Borne On Wings of Steel Read Online Free

its home star, and having those titanic gravitational forces wrenching the planet's surface, as well as the constant hurricane-force winds at its surface that eventually join with these horizontal upper winds, well, these cloud bands are rich with sub-microscopic raw material."
    "Why doesn't that barrage of raw elements slam through the walls of this city?” Jaric asked again, fascinated by this exotic place.
    "By the time the winds reach this altitude, the elements have been practically vaporized—battered almost to their molecular level and ready to be harvested. Still, there is a series of outer shields both protecting this city as well as funneling the elements to be processed. The Mrad leave nothing to waste, they utilize everything."
    "Ingenious,” Jysar commented.
    "But, we forget why we have come to RahajMr in the first place,” Minstrel-Zuuk said.
    A shock of sadness gripped Jaric's soul and overwhelmed him. It seemed to kill him one lonely heartbeat at a time.
    Yes, Jaric remembered.
    He remembered all too well the hopelessness of their life-long search to find other survivors of the human race.
    For the human race was no more—destroyed—eradicated.
    Jaric shook his head as childhood memories flooded his mind.
    No, exterminated better described it.
    Well, almost , he added mentally. He and Kyle alone remained, two young men, sole survivors of the human race.
    Jaric's mind reeled with his dizzying melancholy .
    There was a third. Three humans survived mankind's destruction as Earth blew apart in the final battle. Becky had also survived—the last female human.
    But Becky was now dead.
    Jaric growled under his breath, anger filling his soul as he remembered again how Becky's ship disintegrated in their last battle with the T'kaan—the climactic battle of six alien fleets. A battle that brought the final destruction of the T'kaan. A mighty struggle fought by the combined Hrono, Mewiis and Kraaqi fleets led by Mother and Kyle and Jaric ... and Becky.
    Jaric groaned deep inside.
    The T'kaan were finally destroyed, but at such a terribly high cost.
    Yet, there was Becky's clone...
    Jaric remembered the entrance of Becky's clone, the clone created by the Hrono from Becky's DNA.
    So, there was a third human survivor...
    No. The clone did not count. There were only two survivors of the human race—he and Kyle.
    He fought back the hot tears that suddenly filled his eyes as he turned away from his friends in embarrassment.
    Kyle groaned as he watched Jaric. With clenched fists, Kyle too turned away.
    Jaric's mind went back further. He reviewed once again their escape as Earth lay under siege by the mighty T'kaan Third Fleet, just before its destruction.
    Deep inside the AI starship, the young child Jaric hid from the universe. He closed his eyes as mankind's Last Stand played out.
    In this, Jaric's earliest memory of that terrible time, the only comfort he felt was that of Mother—the AI starship inside which he hid.
    Mother was the ultimate warship, designed by the scientists of mankind as they retreated before the T'kaan onslaught. Mother was a combination of the best technology left to mankind—the most advanced hardware ever designed coupled with the latest, most sophisticated AI software ever developed.
    Mankind armed the AI warship to the teeth and programmed it for one primary function—to destroy the T'kaan. Additionally, they enhanced the firepower of this ship with the most destructive of T'kaan weapons, reverse-engineered from one of the few T'kaan warships captured by humans—and even that battle had not been a victory.
    For the T'kaan rarely lost in battle.
    Knowledge learned as he grew older augmented Jaric's memory. There had been an AI ship created before Mother—the Alpha ship.
    The prototype AI ship, the Alpha ship, was hugely successful at first. In five straight battles it destroyed every T'kaan ship it faced—although outnumbered every time.
    The T'kaan trembled for the first time since