James Somers - Heir to the King

He knew that once Estall's forces came within ten miles of the Vorn facility, even these small craft would be detected by their defense systems. The Vorn long-range phase cannons could be employed at up to seven miles, but if the transports remained scattered enough perhaps the Vorn would have difficulty hitting them.

The Aolene were a brave people. They had faced the adversity of Vorn attacks on their cities and survived to become an even stronger people through the study of the Barudii fighting arts. Though they lacked the kinetic abilities of the Barudii, the Aolene certainly reminded him of those long dead warriors in spirit. As they steadily approached the Capital, he hoped he would not witness the loss of another brave people today.

GOVERNOR Kisch k'ta looked very worried now. This was exactly the kind of situation he had been hoping to avoid by sending out the android assassin. His confidence in its ability may have been premature.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes Governor. The city's perimeter defense systems just picked up these forces ten minutes ago. They appear to have originated from one of the old Barudii cities. They'll be within nine miles by now."

"Activate the defensive batteries at once. Destroy them all," demanded Kisch k'ta.

Setaru' lek pressed the intercom button on the Governor's desk and patched into the city's defensive control room.

"Vescotta, lock on approaching targets and fire at will."

"Yes, Sir."

Defensive laser cannons on the west side of the city came alive as the gunners worked to lock on the approaching vehicles. They were still out of visual range to the naked eye, but were quite visible to the Vorn scanners.

"Sir, the vehicles are widely dispersed and too small to get a positive lock while they are moving at this speed."

"Tell the turrets to strafe across their flight path. That should take out some of them," said Vescotta.

The large laser cannons expelled their massive firepower with great moans of energy buildup and release. The beams trailed away from the city and into the twilight, toward their distant targets.

RANUL caught what he thought was heat lightening in his peripheral vision just as a massive beam of energy lit up the terrain ahead of their transport group. The beam rapidly cut a horizontal track across their path, catching two transports along the way. They burst into fiery fragments as inertia carried them onward, distributing the burning wreckage along their previous flight paths.

The transport group scattered even further apart as more laser fire blasted at them from the city in the distance. The pilots began making very erratic maneuvers to try and evade the assault. Estall grabbed the communication hand set and yelled into the mike. "Increase speed to full throttle! Evasive maneuvers!"

The entire transport group geared up to full throttle, making them even harder to hit. They were still three miles outside of the Capital, and closing fast.

A beam of energy blazed near Estall's transport, cutting across their flight path just after they passed. Too close, and suddenly Ranul realized why he liked being a scientist rather than a warrior. The city perimeter was coming up fast now. Estall and the others in the transport prepared their firearms for battle. It appeared most of the ships had made it through the gauntlet and were now too close to be targeted by the large cannons, which suddenly fell silent.

Another barrage of fire began to sweep across the distance between their transports and the Vorn facility. But now it came from the hundreds of sentinel robots around the facility's perimeter that were firing upon them.

Pulse laser blasts began to ring out from the transports as they returned the enemy fire. The shots were impacting the forward deflectors as Estall pushed on through the line of sentinels with their ship. The deflector shield bounced the robots out of their way as they rammed their way through. The warriors activated their electromagnetic shields and hurried out of the transports, firing their pulse weapons at the sentinels.

The robots were taking multiple hits, but weren't being stopped. The sentinels' armaments were too much for handheld pulse rifles to be effective against them. As the robots approached, their own guns still blazing, the Aolene warriors began to secure their rifles in favor of the Barudii blades and kemsticks. More and more warriors ignited their blades and, putting shields ahead, they moved into the oncoming sentinels.

The E.M. shields gave them cover as they closed the distance needed to strike. The Barudii blades sliced through the sentinel armor like butter. Robot after robot was dispatched by the powerful blows of the Aolene warriors. The sentinels appeared helpless to stop the Aolene advance as robots were cut down by their human foes.

Estall shouted for the other warriors as several hundred came against the cloning facility's wall. Using handheld grapples; they fired them over the perimeter of the roof and quickly began to scale the walls. Ranul didn't like this part one bit. He detested heights. And he didn't enjoy being pulled up the height of this wall any more than he had being pushed off by Orin the night before. When the warriors all reached the roof, they quickly moved across to various ventilation shafts and sliced open the vent heads, allowing them to enter. Estall instructed them to fan out through the facility and take the main control room.

"Whoever gets to it first, contact me."

Ranul stayed glued to him as they all plunged into the dark maze of tunnels comprising the facility's ventilation system.

"GOVERNOR, the facility has been breeched by enemy forces," said Setaru' lek. "They have bypassed our ground forces at the building entrances and are moving through the ventilation system. Several floors are reporting gunfire and others are not communicating at all."

"Get more forces up here at once!"

Behind the room's ventilation screen, Estall, Ranul, and several warriors listened.

"That's him," whispered Ranul. "That's Governor Kisch k'ta. If you can take him, you'll control the entire facility."

Estall ran at the vent screen and crashed through it, rolling into the room. The other warriors followed, as several sentinels came to life, firing upon them. Their E.M. shields repelled the laser blasts while they engaged the robots with ignited blades.

The Governor and Setaru' lek, along with several other Vorn were all crouched on the ground in fear. The Governor's office door slid open allowing several Horva guards to move inside. Like sleek predators, they leapt at the Aolene warriors, attacking furiously. One of the Aolene near the entrance was caught from behind by one of the clones as it plunged a knife into his throat. The wounds were fast and fatal; and the dark skinned clone kept moving.

Ranul blasted at the Horva with several bursts of pulse laser fire from his crouched position just inside the vent shaft, dropping the clone, then he turned to face two other Horva that were already making their approach.

The Horva swiped its dagger at him as he brought his ignited blade up to defend himself, causing the brute man to sever his own hand upon Estall's weapon. As the Horva recoiled in pain, Estall followed through with a quick thrust through its chest to dispatch the clone. As the last Horva lunged at the third warrior, Vasad, it met a spicor disc in flight, which vaporized the majority of its body. Ranul leveled his pulse rifle on Governor Kisch k'ta.

"Hello Governor…surprised to see me?"

"I should have fed you and your family to the Horva long ago, Ranul."

"Governor Kisch k'ta, you will broadcast to your other forces to stand down immediately or you and your people here will suffer and then you will all be executed for crimes against my people," said Estall.