Read Off-Worlders Page 5


  Izabel

  Izabel watched the Cirillean ship approach through sapphire eyes. They were the same sapphire eyes of the Lady Evamiin. Not just a similar deep, jewel blue, but exactly so. All of the Gen3s had these eyes. The Lady Evamiin had ordered it.

  They were made for a blue planet. Earth. Blue Earth. Little Blue. The Cybriids were created for many things, but with this one ultimate goal, this blue jewel of a planet at the far end of the Cosmos, in mind.

  It was on this little blue planet that the great Mind Diamond of the Makers lays undetected, still. It was above this little blue planet that the Veil separating this Cosmos from what was beyond, lay, waiting to be opened. It was from this little blue planet that the Fifth Siren of the Veil would rise.

  And the war for control of the Veil would start from there.

  An important little blue planet indeed.

  It was only fitting, that these most superior of all CyTech creations should have blue eyes in its honor.

  But they were not in its honor. Not really. They were more in honor of the Lady Evamiin’s ego.

  Deep down, Izabel knew this.

  Just as she knew she would never go to Little Blue. Never willingly be a part of the Old Ones desire to take it. Never be a part of the Veil War those with power and control in the cosmos waited for.

  She had been created by Old Ones, but she was not one of them.

  She was of something much older than them, and who, perhaps, had met their fate, in their hands.

  Izabel was beginning to be as sure of this, as she was sure she would never go to Little Blue. She had said it out loud once. When she was very young and first told of the mission.

  “I will not go there and do that,” she said. She was their star pupil, their star creation. The professor who schooled them had looked her in stunned silence.

  She had been sent for testing. Back to her maker, Dr. IIz, but he could find nothing wrong with her.

  They dismissed it as a glitch. They did a cleanse and reboot. Her Cytech brain, body, flesh were deactivated for these processes, but that other part of her remained conscious. Not the soul fragment they imparted into her at birth, but the other bit, ancient, knowing, bigger than the soul bit, bigger than all of them.

  She learnt much about her inner workings while that other awareness remained conscious during these processes. It would serve her most readily later on.

  Like now.

  She checked her gun was set to maximum stun only. There was still a risk that maximum stun might kill instead of stun. She tried very hard not to think about that. At the end of the day, she could only guarantee her intentions.

  Butterflies.

  Knowing calm.

  She took out the first flight controller without him even becoming aware of her presence. That fact might bring the current trial of Off-World human flight controllers to an abrupt end. But Izabel thought it was doomed to failure anyway.

  There were way too many CyTech enhanced beings for emotionally and physically needy O-W human flight controllers to ever be more than a passing fad.

  The second flight controller was CyTech. Not Cybriid like herself, but still. Baden. That was his name. Izabel remembered as she pulled the trigger.

  She rubbed her upper left arm. He'd put up more of a struggle than the human.

  Security Detail were on their way here in numbers. She could see them on the screens. She knew these men and women well.

  They had not questioned her arrival on the flight deck.

  Izabel was never questioned.

  She was The Lady Evamiin's pet WorldCoder. Why would she be?

  Calmly, but with a touch more urgency in her step, Izabel released the door lock and stepped from the control room into the hangar.

  She shot the two flight attendants, the three ground crew and the two hangar security detail within five-seconds of entering the hangar.

  She is a Cybriid.

  And she had modified the gun.

  She had taken two bullet wounds herself. But she could fix them. They would heal.

  The Cirilleans looked at her. They looked at her gun.

  They backed away.

  Gracefully.

  The Cirilleans are always graceful.

  "A graceful race."

  "Yes. It is reflected in their space craft."

  Izabel wondered if anyone ever said anything else about the Cirilleans.

  She nodded to them before she boarded the craft.

  It was nothing personal.

  It was just that the Cirilleans were the only Off-Worlders allowed entry on the world she was going to.

  Perhaps it was the grace thing.

  If it weren't for this fact, she would have simply stolen one of Moethiicaa's ships.

  Lights flashed on the hangar flight control desk

  She had already coded her exit.

  The Cirillean ship left the Ibecca Space Port as quickly and gracefully as it had landed. Only a very short time ago.

  The Lady Evamiin was already in her meeting.

  The Security Detail arrived thirty-three seconds too late to do anything to stop her.

  Timing. Izabel thought as she settled back in to the pilot's chair.

  Butterflies. Knowing calm. Timing.

  That was the third key element, to a good first step, towards doing something crazy good.