A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [207]
Now the idea of facing the deep-core aliens again made him weak-kneed. A very poor showing from the highly decorated hero who’d defused the Ramah insurrection.
Stromo had been only a major then. The colonists on Ramah had declared their independence from the Hanseatic League. They had torn up the Hansa Charter and seized all off-world financial assets in the planetary banking systems. They had commandeered the cargoes on merchant ships and impounded the vessels, claiming them as resources of the “sovereign world of Ramah.” The insurrection leaders had been smug and naïve, thinking themselves independent. But they hadn’t calculated how much their population depended on imported medicines, food supplies, technical aid, and equipment.
Stromo had known just how to deal with them. He brought an intimidating group of warships into orbit around Ramah and declared their governing council to be outlaws, their people henceforth cut off from the benefits of the Hanseatic League. In a powerful raid, he had brought his elite troops to three main Ramah spaceports, where EDF soldiers recaptured the merchant vessels and confiscated locally owned craft as well, calling it partial compensation for the illegally seized financial assets.
Stromo’s crews then settled into a blockade and constantly broadcast tantalizing commercial announcements bragging about all the new products and luxuries the Hansa could provide, if only Ramah would reopen themselves to trade. Within four weeks, the radical government was overthrown and a contrite group of politicians happily signed the Hansa Charter again. Stromo had been proud to re-establish diplomatic relations.
That was the kind of enemy Admiral Stromo could understand. The hydrogues, though, could never be won over by trinkets and propaganda…
On the second day of scanning Oncier, the bridge technicians urgently summoned the Admiral from his quarters, where he had been attending to his log and his files. “Something’s happening down there, sir. We’ve detected strange fluctuations and anomalies deep within the star. Something’s…moving around.”
“Inside the gas planet?” Stromo tugged on his command jacket and hurried out of his cabin. “But it’s as hot as a sun in there!”
“Maybe the drogues figured out how to make an asbestos suit. You’ll have to ask the technical crew to fill you in, sir.”
On the Juggernaut’s bridge, Stromo stared into the filtered image of the blazing star. “Down there, Admiral,” said one of the scientific experts. He enhanced the swirling plasma clouds, zeroing in on what had at first looked like a sunspot. “For an hour we’ve been detecting shapes within the chromosphere.”
“And it’s not magnetic activity? Not flares?”
“Not at all, sir. Just watch.”
Within moments, Stromo was astounded to see a red-hot ovoid capsule like a geometrically perfect egg, edges fuzzy with light and heat, moving of its own volition. It changed its course, ascending through the starspots, sailing on a flickering ocean of superheated gas.
Others joined it. They all began to rise out of the fiery depths of Oncier.
“Battle stations!” Stromo said, his heart sinking. Alarms rang through the ship, and the Manta cruisers drew closer to the Juggernaut. “Recall all Remora wings. Prepare to retreat.” He called his green priest to the bridge so he could send an urgent summary message back to Earth.
As the Juggernaut pulled away, five of the flaming ellipsoids emerged from Oncier like blazing comets. Even with the viewscreen filters, Stromo could hardly bear to look at them. Heat shimmered from the shapes as if all the power of an entire corona had been crammed within the nucleus of that single ovoid.
The five fireballs—or ships?—approached Stromo’s craft, faster than the EDF vessels could move. They circled it slowly, making no obviously aggressive moves…as if they were merely curious. Finally, clustering together like meteors on a mission, the dazzling things streaked off into space, leaving Oncier behind.
Admiral Stromo collapsed