Sentinels key aelaran wa.., p.1
Sentinel's Key (Aelaran Warriors Book 3), page 1
SENTINEL’S KEY
AELARAN WARRIORS: BOOK 3
ELIN WYN
CONTENTS
Amina
Kael
Amina
Kael
Amina
Kael
Amina
Kael
Amina
Kael
Amina
Kael
Amina
Kael
Amina
Kael
Amina
Kael
Amina
Kael
Amina
Please don't forget to leave a review!
About the Author
AMINA
A quick tour of the area revealed the edge of the red dome. It cut off Camp Meriwether from Route 26. How far did it extend up Mount Hood?
I drove carefully. Close up, the dome was transparent. It was indestructible, unmoving, and I didn’t want to crash into it.
We were trapped inside while an alien invasion gathered steam.
“Drive back into the woods behind the Blackwater Research Outpost,” Kael said. “From there, we can reach the gully, and then the cabin.”
Our passenger, Misha, stared at him. She’d only seen him for a moment in his true form. Right now he was totally human looking, right?
But she’d seen too many other things that weren’t human, weren’t natural.
Well, if your definition of natural were things from Earth.
“You’re not losing your mind,” I said helpfully. “Promise.”
“Uh-huh.” She still stared at Kael. Was it this new form, or the old one that threw her?
I squeezed Kael’s hand. “We’ve got to tell her,” I insisted. “She’s seen too much to just pretend everything is normal.”
He sighed. “There’s a portal on Mount Hood,” Kael said. “It warps spacetime, collapsing what would be a journey of light years to a few moments’ travel. There is an outside force that is taking it over.” He paused for a moment. “And in the process will conquer your planet.”
Well. That was one way to wrap it all up.
“Outside force of outer space aliens?” Misha asked.
“Yep,” I said.
“Not to get personal, but you looked like an outer space alien a moment ago,” Misha pointed out.
Kael sighed. “It’s my duty to guard the portal. From both humans who might stumble onto it, and predator races who would use it for their own.”
“Spacetime portal,” she nodded. “I knew I should’ve gone into astrophysics. But geology seemed so much sexier.”
I gave the BRO facility a large margin. We could see the fenced-off parking lot as we passed behind, into the woods. From there, the ground swooped down into a gully.
Kael had modified my Land Cruiser. It twirled out its tires into long legs as we crawled down the steep sides. Misha’s eyes got big, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she faced out the back passenger window.
“Is that a bobcat chasing us?”
“CB!” I said. I forgot we’d left him waiting outside. We hadn’t anticipated being trapped in underground caves, labs and bunkers for so long. Now Kael’s robot, Companion Beta, pursued us, disguised by his own projected aura.
I stopped the truck and rolled down the window. The bobcat made an impossible leap into my lap.
“Hey, buddy. Sorry we forgot you.”
He bonged, an unhappy sound.
“You have a bobcat for a pet?” Misha tilted her head. “Wait. Was that the one that came into the diner?”
“Beta is a defense robot,” Kael said. “He’s undercover. People wouldn’t understand his true form.”
“Try me,” Misha said.
Kael blinked his eyes hard. Inside his head, he had controls for the robots, as well as his cabin, and cameras that covered the area.
CB changed into a floating sphere, metallic purple with a round blue eye. The iris swiveled at Misha.
Misha stared back. “It floats?”
“Gravity manipulation,” Kael said. “It rides on geodynamo convection currents.”
Misha nodded. “The Earth’s electromagnetic field, created in the outer metallic core. Okay! I knew geology was the way to go.”
I initially believed Kael’s cabin to be a spaceship I was abducted to. Instead, it was a regular old log cabin, with a ton of modifications inside. It stood on the bank of this gully, farther up the slope.
“Is that why you’re here, Amina? The alien invasion? Are you a FED or something? I thought you were the head of a private volcanology company.”
I scrubbed my hand over my newly shorn head.
“I am. The US Geological Survey asked me here, because the data generated by BRO looked suspicious.”
“Dr. T thought you might be a spy,” she said.
“Not a very good one,” I laughed. “BRO is supposedly a private concern, built to give towns surrounding Mount Hood more time to evacuate in case of an eruption. But from the get-go, it seemed way too well-funded. I should have turned tail after I took my initial conflicting data. Instead…”
Instead I’d been attacked by hybrids, monsters cobbled together from the DNA of local wildlife. Kael found me, saved my life. Now I was thwarting an alien invasion, uncovering strange monsters.
And falling in love with an alien.
“Where have I been? How did I miss a bunch of aliens? I mean, Dr. T did start acting like he was overdosing on allergy meds—but aliens?”
Her voice was getting higher and higher. I couldn’t really blame her.
“I’m not sure when, but you were stuffed in what looks like a giant plant leaf that makes duplicates of people.”
Misha bit her lip. “Like all those Dr Ts and Bernadettes swarming after us?”
Bernadette. That was the grad student’s name. “Yes. Like that.”
“Are there… more of me?” She went pale.
“So far, we’ve only seen projections of you,” Kael said. Was that reassuring?
“Projections?”
“The alien force, working against us, sent images of you to manipulate us,” he said. “To play on our weaknesses, confuse us.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Maybe because you were the only one at BRO who was friendly?” I wondered.
She gazed at the floating metal orb, at the human Kael. “Does that mean we’re friends?”
“Guess so,” I said.
Deet.
I eyed CB. The sound usually indicated he’d spotted something on his alien radar.
Deet. Deet.
“Is something coming for us?” I asked, taking my foot off the gas.
Bong.
Negative.
Deet deet deet.
I looked around, seeing nothing.
Deetdeetdeetdeet.
“Stop!” Kael said.
I hit the brakes. The truck slowed quickly, but then slammed to a stop, tossing us around the Toyota by the impact. For the first time, I was glad the vehicle was too old to have airbags.
“There’s nothing in front of us,” I groaned.
“Turn on the headlights,” Kael said.
When I did, they reflected, but there was nothing there.
The dome.
Shit.
Kael pointed up the slope. “We’re cut off from the cabin.”
“What about the crevice, the portal?” I asked.
“I’m guessing both of those locations are within the dome. Maybe this is just another step in controlling the portal,” he said. “There’s a logging road a few hundred yards in the woods. I’m sure Dr. T used it to access the ledge.”
“Dr. T? Why him?” Misha asked.
“He’s been voted most likely to be in cahoots with aggressive extraterrestrials,” I said.
“We’ll have to make do,” Kael said. “Head up into the trees.”
I backed up, a grinding sound where the bumper had hit and now pulled free making me shudder. “Make do with what? We have a half-loaded needler, a pulse energy weapon that we hardly understand. That doesn’t seem enough to stave off an invasion.”
“Pulse energy weapon,” Misha said. “Like P.E.W.? Pew-pew!”
“More like pew-pew, a few hundred cubic feet of rock slagged into magma,” I said.
“Oh, right. The hole in the roof,” she said.
As I drove up the far side of the gully, the tires spun out into legs again. We crawled to the top, and deeper into the woods.
“This is close enough,” Kael said. “The road isn’t far from here.”
I turned off the engine. “What do we do now?”
“Find a way to get a signal past the dome,” Kael said, “or the Earth is doomed.”
Glad I asked.
KAEL
I exited the vehicle and walked back to the trunk. The cases had been tossed around by the crash, but when I looked inside one, they seemed undamaged.
“Pods?”
Amina took two steps back.
An encounter with a pod nearly cost Amina her life. It had certainly cost her her hair, nails, and some skin. Any longer with it and all of her would have been consumed, subsumed.
I didn’t blame her for her fear of genetic pods. Still…
“These are genetically pre-programmed, biological universal assemblers. They aren’t after DNA.” I took a manipulator scope from the tool belt.
Much of the mountain was already under surveillance by the Seekers I had planted . The dome would likely block those signals. What we needed right now was eyes on Camp Meriwether.
Companion Beta signaled the controls in my brain. I blinked his control array into view. “Do you have a cell phone charger?”
“Sure, but since when did you have a cell phone?” Amina asked.
“No. Beta is low on power. He needs to charge up.”
As I scanned the pods, Amina plugged a charger into the lighter of the truck, then held up the other end. Beta released a cable from his lower hemisphere, letting it snake out and spin a steel cocoon around the end of the charger.
“He’s humming,” Misha said. “It’s kinda cute.”
I activated a pod, leaning into the car, then stuck it in the door of a communications device.
“The tape deck died eons ago,” Amina said.
“It will still have the basic elements the pod needs,” I said.
Sitting on a fallen log, I pulled another pod from its slot. Closing the case, I slid out the programming tray, then stared around the woods.
“What are you looking for?”
I saw one, crawling on the log. Snatching it up, I put it on the tray next to the pink pod.
“You’re not cloning that seed bug, are you?” Amina asked.
“No, just copying its basic blueprint. Luckily, these bugs are a little slow.” It crawled around, inspecting its new environment. In the meanwhile, the pod shifted from pink to blue.
The insect flew away.
“The pod has almost everything it needs in the atmosphere. Except one thing. Do either of you have a book of matches?”
“In the glove box,” Amina said. “I’ll get it.”
She handed it to me. I ripped off the striker paper. When I placed it near the pod, a tendril shot out. In a moment the tiny strip vanished. “Red phosphorus. Not the best material,” I said.
“Phosphorus for what?”
“It’s an essential material for creating independent organi-mechs. Life on this planet’s basic chemistry includes oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and phosphorus. These will mimic that.”
The pod expanded, then separated into twenty tiny pieces. Blue surfaces undulated, swelled. Nubs appeared, quickly attaining their final shapes.
“Eew, what is that?” Misha said.
“Mobile interactive scanners,” I said. “Flutters.”
Even as I said it, obvious legs and wings appeared. Each had one large eye that glittered with facets. Blue turned translucent, revealing the mechanism inside.
“Check the monitor,” I said.
“What monitor?” Amina asked.
“It should be projected on the windshield. The pod had plenty to work with.”
“Holy…”
Twenty small windows appeared, each a view from a different Flutter. Most of the views were identical. I saw my face appear in all of them as I crouched down. “I can’t control all of these at once. I only have two eyes.”
I blinked, remotely connecting to the dashboard. Multiple monitors appeared before me. It was dizzying when the Flutters took off. I quickly blinked a disconnect.
“Beta, send them to Camp Meriwether,” I said. The robot was much better at multitasking than I was.
It dinged.
“Soon, we’ll have eyes on the town,” I said. “We can manipulate an image on the windshield if anything interesting appears.”
“You made a bunch of robo-bugs from that eraser?” Misha said. “That’s pretty cool!”
I reset the pod case, opening it for another. Once again, I put it on the programming tray. “Do you have any of your portable devices in the truck, Amina?”
“No, they’re all in my bag,” she said. “In the cabin.”
“Any spare parts? Resistors, transistors, capacitors?”
“Of course, There should be a box in there. Clear plastic.”
I hunted around, coming up with a box separated into two dozen squares. Human technology was basic, but then electronics were electronics. Even on this macro scale.
Using the scanner, I peered at each group of components. Finally, I fished out a bunch of spindly bits and put them on the tray.
The manipulator device already had a pre-programmed plan. I switched it on. Snatching up parts, the pod grew slightly.
“What are you making now? Listening squirrels? Surveillance foxes?” Misha asked.
“Just a basic need for any military action. Communications devices.”
The pod split into three equal parts. Each unfolded, becoming a square slightly bigger than my thumbprint.
“What are those?” Amina asked suspiciously.
“Comms,” I said. “They tap into the vestibular, auditory and micro subganglia nerves.”
“We don’t have micro subganglia nerves,” Amina said.
“How do you hear anything above twenty-one kilohertz?”
Misha shrugged. “We can’t.”
I frowned. “Hopefully these will still work. Here, put one behind your dominant ear.”
“Dominant ear?” Misha said. She picked one up. “Which one is that?”
There was no way I could solve the problem of limited human physiology right now. “Pick one.”
“I’m not putting a pod anywhere near me,” Amina said. “Look at my hair!”
Misha’s cell phone dinged. She looked down at the screen. Then turned it to Amina. “It’s for you. From CB?”
Amina looked at the floating robot, then checked the phone message. “Okay. Fine.” She stuck it behind her right ear.
“CB said she’ll be fine,” Misha explained.
“One last thing.” I took out two pods and set them, facing each other, on the pull-out tray. “An aura projector. To keep the truck out of sight. This will take some time.”
Misha moved closer. “This is all so fascinating.”
“It’s all fun and games until one of those pink things starts eating you,” Amina said.
“Was that what happened to me? A pod like this?” She slid her hands rapidly over her arms as flakes of the dried liquid from the pod that held her captive fell off.
I shook my head. “I’m unfamiliar with the type of pod you were inside of. They don’t seem to work the same as these. More organic, from the look of them.”
“Like ginormous pitcher plants,” Amina said. “There were vines or roots leading to ponds of scummy lily pad things.”
“More for quantity than quality,” I mused. “Not particularly accurate reproductions.”
Misha shuddered. “Are there copies of me like those?” She paled. “That’s just too freaky.”
“I hope not. Maybe you weren’t in that leaf long enough,” Amina said.
I remembered the half formed body that had tried to rise out of the container near the one from which we’d rescued Misha, decided not to say anything.
There was work to do.
“Maybe these pod things aren’t so cool,” Misha said.
Companion Beta made a bong. Misha looked down as her cell phone sounded. “Oh. Sorry. Didn’t know you came from a pod, CB.”
Letting the aura projector grow, I looked at the windshield monitors. The Flutters all flew through leaves, for the moment finding nothing other. Blinking my heads-up into view, I switched the monitors.
“What’s this now?” Misha asked.
“The portal cave,” Amina said.
There was no activity around it. I blinked to the Seekers on the ledge where a crevice in the rock flickered with an energy source that looked like the portal.
Amina had seen Dr. T in front of the narrow crack, silhouetted by strange energy.
But now nothing moved save a few birds, the trees slightly moving in the breeze.
I returned the images to the Flutters’ points of view.
“Oh, look, I see the town,” Misha pointed.
“Touch that square,” I said.
When she did, the image filled the entire windscreen.
“What’s going on there?” she asked.
Amina leaned in the driver side door. “That looks really bad.”
I let the image fill my vision.
“Hybrids,” I muttered. Pod creatures that were combinations of bear, wolf, and bat marched a group of people through Camp Meriwether.
