The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [150]
“I’ll find quarters for you all. Plenty of extra room.” Kellum gestured toward the other three. “Have a look at whatever you like — just don’t break anything. Tamblyn, you know your way around a skymine. Give them a tour.”
Tasia took her two companions off across the deck. “Look at what Kotto’s brought,” she called back at Kellum. “It’s a military necessity. Jess put him up to it.”
Kellum turned to the inventor. “Now what have you concocted? I’m sure it’s intriguing.”
“Oh, definitely.” He jumped right into his excited spiel as they tromped up the ramp. “New defenses — a genuinely novel concept. We’re dispersing them throughout the Confederation . . . although I don’t have a clue why the faeros would attack you out here. They’ve never shown any interest in gas giant planets. Jess Tamblyn and Speaker Peroni told me to make sure the Confederation is ready, though.”
Kellum paused in his step, startled. “Faeros? Here? By damn, what are you talking about?”
“They challenged me to develop new weapons to use against the fireballs, and they gave me some wental water to work with. Incredible stuff. Lots of potential.”
When the two men entered the large cargo bay, Kotto increased the illumination. Bright light shone down on the gleaming hydrogue derelict that sat next to what looked like some kind of satellite transmitter dish.
“Why did you bring that damned drogue sphere?” Kellum demanded. Intellectually, he knew the hydrogues were defeated, and he hoped never to see them again, but the reminder was quite unsettling.
Kotto glanced at it. “Oh . . . never mind, that has nothing to do with the wental weapons. And this other device is a prototype to be used against the Klikiss. I was expecting to test it soon — which is the main reason why Tasia Tamblyn came along, as a matter of fact.” He seemed to realize he had gone off on a tangent and brought himself back to the point. “First, though, I’ve got to deliver and install the new wental weapons.”
Kellum shook his head. “So you brought everything along with you, just in case?”
“One never knows when some component or other might be useful. The Klikiss Siren needs a bit of tuning up when I get the time, and I might find another way to test the derelict. My investigations are never finished.”
“So what’s this amazing new weapon?”
Like an excited boy, Kotto went to a large cubical bin, punched in an access code, and slid open the top. The container’s interior was frosty, shimmering with a bluish chemical light that emitted no heat whatsoever. Faint wisps of steam wafted upward like the breath of an ice ogre. Kellum peered inside to see dozens of cylindrical objects with pointed ends, like artillery shells as long as his forearm and a hand-span wide.
“That’s frozen wental water,” Kotto said. “Projectiles. I fashioned them with the help of the wentals, of course — I couldn’t do anything without their cooperation. They’re the right caliber to fit into the standard projectile cannons that the shipyards installed as defenses in most Confederation vessels.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Kotto grinned. “Frozen wentals, explosive bullets to shoot at the faeros. I don’t really know what’ll happen, but I assume that if a fireball gets shot with that kind of shell, the effects would be . . . extreme. Frankly, I’m not anxious for a chance to test it out, since that would mean finding some faeros. But better to be prepared for anything, don’t you think?”
Kellum couldn’t disagree.
“Fashioning them was quite interesting — I simply made some calculations and communicated to the wentals what I wanted them to do. Then they shaped themselves, cooled down into solid ice, and — voilà! — perfect artillery shells. I wish everything was that easy.”
As the two men emerged from the ship’s hold, Kellum looked up into the yellowish skies. He was startled when proximity alarms howled throughout the skymine complex. “Now what?”
Over the intercom, voices bellowed for all skyminers to man their stations, telling any armed craft to