Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [79]
'You should do this, Jora'h. Those humans on the Klikiss worlds have no way of getting to safety. You can help.'
She sat up in bed, and his heart felt a pang. Jora'h had promised himself not to disappoint or hurt her again. Because of his love for her, he would make different decisions. Jora'h sat up, as well. 'You have become my conscience, Nira. No Mage-Imperator was ever meant to feel like this.' He leaned over to kiss her cheek. 'You guide me in the right direction. It is not the Ildiran way, but I will do anything for you.'
'Then you'll talk to Adar Zan'nh about my request?'
'I will do more than talk. I will send him right away.'
* * * * *
The hovering observation platform was draped with brocaded hangings and piled high around the edges with soft cushions. Floating above the spires of Mijistra, the Mage-Imperator and his party had the best seats for observing the skyparade. Jora'h sat in the centre of the platform with Prime Designate Daro'h prominent beside him.
'Look, there's the first one.' Nira pointed to the sky.
One of Tabitha Huck's newly constructed warliners descended gracefully like an immense silver whale bedecked with pennants and ribbons, its solar sails and ornamental wings fully extended. Forty-nine streamers streaked around and in front of the warliner, interweaving their flight paths, dancing across the air to show their pilots' prowess.
Through the thism, Jora'h could feel a swell of joy as spectators watched this affirmation of the great Solar Navy. They took it as a sign that everything could be fixed, that all damage could be repaired, that the Ildiran Empire would be strong again.
A wash of emotions came from the crowd below as a second warliner descended, followed closely by a third. The pleasure in the thism nearly diluted the brooding uneasiness that he still sensed across the rest of his Empire. Since the beginning of his reign, Jora'h had felt so many terrible and distant events, he was not sure how a genuine peace would feel to him.
The hovering platform continued to drift above Mijistra so that all Ildirans could see their Mage-Imperator. Streamers from each new warliner intersected with other squadrons in manoeuvres carefully choreographed by Zan'nh himself. Before he departed on his rescue mission, the Adar seemed intent on proving that his Solar Navy was still as adept as any ever recorded in the Saga.
These ships were the first of the newly commissioned vessels. Tabitha Huck and her engineers had cemented the Ildiran construction crews, making the best use of the unlimited labour and materials to build warliners. Tabitha had twenty more ships under construction and another ten in the initial phases. At this rate, within a decade the Solar Navy would be restored to its previous glory.
The skyparade proved only a temporary distraction, however, Jora'h could not drive back the uneasiness, the blank cold in the thism web that was spreading across his Empire again. Though she was happy that these warliners were going off to help colonists trapped by the Klikiss, Nira noted the change in his mood. She didn't need to read him so clearly. 'What is it? Has something happened?'
'It has been happening for a long while. I feel a dark stain, as if I am going blind in certain portions of my vision. Not pain, just an indefinable loss.'
Daro'h stiffened, as if he knew exactly what his father meant. 'You are losing parts of the - or they are being taken from you.'
'Yes, it must be. I feel I have entirely lost Dzelluria and several other worlds in the Horizon Cluster - not entirely unlike when Rusa'h formed his own web and took all those people away from me. But this seems more complete. It is as if whole parts of my Empire simply are not there.'
'Like I felt when I didn't have a tree,' Nira said, and he could hear the pain in her voice.
Five warliners