And along with the pain came another sensation for which the Wanderer had received no preparation: fear. Never before in her lifetime—before the uncounted generations that had passed since she had first yielded to the long, cold sleep—had she experienced such trepidation, and never when facing lesser beings such as those the Shedai once had ruled.
Refocusing her attention on the third of six Sentinels she had dispatched to disparate locations across the surface of the world above, the Wanderer once again felt the energy of life coursing through her consciousness as she directed the guardian’s movements. She sensed yet ignored the impacts of the energy weapons the lesser beings carried, their personal weapons too small and inconsequential to inflict any significant damage to the body she wore. Gravity weighed against it as she directed it to face approaching attackers, and she relished the feel of its stoneglass arms slicing through fragile flesh and bone. So sensitive were the receptors formed into the shell’s bioconstruct that the Wanderer even felt the warmth and moisture of Telinaruulblood as it splashed across the Sentinel’s face.
Upon first dispatching the team of guardians, she had likened her opponents to those she had encountered on the ice-bound planet from which she had come. They certainly were larger, stronger, and even more aggressive than those she had fought on that world, something she had taken into account when choosing to deploy more than one Sentinel on this occasion.
She initially considered that she might have overcompensated as the first of the Sentinels engaged the Telinaruulon the planet’s surface. Despite their heightened ferocity—something the Wanderer actually had found refreshing—her opponents initially had proven to be little more than the bothersome pests she previously had encountered. As before, the Sentinel now at her command rebuffed the brave yet pitiful attempts at attack, pushing through the Telinaruulwith the ease of water flowing over rocks in a stream.
Similar scenes were playing out in much the same fashion with the other three Sentinels that shared her consciousness. More of the opponents were coming to the individual battles now, showing none of the fear of those she had encountered on the barren, glaciated planet. If anything, losing comrades in battle seemed to be having the opposite effect, spurring them on to even greater hostility and fury. Likewise, this heightened emotional response did not seem to detract from their tactics or sense of awareness while doing battle. Indeed, even as her Sentinels cut down and slaughtered a growing number of their brethren, the Wanderer surmised that this species of lesser life-form appeared to thrive on the chaos and intensity of combat.
They are a proud people. It is a pity that they must be destroyed, but their meddling cannot be tolerated.
She already had killed those Telinaruulwhom she found skulking within the winding corridors of the subterranean complex that housed the Conduit anchor point’s power-generation and support structures. Those beings had provided nothing in the way of a challenge, certainly nothing like she was experiencing on the surface. It was those engagements that now were giving her cause for concern as, for the first time since unleashing her cadre of guardians to the surface, the Wanderer was feeling the initial pull of fatigue. The demands of directing the Sentinels when coupled with her need to oversee the global defense network as it dealt with the vessel in orbit above the planet were causing a pronounced strain—one the likes of which she had not been required to endure for unknown generations. If the splintered, protracted battles continued, the notion of her opponents gaining a decisive advantage moved from dim hope to potential threat.
She felt another barrage of weapons fire—channeled from another of the Sentinels through the Conduit to her own stressed consciousness as the Telinaruulbegan their assault anew—and directed the guardian to retaliate. Her opponents were so close now that olfactory senses relayed the pungent stench of unwashed bodies and foul breath consistent with a carnivorous diet. One of them released a loud, fierce cry of anger as it and a companion lunged forward, each brandishing a large edged weapon with a curved blade.
The Wanderer was able to admire the attackers’ skill as they employed the implements in an almost choreographed series of maneuvers no doubt designed not only to intimidate an enemy but also to celebrate a culture that had long ago embraced ritualized aspects of the combat arts. She could admire such devotion, as the Shedai had long fancied themselves accomplished practitioners of similar martial disciplines. Further, it was that appreciation which allowed her to more quickly and easily detect her oncoming opponents’ weaknesses and more appropriately adjust her counterattack.
Her fatigue was greater than she had first surmised, however. It was only as the larger, mobile energy weapon—one similar to those already deployed against her other Sentinels—had finished moving into position that the Wanderer took notice of it. By then it was too late and she felt her entire consciousness gripped in a torrent of shock and pain as the weapon was unleashed on the Sentinel. The connection she shared with the servant body fluctuated and threatened to dissolve altogether, carrying with it the very real risk of leaving her essence trapped within the guardian’s mortal shell and at the mercy of the mighty weapon as it fired once more.
Sensing yet another loss, the Wanderer had no choice but to withdraw from the Sentinel, recalling that part of herself back to the Conduit just as her servant body surrendered to the barrage of energy enveloping it. She felt the last vestiges of its life consumed by the weapon’s ferocious power even as she struggled to refocus her flagging strength between the three remaining Sentinels and the needs of the global network she was trying to direct.
It was foolish to have overextended herself in this manner, she realized, though there was nothing to be done about correcting her flawed decision, particularly now as the defense system’s orbital sensor web informed her that the Telinaruulship in orbit was repositioning itself for what probability algorithms described as an attack profile.
From deep within her own being, the Wanderer saw the scene as if floating in space before the enemy vessel, watching as its weapons ports spouted a series of blazing crimson plumes. Eight elongated spheres of packaged energy raced away from the ship and plummeted toward the planet below, accelerating and superheating as they entered the atmosphere. She watched as they divided into pairs before separating, four double contrails cutting swaths through the still-dark sky and the dense cloud cover.
The first vicious jolt came moments later. Alarm indicators streamed through the Conduit to her, reaching out from points within the planet’s global information network. Immediately she felt the loss of connection to one of the defense system’s vital hubs, then sensed the decline in her control over the rest of the system. The sensation was repeated twice more in rapid succession as more of the ship’s torpedoes found their intended targets and detonated, laying waste to yet more support facilities.
When the fourth volley struck, the Wanderer had no choice but to withdraw from the defense system, leaving it behind in a desperate attempt to preserve herself. Even as she redirected her consciousness to other areas of the thoughtspace, she felt the demise of the protective network, collapsing in on itself as the physical structures and equipment that supported it fell victim to the barrage of fire raining down from space.
Struggling to retain some semblance of focus on what little of this world’s Conduit anchor point remained, she observed that only a few of the key systems were available to her. Even her access to her remaining Sentinels had been compromised, her essence now feeling the effects of their disconnection from the Conduit and thusly vulnerable to her aggressors’ weapons. She could do nothing about that now, just as she was unable to manufacture and deploy replacements for those guardians which already had been lost. Those areas of the thoughtspace remained unavailable to her, and reestablishing an interface to those channels would take far more time than she believed remained to her.