Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [215]
On the elliptical hill at the centre of the seven converging streams, pilgrims scrambled to find shelter from the firestorm. Unable to escape, each one turned into a living torch.
Zan'nh and everyone aboard the warliners could feel the resonating horror. Previously, when the mad Designate had taken his victims, he had excised them from the web before destroying them. Now, though, he let his conquest of Ildira pound through the like loud drumbeats, so that every person in the Empire was aware of what he was doing. Somewhere, Mage-Imperator Jora'h must feel the unbearable agony.
The Adar did not know how to fight an enemy like this. Tal O'nh's warliners must have used whatever weapons they had available. When he went to consult the blind tal in the ship's medical centre, O'nh said in a haunted voice, 'Our projectiles and explosives did nothing against them. Our warliner's armour could not withstand the heat. They are flames. How do you hurt a flame?'
Zan'nh stretched his mind, searched his imagination, wishing that Adar Kori'nh - even Sullivan Gold or Tabitha Huck - could have been there to guide him and offer advice. But he realized that was merely an excuse. The faeros were attacking the Prism Palace! He could not spend days gathering ideas to devise a solution. He had to think of something himself.
'Prepare the water reservoirs. We may be able to quench the fire by using everything we have.'
His warliners flew at full speed toward the blazing ellipsoids, and sprayed jets onto the faeros from their on-board water cisterns. Only a small retinue of the fireballs had come here to Ildira. Perhaps he could have some effect after all…
Like a boiler explosion, great clouds of steam roiled into the air, the superheated mist curling in all directions. The faeros continued to dip and bob, torching people in the city, circling around the Prism Palace. Now that the Adar's warliners had caught their attention, the flames grew brighter.
With a second run, Adar Zan'nh spilled water in the plaza in front of the Palace. When the cold water struck the superheated crystalline panels, they shattered. Hot flowing glass and metal congealed in odd shapes.
Two warliners concentrated their streams onto a single fireball, draining their tanks into the incandescent flames until the faeros dimmed and blackened, extinguished by the water.
Retaliating elementals surged up to collide with the Ildiran battleships. Zan'nh felt a resounding sympathetic pain as all of the crewmembers in the two warliners were incinerated, their soulfires absorbed into the faeros. Suddenly empty, without anyone manning the controls, the large Solar Navy vessels began a downward spiral, their engines on fire, their systems damaged. Both hulks crashed into the city.
The sky all around was pregnant with steam. A hot fog bank swathed the Adar's warliner and the Prism Palace in a thick cloud, temporarily hiding them. The faeros would find them soon enough.
'Adar! I am receiving an urgent transmission from somewhere within the Prism Palace.'
'What is it?'
'Prime Designate Daro'h and several others. They are trying to escape. They need our help.'
One hundred and thirty-three
Nikko Chan Tylar
The area around the Klikiss city was strewn with giant insect carcasses. The buzzing and clacking sounds of the wild battles had now been subsumed by an eerie silence as the scouts and warriors dispatched the remaining members of the rival subhive. The smell nauseated Nikko.
As they ran past piles of the dead creatures, he pointed toward the giant new transportal. 'Look, something else is coming through!'
Victorious Llaro Klikiss returned through the shimmering gateway, carrying their greatest prize--the captive breedex of the rival subhive. Nikko gaped at the horrific monstrosity, instinctively knowing what it was. He had never imagined something so disgusting. Orli shuddered. Margaret