James Somers - Heir to the King

"So what are we doing here?"

"There was a separate computer database in the King's quarters with its own link to the solar panels. Since they're still operating, I'm hoping the database is functioning as well. It may provide us with some answers."

Orin tried the electronic keypad, but there was no response. Tiet quickly ignited one of his kemsticks and sliced an oval shaped hole into the door. He kicked the cut piece inward, and bending down, he went through the opening. Orin followed and they could clearly see a luxurious abode. It reminded him of home, but it had been so long ago. Orin made his way to a certain place on the rock wall and depressed two separate points that were far enough apart so as to be almost unreachable at the same time. A digital keypad rotated out of the wall before him. It still had power and Orin quickly typed in the words: Barudii, Soone, vaseer 1. A panel slid back in the wall to reveal an information display. A list of categories for searching the database appeared on the screen.

"Good, the code works here too. That means your family ruled here as well, somehow," said Orin.

"Well, where do we start?" asked Tiet.

"How about with those strange spheres we encountered?"

Orin typed in the word sphere and instantly a list of subcategories scrolled across the display. Among the data entries were schematics and weapon systems capabilities for a massive attack vehicle. It must have measured three miles in diameter and looked just like the smaller spheres they had witnessed earlier destroying the space fleet of the Vorn.

They were shocked to see that it was the long dead Barudii of this planet that had constructed the huge machine. They scanned page after page of data, hardly able to believe what was being stated.

"Hard to believe they built this thing," said Tiet in amazement.

"To fight the Vorn, or avenge themselves. Either way, a very deadly weapon to unleash on anyone."

"Yeah, but we never saw this one; only the smaller drones."

"But you can be sure it's out there," said Orin. "It's probably directly responsible for the destruction of the Vorn space station. It appears they launched it just prior to being wiped out by the Vorn. It was sent to attack the Vorn home world of Demigoth and then pursue the remaining Vorn and destroy them anywhere that it found them."

A small illuminated box on the display began to blink as Orin continued scanning the data. He tapped the box with his finger, causing more data to appear.

"This appears to be a live feed from the Sphere itself."

"Look at that tactical map. Isn't that Mt. Vaseer and the Saberhawk in the valley to the south of us?"

"Yes, and on a direct trajectory from the large Sphere down to the valley is a massive group of those drones!"

"Look at that, coming in from the northern pass. It looks like a ground army and they are heading toward the southern valley, too!"

"Orin to Saberhawk, dust off immediately! I say dust off immediately! Enemy forces are closing rapidly on your position!"

"We've got to get down there to them," shouted Tiet as he scrambled out of the room and down the corridor.

Orin followed, while still trying to get through to the ship, but there was only static.

Suddenly he heard a reply.

"Millo to Orin…are you there?"

"Yes Millo! I hear you! There are two different groups of combatants converging on your location. You've got to get yourselves out of there now!" shouted Orin into the headset as he tried to keep up with Tiet through the corridors leading to the surface.

"I've got them on scans already. Shields are at maximum and weapons systems have been armed. I'm trying to lift off but some of those drones are already within visual range and closing fast on us."

"Do your best. We're on our way!"

When Tiet and Orin reached the main gate, they found it blasted almost completely away. As the pair emerged into the open air again they could already hear the noise of battle in the valley below. Many of the spheres were engaged in combat with the hovering Saberhawk. It appeared to be pinned down by the swarm of drones strafing at it with their energy weapons.

The other group of spheres landing in the valley threw large arms out of their sides that lifted their bodies and acted as legs to carry them and fight with. Blasters popped out of the tops to lay down laser fire against the masses of Horva.

The pass from the north to the southern valley was flooded completely with ground forces that greatly resembled the Horva, but Tiet noticed that these were different. They were dark skinned men like the Vorn but stronger looking and they wore uniforms and moved more like an organized fighting force; not like the brutes they had encountered back home at all. They were utilizing pulse weapons to fire on the sphere robots as the two sides of the struggle engaged one another.

The Horva were swarming in massive numbers upon the large robots, who in turn were spraying them with wave after wave of automatic laser fire. Tiet could see that the Horva were also using similar portable shield generators like the ones used by the Barudii.

They moved in close to engage the sphere robots with larger pulse cannons mounted upon hydraulic arms that attached to their vests. The pulse cannons were doing some definite damage to the hulking robots. It appeared to Orin as though the pulse wavelength was modulating continually to match the shield wavelengths of the robots, allowing them to penetrate.

All of the combatants were laying siege to the Saberhawk, even though the Horva and the sphere robots were more interested in each other. Tiet ran down the main path of the city toward the valley with Orin following hard after him. The Saberhawk was hovering about forty feet off of the ground but the sky above them was too congested with enemy vessels to get clear of the battle.

Tiet could see that the ship was returning fire in all directions, but it was greatly outnumbered on the battlefield. He knew that their shields were losing power reserves fast at this pace, and before long they would be taking hits directly to the hull and it would all be over.

Tiet was running with all his might to get to her; to protect her. He leapt away from the path from a nearby ledge that took a drop thirty feet down to the fighting already raging below. He landed right in the middle of a group of several Horva that were firing on a distant sphere robot. They immediately reacted to his presence, bringing their weapons to bear on him.

His kemsticks leapt to his hands as he landed among them. He sliced one rifle in two, severing its owners hand at the wrist while deflecting another shot at point blank range. He swept downward under the barrel of one of them who fired and killed another Horva that had been standing ready on the other side, and with a complete sweep of his kemstick, cut the Horva down at the knees. He wasted little time dispatching two others, and then quickly moved onward to try and get to the Saberhawk.

"WE'RE the biggest thing out here!" said Millo in frustration.

Dorian blasted away at the weapons controls while Millo looked for a clearing in the congestion overhead.

"If we're so big, then can't we just plow through those other ships?"

"After seeing those spheres ramming into the Vorn ships I'd rather not take any chances. I'm going to try and move us out of the battle at this altitude."

"Well, you better hurry; our shields are already down to thirty percent power!"

The battlefield was overrun with Horva warriors, fighting furiously against the robots. Although the Horva were taking heavy losses, they continued to blast away at the automatons. For every twenty or more Horva getting killed, a robot was brought down. The Horva vastly outnumbered the robots and at least thirty thousand had rushed into the valley by now.