Hidden Empire - Kevin J. Anderson [103]
Back home, using King Frederick as his diplomatic mouthpiece, Chairman Wenceslas had issued an official and flowery request to the Ildirans, as one great sovereign to another, asking for help, or at least information about this mysterious new threat. The Adar of the Solar Navy had carried the King's message with all diplomatic formality to his Mage-Imperator in Mijistra. But though the alien emperor had expressed surprise and dismay at the terrible attack, he claimed no knowledge about the matter.
Although General Lanyan doubted that even the pompous Ildiran Solar Navy commanded enough firepower to destroy worlds, neither did he believe in the total ignorance of the Mage-Imperator. Not for a minute.
"Arriving at position, sir," said the navigator-pilot.
"Good. Cut the stardrive and turn about. We'll park here and wait."
The starfield shifted back to normal, and Lanyan stared into an empty wasteland of space, far from any systems. If they had simply allowed for routine transmission time from Oncier, it might have been a decade before anyone picked up Serizawa's last transmission.
"We'll know soon enough," he said, mostly to himself.
"Assuming Dr. Serizawa sent a signal at all, General," said the technical lieutenant.
"He would have sent a signal," Lanyan said. "Unless they vaporized his station first."
The reconnaissance outrigger hung motionless as the galaxy rotated around them. The faint wisps of a bright nebula filled the foreground far away.
After fifteen minutes, his jaw sore from clenching his teeth so hard, Lanyan grew impatient. "Ease forward at half-c. Let's do our best to catch up with it."
The outrigger moved ahead, wide-band receivers primed and hungry for the electromagnetic burst that had been sent out weeks before.
"How big is the error bar in your calculations?" he asked the lieutenant, anxious now.
"Certainly less than a day, sir. The readings were quite—"
Suddenly a wall of static blossomed on their reception screens. The General stood up, looking at the primary display. The transmission sharpened into a clear image of Dr. Serizawa.
"—under attack. Unidentified spherical craft, an unusual configuration. My God, they've already destroyed one of the moons!" Serizawa turned. "Can you believe the firepower?" He snapped at his communications assistant, "Show the images from our external cameras. Give them useful data. They don't want to see my face."
The view shifted, and Lanyan looked in cold amazement at the diamond-hulled warglobes and their crackling blue lightning as they tore the second of Oncier's moons to pieces.
Diluted from its long passage across space, the fuzzy transmission continued to ripple against their receivers like faint stirrings against a boat on a quiet pond. Lanyan and his crew watched with bone-chilling horror as the scientists continued to send desperate messages, pleading for mercy, trying to understand. The alien attack continued. No wonder nothing remained.
No, the General realized, this wasn't the Ildirans at all. Something new. Something worse. These monstrous alien ships were unlike anything he had ever seen, even in his nightmares.
When all four of Oncier's moons had been annihilated, the alien crystalline ships converged upon the unarmed observation platform. The electric lances arced out again, engulfing the observation platform in a single brilliant flash, and the signal finally cut off.
By then, Lanyan had absorbed more than he had ever wanted to see.
48 CESCA PERONI
Because Cesca was not at Rendezvous where she was expected to be, the urgent message and news packet took an extra week to reach the Speaker's protégée. The message runner had already delivered his unsettling report to Jhy Okiah, who had dispatched the young man and his supercharged spaceship to find Cesca beneath the ice on Plumas.
The message runner rode the passenger lift down through a pumping channel in the ice. He stepped out into the frigid cave and called out to anyone who could hear him: "Cesca Peroni! Is she still