More than a hundred angular black ships closed around one of her Mantas, singling it out and pounding away with a nonstop barrage of energy weapons. Even though the Manta’s captain launched all her weapons, the cruiser’s armor could not withstand the onslaught. In less than a minute, the shields failed, and the Manta exploded.
A thousand more robots—a very small fraction of the horde—closed in on Keah’s remaining ships. She had never expected to fight a battle like this with only eleven ships. Ten, now.
The outcries from the trapped civilians on the surface had dwindled, transmissions jammed or silenced as the cities were wiped out by a ruthless succession of sterilization blasts. Each nuclear firestorm took out a section of the continents below, and the maliciously efficient robots saturated the landscape again. Keah was sure they intended to leave Relleker nothing more than a charred ball.
She saw no way whatsoever that her battle group could save the planet. Her ships were outnumbered tens of thousands to one.
The black robots targeted another CDF Manta, surrounding the cruiser with hundreds of ships and opening fire. Keah yelled for the rest of her Mantas to converge in a vain attempt to rescue the doomed ship, but moments later a bright explosion was all that remained of the trapped cruiser.
The Shana Rei hex cylinders moved toward the planet, flooding the ships and remaining cities with swirling disruption. As the shadow cloud closed in, the Kutuzov’s laser cannons began to malfunction. The CDF laser-cannon blasts flew wild, missing their intended targets. Then other weapons generators sputtered, neutralizing the lasers entirely. Many systems on the Juggernaut’s bridge went haywire, and her crew hammered their screens, trying to access and implement their backup processes.
General Keah had always vowed that she wouldn’t run away from a fight. As a young EDF soldier twenty years ago she had faced the entire Klikiss swarmship fleet when they closed in on Earth, and she knew damn well what was at stake here. But maybe that hadn’t been a very sensible vow to make, especially now.
Three of her Manta cruisers reeled out of control, completely vulnerable to attack. “Those entropy waves will take out our ships as surely as the bugbots will!” Though the words burned like bile in her throat, she yelled across the comm channel, hoping that at least the transmissions were working. “Get out of here! Pull away—escape along any vector you can and rendezvous back at the LOC.”
Her first officer blinked in alarm. “But General, what about the people on Relleker? There’s got to be some evacuation—”
“Take a look, Mr. Wingo: we’d never get a single load away, if we could even find survivors down there in the conflagration. And we’d likely lose the rest of our battle group in the meantime.”
The black robot ships targeted another Manta and closed in by the thousands, opening fire. Keah cried into the comm, “Get out of there!”
The Manta’s captain activated his stardrive and smashed the embattled cruiser through the wall of robot ships, shattering six of them—and no doubt causing horrific damage to his own hull in the process. But the stardrive held and the cruiser got away. Whether they would survive and reach Earth was another question.
“Retreat, dammit!” Keah announced across the command channel. “I’m not too proud to say it. All captains, activate your stardrives and get away from Relleker.” She turned to the green priest. “Mr. Nadd, send a message through telink just in case we don’t make it.”
The green priest continued to grasp his treeling as the bugbot ships closed in on them. Nadd was shaking, but he muttered his message into the verdani mind.
General Keah collapsed back in her chair, breathing hard as the Kutuzov vanished into lightspeed.
CHAPTER
33
MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H
The Mage-Imperator rested uneasily in his chrysalis chair. His people needed to see him and sense him, and he expended great energy to gather the strands of thism that kept the Ildiran Empire strong.
But since the destruction of Wythira, Jora’h had struggled to keep the Ildiran race from despairing. The Empire had lost splinter colonies before, during the Elemental War, but this massacre had been so swift and so complete. The creatures of darkness had obliterated an entire world.
A Solar Navy septa had rushed off to the stricken splinter colony, but the planet was devastated by the time they arrived. Not a single survivor, no structure left standing. The Klikiss robots and the shadows had charred Wythira and then departed—no doubt to attack somewhere else. Adar Zan’nh had just returned from Kuivahr, another world destroyed by the creatures of darkness, and had found only one survivor there. One. A human, who had been sent off to be reunited with his people at Newstation.
Jora’h knew that the Shana Rei wanted to wipe out existence itself. Wythira was merely the first of what would be many such strikes. Even the Mage-Imperator of the Ildiran Empire felt helpless against them. He felt the insidious shadows probing and twisting through the strands of thism.
Now, the dazzling light of multiple suns poured into the Skysphere audience chamber. The image of his calm, benevolent face projected on the mist hung overhead as if nothing could trouble the Ildiran Empire, but he knew otherwise.
Thirty attenders surrounded the dais that raised his chrysalis chair above the audience floor. The small kithmen moved about, eager to tend to his every need, bringing refreshments for the courtiers and noble kith who also had business in the Prism Palace. Well-armed guards stood at the entrances to the audience chamber holding crystal-tipped katanas; the bestial-looking Ildirans would die to defend the Mage-Imperator against any possessed mob, but he knew that inner enemies could be just as dangerous.
Jora’h felt much safer to have his warrior daughter Yazra’h and her protégée Muree’n beside him as added protection. He was unrealistically convinced that the shadow taint could not affect the two women. Yazra’h stood in her lizard-scale armor with her eyes bright and focused. She held a crystal blade, but she could be just as deadly with her bare hands. Next to her, the halfbreed Muree’n was like a smaller and younger version of Yazra’h, equally determined to prove her strength and prowess.
Right now, Jora’h was meeting with a representative of the Roamer clans who had come to propose a new business deal for delivering stardrive fuel. The Roamer was a tall, thin man with shaggy brown hair and an unkempt beard. “I come on behalf of Speaker Sam Ricks, sir … um, Mage-Imperator. There has been a change in ekti operations, one that offers great opportunity for the Roamer clans and the Ildiran Empire.”
The Mage-Imperator glanced at the Prime Designate, giving his son permission to respond. Daro’h drew a breath and said, “The Ildiran Empire has long purchased ekti from the Roamers. What is different?”
“A new harvesting technique that is far more efficient than processing huge quantities of hydrogen from gas giants. We expect the price of stardrive fuel to drop significantly. I’m offering an agreement that would make the consortium of clans I represent your exclusive provider of ekti-X. Under such conditions, we would drop the price an additional five percent.”
The man seemed to think he was offering an irresistible bargain.
Daro’h frowned, looked at his father, and Jora’h sat up straighter. “We have always paid what was necessary and obtained what we needed.”
“But this way you would get more ekti-X for a lower cost,” the clan leader persisted. “Such a guarantee could be quite useful, especially in these turbulent times when we are under threat from the Shana Rei. Your Solar Navy—”
As the man spoke, the twenty attenders, always restless and busy, suddenly stopped their movement. Under normal circumstances, Jora’h rarely noticed their constant solicitous muttering, but now they all froze as if hearing a distant irresistible voice. They turned in clockwork unison, and Jora’h felt an icy chill as he saw that their eyes had changed. Normally bright green and darting, their irises were now filled with inky shadows.
The mass of attenders rushed forward like an unl
eashed pack of predatory rodents. Still stating his case, the Roamer man took several seconds to realize that the attenders were charging toward him. “By the Guiding Star—!”
Jora’h lurched out of his chrysalis chair and roared, “Stop them!”
Without hesitating, the guard kith raced in, swinging their crystal katanas. The noble kith in the chamber scattered, while the courtiers flailed to get out of the way.
Eerily silent, the possessed attenders scurried forward, driving the Roamer man to the polished floor. The human fought back, thrashing, throwing them aside, but for every attender he knocked away, three more jumped on top of him. His yells of surprise turned to cries of pain as they clawed and pounded at him. Then the loud sounds of cracking bones shot through the chamber.
Yazra’h bounded into the fray, swinging her crystal blade and decapitating two attenders with one stroke. Muree’n used her spear to impale one, shoved the body aside, then whirled to stab a second.
As the guards tore away the attenders who were attacking the Roamer, another ten chittering attenders raced up the dais steps—clearly intending to kill the Prime Designate. Daro’h defended himself, striking the first attender that came close.
The nearest guard ran up the steps, roaring, but Yazra’h and Muree’n acted faster. They knocked the attenders away and placed themselves in front of Daro’h, killing two more attenders, and still the attackers would not stop.
Jora’h placed the chrysalis chair between him and the possessed mob, sure that they would attack him next. Ready to fight them with his bare hands, he stood poised in a combat stance.
But as the attenders swarmed up the dais, their eyes suffused with blackness, they stared at Jora’h and hesitated for a second, then turned away and rushed toward Daro’h while others flung themselves upon the guards and the nobles.
The Mage-Imperator saw Muree’n watching as the attenders refused to touch him. Then she whirled and cut down another attacker. The possessed attenders were numerous, but they were soft, small, and unarmed. Their greatest weapon had been the element of surprise, and now Yazra’h and Muree’n easily drove them away from the Prime Designate.
The Roamer man was not so lucky. Guards had killed fifteen of the attenders, but not before the mob bashed in the man’s head and crushed his sternum. The Roamer lay twitching, coughing blood, mortally wounded.
The angry guards had blocked the five surviving attenders, keeping them at bay even though they tried to break through the barricade of crystalline katanas. From a distance, the possessed attenders stared at the Mage-Imperator with their blank, black eyes.
Jora’h shuddered. He wrestled with the shadows inside himself, but he knew these attenders could never be cured. Even if the Shana Rei released them, they would die from the sheer horror of having betrayed their own race, the thism, and the Mage-Imperator. Anger washed through him. The attenders were forever tainted and forfeit.
“Kill them all,” he said in a hollow voice.
Joined by several guards, Yazra’h and Muree’n used their katanas to kill the last remaining attenders. The audience chamber was strewn with the dead bodies of innocent creatures that had only meant to serve their Mage-Imperator. The guard kith evacuated the nobles and business representatives, then closed the doors before summoning worker kith to clean up all signs of the slaughter.
Swaying, Daro’h stared around the chamber, looking appalled, terrified. “This is what Rod’h and I encountered at the solar ceremony, when the lens priestess was killed along with her followers.” He shook his head, sickened. “Nothing could stop them.”
Jora’h felt dizzy. Dark static flickered around his vision, and he shook his head, breathing hard. He was furious that the Shana Rei would intrude here, would attack the Ildiran people in his Palace! And the poor Roamer man …
Muree’n said in a voice just loud enough for Jora’h to hear, “Your eyes, Liege … I saw—”
“You only imagined it,” Yazra’h snapped. “Let us take the Mage-Imperator away, where he can be shielded from further threats.”
Jora’h took a deep breath and accompanied Daro’h as the two women led them away. He knew that no place was entirely safe, and he feared what Muree’n had glimpsed in his eyes.
Perhaps the Ildiran Empire wasn’t safe from him either.
CHAPTER
34
LEE ISWANDER
Elisa was gone—and that was a good thing. The very idea saddened him, since he had pinned such high hopes on her. She was exactly the sort of employee Iswander could rely on: dedicated, smart, resourceful, a person with her priorities straight, a person who should have been his true partner in his ambitions.
But Elisa was also murderous—and she had been caught. Those two things disqualified her entirely. She had stolen an Iswander Industries ship and flown away without any sort of farewell. He understood exactly what she had done. At least she had interpreted that suggestion clearly.
He’d seen several ways to solve the problem so he could rebuild his reputation, most of which included using Elisa as a scapegoat, throwing her to the wolves so that he could wash his hands and claim total innocence. But Iswander wasn’t quite so naïve, and he knew the Roamers weren’t either. To say he had no inkling of what Elisa might do would make him look like an oblivious fool, and he wouldn’t tolerate that.
This was probably the best option. He was glad she had also seen it that way.
Alarmed, Deputy Pannebaker came to report to him. “Elisa’s gone, Chief! Stole one of our ships and just ran off.”
Iswander tried to look surprised. “Any idea where she’s gone? Did she transmit a projected course?”
Pannebaker blinked. “Of course not. Why would she do that?”
He shrugged. “Then we’re just as blind as everyone else. There’s no way we can catch her.”
“Are you going to report her?” The normally unflappable Pannebaker looked increasingly upset. “She’s wanted for murder.”
“Write up a report. We’ll keep full documentation that I can present to the Roamer clans and the Confederation. Other than that … it’s out of our hands. She’s gone, and all we can do is wish her well.”
“Wish her well?” Pannebaker’s voice cracked. “She killed all those people!”
“Yes, and because of that, our reputation is destroyed. Elisa may have been a loose cannon who did terrible things, but Iswander Industries will end up paying the price for what she did. My company may well be ruined because of it.” He sighed and looked out the windowport at the discarded bloater sacks from the dwindling cluster. “Keep harvesting stardrive fuel and hope we can find a market. Otherwise, I don’t know what else we’ll do.”
He had always enjoyed spending time in the control center, watching the operations, the productivity charts, the ekti tanks filling transport arrays. It had been exciting for him to build these extraction operations, a challenge to conquer, a bright future in a huge universe. Now, though, as the next array was filled with ekti, he knew they would reach a crisis point soon. Where would he go when the next shipment was ready? He couldn’t just sit on all that fuel.
Without Ulio Station, and without Kett Shipping, it would be hard to distribute the stardrive fuel—not to mention that Iswander Industries was probably blacklisted throughout the Spiral Arm. Newstation was the most obvious outlet for the fuel, and he hoped that some Roamer clan would have flexible enough morals to do business with him.
But the clans had shunned him before. They had never forgiven him after the Sheol disaster—1,543 black marks against his honor, and no Roamer would let him forget it. Ever. No matter what he did to make up for it.
Iswander felt increasingly discouraged as he spent his days in the control center. His workers were aware of the looming problem, and he was sure many of them regretted their decision to join him for what had seemed like a get-rich-quick scheme. Others, like Pannebaker, had faith in him … but how long would that last? Sooner or later, Elisa wouldn’t be the only one who stole a
ship and slipped away. He might have to dissolve these extraction operations, release the workers from their confidentiality contracts, and let them fend for themselves. He couldn’t hold them any longer if he had nothing to offer.
Not wanting to seem disheartened in front of them, Iswander excused himself and went back to his private quarters. Londa was always there, cheerful and supportive, loving him no matter what; that was her job as his wife, and she had always done her job well.
He realized that he didn’t appreciate her enough and had often dismissed Londa because she wasn’t a visionary, a ruthless businesswoman, or a determined deputy like Elisa. No, she followed an old model when playing her role—which was exactly what he had asked of her, exactly why he had married her.
As he entered their quarters, she greeted him brightly. “Lee, you’re home early! I’m glad for your company.”
“Thank you.” He felt immensely weary. He could smell the dinner she had cooked, which was much better than the prepackaged meals he often ate at his console in the control center. Their quarters were perfect, colorfully decorated and modeled after some imagined utopia. He had built Iswander Industries as his empire, but Londa’s empire was their home—much less ambitious and with far smaller boundaries, but she ran it perfectly.
“I know you’ve had a hard day,” she said. “If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know. Talk to me. I’m here if you need me.”
She brought him a cup of pepperflower tea. He hadn’t even been thinking about it, but realized it was what he wanted and needed. “You always take good care of me, but I haven’t done right by you.”
She gave a dismissive wave. “Of course you have. What more could I want?”
He took a long sip, closed his eyes, and sat down in a comfortable chair. “What more could you want? You’re living all alone in an isolated complex, far from civilization. You don’t have any friends here. You can’t do the things you want to. Our son is gone.” He shook his head, feeling determined. “That’s not fair to you.”
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