Of Fire and Night

by Kevin J. Anderson

  The Therons and the verdani were ready, as were the wentals and their numerous Roamer partners. This battle could be won after all! His thoughts thrummed through the interconnected worldtrees. “Our verdani seedships will not wait here any longer. We must bring the fight to our enemies, while the wentals launch their great offensive.”

  It was time to go.

  Beneto’s treeship was the first to lift off. With a tearing sensation followed by a wonderful sense of airy freedom, he uprooted himself from the soil of home. As he pulled away from the worldforest, his myriad verdani eyes saw the Theron people raising their hands, waving farewell. Through his enhanced vision, Beneto discerned Celli and Solimar, Mother Alexa and Father Idriss.

  The other new organic vessels tore free of the Theron dirt and joined the rest of the forest battlefleet. Hundreds of spiny treeships rose together like a flurry of seeds showered into the sky, and moved beyond the boundaries of atmosphere.

  They cruised between the stars, drinking raw sunlight. Beneto’s gigantic tree body was sealed by an impenetrable verdani force and infused with the life energy of the wentals. If he survived the war with the hydrogues, he could live for a very long time.

  The enormous tree battleships headed out into space, dispersing toward countless simultaneous battlefields.

  106

  JESS TAMBLYN

  When he left Theroc, Jess knew that the hundreds of verdani battleships would do their part in the imminent battle—as would the wentals. If all was going according to the broad plan, Nikko and the rest of Jess’s water-bearer volunteers would be rallying Roamer recruits; many pilots should be flying to various central wental planets to prepare for their final push. Cesca would coordinate the whole plan, sending messages through the wentals to guide near-simultaneous strikes to infested gas giants across the Spiral Arm. The concerted attack against hydrogue planets would hit like a chain reaction. . . .

  As the water-and-pearl vessel raced across empty space, heading toward Charybdis, through the wentals Jess instantly knew that something unexpected was out there . . . another ship. It hung dead in space, drifting. Damaged? Lying in ambush?

  He approached cautiously, and soon identified the human craft—a large EDF scout, far from any star system. A lone figure floated outside, completing repairs to the external engines. Though the ship could have carried a small crew, only one person was visible.

  When he saw the strange wental sphere coming toward him, the panicked man jetted into the open hatch. Detaching his helmet inside, the Eddie pilot scrambled into his control seat. Through the cockpit windowport, Jess could see he was an older black man, his close-cropped wiry hair dusted with smoky gray.

  Jess cautiously hovered his alien vessel in front of the scout’s cockpit, standing at the outer skin of the bubble so that the EDF man could see that he was human. With a reassuring smile, Jess raised his hands in a nonthreatening gesture. He hoped the pilot wouldn’t fire a jazer blast at him. The other man stared in disbelief.

  Drifting to the comm apparatus his water bearers had installed, Jess opened a direct channel, using one of the supposedly secret EDF frequencies that Roamers had discovered long ago. “I mean you no harm.”

  After fumbling with his systems, the pilot responded on the same frequency. “I am Lieutenant Conrad Brindle on a scout expedition for the Earth Defense Forces. Who are you? What are you doing out here—and what kind of ship is that? Are you . . . human?”

  “Oh, I’m human, and maybe a little bit more. How did your scout come to be damaged, Lieutenant Brindle?”

  “Hydrogues!”

  “Ah, so we share the same enemy.”

  “I was doing recon at Qronha 3.” Brindle was clearly unsure of how far he should trust this exotic stranger, but he was so overwhelmed that he quickly broke down. “The drogues and the Klikiss robots are keeping human prisoners! They’re holding eight people hostage inside a gas giant.”

  That seemed impossible. “How do you know this?”

  “Direct video images. My son is down there. We thought he was killed by the hydrogues before the battle of Osquivel. But he’s alive and he’s deep inside Qronha 3!” Brindle shook his head. “How am I ever going to rescue him?”

  Jess had heard of Qronha 3, but this made no sense. “Why were you scouting a gas giant in the Ildiran Empire in the first place? What interest do the Eddies have?”

  “We lost sixty new rammers there. Commander Tamblyn led them on an assault against the hydrogues, but they just disappeared. My orders were to see if I could intercept a surveillance signal.”

  “Commander Tamblyn?”

  “Tasia Tamblyn. They picked her to lead the rammer charge.”

  A suicide mission. Of course Tasia would have flown the highest-risk operation. The Eddies would have chosen her because she was a Roamer. Expendable. Eddies had always treated clan members like that.

  “Commander Tamblyn is my sister,” he said. Surprised, Brindle looked again at the strange figure of Jess in his shimmering white garment and his alien water vessel. “Is she still alive? Tell me what happened to her. Tell me everything.”

  While Brindle explained, Jess seethed inside his wental ship. If Tasia was being held by the drogues, then he needed to do something. Immediately. “Can you finish your own repairs to this ship?”

  “Oh, the weapons just grazed me. I can jury-rig the systems, and I should be flying out of here within a day. I never assumed anyone would find me.”

  Jess wrestled with the tides of anger and urgency. He’d been about to rally the wentals, send them off to hydrogue gas giants. All the players were now ready. But the drogues had captured his sister! He knew where he had to go first. The wentals would communicate the details to Cesca.

  Jess prepared to set out, sending one last transmission. “Even after what the Eddies have done to our clans, Lieutenant Brindle, we Roamers are on your side. We’re fighting against the real enemy. Go back to Earth and tell your Chairman it would be best if he did the same. Meanwhile, I’m going to rescue those hostages in Qronha 3.”

  Brindle was surprised. “If you’re going to try to rescue my son, then I’m coming with you.”

  “I am going where you cannot follow. Deep inside a gas giant.”

  “With the environment down there—the pressures, the poisonous atmosphere—it’s impossible!”

  Jess cut him off, already preparing to depart. “Then by the Guiding Star I’ll have to do the impossible.”

  107

  NIKKO CHAN TYLAR

  The turnout at Charybdis was even larger than Nikko had prayed for. All those Roamer volunteers ready to deliver wentals! Obviously, a lot of people held a grudge against the drogues. The new arrivals came to the stormy water world with the utmost resolve. At least he could be sure this conflict would not be lost due to a lack of enthusiasm or manpower.

  The planet-sized ocean surged and swelled, crashing against the scattered rocky landing areas. The turbulent environment made a profound impression even on hard-bitten Roamers who thought they had seen it all.

  Nikko landed the Aquarius near some big Roamer ships donated by Del Kellum and other skymining families from Golgen. Zhett Kellum flew one of the cargo haulers herself, insisting (repeatedly and loudly over the open comm channels) that she was as good a pilot as any other clan could dredge up. No one challenged her assertion, certainly not Nikko.

  Fourteen water tankers from Plumas arrived, along with many smaller craft, so it was only a matter of loading the ships and telling them where to go with their holds full of wental water—and that was an administrative problem he did not relish. Nikko Chan Tylar had never been good at organizing even his own routes and schedules. Speaker Peroni was supposed to be here soon to help him.

  Nikko’s fellow water bearers had spread the word of the impending assault across the Spiral Arm. They had called volunteers to the numerous ocean worlds where clan volunteers would fill their ships with the potent water before flying off to every known drogue-infested ga
s giant. So far, well over a hundred Roamer craft had been drawn into the overall operation. In small clusters, the ships could hit an overwhelming number of hydrogue worlds. Soon enough, the enemy would have no place to hide.

  But it had to be a coordinated effort. Roamers were notoriously independent, and Nikko couldn’t let them fly off wherever they chose. Some key planets might be missed while others were hit twice. If the wental distribution took too long, the drogues might find some way to block it. Or they might escape in their warglobes.

  Nikko had no idea how many hydrogue gas giants there were. Hundreds? Thousands? Thanks to the renewed skymining operations at Golgen, the Roamers at least had enough ekti to make all those runs . . . but unless it was organized, the whole plan would be one big mess!

  He already had a headache.

  He went outside to the barren, spray-swept black rocks where Roamers milled about next to their ships, impatient to get moving. Del Kellum and several other clan heads were good organizers, but he didn’t delegate the work to them, yet. (They probably wouldn’t have listened to him anyway.) He glanced up at the sky, hoping to see Speaker Peroni.

  Finally, he decided to get started by having the ships load up. Nikko was sure he could handle that part, since the wentals knew what they were doing. When he directed the battered Plumas tankers to hover above the restless waves and open their cargo doors, Caleb Tamblyn transmitted skeptically, “I don’t know if our pumps can handle this. The tankers were designed to use hydrostatic pressure from beneath the ice caps.”

  One of the Tamblyn twins—Nikko wasn’t sure whether it was Wynn or Torin—added on the same channel, “We might have to use buckets or barrels for the little ships. But we’ll fill up that way if we have to.”

  Nikko didn’t have any doubts. “Just sit back and watch. Trust me, that water wants to get aboard.”

  The ocean itself took care of the rest. Rising up, the living waves poured themselves into the voluminous holds. Amoebic streams of water, acting like pseudopods, lifted up in defiance of gravity. Wentals flooded into every storage hold of the volunteer ships.

  While activity continued in a blur around him, Nikko stood on the rocks, smelling ozone-laden air. The cargo operations went on for hours, as ship after ship of every configuration came down, checked systems, jockeyed for position even though the ocean was huge, then took aboard the strange water. Similar scenes were doubtless happening on other wental distribution worlds as groups of Roamer ships filled up, preparing to deploy their secret weapon.

  Upbeat, Nikko transmitted across the comm circuit, “Once you all deliver this water to your designated gas giants, the wentals will spread through the clouds like an unstoppable flood. The drogues won’t know what hit them.” He laughed. “Or maybe they will, but they’ll still lose.”

  “The Eddies didn’t do much good when they knocked their thick heads against the drogues at Osquivel,” Zhett Kellum said sourly. “It’ll be a pleasure to show them how it’s done.”

  “Sounds better than a Klikiss Torch, by damn,” said her father. “At least we’ll still have a planet left when we’re done!”

  Near sunset, another small Roamer vessel arrived. As the straggler descended to the edge of the water, a thick arm of living ocean rose up to form a liquid landing platform, safely apart from the rocky archipelago where the other diverse craft had settled down. The ship rested calmly on the shimmering platform, buoyed up by the silvery-blue shelf. Even before she emerged, confident and alive with her power, Nikko guessed that it was Speaker Peroni. His shoulders sagged with relief. She could organize the whole operation!

  The Roamer volunteers gathered around. Most were defiant and eager to launch a strike against the drogues. She swept her gaze across all the people, obviously pleased by the size of their ragtag force.

  “Jess just sent me a message through the wentals. He is going to make an immediate assault on Qronha 3—but that will be only one of many simultaneous strikes. Hydrogue gas giants are located all across the Spiral Arm. The wentals have dispatched detailed navigational information to all the water bearers and their respective teams, sorting gas giants by distance from each distribution world. There will be no overlap in targets. Everyone will know exactly where to go.”

  “We haven’t made any assignments here yet, Speaker Peroni,” Nikko said.

  She looked around. “With all the ships here, I’m guessing we have at least fifteen separate distribution groups. I will provide updated charts and specific target worlds for each group. With us, and all the other squads from the various distribution worlds, we can take care of hundreds of drogue gas giants in a few days’ time.

  “When they come under attack, the hydrogues will probably try to jump through their transgates to other gas giants. But if we hit everywhere at once, they’ll have no place to go, no way to escape. We can’t allow them to keep a single foothold. We must leave no safe worlds for them to run to.” The Roamers cheered, ready for the fight.

  On their starcharts, Speaker Peroni outlined the upcoming offensive. Datapoints scattered across the Spiral Arm marked the extent of the hidden hydrogue empire. As the Roamer volunteers shared information and compared charts, a restless Nikko paced around his odd-looking ship. Everything was ready.

  Before they all climbed aboard their separate ships, however, Cesca pointed out across the restless waves. Nikko felt his heart thrum, like the string of a plucked musical instrument.

  The Charybdis sea stopped churning, and the waves flattened in an eerie calm. A cigar-shaped projectile shot upward like a missile fired from underwater. The spindle-shaped torpedo was made entirely of wental fluid formed into a new ship. Before the first wental torpedo had disappeared into a sky full of storm clouds, five more silvery ships rocketed out of the waves. Then another ten.

  Nikko tried to follow the torpedoes with his eyes, but they flew too fast, vanishing into the sky. “If the wentals could do that all along, then why do they need us? And all our ships?”

  Speaker Peroni smiled. “Those are intense kernels of wental energy, as different from the water in your tankers as diamond is from coal. The wentals can create only a few of them—but, ah, the blows they will strike!” She paused as if receiving a message. “We’d better get back to our ships and launch. Jess is about to reach Qronha 3.”

  108

  GENERAL KURT LANYAN

  More than a dozen EDF perimeter scouts sounded alarms at the same time. The unidentified armada diving into Earth’s solar system was so enormous that sensors went off like popcorn bursting in a superheated flame.

  “Hundreds of targets, General! Looks like almost a thousand!”

  Permanently stationed aboard the Goliath, Lanyan rallied his last-ditch defensive forces, pulling every remaining Manta, weapons platform, and gunship together to form what he hoped would be an impenetrable cordon for their final stand. “Everybody awake! Looks like this is it, here they come. If that’s the hydrogues, form a wall that they’re not going to get through!”

  With a ricochet of communications bursts, the platcoms and Manta captains announced their readiness. Ships scrambled in from opposite sides of the system and high outer orbit. Lanyan ordered all weapons hot and ready to fire, jazer banks charged, projectile weapons loaded into railgun tubes. Like angry hornets, Remora squadrons flew out, ready for the most intense dogfight in history. Sensor hits from the unknown vessels filled the screens like a whiteout snowstorm. He actually uttered a prayer. A sincere one.

  “Message coming in, General,” said the Goliath’s communications officer.

  “The drogues want to talk? Put it on screen.”

  “Not the hydrogues, sir.”

  An image of the proud Ildiran Adar resolved in front of him. “By order of the Mage-Imperator, I am here to deliver two cohorts of Solar Navy warliners to assist in the defense of the Earth, each one fully armed and ready to fight.”

  The sensor blips resolved into Ildiran vessels, each one adorned with streamers, antennae, and solar
sails. Lanyan had never seen a prettier sight. “Two cohorts? That’s almost seven hundred battleships!”

  “Six hundred eighty-six. Upon further consultation, the Mage-Imperator decided to double our commitment, due to the extreme importance of this upcoming battle. The hydrogues will strike at Earth very soon.”

  Excited conversation buzzed around the Goliath’s bridge. Lanyan grinned. “You’re a very welcome sight, Adar. Allow me to escort you to Earth.”

  The EDF ships formed a parade, while hundreds of Ildiran warliners followed like fish in a perfectly coordinated school. As the mixed fleet approached Earth, the Solar Navy vessels went into a well-practiced set of maneuvers, as if showing off for observers. Each warliner was nearly as large as a Juggernaut, but they pirouetted around each other with clockwork precision. Though the General had often made quiet and deprecating comments about the stagnant alien Empire, he was certainly impressed by the prowess and coordination of their pilots.

  “I hope they can fight as well as they can dance,” Lanyan said.

  Once the ships in the combined fleets were in place, General Lanyan requested to meet with Adar Zan’nh face-to-face aboard his flagship. “I’ve always wanted to see one of your warliners up close, Adar.”

  The Ildiran commander was surprisingly evasive. “Perhaps later, General. For now we prefer our privacy.”

  “Uh, sure.” As soon as he switched off the communication line, the General frowned. “Anybody else get the impression that was one of those invitations where ‘later’ actually means never?”

  His new executive officer, Kosevic, nodded. Kosevic was a thin man with short bronze hair and eyes set just a little too wide. “Certainly sounded that way to me, General.”

  For this all-important defense, the General had hoped to use his former adjutant, Patrick Fitzpatrick III. In spite of that distressing confrontation during the young man’s recent welcome-home party, Lanyan had requested his assignment to the Goliath, but Fitzpatrick was conveniently nowhere to be found. Lanyan suspected the kid’s grandmother had something to do with that. Maybe Fitzpatrick needed to have the silver spoon taken from his mouth and shoved somewhere else. . . .