A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [102]
The young man regarded his father with scorn. “Then what use are you?”
Jora’h wanted to strike Thor’h, especially after the Mage-Imperator had just lectured him, but he calmed himself, knowing the stress and grief his son was enduring. The young man’s life had been pampered and protected, with every wish too easily granted.
“Perhaps you should speak to the lens kithmen,” he suggested, looking at the two intent priests. “Let them counsel you.” Jora’h needed to make sure his son would be a good leader, too, understanding the difference between what was possible and what was fantasy. In the Ildiran Empire, so much depended on this one person, Jora’h‘s eventual successor.
“They can do no more than anyone else. I prefer to stay here.” The young man pointedly ignored his father.
Jora’h drew a deep breath and said what he knew was best. “Thor’h, you showed great bravery and honor during the attack on Hyrillka. You could have fled on the first escape shuttle, but you went back for your uncle. You have earned my respect.”
“It gained me nothing.” The young man wore a bitter expression.
“Perhaps it gained you more than you know.” Jora’h placed a supportive hand on his son’s shoulder. “Stay by him, Thor’h. He may be in a sub-thism sleep, but I’m certain he can sense your presence. Give him your strength, and hope that it will be enough.” He looked at the medical kithmen and said, “Continue your work. Do everything to help my brother.”
“We are already at the limits of our capabilities, Prime Designate,” said the lead doctor. “I’m afraid he is far, far gone, deep within his mind. No medicine will cure him. We can tend only the body.”
Thor’h glared at them all with a curl of disgust on his lip and bent closer to the Designate’s bedside. Lines of anguish etched his young face. When Jora’h departed, Thor’h didn’t even look up.
51
ROBB BRINDLE
The hydrogues swept over Boone’s Crossing, leaving a frozen and blistered landscape scored with leprous burn marks. After they had passed, no structure remained standing.
The last evacuation runs departed from hastily abandoned villages on the coastline. Escort ships, Mantas, and the big Juggernaut staggered away like overloaded albatrosses, barely one step ahead of the crystalline warglobes.
The EDF vessels were full to bursting with survivors; refugees crowded the decks, pressed into every storage bay. Bulky supplies and unnecessary equipment were dumped out onto the ground to make more standing room.
In his Remora amongst all of the squadrons under his command, Robb Brindle flew alongside the passenger-carrying ships. He circled over the dozens of blobby artificial islands sprayed onto the water surface.
Tactical armor foam! He shook his head and promised himself to buy Tasia a drink—several drinks—when they got to their next downtime port. She had always told him that Roamers were skilled at using unlikely resources and techniques to keep themselves alive under the worst conditions.
Still, it might be only a temporary reprieve. Once the hydrogues reached the coast, they would run out of black pine forest to obliterate. Afterward, the defenseless rafts crowded with tens of thousands of colonists might offer an irresistible target. The warglobes could exterminate all the inhabitants of Boone’s Crossing within seconds. If they chose to do so…
Brindle opened a channel to the united Remora squadrons. “All right, form a defensive line. I want fifteen separate phalanx formations, spread out in an arc to block those drogues.”
The fighters rearranged themselves into a stacked cluster, hovering in the salty air. The warglobes could blast through the line like a match through gasoline-soaked tissue, but none of the Remora pilots argued. They had to make a last stand.
Below on the water, swarms of helpless, shivering people huddled on the spongy foam that kept them afloat. Behind them, the Jupiter and the six surviving Mantas also climbed, jazers and kinetic weapons ready to fire. They waited, letting the hydrogues make the first direct move…hoping that