The Ashes of Worlds

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Inside his Prism Palace, he drank in the crackling sound of flames around him. Yet Mijistra itself seemed too quiet and empty, most of the people having fled into the hills and wastelands. He was disappointed that true Ildirans would abandon their sacred metropolis, but they continued to stream away as if the new light were too bright for them. They hid in scattered encampments, huddled together for comfort and perceived protection. In spite of their desertion, he would shield those people from the faeros whenever he could. After all, Ildira was his.

  Huge numbers of them were evacuees from his own beloved world of Hyrillka, people who had sought sanctuary on the Empire’s capital world. Rusa’h felt such compassion for them, such responsibility, but many of the reluctant refugees had never found homes here, nor had they been able to return to Hyrillka. That was Jora’h’s fault.

  All would have been well if the Hyrillkans had just stayed where they belonged.

  Rusa’h alone could save them, or he could let the faeros incinerate them.

  Now that the hydrogues were defeated, the faeros needed to propagate. The bright, pulsing fiery entities wanted more soulfires. Insatiable, they demanded to burn more of the refugee camps, to obliterate whole splinter colonies.

  Inside the dazzling skysphere his voice and thoughts boomed out to the fireballs. “You will not harm the people of Hyrillka.” The faeros shuddered and thrummed against his command. He could sense them blazing brighter, but he remained firm. “You will leave them alone.”

  A searing backlash made the faeros response clear. They were hungry. The flaming elementals demanded more, and Rusa’h was required to give it to them. He had to find something to appease them.

  Up in orbit, he detected a lone warliner quietly departing from the abandoned shipyards. Rusa’h was well aware that Adar Zan’nh’s few Solar Navy ships continued to deliver supplies that helped the evacuees . . . but this particular warliner held ten thousand Ildirans, all of them seeking to escape to some distant colony in the Ildiran Empire. The pilot had loaded his warliner with as many survivors as it could carry and had flown off, intending to take them far from Rusa’h.

  He could not allow that to happen.

  Once the moving warliner had attracted the attention of the faeros, Rusa’h knew this was an acceptable sacrifice, his best compromise. He groaned, then surrendered to the need and unleashed the fireballs. They raced off to the new target.

  From the Prism Palace, he watched through blazing eyes as the fireballs swiftly closed on the crowded vessel. Through the thism, he could feel both hope and terror emanating from the refugees aboard the warliner. Ten thousand of them . . . all desperate to find sanctuary on some other Ildiran planet.

  At least they weren’t the people of Hyrillka . . . he drew some consolation from that.

  The faeros ellipsoids strained, ravenous as they began the chase. When the ornate battleship detected the approaching fireballs, its flight pattern became erratic, heading back toward the complex of heavy spacedocks and industrial facilities, as if hoping to find a place to hide.

  The desperate warliner tried to dodge through an obstacle course of girders and half-built ship frameworks. Flying magnificently, the Solar Navy pilot dove beneath a tethered stockpile of armored plating. As they streaked past, the weapons officer fired an energy blast that severed the clamps holding the plates in place. Vibrating from the impact, the metal sheets spread apart, twirling like an artificial storm of flat meteors.

  The faeros careened into the plates, flashing into blinding brightness as they vaporized the metal, leaving only a shower of molten globules in their wake. The fireballs barely slowed.

  After a brief attempt to hide, the warliner accelerated away from the abandoned shipyards at maximum thrust, trying to get far enough away for the pilot to engage his Ildiran stardrive. Three comets of fire clipped the rear engines, melting them. The warliner spun out of control, its solar sails flapping outward like loose and tattered garments. In a final gesture of defiance, the warliner’s captain fired all of his weapons at the oncoming faeros ellipsoids.

  Flames surrounded the Solar Navy ship, ate through its outer hull, and incinerated the vessel. Ten thousand Ildiran refugees and many more Solar Navy crewmen flashed into a bright blaze. Every soulfire aboard was absorbed.

  And the faeros grew brighter.

  In the Prism Palace, Rusa’h sighed. He hoped that would keep them satisfied . . . for now.

  12

  Beneto

  His body was more than human, an extended tree whose branches spread into space, whose trailing tendrils and mental roots connected with the overall worldforest mind. And now his body was on fire.

  Beneto and his fellow verdani battleships had been orbiting Theroc as guardians, but the faeros had found a secret vulnerability in him, jumping through telink, seizing onto the union of wental and verdani that created his treeship body. Now, high above the continents, he felt the flames from below surge through his heartwood. He could hear the other treeships screaming.

  He shouted his thoughts out to all green priests, thinking of the worldforest rather than himself. Give the trees your strength. Do not despair. Celli was right to remind him, and he tried to help her by concentrating on the efficacy of hope, the foolish but brave human drive to fight even when a battle seemed lost.

  By treedancing, his little sister and Solimar had once reawakened the seeds of life in the worldforest. The verdani and their wental counterparts simply did not have the dogged, foolish determination to wring a victory from almost certain defeat — but humans did. Now, even as the elemental fires caught on his gigantic body and fought their way deeper into him, Beneto called to the remnants of green priests inside the other verdani battleships, insisting that they not give up.

  Beneto made a defiant stand against the newborn faeros even as flames flickered at the thorny ends of his outermost branches. A chain of sparks ricocheted up and down the bark plates of his wide trunk, but he quenched the first waves of fire. There was hope!

  Around him, the verdani battleships smoldered, on the verge of crossing the flashpoint and bursting into living bonfires. Far below, Beneto could feel the main worldforest struggling as young faeros flashed from tree to tree. The fiery elementals waged a fierce battle for each victory among the towering groves, but the trees could fend them off. It could be done! He had demonstrated that himself, and he wasn’t alone in his fight.

  The other verdani battleships, along with green priests on the ground, were joining together. His sister Celli was one of the strongest fighters. She and Solimar used every mental skill they had to defend the forest.

  Beneto’s thoughts thundered through telink. We can snuff out the faeros before their fire overwhelms us.

  The verdani battleships shuddered as they pulled strength from the worldforest mind, wrung it from their own heartwood, forcing themselves to endure the pain.

  The flames grew hotter and more insistent in Beneto’s body, and he could not entirely push them away. He struggled so hard that a long crack split along his thickest bough, and the glowing golden blood of his sap spilled out into space. The flames bit deeper, jumping into the point of weakness.

  Nearby in space, two more verdani treeships lost their battle to possession by the elemental fires. They weakened, faltered, and then each spiny battleship became a corona of gleeful flames.

  Even so, the infested treeships refused to let the faeros possess them. Rather than becoming full-fledged torch trees, the two lost verdani battleships intentionally allowed themselves to crumble into ash. Fragments of embers sparkled and drifted apart in space.

  Although Beneto kept fighting, the flames ate at him, pushing deeper into his core, and he could not stop the burning.

  13

  Admiral Sheila Willis

  With hundreds of small EDF craft in her battle group — Remoras, fuel tankers, cargo carriers, troop transports, and survey flyers — Willis was able to mount one hell of a bucket brigade. This wasn’t exactly something s
he had covered in basic training, but her people called up all their available databases on wildfire-fighting techniques. They would figure it out as they went along.

  Using her own landed shuttle in the middle of a clearing as a field command post, she watched her display screens, frowning or cursing as images rolled in from recon flyovers. The Admiral activated the comm system and shouted, “I’d better see water dumping on these trees within the next five minutes, or you’re going to think serving under General Lanyan was a Sunday picnic.”

  “On our way, Admiral,” came a crackling voice. “First squadron ETA in four and a half minutes, just under the wire.”

  The first Remoras and fuel tankers swooped low, then opened their cargo bays to dump water onto the blazing worldtrees. Smaller ships emptied their reservoirs, releasing water they had scooped from Theroc’s lakes. Steam gushed into the air, rising through the dense forest canopy.

  The faeros blazed paradoxically brighter as they drew energy from the worldtrees to fight off the quenching water.

  Willis heard a groan, saw Celli and Solimar hunched over their treelings inside the command shuttle, both of them connected through telink. The green priests had come aboard her shuttle to act as intermediaries. Their eyes were squeezed shut, faces drawn in identical grimaces as they fought with all their hearts and minds. Celli hissed in pain and gripped her treeling. She blinked, but didn’t focus on anything around her. Her words sounded hollow. “That hurt them, but not enough. The faeros are ravenous.”

  The small ships, now empty, circled back toward the nearest sources of open water. “Second squadron inbound, Admiral.”

  “The drenching will be continuous now,” Willis said. “I don’t care how tough these fires are. We’ll stomp them again and again until there’s nothing left but a puff of smoke.”

  A second barrage of water hindered the further spread of the fire. The torch trees shuddered and thrashed as if undergoing some kind of internal conflict, an elemental battle that Willis couldn’t understand.

  “Four more green priests have died,” Solimar announced. “They were unable to wall themselves off from the trees they were helping through telink.”

  “Green priests have spread the alarm across other planets,” Celli said.

  “For whatever good that’ll do us now,” Willis said.

  “The wentals are also aware,” Celli said. “Jess Tamblyn and Cesca Peroni have arrived at Osquivel. Liona has told them what’s happening here.”

  “And what can they do?”

  “They can bring the wentals.”

  As the third group of EDF water tankers cruised in, the flaming trees tensed, and the fires intensified at the crowns. Celli suddenly screamed, and Solimar reeled backward. The torch trees shot out tendrils of fire that curled upward like solar flares and incinerated two of Willis’s ships before they could dump their loads of water. Another blast of targeted fire raged from the clustered burning trees, vaporizing a large tanker.

  Willis shouted into the microphone, “Scramble! Scramble! Evasive action.”

  Her crews responded instantly. A thick pillar of fire knocked out another Remora, but the remainder of her ships scattered. Now they were too dispersed to provide a good target for the brute-force blasts; on the other hand, they could no longer drop their water effectively.

  “Circle around and stand ready,” Willis growled into the comm. “We must’ve hurt the bastards or they wouldn’t be lashing out like that. You’ll have to dump your water from a greater altitude. It won’t be as accurate, but those flame plumes can reach only so high.”

  Most of the EDF pilots responded with anger instead of fear. More and more ships streamed in, released their loads from a great height, and circled back to nearby lakes to refill, relentlessly drenching the worldforest.

  Finally, through the steam and rain, Willis saw several of the smaller torch trees begin to gutter and go out. She sat back, crossing her arms. “Another couple thousand trips, and we might just have this thing under control.”

  14

  Patrick Fitzpatrick III

  In the belly of the Golgen skymine, shouting EDF soldiers and complaining Roamer skyminers created a remarkable din. Men dropped tools onto the deck with loud clangs; ekti tanks were rolled into clusters, then lifted with levitating forklifts. Outside, the high-altitude winds whipped and roared in a continuing storm. The Goliath hovered nearby.

  No one was able to stop the continued outrage. Patrick stood beside Del Kellum, noting the trim EDF uniforms, the determined soldiers following orders. “I used to be just like them.”

  “No wonder Zhett was always picking on you.”

  Once, he had believed everything that General Lanyan told him. The Hansa had been at war with the hydrogues, and the Earth Defense Forces needed stardrive fuel, which the Roamers had “unjustly” withheld. Therefore, when they had seized a Roamer cargo ship, the decision to destroy the witness and remove the evidence had seemed perfectly reasonable. Patrick hadn’t thought twice about it: The EDF took what it needed.

  Just as it was doing now. Patrick’s stomach knotted. Yes, he understood what drove these soldiers, and now he was ashamed of it.

  A constant flow of military ships landed in the skymine’s open cargo bay, loaded up with ekti canisters, then returned to the nearby Juggernaut. General Lanyan followed a coterie of administrative aides; he wore a dress uniform rather than rugged combat fatigues, as if to show his contempt for any possible resistance from the Roamers.

  A young lieutenant with soft, innocent eyes stepped up to Lanyan and reported in a clear voice, “General, we have reports from the consolidation squadrons. All Roamer skymines have been placed under EDF jurisdiction.”

  “Your jurisdiction?” Kellum bellowed. “You know the Hansa has no claim on these mines — or is your head so far up your ass that you’re suffering from oxygen deprivation?”

  Patrick said quietly and calmly to him, but for the General’s benefit, “Pure bullshit is a standard ingredient in EDF rations, Del. Have I told you what the EDF’s motto is? ‘Honor and bravery in service of the Earth.’” He pointedly looked at General Lanyan. “There’s a word for attacking unarmed, independent facilities to steal their property: piracy. Why not round things out with a bit of raping and pillaging?”

  “They’re pillaging quite enough right now, by damn,” Kellum said.

  Not rising to the bait, the General scanned the report that listed the amount of stardrive fuel the troops had seized. “My, you Roamers have been busy.”

  Kellum growled. “We earn what we have, unlike some people.”

  Lanyan continued to scan the inventory, not interested in what Kellum had to say. “Hmm, a supply of orange liqueur. Where did it come from?”

  With pride, the bearded clan leader said, “I make it myself.”

  “Is it any good?”

  “Too good for you.”

  “I’ll accept your recommendation. Have it loaded into my personal shuttle.” The General finally gave Patrick his full attention. “I am disappointed in you, Mr. Fitzpatrick. You had a great future in the EDF, but you pissed it all away — for this?” He raised his hands to indicate the cluttered complex. He leaned closer, smelling of cologne and sweat. “I’m going to take you back to Earth and treat you to a full court-martial. The Hansa has already arrested hundreds for illegally rebroadcasting that foolish condemnation and confession you recorded. That recording did no good, but we can still use it against you.”

  Patrick could not hide his satisfied smile. “Really — hundreds arrested? My message must have been distributed widely, then.” Lanyan was flustered, and Patrick decided to call his bluff. “I’d love a public opportunity to explain how the Hansa broke treaties, killed innocent people, provoked hostilities, destroyed the capital of a sovereign people. In fact, my grandmother will make certain I get the forum I need. Take me back, I dare you. What you’re doing here is illegal.”

  “Roamers have no legal standing in the Hansa.”


  “Not true. My grandmother entered into an agreement with clan Kellum, speaking officially as a former Hansa Chairman. She promised them their freedom and guaranteed that neither they nor their facilities would be harassed by the EDF in exchange for them surrendering a valuable hydrogue derelict. The Roamers held up their side of the bargain. You’ve reneged.”

  Lanyan shrugged. “Once King Peter stole the derelict back and delivered it to the Roamers, all bets were off.”

  Patrick was startled by this information; he hadn’t been aware that the alien ship was back in the hands of the Confederation. He hadn’t expected Lanyan to know about the deal at all.

  Lanyan motioned for him. “Come to the operations center, Fitzpatrick, and help me go through the databases to make sure we haven’t missed anything.”

  “I won’t help.”

  “Then you can watch as I blunder around in your computerized systems. Who knows what damage I might cause?” Patrick grudgingly followed him to a lift, while Kellum remained behind, glowering as soldiers continued loading tank after tank of stolen stardrive fuel.

  In the ops center that crowned the skymine dome, broad windows looked out upon the endless yellowish skies. Zhett was single-handedly trying to keep soldiers from the database control panels, but they ignored her. That had put her in a murderous mood. “You clods shouldn’t be allowed to run an abacus!”

  One of the technicians fumbled with a touchpad, frowning when the systems froze on him.

  A soldier shouted, “General Lanyan on the bridge!”

  “It’s not a bridge,” Patrick said. “It’s an operations center.” In the distance, he could see another skymine, Boris Goff’s, also surrounded by EDF ships.

  “Status report,” Lanyan demanded. “Have you run a full inventory?”

  “As near as we can tell, sir,” said the blundering technician. “It’s a very disorganized system, not to military specs at all.”

  Zhett stood close to Patrick and put her fists on his shoulder as if she wanted to pound on something. He slipped his arm around her waist and drew her close, restraining her.