Page 3 of A Mate For Matrix
“Have you been sending K-Nine images of eligible females again?” Terrex asked.
Sennara turned, wishing she could lean into her life mate for strength when a wave of weakness washed through her. She drew in a deep breath and forced her failing body to remain strong. Releasing the breath, she smiled up at her mate.
“Maybe just a few. I would love to see my grandchild before…” she whispered, her voice fading when Terrex gently laid his fingers against her lips.
“You will,” he vowed. “You will.”
“This is CPU-07051, requesting permission for departure,” Matrix stated into the mic.
“CPU-07051, clearance is granted,” the voice from the large warship replied.
Matrix eased their assigned starship out of the massive Zion warship. K-Nine was linked to the warship’s computer system. His dark gray eyes glowed as he collected and processed the information.
“I’ve located a particle signature from the pod we’re tracking,” K-Nine said.
“Lock onto coordinates,” Matrix ordered, reaching forward and setting the computer guidance system.
“It leads to an abandoned jump gate,” K-Nine responded, tilting his head.
“I guess we’ll see where it goes,” Matrix replied grimly. “I’m diverting energy to the front shields. Prepare for the jump.”
This gate was abandoned after proving unreliable. New technology and more advanced jump gates were now being used. On their return trip, they would need to lock on to these coordinates as they went through if they ever hoped to return to their own star system. It was a risk, but it was the only way.
Beyond the viewport, the abandoned jump gate loomed, a fractured halo of scorched metal suspended in the void. Its surface shimmered with residual static, a ghost of the energy that once tore space open. Although abandoned, it still hummed.
Everything appeared to slow down around them as they entered the jump gate. Suddenly they were being propelled forward. Matrix’s teeth clenched as the starship shuddered. This was going to be one mission he wasn’t ever likely to forget.
Chapter Two
The woods that bordered the road were dense with trees very unlike what Matrix was used to on Zion: tall, silver-barked giants with leaves that shimmered like metal under the twin suns. These trees were much shorter and thinner, with brown bark and green leaves. Perhaps because this system only had one sun.
The particle field emitted by the pod’s unusual design had veered away from all known planets and into a distant, uncharted star system. The mess Elaine Brim and her team of scientists had created would become a bigger mess if Matrix and K-Nine didn’t remain invisible to the local inhabitants, but as members of the Zion military’s elite Shadow Warriors, Matrix and K-Nine were used to operating unseen. The Confederation Council was far more difficult to hide from than the primitive aliens on this planet, and they did that as a matter of course. Matrix wasn’t worried about exposure. He was worried about K-Nine.
The air was thick with damp, earthy scents and the quiet hum of insect life, unfamiliar but oddly soothing. Matrix cautiously moved out of the woods and looked both ways along the hard, dark surface of the alien road that curved at opposite ends of the long, narrow stretch.
As savage as Crawlers were, they weren’t just predators. They were tacticians. It had not taken Matrix and K-Nine long to locate the Crawler’s abandoned pod, but the creature had been underground most of the time since then. That had severely limited the range of their sensors, and they didn’t have a way to make it surface.
Crawlers were programmed to destroy distress signals immediately, and Matrix and K-Nine did each have an emergency signal that could lure the Crawler, but they also knew the creature would smell a trap a planet away. It would most likely only get close enough to watch them, waiting, and only approach when it was certain they were unprepared.
No, they needed the element of surprise for as long as they had it. They would probably only get one chance to kill it when a confrontation finally happened.
Elaine Brim’s interrogators hadn’t been able to get much information out of her, but once the surviving scientists on her team had been detained, they had readily supplied information for leniency. They had even provided the notes and vidcoms kept off site from Brim’s destroyed lab. Matrix’s superiors and the scientists involved had deduced that there were only two ways to kill a Crawler: blow them up with an energy charge or cut off their heads.
The first was the easiest, but anything within a fifty klick radius would be destroyed as well. That didn’t bode well for the warrior and his partner if they didn’t move fast enough. Matrix had a gun with a charge ready in his holster, but he wouldn’t use it unless there was truly no other way.
The second way was only slightly safer, as long as the two of them didn’t get too close to the creature, which was decidedly difficult when you needed to cut off its head.
Matrix shook his head in resignation. He was glad the insane scientists, particularly Brim, were safely locked away. There was no telling what else the deranged female would have come up with if she had remained unchecked.
Matrix studied the ground intently for evidence of what could have happened to his partner. His gaze followed the long, dark marks on the hard surface. After a long, searching moment, his focus narrowed in on a tuft of K-Nine’s blue fur at the edge of the road.
Matrix had not been too concerned at first when K-Nine and he had separated. The Crawler they were hunting was quick, and splitting up meant they were more likely to stay ahead of it despite all the obstacles they might encounter in the unfamiliar terrain. They had been approaching an area inhabited by the natives—and therefore closer to when the creature would likely surface—when Matrix had lost communication with K-Nine.
Since then, he had focused on reaching K-Nine’s last known whereabouts. They had both been warned that fighting one of these creatures one-on-one wasn’t advised—but that wasn’t the reason Matrix was putting his partner’s safety first. They were family.
Matrix glanced down at the scanner in his hand and drew in a deep breath as he pulled his thoughts back to the present. He seriously doubted there was an issue with K-Nine’s cybernetics. They had been in regular contact before this, and their communicator was designed specifically for their team—as resilient and stable as the rest of their enhancements.
At first, he had thought the unusually long silence was because of K-Nine’s intense focus, but K-Nine had failed to answer several hails on the communicator now, and Matrix knew that something more serious must have happened.
