Hidden Empire - Kevin J. Anderson [200]
When the last probe transmissions abruptly ended, Branson Roberts made ready for his dignified but rapid retreat, as on his two previous excursions. This time, though, flashing lights appeared deep within the pea-soup clouds. The glowing movement seemed to be tracking the rapid passage of the Blind Faith.
Roberts scanned the clouds and the brightening lights, feeling a glacier form in his stomach. It looked like a cluster of thunderstorms climbing deliberately toward the upper atmosphere. Lightning strikes crackled, and a windy vortex swirled, as if preparing to open up and disgorge a massive object.
As the submerged lights grew more brilliant, more ominous, Roberts leaned on his ship's controls, disengaged the safety protocols, and powered up all the enhancements the military had installed. "Time to get the hell out of here."
Firing the stardrive's turbochargers, he shot away from the rings of Dasra and streaked out of the system at maximum speed.
91 ADAR KORI'NH
With tensions increasing among the humans and the mystery of the marauding aliens still unsolved, Adar Kori'nh kept one maniple of his fleet in the vicinity of Qronha 3. The Mage-Imperator gave him explicit orders to place a ceremonial protection fleet at the ancient Ildiran ekti-harvesting city, so, for appearances, Kori'nh remained with the forty-nine ships led by the recently demoted Qul Aro'nh. By their very visibility, the warships would ease the unreasonable fears of the cloud miners.
The rest of the vessels, commanded by Tal Zan'nh and Tal Lorie'nh, continued back to their home port, ready to respond to any real emergency.
Qronha 3 was the nearest gas giant to Ildira, a large planet bright enough to be visible by telescope even in Mijistra's permanent daytime. Ages ago, the Ildirans had built their first cloud-harvesting facility here. The scoops and reactors had operated continuously for dozens of centuries, producing the hydrogen allotrope, though in recent years, it was only a token amount.
Human Roamers had taken over most of the ekti-processing business, selling stardrive fuel to the Ildiran Empire and the Terran Hanseatic League. However, Mage-Imperator Cyroc'h and his predecessor had kept the Qronha 3 facility under Ildiran control, as a minor gesture to prove that they could produce their own ekti, if they wished.
Now the Mage-Imperator feared the creaking old Qronha 3 cloud harvester might be threatened. This was to be a formal mission, flying the colors and demonstrating the might of the Solar Navy. The operation would be by the book, with no innovation required—exactly the kind of assignment Qul Aro'nh could perform to perfection. Perhaps the old officer would see that despite his shame, he could still be a valuable component of the Solar Navy.
Because the skittish Roamers were curtailing their ekti production and exports, the Mage-Imperator had commanded that the Qronha 3 skymine be brought up to full capacity. The Empire needed an uninterrupted supply of stardrive fuel. Only now was the Empire beginning to understand the weak link in their economy: how much they depended on Roamers to provide the necessary resource.
Long ago, when Ildirans had first allowed the outcast human clans to take over operations on old ekti-harvesting facilities, the Roamers had taken out long-term loans to build additional skymines. Recently, sensing the economic shift, the uneasy Mage-Imperator had warned the Roamers not to default on their loans; surprisingly, the nomadic humans had continued to pay their expected installments, tapping hitherto unsuspected cash reservoirs. No one knew how the Roamers had acquired such liquid wealth or how long they could continue to make their regular payments.
For the time being, the Ildiran Empire's deliveries of ekti had been slashed by 30 percent, and even the Mage-Imperator could