Metal Swarm

by Kevin J. Anderson

  41 QUEEN ESTARRA

  Sitting on the curved roof of the fungus reef with her sister reminded Estarra of younger, carefree days. She missed those times.

  A sapphire-winged condorfly buzzed past her face, startling Estarra and almost knocking her off balance. Celli caught her arm with swift and easy reflexes just before a scarlet condorfly swept after the blue one, and the two creatures pirouetted away, either in aerial combat or in a mating dance.

  Scars across the fungus reef showed where Theron children had cut swatches of the rubbery outer membrane. They would wear spikes on their shoes and climb around the outside to fill sacks with the soft fungus. Now that she was greatly pregnant, Estarra no longer had the agility or balance to brave the uncertain surface, so she sat close to the tree trunk.

  She and her sister sat next to each other in comfortable silence. Finally, Celli said, “It’s good to have you back home. I missed you when you were on Earth.” She gave a teasing grin. “Nobody to pick on.”

  “You used to be such a brat, Celli.”

  Celli chuckled. “You used to treat me like a little child.”

  “You were a little child.”

  Her sister lounged back against the gold-barked trunk. “And now look at us. You’re married, you’re pregnant—and oh, yes, you’re the Queen of the Confederation as well as Mother of Theroc.”

  “Some would consider that quite a triumph, although to be honest I was happier when I was just a girl scrambling up trees.” Though she had finally escaped from the Hansa Chairman, and the human race had survived the hydrogues, Estarra still felt a deep and abiding ache for all that had happened to her family—Reynald killed, Sarein trapped on Earth, Beneto destroyed by the hydrogues and then returned as an avatar of the worldforest.

  Celli picked up on her mood. “You look so sad.”

  Estarra manufactured a smile, surprised that she could do it so quickly and gracefully. As Queen, she had learned how to hide her emotions in order to avoid the Chairman’s displeasure. “I’ve managed to make something of myself, but what about you, little sister? Have you decided what you’re going to do with your life?”

  Celli grinned, crossing her tomboy arms over her small breasts. “You’re the first one I wanted to tell. I’ve made up my mind to become a green priest—like Solimar and Beneto.”

  Estarra was delighted. “Aren’t you a little old to become an acolyte, though? Most of them start as children.”

  “I’m smart. I’m a fast learner. And Solimar says that with all my prior knowledge and the treedancing I’ve done, the worldforest already knows who I am.”

  “Probably. But I think Solimar would tell you anything you wanted to hear. He wants to please you.”

  “And is there something wrong with that?”

  “Not at all. Peter’s the same way.”

  As if he had heard them talking about him, Solimar climbed out onto the upper level of the fungus reef. A deep frown creased his face, despite his obvious pleasure at seeing Celli. “A message from Nahton! Bad news—very bad news.”

  “Tell me,” the Queen commanded.

  “The Earth Defense Forces are planning to attack Theroc. Chairman Wenceslas is sending his battleships. A whole invasion force.”

  Estarra felt cold. She knew the Chairman would never have allowed the green priest to pass such a message.

  “Nahton was being kept from his treeling—that’s why we haven’t heard from him in so long—but he escaped. He managed to send the information, and then he said that guards were coming. They had guns.” Solimar’s voice hitched. “Then telink broke off. We think the treeling was either taken from him—or destroyed.” Celli hurried to him, and he easily folded her in his arms.

  Estarra pressed her lips together, expecting the worst. Chairman Wenceslas did not tolerate defiance in any form. She guessed Nahton was probably dead.

  “The Hansa might be trying to worry us, hoping we’ll change our minds,” Celli said. “They want us to panic. This could be a bluff.”

  “It’s no bluff. He’ll do it.”

  The green priests flashed the alarm through telink, and soon every member of the Confederation knew of the impending emergency. At the Osquivel shipyards, under the rushed and determined supervision of Tasia Tamblyn and Robb Brindle, Roamers retooled and armed any serviceable vessel they could find. Dozens of fresh ships raced to Theroc, arriving within two days.

  Estarra stayed at Peter’s side, giving him any advice and assistance he might need. The King and Queen greeted each new ship, thanking the pilots for joining in the defense of the Confederation. Though she said nothing, Estarra knew in her heart that the numbers would never be sufficient; reading Peter’s carefully masked expression, she could tell he was thinking the same thing. Theroc would have only a shadow of a “navy” in place before the EDF arrived.

  Yet they would do their best.

  Flushed and indignant Roamer captains paraded into the throne room, offering mismatched ships to stand as a cordon in orbit. One long-haired man crossed muscular arms over his chest. “Do you think the Eddy battleships are simply going to open fire on us? Are they that inhuman?”

  “Some of them are,” Peter said.

  Estarra reached out from her ornate chair and took her husband’s hand. “And many of them have friends and loved ones on Earth. The Chairman could easily threaten retribution if anyone balks.”

  “And Rlinda just went there!” said Branson Roberts, looking heartbroken. “She has no idea what she might be blundering into. Sure, she’s not going to admit she’s anything other than an independent trader, but if they find out she’s acting as the Confederation’s Trade Minister, she’s cooked!” Rlinda had taken the Voracious Curiosity on an exploratory trade mission to Earth. “I should have gone with her, no matter what she said.” He shook his head, bemoaning the fact that he still had an arrest warrant hanging over him there. “She should have at least taken a green priest. We have no way of warning her.”

  “She had only to ask,” Yarrod said. “We would have considered it legitimate.”

  “She doesn’t like to ask. It’s her damned independent streak.”

  “Captain Kett can’t solve our problem,” Peter said. “We need some other way to defend Theroc.”

  Thinking of green priests, Estarra looked at Celli, and both sisters seemed to have the same idea simultaneously. “Beneto!” Estarra turned to Peter and spoke in a rush. “The verdani battleships! Could we call Beneto back?”

  When he and the other treeships departed, Beneto had said he would not see her again. But they needed him so much now!

  “The verdani seedships are traveling among the stars,” Yarrod said dubiously. “The fused green priest pilots have a new mission now, continuing the work to spread the verdani across the cosmos. They are no longer concerned with humans.”

  “I don’t believe that!” Celli said. “They were sons and daughters of Theroc. They can’t ignore a threat to their people, their planet. Beneto will understand. The green priests will understand.”

  “They must already know what happened to Nahton,” Estarra added. “They heard the same telink message.” Perhaps they were already on their way back?

  “It is worth asking them,” said Solimar, nodding grimly. “It is even worth begging.”

  ”We promise nothing.” Yarrod went to a treeling beside Queen Estarra’s ornate chair.

  “We can promise to try our best.” Solimar, unmoved by the older green priest’s skepticism, went to another treeling.

  Both of them sent their plea, communicating not just to the worldforest, but questing for the specific green priest minds connected to the thorny battleships. Celli leaned close to Solimar, holding on to his arm. Though she couldn’t connect through telink yet, she hoped her need would somehow be communicated through him to the trees.

  Long minutes later, the two green priests blinked simultaneously and released the treelings. “Nine of them have agreed to come back.” Yarrod sounded surprised. “They
, too, heard Nahton’s message, and they know what the Hansa is doing. They will be here soon.”

  “They will be here in time,” Solimar added. “And Beneto will be with them.”

  42 GENERAL KURT LANYAN

  General Lanyan gathered four hundred of his men for the first deployment through the reactivated transportal. In preparation for the passage, the peacekeeper soldiers crowded the Klikiss tunnels, their weapons shouldered and their buttons polished. They would march through to Pym in formation, double time, and scare the absolute piss out of the colonists.

  According to survey records, Pym was a chalky place with shallow lakes of tepid, briny water and tufa towers built out of salt and sand. The landscape was relentlessly flat, mostly alkaline desert with a few oases of pure water where cane grasses and tamarisk-equivalents grew in profusion.

  Lanyan couldn’t imagine colonists so desperate they would actually want to move there, but given ingenuity and a modicum of hard work, the settlers could make a profitable business out of extracting the wealth of chemicals in the salt flats. He was there only to make sure that the people on Pym continued to walk the straight and narrow and did not slip out of the Hansa’s grasp.

  Once those people had their fear of the EDF thoroughly reaffirmed, he would graciously set up a guardian force to remind them of all the unknown hazards still abroad in the Spiral Arm. Such hazards, of course, included the sedition of King Peter and his ill-advised rebellion.

  In the Rheindic Co tunnels, Lanyan stood at the head of his troops like a cavalry leader about to sound a charge. He briefly wished he had brought a ceremonial sword, just to wave as they came crashing through. “The sooner we get these colonists in line, the sooner we all go home.” He nodded to the administrators at the transportal controls, who activated the trapezoidal wall and selected the appropriate coordinate tile for Pym. Head held high, Lanyan boldly stepped through, and all of his soldiers followed.

  Instantly, the dimness of the cave grotto changed to the bright glare of sun blazing down on the salt flats. Squinting, he kept going forward to avoid being trampled by the soldiers marching through behind him.

  Even before his vision cleared, though, the General could tell something was wrong. He heard a humming in the air, a chittering, and the rustle of what seemed like thousands of bodies moving. His own soldiers began to shout as they came through the transportal, adjusting goggles and visors on their helmets.

  Now Lanyan saw monsters—a numberless swarm of them.

  Instead of a Hansa colony with a few hundred settlers, he and his men found thousands of giant bugs that looked vaguely like Klikiss robots. But they were alive, organic. It was all he could do to bite back a scream. Some of his soldiers yelled.

  The bugs noticed them.

  As Lanyan staggered forward, shouting for his soldiers to ready their weapons, he spotted a group of haggard people in makeshift corrals. Only twenty or thirty scarecrowish prisoners were left alive. He saw butchered human bodies strewn about, many of them floating in the brackish pools. New towers built of salt, sand, and white borax shone like stalagmites rising out of the alkaline pools.

  The surviving Pym colonists let out a chorus of shouts and pleas for the EDF to rescue them. Lanyan instantly reacted. He was commander of the Earth Defense Forces, and these were Hansa colonists in danger.

  The insect monsters raised scythelike forelimbs, hissing and whistling and clicking. They began marching toward the transportal and the oncoming EDF soldiers. Unaware of what they were about to face, uniformed men kept pouring through from Rheindic Co.

  “Open fire! Defend yourselves!” Lanyan ran ahead, blasting with a pulse rifle that was no longer merely ceremonial. The insect monsters made eerie, nerve-jarring sounds as they swarmed forward. The EDF soldiers, still emerging from the transportal by the hundreds, launched their attack.

  43 RLINDA KETT

  Her first mission as Trade Minister seemed awfully lonely without BeBob. At one time Rlinda Kett had been content to be the only person aboard the Voracious Curiosity, but recently she’d grown fond of having her favorite ex-husband along. She enjoyed his sense of humor, his conversation (such as it was), and most especially the sex.

  But now that she was returning to the Hansa under uncertain political circumstances, she didn’t dare bring BeBob along. He already had a death sentence for “desertion,” and she intended to keep him safe. She could do this little meet-and-greet herself—if, that was, she found anybody receptive to what she had to say. This scouting expedition was official business (though the Chairman would probably call it “spying”), but nobody else needed to know why she was here. She would play the part of a simple trader with run-of-the-mill goods.

  Approaching Earth, Rlinda requested permission to land. The standard orbital traffic lanes were a scrap heap of empty hulks not yet towed out to a safe holding zone. She could see crews working among the derelicts, dismantling them for parts. Some chunks slowly spiraled down and burned up in the atmosphere. The nightly meteor showers must have been something to see.

  A small piece of debris—apparently a loose spacesuit glove—caromed off the Curiosity’s hull. Dodging larger pieces of space junk, Rlinda contacted the space traffic substation on the ground. “How the hell do you expect to receive any trade ships with this demolition derby in your own backyard? Can somebody give me a safe path through this obstacle course so I can get to the Palace District?”

  “We’re still working on the situation, Curiosity. We have recommended routes, but we do not guarantee their accuracy. Please state your business in the Palace District.”

  “I need to set up a meeting with Ambassador Sarein to discuss commercial transactions.” Rlinda was sure the Theron ambassador would be a sympathetic listener and, she hoped, more rational than Chairman Wenceslas. After escaping with BeBob, no doubt she had burned her bridges with the Chairman; she hoped there wasn’t an arrest warrant out for her as well. If so, the Curiosity’s souped-up engines could outrun any patrol ships in the vicinity.

  “Be advised that increased tariffs have been imposed on all new trading.”

  “Of course they have. Somebody’s got to pay for all this reconstruction.” Sooner or later, though, Earth’s importance would dwindle as the Confederation grew. Once the Chairman got his head out of his butt, this kind of nonsense could be over.

  As she started her final approach to the Palace District, Rlinda sent a message to Sarein, and after about fifteen minutes a familiar voice came over the comm system. “Captain Kett, I would be pleased to meet with you.” The ambassador didn’t sound pleased so much as uncertain, even shaken. Not at all the confident young woman who had represented Theroc to the Hansa. “Security measures are much tighter than you’re accustomed to. Just stay with your ship. I’ll . . . I’ll come there in person.”

  “Whatever you say, Ambassador. I’ll be here waiting.” She went into her galley and prepared a special feast of Theron treats that she was sure Sarein missed. The young woman had often complained about her backwater home planet, but Rlinda knew that Sarein had a kind heart, despite her hard exterior.

  After brusquely instructing her uniformed escort to stay outside the ship, the young woman came aboard. Rlinda immediately saw the changes in Sarein. She had lost an unhealthy amount of weight, her face seemed pallid, and lines of concern showed around her mouth and eyes. “Captain Kett, it has been a long time,” she said formally. Suddenly her expression melted. “I’m so glad to see you.” She spotted the Theron delicacies and flashed a genuine smile. “Are those for me? I haven’t had any of this for so long!”

  “Be my guest. Put some color back into your cheeks. I’ve got some messages for you, too.” Rlinda bustled about, bringing out two handwritten notes and a small message player with a chip already loaded in it. “Your parents each wrote you a letter. I didn’t read them, of course, but I can guess that they want you to know how much they miss you. Your little sister Celli recorded a message, and so did Estarra.”

&nbs
p; Sarein’s expression wavered, and Rlinda could only imagine the emotions flowing through her. She clutched the notes and the message player as if they were lifelines. “Even Estarra?”

  “She’s still your sister. If you ask me, you’d be better off on Theroc than here. Are you sure it makes sense for you to stay on Earth? What do you hope to accomplish?”

  “I don’t know, Captain Kett. I really don’t know. I just keep hoping to influence Basil, convince him to make good decisions.”

  Rlinda snorted. “Or fewer bad ones.”

  Sarein wavered, then strengthened herself again. “The Chairman wants all citizens to pull together, to work hard and make sacrifices—but they’re growing restless. The Hansa still hasn’t even publicly explained what happened to the King and Queen, so the rumors are running wild. Basil is going about it in the wrong way, antagonizing the citizens rather than earning their loyalty.”

  Rlinda blew out a long breath. “If you all just join the Confederation, then everybody benefits. Didn’t Chairman Wenceslas always say we should look at the big picture? After only a month, the Confederation has a hell of a lot more people and planets than the Hansa does.”

  Sarein looked at her blankly. “He’s . . . he’s making his own plans.” With a frown, she pushed her plate away, thought better of it, then continued picking at the familiar treats. “How do you know so much about all this, Rlinda? Have you been spending time on Theroc?”

  Rlinda considered, then took a chance. “More than that, Ambassador. I’ve been appointed the Confederation’s new Trade Minister.”

  Sarein reacted with alarm, and Rlinda sensed she was hiding something. “Then I . . . I shouldn’t be talking with you.”

  “Why not? You’re the ambassador from Theroc. I brought two more treelings with me that you can place in the Whisper Palace, even though the green priests have cut off communication with the Hansa. Nobody can get through to Nahton anymore. I’m hoping that means he’s been separated from his treeling and nothing more ominous than that. Right?”