Orin went on without further comment, leaving them alone in the corridor.
'What's the matter?'
'I just have a bad feeling about you going down there.'
'Don't worry. Orin watches over me like he was my father,' he said playfully, but Dorian's expression did not lighten.
'I feel like I need to tell you how I feel before you go,' she said hesitantly, as if searching his face to know his feelings before she continued.
Tiet could hardly breathe; waiting for her next words with such anticipation he could perceive nothing else.
'I have loved you before I even knew you,' she said. 'From the images of you as a child, until I first realized who you were in the tunnels; you have been in my most secret thoughts. Now that I have been with you, I cannot imagine being anywhere else.'
She raised her left arm and then pulling back the cuff of her uniform, she exposed the donjarr of her family. Tiet recognized the woven bracelet immediately. According to Castillian customs, it was the woman who chose her life companion and it was signified by the passing of the donjarr to the intended male as a promise of her desire to wed. The donjarr was not a light commitment. It was a binding contract once the male placed it on his own wrist.
Dorian looked into Tiet's eyes, and he could see her longing to know his feelings about what she had told him. He reached for her hand, clasping it in his own. With his other hand he moved the donjarr from her wrist over their joined hands to rest upon his own, according to the ritual. A tear escaped her swollen eyes, trailing down her olive skin. Tiet pulled her to himself in an embrace they both had longed to have.
'Come back safely to me,' she said as she touched his lips with her own. Then she turned and hurried back to the bridge, before she lost control of her joy at their coming together, and her anxiety at their parting. Tiet could hardly contain his own joy, as he went on to meet Orin.
He was already waiting at the main entry ramp to the ship when Tiet arrived. Orin looked him over once; puzzled by the grin on his face, but supposing that something had happened between him and the girl. It did not surprise him and he hoped that all would turn out well for them, but at the moment more urgent matters pressed. He keyed in the safety bypass code, to allow the ship to open the main hatch while still in flight. Millo was hovering about one hundred yards above the mountain's face where the city's hangar bay was located. They could see the scarred bay doors below them now.
'Are you ready Tiet?'
'Lead the way,' he said over the engine rumblings spilling into the vestibule.
'The way is down,' he said as he turned and stepped into the open air; quickly plummeting toward the mangled surface of the bay doors below. Tiet followed without hesitation. The two warriors controlled their descent precisely with their psycho kinesis and soft landed on the surface of the hangar doors.
The structure creaked under their weight a little, but appeared to be solid enough. Orin led the way to the largest opening and turned to toss Tiet a lighted headset. He clicked his own headset on to keep communication with the Saberhawk and to provide some illumination of the darkness below them.
'Millo, take the ship down to the valley, and wait there until you here from us. If you encounter any trouble, dust off immediately and we'll rendezvous later.'
'Affirmative. I'll be waiting for your call. Be careful.'
Above them, the engines of the Saberhawk whined to a higher pitch and the ship veered away from the mountain on course for the southern valley. Tiet switched on his own headset and the two of them peered into the darkness below them. They could see that the pavement was littered with a lot of debris.
'Look over there,' said Tiet motioning to a large clear area.
'Let's go.'
They dropped from the edge of the blast hole in the hangar bay door, about two hundred feet to the pavement; soft landing again thanks to their kinetic abilities. From memory, Orin led them through the debris field inside the hangar bay to the control room.
The door was standing open and a thick layer of dust covered the control panels within. Orin looked for the power grid panel and found the cells for all the power and backups were drained to nothing.
'Even after power failure, the successive auto backups would have run for at least six months,' said Orin.
'Maybe, but this looks like about a hundred years of dust,' said Tiet.
'If not more. Well, what have we here…?'
He keyed on another panel lever and several low lights flickered to life in the bay.
'Manual backup, in case the auto systems were down,' said Orin. 'These should be connected to solar panels on the eastern face of the mountain. They won't run down as long as the panels have a descent access to sunlight. Let's go.'
He led them out of the control room and up a tunnel to a higher level of the city. Tiet followed the swift steps of his mentor, trying to keep his senses alert to any sudden dangers that might present themselves.
This duplicate city had certainly taken a pounding. The ground was littered everywhere with debris. It looked like the Vorn had nearly torn the city apart and yet there were no signs of any bodies. The two men came into an ornate corridor approaching a single room. It seemed familiar to him, though he couldn't place it exactly.
'What room is this?'
'It's the king's quarters. This would have been your home back on our planet. Although I doubt your father was even born when this city was destroyed. I would guess it happened well over one hundred years ago.'
'So what are we doing here?'
'There was a separate computer database in the King's quarters with its own link to the solar panels. Since they're still operating, I'm hoping the database is functioning as well. It may provide us with some answers.'
Orin tried the electronic keypad, but there was no response. Tiet quickly ignited one of his kemsticks and sliced an oval shaped hole into the door. He kicked the cut piece inward, and bending down, he went through the opening. Orin followed and they could clearly see a luxurious abode. It reminded him of home, but it had been so long ago. Orin made his way to a certain place on the rock wall and depressed two separate points that were far enough apart so as to be almost unreachable at the same time. A digital keypad rotated out of the wall before him. It still had power and Orin quickly typed in the words: Barudii, Soone, vaseer 1. A panel slid back in the wall to reveal an information display. A list of categories for searching the database appeared on the screen.
'Good, the code works here too. That means your family ruled here as well, somehow,' said Orin.
'Well, where do we start?' asked Tiet.
'How about with those strange spheres we encountered?'
Orin typed in the word sphere and instantly a list of subcategories scrolled across the display. Among the data entries were schematics and weapon systems capabilities for a massive attack vehicle. It must have measured three miles in diameter and looked just like the smaller spheres they had witnessed earlier destroying the space fleet of the Vorn.
They were shocked to see that it was the long dead Barudii of this planet that had constructed the huge machine. They scanned page after page of data, hardly able to believe what was being stated.
'Hard to believe they built this thing,' said Tiet in amazement.
'To fight the Vorn, or avenge themselves. Either way, a very deadly weapon to unleash on anyone.'
'Yeah, but we never saw this one; only the smaller drones.'
'But you can be sure it's out there,' said Orin. 'It's probably directly responsible for the destruction of the Vorn space station. It appears they launched it just prior to being wiped out by the Vorn. It was sent to attack the Vorn home world of Demigoth and then pursue the remaining Vorn and destroy them anywhere that it found them.'
A small illuminated box on the display began to blink as Orin continued scanning the data. He tapped the box with his finger, causing more data to appear.
'This appears to be a live feed from the Sphere itself.'
'Look at that tactical map. Isn't that Mt. Vaseer and the Saberhawk in the valley to the south of us?'
'Yes, and on a direct trajectory from the large Sphere down to the valley is a massive group of those drones!'
