obey, her faceplate blank as she helped the gasping human to his feet. No one spoke, the tension in the group so high that just one spark could set a blaze going.
It took a door opening ahead of them to break it. Keeping his arm around Indra, Nyek started toward it in silence, his head held high. Indra caught Gracie’s worried look and shook her head. She could deal with Nyek. She would deal with him. No one else needed to get involved.
The door opened into another corridor, but this one had windows all down one side. Indra sucked in a breath at the scene laid out before them. The windows looked out onto a large hall filled with row upon row of huge combat bots.
“Drakeen,” Nyek breathed at her side, his voice hushed with awe. “I’ve never seen so many of them in one place.”
“They look like bigger versions of the ones back on the ship.” Indra kept a step or two back from the windows, chills crawling down her spine. She’d thought the things were bad enough in motion, but to see them sitting there, not moving. It was somehow worse.
The door at the end of the corridor opened and they moved on hurriedly. Beyond it was a large room. The center was dominated by a large table with screens embedded in it with more stations around the walls. One entire wall of the room was glass, opening onto a view of… Indra wasn’t entirely sure what she was seeing. It looked almost like the inside of a beehive with rows upon rows of hexagon cells in spiral formation rising from way below their level to far above.
“Whoa, this place looks like some fancy starship bridge. You know, one of those top-of-the-line warshi—” Gracie stopped midway through her sentence, obviously realizing that human tech was a lot less sophisticated than Latharian technology.
“This was to be the savior of the Latharian people,” a new voice sounded behind them, making them all jump and turn to aim. Three red laser sights speared the chest of a woman standing behind them. Indra frowned. How the hell had she managed to creep up on them?
Then the woman flickered and she realized they were looking at a hologram. An incredibly lifelike, realistic hologram, but a hologram nonetheless. She wore a long flowing gown, her hair piled on top of her head in delicate curls pinned by jeweled flowers. Instantly Indra felt grubby and dowdy. Shit… if this was what Latharian women looked like, why the hell was Nyek interested in her?
“Are you the avatar of the base, or of the AI we recovered?” Nyek asked, lowering his weapon.
“I am… was Miisan K’Saan,” the woman stated. “Thank you for recovering me from the shuttle and bringing me here. I was… somewhat cramped in such a tiny vessel. This base suits me much better.”
The two warriors rushed to intake breath. Indra slid a glance sideways to Nyek.
“Does that mean something?” she asked in an undertone.
“Miisan K’Saan was the emperor’s litaan,” he murmured. “His twin sister. She’s been dead for years.” He raised his voice, addressing the woman in front of them.
“You mean you are an AI modelled to look like the Lady K’Saan?”
She shook her head, a small smile on her lips. “I was created with active brain scans mapped onto an advanced-level AI neural network. I am Miisan K’Saan in all things apart from the biological.”
Nyek inclined his head. “Then greetings, Lady K’Saan. Can I ask… why have you brought us here? And why now? You were installed in a shuttle before. You had ample time to reveal your presence and the location of this base.”
The woman walked forward and Indra felt the instant tension in her alien lover. He held his ground, not moving as she reached him but standing right in front of them as she searched his face.
“The time was not right before. Nor were the warriors I met… the fact they were warriors. I do not need Latharian warriors.”
She looked directly at Indra and smiled. “I need women. Welcome to T’Razed, Indra of the Tazvarth.” Her gaze moved on to find Gracie. “Gracie of the Shadows. Your arrival was foretold by our high priestesses many generations ago.”
“Whoa, whoa… time out,” Indra backpedaled, sweeping a hand through her hair. “How the fuck do you know our names? And where we’re from. I never told anyone what my gang affiliation was.”
“Yeah.” Gracie’s voice was hard. “I’ve not been part of the Shadows