Free Heir of Shandara (Book 4) by Ken Lozito Page A

prince and heir apparent to Khamearra’s throne. That is, of course, unless you want to submit to the rule of your sister?” Darven asked.
    Rordan glared at the former Elitesman. “You know I don’t.”
    “I wasn’t advising one way or the other. I was merely pointing out the options. Now, are you going to contact our potential allies or not?” Darven asked.
    Rordan unclenched his jaw, and his gaze returned to the small black oval object on the table. He slowly reached out and pressed his thumb onto the center. The metallic surface beneath his thumb glowed. Small legs unfolded themselves and pushed the device up. After a few moments, a face with tan skin and golden eyes appeared above the glowing object. Rordan glanced at Darven, who nodded for him to speak.
    “I was told you wanted to speak with me. I am Prince Rordan of Khamearra.”

C HAPTER 9
    COUNSEL

    Bayen sat hunched over, glaring at the small holographic display above the bracer on his wrist. Matrix alignment estimate read 86 percent. He had been here less than a day. How had the matrix alignment decreased so much since then? He’d looked at the estimate, expecting it to be near 93 percent. He had fourteen days until the temporal matrix was pulled out of alignment and he was forced to go back to the future. That meant that there should have been a steady decline of 7 percent each day. It was more than double that.
    “Sam,” Bayen whispered. “Why has the alignment decreased so much?”
    “Calculations are adjusted based upon new input,” Sam replied.
    Bayen cursed inwardly at the designer of this simple-minded artificial intelligence that he was forced to contend with.
    “What has changed?”
    “The plague has been released,” Sam said.
    “But we were able to contain it,” Bayen said.
    “As instructed, I’ve been monitoring communications.”
    “Right, communications between Hathenwood and Shandara.”
    “I’ve expanded my parameters to include communications from the group known as the Zekara,” Sam said.
    “You were able to crack the encryption on their communications channels?” Bayen asked.
    “No, sir. I already have the keys that unlock their comms channels,” Sam said.
    “Do you have system access?” Bayen asked, fighting to keep his voice down. If his little AI could get system access to the Zekara, then they could cripple their forces and perhaps turn the tide of this war before it had a chance to really begin.
    “Negative, sir.”
    Bayen swore and drew a few glances his way. Aaron was speaking into his own comms device and didn’t hear him.
    “Is keeping Halcylon alive still our only hope of curing the plague?”
    “Keep General Halcylon alive. Fifty-five percent success probability rate.”
    Bayen pursed his lips in thought. The answer hadn’t changed. Still, he had less time to stop the plague from getting out of control.  
    “Sam, what happened? Why do I have even less time than we thought?”
    “Infiltrators are moving into position around the continent. Should they be destroyed, then their self-destruct mechanism will release the plague,” the AI said.
    “Is there any way to stop them from self-destructing?” Bayen asked, and after a moment added, “And disable them at the same time?”  
    Never trust an AI to not state the obvious, and allowing the infiltrators to roam free wasn’t really an option.
    “The self-destruct is engaged automatically upon catastrophic failure of the host or if the host chooses to engage it,” Sam said.
    “There must be a way to prevent the sequence from starting. A design flaw of some kind,” Bayen said.
    “Accessing known infiltrator design. One moment please,” Sam said. “There is a sequence that can be followed that will both disable the infiltrator and stop the self-destruct protocol. It requires close proximity to the infiltrator,” Sam said.  
    The holo display showed a few images of the actions required to disable the infiltrator. It wasn’t your typical