Free Critical Strike (The Critical Series Book 3) by Colin F. Barnes, Darren Wearmouth, Wearmouth, Barnes

bigger, badder version of this,” Layla said. “I’d say the tredeyans have got their hands full.”
    She knelt next to the prism and clanked the back of her gauntlet against its glossy sloped side. Denver didn’t want to touch it. He wanted to get away from it, in case it exploded into pieces.
    Charlie shook his head. “There’s some crazy shit going down here. I don’t see how—”
    Footsteps thudded up the steps. Denver twisted to the entrance and prepared to fire.
    Vingo’s helmet appeared through the door and he looked around. “Is everybody okay?”
    “We are, no thanks to you,” Denver said. “Where did you go?”
    “I guarded outside to make sure no clusps took advantage of our plight. The rifle fire might have attracted many.”
    “Bullshit,” Charlie said. “You weren’t bothered about them stalking us a while ago. You bottled it.”
    Denver suspected Vingo saved them in the caverns to be his bodyguards on his quest to get back to his own village through a war zone. As soon as the shooting started, he disappeared like a fart in the wind. It wasn’t a problem. They suited each other’s needs. At least they knew he couldn’t be relied on when the shit hit the fan.
    Vingo approached the prism, tapped his forearm pad and scanned it over the top of the machine. “It’s a worker drone. You’ve corrupted the collective.”
    “Which means?” Layla said.
    “When acting remotely, like this one, they have to assemble their own core power for movement and communications. If you damage the artificial intelligence controlling this, you can irreversibly corrupt them.”
    “Remotely from what?” Charlie said. “The prism in the sky? Is that ship a huge version of the thing we just killed?”
    “No. They don’t assemble to anywhere near that size. The croatoans told us that the scion build ships with labor and materials from other planets.”
    “Do the other planets give them full access to their systems and records?” Layla said.
    “Yes, and now they peacefully trade with the scion.”
    “Why couldn’t you do that? Seems odd that you choose potential destruction over a new overlord.”
    “The croatoans won’t allow us because we have links to their systems. Optax, for example, a mining planet, is independent. They have formidable ground defenses to protect themselves and set up a safe zone around their planet. If a ship enters without its weapons disarmed, it’s the last action it will take.”
    “Do the scion have any of your humans working for them?” Charlie said.
    “Not to my knowledge, but it’s possible. They may have taken them from other planets.”
    “When we have time to spare,” Layla said. “I’d like to know more about how you managed the humans, the numbers and where they are.”
    “I can give you information, but some things are beyond tredeyan knowledge.”
    Layla was bound to ask that question some point, but this was the wrong time to be going down a rat-hole.
    “Forget about that for now,” Denver said. “Let’s move the prism out of here. We need to stay focused on the current situation.”
    “He’s right,” Charlie said. “What if a couple of its angry brothers and sisters turn up?”
    “Moving it into the forest should be good enough for the moment,” Vingo said. “I expected a fighter to hit the temple, but it looks like we destroyed it in time.”
    “We?” Charlie asked.
    Denver picked up the object the prism was working on when they first entered the temple, a shiny black open case. Inside it, dull gray components were attached to a transparent circuit board. Colored lines interconnected each one to other parts. “What’s this?”
    “It’s a transceiver,” Vingo said. “They place them to have full planetary coverage for their ground force.”
    Charlie raised his left gauntlet above it and clenched his fist. “I suppose we better smash it up.”
    “No need. It’s incomplete.”
    Denver heard quiet clicking between Charlie’s and