The Chronicles of Soone - Warrior Rising Read online

saw laser fire flashing repeatedly through the bridge windows. “No!”

  The ship fell back from its escape run and began descending onto the battlefield. If they didn’t recover quickly they would crash for sure, and Tiet was too far away to do anything to help them. Several men approached Tiet to attack. He repelled them all with a blast of his mental power.

  Tiet reached out in desperation with his mind, trying to seize the ship and keep it aloft, but the Saberhawk’s engines fought to drive it downward into the valley floor. The ship slammed into the ground, crushing several of the sphere robots and dozens of clone warriors caught in its path. The Saberhawk burst into several large pieces as it tumbled over twice. Tiet felt his strength slip away as he watched Dorian going down to her death in a fireball.

  He burst away from his position, running as hard as he ever had. Tiet closed the distance between himself and the wreckage. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew Dorian was not dead. Tiet sensed her location in the wreckage as he drew near. He could feel her pain.

  From the wreckage before him, a familiar adversary emerged with the majority of its synthetic skin burned away. The android was here—it had caused this. It had hurt her. Before the robot even spotted him, Tiet hit it with a mental burst fueled by pure rage, sending the robot flying into a large section of the Saberhawk’s hull. Before the android could recover, Tiet leaped through the air and came down on top of it. He pinned its head to the wreckage with his blade, driving the weapon in all the way to the hilt. The android body jerked with mechanical aftershocks then moved no more.

  Tiet backed away and went searching for Dorian. He found her pinned underneath a metal support pillar. He pulled underneath the edge of the metal trying to move it. Using his mental power for added strength, he got it off her and let it fall a few feet away. Dorian looked at him, barely conscious. She tried to speak, but did not have the strength.

  Tiet sat next to her speechless as tears welled in his eyes and escaped down his anguished face. He held her hand and felt it grow cold as life left her body. Dorian reached to touch the donjarr on Tiet’s wrist then she touched his lips. Her fingertips lingered there only a moment. Her arm fell limp as the focus of her gaze faded. Tiet’s mind raged apart from any coherent thought. He became numb to his senses.

  The one who had loved him and chosen him above any of her clan was dead. Sorrow filled his mind and despair gripped his heart. Tiet only half heard the battle raging around him. Then he heard familiar heavy footsteps running across the wreckage, too heavy for a man. He looked at the robot. It was still lifeless and pinned to the hull by his sword. Then he looked toward the approaching sound and saw another android running at him, its own blade ready to strike.

  Tiet reached out for his sword, still lodged in the other android’s metal cranium. It obediently dislodged itself and leaped through the air to his hand in time to meet the second android’s strike. He wondered only a moment why there were so many of these things running around. The fight was on. Tiet slashed furiously at the deadly android, finding every strike countered. He exploded with rage as the thought of Dorian lying here dead on the battlefield tore through his mind. He screamed out in fury at the robot. “Die!”

  His rage burst forth as a wave of psychokinetic energy hitting the third android with astonishing force, sending it flying through the air into a pile of the Saberhawk’s wreckage. Tiet had never felt so powerful. His anger fueled his mental power and he could not contain it. The Vale android regained its composure and attacked again. Tiet lowered his father’s blade to his side and let the power flow freely. The Vale robot came closer, ready to kill its target. Then the Barudii blade it was carrying was torn from its grasp.

  The android stopped for a moment confused. Tiet looked on with grim satisfaction. He summoned the wreckage around him to attack the robot.

  Man-sized pieces of debris flew off the ground toward Vale, striking the robot repeatedly. The jagged hunks of metal tore away the androids veneer of humanity, exposing the adomen skeleton beneath. The projectiles pummeled the robot again and again, tearing off an arm and parts of its torso.

  Tiet scowled at his prey as he launched the mental attack, but nothing could dull the pain of losing Dorian. He hurled his blade at the robot. The sword pierced its adomen skull, driving hilt deep into the android’s head. The android fell over and did not move again. The battle still raged on around him. But Tiet knelt near Dorian’s body and sobbed.

 

 

  GROD

  Malec surveyed his monitors again to be sure. It was never a good idea to give the General premature information. He was a great leader, but not a patient man. “General, the weapons are fully charged and we have locked onto the orbital location of the giant Barudii Sphere,” he said.

  Grod did not acknowledge his words at all. He was watching a scene on the battlefield he had not expected to see.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Malec, I heard you,” Grod replied.

  “Shall I order the weapons to fire, General? “

  “Wait just a moment.”

  “But, sir, the window of opportunity is closing fast. Our junk satellites will drift beyond the Sphere’s location if we don’t act now,” Malec said with more urgency.

  General Grod was focused on the battlefield again.

  “General?”

  “Yes, Malec, order the detonation. Malec, do you see that person down there near the wreckage of that ship?” he asked as he handed him the binocs. “I believe that is another Barudii warrior.”

  “Sir? But they have been…”

  “I realize that. Nevertheless, he possesses the Barudii power.” He paused. “Destroy the Sphere, Malec, but afterward I want that man brought into custody.”

  “Yes, sir. It will be done”

  General Grod raised a long range rifle and brought the scope to bear on the young Barudii. He knelt in the wreckage of an old Barudii warship holding the body of a woman. Grod aimed his weapon and fired a single shot at the young man.

  ☼

 

  Malec activated the special electromagnetic pulse weapons in orbit. The weapons, disguised as old junk satellites, drifted into the giant Sphere, magnetically attaching themselves as it controlled its drones on the planet below. The Sphere, busy with the surface battle, sensed no threat from the objects. Malec hit the destruct key.

  ☼

  One instant later, an electromagnetic pulse enveloped the Barudii sphere, frying its circuitry in a devastating release of energy. The electromagnetic wave penetrated to the core of the giant Sphere module and laid waste to every electronic circuit it came into contact with.

  The Sphere never saw it coming. All power failed and the control of its drones ceased.

  ☼

  On the battlefield, the sphere drones became confused and unable to fight. The air drones flew off course and began to crash into the battlefield. Orin was still engaged with the Horva, taking on as many as he could, when he noticed the change in the robots and the air drones. The clones tore down the mech-robots without receiving any retaliation while the air drones crashed around them.

  Orin ran for the cover of the surrounding ridges. The battlefield had suddenly turned into pure chaos. He only hoped Tiet had found cover. A drone smashed into a group of Horva near Orin. The blast from the impact sent wreckage flying in every direction. The debris cut down the men and showered a mound of dirt and wreckage over Orin.

  ☼

  The carnage was over quickly, and the battlefield quieted down as the men who remained alive began to reorganize and look to the wounded. The badly injured were dispatched on the spot. Those able to carry their own weight rejoined ranks with General Grod.

  He smiled at the outcome of his plan. Victory was well within his grasp now. The destroyer was gone and only the Vorn remained. And they were proving to be no match. It had been a foolish thing for their masters to place all of their military hopes on their clone slaves. And now Grod gave them no
choice—their muscle was taking over.

  “Well done, Malec. Now fetch my Barudii prize and return him to the laboratory complex at Nagon-toth.”

  “Yes, sir. General, we’re picking up a massive object in orbital decay. It will hit the atmosphere within the hour.”

  “Very good.”

  ☼

  The giant Barudii sphere could be seen to the west within forty minutes. Fire trailed away as the atmosphere burned away most of its mass. The remaining charred wreckage would eventually drop into the Waron Sea to the northeast, approximately three hundred and twenty miles from the battlefield at Mount Vaseer.

  Malec led the armed group to the wreckage of the Saberhawk and gathered up the unconscious Barudii warrior Grod had brought down with a tranq-round. One of the soldiers pulled the female body away from him then they bound and fastened the unconscious warrior within a shielded capsule for transport to the heavily fortified complex at Nagon-Toth. The General was already leading the remaining Horva troops toward their home base. There they would begin regrouping with more clones in order to execute the General’s next objectives against the Vorn.

  ☼

 

  By the time Orin regained consciousness, the battle was over. It was earlier in the day than it had been during the battle, letting him know he had laid there overnight. A large piece of drone wreckage had landed across