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'I do not want to. But I need to.' The old rememberer blinked his soulful eyes. He had been uncharacteristically quiet. 'Remember your heroic tales. A hero who has been through a terrible ordeal must face his fears and face his past in order to achieve redemption.'

'That's true in stories, Vao'sh. But I never wanted to be an epic hero.'

The old man smiled. 'And yet, you are.'

Yazra'h clapped him on the back with a blow hard enough to make him grab the rail for balance. 'Soon we will destroy them all, Rememberer Anton. I will show you how Ildiran warriors deal with evil machines.'

'I wish you'd been there with us the first time.'

'I wish that as well.' Her coppery hair seemed alive, flowing around her head like a corona. She stared at the former resort planet as they went into orbit. 'It would have been glorious.'

She had left her Isix cats on Ildira. Yazra'h loved to hunt with them, to run across the training fields, and even to roll or wrestle with the animals. But they would be of little use against hulking robots. Anton was sure she feared for her pets' safety more than she did for her own.

Adar Zan'nh issued orders to the individual captains of the warliners. 'We do not know what weapons or defences the robots have. Recapturing Maratha might be a difficult battle, and we must be prepared for the fight.'

'We are looking forward to it,' Yazra'h said. 'Without their hydrogue protectors, those robots cannot stand against us.'

Anton mumbled, 'Well, they took us by surprise before.'

Yazra'h's lips quirked in a smile. You are frightened. Do not be. I promise to protect you.'

'I… I believe you.' Unfortunately, her assurances didn't blunt the cluster of razor blades that had suddenly lodged in his stomach.

The circling warliners deployed scanners to pick up transmissions from the two antipodal cities. 'Maratha Prime and Secda both seem to be dead.'

'As we anticipated,' said Vao'sh. All the coloured lobes on his expressive face went deathly pale. Anton patted him reassuringly on the shoulder.

'However, we have detected significant electronic chatter and thermal signatures near the site of Secda.'

'That's where the robots were digging tunnels and erecting their structures,' Anton said.

The septar transmitted from the second warliner, 'I am deploying covert streamers to gather images of all locations. We will study Prime first.'

'Be careful that you are not observed.'

Like a school of metallic fish, Ildiran scout vessels dropped out of the warliner's belly and cut through the night sky toward the location of Maratha Prime. In well-lit cockpits, the Ildiran pilots flew over what had once been a fabulous vacation city. The streamers spilled silvery light down upon the domes and outer settlements. What remained of Maratha Prime looked like the metal and crystal bones of a beached sea creature.

'The city is destroyed,' transmitted one of the pilots.

Anton shook his head. 'Not destroyed - dismantled.' Prime had suffered from no obvious explosions or attacks. Instead, the robots had stripped the buildings and walls, removing equipment, pulling out any processed material they could use.

'What would they want it all for?' Yazra'h said.

'We will find out when the scouts get to the hive at Secda,' Zan'nh said.

Flying low over the darkened landscape, the spy streamers rapidly crossed the continent to the other side of the planet. By the time they outraced the night, flying low enough to avoid any local detection systems the robots might have put in place, the scanners came upon the vast and strange complex the robots had created. Unseen, they transmitted images back to the approaching warliners. Before long, however, the robots would detect the Solar Navy force overhead.

The nearly completed city had been torn apart as well, its useful components cannibalized to build an immense and distinctive alien metropolis. Or a base. The rocky landscape was riddled with tunnels and shafts. Towers made of curving girders were weirdly reminiscent of the Klikiss