Do No Evil (Aeon Trilogy Book 2)

Chapter 14

Kobus rolled under the rotating blades that threatened to slice apart anyone who walked down the narrow hallway. The razor edges came close enough to his temple that a few locks of his black curly hair were severed in mid-air as he passed under them. Shreds of his military uniform, which bore the insignia of a Separatist officer, were also sliced off by the blades.

As soon as he was clear of danger, he halted his forward roll by planting one foot and one hand on the featureless stone ground. He came into a crouch, his gaze focused directly ahead. As he'd expected, a gaunt wolf bounded out of the cave mouth at the end of the corridor. It snapped at him ferociously, but Kobus didn't give any ground. He couldn't give any ground. Moving left or right was impossible in the tight confines of the hallway. And moving backwards would mean being maimed by the spinning knives.

"Suig my piel you fokken teef!" grunted Kobus. Laura had originally said she couldn't use his help to break into the final layers of the Federal government's highest security encryption system. And yet here he was, running around facing death traps and ravenous wolves to help her get to its center. At least he was enjoying himself.

The wolf bunched its haunches and pounced at him. Kobus bounded upwards and forwards, bringing his legs up to his chest and reaching out with his hands to push down on the wolf's shoulders even as it passed beneath him. As he glided through the air, he inhaled deeply, drawing in the wolf's scent. The wolf hardly made a whimper as it was slashed to pieces by the blades in the hallway.

"Jy is nie die eerste hond Ek het genaai," said Kobus with a grin as he looked back at the bloody scene behind him. "But you're the ugliest."

Yes, Kobus was more adept than Laura suspected. He could challenge her for leadership of the Aeons if he wanted, and a lot of the Aeons would support him. But leadership required a lot of drudging work and long-term planning. Laura seemed to like that kind of thing a lot more than he did, so he was content to let her be high goddess.

As long as she didn't make any stupid mistakes, like letting Vinicius back into her inner circle.

Kobus stepped into the darkness of the wolf's cave. Before him, the path split into five directions, four leading to dead ends and only one leading to the keys that he was here to steal. He blew air out of his mouth, releasing the scent of the wolf that he had inhaled a moment ago. His MindWave depicted the smell as a shimmering, ethereal blue in the dimness of the cave.

He compared the blueness of the wolf to the scents emerging from the five tunnels. Four of them emitted scents that looked red. Only the rightmost tunnel emitted the same blue scent as the wolf had. He knew the wolf patrolled the path to his target, so logically his scent would fill the tunnel he travelled. The other tunnels undoubtedly led to dead ends or death traps.

Kobus walked to the mouth of the rightmost tunnel. He inhaled again to be sure, and then stepped into the darkness and walked deeper into the US Central Encryption Datacenter's security systems.

***

Captain Bill Cunningham double checked his technician's console before reaching for the intercom button. He didn't want to send a false alert to the General.

"Intruders are hacking into the secure system," he announced. "It looks like the Separatists."

After a momentary delay, the General's voice came back gruffly. "Good. Power down the defenses."

"Understood, sir," affirmed Cunningham. He nodded at the technician, who keyed commands into her console to reduce the effectiveness of the security systems protecting the most sensitive parts of the Central Encryption Datacenter.