A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [262]
Soon, they drew close enough to discern that the glowing fireflies were swarms of battling shapes—faero fireballs and diamond-skinned hydrogue warglobes. The drogues unleashed incomprehensible weapons against the faeros, blasting deep wounds into the stellar plasma itself. Oncier seemed to be dying, bleeding its heat into the cold of space.
“It’s just like the battle on Theroc,” Rossia said. “Faeros and hydrogues are mortal enemies. For now.”
“Shizz, that’s much worse than Theroc,” Tasia answered. “This time, the drogues are tackling a whole star! If you ask me, they’re getting too big for their diamond britches.” A murmur of uneasiness and confusion rippled through her bridge crew. “Send your report, Rossia. A lot of people across the Spiral Arm need to know what’s going on here.”
“But I don’t know what’s going on.” Nevertheless, the green priest touched his treeling, concentrated, and transmitted his news through telink.
Tasia watched the flurry of bright dots. Each pinpoint of light was either a fireball or a warglobe large enough to swallow ten Manta cruisers.
“How many faeros and hydrogues are there?” she asked.
Ensign Terene Mae ran a quick computer scan to break down the image. “I’m reading well over a thousand of each. And that’s just what we can see from this side of the star.”
Warglobes and fireballs fought like wasps while several hydrogues dipped into the surface of the artificial sun. Darkening stains spread across Oncier, starspots that showed the plasma cooling below the temperature of the rest of the gases. Oncier seemed to be coalescing, smoldering like a coal with its last gasps of fire. The faeros were being overwhelmed.
“If those fireballs are on our side, Captain Tamblyn, shouldn’t we be doing something to assist them, offer aid somehow?” asked Mae. Tasia realized the young ensign had not yet seen battle. She was fresh from training at the Mars EDF base.
“We’ve got only one Manta.” Tasia gestured toward the viewscreen and the dying star. “What can we do in a situation like that? We already know the drogues can blow up moons, and now it looks as if they’re going to snuff out a star. I doubt they’d tremble with fear if our little cruiser came charging in with a peashooter.”
“Sorry, Captain,” said Ensign Mae, looking embarrassed.
Despite her show of confidence, however, Tasia felt completely out of her depth. How could the Earth Defense Forces possibly win in a war where the stakes were whole planets and stars?
Weeks ago, when the nearest group of EDF battleships had raced to the fiery scene on Theroc, they had arrived half a day after the drogues had been defeated and the faeros had retreated without explanation. Fortunately, the military teams had been able to help the frantic Therons extinguish some of the raging wildfires that had already consumed nearly two-thirds of the worldforest.
However, though the faeros had turned the tables in that skirmish against the hydrogues, here at Oncier they seemed to be outnumbered…and failing.
Fortunately, the titanic opposing forces paid no attention to the lone Manta cruiser. For hours, the battle continued in the vicinity of the fading dwarf star, but the numbers of faeros were dwindling like sparks being extinguished by a cold rain…
Tasia sat in her command chair, staring in awe and fear at the images of Oncier.
“Humans have always been so self-centered, trying to defend ourselves—but I get the feeling this war isn’t about us at all. No matter how hard we fight, we’re only irrelevant bystanders.” She shook her head. “Like field mice on a giant battleground.”
Less than a day after the cruiser arrived in the system, the new sun of Oncier flickered one last time, and then winked out.
135
KING PETER
Standing together on the highest balcony of the royal wing, King Peter and Queen Estarra looked out into the night. They both stared up at the stars, bright and sparkling lights as thick as trees in a dense forest.
Just that afternoon, they had received alarming reports from several