Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [187]
Before they all climbed aboard their separate ships, however, Cesca pointed out across the restless waves. Nikko felt his heart thrum, like the string of a plucked musical instrument.
The Charybdis sea stopped churning, and the waves flattened in an eerie calm. A cigar-shaped projectile shot upward like a missile fired from underwater. The spindle-shaped torpedo was made entirely of wental fluid formed into a new ship. Before the first wental torpedo had disappeared into a sky full of storm clouds, five more silvery ships rocketed out of the waves. Then another ten.
Nikko tried to follow the torpedoes with his eyes, but they flew too fast, vanishing into the sky. "If the wentals could do that all along, then why do they need us? And all our ships?"
Speaker Peroni smiled. "Those are intense kernels of wental energy, as different from the water in your tankers as diamond is from coal. The wentals can create only a few of them--but, ah, the blows they will strike!" She paused as if receiving a message. "We'd better get back to our ships and launch. Jess is about to reach Qronha 3."
108
GENERAL KURT LANYAN
More than a dozen EDF perimeter scouts sounded alarms at the same time. The unidentified armada diving into Earth's solar system was so enormous that sensors went off like popcorn bursting in a superheated flame.
"Hundreds of targets, General! Looks like almost a thousand!"
Permanently stationed aboard the Goliath, Lanyan rallied his last-ditch defensive forces, pulling every remaining Manta, weapons platform, and gunship together to form what he hoped would be an impenetrable cordon for their final stand. "Everybody awake! Looks like this is it, here they come. If that's the hydrogues, form a wall that they're not going to get through!"
With a ricochet of communications bursts, the platcoms and Manta captains announced their readiness. Ships scrambled in from opposite sides of the system and high outer orbit. Lanyan ordered all weapons hot and ready to fire, jazer banks charged, projectile weapons loaded into railgun tubes. Like angry hornets, Remora squadrons flew out, ready for the most intense dogfight in history. Sensor hits from the unknown vessels filled the screens like a whiteout snowstorm. He actually uttered a prayer. A sincere one.
"Message coming in, General," said the Goliath's communications officer.
"The drogues want to talk? Put it on screen."
"Not the hydrogues, sir."
An image of the proud Ildiran Adar resolved in front of him. "By order of the Mage-Imperator, I am here to deliver two cohorts of Solar Navy warliners to assist in the defense of the Earth, each one fully armed and ready to fight."
The sensor blips resolved into Ildiran vessels, each one adorned with streamers, antennae, and solar sails. Lanyan had never seen a prettier sight. "Two cohorts? That's almost seven hundred battleships!"
"Six hundred eighty-six. Upon further consultation, the Mage-Imperator decided to double our commitment, due to the extreme importance of this upcoming battle. The hydrogues will strike at Earth very soon."
Excited conversation buzzed around the Goliath's bridge. Lanyan grinned. "You're a very welcome sight, Adar. Allow me to escort you to Earth."
The EDF ships formed a parade, while hundreds of Ildiran warliners followed like fish in a perfectly coordinated school. As the mixed fleet approached Earth, the Solar Navy vessels went into a well-practiced set of maneuvers, as if showing off for observers. Each warliner was nearly as large as a Juggernaut, but they pirouetted around each other with clockwork precision. Though the General had often made quiet and deprecating comments about the stagnant alien Empire, he was certainly impressed by the prowess and coordination of their pilots.
"I hope they can fight as well as they can dance," Lanyan said.
Once the ships in the combined fleets were in place, General Lanyan requested to meet with Adar