Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [6]
When EA delivered her warning, the Roamers at Osquivel scrambled to hide their shipyard before the EDF could arrive. By the time Tasia and her fleet came to the ringed planet, the Roamers had completed their work. Robb descended in his diving bell, offering a last chance for negotiation, but his transmissions cut off abruptly. When hydrogue warglobes opened fire, Robb was presumed dead, and General Lanyan ordered a full-scale attack, using the new Soldier compies. The battle was a massacre of human ships. Zhett Kellum and her father watched the disaster from their hiding places in the planet’s rings. Ship after ship was destroyed, and the scattered EDF finally declared a retreat, leaving fallen comrades behind. Tasia barely managed to drag her cruiser away; Patrick Fitzpatrick’s ship was destroyed. Utterly defeated, the remnants of the fleet limped home…
Cesca traveled with celebratory Roamer ships to formally accept Reynald’s offer of marriage. Jess was far away, alone, on his nebula skimmer, collecting hydrogen, other gases, and water molecules. Gradually sensing that he was no longer alone, Jess realized that the water was somehow alive, and he began to communicate with it. He had gathered one of the supernatural beings, a wental, which told him about the ancient war against the hydrogues. Jess now had a new mission: If he dispersed this wental to other water planets and helped it grow strong again, humanity could have a powerful ally against the hydrogues. He took the wental to an empty ocean world, where the entity miraculously spread; then Jess departed to find another candidate planet.
On Rheindic Co, searching for information about Margaret Colicos, the spy Davlin Lotze accidentally discovered how to activate the Klikiss transportals and was whisked to another planet, while Rlinda Kett could only watch helplessly. Through experimentation, Davlin activated the transportation system again and spent days hopping from planet to planet, until he finally found his way back to Rlinda, who had nearly given up on him. Though exhausted and near starvation, Davlin was also exhilarated—he had discovered a new means of interplanetary travel that did not require the embargoed stardrive fuel ekti!
Still without word of his missing parents, Anton Colicos traveled to meet with the historian Vao’sh at the PrismPalace, where he learned about Ildiran tales and culture. After spending time on the main world, he and Vao’sh were assigned to the resort planet of Maratha, which was in constant sunlight for half the year and full darkness the other half. Klikiss robots were constructing a second city on the opposite side of the world, but the buildings were not finished. Eager to show the dark-fearing Ildirans the thrill of a “haunted house,” Anton convinced a group to visit the dark-side construction site, where the black robots diligently worked. Later, as the day season ended, all tourists left Maratha, and only a small skeleton crew remained behind during the long night. Anton and Vao’sh also stayed, waiting as the darkness fell…
At the Roamer base on the near-molten world of Isperos, Kotto Okiah’s systems began to break down.