Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [171]
A second module landed beside him with a loud clang and blast of exhaust jets. Reluctant to refuse Sullivan’s direct orders, the pilots of the other escape craft hovered over the doomed skyfactory, waiting to pick up loads of refugees.
Sullivan was cramped inside their escape vessel as it moved away. Pressed body to body, the Ildiran evacuees had no place to sit down. Winds buffeted the overloaded module, and the designated pilot fought for control. “We don’t have much lift, Sullivan, and not much fuel to go anywhere. These ships were never designed to carry so many people.”
“Just get us through this right now, and you can file a complaint as soon as we get back to Hansa HQ.”
One by one, the remaining evac modules touched down on the skyfactory deck and took on frightened refugees. Even with every craft vastly overloaded, nearly a third of the Ildiran population remained stranded aboard the complex.
Across the sky, the Hansa cloud harvester was by now completely obliterated. Only an expanding cloud of smoke and dark vapors marked its former position, like an old bloodstain. Sullivan saw the hydrogues regroup, then begin to move across the sky toward the Ildiran skyfactory.
Seven more warglobes rose from the nearby clouds. The damaged Ildiran structure was already tilted and wobbling. Explosions glowed from its engines and uncontrolled fires in the ekti reactors underneath. The dwelling complexes had already been devastated.
A lone miner kithman—Sullivan recognized Hroa’x himself—climbed the tall venting tower and stood like an angry admiral on a defeated warship. The chief miner had no weapons, no effective resistance, but still Hroa’x raised his arms to curse the deep-core aliens.
“Lift us higher,” Sullivan told his pilot in a leaden voice. “We have to get out of Qronha 3’s atmosphere before the drogues notice us.”
“Trying to, Sullivan, but we just don’t have the power,” the man grumbled. “Hey, maybe if some of these Ildirans get out and push?”
Sullivan watched as the warglobes circled back to the Ildiran skyfactory and let loose with a barrage of blue lightning. Hroa’x remained at the top of his tower, bold to the last moment when the giant city broke apart into flaming pieces. Aboard the escape modules, the rescued Ildirans moaned, raw with resonating pain from feeling the deaths of so many comrades.
The thirteen overloaded ships, like obese bumblebees, managed to heave themselves out of the gas giant’s atmosphere into the freedom of orbit. But from there they had no obvious place to go.
“Our life support won’t last a day, Sullivan,” Tabitha pointed out. “Food is the least of our worries. We don’t have enough air or power to keep us alive.”
Kolker clutched his green knees. “We’ll never survive.”
Sullivan pursed his lips and didn’t respond immediately. “Now would be a good time for a brilliant, innovative idea, if anybody has one.” When no one volunteered a suggestion, he came up with one himself. “Okay, we can’t wait for the EDF, and we don’t have fuel to take us very far. But there is one place we can go.” He looked at the crowded, frightened faces, both alien and human. “If we head on a straight-line course and use every last gasp of our fuel, maybe we can make it to Ildira.”
Chapter 85—GENERAL KURT LANYAN
General Lanyan took one look at Stromo’s face, drew immediate conclusions, and sighed. “We have a problem, sir,” the Admiral said. “The evidence at Corribus is damning. My technicians insist that the destruction really was caused by EDF weaponry. We found landing marks and other indications consistent with one Juggernaut and several Mantas.”
Lanyan stood, though he felt unsteady on his feet. “But where did they come from? I’ve demanded an inventory from all my grid admirals, and everything is accounted for. We haven’t misplaced six major battleships!”
“Not...entirely, sir.” Stromo offered his idea about the group of ships that had disappeared at Golgen. “And those were