Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [216]
His vision went red and his eyes burned. He heard a loud sound, felt a tearing pain in his throat, and realized that he was making the noises. He howled with rage, screaming inarticulate curses--and then he caught himself. Deputy Cain stared at Basil in astonishment. All the tactical experts and comm officers had turned from the dramatic battle screens to look at the Chairman as if he had gone insane.
Embarrassment came down on him like a freezing rain, and Basil forced his breathing to calm. He remained statue-still, demanding that his face resume its normal calm façade. If they were all going to die, then he would do it in a dignified fashion.
126
CESCA PERONI
Roamer commando groups had spread out to dozens of known hydrogue haunts. For the initial strike with her own team, Cesca had chosen to fly one of the enormous Plumas water tankers alongside others flown by the Tamblyn brothers. They had a long list of infested planets to visit.
Meanwhile, her other teams set off to separate targets, following starcharts that marked the lairs of hydrogues. The deep-core aliens were being hit on hundreds of planets, all at the same time.
Cesca's small squadron spiraled down to the indistinct edge of atmosphere high above the gas giant Haphine. She had never visited this cool, storm-swept world before, though she knew its historical significance. One of the first two skymines the Roamers ever leased from Ildirans had been deployed here. Haphine was also the site of the fourth hydrogue attack against humans; six thousand Roamers had died here.
Now the tables were turned. Cesca directed her team to disperse their wental cargoes and begin the recapture of another hydrogue stronghold.
Caleb Tamblyn sounded conversational on the comm, but Cesca detected his underlying anxiety, a nervous need to talk and distract himself from the upcoming engagement. "Clan Tamblyn has always been the best at shipping and delivering water where it's needed."
"You could consider this all part of a day's work," Cesca added.
Then they dumped part of their wental supply. The energized water penetrated the thick, bluish-gray clouds, diffusing deeper into the planet.
The cacophony of wentals in Cesca's cargo hold filled her senses and talked inside her head. She could feel the clash surging through the winds, and she could feel the imminent victory. "The wentals are already dissolving Haphine's transgate to bottle up the drogues. The enemy can't get away."
As if hearing an invitation, three diamond battleships rose from the contaminated clouds, already crackling with energy bolts. Their crystal surfaces were pitted and stained, scoured by corrosive wental vapors in the atmosphere. Mist smothered the warglobes, clinging with caustic droplets, as if the fog itself were conscious.
Caleb Tamblyn flew his tanker close to hers. "That means we get to deal with those warglobes ourselves?"
"Isn't that what we came here for?" asked Wynn from his own ship.
From below, at the edge of the planet's atmosphere, Torin Tamblyn came racing upward. He had already dumped his load of wentals, but even the lightened water tanker was not able to outrun the three warglobes that came howling after him. "They're on my tail!" he transmitted. "Everybody either help, or get out of my way."
His two brothers altered course and plunged down toward him with their heavier tankers. Torin tried to escape the blue lightning storm that came lancing out of the diamond spheres.
Cesca's own tanker was still filled with Charybdis water, and she could feel the contained wentals pulsing through her, through the cargo hold, through the entire ship. She could see immediately that the hydrogues were going to destroy all of the tankers. "You Tamblyns--scatter! You can't fight this."
Caleb cried, "But they're after Torin!"
"Then let them go after me instead."
As the water elementals vibrated into the hull of the large tanker, Cesca's ship accelerated, roaring between Torin Tamblyn's fleeing vessel and the oncoming warglobes. The