The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [172]
Osira’h scrambled through the hatch and paused just for a second to answer him. “You did not ask — I chose.”
As her parents ran after her, Del Kellum called out, “What the hell does that girl think she’s doing?”
Osira’h sealed the transparent hatch just as her mother reached the hull. She couldn’t look at Nira, but instead hurried to the lumpy crystalline controls. She had no idea how to fly the craft, remembered only a few glimpses of thoughts from the hydrogues. But all she needed to do was activate the engines, give the sphere a nudge. She would never be able to guide it . . . gravity would have to do the rest.
An explosion rumbled across the sky. Jora’h and Nira stood pleading outside the transparent hull, but she couldn’t hear them. Instead, her small hands danced over the controls, trying to interpret them, searching for anything that made sense. One of the panels lit up, and though Osira’h heard nothing, she sensed a faint vibration. She tried similar controls, and finally felt a burst of power, a brief pulse from the alien engines.
The transparent sphere moved forward, began to roll as if someone had given it a shove across the smooth deck toward the precipitous drop-off. Her mother and father could not stop it. Faeros and Roamer ships streaked by overhead.
Osira’h steeled herself as she glanced out at the firestorm in the skies. It had not been so long since she’d established a link with the hydrogues and used the power of the verdani to coerce them. She had been raised and trained to do this, and she could do it again. Through the thism, the Mage-Imperator would know she remained alive.
And then she was over the edge. The derelict dropped like a stone away from the giant city in the sky. As she fell, Osira’h peered through the transparent ceiling and saw Nira and Jora’h still shouting, still reaching out for her.
She watched the gigantic skymine and the frenzied battle dwindle in the distance far above her. Then gauzy clouds engulfed her, and she felt claustrophobic and alone.
* * *
118
Patrick Fitzpatrick III
Patrick managed to send out four more subversive broadcasts before Hansa troops stormed the mansion. He knew the resources Basil Wenceslas could bring to bear against them — especially now that the Chairman was infuriated. He had used relays to cover their origin. He thought he was clever. He thought he was safe.
He was wrong.
Though Wenceslas certainly had far more pressing problems, he ruthlessly prosecuted anyone who criticized him, never mind the facts. And, of course, he bore a particular grudge against anybody claiming to represent Freedom’s Sword. Patrick was definitely in the crosshairs.
The worldwide panic and continuing threat of meteor strikes had plunged the population into near anarchy, and they took up the cry against the Chairman with great fervor. Although King Rory made plenty of impassioned speeches, he fooled no one; in fact, since the destruction of the Moon and the horrendous meteor impacts that followed, not many people listened to him anymore.
With the arrival of King Peter and his cavalry of Confederation rescuers, there could be no better time for a change of government. Patrick felt he was making real progress, but protests could accomplish only so much. Still, that didn’t stop him and Zhett. Thanks to his grandmother’s connections and finances, he had a powerful platform, if only for a little while. He rather enjoyed being a folk hero, but he knew he had to be living on borrowed time.
With external sensors and automatic alarms, he made his preparations to slip away at the first sign of danger, and in that he made his most serious mistake.
Since only he and Zhett were in the mansion, he was astonished by the size of the force arrayed against them: four hundred uniformed troops, fourteen low-altitude gunships, six land assault vehicles. He had expected at least a few minutes of warning, but the cleanup crew came in like a blitzkrieg. In the first minute,