Free MotherShip by Tony Chandler Page B

reached forth with his sensors to locate the T'kaan warriors. He found them, even though they still tried to hide themselves with the sensor blinds. Mother had tweaked Guardian's and her own sensors to account for this new defense.
    Guardian stepped forward directly into a hail of blaster fire. The T'kaan's accurate fire blossomed over his personal shield, dropping its strength with each blow. Finding each enemy by following their tracers, he returned fire and dropped them one by one as he moved quickly and methodically inside.
    Twisting his metal body as he now broke into a full run, Guardian's accurate fire took its toll on the enemy. Yet his personal shield strength dropped precipitously as he took his own share of direct hits. Still, his one mission, his one instinct, drove him forward in the face of impossible odds. Odds that would have daunted any living, self-aware warrior.
    Soon the clicking of T'kaan tusks and their guttural shouts filled the entire floor as reinforcements crawl-walked to take their positions in the darkness.
    Guardian emptied first one assault blaster and then another, each time dropping the weapon to allow Fixer5 to reload. As he unholstered the last one and began firing, Fixer5 handed them directly into his metal grasp. The diminutive robot scrambled behind the quickly moving form of Guardian, barely keeping up with the larger robot's erratic attack as it moved from one position to another, presenting a constantly moving target.
    The hailstorm of laser fire increased until the very room became fully lighted in brief flashes as if by lightning from a thunderstorm. The red flashes of the T'kaan weapons crossed the green flashes of his own weapons and lit the room.
    One by one, the T'kaan worm warriors fell dead.
    Guardian stood with his weapons pointed but silent. His sensors now detected no more live T'kaan on this level. He turned and found the entrance to the next lower level behind a mound of dead T'kaan. He stepped over them without a glance and made his descent.
    Far above, Mother had never felt so helpless. She determined that she must never allow the children out of her sensor range again. But even as the thought occurred, she knew how futile it was.
    The children were seeking greater freedom every day. She now allowed them to fly the human fighters parked in her main hangar bay in mock dogfights. One day soon, they would fight from them.
    Mother felt a chill in her circuits.
    Suddenly, faintly, far below the ground, she sensed the familiar readings of more blaster fire.
    The T'kaan were charging en masse at Guardian as he entered the next level.
    He knelt, to make himself a smaller target, and fired until the assault blasters in each hand were empty. He dropped both and reached back even as Fixer5 handed him two fully recharged ones. The T'kaan's fire was so thick around him now that Guardian's sensors began to give him false readings.
    Fixer5 took a direct hit just as it handed Guardian another loaded blaster. The diminutive robot stumbled backwards, sparks leaping from its body. With a sudden jerk, the small robot became deathly still.
    Guardian knew Fixer5 was now inoperable—destroyed.
    His internal algorithms told him he would follow the fate of Fixer5 if he did not move now. As his personal shields buckled, he emptied the assault blaster in his left hand band and began firing the last fully loaded one. In a blur of motion he drew a blaster pistol. With both weapons firing, he charged the main T'kaan position.
    Leaping and twisting to avoid the merciless fire, he jumped right into the middle of all of them.
    They were so close that as they died, their still convulsing bodies fell into him as he moved ever forward.
    Relentlessly, Guardian fired until the last two charged pistols were in his hands. Seconds later, he was emptying their last charges.
    The last T'kaan fell writhing in its death throes at his metal feet.
    Guardian threw the now useless pistols away. He began his