The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [170]
Surrounded by the clamor of alarms, Kotto huffed down to the hangar deck to board the ship. He arrived red-faced and winded, but he was actually smiling! “At last, a chance to test the new wental weapons.”
With a sweep of her arm, Tasia encouraged him to get inside as soon as she extended the ramp. “And they’d better work. We launch in two minutes. No time to waste.”
Orli Covitz and Hud Steinman had followed Kotto from the workroom, where the three of them had been fiddling with the Klikiss Siren. Tasia was anxious to test that device, as well — but it sure as shizz wasn’t going to be today.
“Are we evacuating?” Steinman asked.
Tasia turned. “Not a chance. We’re going to fight those bastards with everything Kotto’s got.”
“You should stay here, Orli,” the old man said, sounding a bit too paternal. “It’ll be safer.”
The teenager rolled her eyes. “What, exactly, is safe about being on a skymine that’s under attack?”
“Good point.”
Kotto looked back into the hangar bay. “Are the compies coming?”
“They’re not very good at running,” Orli said. “I’m sure they’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“We can’t wait,” Tasia shouted over the roar of her engines, which she was already warming up. “Get in, or stay behind. This ship is leaving now.” They all decided to scramble aboard.
When the hatch was sealed, the Confederation cargo hauler streaked away from the skymine, and they instantly found themselves in a fury of faeros, like ricocheting sparks. Steinman and Orli let out astonished gasps as Tasia pulled the ship in a tight corkscrew to evade a gout of fire; Kotto was so busy checking his system status with the ice-projectile launchers that he didn’t seem to notice.
“The wental shells are ready,” he announced. “I rigged a refrigerated magazine and loaded the shells onto this ship and eighteen others. We each have ten projectiles. Let’s see how effective they are.”
“Ten projectiles each?” Tasia indicated all the blazing ellipsoids. “Don’t you think you underestimated a little?”
He flushed. “Well, it was originally meant for defense, and the faeros usually attack with only a few fireballs at a time. When Speaker Peroni asked me, it seemed a reasonable assumption.”
Hundreds of Solar Navy warliners descended from orbit in a mind-boggling defensive array, led by Tal Ala’nh. Though it was an extremely impressive show of force, Tasia wasn’t certain the warliners were prepared to face the faeros. She switched on the comm. “Stay clear, Solar Navy — we’re going to try out the new projectiles.”
Tal Ala’nh’s gruff voice came over the channel. “We may not have your specialized armaments, but we will fight, not cower behind you.”
“For whatever good that’ll do,” Tasia muttered. As three warliners charged forward in a foolish and suicidal offensive, she sent another communication burst. “Shizz, don’t waste your ships! They’re going to be destroyed.”
The fireballs flared brighter, racing to intercept the ornate vessels. When she contacted Adar Zan’nh in the main force of warliners, however, he did not order the tal to have his ships retreat. The Ildiran commander’s face looked tired and haggard on the small screen in Tasia’s cockpit. “It is what they feel they need to do to protect the Mage-Imperator.”
Exactly as Tasia had predicted, the trio of warliners crashed into the flaming ellipsoids, ineffectually firing their weapons until the moment of their destruction. The exploding Ildiran ships released a shockwave that hammered back into the faeros, disrupting the integrity of those particular fireballs, though they soon reformed into a roiling mass. As far as Tasia could tell, the Ildiran sacrifice accomplished