Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [238]
The Adar’s flagship continued to build up speed in pursuit. The heavy warliner’s momentum increased slowly, but his engines were superior to the equipment on the small royal shuttle. The Hyrillka Designate was nearly burning out his propulsion system in a crazed but pointless flight. Zan’nh continued to transmit warnings, demanding the Designate’s surrender, but Rusa’h defied him.
In space around them, the closely packed stars of the Horizon Cluster glittered as if someone had hurled a handful of gemstones into the black emptiness. Hyrillka’s orange secondary star shone high above the other planets while the large blue-white primary burned like a flare at the center of the solar system.
“The Designate corrupted all of you, forced you to turn against your Mage-Imperator.” Zan’nh looked fiercely at his own crew. “He is responsible for immeasurable turmoil and bloodshed. We must stop him before he escapes to continue his heresy and rebellion.”
Soon, the mad Designate’s intention became apparent. His objective was not escape at all.
Flying his ship at impossible speed toward the center of the Hyrillka system and the bright primary star, Rusa’h sent a last message to the pursuing flagship. Instead of sounding desperate and fearful, the Designate seemed almost triumphant.
“I will return with these last faithful followers to where all illumination is pure and intense. We will become one with the Lightsource. Unbelievers like you would find it intolerable—but we will be saved.”
“He is flying directly into the sun. Open fire and damage his engines. We have to stop him.”
The warliner’s gunners took several careful shots, but as Rusa’h flew closer to the star’s hot corona, sensors and aiming systems became unreliable. One shot caused minor damage to the royal shuttle’s propulsion systems, but the Hyrillka Designate flew onward. Another shot caused significant damage to the engines, but by now it was far too late. The escape shuttle had been caught in the quicksand of stellar gravity. It fell toward the photosphere, where plumes and flares roiled upward and plasma oceans bubbled in turbulent cells.
Zan’nh could barely keep his balance as the flagship rocked in the magnetic storms. Static flared across the viewscreen. Sparks showered from several control panels in the command nucleus.
“We need to pull back, Adar,” said the navigator. “The Designate’s ship is already lost, and if we suffer more damage to our own engines, we won’t be able to pull away.”
“He is not worth it, Adar,” the weapons officer insisted. “He is already lost.”
Zan’nh stared at the heavily filtered image on the screen. Rusa’h’s vessel was no more than a small glinting flare as it tumbled into the sun. The Adar finally nodded. “Pull us back. I will not allow my uncle to cause any more deaths—certainly not ours.” Straining, the warliner backed away.
In a final transmission that roared with background static, the Hyrillka Designate cried out, “Behold! The Lightsource has not abandoned us!”
To Zan’nh’s surprise, something happened in the gaseous layers of Hyrillka’s primary sun. Flares looped up for thousands of kilometers, like open archways following magnetic field lines. The churning convection cells of the roiling star cleared for a moment, like clouds parting.
To his amazement, Zan’nh saw incredible structures, like a city on the surface of the sun—spheres and domes and pyramids that contained molten incandescent material too bright to look at. Rising through the ionized clouds was a cluster of fiery ellipsoids, vessels shaped out of sheets of flame and controlled thermal energy.
“The faeros!” His voice was filled with awe. “That sun has a faeros city in it.”
Fireball ships rose up to shelter the Hyrillka Designate’s craft moments before it would have burned up. Rusa’h sent a final transmission. “Behold the light, so bright and pure!”
While the flagship warliner lumbered out to a safe distance at the edge of the corona, the fiery entities surrounded Rusa’h’s ship and then returned to their incandescent plasma