The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [24]
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13
Admiral Sheila Willis
With hundreds of small EDF craft in her battle group — Remoras, fuel tankers, cargo carriers, troop transports, and survey flyers — Willis was able to mount one hell of a bucket brigade. This wasn’t exactly something she had covered in basic training, but her people called up all their available databases on wildfire-fighting techniques. They would figure it out as they went along.
Using her own landed shuttle in the middle of a clearing as a field command post, she watched her display screens, frowning or cursing as images rolled in from recon flyovers. The Admiral activated the comm system and shouted, “I’d better see water dumping on these trees within the next five minutes, or you’re going to think serving under General Lanyan was a Sunday picnic.”
“On our way, Admiral,” came a crackling voice. “First squadron ETA in four and a half minutes, just under the wire.”
The first Remoras and fuel tankers swooped low, then opened their cargo bays to dump water onto the blazing worldtrees. Smaller ships emptied their reservoirs, releasing water they had scooped from Theroc’s lakes. Steam gushed into the air, rising through the dense forest canopy.
The faeros blazed paradoxically brighter as they drew energy from the worldtrees to fight off the quenching water.
Willis heard a groan, saw Celli and Solimar hunched over their treelings inside the command shuttle, both of them connected through telink. The green priests had come aboard her shuttle to act as intermediaries. Their eyes were squeezed shut, faces drawn in identical grimaces as they fought with all their hearts and minds. Celli hissed in pain and gripped her treeling. She blinked, but didn’t focus on anything around her. Her words sounded hollow. “That hurt them, but not enough. The faeros are ravenous.”
The small ships, now empty, circled back toward the nearest sources of open water. “Second squadron inbound, Admiral.”
“The drenching will be continuous now,” Willis said. “I don’t care how tough these fires are. We’ll stomp them again and again until there’s nothing left but a puff of smoke.”
A second barrage of water hindered the further spread of the fire. The torch trees shuddered and thrashed as if undergoing some kind of internal conflict, an elemental battle that Willis couldn’t understand.
“Four more green priests have died,” Solimar announced. “They were unable to wall themselves off from the trees they were helping through telink.”
“Green priests have spread the alarm across other planets,” Celli said.
“For whatever good that’ll do us now,” Willis said.
“The wentals are also aware,” Celli said. “Jess Tamblyn and Cesca Peroni have arrived at Osquivel. Liona has told them what’s happening here.”
“And what can they do?”
“They can bring the wentals.”
As the third group of EDF water tankers cruised in, the flaming trees tensed, and the fires intensified at the crowns. Celli suddenly screamed, and Solimar reeled backward. The torch trees shot out tendrils of fire that curled upward like solar flares and incinerated two of Willis’s ships before they could dump their loads of water. Another blast of targeted fire raged from the clustered burning trees, vaporizing a large tanker.
Willis shouted into the microphone, “Scramble! Scramble! Evasive action.”
Her crews responded instantly. A thick pillar of fire knocked out another Remora, but the remainder of her ships scattered. Now they were too dispersed to provide a good target for the brute-force blasts; on the other hand, they could no longer drop their water effectively.
“Circle around and stand ready,” Willis growled into the comm. “We must’ve hurt the bastards or they wouldn’t be lashing out like that. You’ll have to dump your water from a greater altitude. It won’t be as accurate, but those flame plumes can reach only so high.”
Most of the EDF pilots responded with anger instead of fear. More and more ships streamed in, released their loads from a great height, and circled back to nearby lakes to refill, relentlessly drenching the worldforest.
Finally, through