Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [221]
The rebel vessels kept coming closer, clearly intent on sacrificing themselves to sow as much destruction as possible, even at the cost of their own lives. Jora’h knew they were willing to open fire and even crash their ships into his warliners.
He had to stop them. Gripping the rail of the command nucleus, ignoring the anxiety on Tal O’nh’s face, Jora’h strained until his mind pounded inside his skull. If he’d been able to dump shiing gas through the recirculating systems of those rebel ships, he could easily have pried the soul-threads loose and taken them back into his network. Now, however, he had to rip them free with brute mental force to overcome Rusa’h’s imprint...and hope that he didn’t kill his people in the attempt.
With nimble mental fingers, he traced out a complex network of soul-threads, seeing it all in his mind’s eye: The pearl-white lines of his own connection to the Lightsource looped around, but remained separate from, a second web, a smaller one pulled garrote tight, made of stiff silver mental wires instead of gossamer strands. Rusa’h’s new web.
Jora’h could see them, feel them, fight with them. They resisted. The thism had set firmly into its new patterns, but he had to tear it loose. Words squeezed from between his teeth as he spoke aloud, “I am the Mage-Imperator. I...do not...require shiing!”
The Mage-Imperator would have to sever all the unwanted mental strands and snip the prisoners free, but that too offered a moment of danger. After being cut loose, each deluded Ildiran would be lost and disjointed, without the safety of any thism at all. He, their true leader, had to be there to catch them.
Jora’h tugged at the twisted wires, untying the misled people. His mind reached for the wires as they started to come free. There! He grasped some of them, softening the wire into gossamer strands as he welcomed those people back. But there were many more yet to free. He tugged again, focusing his mind on the struggle. Now he discovered strands knotted into other strands, while some cords dangled broken, left lost and adrift. He reached out, feeling an echo of despair and fear coming from the severed people. He had pulled too hard, and the soul-threads snapped! While he enfolded many of the rescued rebels, others were lost entirely. They tumbled away into mindlessness. He could not save them.
Aboard some of the suicidal defender ships, rebels who had been too entrenched in their beliefs were dropping, falling either brain-damaged or dead to the decks. He had uprooted them clumsily, and now they were gone. He felt them in his heart, even if he could not catch their thism threads.
But he could not stop. The warships careened toward each other, weapons ready.
Jora’h strained, sending his mind out to take hold of them before it was too late. As the ships closed, one of the rebels managed to launch a salvo, which damaged the nearest warliner.
“No,” Jora’h gasped through his spasming throat, still keeping his eyes clenched shut. “Do not return fire! Tal O’nh—I...command it!”
The cohort commander called uneasily into the transmitter, “No retaliation! Adar Zan’nh, the Mage-Imperator asks us all to hold our fire.”
“Acknowledged. Evasive maneuvers.”
Still pressing and pulling, using a gentle touch when he could or a harsh one when necessary, Jora’h felt the corrupt tapestry unraveling. As it did, he could seize each slippery strand. He pulled harder, more steadily. His mind cried out with the effort.
Then, as if a switch had been thrown, the connected thoughts and presences of all the remaining rebellious crewmen were brought back into his grasp. He had torn the blindfolds from their eyes. The Lightsource would blaze brighter to them, a flash as dazzling as a starflare. The commanders suddenly saw what they had been about to do, and remembered the crimes they had already committed while under the influence of the Hyrillka Designate.
The suicidal warliners and cutters separated, powered down their weapons, then flew