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  Once the shuttles landed near Eshbaal’s primary audience chamber, Mike turned on his HUD mounted external 360-degree camera. This gave the bridge crew of the Gilboa a First-Person-Shooter perspective on what was happening on the surface.

  The marine’s goal was to locate the engram storage units for the Mahanaim faction and destroy them.

  Over the course of tens of thousands of years, the Thassi had carefully cataloged the layout of Eshbaal’s lair. The indigenous race were masters of the long game. There were three copies of the engrams. All three would need to be dealt with.

  The surface areas of the lair were dead. All power systems had been fried. We watched as dark hallways scrolled by illuminated by nothing more than the lights mounted on the kinetic rifles our boys carried.

  Just as I was getting comfortable with the lack of resistance, Mike and the others began to take fire.

  Sasa yelled of the din a command in her people’s tongue. I learned later that it had been an order to stand down. As the neander-thugs stood up and walked into the open, Sasa mowed them down with her AR-37. Mike quickly pushed her weapon down.

  The Marine Colonel explained in no uncertain terms that a combatant surrendering was not to be fired upon. It discouraged others from surrendering and was immoral. Sasa shrugged but agreed to obey what she believed to be a silly restriction.

  The remaining neander-thugs were bound with extra strong zip ties. In a few minutes, they resumed their advance through the corridors. They encountered sporadic resistance, which they continued to address with extreme prejudice. Sadly, there were no more attempts to surrender.

  “We are approaching the first target,” Mike whispered for our benefit.

  A massive hatch sealed the far end of the corridor. Mike’s camera view shifted to take in a trio of Thassi.

  “Balls in your court,” he said.

  The three avians looked at each other to see if any of them understood the reference.

  “Your turn to act. Take out that door,” Mike explained.

  The Thassi collectively bobbed their heads in acknowledgment. They moved to the massive hatch.

  Unfortunately, Mike’s view was obscured by the bird’s backs and the fact that he turned on several occasions to ensure they were not attacked from the rear. A sealed corridor was not the best location from which to counter an assault.

  There was a sudden bright flash that made it hard to see until the HUD mounted camera adjusted its light sensitivity. Where the hatch had been, there was now a rectangular opening which allowed the light from the other side to stream through. Apparently, the EMP had not affected things on that side of the door.

  The tech the Thassi were using to breach the barrier was interesting stuff. In each corner of the rectangular opening, the birds had placed a small device. These devices linked up with each of their partners and disrupted the molecular bonds that held the metals of the hatch together.

  The metal of the hatch literally flowed like water out of the frame… all without generating any appreciable heat. When their work was done, the Thassi deactivated the devices and returned them to harnessed bags they carried on their chests.

  Moments later, Mike and the marines entered the memory engram storage room. It was huge. Thousands upon thousands of glowing blue cubes lined shelves that extended as far as the eye could see.

  Mike’s camera shifted to face Mitty.

  “It’s time for you and Arquat to do your thing.”

  Mitty pulled a holo-emitter cube from his backpack and set it on the ground. Immediately the image of Arquat flickered into existence. At this point, the Jabesh AI was nothing more than a blind specter. That would change shortly.

  Mitty the proceeded to place a number of tripods up near the control console just off to the right of the entrance. The tripods contained small forcefield emitters as well as a sensor array. They were essentially Arquat’s eyes and hands. They would allow the holographic Jabesh AI to interact with his surroundings.

  Arquat moved towards the control panel and began to actual the various controls. The speed at which he moved was astounding. A sound at the far end of the chamber caused Mike to swivel his head, so we missed the last little bit of the AI’s actions, but the results spoke for themselves.

  Arquat had overridden the safety protocols that protected the memory archive from excessive power surges. He then forced such a surge to occur. The sound at the far end of the chamber was the first of the engram overloading and bursting into flames. Those memory traces were forever destroyed. Within a few moments, the entire room was filled with an acrid smoke.

  Our view shifted as Mike and the others beat a hasty retreat.

  It took another hour, but eventually, all three storage facilities were located and destroyed. While Eshbaal would be able to resurrect the Ancestors biologically, the Mahanaim were well and truly gone. His quest was over.

  Arquat left one final parting gift for Eshbaal. He cloned himself and took control of his adversary’s entire complex. When the Mahanaim AI attempted to return, he would find himself without a home. We were to learn later that several of the cabal AIs to include Ish-Boshet gladly shifted alliances to serve Arquat.

  The Defiler threat was all but over. It was time for the Gilboa and Yorktown to return to the Sol system and join with the Ticonderoga in liberating Earth.

  Epilog

  2100.1289.9384 Galactic Normalized Time

  Admiral ‘Ody’ Riker scratched his now quite gray beard. It had been twenty years since he and the Diaspora had left the Sol system. Babies born as they were leaving Earth were just now beginning to enter the workforce on the great ship. Soon, the memory of Earth would fade and become little more than folktale. He sighed. He and his crew were forming their own memories, their own history. Perhaps someday they would have an interesting tale of their own to share.

  2100.1289.8920 Galactic Normalized Time

  Lori and I laid back on our beach loungers. The sound of waves lapping the shore of a pristine Costa Rican beach was enchanting. I had never felt so content. Lori was pregnant with our first child. Our little corner of the galaxy was at peace.

  It had taken less than a week to convince the RC’s as we had taken to calling the Riker clones to lay down their weapons and surrender. Our biggest problem with the clones was figuring out what to do with them. We couldn’t have tens of thousands of clones of the Galactic Order’s fleet admiral walking around.

  It turned out my wife and Sasa came up with the answer. After Sasa and the other Trogs – I no longer called them ‘neander-thug’ – spent some quality time in the Da’Tellen teaching machines they were indistinguishable, intellectually from run-of-the-mill enhanced humans.

  The RC’s and many of the Trogs and a handful of J’ni headed out into the great unknown of space as explorers. Over the course of time, the RC’s and Trogs would intermix, and a new race of human hybrids would be formed.

  We gave the explorers a mission. Find the UES Diaspora and Admiral “Ody” Riker. Space is vast, and the chances of finding our lost brethren were minute, but it gave the RC’s a purpose.

  As for me. I was on vacation. I tried not to think about all the work that was piling up for me back at Command Central. We had an interplanetary federation to rebuild. This old dog would have his hands full for many years to come. I reached over and grabbed Lori’s hand. For the moment, I was quite content to be a lazy dog.

  *** This ends book Three of the Boneyard Dog series ***

  Watch for my next SciFi series – Battleborn

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  Boneyard Dog #3,

  Hunting Dog

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank my wife Lori and my two daughters, CJ and Jackie, for putting up with me while I wrote this latest book. Any similarities between people in this book and my immediate family and friends are purely intentional. Of course, I wouldn’t be much of a pastor if I didn’t acknowledge God – to Him be all the glory! To keep up to date on all my books… be sure to follow me on Amazon by clicking the +Follow button on my author's page! As always… please leave a positive review!

  Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Beery. All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author. First Electronic Edition: May 2019

  Check out my other SCIFI series:

  The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles (9 books)

  The Infinity Brigade (3 books)