's head was spinning. With the mult.i.tude of ramifications of genetic and biological sciences way beyond the comprehension of her human brain, she simply didn't know if Dr. Laduna was feeding them a far-fetched tale, or the truth. "Ranth.

a.n.a.lysis, please?"

"The Jarn DNA has a strand unlike that of any other living creature. It's both biological and chemical, yet part nanotechnology. Our scientists never understood the purpose for that particular sequence. It is likely the Sentinel's scanners detected and identified the Jarn DNA as the handiwork of the Zin and therefore concluded that we are the enemy. And it's also likely the Jarn fleet has a DNA cloaking device, since the Sentinel failed to attack them."

So the Sentinel's programming hadn't broken down. It had recognized what the Federation people had not-that the Jarn were an ally of the Zin. And so the Sentinel had concluded that since the Verazen had a Jarn aboard, they must all be the enemy. No wonder the machine had fired on them.

"So you see, Captain. We had no choice but to try and stop your mission."

"You could have sacrificed your world."

232.

The Jarn hung his head in shame, then jerked up his chin, his eyes flashing defiance.

"Is that the choice you would have made? To slay every man, woman, and child on your planet?"

Zical's gaze burned into the scientist's. "I don't know. Why did you tell me now?"

"Guilt" The Jarn shrugged. "Maybe I want your forgiveness. And to warn you.''

"Warn me?"

"The Jarn fleet has already begun shutting down the Sentinels. It's only a matter of time until the Zin invade. My telling you their plan... is my death sentence." The Jarn's scales turned white. His double-lidded eyes closed and he fell to the deck.

One of the armed crewmen stepped forward and felt for a heartbeat. "He's dead, Captain."

Dora's, lower jaw dropped The Jarn had given his life to tell them the Zin's plan. If she hadn't been so upset by the sudden turn of events, she would have seen the obvious much sooner. Dr. Laduna wanted the Federation to stop the Jarn fleet, reprogram the Sentinels, and stop the Zin.

Dora's anger turned to compa.s.sion for Dr. Laduna's untenable position. He had had to make a dreadful choice. And now they had to find away to get past the fleet and undo the damage the Jarn had done to the Sentinels, in order to stop the Zin invasion.

Zical glanced at her. "Dora, I need you to link with Ranth."

"What do you want us to do?" she asked, even as she linked with the computer, taking a bit of comfort in the instant rapport she shared with the machine and welcoming the numbing of her fears. It was a relief to leave behind much of her sadness over so many deaths on the two lost planets, as well as Dr. Laduna's betrayal and sacrifice, as she merged with Ranth.