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** CHAPTER 35** Lost Brothers

The Young Husky Evocanis had a hard time sleeping for the past days. The memories of current events still lingered in his mind, depriving him from the necessary sleep. The soothing sensation of having Hasky and Fx cuddling next to him didn't help this time. They also had problems having that much needed rest, transmitting that uneasiness to Husky.

He faded away for a few minutes, when all of the sudden, that close encounter with death came back to torment him, waking him up once again. It was like this night after night.

Four A.M... He thought to himself as he watched the clock in his room. This was the sixth time that his sleep had been interrupted so far that night.

Husky got up from the sleeping surface and walked to the kitchen. He had a quick glance at Fx and Hasky noticing that his brother had his eyes half opened. Husky knew that he was also awake, but too tired to get out of bed with him. Hasky was covered completely by the thick quilt, and although it seemed that she was asleep it wouldn't be a surprise if she was also awake.

Husky's body felt heavy. The exhaustion was taking the best out of him, but knowing that he was at home made him feel at ease.

"Almost out of milk..." He said as he checked inside the preservation compartment. "I'll go later today to the Resource Facility and get some more." He mumbled to himself.

He poured some milk in a cup, not filling it completely to leave some for Fx and Hasky.

After warming the milk he sat down to drink it, hoping that this would help him relax his body a bit. But he knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep for the rest of that day. The two or three hours of sleep he had were better than nothing.

I can't believe the Retcans are leaving us, Husky thought. It was true that they have given them enough now and that Canis Major was a safer place. But he couldn't think of how they could organize themselves and plan the future of the D.E Project.

Suddenly, Husky felt like if someone quietly walked behind him. He then felt how someone wrapped its arms around him and rested its head on him.

"You can't sleep either?" Husky asked. Feeling the familiar scent, he knew it was Hasky without even seeing her.

"Can I have some?" Hasky asked, ignoring Husky's question. Husky passed his cup of milk to the female husky, who sat down next to him and had a sip.

"We need to get more. We are almost out." Husky said.

"I know. We are missing a few things. Since we were supposed to move to the D.E Cruiser for an indefinite period of time, I decided to share our supplies with the rest of the Zone."

"Well thought."

"Yeah, we don't want to waste our supplies..."

Both talked for a while, not really saying much. The tiredness was noticeable in both Evo's voice.

"Why don't you try and go to sleep?" Hasky asked tenderly. She caressed Husky's face.

"It's no use." The young Evo responded. "I'm even tired of trying to sleep."

"I know, Husky. We will get over it, don't worry."

There was a period of silence between both Evos as they shared the cup of warm milk. Their minds were all scrambled with thoughts of not only what happened to them a couple of days ago, but also their future as a species.

"We have to be strong, Husky." Hasky said. She knew what went through Husky's mind at that moment. "We've always been. The only difference now is that we have what it takes to protect Canis Major better than we ever wished to be capable of."

"I know what you're saying, Hasky, and I understand that." Husky replied. "What I don't want is to go through what we did back in that planet."

"We learn from our mistakes, Husky. I'm sure it won't happen again."

"That happened while we were in the custody of an experienced race. If they made such a simple mistake, imagine what could happen if someday we decide to do something similar by ourselves?"

"Don't think too much about it, Husky. We will make it through, you'll see." Hasky tried her best to calm Husky's fears and insecurities, giving him words of encouragement while caressing him tenderly. But she also felt that same feeling of uneasiness, which was incredibly difficult to ignore.

Both huskies spend almost an hour talking about other things, trying to distract their minds from what bothered them at that time.

The massive window that served as one of the room's walls has an option to either display an image of space, or a beautiful artificial landscape.

Hasky, Husky and Fx decided to keep it rotating from the image of the beautiful and endless green plains at day, and an image of space at night.

While Husky and Hasky chattered, they felt how the image of space slowly shifted to the landscape, showing it during a beautiful dawn that slowly started to fill the room with a natural warm light. This made them look at their room's clock, noticing that it was close to 5:30 in the morning.

"Should we go to the resource facility?" Husky asked as Hasky stood up and took the cup to the sink.

"It's too early. Want something to eat?"

"Yes; why not?"

"Ok, I'll fix you something." Hasky replied smiling.

Hasky looked for something to prepare, while Husky went to the wardrobe room to put on some clothes.

"Can I use one of your suits? I forgot that I need to wash my clothes today." Husky yelled from the other side of the room.

"You don't need to ask, Husky. Go ahead."

"Yay! Red hoodie time!"

Husky brushed his fur thoroughly and he then dressed. As he walked outside the wardrobe room he noticed that Fx was now awake, sitting at the breakfast bar chatting with Hasky.

"Wait, aren't you Hasky?" Fx asked. "Or is it you?" He joked when seeing Husky wearing the red hoodie and pants that Hasky loved so much.

"Hey, brother. Slept well?" Husky asked Fx.

"Not really. But I did get to rest at least."

"Maybe we can have a nap in the afternoon." Husky said as he gave his brother a warm hug.

Husky then headed back to the wardrobe room to get something for Hasky and Fx.

"Should I bring you guys some clothes?" Husky asked, again, from the other side of the large room.

"I don't know... Yes... I guess." Hasky replied from the kitchen. "I don't want to drop fur on our breakfast."

"Bring me something, will you Husky? I'll help Hasky with the breakfast." Fx also replied.

While Husky looked for some clothes for his two family members, someone knocked at their room. This was highly unexpected, unless it was Rika or Luke that had something important to say.

To Husky's surprise, he heard the door sliding open, but the voice that came from the outside wasn't from anyone he knew that lived on that Zone Complex.

"Hasky, I need to talk to you." The male voice said. He sounded worried about something.

When Husky walked out of the wardrobe room, he saw a very familiar golden Evocanis. A black Evocanis stood besides him.

"Hi, Husky." He said.

"K9. What are you doing here?"

Husky passed the clothes to Fx and Hasky who got dressed immediately. K9 and Hemi sat down at the breakfast bar and were offered something to eat. The look on K9, plus his presence so early in the morning gave them many reasons to worry.

"Thank you Hasky, but right now I'm not really hungry." K9 replied. "I need to talk to you."

The extremely worried tone on K9 told them that it wasn't something good.

"What is it, K9?" Hasky asked.

K9 looked at Hemi and thought for a second on what his next words would be.

"We need to go to R105. We need to go now."

"What? What's going on?" Hasky insisted to know.

"The Retcans... They found something." K9 replied. He stumbled on words. "That's why I came here personally. You seem to take these things better than anyone else, Hasky." K9 continued.

"What is it, K9? Tell us now!" Hasky demanded.

"We need to keep ourselves quiet for now. The news I have received could change the lives of every single Evocanis onboard Canis Major." K9 said. He then got close to Hasky, placing his hand paw on one of her shoulders, while staring at the rest one at a time. "There is a high possibility that the Retcans found our lost brothers."

It felt like if something pressed on their hearts. What they were waiting for so long; the main objective of the D.E Project. What they though it would be probably impossible to achieve. That was finding the Evos that were taken alive by the machines thirteen years ago.

"Are you serious...?" Hasky whispered.

"Listen. You have to understand why we need to keep ourselves quiet right now. The Retcans are still investigating, but they aren't sure how to approach this situation at the moment."

"Not sure?!" Fx yelled. "We need to take our weapons, destroy those monsters and rescue our brothers!" He yelled

"Calm down, brother." Husky told Fx as he held him close.

"Fx, you have to calm down." Hasky then told him.

Taking a deep breath, Hasky thought things through. She seemed calm, but she was in complete disbelief.

"Are you sure of what they told you, K9?" Hasky asked serious.

"I am sure."

"They told us that as D.E1, we need to go to R105 right now and plan very carefully our approach to this situation." Hemi answered in behalf of his father that was too shocked to give an answer.

"Who else knows this?" Hasky asked.

"Besides Hemi and you three, my friend Jake is the only one for now." K9 explained.

"And Anubis too," Hemi added. "I think he deserved to know."

"Good. We have to maintain silence for now. We don't want to give false hopes to our brothers."

"I'm glad you understood Hasky. Fx and Husky, I'm sorry that you had to know this way."

"We are part of the D.E team, Captain. It's our duty." Husky replied. "Right, Fx?"

Fx stood in silence, looking at the floor. He took time to respond as many thoughts went through his mind.

"Yes..." He finally replied.

"Ok." K9 said. "Let's get moving. Captain Silver is waiting for us."

As big as Canis Major is, it took them around twenty minutes to arrive at the hangar. Thankfully, since it was so early, no other Evos were riding in the tram, so their trip was direct.

The immense hangar was cold and desolated. They walked a considerable distance until they reached a transport ship.

"Wait." Hemi said.

"What, Hemi?" K9 asked his son. He noticed that Hemi watched behind them at the distance.

"Anubis. He should be on his way."

"You are right, I forgot. But he's the only one you called, right?"

"Yes, don't worry."

After a few minutes, the small group saw a couple of Evos approaching them. It had to be Anubis due to how tall that Evo looked. Next to him a shorter one walked.

"I think it would've been fair if we let the others know as well." Fx suggested. "This concerns all of us!" Fx said. He seemed surprisingly irritated. This was not the Fx Husky knew.

"I don't think that would've been a good idea." Hasky replied. "This Evo named Lay... I don't think he would be ready to know our current situation."

"Who's Lay?" Husky then asked.

"One of the trainees; he has quite a past. I'll tell you later."

Soon, Anubis and the Evo that came with him got to were K9 and the group where. Husky was surprised that Anubis looked really serious.

"Husky, Fx, Hasky, Captain, Hemi... I'm glad to see you again." He saluted seriously. "This is my best friend, Ace." He then presented his friend to the group. She was a very lovely looking female Doberman. K9 and his group greeted her warmly considering the delicate situation that they faced.

"I hope that you accept my presence in this important matter, Captain K9." The female Doberman said, lightly bowing in respect.

"It's fine, Ace. As a trainee, you belong within D.E1's lines." K9 replied. "Let's not loose anymore time. Let's go."

After boarding the small ship, they finally left Canis Major. It would take them a while to arrive to R105.

Meanwhile, at R105...

The probes sent to the coordinates that were given by Zonda, finally reached their destination.

At first, the images that the probes transmitted were somewhat blurry and inconclusive.

"What are we seeing, Titan?" Silver demanded to know. She sat now in her Captain's chair, making it obvious that she had regained her command.

The probes drifted in the darkness of that sector of space, not really detecting anything visually, but the energy scans said otherwise.

"I'm not sure, Silver." Titan replied. "I'm getting really strong readings in this whole area, but it's hard to tell where it is coming from.

There were no stars near this location, making it very difficult, if not impossible to get a clear image. Apparently there was something surrounding the probes in the area, but they couldn't get a clear vision. Titan changed the probe's scanners to a very powerful Doppler radar function. This would give them an idea of what surrounded them.

"Using the radar won't help in space, Titan. There is no air for the sound waves to travel across." Silver suggested.

"You are heavily underestimating me, Silver. I've fitted our new probes with a different kind of Doppler radar. It uses the same principle based on distance of reflection, but it uses an invisible light spectrum instead of sound."

"Invisible to us maybe; let's just hope it's invisible to those things too."

Doing quick sweeps with the probe's radars, a virtual image of their surroundings was simulated on a sub screen. They were surprised when they found out that they were flying across a massive asteroid field. They had to be careful not to crash the probes.

After a while, they were very deep into the field; still nothing.

"You are doing a great job, Cobalt and Doko." Titan advised his partners as they controlled the probes.

"Titan," Doko informed. "We are getting close to a massive energy reading."

"I know. I can see it." Titan replied. He focused his eyes on the screen, waiting to see something of interest.

"I'm switching to normal view." Titan said. With a quick command, the image of the radar disappeared, but to the surprise of the other Retcans that observed closely, there was no darkness anymore.

"There's light here." Silver said surprised. She sat on he edge of her seat waiting for whatever was about to appear in front of them.

"I know." Titan replied. "Doko, Cobalt; be careful. We are approaching out target according to Zonda's coordinates."

The asteroid field was extremely tight. The largest space between asteroids that they found was no more than four meters. Maneuvering the probes through these tight spots was a challenge. Adding to that, there was a considerable amount of lag on the controls due to the distance that they were from the probes, which made it trickier.

After a few twists and turns, they finally made it were apparently the asteroid field opened. Through this opening there was a considerable amount of light being emitted.

"We are getting close to something." Cobalt advised.

"Keep going." Titan ordered.

The tension in R105's bridge was incredible. They had no idea what they would see in front of them. The probes got closer to the opening and they could notice a massive area within the asteroid belt itself.

"How can a formation like this be possible?" Bo asked stunned. He stood next to Silver, watching the whole process.

"Titan, how can this be possible?" Silver asked.

It was so strange that such a massive area of thousands of kilometers was surrounded by this thick asteroid field. It was like the asteroids created a cocoon around the area.

"I have no idea." Titan replied. "This is obviously not natural. There has got to be a controlled force that has created this formation."

"It almost looks like a protective shell." Doko suggested.

Whatever did this, they were getting close to finding out.

The probes were now at the border of the opening. Slowly, the probe's cameras panned towards the center of the large area, and that's when they saw it.

At the distance, lying at the center of the massive opened area, activity could be noticed. Structures, things that looked like ships and other bizarre objects that flew around a center core made themselves visible. This looked like a docking bay or a base of some sort.

"What is it?" Silver demanded. She got no response from Titan.

"Stop!" Titan demanded. "Cobalt and Doko, I need a zoomed in image of the place."

The probes that traveled at a steady pace slowed down to a complete stop. Focusing their cameras at the core of this complex, they took some images.

Some of these structures were definitely ships; very large ones. If this was the machine's hive, it was frightening to know they had such a massive fleet right now. There were around thirty huge ships, some of them almost half the size of R105. If these were carrier ships, who knows how many fighter ships or other type of attack vehicles were docked inside.

It was strange, but all these ships were completely different in appearance, like if they belonged to different races; but they shared the fact that they were heavily damaged. However, this damage seemed repaired in a very strange and rustic way, giving all the ships these asymmetrical chunks of metal and beams protruding through their hulls.

Far at the center, there were other ships that seemed fused together, forming a large structure. This indeed could be the operations core of the machines; the hive itself. The size of this structure was noticeably larger than R105, making their worries even greater. If these were the machines, then they had managed to recover from the hard hit that the Retcans gave them thirteen years in the past. Either the machines never threw all their forces at the Evocanis, or they had found the resources to replicate themselves.

"Scan the area very carefully." Titan ordered. "Doko, Cobalt, engage the stealth shields."

He wouldn't take any chances. Now that the probes were stationary, it was possible to activate the stealth shields, making the probes virtually invisible at those low light levels.

As they swept the area with their cameras, they studied every corner of this hive. There was a lot of movement. This movement looked extremely automated, which almost confirmed the fact that there was some sort of artificial intelligence behind all this.

After a few minutes, Titan gave the ok to approach carefully, meaning that they had to disengage their shields. But all of the sudden, something very alarming happened.

"Titan, we have movement near the probes!" Doko alerted.

"Abort the approach. Reengage stealth shields!" Titan ordered.

"Too late, they are over us!"

The Retcans held their breath as they knew that they had been discovered.

"Retreat!" Titan yelled.

"No, wait!" Silver ordered, as she jumped out of her chair. "Trust me, just wait."

"Commander?" Doko asked through the com systems. "Can you confirm that order?"

"Stand by, Doko and Cobalt."

"Titan, we can't loose these probes to another intelligent species, especially if they are those machines." Cobalt said desperately.

"Just wait!"

Titan decided to follow his sister's suggestion. They waited to see what would happen next. They held their breath as something in the probe's detection systems approached at an accelerated pace.

Suddenly they could see reflections on the probe's lenses. Apparently something was behind them now.

"Cobalt; turn around slowly." Titan ordered.

Hesitant for a second, Cobalt obeyed. The probe slowly rotated on its axis to show what was creating those reflections behind them. As the probe finally made a 180° turn, what they saw terrified them.

On one of the asteroids behind, a lanky creature stood stuck to it on its four extremities, twisting its horribly bizarre head to have a look at its surroundings.

That mask, those locks hanging from its head. How could they forget such horrifying look?

Behind this mechanical being that had stopped to scan the area, there was a stream of them, crawling through the asteroids, probably in a surveillance formation.

"Those things..." Silver whispered with anger. Her pearl fangs shined in the dark room.

"They are still alive."

Thankfully, the machine annihilator model didn't notice the probes and soon joined the formation. There was no doubt now. The tip given by Zonda was true.