Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [204]
The next Mantas soared past in their long turnaround procedure. The Juggernaut lumbered by, so immense that Orli could hardly grasp its dimensions; it seemed to take forever to pass her small observation opening.
For a few moments, as the attacking ships reversed course at the end of the long canyon, there was a breathless pause in the colony settlement. The survivors continued to shout and scream. Orli could hear their desperate voices, dwindled to tinny noises by the distance. They were running. She saw groups scrambling toward the main structure that contained the Klikiss transportal.
“Yes!” she said. “Get out of here. Go anywhere.”
Her father would be there helping the others to escape, or else in the comm tower.
When the five Mantas came in for yet another attack run, their primary target was the transportal structure. Jazers and projectiles leveled the facility in a single concentrated strike, vaporizing the gateway that would have allowed the colonists to escape from Corribus. All the people who had tried to flee were either trapped or disintegrated.
Even if Orli survived the attack, that transportal had been her only way out.
The battleships swept around again and again.
Chapter 104 — DESIGNATE-IN-WAITING PERY’H
The mad Hyrillka Designate and his corrupted guards held Pery’h prisoner for days. With all the people on the planet voluntarily separate from the Mage-Imperator’s thism, the young man became more and more isolated, utterly cut off from all other presence in the great mental network. Sickeningly adrift and lost. It was enough to drive an Ildiran insane.
Armored guards with crystal spears stood outside his door, preventing the distraught Pery’h from leaving the room. He had demanded to see Rusa’h, even his brother Thor’h, but no one would speak to him. After the Hyrillka Designate had made his outrageous claims, accusing Mage-Imperator Jora’h of poisoning his own father, the guards had kept Pery’h sequestered from everything that was happening.
Through his thism connection—without which he would surely be mad by now—Pery’h knew the Mage-Imperator was aware that something was seriously wrong in the Horizon Cluster, but no one on distant Ildira could guess how desperate the situation had become.
Overconsumption of raw shiing had softened the connection of all Hyrillkans, making their minds pliable. Then Designate Rusa’h had worked his manipulation, using a corrupt version of the thism, and diverted them to his own control instead of the Mage-Imperator’s.
Prime Designate Thor’h had also joined the odd and open rebellion, of his own volition, and Pery’h could not believe that a son of the Mage-Imperator would be so weak-willed as to be swayed by mental domination. With a cold sinking in his heart, he understood that his brother—the Prime Designate of the Ildiran Empire—was a willing accomplice in this madness…He felt so cut off!
Thor’h came to the door of the confinement chamber, accompanied by a squad of soldier kithmen. The Prime Designate stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his narrow chest, his expression implacable. His face was thin and pale, his lips pulled into a pucker of distaste as if he had eaten something sour. Though Pery’h longed to connect to someone, anyone, Thor’h showed barely any sign of recognition for his younger brother. “Come with me to the throne hall. Imperator Rusa’h wishes to speak to you of your fate.”
“Imperator? Thor’h, this is insanity.”
“It is what must be, for the good of the Ildiran Empire.”
Pery’h refused to move. “I am the Hyrillka Designate-in-waiting. You don’t even belong here.”
Thor’h‘s eyes flashed. “I am the Prime Designate. I will be wherever I am required to be. And I am linked closer to Imperator Rusa’h than I ever was to our misguided father.”
He gestured, and the guards stomped forward, roughly taking Pery’h by the arms and dragging him out of the chamber. They walked him in a brisk lockstep down the corridors of the vine-draped citadel palace.