Multiple worm fiber views into the ATLAS cavern so horrified Raul that he began to shake. Not only had the Stephenson team lost the portal stasis field, they had failed to move the anomaly through the portal. With the damage being done to systems throughout the cavern, he couldn’t project how long the gateway would remain functional. Worse, Heather was badly injured, barely clinging to a steel railing eighty meters above the cavern floor. If he wanted to get Heather, it had to be now.
As his neural net locked in the last of the gateway override codes, he restored his connection to the ATLAS portal, breaking away from the Kasari gateway. As the gateway connection synchronized, inside the ATLAS cavern it was as if a door had been slammed against a storm. Clinging to opposite edges of the portal, Mark and the Kasari he’d been fighting dropped to the floor. The Kasari recovered immediately, closing the gap and bringing his sword down in a sweeping blow Smythe barely managed to deflect. Then the Kasari closed with Mark, his momentum pushing Mark back against the portal’s black wall.
Raul ignored them. Manipulating the stasis field, he reached out into the cavern, plucking Heather from her high perch, bringing her floating gently down to floor level as he pulled her toward the portal.
He was so focused on his task, he failed to notice a second young woman leap through the portal until she was already in the ship. With a shock of recognition, he released Heather, sending her tumbling onto the cavern floor, and shifted the stasis field to meet this new threat.
Then Jennifer Smythe was inside his head.
Raul had been hard to miss as Jennifer had gotten up, her ears hissing and popping from yet another rapid change in atmospheric pressure. He’d been so obvious he’d even made her take her eyes off of Mark and the alien locked in close combat. That horribly misshapen figure, floating inside the open portal to the Rho Ship. He had been intent on Heather, who was floating through the air down toward the portal, trapped within a stasis bubble.
Jennifer’s decision was instantaneous. She’d give him something to be intent about. Vaulting the two tiers of workstations that separated her from the cavern floor, Jennifer took three running strides and leaped through the portal, sliding to a stop in a clear area between a jumble of alien equipment. Ten feet in front of her, Raul locked his eyes with hers. Feeling a deadly intention replacing his initial surprise, Jennifer thrust herself into his mind.
For three seconds it seemed the shock of her mental assault would give her the upper hand. But now, as his alien neural net worked to eliminate her foothold, the balance of power was shifting. A thin smile spread across Raul’s disfigured face, the appendage that had replaced his right eye shifting in anticipation.
Feeling her mental control slipping, Jennifer lifted the Bandolier Ship headband from its place around her neck, letting the buds settle over her temples. Whereas before she’d felt the power of Raul’s neural net beginning to dominate her will, now Jennifer felt his mind recoil in surprise as he sought to understand what had just happened. Rather than try to take control of the Rho Ship’s neural network, she focused on Raul, exposing the layers of desires, fears, and insecurities that made him who he was. And with every penetration, she released gentle waves of pleasure, a sense of her acceptance, even admiration.
And Raul reacted like a man dying of thirst who had just stumbled upon a stream of Rocky Mountain spring water. He drank her in.
So lonely. If she’d had more time, Jennifer would have pitied him. Instead, she ramped up her exploitation of his needs and weaknesses, encouraging him to show off his knowledge of the Rho Ship and its systems.
She concentrated on the Rho Ship’s wormhole generation systems. As the knowledge of their design and function filled her mind, she saw what he’d done, reprogrammed the starship’s wormhole drive to connect to the ATLAS gateway, bypassing its primary function of creating a wormhole and shoving the Rho Ship through it.
His will subject to Jennifer, Raul manipulated his neural net with a mastery that came with intimate familiarity, modifying the wormhole drive’s programming with subtle elegance. The feeling of awe Jennifer fed him brought a smile to his lips, a smile that died as the realization struck him.
“My God! You’ve killed us both!”
As she turned her back on him, a barely audible whisper slipped from Jennifer’s lips.
“I know.”
Inside the Bandolier Cave, the coffee mug slipped from Dr. Hanz Jorgen’s fingers to shatter on the stone floor, spewing its hot, black wetness up his pants leg. As a brilliant white glow replaced the Bandolier Ship’s normal, soft magenta, he didn’t even notice.
Hanz didn’t know how he knew, but he did. Something powerful had just grabbed control of the Bandolier Ship’s computers, drawing every cycle of their processing power. He could practically hear the alien circuits groan under the incredible demand being placed upon the system.
Staring at the glowing starship, he wondered what problem could tax it so intensely. Then, as a shudder traversed his body, Hanz decided he didn’t really want to know.