The Ashes of Worlds

by Kevin J. Anderson

  The people muttered and gasped. Many reacted with anger, but Cain couldn’t tell if the anger was directed toward the supposed betrayal or toward the Archfather’s unorthodox words. Sarein was obviously astonished; Cain expected the cleanup crew to come rushing in at any moment.

  Now that he had built up some momentum, the Archfather’s voice grew louder, more passionate. “I call for you to look into your hearts, into the core of your beliefs, and do what is right. The Hansa is not your religion. The Hansa does not speak for God. Unison does!”

  Basil flexed his hand into a fist, then straightened his fingers again. “My, he does go on and on.” He depressed the button on a small hand communicator. “I have heard enough.”

  Jane Kulu’s deep voice answered calmly. “Yes, Mr. Chairman.”

  The accented voice of Tito Andropolis crackled over the speaker. “After this, no one will doubt God’s intentions.”

  Basil sat back, his gray eyes glittering.

  With an astounding whistle, as if the air itself were ripping apart, a bolt of energy streaked through the crystal-clear sky. The lightning shot straight down to strike the Archfather in the middle of the podium. The searing flash vaporized the bearded man, leaving no clothes or bones, only a flash of smoke, a crack of superheated air, and the smell of a crematorium. A glassy crater marked his place. The most faithful in the crowd, who had stood closest to the podium, were bowled backward by the shockwave.

  Sarein put her hand to her mouth in horror. The crowd screamed, and a ripple of evacuating people spread outward from the podium.

  “What have you done?” Cain said in a barely audible voice. “My God, what have you done?”

  “Wait,” Basil said with a cool smile. “It’s not over yet.”

  While the crowd remained stunned by the lightning flash, King Rory appeared like a vision amidst the dissipating smoke at the edge of the crater. His young voice boomed out with such strength and confidence that he must have rehearsed many times. “No law and no court could be more plain. God will smite those who try to weaken us. The Archfather was a heretic. I am your chosen King, and it is God’s will that I also become the leader of Unison. I, King Rory, will save the Hansa and the human race.”

  Sarein was appalled, her face pale. “Basil, how could you? That was murder!”

  The Chairman took a long sip of his water. “Quite the contrary. That was the will of God. You heard King Rory.”

  81

  Admiral Sheila Willis

  Blasting bug vessels with total abandon — now, that was the kind of battle she could really sink her teeth into. But though Admiral Willis had brought Confederation battleships loaded with every weapon they could scrounge, the Pym infestation was a lot more extensive than she had expected.

  General Lanyan’s ships had gotten themselves into a pickle, and it made her feel warm and fuzzy to be the knight in shining armor.

  The Confederation ships caused an uproar among the bugs. Two swarmships had been destroyed, or at least disassembled. But for every thousand component ships they vaporized, another thousand rose from the hive structures below or detached and attacked from the remaining swarmships. Willis had never seen anything like it.

  Over the basic EDF comm channels, Lanyan was telling his ships to continue to fire. The Thunder Child blasted a small intact section of the hive city and attempted to retreat back to the imaginary safety of orbit. So far he hadn’t bothered to express much gratitude to his Confederation rescuers.

  Willis wasn’t sure where the General had come up with a new Juggernaut — she didn’t recognize the name — but he wasn’t using it to full advantage. His battle group’s combined surface bombardment had been the right idea, but as usual, Lanyan had overestimated his own competence. He just hadn’t bombed the planet heavily enough.

  “General, keep hitting the bug city. If we can squash the hive mind, we’ll be done here.”

  “Look for yourself, Willis. We have been bloody well blasting the city!”

  “If you want something done right . . .” she said with a sigh. Willis transmitted to Tasia in one of the Mantas flying close beside the Jupiter, “Commodore Tamblyn, if you would do the honors?” She had not only approved of Robb keeping his flag officer rank, but she had insisted that Tasia accept at least the equivalent rank.

  “My pleasure, Admiral.”

  Her Jupiter cleared a swath through the bugs that were harrying Lanyan’s vessels. The General’s flagship climbed higher in the atmosphere, trying to reach orbit while the surviving EDF ships continued to fire, covering his tail.

  Tamblyn grumbled over the comm, “He better not run away before we’re all finished with this job.”

  Robb shouted to his father across the comm, “Dad, we’ve got enough firepower to put an end to this. Concentrate your jazers on the center of the hive city below. Do you have any more nukes for surface bombardment?”

  The surface of Pym already looked like a moonscape after the flash-melters, nukes, and several rounds of carpet bombing, and now the Confederation ships increased the destruction tenfold. Ignoring individual battles with the broken-apart swarmships, Willis led another Armageddon run over the insect city. “Use all of our penetrators and the full load of strata crumblers. They’ve probably hidden their breedex deep, or we’d have hit it by now.”

  They left a holocaust behind them. Every remaining structure was smashed to powder. Shockwaves hammered the entire Pym hive city. The surface itself was halfway molten.

  “Damn, that’s got to be enough,” Robb said.

  “We’ll know when it’s enough,” Tasia said, “because once we kill the breedex, all those other bugs won’t know which direction to fly.”

  Lanyan’s ships kept shooting haphazardly at Klikiss vessels. Though Robb continued to call his father, he received no response. Willis was annoyed that Conrad Brindle wouldn’t reply to his son’s repeated transmissions.

  “Let’s give it our biggest, balls-out bombing run.” Willis intentionally used an open transmission line so the EDF ships would hear as well. “General Lanyan, what have you got left? Flashmelters? Thermal-wave warheads? Atomics? Throw down everything but the kitchen sink — that ought to do it.”

  “Yes, Admiral.” He sounded strained. “One last round to finish the job. I’ll have the Thunder Child follow you in.”

  Willis was confident this last bombardment would eradicate one more deadly breedex from the Spiral Arm. Best of all, Lanyan might actually learn a lesson in brotherly cooperation.

  The EDF ships followed her on the bombing run, as she’d hoped. The smoking, cratered landscape directly below showed that the insect city had been reduced to complete ruin.

  The Jupiter dumped its full load of surface armaments. No sense in being stingy now, she thought. The destruction was absolutely glorious, giving her a childlike thrill. Hot, intense waves scoured the surface, obliterating every last speck of the hive structures below. Behind her, the loaded Confederation ships dropped their weapons, slamming deeper, shattering the crust.

  “Nobody’s going to want to settle down there for a long, long time,” Willis said. “Better take Pym off the Colonization Initiative list.”

  Three of the EDF Mantas also made a final bombardment, even though it seemed redundant. There was absolutely nothing left on the surface.

  “I think that’s a job well done, Admiral Willis,” Lanyan said.

  Suddenly, from behind her, the Thunder Child and two EDF Mantas began to open fire on her, targeting the Juggernaut’s engines.

  “What the hell?” She slammed her fist down on the comm panel. “General, you’re either a bad shot or more boneheaded than I can describe.”

  “I am acting on behalf of the Earth Defense Forces. You are deemed as great a threat to human civilization as the Klikiss are. Now that the Pym subhive has been eradicated, I plan on taking care of the second threat.” He called upon the Thunder Child to open fire again.

  Willis ordered her ships to take evasive action. Disg
usted, she did not keep her opinions to herself. “That man has three testicles, and one of them is in place of his brain.” The EDF ships kept firing on her Juggernaut. “Get us out of here. Pym has lost its charm.”

  As Lanyan’s ship closed in to fire upon the Confederation vessels, one of the Mantas flew directly between the Thunder Child and the Jupiter. For a moment Willis thought it was one of her own ships, but then she clearly saw the EDF chain-of-stars logo.

  Conrad Brindle spoke over the channel as his Manta took heavy damage by intercepting shots fired by Lanyan’s weapons officers. “Robb, Admiral, you’d best get out of here. You’ve helped us pound the Klikiss, but if you stay any longer this isn’t going to end well.”

  Willis glowered down at the smoldering remains of the hive city, then sounded a call for retreat across her battle group. “You heard the man. Pack it up and save your bacon while you can. We’ve done our part here. General Lanyan just never learned how to play well with others.”

  82

  Tal O’nh

  Even without his eyesight, Tal O’nh could sense the mass and geometry of the structures around him — the sounds, the vibrations, the solidity of the big shipyard complex.

  The Solar Navy construction yards had been abandoned since the return of the faeros. When the fireballs had burst out of the dead sun of Durris-B and swarmed to Ildira, construction teams had evacuated the facility. The spacedocks, fabrication lines, administrative hubs, and skeletal frameworks of four incomplete warliners hung together above the planet’s atmosphere. It was a ghost town, a massive junkyard in space.

  O’nh knew what to do with it.

  Though corrupted by the fiery elementals, Rusa’h still thought like an Ildiran. He still believed, in some distorted way, that he was a guardian of his people. He would not be able to conceive that any Prime Designate could order something so drastic, so unspeakable. No Ildiran could — until now.

  Though he had no eyes, the old commander knew the controls by touch. Aided by his few obdurate assistants, he had already activated the main panel, fired the attitude-adjustment rockets, and initiated the descent of the gigantic shipyards. None of them found any need for words; they all knew full well what they were doing.

  The complex circled Ildira, losing altitude, touching the outer atmosphere, first with a whisper, then with a roar. The structural girders began to heat up with friction from the sky itself. He imagined it must be generating a bright light.

  “Our course is true, Tal.” The voice belonged to one of the few men who remained with him. “The intercept point is locked in.”

  When they had finally decided to do this, Prime Designate Daro’h had offered to send a full crew to assist O’nh. Knowing what was at stake, hundreds had volunteered their services, but the old veteran had argued that a small ship had a better chance of reaching the orbital facility without being stopped by faeros. Also, he wanted no unnecessary casualties; the cost was already unbearably high. “Every Ildiran life is precious, Prime Designate. Give me five volunteers, and we will change history.”

  He had heard the awe and appreciation in Daro’h’s voice. “You will burn your name in the Saga of Seven Suns. I will see to it that Chief Scribe Ko’sh records all you have done.”

  “By our actions today, I hope to make certain there is still more of the Saga to write,” O’nh had said.

  The thought of what young Designate Ridek’h had been willing to do gave him strength. On their flight up to the shipyards, his heart had felt heavy with the knowledge that the boy must be dead, but he was also proud of his protégé. And now O’nh hoped to put an end to the mad Designate who had caused so much harm and pain.

  The five volunteers had operated the cold controls, reawakening the mothballed systems. As a blind man, he could make none of the actual modifications, but he gave them instructions and did not let them falter.

  At the edge of the system, Tal Ala’nh and his warliners waited, unaware of what was happening here. Adar Zan’nh had not wanted to risk a transmission to inform them, fearing that Rusa’h might somehow intercept it. But O’nh knew Tal Ala’nh well enough; he and his cohort would be ready. The Adar should be watching intently, ready to race away with his nine warliners to join the rest of the Solar Navy.

  After a few more moments passed, O’nh could feel the great structure shudder around him, buffeted by the thickening atmosphere. “What are our fuel reserves?” Unable to look at the people inside the control chamber, he stared into his own darkness.

  “Enough to adjust our course if necessary, Tal.” The thin voice belonged to an engineer kithman. “But we used most of our supplies to send us on as rapid a descent as possible. We will strike the target.”

  O’nh nodded. “Good. There is no going back.”

  “No, Tal. No going back.”

  “Our place in the Saga is assured.” He sat back and waited, imagining that all of the framework must now be glowing a cherry red, thermal waves flying off as ablation peeled away the outer layers of metal. He wished he could see true light one last time, but soon this frail body would be gone and his soul would be on the plane of the Lightsource.

  Rusa’h could not know what was coming directly toward him.

  Though these four warliners would never be completed, the huge skeletal ships would perform a great service for the Solar Navy. What mattered now was not weaponry or maneuverability, but sheer mass. The orbital descent was set.

  The control chamber shuddered violently, and he gripped the sturdy arms of his chair to hold himself steady. He heard hissing sounds, the screaming whine of air as it whipped through the girders. “Today we strike a blow the faeros can never forget, one that Ildirans will forever remember.”

  The spacedocks, unassembled hull plates, gigantic engine components, girders and assembly bays, all of the useless heavy junk, tore down through the atmosphere. O’nh could feel the heat as the falling city turned into a meteor.

  Though most of their sensors had burned out, one of his assistants cried, “Faeros fireballs! Ten of them, heading straight toward us.”

  “Rusa’h has finally guessed what we are about to do.” A smile formed on his scarred face. “But he cannot stop us.”

  The flaming ellipsoids launched gouts of fire at the descending complex, but though they melted some of the framework, the shipyards were a falling projectile that could not be deflected.

  Just then, he received a static-filled transmission from Prime Designate Daro’h. “I have good news for you, Tal O’nh. Ridek’h is alive! Osira’h and the others protected him. He is safe.”

  O’nh drew a large breath, though it burned his lungs. He felt a deep, satisfying contentment. “Thank you, Prime Designate.”

  The faeros fireballs continued to pummel the shipyards with increasing desperation. Flames licked through the framework, but even when two of the spacedock components and one warliner frame sheared away from the central mass, the separate projectiles continued to descend on the same trajectory.

  Sitting in the middle of it all, protected for only a few moments more, the old veteran wished he could see. The nearest engineer kithman shouted, “There are flames all around us, Tal, but the clouds have just parted. We shot through them like a projectile.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Mijistra — it is beautiful! The city spreads out, but it is empty. And there’s the Prism Palace. I am glad I got to see it one last time. The whole Palace glows. It is lit up with the fire from within.”

  O’nh nodded. “Good, then Rusa’h is likely still inside. He cannot get away.”

  In the last moment, Tal O’nh felt as if he were bringing the very Lightsource itself to Ildira.

  83

  Prime Designate Daro’h

  With Yazra’h at his side, her hair blowing wildly in the warm breeze, Daro’h stood on a hill far from the outskirts of Mijistra. With tears in his eyes he stared at his beloved majestic city and the shining gem of the Prism Palace. Having said his farewells to Tal O’n
h, he set aside the communication device.

  Words failed him as the flaming hand of vengeance descended toward Mijistra.

  He heard a deafening shriek as the shipyards ripped a hole through the sky. They trailed a plume of vaporized metal like a comet’s tail of clotting blood. Fireballs harried the plummeting mass, but they could not stop its descent.

  Yazra’h stared, unable to blink. Daro’h clutched his sister’s arm. Chief Scribe Ko’sh silently joined them.

  The shipyards came down in a colossal explosion, as if an asteroid-sized hammer had slammed into the heart of Mijistra. Into the Prism Palace.

  Daro’h covered his eyes from the blinding flash. Ripples of destruction flattened the buildings, erasing the greatest achievements of the Ildiran Empire. The capital city vanished in a rumble of unleashed kinetic energy.

  The shockwave took only a few seconds to arrive, but it was strong enough to knock them to the ground. The explosion seemed to go on and on.

  After a long, stunned moment Daro’h got to his hands and knees, then slowly, unsteadily, climbed to his feet. “My heart has been ripped from my chest.” His voice sounded strangely muffled in his ears.

  Yazra’h had a feral look in her eyes, anger at what Rusa’h had forced them to do. “It is a devastating blow.”

  “But a necessary one.” The Prime Designate was shuddering. The path of the descending shipyards left a scar like a black gash in the air.

  The Chief Scribe brushed off his robes as he climbed to his feet. He was speechless as he watched tumbling waves of smoke and fire pour into the sky. The wondrous capital city had vanished, leaving only a vast, boiling crater. Finally, he said, “The Hall of Rememberers is lost! Our history, our Saga.”

  “Our city, our Prism Palace,” Daro’h added. “But our race survives. Maybe this was an unforgivable act, but it is a second chance.”