The Ashes of Worlds

Osira’h moved closer to the edge of the open platform and pointed upward. “Look.”

High above the skymine, a single bright shape streaked alone across the sky, like a meteor that did not burn up. Behind it came another crackling ball. and dozens more, like a shower of incandescent sparks.

Jora’h instantly realized what he was seeing. His braid whipped and thrashed of its own volition. “So, Rusa’h has found me after all.”

Nira’s eyes widened. “Did he track one of the warliners? Or did he locate you somehow through thethism?”

Two more flaming ellipsoids streaked past, followed by another dozen. Flashes raced above the upper fringes of Golgen’s sky in a rain of fire.

“Doesn’t matter how — they’rehere,” Kellum said.

The Solar Navy ships abandoned their complex exercises and quickly arranged themselves into genuine battle formations. Alarms began to sound. The skymine’s intercom flooded with an overlapping cacophony of shouts. Kellum ran to the wall and slapped the transmit button. “I’m on my way. Tell Kotto he’s getting a chance to test those wental popsicles.” He turned to Jora’h, his face flushed. “The faeros blew up the whole Moon trying to get to you, Mage-Imperator. I doubt they’ll show any more restraint here.”

Jora’h knew he was right. “No, they will try to destroy everything.”

116

Tasia Tamblyn

The vanguard of fireballs left a roiling wake of hot gases and thermal ripples across Golgen’s sky. Having seen the faeros arrive, some of the skyminers were already evacuating. The flaming ellipsoids streaked after anything that moved.

Inside Kellum’s skymine, Tasia slid down ladders, dodged stored cargo crates and industrial equipment, and raced across the deck to the lower hangar bay where she had left her cargo hauler. She was already kicking herself for not bringing a military-grade vessel with her, just to cover the bases, but she would make do. At least the ship was equipped with the standard new armaments and improved hull plating supplied by the Confederation.

Surrounded by the clamor of alarms, Kotto huffed down to the hangar deck to board the ship. He arrived red-faced and winded, but he was actually smiling! “At last, a chance to test the new wental weapons.”

With a sweep of her arm, Tasia encouraged him to get inside as soon as she extended the ramp. “And they’d better work. We launch in two minutes. No time to waste.”

Orli Covitz and Hud Steinman had followed Kotto from the workroom, where the three of them had been fiddling with the Klikiss Siren. Tasia was anxious to test that device, as well — but it sure as shizz wasn’t going to be today.

“Are we evacuating?” Steinman asked.

Tasia turned. “Not a chance. We’re going to fight those bastards with everything Kotto’s got.”

“You should stay here, Orli,” the old man said, sounding a bit too paternal. “It’ll be safer.”

The teenager rolled her eyes. “What, exactly, is safe about being on a skymine that’s under attack?”

“Good point.”

Kotto looked back into the hangar bay. “Are the compies coming?”

“They’re not very good at running,” Orli said. “I’m sure they’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“We can’t wait,” Tasia shouted over the roar of her engines, which she was already warming up. “Get in, or stay behind. This ship is leaving now.” They all decided to scramble aboard.

When the hatch was sealed, the Confederation cargo hauler streaked away from the skymine, and they instantly found themselves in a fury of faeros, like ricocheting sparks. Steinman and Orli let out astonished gasps as Tasia pulled the ship in a tight corkscrew to evade a gout of fire; Kotto was so busy checking his system status with the ice-projectile launchers that he didn’t seem to notice.

“The wental shells are ready,” he announced. “I rigged a refrigerated magazine and loaded the shells onto this ship and eighteen others. We each have ten projectiles. Let’s see how effective they are.”

“Tenprojectiles each?” Tasia indicated all the blazing ellipsoids. “Don’t you think you underestimated a little?”

He flushed. “Well, it was originally meant for defense, and the faeros usually attack with only a few fireballs at a time. When Speaker Peroni asked me, it seemed a reasonable assumption.”

Hundreds of Solar Navy warliners descended from orbit in a mind-boggling defensive array, led by Tal Ala’nh. Though it was an extremely impressive show of force, Tasia wasn’t certain the warliners were prepared to face the faeros. She switched on the comm. “Stay clear, Solar Navy — we’re going to try out the new projectiles.”

Tal Ala’nh’s gruff voice came over the channel. “We may not have your specialized armaments, but we will fight, not cower behind you.”

“For whatever good that’ll do,” Tasia muttered. As three warliners charged forward in a foolish and suicidal offensive, she sent another communication burst. “Shizz, don’t waste your ships! They’re going to be destroyed.”

The fireballs flared brighter, racing to intercept the ornate vessels. When she contacted Adar Zan’nh in the main force of warliners, however, he did not order the tal to have his ships retreat. The Ildiran commander’s face looked tired and haggard on the small screen in Tasia’s cockpit. “It is what they feel they need to do to protect the Mage-Imperator.”

Exactly as Tasia had predicted, the trio of warliners crashed into the flaming ellipsoids, ineffectually firing their weapons until the moment of their destruction. The exploding Ildiran ships released a shockwave that hammered back into the faeros, disrupting the integrity of those particular fireballs, though they soon reformed into a roiling mass. As far as Tasia could tell, the Ildiran sacrifice accomplished little.

“Our turn,” Orli said.

Tasia aligned the targeting cross on her screen and drove the cargo hauler toward the nearest fireball. Flickering, ragged flames wreathed the oncoming faeros as they grew closer, hotter. “Here goes nothing.” She launched the frozen projectile, subconsciously holding her breath.

The pointed cylinder streaked out and vanished into the heart of the vastly larger fireball. The flames twisted, knotted, and swallowed all trace of the frozen artillery shell.

Kotto seemed embarrassed. “I, uh, expected something a little more. dramatic.”

With an eruption of white steam, a detonation tore apart the fireball’s nucleus, expanding outward in a cold, moist cloud that engulfed and smothered the flames. When the flash dissipated, nothing remained — no faeros, no wental, just an empty clot of superheated air in the sky.

“Nine ice bullets left. and about a million fireballs out there,” Steinman said.

“Dive toward another one!” Orli said. “We’re wasting time.”