Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [1]
He arrived just in time. Nikko was alive but helpless, and Cesca was dying. Jess carried them away in his wental ship, begging the water elementals to save Cesca. Though reluctant, the wentals agreed, and in their primordial oceans on Charybdis they altered Cesca, healed her, and made her like Jess. When the two returned to the Plumas water mines, they discovered that Karla Tamblyn, possessed by a tainted wental, had come alive and gone on a rampage in the underground facility. Rlinda Kett and BeBob had barely escaped Plumas in the Voracious Curiosity, but the Tamblyn brothers were trapped, with no way to fight the demonic woman. Jess and Cesca needed all of their wental strength to defeat the tainted wental.
Jess's sister Tasia, who had left her Roamer family to join the EDF and fight in the war, was captured by hydrogues and imprisoned in a bizarre cell deep within a gas giant. There she encountered several other human captives--including her friend Robb Brindle, who had disappeared five years earlier. Tasia and her fellow prisoners were tormented by hydrogues and their sinister allies, the black Klikiss robots.
Pretending to cooperate with the Hansa, the black robots had covertly included special programming in thousands of Soldier compies that were manufactured to assist in the war effort. When the time was right, Sirix triggered that programming, and the computer virus caused Soldier compies to rise up all across the Spiral Arm. On ship after ship throughout the EDF, they turned on the human crews, slaughtering them and stealing Earth's battleships. At the compy manufacturing centre on Earth, Soldier compies boiled out in an attempt to take over the city, and the desperate Hansa Chairman Basil Wenceslas had no choice but to call in an air strike to wipe out the factory and all human soldiers fighting in the vicinity. Expecting a public outcry, the Chairman conveniently let the figurehead King Peter take the blame for the tough decision.
Peter had spent years resisting Basil, going head to head with him on the Chairman's bad decisions. For more than a year, Peter had expressed concerns about the Klikiss-programmed Soldier compies, but Basil had severely reprimanded him. After the revolt, Peter's foresight was obvious to everyone - and Basil Wenceslas hated to be wrong. As the Chairman's decisions continued to spiral out of control, Peter and Queen Estarra found unlikely allies in Deputy Chairman Eldred Cain, Basil's heir-apparent, Estarra's sister Sarein, who had been Basil's lover but was now afraid of him, the loyal Teacher compy OX, who had been Peter's instructor, and Captain McCammon, head of the royal guard.
Upon learning that Queen Estarra was pregnant, Basil commanded her to have an abortion, because he did not want his plans complicated by a baby at this crucial time. When Estarra and Peter refused, Basil accelerated his plot to get rid of them. He even brought out a replacement, bratty Prince Daniel, who made no secret of the fact that Peter and Estarra would 'retire' soon. The King and Queen knew they had to escape before Basil killed them.
After the hydrogue depredations worsened, and the Soldier compy revolt stole the majority of the EDF fleet in only a few days, the Chairman saw that Earth was terribly vulnerable. Having already cut off contact with many Hansa colonies because of a shortage of stardrive fuel, he now abandoned every remaining world to concentrate his defences on Earth. Ignoring the protests of the orphaned colonies, he summoned all functional vessels and placed them into service to protect the Hansa.
Patrick Fitzpatrick III, grandson of former Chairman Maureen Fitzpatrick, was called back to active duty. He