Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [211]
The Adar wanted to be personally involved with every phase, but he knew he could not. His job was to lead, so he would remain here to issue orders and manage all the pieces. He angrily thrust aside his confusion and the nagging whispers of doubt, and forced himself to set an example of how all Ildiran soldiers should behave. He quickly dispatched three unscathed warships to track down and assist the crashed warliner out in the desert.
“Get displays and updated maps of all the active mining operations down there. Some people must have survived the attack, but they won’t last long if they’re buried.”
He sent engineering crews and heavy excavators with large-scale earthmoving machinery to dig miners out of their collapsed shafts. Fire-suppression crews were also launched. Although the hydrogue icewave weapon froze and shattered anything it touched, the blue lightning blasts had started secondary fires—even if little remained intact for the fires to destroy.
Zan’nh stepped away from the command nucleus, his mind made up. He could not stay up here, away from the actual operations. Kori’nh had prepared him to be a hero. “I will be in the lead shuttle. Take me down to the surface so that I can see for myself.”
Later, when he finally stood among the smoldering debris of the splinter colony, when he could smell the smoke and dust and death in the air, Zan’nh was speechless. The Ildiran buildings were gone, and he heard pitifully few moans of injured or dying Ildirans.
To his astonishment, a large black shape emerged from the billowing sooty haze at the center of the devastation. The Klikiss robot moved with unsettling smoothness on clusters of fingerlike legs. Its extended arms had sharp joints that ended in crablike claws.
Zan’nh didn’t know how the Klikiss robot recognized him, how it knew to address the Adar in particular, but the looming ancient machine proceeded through the smoke and wreckage without hesitation. Its black carapace opened partway as if threatening to reveal a set of deadly weapons. Its scarlet optical sensors blazed, regarding him.
Zan’nh stood his ground. “What do you want? What are the Klikiss robots doing on Hrel-oro?” The black machines sometimes appeared on Ildiran splinter colonies; in fact, they had frequently offered construction assistance in unpleasant environments, such as moons or asteroids or the dark side of Maratha. But he didn’t believe that was why this robot was here.
In a buzzing voice, it replied, “Inform the Mage-Imperator that all agreements between Ildirans and the Klikiss robots are ended.”
The robot swiveled its body core to face the opposite direction. The stunned Adar watched, smelling smoke and blood from the massacre, as the hulking black automaton stalked off.
Chapter 107 — ANTON COLICOS
Alone against the deepest night on Maratha, Anton and thirty-seven frightened Ildirans attempted to keep the lights burning long enough to survive.
Engineer Nur’of strung together the remaining intact power cells, squeezing out enough energy to maintain the domed city’s vital systems. Despite the Maratha Designate’s demands that all illumination be restored, there simply wasn’t enough power remaining for more than a few days.
“Secda may offer safety, but these people are fearful of traversing the darkness,” Rememberer Vao’sh told Anton. “There is danger outside the dome, and we have barely enough Ildirans here to form a splinter.”
“There’s danger here, too, Vao’sh, and we’re all going to have to leave, sooner or later. We may as well do it under our own terms.” Anton managed a wan smile. “If it helps, I could come up with a few Earth parables that warn against procrastination.”
Once Designate Avi’h was finally convinced that no rescuers would come, he asked his bureaucrat assistant to arrange for their departure. Anton accompanied Bhali’v and the lens kithman Ilure’l, carrying a dazzling