Frontier Defiant by Leonie Rogers

Author:Leonie Rogers [Rogers, Leonie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Hague Publishing
Published: 2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

THE alarm claxon sounded, disturbing the Overlord’s moment of rest. He’d decided to rest during the peak of the storm, knowing that the humans would be as incapacitated by the cyclonic winds as the Garsal were. If he was fortunate, then perhaps they’d perish in the storm. Zoash had the plans for the after storm raids well in hand, and he couldn’t imagine that any unsheltered being would survive the dangerous winds. He anticipated finding human corpses after the winds had died down and the torrential rain subsided.

He rose from his cocoon and tapped to open a line to the operations centre. “Report!”

“Sentinels down in multiple places, Overlord.”

“Not in one section?”

“No, Overlord. They’re down in six places. There are two places where adjacent sentinels have ceased to function, but the others are singletons.”

“Did they all cease functioning at the same time?”

“No Overlord. But they did cease functioning within minutes of each other.”

“The other sentinels are still online?”

“Yes, Overlord, everything else is functioning normally. No unusual alarms have been recorded.”

“Was their telemetry sent as they failed?”

“We’re analysing it now, but early data suggests several different causes. One stopped after an electrical spike, and another appears to have been crushed by something – one of the aerials provided an image of a falling tree before it lost power itself.” The tech’s voice hesitated.

“Go on.”

“Data has just come in – two appear to have burned out power supplies, while another two sent sudden temperature spikes just before they stopped functioning. Another has burned out components on the motherboard – enough to stop anything but telemetry back to here, and the final one has lost its power supply and is operating on battery only. Again, enough power for basic telemetry, but nothing else.”

The Overlord considered briefly, and then tapped the communicator again. “Turn-off the alarm. Inform me if any pattern is found. It’s most likely a result of the storm – lightning strikes, wind damage, falling trees and debris.” Nothing would be outside in weather like this. Even the great colony ship shuddered under the onslaught of the winds.

Unable to rest, however, the Overlord called Zoash to attend him, and then sat back, contemplating his plans for conquest of the plateau, and the elimination of the Great Enemy. The door chime sounded.

“Enter.”

“Overlord?” His hatching sib’s voice was curious.

“The sentinel ring is malfunctioning. It is possible it’s a deliberate breach, but unlikely. You are certain there were only three flyers?”

“Yes, Overlord, I am certain.” He tapped at the screen on the Overlord’s desk, and an image appeared. He tapped again, and it enlarged rapidly. The haze of overhanging leaves resolved into three black flecks plummeting towards the canopy from a hazy sky. “This was extracted from the climber’s images. I’ve had it enhanced as much as possible.” A few more taps and the image became clearer again. The flecks became figures, basically human shaped, but oddly elongated at the limbs. They appeared enmeshed, and two were quite obviously supporting the other one. The images played one by one until the conjoined flyers struck the canopy and vanished.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.