The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [218]
Like transparent pearls, the wental-encased treelings streaked ahead to encounter the new wave of fireballs emerging from the suns. Caught up in the flow, the Aquarius was swept along with the bubbles like a leaf in a windstorm. Nikko didn’t know what the innocuous-looking globes intended to do. They looked so tiny compared to the faeros. Nevertheless, he didn’t want to underestimate them.
Closing in on a flaming ellipsoid, the nearest tree-bubble expanded by orders of magnitude, inflating like a huge balloon. Stretching its outer membranes, the water sphere opened and turned inside out. In an instant, like a fish gulping an insect, the bubble entirely englobed the fireball in a filmy prison. From within the bubble, the treeling added strength drawn from the worldforest — trapping the faeros. Though the elemental flame struggled, caught between the water and tree forces, it could not escape.
Before the numerous faeros could alter their courses, hundreds of the small tree-bubbles expanded and swallowed the fireballs, removing them from the battlefield.
“Well, look at that — they’re containing the bastards,” Crim said with a whoop.
The bubbles snared the unsuspecting faeros, scooping them out of space. Within minutes, fully a quarter of the freshly emerged ellipsoids had been captured within the thin liquid walls. When a tree-bubble had encased a fiery entity, it hauled the squirming and helpless faeros back toward the nearest star.
More tiny tree-bubbles flitted back and forth, searching for fireballs to snap up. The flaming elementals withdrew, apparently in a panic, and the small pearly spheres pursued them.
Borne along with the ships of Nikko’s fellow water bearers, the Aquarius raced into the turbulent flare zone around Ildira’s primary star.
“Where do you think we’re going, boy?” Caleb asked.
Nikko shrugged. “We’re following them.”
The first tree-bubbles dragged their captive flames down into the sun’s photosphere. Without hesitation, they plunged into the roiling stellar sea, pulling the trapped faeros with them. One after another, the expanded bubbles dropped like stones into the star, sinking deep until they vanished in the plasma oceans.
His father watched with keen interest. “Looks good so far, but now what are they going to do?”
Nikko had a sense of the answer. “I think they’ll hold the faeros inside the suns and seal the transgates. Those traps will keep the faeros within their stars, just like they bottled the hydrogues inside their planets.”
“I wish they’d just snuff out the damned things,” Caleb muttered.
Crim Tylar still didn’t understand. “Don’t the faeros like living in the suns?”
Nikko had only a tenuous grasp of what the wentals really wanted. “The wentals and the verdani have enough power to imprison them there. They could snuff them, but they need to achieve balance, not destruction. The wentals and the verdani have to neutralize them, not eliminate them.”
Hundreds more tree-bubbles submerged themselves and their captives in the incandescent layers of the bloated sun. Somewhere deep inside, the elementals reached a point where they could seal the transgate in the stellar core, permanently cutting off the flow of emerging faeros.
As the raging fireballs around the star grew more desperate, the wentals inside the Aquarius’s hold seemed ready to pry their way out through the hull plates. Nikko flew directly toward the firestorm.
“What are you doing?” Caleb yelped.
“Can’t you feel it?” Nikko hit the cargo doors and released all the wental water he carried. With an exuberant leap, the spray of elemental liquid spread out in a shimmering curtain. Before the faeros could dodge around the curtain, a second wave of tree-bubbles converged on them from behind, capturing fireballs before they could join the battle at Ildira.
“Now, that’s satisfying,” Nikko said through a wash of adrenaline. Behind him, he saw many of his fellow water bearers doing the same. The innocuous-looking tree-bubbles continued to engulf and remove the faeros. The new synthesis