Metal Swarm

by Kevin J. Anderson

  DD swiveled his head. “I have detected an ultrasonic signal from the breedex.”

  “Something’s happening.” Even deep in the tunnels of the ancient city, they could hear whistling and clicking, great clashes, weapons detonating.

  “Is it the EDF?” Nikko called from the cell. “Does that mean we’re rescued?”

  “I doubt the Eddies would get off their butts and do anything,” Tasia said. “But maybe the Roamers came. They might’ve gotten tired of waiting to hear back from us.”

  Margaret’s face showed real alarm now. “No, it’s not the human military. I think we’ve been attacked by another subhive.”

  “You mean other Klikiss are attacking?” Robb said. “Attacking us?”

  “Attacking the breedex. The rival subhives have already begun to stake out their territory and destroy each other. Now we’ll see if the Llaro subhive acquired enough unique knowledge to guarantee a victory over these rivals.”

  “Don’t expect me to lead the cheering section,” Tasia said.

  Klikiss raced through the corridors, preoccupied with the crisis and ignoring the prisoners. Margaret and DD got out of the way. An explosion cracked the roof of Orli’s cell, and a curtain of dust sifted into her hair. Several more pale humanlike hybrids lurched past with an awkward gait, followed by a towering domate, a new domate. It, too, had a hint of oddly human features.

  When the creatures had scuttled past, Davlin took advantage of the disturbance and began to hurl himself at the stiff web strands that formed the bars. “This is our chance—your chance, too, Margaret! While they fight the other bugs, they won’t care about a few humans. We can run right past them.” With a full-body blow he smashed into the barricade, and some of the resin broke away from its anchor point on the stone wall.

  “He’s right,” Margaret said, hurrying over to help him from the outside. “Yes, I can go. I can be . . . free.”

  DD strutted to Orli’s cell, fixed his compy hands on one of the strands, strained, and broke it free. The girl squirmed through the sticky bars as DD moved to the larger cell, uprooted more of the webbing, and peeled the bars away enough that the other four prisoners could break free.

  With Klikiss fighting Klikiss, the small group left the chambers behind and began to run.

  126 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS

  General Lanyan’s troop transport set down with an unnecessary flourish of landing jets in a cordoned-off space on the pontoon base. As ordered, Willis had dispatched skimmers to the Company Works and brought in Drew Vardian; transported Allahu from his home built from giant, empty medusa shells; and fetched five token homesteaders from outlying islands, as well as two prominent medusa herders. For good measure, she even brought in the three rowdy teenagers who had stolen the recirc sorters from the mineral-extraction towers.

  Willis asked every one of her troops stationed on Rhejak to put on their dress blacks, despite the tropical heat, and had them line up for inspection. Uniforms neat, hair combed, and boots polished. She pursed her lips. It wouldn’t do to make a bad impression for the General. Her expression quickly degenerated into a scowl.

  For the past several hours, the Jupiter had broadcast incessant images of the massacre on Usk. Willis couldn’t imagine what the General thought he’d accomplish by that, except to bring out the worst in the Rhejak colonists. It seemed he wanted their fear more than their cooperation. So she obliged him, letting the man dig his own grave.

  Willis set up large thinfilm projection screens on the raft-base to show the Usk disaster in gigantic format. Amidst the appalling destruction, the face of one particular young farmer—his blond hair unruly, his wide eyes reddened—seemed to symbolize the entire crime. He wept unabashedly as he watched his orchards leveled. “My apples,” he kept wailing. “My beautiful apples!” After ten minutes Willis had told the technicians to mute the sound. Enough was enough.

  Willis inspected her troops who stood in parade formation, filling most of the raft deck. She had dressed in her formal service uniform (though the thing was ungodly hot) with all the froufrou trappings. She had pinned on her medals, strapped on her ceremonial saber and her sidearm. With her gray hair neatly clipped back, she wore her Admiral’s cap, though she didn’t waste time with makeup. General Lanyan didn’t deserve it.

  When the hatch hissed open on the General’s troop transport, she whistled for her soldiers to stand straight in ranks. The representatives of Rhejak looked sick, unable to tear their eyes from the repeating images on the giant thinscreens.

  “Damned Eddies always stick together.”

  “—knew we shouldn’t have trusted her.”

  “—could have taken out this whole raft with five or six medusas.”

  Willis turned a deaf ear to their comments.

  Lanyan blinked in the sunlight and stepped forward. Fifteen hand-picked EDF soldiers followed him, all wearing Jupiter uniforms. Willis recognized some of them and fought back another scowl. The General had found the hardest of the hard-liners. He seemed to have a knack for that.

  Lanyan seemed satisfied with her crisp salute. “Admiral Willis, this looks like an acceptable reception.”

  Willis was all business. “I took my oath of service a long time ago, General. I know what the Earth Defense Forces and the Terran Hanseatic League stand for, and I pledged my life to serve those ideals.”

  “You’ve had an odd way of showing it lately. I wish to address the troops and the locals. Did you gather representatives of the Rhejak dissidents, as I instructed?”

  “They’re here, General.” The natives were not difficult to spot, since they were the only ones not in uniform. Several wore little more than loincloths, showing off bronzed skin and muscular bodies, but Lanyan didn’t bother to look. “I prepared a podium for you, sir.” A small speaking stand with automatic microphone pickups stood under the blistering sun on the honeycombed deck. She lowered her voice. “I can also bring you a parasol, if you like.”

  He scowled as if she had just insulted him. “That will not be necessary.”

  Lanyan stepped up to the podium and glared at Rhejak’s representatives like an angry parent. “You have brought this punitive action upon yourselves.” He fiddled with the side of the podium, disappointed that his voice wasn’t booming from the speakers. He looked at Willis. “Is this broadcasting? I want everyone on this planet to hear me, as well as your ten Mantas in orbit.”

  She gave him an innocent look. “I’m sorry, General, but we aren’t set up for full planetary and orbital broadcasting. My tech team can record your speech for later playback, and we’ll distribute it as widely as you like. Or, if you really prefer to address everyone in real time, we can have components flown down from one of my Mantas—or the Jupiter. Would you like my comm officers to set that up? It’ll take only a few hours.”

  Lanyan was flustered. Obviously, he didn’t want to look weak or incompetent. Neither did he want to wait. “No. Record it and rebroadcast as soon as I’m finished.”

  He turned back to the podium and tried to regain his momentum. “As I said, you have brought this upon yourselves. The Hansa is rebuilding after the greatest war humanity has ever faced. We suffered terrible damage from the hydrogues, and we must not suffer further damage from our own people. Rhejak’s intransigence will no longer be tolerated. The people of Usk learned this lesson at great cost.” He pointed to the thinscreens. “The rest of the prodigal colonies must now learn the lesson as well.”

  Willis stood at his side like a faithful supporter, though her hands were clenched at her hips. Behind the General, her ranks of soldiers were clearly upset, barely able to keep themselves from expressing their disquiet. Allahu tried to argue with Lanyan, but the hard-line EDF honor guards drew their sidearms and aimed, ready to shoot him down.

  The General raised his hands to stay them, then turned his needle gaze toward Allahu. “You people had your chance to speak over the past few weeks, and we’ve heard more than enough. We don’t want to hear any more.” Gatherin
g steam, the General went on for another ten minutes without saying anything new.

  Willis let him finish his blowhard statement, and when he paused, as if preparing some other harangue, she commandeered the podium and addressed the uniformed ranks, whose faces seemed pale and uncertain. “You are the best soldiers we have. You all remember why you joined the Earth Defense Forces. As soldiers, you’ve always known you would have to follow difficult orders. Our military has endured plenty of turmoil in recent years, not just from Soldier compies and hydrogues, but from embargoes and trade shutdowns that caused severe shortages. We had to abandon plenty of Hansa colonies because we just plain didn’t have enough stardrive fuel to power our ships.”

  “Damned right,” Lanyan put in. “The Roamers and their embargo brought us to these straits.”

  Now she smiled sweetly at him. “Sir, we all just watched you destroy a civilian Roamer trader departing from Rhejak. Everyone here has heard King Peter’s condemnation of your actions and those of Chairman Wenceslas. We’ve all listened to Patrick Fitzpatrick’s confession. My troops are eager to hear your side of the story.”

  Lanyan’s face turned stormy. “Admiral, you received strict orders to purge all traces of that message.”

  Willis feigned a shocked expression. “General! You don’t have authority to censor the words of the King. So tell us, once and for all, did you give the order to destroy Raven Kamarov’s ship after seizing its cargo of ekti?”

  Lanyan rounded on her. “I don’t see what that has to do with our current mission.” It was not a very inspiring answer, and everyone understood his meaning. More of her soldiers muttered uneasily.

  “I take that as a yes, then?” Willis swept her gaze over the Company boss, the medusa herders, the fishermen, and Allahu. The three teenage boys had looks of abject fear on their faces. None of these people deserved to be crucified like those poor elders on Usk. “General Lanyan, I won’t force my soldiers to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. And I won’t ask them to follow orders that I wouldn’t follow.”

  “Exactly as it should be, Admiral. And now I will issue instructions—”

  Willis slipped the twitcher from its ceremonial holster at her side. Before a look of befuddlement could settle completely onto Lanyan’s face, she felled him with a burst of nerve-scrambling energy. He lost control of his muscles and collapsed into a shuddering puddle of arms and legs next to the podium.

  The fifteen members of his hard-line escort guard grabbed for their weapons, but Willis shouted, using the podium’s microphone to boom out. “You men, stand down! My troops, arrest these soldiers. As a command officer of the Earth Defense Forces, I hereby relieve General Lanyan of his rank and charge him—and all those men—with war crimes.” She glanced at the thinscreens and their images of Usk. “I’d say the evidence is overwhelming, and it’s about time we did something right for a change.”

  She stood tall as the uproar built around her. Her soldiers, clearly delighted with the unexpected orders, ran forward to overwhelm the fifteen appalled hard-liners.

  127 PRIME DESIGNATE DARO’H

  Durris-B had exploded into heat and light, reigniting, shining forth again into the Ildiran sky. The seventh sun was no longer dark and dead. But this was not cause for immediate joy.

  Ten vengeful fireballs filled the Ildiran sky like suns. The air smelled of smoke and burned blood. Inside the Prism Palace, looking through the curved panes of the skysphere dome, Prime Designate Daro’h shouted for emergency action, but none of his advisers knew what to do.

  Only an hour before, the first scout ship had finally returned from the Horizon Cluster, its crew horrified. They brought far worse news than even the Mage-Imperator had feared. Dzelluria was burned and destroyed, as were three other splinter colonies. No survivors. Needing to send a message directly to their father, the Prime Designate had sent Yazra’h to find Kolker. The green priest could use telink and the lone treeling in the rooftop greenhouses to contact Theroc and call the Mage-Imperator back to Ildira.

  But out in the metropolis, Kolker and all of his known followers had gone up in flames. Ildirans panicked in the streets, and their terror echoed through the thism web, but Daro’h forced it away, doing what he could to quell the panic. With his father gone, he was in charge. The Ildiran Empire relied upon him.

  “What do they want, Prime Designate?” cried one of the administrators. He stared up at the dazzling light that focused like lasers through the skysphere. Courtiers huddled inside the Prism Palace as if it could protect them, but Daro’h knew better than that. He had already seen what the faeros and the mad Designate could do.

  Guard kithmen rushed into the chamber, holding their crystal katanas ready, prepared to die to protect the Prime Designate. But they could not save him by simply throwing their bodies in the way of the firestorm.

  Yazra’h ran to Daro’h as the lights in the sky grew more intense. Her face was flushed, her hair damp with perspiration, her eyes shining. Her three agitated cats loped along beside her. Under one arm she carried a bolt of the dark material the Roamer trader had brought from Constantine III. “If the human claims are true, this fabric will protect you against heat. Wear it.”

  “I cannot hide from the faeros under a blanket.”

  “You will wear it!” Yazra’h’s voice cut off any further argument.

  The ten grouped fireballs unleashed a bright flare like the aftereffect of a solar storm, and one of the Prism Palace’s towers cracked and shattered. Guards yelled, and people fled while shards of smoldering crystal tumbled down in a musical rain. Daro’h could feel a thrum through the thism as nearly a hundred Ildirans died in the single blast.

  “Where are Osira’h and the other children? We must keep them safe.”

  “We must keep you all safe,” Yazra’h said. “I have already called for them.”

  Daro’h assessed his options. The Mage-Imperator was gone, and Adar Zan’nh had not yet returned from Dobro, though he doubted even the Solar Navy could fight against these flaming vessels. “I cannot leave the Prism Palace. I cannot abandon my people.”

  “The faeros are not here to parlay with you, brother. They mean only to destroy. You can see that.”

  Outside, a fireball landed in the square immediately in front of the Prism Palace, its intense heat melting a mirrorlike crater out of the stone, metal, and glass. From the rippling flames of its hull emerged a man whose robes were made entirely of fire, whose blood was lava. His hair curled in wisps of dark smoke, and his flesh itself burned. He strode forward, leaving smoking footprints on the ground. Rusa’h, a faeros incarnate. He marched directly toward the front of the Palace as if he already owned it.

  Smaller fireballs flurried around him like attenders, and fiery ships orbited the crystalline domes. Rusa’h blasted the doors aside and walked into the Palace’s main reflecting corridor. His personal heat baked the smooth walls. Some of the thin panels shattered. Stone bubbled and buckled. He spread his hands, and so much heat rippled from him that even the ceiling sagged. His feet sank into the floor as he took another step.

  Osira’h and her siblings ran into the audience chamber. “He is coming! The mad Designate is already in the Prism Palace. Can’t you feel what he is doing through the thism?”

  Rod’h added, his face distraught, “We already had to cut ourselves off from the entire network, wall off the new thism, and form a sort of shield.”

  Yazra’h threw the inflammable cloth around the Prime Designate and dragged him away from the chrysalis chair. “There is no way you can fight it, Prime Designate!” She made a motion to her cats, which bounded out of the chamber and rushed down the hall, instinctively leading the way to safety. Osira’h and the other children ran after them.

  Foolishly trying to intercept the faeros incarnate on his way to the skysphere, fifty guard kithmen charged into the hall and formed a living barricade, holding their weapons against the searing flames. Rusa’h simply raised his hands, and a wall of fire rolled toward them, roa
sting the Ildirans inside their armor before an intense flash consumed them all. Their soulfires vanished into the widespread network of the faeros.

  In a misguided gesture of loyalty, dozens of chittering servant kithmen threw themselves upon the fiery Designate, doing anything to delay Rusa’h’s progress. They, too, perished.

  Two more faeros appeared in the sky and closed in on the Prism Palace. The mad Designate strode through the mirrored corridors. Each footprint burned, then hardened behind him, leaving a clear trail of his progress.

  Daro’h felt echoes of all the deaths as he ran. The thism seemed to be stretched to its breaking point. He knew that the Mage-Imperator would feel that agony from Theroc, but he was much too far away to be of any help.

  128 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

  After having formed his long-sought alliance and cleared his burden of guilt, the Mage-Imperator departed from Theroc. Now at last he could move forward; he and Nira could go home.

  Jora’h felt a great sense of satisfaction. Nira had acquired several new treelings, as well as promises from five green priests who had agreed to come to Mijistra. He stood with her in the command nucleus as his ceremonial warliner headed away from the thorny verdani battleships guarding Theroc and outward into space beyond the green-and-blue planet. It had been a long time since he had felt so hopeful, so content. The Empire was, once again, on the right track.

  Suddenly through the thism he felt a resounding call of alarm and pain. He stiffened, shuddered, and nearly fell backward as he cried out from the clamor in his mind. “The fire! The pain. I can feel it across all of Mijistra!”

  His connection with Prime Designate Daro’h was so clear, and the same echoing turmoil came through Yazra’h, through Osira’h, and many other Ildirans. Something truly apocalyptic was taking place—and he was far away from his people!