The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [183]
“Our armor is the best ever developed,” Zan’nh said flatly. “There is nothing better.”
“Then we’ll have to come up with something better — maybe something a bit unorthodox.”
The Solar Navy commander’s expression relaxed slightly. “Yes, you human engineers are good at that.”
“Ideas, Kotto?” Cesca said.
He scratched his head. “You did ask me to think of ways to use the wentals. What if we had them form a misty shield, like a cocoon, around the hulls of our ships?”
“Both the shield and the frozen projectiles would require a lot more wental water than we have available here,” Cesca said.
Tasia was optimistic about Kotto’s suggestion. It was a step in the right direction. “Then let’s get that wental water before charging off to Ildira. If you want to defeat the faeros, we’ll have to put up our best fight.”
“We can get all the wental water we need.” Jess nodded to his sister. “Tasia, you can lead the Roamer charge into battle. And, Kotto — ”
The engineer surprised them by shaking his head. “I’m not going along. I already demonstrated that my weapons work, and that’s good enough for me. Mission accomplished. Now I have another project to finish — something just as important, and one that we’ve all been ignoring. You think we’ve got only one enemy at a time?”
Cesca stiffened. “But we have to defeat the faeros.”
“True, but you don’t need me with you to do that. My Klikiss Siren has been ready to test for days, but there were so many distractions . . . If the Siren turns out to be effective, we could get rid of the whole Klikiss threat.”
That was all Tasia had to hear. “In that case, you need my help, Kotto. I’ve got more than my share of experience with those damned bugs, and a score to settle with them for killing the colonists on Llaro! If you’ve got a weapon, I’ll find you some Klikiss to try it out on.”
Cesca and Jess looked at her with real consternation, but Tasia faced them. “I should be going with you to fight the faeros. Shizz, maybe I should even be back with Robb and Admiral Willis helping to round up lunar fragments. But my Guiding Star tells me this is what I need to do. Trust me, Jess.”
He regarded his sister and let out a long sigh. “You’ve always made up your own mind, Tasia. You ran off to join the Eddies without asking any of us. I can’t stop you now.”
* * *
125
Celli
With great joy Celli looked up between the parted branches of the worldtrees to watch the water bearers return. Their reservoirs were full of restored wental seedpools they had retrieved in their widespread searches, and all of the watery entities had been infused with the anger and fighting spirit promulgated by Jess Tamblyn and Cesca Peroni.
She and Solimar touched the same tree, listening to the verdani sing out their welcome. The canopy rustled as fronds moved aside, granting the Roamer ships room to approach.
Bursting with energy and anxious to be freed, the wentals convinced the newly arrived pilots to open their cargo bay doors while they were still in the sky, letting the energized water spill out. As streams of silvery liquid poured into the open air, the suspended water gathered itself into reflective globules like engorged raindrops that drifted among the towering trees.
Previously, Celli had seen the wentals fuse with damaged worldtrees, a symbiosis that converted them into enormous verdani battleships. But what the wentals were doing now was new to her. Since the gigantic thorny treeships had proved too vulnerable to the faeros, this time, the wentals and verdani would try a different tactic, a way to engulf and contain the fiery elementals, and then trap them back inside their suns.
Celli and Solimar joined other green priests, all of them intuitively understanding what they were supposed to do. Climbing the towering trees, they harvested small treelings that grew in crevices in the gold-scaled bark. They detached the shoots and carried them gently down.
In normal times, emissary priests had planted new groves on distant planets, spreading the sentient trees across the Spiral Arm. These treelings,