Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [218]
The robots separated into teams and combed through the wreckage. Soldier compies used brute strength to knock down walls and crack open sealed storage containers. They found one person who had been hiding and dragged him out screaming. The man broke away and tried to flee, but the robots surrounded him and viciously dispatched him. Orli could see the splash of blood even from her distant vantage…
The robotic invaders remained for hours, being particularly thorough, until they could find nothing left to destroy. As the afternoon light began to fade over Corribus, the machines filed back aboard their stolen EDF vessels. Thrusters lifted the Juggernaut and five Mantas from the ground. Like predators bloated after a large feast, they flew into the sky, lumbering back toward orbit.
Orli had waited long enough. When she realized she was as safe as she was going to be, she crept out of her shelter and began to climb back down. The alum crystals seemed slipperier now, their flat surfaces tilted. Each one seemed treacherous, as if the crystals themselves wanted her to slip and fall.
Before long, her arms and legs were trembling. She knew it was not just anxiety from the dangerous climb, but also the backwash of shock from what she had witnessed. She gritted her teeth and focused her thoughts. One movement at a time, one handhold or foothold, descending a body length, and then another. She had to make it back down.
The valley was in full shadow of dusk by the time she reached the bottom. She stood shaking for a few moments, gasping to catch her breath, then horror and hope swept over her like a flood wave. She ran with clumsy footsteps toward the orange glow of still-burning fires.
As she had feared, nothing remained but rubble and blackened timbers from the poletrees the settlers had brought in from the open plains. The Klikiss transportal had been demolished. Blackened human bodies—mercifully unrecognizable—lay strewn about on the ground or buried in the wreckage of collapsed buildings.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” Her voice cracked, but she did not give up. “Is anyone else alive?”
Only a resounding silence echoed back at her as night fell. It was no use. She was all alone on Corribus, the only survivor.
Chapter 111 — RLINDA KETT
Without any sun in Crenna’s frozen sky, it was hard to judge the passage of days during the rescue operations. When all of the shell-shocked colonists were finally crammed aboard the two merchant ships, Rlinda was ready to go.
The Blind Faith lifted off first, rising into the dark, cold skies. BeBob signaled, “I’m awfully overloaded, Rlinda.”
“You want to tell a couple of those people they can stay behind?”
“Not a chance. I used to live here, remember? These were my neighbors.”
For the time being, the settlers didn’t mind standing elbow to elbow on a ship that would take them far from their dark and dying world. They leaned against the corridor walls or were stacked like cordwood in the few passenger compartments. But at least they were alive, and getting away.
Rlinda turned to the contented-looking spy as she activated the Curiosity ‘s controls to follow BeBob. “You did a good job here, Davlin. Maybe you’ll have to change your career.” She accelerated on a direct line out of the system, away from the quiet, dead globe that had once been a beautiful colony.
Davlin shrugged in the copilot’s chair. “I like these people. What else was I supposed to do?” A brief smile crossed his face. “They’re…my friends. And when we get to Relleker, I intend to give those bureaucratic snots a piece of my mind for not helping when we asked for assistance. I just might mention it to Chairman Wenceslas himself…”
“Whoa! Look out, Rlinda!” BeBob squawked over the comm system. “Incoming, starboard side!”
Rlinda suddenly felt as cold as if she were standing outside on Crenna. Four hydrogue warglobes hurtled on a beeline across space directly toward them. “Oh, crap! Do these guys always need to have such bad timing?”
Davlin clenched his jaw. “What more can the drogues want here? They’ve already killed the damned