Chapter 538

Jake followed the two humans across the vast cavern toward the tunnel that led to the freight elevator. As he walked, he took in the lively activity around him. The Spartans were busy gathering their belongings. Everybody couldn’t wait to finally leave the underground cavern for good. Everyone was excited about it.

Well, not exactly everybody. The two humans, Rachel and Fernand, didn’t share the excitement. Jake could tell that most of the Spartans no longer treated him as an enemy, no longer viewed him as a threat. Most of them had come to accept him as a useful ally. He now moved freely among them, and hardly anybody batted an eye anymore. He could sense the general mood among the human group, so he knew that most of them no longer harbored any grudges against him.

Most, but not all. The hostility emanating from the two humans he was currently following was almost palpable. Even before he used Mind Breach on them, he had already known they were planning to make some kind of move against him.

When he arrived at the Spartan base, the first thing he had done was test out this newly acquired ability on some of the Spartans around him. Just as he had expected, Mind Breach broke through the defensive barrier protecting their minds from intrusion, allowing him to use Mind Reader on them.

So the Spartans could no longer hide their memories from him. He spent a couple of minutes quickly skimming through days’ worth of memories from several humans but didn’t learn anything particularly interesting or useful. None of the humans he used Mind Breach and Mind Reader on had any idea what Rachel and Fernand were planning. Which meant that whatever their play was, the other Spartans weren’t in on it and knew nothing about it. It was good to know.

During Rachel and Catalina’s conversation, when Rachel claimed she and Fernand wanted to give him a useful piece of tech, he had used Mind Breach and Mind Reader on both of them, so he knew exactly what they were planning.

They were unaware that he could now view the memories of any Spartan by bypassing their mental protection, so they remained completely calm, convinced they had him fooled. They were leading the most dangerous predator in this world into what they thought was a trap, never realizing that they would be the ones trapped in the tech lab with him, isolated from the other Spartans. Once inside, they would be completely at his mercy.

Having read Rachel and Fernand’s memories, Jake knew there was another human in cahoots with them, a man named Chen. He was in the tech lab’s security control room, waiting for Jake to enter the teleporter room. Once that happened, he would activate the teleporter. Only, since it was configured to the Dark Void setting, instead of creating a portal, the anomaly would fill the teleporter’s arc. It would immediately kick in, pulling everything that wasn’t bolted down, and everyone unfortunate enough to be in the room, into itself. That was how Rachel, Fernand, and Chen planned to get rid of him.

And the reason for their hatred was simple: they still couldn’t forgive him for killing the Commander.

The three of them believed the hardest part of their plan would be convincing Jake to follow them into the teleporter room. But now that they thought they had tricked him into believing they simply wanted to give him a gift, they were relaxed. Rachel and Fernand didn’t glance back at him even once as he followed them. They had grown completely at ease, convinced events were about to unfold exactly as they had planned.

But they couldn’t have been more wrong.

Jake continued following the two humans. Together, they entered the tunnel leading to the freight elevator. Once they reached it, it carried them down to the tech lab. From there, the three of them headed down the brightly lit corridor. Jake knew the door at the far end led to the security control room where Chen was waiting. But they weren’t going that far.

Instead, Rachel stopped about halfway down the corridor beside a door set into the left-hand wall. She swiped the touchscreen on the control panel, and the door slid into the wall with a hiss, revealing the room beyond.

Rachel turned to face him. Fernand stopped beside her, also turning toward Jake. He halted a few paces away and gave the two humans a quick once-over. Fernand was trying hard to remain calm and confident, but his nervousness didn’t escape Jake’s notice. Rachel was much better at keeping her emotions in check. She wore an easy, relaxed smile as she looked him straight in the eyes. Even so, beneath her composed facade, he could sense her nervousness as well.

It was understandable. While they had managed to lead him to the tech lab, it wasn’t quite over yet. They still had to get him into the teleporter room. Until he stepped inside, they weren’t out of the woods.

Rachel motioned toward the open doorway as she said with the same soft smile on her lips, “After you, Jake.”

He didn’t move. For a moment, he simply stood there, studying the two humans. He could tell Fernand was barely holding himself together. The plan had been his idea. He had been convinced it would work like clockwork, but now he was clearly beginning to have second thoughts. As for Rachel, while she was better at hiding her emotions, his refusal to move was obviously beginning to grate on her. Her smile started to fade.

“What’s in there?” Jake finally asked.

As he spoke, he deliberately turned his head toward Fernand, making it clear he expected him to answer. Fernand remained silent. He was clearly afraid his voice would crack. He probably didn’t even know what to say. Instead, he simply glanced at Rachel, silently passing responsibility for handling the situation to her.

“The device we told you about,” she said, clearly feeling the gaze of her companion on her. “It’s in there, Jake.”

He didn’t reply. He remained motionless for another moment. Then, deciding he shouldn’t spook them too early, he said, “All right then.”

He stepped toward the two humans. They immediately relaxed, convinced they had fooled him. Fernand almost let out a sigh of relief. Almost, but he caught himself just in time. Rachel’s smile returned.

Jake took another step. Then another one. And another.

As he took the next one, he drew level with the open doorway on his left. He briefly glanced inside and saw the teleporter occupying the center of the otherwise empty room. The device was inactive. For now. The moment he stepped inside, Chen would activate it. Jake assumed the third conspirator was probably just as nervous as the other two, watching everything through the CCTV camera mounted at the end of the corridor.

Jake took another step. Only this time, he moved even closer to Rachel. She visibly tensed. By now, he should have turned into the room. Instead, for some reason, he had closed the distance between them. She clearly didn’t like that. Only a foot separated them now. Her smile faltered, and she instinctively took a step backward.

Jake stopped, staring at the two humans. At last, they began to realize something was wrong, that events weren’t unfolding the way they had planned.

“Rach, I think…” Fernand began, but whatever he had been about to say, he never finished.

Jake sprouted numerous tendrils from his body and sent them shooting toward Rachel. They wrapped around her, pinning her arms to her sides before lifting her off the floor. Her right hand managed to wrench free from one of the tendrils and snapped to the pistol holstered at her side. Yanking it free, she aimed at Jake and fired.

A fraction of a second before she did, he jerked his head aside, and the energy bolt zipped harmlessly past him. Before Rachel could fire again, one of the tendrils wrapped around the pistol and ripped it from her grasp.

Fernand chose to run. He didn’t try to slip past Jake. Instead, he spun around and bolted down the corridor, even though it led to a dead end. He didn’t get far, though. Jake fired a cinch net after him. In an instant, it wrapped around the fleeing human, sending him crashing to the floor.

Jake whipped Rachel sideways, slamming her against the wall. Several tendrils coiled around her throat, and her eyes widened as she struggled to draw a single breath.

Jake stepped toward the writhing human suspended in his tendrils. Since his hands were free, he kept his electrolarynx pressed against his mandible.

“Looks like it didn’t go exactly as you planned, huh?” he said.

“How… did you…” With the tendrils constricting around her throat, speaking was difficult.

“…learn about your plan?” Jake finished for her. “Easy. All I had to do was read your memories.”

A look of shock flickered across her rapidly reddening face.

“I have a skill now that lets me bypass your mental protection,” Jake explained. “So the moment you two approached me, I knew exactly what you were planning. You thought you had me fooled, but it was the other way around.”

Rachel didn’t answer. She was focused solely on dragging desperately needed air into her oxygen-starved lungs. One of her hands was free, and she clawed frantically at the tendrils around her throat, but those were wrapped too tightly.

Jake spun and hurled her down the corridor as the tendrils released her. She hit the floor hard and collapsed onto her side. For a moment, she simply lay there, gasping for air. Jake walked over and stopped, towering above the human. Fernand, meanwhile, was still struggling futilely against the cinch net. In several places, its sharp edges had sliced deep into his flesh, all the way to the bone, drawing blood. But at least he was still alive. For now.

Jake considered what he should do next. Should he kill the humans who had tried to murder him? That was exactly what he wanted to do. But he knew it wouldn’t sit well with the other Spartans. He didn’t really want them to start seeing him as a threat so soon after they had begun accepting him as an ally. On the other hand, he couldn’t simply let these three humans go unpunished. That would only encourage others to try something similar if the opportunity arose.

Rachel rolled onto her back and saw him standing over her. She quickly pushed herself onto her elbows and began scrambling away.

“No,” she whimpered. “Don’t do it. Please. I… we’re sorry.”

But before Jake could decide what to do with the three traitorous humans, sirens suddenly began to blare, echoing through the corridor.