The Ashes Of Worlds

by The Ashes of Worlds (v5. 0) [lit]

  Mist sprang from Jess’s pores like sweat, creating a powerful living fog. Cesca raised her hands, and steam flashed against the barrage of fire. They both drew deeply from the wentals within them, struggling against the fierce onslaught, staggering a step backward. Seeing them falter, Rusa’h hurled even more fire at them.

  The two pushed back, wrapping cool wental vapors like thick ropes around the faeros incarnate. Jess surrendered more and more of his inner reservoir of wental strength. The air burned around him, and he fought back until he was at the point of collapse, but he did not relent.

  The Mage-Imperator and the linked Ildirans behind their shield drained away some power from the faeros incarnate, contributing to the fight.

  Jora’h lashed out at his brother. “Come back to me, Rusa’h! No matter what you have done, I know an Ildiran heart still beats within you. If you truly want to save our people, save them now. Drive away the faeros before they consume you entirely.”

  “No!” When Rusa’h screamed, a gout of fire jetted from his mouth.

  The sparkling fog grew so thick that Jess could barely see what he was fighting. Flashes of blinding orange and yellow battered the wentals, but he and Cesca kept pushing closer to the faeros incarnate. Their inner water elementals were exhausting themselves, depleting their energy to protect Jess and Cesca. He hoped they could last longer than the fires.

  Unable to resist the added pressure, Rusa’h stumbled backward.

  Jess refused to back off, even though he could feel the wentals using up all of their energy inside him. He began to feel light-headed, empty, as if every molecule of moisture were being wrung from his pores. To summon any last vestiges of strength, he made himself remember the faeros attack on Charybdis and its pristine seas full of reborn wentals. That holocaust would always be burned into his mind — the blasted oceans, the blackened reefs and undersea rocks. Nor could he forget how the faeros had attacked Golgen, had tried to destroy the Roamer skymines . . . had burned Theroc to consume the worldtrees . . . had killed Cesca’s father and stranded his uncle on Jonah 12.

  The wentals within his cells pulled together and threw themselves upon the burning man.

  Unable to resist the extra push, Rusa’h staggered backward into the muddy pool from their wental ship — and the trap was sprung. Living water surged up from the ground and seized his legs. Rusa’h thrashed, hurling fire everywhere.

  Before he could regain his balance, Jess and Cesca threw themselves upon the faeros incarnate, entwining him in smothering blankets of mist. Jess drained his inner reservoirs dry, spending the last of the wental power that had saved him from the hydrogues so long ago in one final surge. Beside him and connected to him, Cesca did the same.

  The flames inside Rusa’h were finally quenched. Extinguished from within, the faeros incarnate collapsed.

  Coughing and choking, barely able to breathe through the boiling clouds of steam, Jess and Cesca staggered away to drop to their knees near the Ildirans.

  Nira set down her treeling and rushed to them. Before Jess could think to warn her away, the green priest touched him, held him. Jess automatically cringed as she helped him to his feet. He looked at the unharmed green priest in amazement. “I don’t understand. My touch should have killed you.”

  Cesca stared at her hands in wonder and drew a breath. “Feel it, Jess. They’re gone. The wentals are no longer inside!”

  Jess realized that his own skin seemed exactly as it once had been. He had almost forgotten the sensation of being normal. “We must have burned them out — used them up.” Jess turned around in amazement. “We’re human again. And we survived!” Joy welled up within him, mingling with sadness and admiration for the water elementals that had sacrificed themselves.

  “We defeated the faeros,” Cesca said quietly. “That’s what matters. That’s what the wentals wanted.” They looked up and saw the remaining fireballs flitting away aimlessly, to be scooped up and whisked away by several tree-bubbles that dragged them to the nearby suns.

  Jess smiled, feeling immensely relieved.

  They heard a sound nearby. Steam still rose, scattered by churning thermal currents in the air. When the hot mist finally cleared, they saw the former faeros incarnate on his knees, wholly defeated. The fiery elementals had been purged from his system, and now he huddled there naked and weak, a mere shadow of himself.

  Sobbing, Rusa’h turned his face up to the Mage-Imperator.

  158

  Deputy Chairman Eldred Cain

  By the sharklike expression on the Chairman’s face, Cain could tell that all humanity had died within him. Basil Wenceslas, who had once been a smooth and talented leader, hard negotiator, and competent administrator, had tumbled headlong down a slippery slope.

  OX stood beside the throne, his optical sensors flashing. “Chairman Wenceslas, I must point out that you have no legal basis whatsoever for this order. There is no precedent for your command.”

  Cain positioned himself at the stairs leading up to the throne dais, between the Chairman and the King. “Sir, I urge you to reconsider.”

  Basil ignored the compy and showed only contempt for his deputy. “You think I don’t know how you and Sarein plotted against me, Cain, subverting my authority at every turn? I’m the only one with vision, the only one who can lead the human race where it needs to go. You are such a disappointment.” He swept his gaze around the sealed room. “All of you — complete failures! Peter, Fitzpatrick — even you, Colonel Andez!”

  General Brindle’s response over the communicator interrupted his rant. “Guillotine codes are confirmed, sir. As you ordered.” He sounded stiff and displeased. “The Confederation ships have been shut down, weapons and shields are inactive. Except for the Roamer vessels among them, all are dead in space.” The man’s voice wavered, distorted by static. “I fail to see, however, what you intend to accomplish here. I still need their help to retrieve the escape pods from my wrecked fleet.”

  Basil lifted the communicator again. “General Brindle, I issued an order for you to open fire on the Confederation ships. Have you destroyed the enemy fleet yet?”

  Peter spoke loudly enough to cut through the Chairman’s words. “General, this is your King. The Chairman has been deposed, and I command you not to listen to him. Queen Estarra is aboard the Jupiter.”

  “Actually,” Brindle said dryly, “she is in a small trader ship directly off my bow and directly in my line of fire. She and Ambassador Sarein have made quite a compelling case for me to switch my allegiance to the Confederation.”

  Basil clutched the communicator and shouted so loudly that flecks of spittle flew out of his mouth. “Are you threatening a mutiny, General? Your entire lifetime of honorable service speaks against it. I gave you an order — ”

  Brindle’s response overlapped the Chairman’s words in the brief transmission lag. “I do not believe this attack is warranted. Circumstances have quite plainly changed.”

  “I didn’t ask your opinion, General. Destroy the Confederation ships!”

  The EDF commander’s turmoil boiled up in his words. “I cannot open fire on a sovereign leader.”

  Basil blinked as if he had never expected the General to defy him. “Don’t be ridiculous. The Confederation is not a legitimate government. They are a clear threat to the entire Hansa. Open fire!”

  After a hesitation longer than the time lag required, Brindle replied, “I will not.”

  His eyes flared, and his voice was like acid. “Your wife currently serves on an EDF base. I have had her watched, and now I will order her to be taken into custody. I never dreamed I would have to use strong-arm tactics to get you to follow simple commands, General.”

  Conrad’s voice was brittle. “And I never dreamed that a real leader would resort to taking innocent hostages or threatening loyal citizens. I have made a grave error in not realizing sooner that King Peter is my true commander-in-chief. I won’t let you use Natalie as a pawn.”

  Basil turned as pale as c
urdled milk. He shouted, “If you do not do as you’re told, I will order you and your bridge crew executed as mutineers!”

  Only a crackle of static came from the communicator. The EDF commander had cut off the transmission.

  Basil spun to Andez, whose four guards stood close together in the sealed room. They seemed deeply unsettled now that General Brindle had abandoned the Chairman. Several of them seemed ready to throw down their weapons.

  Basil, somehow, didn’t see it. “Colonel Andez, it is time to end this. I order Peter’s execution. Shoot him down for usurping King Rory’s throne.”

  “He can have the throne!” the boy cried.

  “You shut your mouth!”

  Foreseeing a threat to Peter, OX immediately placed himself in front of the throne, using his hard polymer-and-metal body as a barricade. “I cannot allow you to harm the King. My programming prevents it. You will have to shoot through me.”

  Andez’s hand twitched, but she did not draw her firearm from its holster. Too many of Peter’s guards pointed their weapons toward her; she and her handful of comrades were heavily outnumbered. “But, Mr. Chairman, even the EDF — ”

  Basil grabbed her small sidearm from the holster at her hip and stalked toward the throne four steps away, as if he and Peter were the only two people in the room. All of the guards swung their firearms toward him, though Peter had given them orders not to fire.

  “Mr. Chairman, drop your weapon! Now!”

  Basil completely ignored them, as if they were inconsequential.

  Stationed at the base of the dais steps, Cain did not hesitate. As the Chairman strode dismissively past him, he drew the ceremonial dagger that Captain McCammon had so proudly worn. Swinging the knife in a smooth arc, he threw his weight into the blow.

  The blade slammed into Chairman Wenceslas’s back, piercing him below his left shoulder blade, slightly to one side of the spine. Cain drove the point between the ribs and directly into Basil’s heart.

  The Chairman stopped as if he had walked into a wall. Cain gave the knife an extra thrust.

  Everyone froze in shock. Peter pushed away from his throne and sidestepped the guardian compy.

  Deputy Cain held the dagger’s hilt, keeping the Chairman upright for a paralyzed instant. Basil’s hands twitched and he released his grip on the handgun, which dropped with a clatter to the throne room floor. His knees buckled, making him too heavy for the deputy to hold him up. Cain released the hilt, and the Chairman slid to the floor. Blood started to seep through the fabric of his expensive business suit.

  Basil let out a long rattling sigh and rolled slightly so that his gray eyes met Cain’s. One last breath gurgled from the Chairman’s throat, as if he were trying mightily to utter some final expression of defiance, but he managed to find only one word before he died. “Disappointed . . .”

  Cain looked coolly around the room, remembering how McCammon had bled across this very same floor. He spoke in a surprisingly loud voice.

  “As deputy chairman, I hereby assume control of the Hansa.” He withdrew the dagger from the Chairman’s back, wiped the knife clean, flipped it over, and extended it hilt-first toward King Peter. “On behalf of the Confederation.”

  159

  Tasia Tamblyn

  By the time Tasia and her companions got back to Earth and learned what had happened, the whole war was over — the Hansa and the Confederation, the black robots, the Ildiran Empire, the faeros, the wentals, the verdani. Everything. On their approach to Earth they intercepted numerous transmissions: Patrick Fitzpatrick’s exposés, Confederation reports, and newsnet stories.

  “Shizz, and we missed it!”

  Hud Steinman made a sour face. “I can’t complain about being left out of all that.”

  “We did our part,” Orli assured Tasia. “And from the news stories, I’d say it had a pretty significant effect on how things turned out.”

  Kotto was still floating with excitement that his Siren had worked so well. Moving from world to world, they had found and completely knocked out ten of the separated subhives. That had been enough to topple the One Breedex.

  Dodging the wreckage strewn like a metallic asteroid belt around the military ships in Earth orbit, Tasia flew toward the Jupiter.

  “Admiral Willis,” she transmitted to the Juggernaut. “Are you ready for some company? My team has very interesting news about the Klikiss . . . or what’s left of them.”

  The responding voice did not belong to the Admiral, though. “You’re always welcome aboard my ship, Tamblyn — even if you were off on a little joyride while the rest of us were saving the world.”

  “Joyride? Excuse me, Commodore Brindle, but we’d better compare notes before we decide whose accomplishments trump whose.”

  Robb laughed. “Come aboard the Jupiter. We’d love to hear about your exploits. Admiral Willis is on her way back here, too.”

  The reunion aboard the Juggernaut was a happy one. Kotto had never been on such a large EDF ship before, and he poked around the bridge, incessantly asking questions. Steinman wanted to find the crew’s mess so he could have a meal that didn’t come from self-heating packages, and Orli and DD went with him.

  From the Whisper Palace, Deputy Cain had formally instructed General Brindle to cancel the guillotine-code commands and reinstate power and control to all the Confederation battleships. The EDF commander had been glad to comply. All the ships were now functional.

  While King Peter remained at the Whisper Palace to prepare for the formal changeover of power, Admiral Willis headed back to her Juggernaut, resplendent in her dress uniform. Stepping onto the bridge and taking command again, Willis clapped both Tasia and Robb on the shoulder.

  “Well, I sure am glad to be done with all this nonsense.”

  “The Spiral Arm’s a big place, ma’am. I’m sure there’s plenty of nonsense left.”

  Willis frowned. “Don’t rain on my parade, Tamblyn.”

  When General Conrad Brindle’s shuttle crossed over from the Goliath, the Confederation soldiers formally received him. “Some things should be done face-to-face,” he had said, and Admiral Willis granted him permission to come aboard. Accompanied by an honor guard of ten (all of whom sported ceremonial sabres but no sidearms), Conrad wore his uniform immaculately.

  Willis swiveled her command chair to face him as the General stepped out of the lift and saluted crisply. All of the bridge personnel remained hushed, wondering what the EDF’s commander would say. She favored him with a kind smile. “A lot of water under the bridge, General.”

  He nodded stiffly. “Much of my fleet has been crippled or destroyed. A hundred ships lost to sabotage.”

  Tasia crossed her arms, not standing on ceremony. “Shizz, sir, we could get by with a lot smaller fleet if our ships stopped shooting at each other.”

  Conrad looked at her, then at Robb. “I’ve come to the same conclusion.” He gave a half bow to Admiral Willis. “As commander of the Earth Defense Forces, I am here to issue our transfer of allegiance to the Confederation.”

  Tasia caught her breath. Willis blinked.

  Conrad continued. “As a guarantee of our sincerity, I will volunteer the guillotine codes of all our ships.” He withdrew a folded document from the pocket of his uniform, smoothed the creases by running them through his fingers, then extended the papers to Admiral Willis. “Here is my formal surrender of authority. You are now in command of the Goliath and all my remaining ships. May you guide them well.” He took a step backward. “We could use some steady and rational leadership for a change.”

  “Why thank you, General. I accept your surrender.” She cracked her knuckles. “There, now that the formalities are out of the way, we can talk turkey about how this is going to work — practically speaking, I mean.”

  Brindle, though, had something to do first. When he turned to his son, Tasia could see the warring emotions on the older man’s face. “I just received a message from your mother, Robb. After all we’ve just been through, sh
e’d be very grateful if you’d visit us at your earliest convenience. We have a lot to talk about as a family.” He looked at Tasia. “And, of course, Commodore Tamblyn is more than welcome to join you.”

  160

  King Peter

  With Estarra and Deputy Cain sitting across the table in a small Whisper Palace room, they discussed what to do with the deposed King Rory. OX stood ready with his uploaded databases to recite chapter and verse from his files on Hansa law or diplomatic tradition, but no decision was made.

  “My family died in an accident . . . if it was an accident.” Rory swallowed hard. “I just want my normal life back.”

  “We could see to it that the boy lives comfortably, with a new name and a new identity,” Cain suggested. “If he disappears from public view, he’ll soon be forgotten.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Considering what the people are used to from the Chairman, they’ll probably assume he was killed,” Estarra pointed out.

  Peter looked sadly at Rory, who seemed out of his depth. “Sorry, but you’re King Rory, for good or bad. But you can still help. You’ll need to help.”

  “Perhaps find some ceremonial role?” Cain said. “Demote him, but don’t brush him away in disgrace. Let him continue to have a following.”

  “The people have endured enough turmoil, and it would help with continuity,” Estarra said. “He’ll serve as a bridge between the old Hansa and the new Confederation.”

  Later, soldiers lined up to hold back the crowds and the newsnet imagers for the abdication ceremony. As he and Estarra stood with Rory under the bright lights, Peter could see that the young man was sweating heavily. He looked so much like Peter’s lost brother that the cruelty of Basil’s trick burned like salt in a wound. But it wasn’t Rory’s fault.

  Peter spoke quietly, so no one else could hear. “I hold no grudge against you. Don’t be ashamed.”