Sword of Minerva (The Guild Wars Book 10) by Mark Wandrey (great books for teens TXT) 📕

lined with parts storage racks, diagnostics tools, the ship’s emergency control systems (a minimal backup bridge), and all the controls for the fusion powerplants. It had taken hours for them to sort everything out before leaving. Sato floated in the center of the room, his legs in a lotus position, the Enigma cube in the space made by his legs.

“You okay?” Rick asked.

“Yes,” Sato said and opened his eyes. He looked tired. “Everything done outside?”

“Yeah, I reconnected those sensors and made sure the laser assist nozzle was properly stowed as you requested.”

“I could have done it myself.”

“Perhaps,” Rick said. “It looks like you’ve made use of the time. Have you figured out how to open it?”

“No,” Sato admitted. “I never had much luck with meditating. That is, until these new pinplants.” He tapped the side of his head. “I’m having some luck now.” He looked down at the cube in his lap. “Nothing with this, though.”

“Any of the instruments here able to scan inside it?”

“These tools aren’t made for delicate scanning,” he explained. “Vestoon isn’t a scout ship. It isn’t made to operate away from inhabited areas or without a fleet resupply ship within range. The instruments are just enough to get it running, then they’d limp to a depot. I tried to find a scout ship, but nothing was available. Strange. Last year you couldn’t give them away.” He shrugged.

“Worth a try, though?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m down here. I just wanted to try to meditate on it for a few minutes. My mind has regurgitated a few interesting memories. Not this time.” He reached out and pushed himself over to a station, where he strapped the cube into a depression. “I have to be careful. If this is booby-trapped, or has delicate opto-electronics inside, an overly brutish scanning attempt could cook the insides.”

“I still think it’s strange you can remember what it’s called, but now how to use it.”

“You’re telling me? But remember, until a few days ago, you couldn’t remember your childhood best friend. Minds are strange that way, and it appears we both suffered traumatic brain injuries.”

Rick snorted. “The only one who doesn’t have a screwed-up brain is the psychotic squid.”

“True, Dakkar is healthy, just not of a conventional intelligence.”

Rick shook his head. “Someone should know how many Wrogul are out there in the galaxy, operating on everyone’s brains.”

“Like I said, nobody knows. Most are probably still on Azure. Many planets aren’t well suited to their unique living requirements.”

Probably a good thing, Rick thought. He knew there were quite a few, though. One was in Houston doing pinplants. He now remembered Jim going to get his when they were freshmen. He’d offered to pay for Rick to get them, too, but he’d balked. Rick hadn’t gotten his own until joining the Winged Hussars. It was Nemo who’d installed them, his first exposure to Wrogul tentacles in his brain.

A few months later, Nemo had worked on Rick’s brain again, this time to try to alleviate some of the laser damage. That was when Nemo had taken the samples of Rick’s genome and recorded his brain’s neural patterns to reproduce later. At least it had to be then, because Rick had no memory after that session.

“You know Dakkar is loose on the bridge?”

“Yes, he’s rewriting a subroutine. He finished his quarters and wanted something to do.” Sato looked up at Rick, who just stared. “It’s fine, he can’t do any damage.”

“Okay. So what’s next?”

“Let me run a slow series of surface scans,” Sato said. “It’ll take about 10 minutes.”

“I don’t have any other work to do right now,” Rick said. Sato nodded and began working with the instruments. As the scientist probed the Enigma, Rick used his first downtime to run a self-diagnostic on the Æsir. As he was doing the work, he remembered he had two stored recordings still saved.

Back in the museum, the moment he realized something was wrong, Rick had triggered the Æsir’s log to retain all sensor readings. He had the entire run through the facility, out the door, and the fight with the guards. More importantly, he had Sato taking on the four opSha.

The man was frozen in place for a fraction of a second, then moved with incredible speed. Rick wasn’t sure if he could move any faster, especially since the armor more than doubled his weight. More interesting were the types of moves Sato was performing. Simply put, they were fucking brutal.

Rick had studied martial arts from the day he began cadre training with Mickey Finn. Mercs wouldn’t always have the luxury of being suited up in a CASPer when a fight came calling. The sergeant major of cadre had always insisted on weekly unarmed combat sessions. He was a little Korean dude who could toss a 120-kilo man like a ragdoll, and do it all afternoon.

Some of Sato’s moves were clearly Ju Jitsu. Rick also recognized some Kung Fu and even Krav Maga. The latter he hadn’t expected, as they were power moves you saw more often with a large, strong fighter. The Israelis had developed Krav Maga centuries before by combining moves from many forms, including Judo, Aikido, and Karate. He knew quite a bit of it himself.

However, there was a series of moves Sato used against the opSha when two of them had him and were trying to get the diminutive scientist off his feet. They were strange, open-handed moves that curiously didn’t take advantage of his fingers. They were quite effective against the aliens, too. Rick replayed one sort of ‘chop block’ into an opSha’s arm a dozen times.

Is that move designed for use against an opSha? he wondered. Whatever the origin, Sato mixed in those moves with many other styles to turn the simian aliens’ attack against him into a wild, gyrating ballet of pain directed back