The Ashes of Worlds

by Kevin J. Anderson

  On the crowded screen, he identified the spidery cargo escorts holding canisters of ekti. He pointed his index finger, raising his voice. “There! Those are the ships I was telling you about. Remember my orders.”

  His weapons officers fired at the evacuating cargo escorts, aiming carefully and missing intentionally. The barrage, however, was merely a diversion so that tiny pingers could attach to the hulls without the Roamer pilots noticing. The locator beacons would activate later so that Lanyan could track the cargo escorts to other fuel-distribution depots. If the EDF made a diligent effort, they could unravel the whole Roamer network and find all of their hidden facilities.

  As the raid commenced, Lanyan ignored the outraged cries and threatening comm messages from the skymine managers. “Prepare to be boarded,” he transmitted to the largest facility. “With your unconditional surrender, we can eliminate — or at least minimize — casualties.”

  A gruff voice yelled back at him, “This is Del Kellum, and I’m in charge of this skymine. I do not — repeat, do not — grant you permission to land.”

  Lanyan chuckled. “Exactly how are you going to stop me? With harsh language and a disapproving look?” He switched off the transmission, stood up, and stretched.

  An hour later, from a troop transport filled with heavily armed EDF soldiers, Lanyan looked out at the enormous floating city with its many decks and docks, its antennae, sensor probes, and observation balconies. The Goliath hung nearby, huge and ominous in the sky. Admiral Brindle had already reported a swift victory at his assigned skymine, as had the other EDF Mantas. Chairman Wenceslas was going to be pleased when he heard how much stardrive fuel this operation would yield.

  Before disembarking, the General checked his uniform, quickly combed his dark hair, and surveyed the guards ready to exit the transport with him. Lanyan thought of the successful commanders he had learned about in military school, their proud victory speeches on conquered ground. He wanted to make a memorable impression here when he set foot on the beaten skymine and showed everyone that he was not to be trifled with.

  The hatch opened, and he stepped proudly down the ramp. “I hereby take control of this new facility in the name of the Hansa.”

  A group of agitated Roamers waited for him. He recognized bearded Del Kellum, with his barrel chest and his angry expression. Next, he saw a completely unexpected young man, who would have looked more familiar had he been wearing an EDF uniform.

  “General Lanyan,” said Patrick Fitzpatrick III, “I see my new opinion of you was absolutely correct.”

  5

  Jess Tamblyn

  Once, Charybdis had been a primeval ocean world whose turbulent seas hosted countless thriving wentals. And then the faeros had come.

  Jess and Cesca had not been here when angry fireballs had rained down to blast the elemental seas, but now they stood together on the smoking ruin of the planet. The air was laden with heavy sulfurous steam, the cadaverous smell of dead wentals. He drew a deep breath, felt the anger burn through him.

  This is war.

  “The Roamers can help us,” Cesca said, her voice brittle with fury at the sight of the blackened, glassy landscape that had once been a calm and fertile sea. “We should ask the clans to join our fight.”

  Kneeling, Jess put his fingers in a warm, scum-covered puddle. The water felt oily and dead. He shook his head, trying to find an independent reservoir on Charybdis. Something must have survived. “What possible weapons could Roamers devise against them?”

  Cesca raised her eyebrows. “Jess Tamblyn, are you really doubting Roamer ingenuity?”

  He took hope from that, and with his fingers still dripping, he began to walk across the wasteland. Understanding the wentals all too well, he did know what the largest problem was. “Wentals and verdani are forces of life and stability. Hydrogues and faeros are the embodiments of destruction. When they clash, the chaos and aggression inevitably overwhelm the quiet and peace. The wentals don’t know how to fight effectively against an enemy like this.”

  Cesca followed him. “Unless we change the rules of engagement.”

  A small crack opened up in the ground, and steam sighed out like the last gasp of another wental that had surrendered to its fate.

  Ten thousand years ago the wentals and verdani had nearly been annihilated in the great war. Sorely beaten, the hydrogues were driven into their gas-giant planets, and the faeros took up residence in their stars. When hostilities had flared up again, the unresolved conflict triggered into full fury. But now the landscape of the Spiral Arm was quite different.

  From his contact with the wentals, Jess knew that the faeros had nearly been defeated by the hydrogues until the fiery beings had changed their old chaotic tactics. The former Hyrillka Designate Rusa’h had caused that difference. He had fled into the fires of a nearby sun where the faeros consumed and joined with him, much as the wentals had with Jess and Cesca. As a living embodiment of the fiery creatures, Rusa’h had showed them new ways to fight, and they had overwhelmed the hydrogues at one battleground after another — and won. His guidance had made all the difference.

  Jess stopped as these thoughts roiled through his head. When the wentals had been weak and few, they had saved him by permeating the tissues of his body, rescuing him from his exploding ship. Out of gratitude, Jess had led water bearers to disperse wental seedpools from planet to planet.

  Now he and Cesca had an even greater challenge. Like Rusa’h, they had to take charge and guide the wentals in an effective fight. They had to show the watery elementals how to take aggressive action.

  He turned to Cesca, and his eyes seemed to fill with steam as he looked at the blasted landscape. “It’s time for the wentals to be angry, time for them to become warriors — to fight in a way that is more than just defensive.”

  Power surged through his bloodstream, and he felt an overwhelming urge to strike something. Jess wasn’t normally an angry man, but now with his hard fists, he struck the glassy eggshell surface and felt the baked barrier crack. He pounded again. Yes, he sensed something deeper here! The oceans of Charybdis had been blasted away, but there was always water, always life.

  He struck a third time and broke through the crust. Water filled the hole he had made, liquid percolating from deep aquifers. The water was hot, near boiling. Steam drifted about — not putrid brimstone steam, but vaporized water. Wental water. More and more of it welled up, as if trying to break free.

  Cesca thrust her hands into the thermal pool. Bubbling water spurted out of the hot spring and flowed across the baked ground. Another geyser blasted through the crust, where more wentals had awakened from the hot aquifers.

  Cesca stood up and clenched both fists. “As we touch and spread these wentals, our just anger will charge them with fresh purpose. Together we will find new ways to fight back.”

  Beside her, Jess felt the power sing through his body, assuring him that all of the wentals would awaken and follow them. “We have a new Guiding Star.”

  6

  Tasia Tamblyn

  After escaping from the Klikiss on Llaro, the damaged ship limped back to the Roamer shipyards. Tasia refused to leave the piloting deck, afraid that if she let her attention waver, some other crisis would hit these beleaguered people.

  “Almost there, Tamblyn,” Robb Brindle said from the copilot’s chair, afraid to relax unless she did. “Almost there.”

  “You’ve been saying that for days.”

  “And each time we’re closer to home, aren’t we?”

  The ship had originally been sent to rescue Roamer detainees held in a small EDF camp, but none of them had expected to fight a planet full of Klikiss. Damned bugs!

  “Almost there,” Robb said again.

  “Enough already.”

  The Osquivel rings were a wide, sparkling disk, paper thin in relation to the bloated gas planet they encircled. Clear infrared signatures marked the largest industrial operations dispersed throughout the orbiting rubble: spacedocks a
nd construction bays, admin asteroids, storage bunkers, independent complexes that specialized in ship construction or component fabrication, debris plumes that fanned out into space like rooster tails.

  Tasia sent out their ID signal and requested an approved approach vector. In the large passenger compartment, the refugees began to get restless. Looking through the windowports, they watched the gas giant growing larger and larger.

  “Is that a Roamer base?” Orli Covitz entered the pilot deck, her interested eyes fixed on the front screens.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it? Bet you’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Hud Steinman, a scrawny old man who always looked disheveled, came up next to the fifteen-year-old girl. “Looks crowded. How many different habitation domes and industrial facilities do you have?”

  “Exactly enough,” Tasia said. “No, strike that. We could use a few more. We’re building up the Confederation’s military against the Big Goose . . . and now we’ve got the bugs to worry about, too.”

  “It’s probably noisy,” Steinman grumbled.

  “If you prefer Llaro, we could send you back,” Robb teased.

  “We’re docking within the hour,” Tasia said. “There’ll be quite a few Roamer families anxious to welcome us. Go tell everyone to get ready.”

  “All we have are the clothes on our backs,” Orli said.

  “And lucky to have that,” Steinman added.

  As their ship came into the center of the complex, numerous craft converged around the largest artificial structure. Small cargo pods and transport flitters raced in from other complexes as people gathered to welcome the refugees. Once Tasia gave them an earful about what had really happened at Llaro, she expected to rile up the whole Confederation before any more human colonies were trampled by the waves of returning Klikiss.

  While she docked at the hub and went through the tedious lockdown and verification procedures, the eager passengers crowded against the hatches. Finally, after the equalization lamps blinked green, Tasia opened all four side doors at the same time and extended the ramps. In a flood, the survivors of Llaro exited into the bustling complex. Many looked shell-shocked. Many wept. Some couldn’t stop laughing.

  Standing together, Tasia and Robb enjoyed watching the happy reunions. Without even looking at each other, they reached out at the same moment to clasp hands. “I’m proud of what we did, Brindle, but I’m also mad as hell. We’re going to have to do something about the Klikiss, and pretty damn quick.”

  Robb followed. “You’re ready to lock and load, aren’t you, Tamblyn?”

  “I’m anxious to go back to Llaro and clean up the mess. I want to teach those bugs a lesson.” Too many — including Davlin Lotze — had sacrificed their lives during the rescue so that others could get away.

  “At least let me grab a shower before you jump headfirst into another battle.”

  “This is a Roamer complex with standard resource-management protocols.” She looked into his amber eyes. “We’d better take that shower together — to conserve water.”

  Kotto Okiah, who was acting administrator of the shipyards, scratched his curly hair and blinked his owlish eyes at all the people who had showed up unexpectedly. When he spotted Tasia and Robb, he hurried over. “Well, it looks like you’ve got this under control.” Tasia wasn’t sure he even recalled why the rescue ship had gone to Llaro in the first place.

  She said, “Kotto, there’s another danger that the whole Confederation needs to prepare for. We’re going to need some brand-new weapons and defenses.”

  “Oh? That’s excellent.” The engineer raised his eyebrows. “Which enemy are we talking about now? I thought the hydrogues were defeated. There’s the Hansa, of course, but nothing really new. Is there something I’m missing?”

  “Worse than the Big Goose, maybe worse than the drogues.” Taking Kotto by the elbow, Tasia said, “You’ve still got a green priest at the shipyards, right?”

  “Yes. Liona should be on her way over here. I, uh, sent for her in case the clans wanted to hear news of their loved ones. Planning ahead — ”

  Tasia cut him off. “We need to send out messages to rally all the Confederation fighters. King Peter knows the Klikiss have returned, but I doubt he knows they’re attacking colonies. No time to lose.”

  The din in the reception bay was deafening as refugees chattered eagerly with clan members. When the female green priest finally entered the admin complex through the metal-lined hall, many Roamers rushed toward her, hoping to send telink notices to friends and family.

  But something was wrong with Liona; Tasia picked up on it immediately. The green priest looked aghast as she pushed her way into the clamor. She gripped her small potted tree, and the delicate fronds seemed to shudder. Liona’s distraught shout brought everyone to a startled silence.

  She looked around wildly. “The faeros are burning the worldforest!”

  7

  Celli

  A searing, sentient heat engulfed the stately trees and worked its way to their very cores. Yet the verdani heartwood refused to burn, so that the possessed trees shone like torches, unable to throw off the fiery elementals. Meanwhile, a normal fire had spread to vulnerable wood and underbrush, ravaging the forest as well.

  At the edge of the meadow, Celli clenched her fists. “What can we do for the worldtrees, Solimar? How can we help them fight?”

  “The faeros are torturing the trees they’ve captured.” Her friend pressed his hands against his smooth scalp, wincing and then forcing his eyes open again. “Burning! It is hard to concentrate.”

  Though new to her abilities as a green priest, Celli could hear the wordless agony of trees. When the fires attacked one of them, they all felt the pain. Many green priests in the forest nearby were overwhelmed by the tragedy, unable to disconnect from their bond. Others fought back the clamor and the horror, afraid to open themselves to telink at all.

  Though most of the trees in the central grove were caught up in elemental fire, Celli realized that the large trees were struggling to hold on to the faeros, to keep the fire from jumping to other worldtrees. She could feel the verdani fighting, but they were losing the battle.

  With a shudder and then a surge of dismay, one of the weakening trees could no longer maintain its hold, and the faeros gleefully leaped to another towering trunk. Energetic flames raced up the golden bark scales to reach the vulnerable fronds, and within moments that tree had also become a living torch.

  Solimar turned to her, his face drawn but determined. “Those faeros were transmitted through telink along mental pathways opened by Yarrod and his green priests. But these faeros are different somehow from the ones we’ve seen before.”

  Celli sorted the information from the bedlam in her mind. The telink/thism connection had inadvertently created a passage for faeros sparks to hurtle through. After consuming the green priest conduits, they had possessed the nearest trees. Yarrod himself had been the first to die, and Celli was unable to drive the horrible image of her uncle bursting into flames from her mind. He had tried to do a good thing, and it had incinerated him.

  “These are newborn sparks — and they aren’t as strong as the others,” Celli said. “We can fight them, if the green priests will rally. We can strengthen the trees, give them hope, just like you and I did with our treedancing!”

  She felt a rush of optimism. When the worldforest had nearly given up after the first hydrogue holocaust, she and Solimar had danced for the trees. That exuberance, that show of life, had awakened a new strength in the worldforest, had let the deep roots tap into something the verdani had not previously known how to summon. Their human spirit had shaken the worldforest out of its old malaise.

  She and Solimar could do the same thing now. “We have to tell the other green priests!” Impulsively, she placed her palms against the bark of a nearby tree and opened her mind to telink.

  Solimar shouted, tried to stop her. Too late, Celli realized her mistake. As soon as she made the connection
, the mental uproar hit her like a cannon blast. She could not block the overpowering cacophony.

  Solimar threw himself to the tree beside her, held her with one arm and touched the bark with his free hand. Instead of dragging her away and breaking the connection, he added his strength, helped her hold on. Celli squeezed her eyes shut and fought the background roar. Her narrow shoulders shuddered, but she forced herself to keep her palms in place. For the worldforest. She shouted through telink. We are here for you. Draw on our strength.

  She suddenly realized who else might be able to help them, just as he had helped the verdani understand the power behind the treedancing. Beneto had fused with one of the giant verdani treeships circling Theroc, and he was still up in orbit. Even in cold, dark space, the great battleship trees struggled against the newborn faeros trying to reach them through the telink conduits. Two of the treeships out there had already caught fire and were surrounded by an unnatural blaze.

  Celli sought out the distant mind she missed so much, and Beneto broke through to her briefly. The burning trees must cut themselves off. Stop the spread of the fire before the faeros conquer all the worldforest.

  Like the sound of shattering crystal in her mind, a burst of pain nearly deafened her. Traveling invisible pathways, the faeros had jumped to Beneto — and now his immense battleship body became a torch high above Theroc . . . too far away for her to help him, burning and burning, but not dying.

  8

  Queen Estarra

  Huddled inside the sealed hydrogue derelict, Estarra held the baby close. In the panicked flight from the fungus reef, she hadn’t even noticed how her hands and arms were blistered and smudged from falling embers. Peter’s face was scalded, his voice raspy from inhaling so much smoke.

  Outside the insulated diamond walls, the flames roared so brightly that she had to shield her eyes. The meadow was entirely ablaze, and another huge branch crashed down.