Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [197]
114
ANTON COLICOS
Hydrogues and faeros continued to battle in Hyrillka's primary sun. Solar flares rippled outward, ionic bursts disrupted transmissions, and weather patterns changed significantly. Each change produced an additional hindrance to the evacuation operations, but Tal O'nh bulldozed through them with all the efficiency he had shown when organizing the initial relief efforts.
By the time Tal Ala'nh arrived with hundreds more ships to take evacuees, the one-eyed veteran had already loaded most of his original warliners and dispatched them back to Ildira. With so many hydrogues and faeros in the vicinity, he did not want the crowded warliners to remain in the Hyrillka system. Together, two Solar Navy cohorts would be sufficient to carry all the inhabitants away to safety before the great battles killed the star.
"One step forward, two steps back," Anton said. "I think this planet has one whopper of a string of bad luck."
Vao'sh gathered armloads of apocryphal documents from the vault. "Peaceful times make for dull stories, Rememberer Anton."
The two scrambled to retrieve records from the archives beneath the citadel palace. At first they took great care to keep everything organized, but toward the end they simply threw everything into protective containers. Even Yazra'h helped them, as a special favor to Anton, though she also discharged a hundred other obligations during the frantic exodus.
The din of the spaceport was deafening. Warliners landed fourteen at a time, far more than the spaceport's capacity. The big ships dropped down into open fields and empty plazas, anyplace large enough to accommodate them. Personnel shuttles flitted across the landscape, rescuing outlying Ildirans who could not reach the main evacuation depots.
This struggle made Anton's chest tighten with dread. He sensed time slipping away from him in an accelerating plunge. The unbelievable operation was being accomplished with unheard-of efficiency, but even with almost seven hundred huge Ildiran battleships, how could they ever get everyone off the planet in time?
The boy Designate was crushed at the loss of such an old and respected colony, and Anton felt deeply sorry for him. Exactly as Yazra'h had taught him, the boy appropriately showed only resolve when he appeared before his people, but in private he was obviously shattered by the turn of events. "I could have made it work," Ridek'h said, as he watched a pair of workers carry another crate of diamondfilm sheets aboard a landed shuttle. "We were going to make Hyrillka a good place to live again."
"And the people believed in you, Designate." Yazra'h's use of the title seemed to build up the young man's self-confidence. "But now your obligations have changed. Your duty as Hyrillka Designate is to protect your people--and right now that means saving them from the destruction of their world."
Rememberer Vao'sh said to the boy in a voice perfectly tuned to play his heartstrings, "I will make sure that the Hall of Rememberers writes your role in these events properly, Designate Ridek'h. Never before has such a young man earned a place in the Saga of Seven Suns."
Neither Anton nor Vao'sh spoke as they climbed aboard the shuttle and headed toward the waiting flagship. They sat together, both feeling dismayed.
Once back in the command nucleus, Anton watched high-resolution images of the churning clash in the sun, and the sight horrified him. Hyrillka's primary star was dying. Flaming ellipsoids slammed into warglobes by the hundreds. From somewhere within the star itself, the fiery creatures turned solar flares into weapons, blasting out huge arcs of ionized gas in a disintegrating wave that even the warglobes couldn't withstand. Even so, faced with such overwhelming numbers, the faeros fireballs winked out one by one. The blue-white star now looked like a churning stewpot.
Scientist kithmen performed calculations to estimate how much