Copyright © 2007 by WordFire, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
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First eBook Edition: December 2007
ISBN: 978-0-316-02404-4
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
THE STORY SO FAR
1 ORLI COVITZ
2 SIRIX
3 SAREIN
4 KING PETER
5 ADAR ZAN’NH
6 PRIME DESIGNATE DARO’H
7 MARGARET COLICOS
8 ANTON COLICOS
9 SIRIX
10 NIRA
11 SULLIVAN GOLD
12 TASIA TAMBLYN
13 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III
14 ZHETT KELLUM
15 DAVLIN LOTZE
16 GENERAL KURT LANYAN
17 NAHTON
18 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS
19 ORLI COVITZ
20 SIRIX
21 TASIA TAMBLYN
22 KOLKER
23 OSIRA’H
24 ANTON COLICOS
25 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H
26 FAEROS INCARNATE RUSA’H
27 CESCA PERONI
28 KING PETER
29 MARGARET COLICOS
30 SIRIX
31 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS
32 TASIA TAMBLYN
33 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III
34 GENERAL KURT LANYAN
35 ADAR ZAN’NH
36 NAHTON
37 DAVLIN LOTZE
38 ANTON COLICOS
40 SAREIN
41 QUEEN ESTARRA
42 GENERAL KURT LANYAN
43 RLINDA KETT
44 SAREIN
45 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H
46 FAEROS INCARNATE RUSA’H
47 CESCA PERONI
48 ORLI COVITZ
49 GENERAL KURT LANYAN
50 SIRIX
51 ANTON COLICOS
52 KOLKER
53 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III
54 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS
55 GENERAL KURT LANYAN
56 HUD STEINMAN
57 KING PETER
58 SIRIX
59 ORLI COVITZ
60 ADAR ZAN’NH
61 ANTON COLICOS
62 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III
63 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS
64 SAREIN
65 QUEEN ESTARRA
66 MARGARET COLICOS
67 HUD STEINMAN
68 CELLI
69 KOLKER
70 GENERAL KURT LANYAN
71 ROBERTO CLARIN
72 SIRIX
73 TASIA TAMBLYN
74 RLINDA KETT
75 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS
76 DAVLIN LOTZE
77 KING PETER
78 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III
79 TASIA TAMBLYN
80 DAVLIN LOTZE
81 JESS TAMBLYN
82 DENN PERONI
83 SULLIVAN GOLD
84 SIRIX
85 ORLI COVITZ
86 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H
87 HYRILLKA DESIGNATE RIDEK’H
88 ADAR ZAN’NH
89 SIRIX
90 ORLI COVITZ
91 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS
92 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III
93 CELLI
94 JESS TAMBLYN
95 DAVLIN LOTZE
96 ROBERTO CLARIN
97 RLINDA KETT
98 SULLIVAN GOLD
99 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS
100 MARGARET COLICOS
101 TASIA TAMBLYN
102 JESS TAMBLYN
103 SIRIX
104 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H
105 KING PETER
106 DEPUTY CHAIRMAN ELDRED CAIN
107 ANTON COLICOS
108 TASIA TAMBLYN
109 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS
110 GENERAL KURT LANYAN
111 ORLI COVITZ
112 PRIME DESIGNATE DARO’H
113 HYRILLKA DESIGNATE RIDEK’H
114 NIRA
115 TASIA TAMBLYN
116 DENN PERONI
117 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H
118 DEPUTY CHAIRMAN ELDRED CAIN
119 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS
120 TASIA TAMBLYN
121 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS
122 CESCA PERONI
123 ADAR ZAN’NH
124 KOLKER
125 ORLI COVITZ
126 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS
127 PRIME DESIGNATE DARO’H
128 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H
129 MARGARET COLICOS
130 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS
131 DAVLIN LOTZE
132 ADAR ZAN’NH
133 NIKKO CHAN TYLAR
134 DAVLIN LOTZE
135 YAZRA’H
136 TASIA TAMBLYN
137 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III
139 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS
140 CELLI
141 KING PETER
142 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS
143 DAVLIN LOTZE
144 JESS TAMBLYN
145 FAEROS INCARNATE RUSA’H
146 CELLI
GLOSSARY OF CHARACTERS AND TERMINOLOGY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
BOOKS BY KEVIN J. ANDERSON
The Saga of Seven Suns
Hidden Empire
A Forest of Stars
Horizon Storms
Scattered Suns
Of Fire and Night
Metal Swarm
Available from Wildstorm/DC Comics
Veiled Alliances (graphic novel)
To TIM JONES
Who has taken me on countless real-life adventures to keep my imagination stoked for creating fictional ones
THE STORY SO FAR
Eight years of war against the alien hydrogues destroyed planets and suns and wiped out entire populations, both on human-settled worlds and on splinter colonies from the Ildiran Empire.
Instead of uniting the factions of humanity against a common enemy, however, the stresses of war created internal struggles. Hopelessly outmatched against the hydrogues, the Terran Hanseatic League (Hansa) turned against an enemy they knew they could defeat, the scattered Roamer clans, declaring them outlaws for refusing to supply ekti, the stardrive fuel. The Roamers had good reason to break off commerce with Earth after discovering that the Earth Defense Forces (EDF) had destroyed a Roamer cargo ship flown by Raven Kamarov. Nevertheless, the EDF hunted down and destroyed Roamer settlements, even their center of government itself, Rendezvous. The EDF detained many prisoners of war from this conflict at the colony on Llaro, a planet abandoned by the long-vanished race of the Klikiss.
While the scattered clans tried to forge a new government, Roamers found a group of black Klikiss robots frozen on Jonah 12, where Cesca Peroni, the Speaker for the Roamer clans, had gone into hiding. Many enclaves of these robots had been awakened around the Spiral Arm, and the machines went on a rampage, destroying the Jonah 12 facility. Cesca was rescued by the young pilot Nikko Chan Tylar, but the robots shot their ship down, and Cesca was critically wounded in the crash.
The Klikiss robots, led by Sirix, had been mysterious fixtures for years, claiming not to remember their origin. All the while, they plotted to eradicate humanity, just as they claimed to have exterminated the original Klikiss race. After turning against xeno-archaeologists Margaret and Louis Colicos in the ruins on Rheindic Co, the robots killed Louis, but Margaret escaped, vanishing through a reactivated Klikiss transportal. Sirix also kidnapped the Friendly compy DD and tried to convert him to the robots’ cause. Expl
aining that humans were evil for enslaving their compies, Sirix “freed” DD from his programming restrictions. Instead of being grateful, DD used his newfound freedom to escape. He vanished through another Klikiss transportal, going in search of lost Margaret. Sirix and his robots, meanwhile, continued their sneak attacks on human colonies, including an old Klikiss world called Corribus.
The only survivors on Corribus were the girl Orli Covitz and the hermit Hud Steinman, rescued by the trader Branson “BeBob” Roberts; they were eventually delivered to a new home on Llaro. After bringing them back to Earth, however, BeBob was arrested by EDF commander General Lanyan on old charges of desertion. Despite the best efforts of his ex-wife, Rlinda Kett, BeBob was sentenced to be executed. Rlinda and former Hansa spy Davlin Lotze saved him. During the escape, BeBob’s ship was destroyed, and Davlin faked his own death so that he could quietly retire. Rlinda and BeBob fled in her ship only to be captured by the Tamblyn brothers, Roamer water miners on the ice moon of Plumas.
Jess Tamblyn had left Plumas to continue spreading and reawakening the wentals, watery elemental beings that had saved his life by charging his body with energy. Although this had endowed Jess with incredible powers, he could no longer touch another human being. Long ago, his mother, Karla Tamblyn, had fallen into an icy crevasse on Plumas, and her body had never been recovered. Jess located her deep in the ice and retrieved her frozen form, bringing it to the water mines. In the process, some of his wental energy seeped into her dead flesh. Before Jess could thaw her, he received the desperate message that his beloved Cesca Peroni had crashed on Jonah 12 after the robot attack and was in critical condition. Jess raced off to rescue her.
He arrived just in time. Nikko was alive but helpless, and Cesca was dying. Jess carried them away in his wental ship, begging the water elementals to save Cesca. Though reluctant, the wentals agreed, and in their primordial oceans on Charybdis they altered Cesca, healed her, and made her like Jess. When the two returned to the Plumas water mines, they discovered that Karla Tamblyn, possessed by a tainted wental, had come alive and gone on a rampage in the underground facility. Rlinda Kett and BeBob had barely escaped Plumas in the Voracious Curiosity, but the Tamblyn brothers were trapped, with no way to fight the demonic woman. Jess and Cesca needed all of their elemental strength to defeat the tainted wental.
Jess’s sister, Tasia, who had left her Roamer family to join the EDF and fight in the war, was captured by hydrogues and imprisoned in a bizarre cell deep within a gas giant. There she encountered several other human captives—including her friend Robb Brindle, who had disappeared five years earlier. Tasia and her fellow prisoners were tormented by hydrogues and their sinister allies, the black Klikiss robots.
Pretending to cooperate with the Hansa, the black robots had covertly included special programming in thousands of Soldier compies that were manufactured to assist in the war effort. When the time was right, Sirix triggered that programming, and the computer virus caused Soldier compies to rise up all across the Spiral Arm. On ship after ship throughout the EDF, they turned on the human crews, slaughtering them and stealing Earth’s battleships. At the compy-manufacturing center on Earth, Soldier compies boiled out in an attempt to take over the city, and the desperate Hansa Chairman, Basil Wenceslas, had no choice but to call in an air strike to wipe out the factory and all human soldiers fighting in the vicinity. Expecting a public outcry, the Chairman conveniently let the figurehead King Peter take the blame for the tough decision.
Peter had spent years resisting Basil, going head-to-head with the Chairman on his bad decisions. For more than a year, Peter had expressed concerns about the Klikiss-programmed Soldier compies, but Basil had severely reprimanded him for voicing his objections. After the revolt, Peter’s foresight was obvious to everyone—and Basil Wenceslas hated to be wrong. As the Chairman’s decisions continued to spiral out of control, Peter and Queen Estarra found unlikely allies in Deputy Chairman Eldred Cain, Basil’s heir apparent; Estarra’s sister Sarein, who had been Basil’s lover but was now afraid of him; the loyal Teacher compy OX, who had been Peter’s instructor; and Captain McCammon, head of the royal guard.
Upon learning that Queen Estarra was pregnant, Basil commanded her to have an abortion, because he did not want his plans complicated by a baby at this crucial time. When Estarra and Peter refused, Basil accelerated his plot to get rid of them. He even brought out a replacement, bratty Prince Daniel, who made no secret of the fact that Peter and Estarra would “retire” soon. The King and Queen knew they had to escape before Basil killed them.
After the hydrogue depredations worsened and the Soldier compy revolt stole the majority of the EDF fleet in only a few days, the Chairman saw that Earth was terribly vulnerable. Having already cut off contact with many Hansa colonies because of a shortage of stardrive fuel, he now abandoned every remaining world to concentrate his defenses on Earth. Ignoring the protests of the orphaned colonies, he summoned all functional vessels and placed them into service to protect the Hansa.
Patrick Fitzpatrick III, grandson of former Chairman Maureen Fitzpatrick, was called back to active duty. He began as a spoiled recruit and became General Lanyan’s protégé; following the General’s orders, he himself had shot down Raven Kamarov’s cargo ship. After the disastrous battle of Osquivel against the hydrogues, however, he was rescued by Roamers. He and other EDF survivors were not allowed to leave Del Kellum’s shipyards in the rings of Osquivel because of the information they could reveal about the Roamers. During that time, Patrick gained a new respect for the Roamers and fell in love with Kellum’s daughter, Zhett. But duty required him to help his comrades escape. Though he acted as an intermediary with the EDF and allowed the Roamers to get away, Zhett resented him for betraying her and her clan. Later, as Patrick recovered on Earth, he urged his grandmother and others to make peace with the Roamers. When the EDF demanded that Patrick join in the defense of Earth again, he stole his grandmother’s space yacht and flew off in search of Zhett.
The people of Theroc and their green priests also resented the tactics of Chairman Wenceslas, yet the great worldforest mind—speaking through the wooden golem of Beneto—insisted that the conflict was vaster than human politics. The verdani had barely survived an ancient war against the hydrogues, and now the worldtrees had to fight once more, forming an age-old alliance with the wentals.
Jess Tamblyn, impregnated with wental energy, came to Theroc and allowed elemental water to combine with the worldtrees to create huge verdani battleships. After joining with the Beneto golem and other green priest volunteers, the living trees uprooted themselves and flew into space to join the battle. The wentals would also strike directly at the hydrogues, provided they could be delivered to gas-giant planets. The Roamers brought a large conglomeration of ships to Charybdis and other wental worlds, filled their vessels with the potent water, and launched to hydrogue-infested worlds.
Facing the same terrible war, Mage-Imperator Jora’h prepared to defend the Ildiran Empire. Generations ago, Ildirans had begun a sinister breeding program on Dobro to create a telepathic savior who could form a bridge between Ildirans and hydrogues. Even Jora’h did not know the part he played in these schemes until it was much too late. His green priest lover, Nira, already pregnant with his daughter, had been whisked away to Dobro by Designate Udru’h as a breeding slave. There, over the years, she had given birth to five half-breed children, all with the potential to save Ildira. The Mage-Imperator dispatched his daughter, Osira’h, to communicate with the hydrogues. Although she brought the deep-core aliens to Ildira, the hydrogues were not interested in peace. Rather, they issued a terrible ultimatum: Jora’h must betray humans and help destroy Earth, or the hydrogues would wipe out the Ildiran Empire.
After Nira and other human breeding subjects revolted on Dobro and overthrew Designate Udru’h, Nira was finally returned to Ildira, leaving the splinter colony with Jora’h’s son Daro’h. Back in the Prism Palace, Nira met the historian and scholar Anton Colic
os (son of Margaret Colicos) and a group of Hansa cloud harvesters led by Sullivan Gold. Sullivan’s people, including the engineer Tabitha Huck and the forlorn green priest Kolker, had rescued many Ildirans after a hydrogue attack, but the Mage-Imperator had not let them leave for fear they would report his secret agreement with the hydrogues.
Jora’h did not accept the treachery easily. He quietly called his greatest experts to devise a way to fight back, also enlisting the reluctant aid of his human captives. Sullivan and Tabitha, though resenting their situation, worked to improve the Solar Navy.
Nira, meanwhile, was finally able to communicate with other green priests and explain what had happened to her in the breeding camps. Kolker, also cut off from the worldforest, had formed a friendship with the old lens kithman Tery’l, who explained how all Ildirans are linked through thism. Later, even after he reconnected with other green priests, Kolker felt that something important was missing. On his deathbed, old Tery’l gave Kolker a prismatic medallion and told him to continue his quest for enlightenment.
To enforce their ultimatum, the hydrogues sent diamond warglobes to stand sentinel over various Ildiran planets, ready to attack should Jora’h betray them. A cluster of hydrogue warglobes arrived at Hyrillka, the recent site of a ruinous civil war. Hyrillka was being rebuilt by the new Designate Ridek’h, a young and unprepared boy, mentored by the one-eyed veteran Tal O’nh. The threatening hydrogues, however, were unexpectedly destroyed by a force of fiery elemental beings, the faeros.
The ever-spreading war ignited a hydrogue-faeros conflict, and the faeros were systematically being attacked inside their own suns. After the warglobes were destroyed at Hyrillka, a huge clash took place in Hyrillka’s primary sun. When the star itself began to die, Designate Ridek’h and Tal O’nh knew that the planet was doomed. They launched a full-scale evacuation. But after most of the people were gone, the faeros abruptly changed their tactics and rallied from inside their star, overwhelming the hydrogues. Faeros began to appear at a great many systems, battling hydrogues.
The Roamers—led by Cesca Peroni—launched an all-out offensive, unleashing the water elementals against the hydrogues by dropping tankloads of wental water into gas giants. Battles raged in the cloudy depths, and the wentals eradicated warglobe after warglobe. Through Robb’s father, Conrad Brindle, Jess Tamblyn had learned that his sister, Tasia, was being held captive by the hydrogues. Jess fought the hydrogues, rescued Tasia, Robb, and the other prisoners, then raced away with the warglobes and Klikiss robots in hot pursuit. When Jess finally reached the edge of the atmosphere, several enormous verdani treeships and Conrad Brindle were there to assist them. They escaped.