The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [175]
As more explosions rumbled overhead, and a fireball streaked so close to the top of the skymine that it melted some of the high towers, the Solar Navy pilot insisted that they had to depart. Kellum stood his ground, refusing to leave, and finally with a brisk wave of farewell, the Mage-Imperator and Nira flew off.
He thought longingly of his dear Shareen Pasternak, killed on a skymine that had been destroyed by hydrogues. And now a little girl had gone down in hopes that the hydrogues would rescue them. How ridiculous was that? He shook his head. As a counterpoint to these dismal thoughts, he clung to the satisfying knowledge that at least Zhett and Patrick had gotten away. They must be safer on Earth. . . .
Now that his beloved skymine was nothing more than a gigantic, lumbering target, Kellum had to make the call. Swallowing hard, he slapped the main intercom button so hard he hurt his palm. “This is Del Kellum — listen up! I’m sounding a full evacuation of this skymine. All personnel, get to a ship. Any ship you can find. I can’t guarantee you’ll be safer out in the open, but we’re sitting ducks here.”
Most of his workers had anticipated the announcement. Dozens of ships, including tiny maintenance vehicles with a range of no more than a few kilometers, sprang away from the lower decks, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the skymine. They wanted to be far from the huge facility when the faeros circled in.
Countless ellipsoids swooped and looped like aimless sparks searching for victims, hunting down any escaping vessels. Most of the Roamer defenders had depleted their icy projectiles and were now running.
Flaming creatures closed in on all the skymines. Nearby, six fireballs threw their fury against a helpless cloud harvester owned by clan Hobart. Exhaust towers crumpled and melted; gas storage tanks burst, spewing a jet of flames to knock the levitating facility off its axis. The flames peeled away the armored structural plates, dismantling the whole facility. Finally, the lower ekti tanks ruptured, and the Hobart skymine’s emergency signals and calls for assistance abruptly ceased. The gigantic wreck became a roiling mass of smoke and explosions. Its altitude engines failed, and the once-graceful city tumbled down into the deep clouds.
Kellum watched it mournfully, wondering if this disaster was similar to what Ross Tamblyn had experienced as his Blue Sky Mine fell apart in the air.
Below he saw an unnatural storm cell bubbling up from the stirring layers of mist, and his heart froze as an ominous, yet terribly familiar, spiked diamond vessel breached the clouds like some spherical sea leviathan. “Oh, hell . . .”
Another one rose, then another.
As the faeros continued to throw themselves at the Solar Navy warliners, and the Roamer ships expended their last few ice projectiles, an armada of hydrogue warglobes rose up to meet them, shrouded in glittering wental mist.
* * *
121
Jess Tamblyn
With their water sphere skimming atop the cloud banks, Jess and Cesca called upon the watery entities within the depths of Golgen, drawing sparkling smoke into a windy vortex. Diaphanous wisps of sentient fog curled toward the fireballs, ready to strike.
Jess could feel the warrior wentals around and within him thrumming with unaccustomed fury. Faeros! He nursed that anger into a determination that he fed back to the wentals as he led the charge upward. The sky was so full of vessels in chaotic motion that even the vast gas giant seemed crowded.
Though the rising mist looked deceptively ethereal, whenever it touched a fireball, the result was like a boiler explosion. The watery entities seethed with animosity. This was vengeance for the devastation of Charybdis. Yes, the wentals had learned. . . .
Jess could sense the faeros incarnate in one of the largest fireballs, another corporeal presence guiding the elementals — an avatar like himself, and yet