A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [6]
Alone in his lookout ship, Jess flexed his hands on the cockpit controls. “Prepare to come from all sides. Move in fast, gulp a bellyful, and head for safety. We don’t know how long the drogue bastards will give us.”
After the big harvesting ships acknowledged, they dropped like hawks after prey. What once had been a routine industrial process had become a commando operation in a war zone.
When presented with the hydrogue threat, daring Roamer engineers had redesigned traditional skymining facilities. They had accomplished a lot in five years. The new blitzkrieg scoops had giant engines, superefficient ekti reactors, and detachable cargo tanks like a cluster of grapes. Once each tank was filled, it could be launched up to a retrieval point, passing off the harvested ekti a bit at a time without losing a full cargo load if—when—the hydrogues came after them.
Kellum transmitted, “The Big Goose thinks we’re shiftless bandits. By damn, let’s give the drogues the same impression.”
The Hansa—the “Big Goose”—paid dearly for every drop of stardrive fuel. As ekti supplies dwindled year after year, prices skyrocketed to a point that Roamers considered the risk acceptable.
Five of the modified scoops now dispersed across the atmosphere, then plunged into Welyr’s clouds, storm upwellings, and vanishingly thin winds. With giant funnel-maws open, the blitzkrieg scoops roared through storm systems at top speed. They gobbled resources, compressing the excess into hydrogen-holding tanks while secondary ekti reactors processed the gas.
As he flew his lookout mission, like a man in the crow’s nest of an ancient pirate ship, Jess deployed floating sensors into Welyr’s soupy clouds. The buoys would detect any large ships rising from the depths. The sensors might give only a few minutes’ warning, but the daredevils could retreat quickly enough.
Jess knew that it did no good to fight. The Ildiran Solar Navy and the Hansa EDF had demonstrated that lesson often enough. At the first sign of the enemy’s arrival, his renegade harvesters would turn and run with whatever ekti they’d managed to grab.
The first blitzkrieg scoop filled one cargo tank and rose high enough to jettison it, leaving a smoke trail in the thin air. A resounding cheer echoed across the comm, and the competitive Roamers challenged each other to do better. The unmanned fuel tank soared away from Welyr toward its rendezvous point. Safe.
In times past, leisurely skymines had drifted over the clouds like whales feeding on plankton. Jess’s brother, Ross, had been the chief of Blue Sky Mine on Golgen; he’d had dreams, an excellent business sense, and all the hopes in the world. Without warning, though, hydrogues had obliterated the facility, killing every member of the crew…
Jess monitored his scans. Though the sinking sensor buoys detected no turbulence that might signal the approach of the enemy, he didn’t let his attention waver. Welyr seemed much too quiet and peaceful. Deceptive.
Every crewman aboard the blitzkrieg scoops was tense, knowing they had only one chance here, and that some of them would likely die as soon as the hydrogues arrived.
“Here’s a second one, highest-quality ekti!” Del Kellum’s harvester launched a full cargo tank. Within moments, each of the five blitzkrieg scoops had ejected a load of ekti. The scavengers had been at Welyr for less than three hours, and already it was a valuable haul.
“Good way to thumb our noses at the drogues,” Kellum continued, his anxiety manifesting as chattiness over the comm band, “though I’d prefer to slam them with a few comets. Just like you did at Golgen, Jess.”
Jess smiled grimly. His cometary bombardment had made him a hero among the Roamers, and he hoped that the planet was now uninhabitable, all the enemy aliens destroyed. A strike back. “I was just following my Guiding Star.”
Now many clans looked to Jess for suggestions on how they might continue their retaliation