Shadows of Mars (Broken Stars Book 1) by I.O. Adler (best inspirational books .TXT) 📕

cylinder. The caretaker hadn’t struck it. Next she walked warily around the broken caretaker.

“Get rid of it.”

She Who Waits was retracting her tentacles. “It is deactivated. The bot cannot move.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to hear about another accident or some new moss breed starting it up again. It tried to hurt us and almost killed Jenna. They have to have a room where we can lock it up. And I don’t want to wait for you to have to ask the Cordice if you can fight back against this thing when it recovers.”

“I have a solution.”

The two drones picked up the limp robot body and took it to another cylinder. Once they placed it inside they sealed it. Seeing how strong the caretaker had been made the cylinder feel flimsy. But it would do for the moment, at least until…what?

Now that she could catch her breath, she realized that they were stuck on board the Cordice home ship. They had come this far and she wasn’t prepared to leave without her mother. And now Jenna was critically injured and inside a metal tube receiving god knows what kind of treatment.

It was all a nightmare growing stranger.

Carmen found herself chewing her thumb and realized she should probably wash her hands. Her shoulder ached but she tested it and it was working.

She Who Waits summoned the red light and appeared to once again be engaged in silent communication.

Carmen touched the cracks on the alien’s shell. “Are you hurt?”

She Who Waits didn’t answer. The diamonds returned.

Looming behind her, Barrett was pacing. “This is crazy. That thing almost killed us because of some algae? And we had to ask permission to stop it?”

“That’s not exactly what she said.”

“I heard everything. She Who Waits is restricted by protocol. Whatever or wherever these Cordice are now, they’re not inside their real bodies because they’re sick. So who’s in charge of their ship? Why did they even want their harvester back if they can’t control their own home?”

“Don’t yell at me. I don’t know.”

He raised his good hand. “I’m sorry. But now you see that we need to get out of this place before we wake something else up that doesn’t want us to be here.”

Tuning him out was as easy as looking away. A newly panicked Barrett was the last thing she needed.

She Who Waits appeared to be functioning. But did she feel pain? The fractured surface of her suit might be superficial or life-threatening. Whatever negotiations were happening also involved her now. The caretaker had attacked all of them.

Carmen considered the red light. Was it part of She Who Waits or a function of her suit? One had appeared in the first sphere, so it had to connect to the communication network her mom had originally used. She needed to speak with the ones who owned the ship they had boarded and was tired of waiting, protocol be damned.

“Is anyone there? This is Carmen Vincent. I’d like to talk to the Cordice. We’ve come to bring back what was taken. But it looks like you have problems of your own. What can I do to help?”

Barrett walked around her and glared. “What are you doing?”

She ignored him. “I know you’re fixing my sister. You saved my mom Sylvia and Hamish Townes. So tell us what we can do for you.”

He swatted at the light and stepped through it. “Stop it,” he hissed. “Don’t offer things you can’t deliver on. You don’t know anything about the Cordice. They had to debate whether to let us be killed. So don’t go assuming you understand anything.”

The red light vanished. The ship fell quiet. Whatever work the assembly bot was doing on the machine that was supposed to help Jenna appeared to have finished. Automated arms detached themselves and sank into the floor, leaving a frame of metal that looked like a four-poster bed. Smaller bots the size of hermit crabs scurried about the vertical and horizontal braces.

Vapor began to rise from the surface of Jenna’s cylinder. Carmen’s finger momentarily stuck to its surface when she touched it. It felt like ice.

The sand beneath She Who Waits’ shell did something Carmen hadn’t seen before. It slowed and went dark.

Carmen touched her. “Are you okay?”

The red light winked to life. “The negotiations are finished.”

“And what? What’s their decision?”

“They haven’t decided. They need to deliberate some more. It is their way. Be patient, Carmen Vincent. For now we wait.”

Agent Barrett found a moss-free spot on the floor where he sat with his head down and eyes closed.

Carmen wanted to do the same. But she remained too keyed up. At any moment the Cordice may want to talk. But as the minutes stretched, she realized it might be a long wait. She walked the length of the bay.

Whatever medical bed the skittering bots were building was taking shape. At the moment it looked like a high-tech dunk tank from an old-timey carnival. But like the boxy machines they had seen in the first ring, it lacked any visible displays or controls.

She stayed out of the way and didn’t touch anything. She inspected the other cylinders, including the one that held the caretaker.

Were her mom and Hamish in any of them?

“I’m going to look around.”

She Who Waits remained dark and the communication light was gone. Barrett didn’t stir.

Carmen walked the curving hall, opening door after door and peering inside. The rooms beyond were in relatively good order, stacked with racks of box machines of varying size. Where were the living spaces, the rec rooms, the kitchen, or the bridge?

Perhaps they didn’t need any of it if the controls were virtual like the harvester’s.

If the caretaker had truly been in control, then the ship had been operated by a broken, mad pilot.