Blood of the Cosmos (6 page)

Nira spoke in a quiet, disturbed voice. “Those humans loved Ildiran culture, and they came here to share with you.” Her voice hitched. “It was exactly the type of alliance we wanted.”

The Confederation and the Ildiran Empire had been bound together by common enemies, then connected by common interests. Now, with the reappearance of the Shana Rei, they had a common enemy again.…

Jora'h thought of King Peter and Queen Estarra on Theroc. Yes, Adar Zan'nh and the Solar Navy had helped save the worldforest planet against the Shana Rei … but nothing could make up for what Jora'h had let happen to these innocent humans here.

He squeezed Nira's hand tighter, looking at the churned, bloodstained ground. “I promised them safety, and I failed them.” He raised his chin.

Nira said, “We don't understand what caused the uprising.”

“Just because I don't understand what caused the violence is no excuse. I am the Mage-Imperator. All the strands of
thism
come through me. I am responsible for the actions of my people.”

He shook his head. “My father would have erased the evidence and deleted any mention of it from the historical record. He would never have admitted such a massacre to King Peter.” He shook his head. “But I am not my father.”

Nira gave him a wan smile. “True in so many ways.”

The previous Mage-Imperator had been responsible for countless crimes; one of the worst was what he had done to Nira so many years ago, sending her to that breeding camp on Dobro and forcing her to—

Reaching a decision, the Mage-Imperator turned to his entourage and said abruptly, “Nira and I will go to Theroc. We will reveal to King Peter and Queen Estarra what happened here, so that they understand how insidious the Shana Rei can be. Now, more than ever before, the alliance between Ildirans and humans must be unbreakable.”

Yazra'h rapped her katana against one of the broken old street tiles. “I will accompany you to ensure your safety, Liege.”

Without cracking a smile, Muree'n added, “I will come as well, in case Yazra'h should be found lacking.”

Nira brightened. “Osira'h is also there on Theroc. We thought she would be safe there, but the Shana Rei attacked Theroc as well. I would like her back home with us.”

Jora'h could not argue. “Alas, it is no safer there.”

Yazra'h interjected, “And I will make sure that Rememberer Anton has not gotten himself into trouble. He often needs me.”

Jora'h took one last glance at the construction work. It would take these busy Ildirans only a week or two longer to transform the massacre site. And Jora'h's diplomatic group could bring more fresh worldtree saplings from Theroc.

He turned to the bureaucrats, the noble kith, his various ministers, and said, “Prepare a Solar Navy warliner and a full escort. We will depart for Theroc as soon as possible.”

 

CHAPTER

6

ADAR ZAN'NH

The septa of Solar Navy warliners entered orbit around the industrial planet of Askelor. They flew with maneuvers so coordinated the ships seemed to be joined by invisible bonds. The Ildiran warliners extended angular reflective fins, both for solar-power acquisition and to look intimidating against any foe.

Adar Zan'nh, leader of the entire Solar Navy, stood in the command nucleus, speaking via screen to a sturdy female member of the engineering kith. Bura's was the operations manager of the Askelor industries, which had just been converted for full-scale production of laser cannons and sun bombs, the only weapons so far found to be even minimally effective against the Shana Rei. Weapons from the Askelor industries would be installed aboard every ship in the Solar Navy. Zan'nh hoped it could be done quickly enough.

Bura's said, “The factory conversions are complete, Adar. All resources, facilities, and manpower are now focused on weapons production to produce what the Solar Navy needs. We will not fail.”

Zan'nh nodded. “My tal and I will come down in a cutter for a brief inspection.”

After Bura's ended the transmission, Zan'nh turned to his companion and prot
é
g
é
. Tal Gale'nh was one of Nira's children from the Dobro breeding program, the son of the legendary Ildiran war hero, Adar Kori'nh. Half human and half Ildiran, Gale'nh had demonstrated great skill and had risen rapidly in his Solar Navy career, achieving the rank of tal at a young age.

Now, though, Gale'nh looked physically washed out, a mere wisp of himself. His skin was pale, his hair white, all color
bleached
away by his encounter with the Shana Rei. Adar Zan'nh regretted the ordeal he had inadvertently put the young man through.

It had been meant as a reward. He had granted Gale'nh command of a unique expeditionary ship to explore beyond the brightest stars in the Spiral Arm, but out there in the vast dark spaces, the Shana Rei engulfed the
Kolpraxa
, wiping out the rest of his crew. Gale'nh's exotic halfbreed genetics somehow made him immune to the creatures of darkness, though, and he was the only survivor.

The horrific encounter had nearly destroyed him, but despite his haunted reticence, the young tal possessed a diamond-hard core. He had been the Adar's shining, talented prot
é
g
é
, and Zan'nh would not give up on him. He was determined to save the young man, to heal him and push him and make him whole. More importantly, he was the only person who had survived a direct contact with the Shana Rei. Gale'nh might know things that were buried deep in his mind, strategic things, if he could ever face the dark core of those memories.

Zan'nh stepped up to the other officer. “Accompany me down to Askelor, Tal?”

Gale'nh's voice seemed quiet, but not weak. “I am at your side, Adar.” He still didn't have the self-confidence to command a warliner group again, but that would come. Zan'nh was sure of it.

As the septa of warliners orbited the planet, the two descended in a cutter to the main industrial complex, accompanied by an escort crew. Askelor was small and close to its sun, and the combination of low gravity and high temperatures had caused much of its atmosphere to bleed away. Emerging from the cutter, the inspection party affixed breathing masks to their faces.

A bright wash of sunlight reflected from the pale landscape. Askelor had brackish lakes and lichens that lived in the cracks between rocks, but not much of an ecosystem. It was considered a disposable world, an exploitable world.

Numerous miner kith had excavated deep troughs in a neat grid across mineral-rich plateaus. Industrial facilities produced commodities and machinery that the Empire needed, but less than a month ago—while the Solar Navy reeled from their disastrous battle against the Shana Rei at Plumas—Mage-Imperator Jora'h had commanded that Askelor turn every facility over to producing the new exotic weapons for the Solar Navy.

The air was hot, and industrial fumes stung Zan'nh's eyes. Tal Gale'nh glanced around, drinking in the sunlight and the bustle of manufacturing activity. Operations manager Bura's met them on the landing field and led them to the nearest building, an enormous structure the size of a starship hangar. Vehicles delivered fabricated metal and polymer components from other factories farther down the valley. Lichens were harvested from acres of rocks, then chemically converted into resilient plastics. Smelters processed ores that were shipped in tons at a time.

Bura's led the inspection crew along assembly lines where armies of worker kith manned stations, each assembling the components of the exotic weapons. “This is still the preliminary phase, and our production levels are increasing daily,” she said. “We have already produced thirty fully tested, fully functional laser cannons, and that is just a start. I estimate we will produce sufficient cannons to equip one warliner every two days.” Bura's paused and looked at them. “I never miss my estimates.”

“And what about the sun bombs?” Gale'nh asked.

“They are more complex. We have created twenty-eight more so far, but each one is an individual assembly, creating unique problems. We are still developing a means to mass-produce them. The designs were old.”

Zan'nh stared down the production line. “Nevertheless, we need as many sun bombs as possible. Give that priority. The sun bomb prototypes functioned extremely well in the field. In fact, nothing proved more effective against the Shana Rei in our recent engagements.”

Bura's gave him a grim warning look. “Given their instability, those prototypes could just as easily have malfunctioned and vaporized your warliner. Do not forget that we are effectively bottling the core of a star inside a spherical container.” She straightened, dredged up resolve. “But we will achieve success, I promise you, Adar.”

After he and Gale'nh toured the facilities for two hours, Zan'nh had seen all he needed to. He decided to wait at Askelor while his flagship and the other six ships were refitted with the new weapons. When that was finished, he was eager to take his warliners out on patrol … out on a hunt.

“I want to fight the shadows,” he said to Gale'nh in an angry voice, as they rode up in the cutter again. “But how do you find a shadow in all the emptiness of the universe?”

“They are not even hiding in our universe,” said Gale'nh, sifting through hints in the back of his mind. “The Shana Rei are desperate, I think. They are frightened. That is why they attack.”

The Adar didn't understand. “What can they possibly be frightened of?”

Gale'nh remained silent for a long moment. “I don't know. I cannot find it within me. Yes, I am growing stronger, but I still need to discover my inner Lightsource. I still need to find my bright anchor.”

Adar Zan'nh had never considered himself a mystical man, but he knew about the Lightsource, the dazzling plane of a higher existence that Ildirans could reach beyond the boundaries of death. One breed of Ildirans, the lens kith, tried to comfort lesser kithmen and guide their prayers.

Gale'nh's pale face was full of meaning and questions. “There is a place, Adar—the Hiltos shrine, where the lens kith believe the walls of reality are thinnest, where a common person like me can possibly touch the Lightsource.” He seemed to feel awkward making his request even though he knew Zan'nh would do anything to make him whole again. “I would like to go there, for a time. Maybe I can find a way to be cleansed and strong again. Maybe that way I can be the confident commander that you need me to be in this war.”

Adar Zan'nh did not need time to consider the request. “Of course, Tal Gale'nh. I will leave the other six ships here to be refitted with weapons, but I will take my flagship and escort you to Hiltos myself.”

 

CHAPTER

7

GENERAL NALANI KEAH

Full war footing again after two decades of peace and recovery—it was nothing to brag about. General Nalani Keah found the situation all too familiar. Preparing the military forces to protect against an incomprehensible, seemingly invincible, enemy—that was getting to be damned commonplace.

Keah stood on the bridge of her flagship Juggernaut, the
Kutuzov
, which was more a home to her than anywhere else in the Spiral Arm. She wasn't the sort of military commander who engaged in battles from behind a desk. She preferred to be in the middle of the action, not just reading summary reports after the fact.

Thanks to the quiet years following the Elemental War, military officers like her were becoming more and more rare. It was an unpleasant side effect of peace. With the disastrous and enigmatic threat of the Shana Rei, however, Keah had to either retrain some of those paperwork strategists—such as her thumb-sitter Grid Admirals Harvard, Haroun, and Handies—or she would have to develop a whole new crop of officers on her own. After dealing with bureaucracy and the sluggish momentum of Confederation Defense Forces officers who knew “how things were done,” Keah supposed that creating new heroes from scratch might just be the easier course.…

Around Earth, in the rubble of the destroyed Moon, new CDF warships were being commissioned and built. They ran their shakedown cruises, and as soon as the ships and captains were pronounced adequate, Keah would dispatch them on patrol in search of the shadows. The CDF had to be ready in the event of the next devastating attack—whenever and wherever it might occur.

A full battle group of CDF vessels and Solar Navy warliners had gotten their butts kicked at Plumas, though, and Keah wasn't sure how much good expanded patrols would do in the event of a huge shadow cloud unfolding out of space in front of them. But the Confederation colonists took heart in seeing the show of force, nevertheless. Keah didn't mind showing off.

After a faeros bombardment destroyed the Moon twenty years ago, the rubble had dispersed along the orbital lanes, forming archipelagos of broken rock. Built inside the largest pieces of rubble, the Lunar Orbital Complex, or LOC, had numerous habitat spheres, domed prefab outposts, freestanding space stations, industrial facilities exploiting inclusions of metal, and large repair docks, as well as ship construction yards. Dedicated Roamer work teams put damaged ships back into service while construction work on new Mantas and Juggernauts continued apace. Keah's flagship,
Kutuzov,
drifted among them like a mother hen.

“General,” said Octavio Aragao, her comm officer, “the next scout squadron of five Mantas is ready to depart. The commanders are asking if you want to say a few words.”

“I may as well. I've got the speech memorized by now.” The CDF spacedocks and Roamer construction centers were getting efficient enough that such launches happened daily. Still, the crews liked to have a pep talk from their commander. Though Keah didn't think it was the best use of her time or abilities—any more than going to cocktail parties or diplomatic receptions were—it was a necessary part of the job.