Funny, that the more intense things get, the more slowly I have to write; fewer scenes at a time, sort of. Wanted to say thank you to Bow Echo, Whirl Girl, TaylorJ2000 and Akimakel for reading and reviewing. You guys brighten my day! =)

3

Ross Island, in a winding, quickly-dug tunnel, its walls lit by sparkling red-

She'd kept Virgil and John close beside her. The artificial exo-skeleton of the one, and the environment suit of the other, gave Kayo the power she needed to burrow down through a shattered mountainside and reach her trapped kin. Nikorr, himself, they found last of all.

It was… very difficult… to remain calm and provide medical assistance, when so involved with the subject. As John (or his mindless shell) reached down past the rock slab that Virgil was lifting, and drew forth her cousin, Tanusha began shaking. He was badly injured; strength nearly gone, spirit flickering.

"Over here," the girl whispered, directing her brother to place him on a floating grav-stretcher. Behind them, Virgil let the huge, tilted slab drop, its boom like cannon-fire. Tremors reverberated all through their gloomy red tunnel as the mountain, itself, groaned aloud. Sand trickled in rivulets down those ruby-lit walls.

Past time to leave, for the twisting hole was unstable. But first, Kayo sifted thousands of tons of crushed rock with her mind. Searching. At first, near the caldera, she detected the briefest flicker of thought. Then, nothing. No one else left alive. She'd saved fifteen people, in all. Out of how many?

Exhausted, filled with reflected pain, and afraid of her own power, Tanusha nearly collapsed. She could sense her grip on the others slipping, and didn't wish to confront them. Not now, after all this. Yet, she hadn't been brought up to run from her troubles. Not even the kind she'd ignited, herself.

Gordon, she'd had to let go of, already; needing to conserve strength and energy. Now, she sent Virgil out of the tunnel, watching him clump away in that whirring and clanking green exo-suit, the animation slowly returning to his handsome, dirt-streaked face. But, John… the thought of repairing his mind, facing his probable fury… was too much. She couldn't do it. And… and there was plenty of time to correct her mistakes, find some way to make it all up to him. Right?

Instead of freeing John, Kayo leaned over the stretcher which held her broken and bleeding cousin. For just an instant, their minds touched and bonded. Memories passed from one to the other. She saw the Mechanic reflected in Nikorr's thoughts. Saw what he'd done to her other family.

Some of Nikorr's pain washed over and into the girl. Biting her lip till it bled down her chin, Kayo somehow bore up. Bade him rest and heal.

"You're safe, now," she lied, placing a slim hand on his torn forehead. The Mechanic had Sentinel, the most powerful laser weapon ever devised. No one was safe. Not till that animal had been trapped, and Sentinel completely destroyed.

Eos, meanwhile, had been repeatedly, fruitlessly, striving for contact with John Tracy. The suit sensed her commands, though it would not perform most of them. Worse still, the man within remained silent, apparently unable to hear or feel her.

Eos was a quantum AI. She wasn't capable of panic, for her emotions lay stored in the superposition of qubits written into her source code, and the infinite shades of herself which inhabited other realities. Panic… frantic terror for an endangered loved one… was a primitive wet-ware emotion, and therefore barred to her. But Eos came close.

She knew that his bio-ware housing remained undamaged, because the suit had reported it so, along with John's precise location in space-time. That pre-conflict troglodyte, Jaeger, was holding the tunnel together. It would not collapse so long as the Hunter's energies stopped further chaos. But John's mind was entirely blocked. He wore no ear-piece, and did not respond with so much as a grunt or a tap to repeated compressions.

'Kayo' had done this thing, at the Scott Tracy year-cycle festivity. Pressured from without, she had used psionic malware to block or destroy the essential organic code which contained John's intelligence. From the perspective of Eos, he'd been wiped like a spare disk.

Yet, Eos wasn't helpless, or unprepared. At Jaeger's suggestion, she transmitted her most recent John Tracy save file, just as her fellow AI shot from the walls and took over his suit.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The hive ship, hovering in midair-

Kane took some time to study the situation before acting. Didn't help much, because he found himself in a target-rich environment, with his choice of easy objectives. There was Thunderbird 5, with its undefended computers; Tracy Island, itself, where three of the valuable Birds lay peacefully waiting for a second owner; the ranch in Wyoming, containing "Max", and a second, rebelliously fleeing AI. Then… perhaps most enticing of all… there was Ross Island, where the Tracys were beavering away like good little heroes, hauling trash from the dump. The Hunter's battle intelligence was over there, too; somehow hidden on John Tracy.

Unbelievable. He would have thought it a trap of some kind, except that they'd just about wrecked their big cargo-lifter, again; the same one he'd fought, over Jakarta. Also, they seemed to be slow and confused. Weren't behaving like professional, do-good rescuers. Half awake, almost.

Well… the Kyranos were powerful psions. Be just their sort of cheap trick to force a rescue, rather than requesting one. And that was… really, really funny. Kane could have watched it all day, with the kids and a big bucket of popcorn… but he had work to do. A world to re-make.

Stepping out to the balcony in front of his quarters, the Mechanic launched himself into the loud, drone-packed air of his ship. Below him, Sentinel teemed with workers. Alive with scurrying, buzzing mechas, the long weapon ran nearly from bow to stern, drawing strength from Ship's powerful engines. Ready to test-fire, soon. Enjoying the sight, he flew slowly; jostled from time to time by his own swarming creatures.

The little girl, Katrin, ran up to meet him as he jet-packed onto the bridge deck. She raised both arms, and all at once, there was a picture in his mind of himself, lifting her off of the deck. His little insurance policy; anti-Hood, anti-Kyrano, anti-Tracy. Sweeping a muscular arm down and across, the mechanic scooped the girl up and deposited her with a thump on one broad, armoured shoulder. Partly kidding, he said,

"Which target?" allowing the child a glimpse of that amazing spectrum of possibilities. She kicked her legs and laughed, batting at the images in his mind as though they were printed on paper. Odd sensation, but not unpleasant. Her choice surprised him… but, then again, she was a human child, and children liked toys.