Alliance (3 page)

He is cut off when the catwalk we are on
shakes under our feet. We both grab the bars, but it is useless
because in the next moment, the catwalk falls out from under our
feet. Sir Alart falls, but I try to activate the jets in my feet to
keep afloat, although as Sir Alart falls he grabs onto my ankles
and we both fall to the floor below.

Sir Alart hits the floor before I do, and
I land on top of him. Sir Alart groans under me, while I look
around in time to see Jornan's dwarves surround us, drawing out
their weapons; small battle hammers, double-bladed axes, and bronze
knuckles. None of those weapons are very high-tech; however, there
are enough of those dwarves surrounding us that they do not need
high-tech weapons to kill us.

Sir Alart and I scramble to our feet,
drawing our own weapons out to defend ourselves, even though I run
the numbers and realize that we cannot defeat them all on our own.
We stand back-to-back, carefully watching the growling and
angry-looking dwarves who look more than ready to kill us.

Jornan walks up at that moment, just
outside of the dwarf circle, holding up one of her rings, a blue
one, which glows softly in the dark warehouse.

“
Did you two honestly
believe I didn't expect you Knights to try to track me down?” asks
Jornan in an amused voice. “Or that I wouldn't ruin your surprise
by using one of my rings to make the catwalk fall apart under you?
I'm not that much of an idiot, though I will admit that I didn't
expect you to have brought along one of those stupid J bots from
Xeeo with you.”

“
Did you also block off
our communicators?” asks Sir Alart, brandishing his silver-white
sword at the dwarves, though it only drives them back temporarily,
because they then return to their original positions, looking
angrier than ever.

“
That I did, Sir
Knight,” says Jornan as she stops just outside of our circle of
dwarves. She raises all ten of her rings and flexes her fingers.
“It was a simple task, casting a spell that blocks all
communication between here and the outside, but sometimes the
simplest spells are the best, wouldn't you say?”

“
Miss Jornan, you are
still under arrest,” I respond, resting my finger on the trigger of
my PRB. “You and every dwarf here are under arrest for the illegal
possession and smuggling of super speed drugs.”

“
J997, is that really
what we should be focusing on at the moment?” asks Sir Alart. “Not,
you know, figuring out how to survive against these criminals when
we're so badly outnumbered?”

“
Your Knight friend has
a good point,” says Jornan. “We know that we are all going to jail
if we get caught. That's why I am going to have my men here take
you two apart piece by piece.”

She gestures at her dwarves and snaps,
“What are you idiots standing around wasting time for? Kill these
two and make it quick. We don't have time to waste killing these
fools, as fun as it would be to drag out their deaths.”

***

Chapter
2

T
he dwarves move in on us, swinging
their weapons with the ferocity of a barbarian horde. I fire my PRB
at one, which knocks him out, while Sir Alart swipes at another
criminal with his sword, knocking that dwarf's battle hammer out of
his hands and causing the criminal to curse in Dwarfish, though I
pay no attention to it because of the other dwarves still moving
toward us.

I aim my PRB again and fire, but the
dwarves must have seen what happened to their comrade earlier,
because they scatter before my laser can hit them. One of the
dwarves jumps at me from the side, swinging his ax at me, but I
dodge it by stepping aside, allowing the dwarf to smash his ax
against the stone floor.

But then another dwarf swings his hammer
at me, striking me in the shins. I feel no pain, but the force of
the blow does knock me off-balance, forcing me to swing my arms
through the air in order to regain my balance. This leaves me open
to attack from his allies, who move in with their hammers and axes,
yelling and screaming obscenities at me in Dwarfish, but I choose
not to translate them because that would distract me
unnecessarily.

I stagger backwards out of their reach,
their weapons missing me by mere inches. I take aim with my PRB
again, but then my sensors pick up another dwarf coming at me from
the right. Before I can turn to stop him, his ax comes flying at my
hands and knocks my PRB out of them, sending it skittering across
the floor out of my reach before another dwarf steps on it with his
foot, smashing it in half and effectively making it useless.

Two more dwarves come at me, one from
behind and another from the front, but they are under the mistaken
belief that because I am unarmed, I am no longer dangerous. I am
about to prove them wrong.

I tap my chest, sending a signal through
my body. An electrical barrier erupts from my form about three feet
on every side. The barrier is a defense mechanism all J bots have,
one we rarely use, but when we need it, it's always there and
always useful.

The dwarves who come at me run into the
barrier and get electrocuted. They scream in pain and fall to the
ground, while the other dwarves stand back to avoid suffering the
same fate as their comrades. They look like they want to run,
because they clearly have no way to deal with my barrier, but they
also don't want to suffer Jornan's wrath (though I do not see
Jornan anywhere, oddly enough).

Then the dwarves run around me. I turn
around and see that they are running toward Sir Alart, who I had
almost forgotten about during the struggle. He is fighting two
dwarves at once, using his sword to block their hammers and axes.
His sword glows, probably from the skyras energy flowing through,
because I see a cord running from his metalligick armor to the
handle of his blade.

But as good a fighter as Sir Alart may
have been, he is outnumber by the remaining dwarves. I see their
plan now. They know they can't touch me while I use this barrier,
so they are going after Sir Alart, who they can touch, instead.

Because we are allies, I cannot allow the
dwarves to murder Sir Alart. I drop the barrier and point my
fingers at the dwarves rushing to kill him. I unleash electric
bolts from my fingertips, which strike the dwarves in the backs and
cause them all to fall to the floor, stunned by the attack.

“
Thanks!” Sir Alart
shouts my way as he continues to fight the remaining dwarves. “Now
are you just going to stand there or are you going to come and help
me?”

I take a step forward to help, but then my
sensors warn me of a sudden spike in skyras energy behind me. I
jump to the side, avoiding a rock spire that bursts through the
floor where I stood, which sends up bits of wood and stone through
the air. The spire would have impaled me if I had not moved, though
I do not know where it comes from until I look and see Jornan
standing on top of one of the nearby crates, her rings glowing on
her fingers.

“
Lucky,” Jornan sneers,
raising her hands above her head as energy crackled from her rings.
“But you won't be so lucky when I fry you like a fish.”

Once again, her skyras levels spike, this
time almost going off the charts. A moment later, lightning bolts
fire from her rings, thundering through the air toward me.

As quickly as I can, I tap my chest again
and my electrical barrier roars to life once more. As soon as it
does, the lightning bolts collide with the barrier.

Warning! Barrier rapidly draining power
supply. Switching to power-saving—

Denied! Divert full power into maintaining
barrier against attack. Automatic switch to power-saving
overridden.

Affirmative. Rerouting full power into
barrier.

But even as I do that, Jornan's lightning
bolts grow stronger and stronger, striking against my barrier with
more force than I expected. Even diverting my full power into the
barrier is barely enough. Xeeon crystal rapidly draining. Currently
at 51%, but is unlikely to stay at that level for long.

Must think of some way to stop Jornan's
assault. Almost impossible. With full power diverted to barrier,
thought processor is slower than normal. Power at 42%. Still
dropping. And fast.

Quickly search Jornan's files in mobile
Database. Search for weaknesses. Files claim most of Jornan's
magical abilities unknown. Not helpful.

Power overload imminent. Thirty-two
percent. Sending message to Database. Error! No connection to
Database in Dela. Cannot communicate with Knights outside of
warehouse.

“
Die, you stupid
clicker!” Jornan yells, her voice loud enough that I can hear it
even over the sound of her lightning bolts striking my barrier.
“Take this!”

Warning! Barrier about to go down!
Barrier—

A loud shattering noise, like a glass
window breaking, erupts in my audio receptors and I find myself
flying. Limbs unresponsive, I fly through one of the windows of the
warehouse and crash into the street outside.

The sudden impact against the ground
scrambles my senses. I do a quick scan to ensure that all of my
systems are still in operating order, but discover that my power
level is now at 22% and my left leg is inoperable. Power level
falling fast.

I look around my surroundings and see the
warehouse before me and the warehouse behind me. Audio receptors
pick up sounds of Sir Alart still battling the Smugglers inside,
while Jornan's laughter—louder than normal—can be heard above the
crackling of her lightning bolts.

I struggle to rise to my feet in order to
help, but my damaged left leg makes that impossible. I nonetheless
manage a sitting position, but am unable to make repairs due to a
lack of proper tools. Systems scan suggests leg is broken at the
knee, which is useless information for me to know because I cannot
repair it myself at the moment.

Need to find other Knights and inform them
of Jornan's attack. Am puzzled that apparently none of them hear
the sounds of battle within. Perhaps Jornan has cast a silencing
spell around the warehouse's perimeter as well? Worth investigating
later.

I grab onto a nearby crate and use it to
help me stand, but I am unable to walk because my left leg is still
broken. Nor can I fly, because flying with only one leg is too
dangerous. Require a walking stick of some sort for me to lean on
while I walk, but scanners show that there is nothing I can use
within my immediate vicinity to do that.

Therefore, I lean against the wall of the
warehouse, which will have to do for now until I can get my leg
repaired or find a suitable stick to help me stand. I hop along on
my one good foot, my other leg dangling uselessly behind me, while
listening to the sounds of battle raging within the warehouse.

But my progress is slow, despite my
efforts. The street is rough and uneven, with trash littered across
it. It reminds me of Xeeon back home, although Ra-Dela has
noticeably less litter than my home city does. Perhaps there is a
reason for that.

In any case, I hop along as fast as I can,
hoping I can find the other Knights quickly enough to inform them
of this recent turn of events. While I cannot guarantee Sir Alart's
survival anymore, I can at least ensure that we arrest a few of
Jornan's dwarves, perhaps even Jornan herself if we are fast
enough.

That is when I notice someone in
metalligick armor lying on the ground not far from me. It appears
to be one of the other Knights of Se-Dela, which is good, because I
did not think I would find one so quickly. All I need to do is tell
him about what has happened and then we can use his communicator to
tell the rest of the Knights to attack.

“
Sir Knight!” I call as
I hop along, raising one hand to my mouth to help increase the
volume of my voice. “It's me, J997! Our ally, Sir Alart, is on his
own against Jornan and her dwarves in that place. Use your
communicator to inform the rest of the Knights about this so we can
attack together and hopefully save Sir Alart's life.”

The Knight does not so much as budge on
the ground. He appears to be ignoring me, but something about his
stillness makes me think otherwise.

I stop and continue to lean against the
warehouse's exterior as I look down on the still Knight. I activate
my sensors, with which I scan the Knight to see if I can determine
why he is not moving.

According to my sensors, this Knight is
dead. His heart is not beating, his lungs have ceased inhaling and
exhaling air, and his throat appears to have been slit by some kind
of knife, although I am unable to determine what kind of knife was
used to kill him.

In addition, I spot his communicator next
to him. It has been irreparably crushed into pieces, appearing as
if an individual of great weight had stepped on it. I see claw
marks in the earth, but they are impossible to identify due to the
crashed communicator covering them.

As a machine, I am incapable of feeling
the kind of horror that most organic beings feel whenever they find
the corpse of a fellow organic. I do, however, note that this
Knight's death complicates the mission and also implies that there
may be another reason why the other Knights did not come to our aid
when Sir Alart and I started the assault.

I scan the Knight's corpse again. This
scan shows traces of slime, with flakes of leathery Grand Lizard
skin on his neck near the slit. Odd, because Grand Lizards are
known only to exist on Xeeo, near the Dead Lands. Yet this evidence
would suggest that this Knight was slain by a Grand Lizard, which
makes no sense at all.

It is possible that I might be mistaking
the traces of Grand Lizard skin with something else, but I doubt
it. The Grand Lizard species exists native only on Xeeo, and even
on Xeeo, is only found in the Dead Lands near the city of Xeeon. It
is even illegal to transport endangered native Xeeonite animal
species to Dela, yet now I cannot deny the obvious evidence of a
Grand Lizard's involvement in this Knight's death.