Read Online Dark Dragons by Kevin Leffingwell - Free Book Online

a blank stare in his eyes.
    Darren continued forward, his flashlight darting back and
forth.  Immediately, a low-pitched drone rose from the stillness.
    “What’s that?” Jorge whispered.
    Darren stopped and listened, trying to hear over his
pounding heart.  A jet of hot steam burst from a ruptured line above them
and breached the silence.  The boys jumped, and Darren felt everything
inside him twitch.  The steam slowly died when whatever inside relieved
the last of its pressure.  Darren waited for something else to surprise
him, and when he deemed it safe, continued forward.  The hum wavered now,
but he couldn’t tell from what part of the ship.  The whole vessel sounded
alive.
    They came to a large wound in the hull that strangely did
not appear to be the result of the crash.  Jagged sections of hull
plating, torn cable conduits and bulkheads had been rent inwards as if struck
from the outside.  The crash would have done this to a much larger section
of the vessel, not just this small area, and the damage went several feet into
the ship’s guts.  Something fast and nasty had done this
    “Looks like something hit it,” Darren whispered.
    *
    The creature paused for a moment, then continued to
advance.  A young male.  Human.  As were the other three. 
The computer could not determine if the creatures were suitable for the
“objectives.”  Too many variables.  These humans were considerably
younger than its intended selection, but young males were more stalwart than
older ones: sturdier bones, higher pain thresholds, quicker reflexes, yet
intelligence and logic levels were significantly inferior along with a tendency
toward incorrect decision-making.
    The AI had little choice.  The Vorvon menace drew near,
and the freighter was beyond repair with only vapors for fuel remaining. 
It took the computer just milliseconds to decide.
    Steady . . . steady. . . .
    *
    Darren was about to turn and tell his friends to high-tail
it when something large and metallic appeared from the top of the ship in front
of them.  Sudden, hot fear had not forced the urge to flee but to plant
him where he stood.  His stupefied friends next to him apparently had
identical reactions.  No one could move, and Darren quickly discovered it
wasn’t by terror alone.
    He literally could not rouse his muscles!  Something
had shut down the brain’s ability to stir the body into action.  His first
response was to scream, long and hard with shameless intensity, but his lungs
had turned to granite.
    The thing slowly hovering down toward them was metallic,
ovoid-shaped, maybe six feet wide, emitting warbling chatter like a
computerized songbird punctuated with a low drone.  A large panel slid
open, and Darren saw that the machine now looked like a large, robotic
eye.  He could see fluid machinery behind the glass pulsating almost
organically like a pumping heart.  A long, wavering arc of bright green
light erupted, and Darren suddenly heard a buzzing inside his head begin to
build to a loud growl.
    The eye swept blue beams of light over his body in curious
patterns:  from the head down, left and right across his head, shoulders,
chest and waist, almost as——
    —— as if it’s measuring me.
    The laser beams then moved on to his friends, and when it
finally finished with Nate, the green glow inside suddenly exploded with the
brilliance of stadium lights.  Darren lost touch with the world around him
and could no longer recall where he was or his own identity, all of his
cognitive functions nullified.  He felt hot urine run down his legs, heard
ringing in his ears.  Blood trickled out of one nostril.  It felt
like rape——whatever rape felt like.  He was at the mercy of this fiendish
machine and prayed for his life to continue.
    A deep bass sound emanated from the machine and a new, more
terrifying procedure began.  Blindness suddenly closed Darren into his own
universe.  He saw the sharp image of his dad’s crumpled