Valyien Box Set 2, page 38
part #4 of Valyien Series
“No time for sodding heroics!” a voice echoed down the tunnel above them, and there, as they looked up, they saw two drone-shapes descending on the blast of micro boosters. They were Armcore drones, four-pointed with boosters and long under-slung legs like a crane flies, and the section manager recognized them from being equipment of the Endurance.
“Irie?” Eliard said, puzzled, as the first drone flexed its legs and seized him by the shoulders before it started to rise again as the other drone carefully maneuvered to seize the section manager.
“What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? I repaired Ponos—a little, anyway—and when I realized that the Valyien warp gate was masking electrical signals, I devised a piggyback system to override it. That’s how I sent these two buzzfly drones down to get you. It’s pretty ingenious, really…” Eliard heard her say.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” the captain interrupted. “But I’m glad that you do.”
The ‘buzzfly’ drones swept up the ice tunnel much faster than Eliard had rappelled down it, and within no time, it had returned them back to the large tunnel they had created with the drone, and they were heading up to the surface. There were flashes of light up ahead, and the captain couldn’t work out if it was lightning from the storm or something else.
“Burn-offs on the Mercury,” Irie explained. “Once I managed to get a scan to retrieve your signal, I realized you were in hot trouble and told them to ready the engines. You’ll be rendezvousing in five, four, three, two…” his chief engineer said from the metallic voice of the buzzfly drone.
Up ahead, the ice storms seemed to have gotten nothing if not worse, but with a sudden flash of flame and light, Eliard saw the contrasted silhouette of his beloved Mercury Blade, already rising a few meters from the air.
“Get those loading bay doors open!” he screamed as the buzzfly drones were buffeted by the winds. He watched as they started to creak open as the winds howled, and the ice beneath them shook.
Or was it just the fact that I’m flying? he wondered as the cold bit into his unshielded face. No… The ground beneath them was definitely quivering, and Eliard wondered if he could even see distant flashes down there.
Is that the warp gate? Is it exploding?
“One!” his excited engineer called as, with perfect timing, the Mercury Blade managed to swing toward them in the air, its loading bay doors half-open as the two flying humans shot inside like balls caught by a glove.
“Go!” the captain heard Irie shout as he landed awkwardly. The buzzfly drone fell from his back, its use finished for now.
For a long moment, the captain just lay on the grillwork metal floor of his own ship as the loading bay doors slowly closed, and the boosters kicked in to send the Blade screaming through the teeth of the ice storm of Epsilon G3-ov.
Eliard didn’t know where they were going, he also didn’t know where they could go if that big ball of warp plasma down there exploded, but just for the briefest of moments, he looked up at the familiar bulkheads and ceiling of his ship, the Mercury Blade, and felt like he had returned home.
THANK YOU
Thank you so much for reading the A.I. Uprising Boxed Set which contains books four through six in the Valyien Far Future Space Opera series. I am so excited you took the chance to read the stories and I really hope you liked them. If you could leave a review for me, that would be awesome because it helps me tell others about my books.
The adventure continues in the next book, Warp Gate. I’m sure you have many questions like ‘What’s on the other side of the warp gate?’ so head over to Amazon and download it now.
Get Warp Gate here:
amazon.com/dp/B07L2Q13VS/
You can also get the next three books in the series in the Time Warp Boxed Set.
Order the Time Warp Boxed Set here:
amazon.com/dp/B07NZ2G975
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James David Victor, Valyien Box Set 2
