Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [140]
As the warliners accelerated, the fiery elemental ships came at them like gigantic cannonballs. The boy remembered the conflagration and battle in Hyrillka's sun. If the faeros could eradicate a diamond-hulled hydrogue warglobe, the Solar Navy battleships did not stand a chance.
When the warliners cleared the atmosphere of Hyrillka, the deck tilted from a severe course-change manoeuvre, and the boy stumbled against the command station. As they headed out into space, the faeros fireballs continued to pursue them.
'Return to me.' The mad Designate's words came like a blast from a flamethrower, but the tal did not heed him.
'Prepare to activate stardrive the moment we are clear,' O'nh shouted. No one knew if a faeros ship could follow at the extreme lightspeed available with the lldiran engines. No one knew much about them at all.
The faeros closed the distance. Flame blasts seared the ornate anodized hulls. Systems overloaded. One after another, damaged engines went off-line, but the warliners limped along with what power they had left, reeling off course yet careening onward. Solar Navy weapons officers fired projectiles, energy beams, and explosives, none of which had any effect on the elemental vessels.
Ridek'h did not know how the warliners could ever get away. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to find the Mage-Imperator through his connection, but though he was the official Designate, he was a generation removed from the strongest strands. Ridek'h could not communicate what he needed to.
The young Designate saw the hard decision cross Tal O'nh's face. The old commander spoke to the captain of the last warliner in the group. 'Septar Jen'nh, I require you to delay the faeros. Our priority is to see that Designate Ridek'h returns to the Mage-Imperator. He must survive.'
'As you command, tal. How am I to do this?'
'Faeros are different from hydrogues, but perhaps Adar Kori'nh's technique will prove effective.'
The septar paused, but for only a moment. 'Yes, Tal O'nh.'
Bright reflections gleamed from the facets on O'nh's jewel eye. 'Let me say on behalf of the Mage-Imperator that the Solar Navy honours your service, Septar Jen'nh. The Lightsource will welcome you, and the Saga oj Seven Suns will remember you.'
Without a further word, Jen'nh broke the connection. The last and most damaged warliner turned and charged toward the oncoming fireballs. The septar opened fire with every form of Ildiran weapon he had aboard, blasting away in a furious attack, but the explosions were swallowed up like raindrops in an ocean.
Ridek'h watched the drama on the screens as the other warliners raced away, straining their damaged engines and burning out even more systems. He turned awkwardly to Tal O'nh. 'What is he doing? What can he accomplish?'
Septar Jen'nh dodged in front of the lead faeros, as if to distract it. Designate Rusa'h roared across the communications screen. 'This is useless. Your flight is useless. Your--'
Jen'nh surprised even the mad Designate's inferno when his warliner plunged directly into the flames. The flash caused the fiery ellipsoid to shudder and reel. Ridek'h felt a stinging pain through the as the septar's warliner was vapourized and flames swallowed every Ildiran aboard. The faeros spread apart like sparks from a stirred-up blaze, delayed, diverted.
It was enough. O'nh's remaining warliners surged ahead. He activated the stardrives, and their ships outdistanced the pursuing fireballs.
O'nh turned his lone eye toward Ridek'h, who sat panting, his skin flushed. 'We are not yet safe, Designate. None of us is.'
Eighty-eight
Adar Zan'nh
Guiding his rescue warliners to Cjeldre, the next Klikiss r world on his starmap, the Adar was hopeful. They had ' visited four fledgling human colonies on Klikiss worlds, only to find them all destroyed. Zan'nh tried to maintain his confidence that he would find survivors on at least one of them.
The devastation, the complete extermination of the settlers, had shocked him. No one deserved that. There had been no warning that after