Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [139]
“By the Guiding Star!”
The shouts and screams became a pandemonium of gibberish. Cesca sat squirming in helpless anger, desperate to do something as she tried to absorb all the horrors occurring at the base. She longed to help, to find some way they could stand against this ruthless army of alien machines.
“It’s low gravity, and even on foot we can cover a lot of ground fast,” she said to Purcell. “We could run. How long would it take?”
“They’re excellent suits, Speaker, but as I told you, in this supercold we’d last only a couple of hours. We can’t go halfway around Jonah 12 in that time.”
Her shoulders slumped, and though she battered at her walls of reason, she could not break down the inevitable conclusion. “And even if we made it, they’ve already smashed into the domes. I’m not anxious to give them two more victims, if that’s all it would be.” Her gloved hand curled into a fist, and she thumped the grazer’s insulated wall again in frustration.
On the flickering screen she saw a few people running in the background, a struggle, and then ominous black shapes. Sounds of explosions and smashing metal rang across the speakers. Then a looming shadow approached the imager in the comm room. With a burst of static the images ceased.
Huddled in their grazer, their attention rapt, they were left with audio only. Soon all the screams and shouts had stopped across the different bands. No one responded when Cesca used some of their last battery power in a desperate attempt to hail them.
“There’s nobody else left,” Purcell said, his long face sagging. With his finger he tapped the display on their control modules. The interior temperature had dropped dramatically in the past half hour. “And look at what’s left in the power cells. We can’t recharge them.”
“Seems like we have only two choices: a slow death, or a swift one.” Cesca dredged up all the confidence she had ever used as Speaker. “But I’m not going to give up yet. We’re Roamers.”
Chapter 66—ADMIRAL LEV STROMO
Reluctantly heading for distant Corribus to investigate an alleged massacre, Admiral Stromo was impatient. He wished he could just go back home and leave the risky field duties to younger, more ambitious commanders like Elly Ramirez. He’d barely had time to change his clothes at the EDF base before turning the Manta around and hauling ass to the site of another enemy attack.
On the way, he reviewed the unedited recordings from the interviews with Orli Covitz and Hud Steinman and the images taken by Captain Roberts. A kid, an old man, and a deserter! In the meantime, through an exchange of telink messages sent via the handful of green priests still working for the Hansa, Klikiss gateway planets verified that the Corribus transportal coordinates were indeed shut down. Something was up.
He certainly hoped that whatever had attacked the colony was no longer around. At full emergency speed, his Manta would arrive at Corribus no more than a day after first hearing the disturbing news, and their analysis techs would get some real answers. EDF ships? That simply couldn’t be possible. Klikiss robots and turncoat Soldier compies? He glanced nervously around his own command bridge. Along the Manta’s corridors, day in and day out, hundreds of Soldier compies performed their tasks exactly as expected. His own cruiser relied heavily on them, and the machines had never exhibited any problems. An EDF warship on patrol had as many as one compy to five humans. It was ridiculous even to suggest getting rid of them all.
General Lanyan would wait for Stromo’s report before taking drastic action. Still, it did not look good.
“I get no response from the colony transmitter, Admiral,” Ramirez said from the bridge. “We’ve been hailing them for ten minutes. They should have somebody on duty.”
“We don’t doubt that a disaster occurred there,” Stromo said. “I just hope those witnesses were exaggerating.”
“Getting our first high-res images now.” The screen displayed the granite-walled canyon and the plains spreading outward.