Then Estarra saw something more incredible than anything else in the space battlefield. “Look, Peter! They’re . . . they’re trees. Huge trees from the worldforest—just like Nahton told us!”
Verdani battleships engaged the hydrogues, wrapping spiny branches around the warglobes to crush them. Estarra pressed her hands against the curved wall, peering into the chaos of space. Everything seemed to be happening at once. Twenty of the enormous trees came toward the main struggle, and the derelict raced onward, but not fast enough.
One of the huge alien trees shifted its course and came at them. Peter cried out, “OX, change course. We don’t want to get caught by that thing.”
“I will attempt to avoid it, King Peter.” The compy focused on the jumbled crystalline controls, and their tiny sphere moved in an erratic pattern, but the thorny treeship came closer, its branches sweeping wide like the jaws of a trap.
“I don’t think it’s our enemy,” Estarra said. “It’s from Theroc.”
“Maybe not, but we’re sitting in a hydrogue ship, and those trees are destroying warglobes one after another.” Peter’s blue eyes were wide.
“Shall I identify Queen Estarra in my transmission?” OX asked.
She jumped at the chance. “Yes, OX! Say . . . I’m a daughter of Theroc, but don’t give my name.”
Moving with amazing speed, the organic vessel caught them in its mighty grasp and drew the derelict into a nest of thorns and fronds. The branches were huge. Estarra could see the overlapping golden bark scales now turned into impenetrable space armor. The javelin thorns scraped against the smooth curve of the derelict. The limbs pulled them closer, wrapping tighter.
OX did not sound concerned, though his hands flurried over the controls. “I apologize, King Peter. It is beyond my capabilities to evade the treeship.”
Huddled against the derelict’s wall, Estarra pressed her hands flat against the crystalline hull. The ominous growth looked similar to and yet different from the worldtrees she had climbed when she was younger. Those trees had been so peaceful, curious, wanting only to acquire knowledge. But these verdani battleships seemed intent on destruction. Or was it protection?
Crackling words came from the portable comm system aboard the derelict. She leaned forward, surprised to hear a sound like singing, a warm voice she remembered from childhood. “Estarra . . . sister.”
“Beneto!” She looked at Peter, then scrambled to the comm system. “It’s Beneto. He’s inside that treeship.”
“I am the treeship.”
Beneto had died on Corvus Landing. Yet Sarein and Nahton had told her of Beneto’s reincarnation as an avatar of the worldforest, complete with her brother’s thoughts and memories.
“Beneto, don’t harm us,” she said.
“You are in a hydrogue ship?” His voice no longer sounded exactly human.
“We’re escaping from the Hansa, from Earth. The Chairman is trying to kill us, so we’re going to Theroc.” She fiddled with the transmitter’s controls to hear him better. “I wish I could tell you everything, Beneto! I wanted to see you again.”
“Can he help us?” Peter asked.
“We need to get home, Beneto. Come with us,” she urged.
“I cannot. The battle is here. The final battle. I belong to the seedship now. We are one.” The enfolding branches now held the derelict in an embrace rather than a threatening grip. “We destroy the hydrogues today, but first I will see that you stay safe, little sister.”
The treeship began to move away from the furious combat zone. Blasts of enemy weaponry struck and splintered the outer fronds, but Beneto’s huge tree body did not flinch as he protected them. Once the verdani battleship had carried them beyond the last attacking warglobes, the thorny branches spread out and tossed the derelict into empty space, like a farmer casting seeds.
“I’ll miss you, Beneto,” Estarra called after him.
“I will always hold my memories of you, and of Theroc. They will remain with me for thousands of years as I journey across the cosmos.”
At his controls, OX piloted their craft again, resetting course for Theroc. “I have already begun to make new memories,” the compy said. Peter smiled.
Estarra stared back through the transparent hull as they hurtled away. The enormous organic vessel dwindled in the distance. In her last glimpse of the verdani battleship that was her brother, the many-branched weapon crashed again into the hydrogues.
132
DENN PERONI
When Denn Peroni flew a group of Roamer ships into the Earth system, he did so with genuine misgivings. He had never expected to return here, certainly not after the last time when he’d been arrested and held on trumped-up charges. Thankfully, King Peter had freed him before he could be used as a scapegoat.
I repay my debts, Denn thought.
Kotto Okiah guided the foremost of the eleven spidery cargo escorts next to Denn’s Dogged Persistence. The craft were nothing more than frameworks for hauling tanks of concentrated stardrive fuel, useless for bearing wental water to gas-giant targets. However, the thin tubular legs could easily fold around the stacks of flat packages like decks of giant playing cards.
Ever since the eccentric engineer had brought his blueprints to Yreka, dozens of Roamer and former Hansa manufacturing facilities had produced hundreds of thousands of the simple, flexible mats. Though the Roamers were stung by Eddy depredations, and the Hansa colonies were just as angry for being abandoned by their own government, when they had learned of the drogues’ planned attack on Earth, they decided to do something about it.
“This is your baby, Kotto. Would you like to be out front and center?”
“Oh, I don’t really need to have any special credit. The doorbells will be doing all the work.”
Denn chuckled. “I’m not expecting the Big Goose to hand us any trophies, no matter what we do here.”
The Roamer ships saw the fireworks of a furious battle long before they came close to Earth. Denn tried to drink it all in. Green priests dispersed around the orphaned Hansa colonies had forewarned them about the huge verdani battleships, but none of the Roamers was prepared for the sight of those twenty awesome trees grappling with one warglobe after another.
He saw EDF battleships clashing with each other, Juggernauts firing upon Juggernauts. Was it some sort of civil war? Then he remembered that Soldier compies had hijacked much of the fleet. Maybe the robots had come back for revenge. The Eddies certainly seemed to piss everybody off. . . .
Of course, there was no mistaking a gaudy Ildiran warliner. Denn had been to Ildira more than once to reopen trade with the Mage-Imperator, and his Dogged Persistence had been escorted by such warliners. Hundreds of the extravagant Solar Navy ships had already smashed themselves into warglobes, but the hydrogue forces still looked overwhelming. As the remaining deep-core aliens reeled, recovered, then renewed their attack, Denn spotted hundreds more Ildiran warliners charging in. They moved in perfect formation and accelerated, obviously preparing for another concerted suicide run. Hundreds of vessels, each one of which must contain at least a thousand Ildirans. All of them ready to sacrifice themselves.
If the doorbells worked as the engineer promised, all those deaths were so unnecessary.
“Kotto, we’ve got to do something about this.”
“Our cargo escorts are flying as fast as they can. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Doesn’t look like we have ten minutes. Those warliners are already starting their acceleration runs.” Without waiting for further discussion, he sent a broad-range burst. “Calling the Solar Navy! This is Denn Peroni from the Roamers. Remember me? I’ve been a guest of your Mage-Imperator several times. Is anybody out there?” The cohort of warliners continued to plunge toward the hydrogues. Obviously, they weren’t interested in conversation. He raised his voice, feeling greater urgency. “Please listen! We have brought a new weapon to deploy against the hydrogues. There’s no need for you to sacrifice your lives.”
Kotto added his voice. “Let us show you what we’ve got up our sleeves. By the Guiding Star, it’s much more efficient than smashing so many warliners.”
“And it’ll save thousands of lives,” Denn added. “Just give us a few minutes.”
A deep voice answered. “This is Adar Zan’nh. Tal Lorie’nh, you have my permission to suspend your attack run. I know about these Roamer traders—let us see what they intend to do.” His voice held a note of relief.
“Acknowledged, Adar,” said Lorie’nh. The accelerating warliners broke off their run, changing course and arcing away from the clustered hydrogue spheres. “I am happy to give the humans the first chance to defend their own world.”
“It’s not exactly my world anymore,” Denn muttered. “But we’ll help them out anyway.”
A rough voice he recognized as General Kurt Lanyan’s elbowed its way through the comm system. “Roamers! What the bloody hell are you doing here? If you get in the way, I’ll shoot you down myself.”
“Why, General, we’ve just come to demonstrate a bit of Roamer ingenuity, not to mention generosity.”
Denn’s Dogged Persistence and the eleven cargo escorts dumped their packages. Each craft carried thousands of tightly stacked resonance membranes, which spread apart as soon as they were released, separated by quick electrostatic charges. Kotto’s doorbells created a blizzard in empty space, flakes drifting onto the enemy craft.
Most of them missed, but enough clung in place. Once fastened, the doorbells began to thrum through a frequency cycle until they stumbled upon the correct resonance tone—with dramatic results. The warglobes’ enormous hatches split open. Windows and access ports burst to vent the superdense atmosphere into space.
At first, Kotto and Denn cheered in triumph, then yelled in panic as they scrambled to avoid the out-of-control drogue ships. Roamer vessels tried to get out of the shooting gallery. Ricocheting warglobes collided with each other and barely missed the cargo escorts. Spherical battleships crashed into each other, haring off in random directions, completely out of control. The diamond globes had no defense against this kind of attack.
It was a massacre.
The hundreds of Solar Navy warliners that had been pulled from suicide runs circled about. Denn imagined the Ildirans must be pleased, or at the very least relieved.
Even with the warglobes destroyed, however, the battle wasn’t over. The EDF Juggernauts and Mantas were still firing on their robot-controlled counterparts. On a whim, Denn transmitted to the Ildirans. “Adar, if you have any spare ships, I think General Lanyan could use some assistance.”
Tal Lorie’nh’s cohort, still spoiling for a fight, happily joined the fray. Ildiran ships tracked down the hijacked craft and opened fire. Eavesdropping on EDF channels, Denn heard loud cheering among the human soldiers.
General Lanyan sent a loud call across the comm line, sounding stunned. “Roamers, identify yourselves. Who are you?”
Denn couldn’t resist. “We’re the people who just saved your butts. Don’t ever forget that. We’re Roamers, and proud of it.”
“I can’t believe you’d do this for the EDF,” the General said.
Denn heard several of the clan pilots laughing out loud on the channel. “We didn’t do it for you, General. In fact, we did it in spite of the EDF. We did this for King Peter.” He smiled. That would certainly put egg on the Chairman’s face! He leaned back in his pilot’s chair. “We’ll be taking our leave now. No sense overstaying our welcome.”
Lanyan sounded embarrassed. “Wait around for the mop-up operations. Get yourself a pat on the back from the Hansa.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, General,” Denn said. “Roamers just don’t seem to be safe in your clutches.” On a private channel, he called Kotto and the pilots of the other cargo escorts. “We’ll just let them chew on that for a while.”
Without a further word to the Hansa or the EDF, the Roamers departed from the Earth system.
133
SIRIX
Aboard his stolen EDF Juggernaut, the Klikiss robot assessed what remained of his military force. Actual events were greatly at variance with what he had anticipated.
Knowing the hydrogue scheme, Sirix and his fellow robots had made a perfect plan to participate in the annihilation of the human homeworld. Flown by reprogrammed Soldier compies and independent Klikiss robots, these military ships should have been unstoppable against the disorganized remnants of the Earth Defense Forces.
He had committed serious errors. Sirix had never anticipated that enormous treeships would join the conflict. He had never believed humans could mount an effective defense against such overwhelming numbers. He had not expected Roamers to arrive with an unprecedentedly effective weapon against the warglobes.
In all of his calculations, Sirix had also dismissed the Ildirans as a threat. Ages ago, as part of his bargain with the Klikiss robots, the Mage-Imperator had vowed never to create sentient machines. After the robots discarded the agreement, Sirix had never counted on a half-breed girl with unexpected telepathic powers to help the Ildirans negotiate with the hydrogues. He had also not expected the Solar Navy to turn against the far superior warglobes. Mage-Imperator Jora’h had cast aside the alliance like so much worthless debris, even though he knew the hydrogues would retaliate. It defied reason.
Now it was no longer possible for Sirix to complete the original objectives. It annoyed him.
The robot-hijacked battleships were identical to those commanded by General Lanyan. The stolen Mantas and Thunderheads outnumbered real EDF ships, and this time they had preemptively disabled all of the guillotine protocols. General Lanyan could not use that insidious trick again.
By displaying stock images of now-dead grid admirals, Sirix had expected to slip cleanly among the EDF vessels and open fire. But humans had a surprising ability to distinguish the subtlest details in each other’s features and behavior. The deceptive images of human commanders had been taken directly from EDF records, but the surviving soldiers somehow detected the ruse.
Suspicious human captains challenged the holographic simulacra with ridiculous trivia that could not be found in EDF databases. They asked opinions about sports teams or gossip about celebrities and medialoop stars. Neither the Klikiss robots nor the Soldier compy poseurs could answer swiftly or correctly. Real EDF ships easily identified the infiltrators.
Sirix had underestimated these vermin. Simulations and analyses did not allow adequate understanding of chaotic biological intelligences.
Now, from his damaged Juggernaut, General Lanyan distributed target lists of robot-controlled ships. A third cohort of Ildiran warliners added their weapons to the remnants of the EDF. Verdani treeships continued to attack the few hydrogues that had managed to elude the Roamer doorbells.
What should have been a simple victory was turning into a rout.
Sirix had already lost a third of his stolen ships—and he required those vessels for cleansing human inhabitants from other planets. Unless he retreated with his remaining vessels now, he would not be able to recapture the former Klikiss colony worlds. That was his priority.
Faced with defeat, Sirix decided to save the rest of his ships. Otherwise, the overall mission—not just this single battle—would fail.
Watching the last hydrogues being wiped out, he reached the only logical decision. In a burst of machine language, his instructions rattled across all functional robot-controlled battleships. “Retreat. Salvage our military craft. Withdraw from the fight.”
He repeated his transmission to make certain all of his counterparts understood. With extrapolative programming, they should have already reached the same conclusions on their own. “Disengage from the conflict.”
In unison, with precision that would have made even the Adar of the Solar Navy proud, the robot-controlled vessels spun about. The stolen EDF battleships fired up their engines and fled swiftly into space.
134
JESS TAMBLYN
The alien citysph
ere shrank into the misty distance as Jess guided his wental bubble out of Qronha 3. Hydrogue domes, chambers, and pyramids were still visible through the colored fog, though a living mist continued to thicken around the bizarre metropolis. Wentals had penetrated to the core layers, approaching the citysphere itself. Diamond warglobes hurtled past, battling their intangible enemies with icewaves and deadly blue lightning, which had little effect.
“I didn’t think we’d escape this easily,” Tasia said.
Robb Brindle made a strangled sound. “You call this easy, Tamblyn? Maybe you hit your head on something—”
“There’s more to come,” Jess warned. “Count on it.”
With hydrogues and wentals colliding all around them, no one expected the immediate threat to come at them from below. On her knees, peering through the soap-bubble hull, Tasia cried out, “Shizz, Jess—Klikiss robots after us! Lots of them.”
From the alien metropolis, a swarm of black machines cracked open their armored carapaces, spread their wings, and activated propulsion systems. They flew after the escaping ship like a swarm of metal locusts.
Smith Keffa’s face contracted with fear as the Klikiss robots closed the distance, their multiple articulated limbs extended. “They’re coming to kill us. Damn machines! Leave us alone.”
The first black robot slashed past, and skittering mechanical claws ripped the wet membrane. Jess used his fluid control to instantly seal the breach and re-form the protective film as fast as the robot swept by, but dozens more attackers buzzed closer. The ship was already flying upward at the greatest speed Jess could attain. There were so many of them. So many.
Jess shouted to the elemental voices in his head, demanding help, but the wentals sang back, We are unable to assist. The battle is joined, and the hydrogues are fierce.
Another Klikiss robot slammed into the bubble and somehow held on with its burring, slicing claws. The healing membrane immediately closed against the deadly atmosphere, but the robot worked its bulk through the bubble wall, like a bizarre and horrific baby being born.
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