Kevin Anderson - The Ashes of Worlds

Before he could regain his balance, Jess and Cesca threw themselves upon the faeros incarnate, entwining him in smothering blankets of mist. Jess drained his inner reservoirs dry, spending the last of the wental power that had saved him from the hydrogues so long ago in one final surge. Beside him and connected to him, Cesca did the same.

The flames inside Rusa’h were finally quenched. Extinguished from within, the faeros incarnate collapsed.

Coughing and choking, barely able to breathe through the boiling clouds of steam, Jess and Cesca staggered away to drop to their knees near the Ildirans.

Nira set down her treeling and rushed to them. Before Jess could think to warn her away, the green priest touched him, held him. Jess automatically cringed as she helped him to his feet. He looked at the unharmed green priest in amazement. “I don’t understand. My touch should have killed you.”

Cesca stared at her hands in wonder and drew a breath. “Feel it, Jess. They’re gone. The wentals are no longer inside!”

Jess realized that his own skin seemed exactly as it once had been. He had almost forgotten the sensation of beingnormal. “We must have burned them out — used them up.” Jess turned around in amazement. “We’re human again. And we survived!” Joy welled up within him, mingling with sadness and admiration for the water elementals that had sacrificed themselves.

“We defeated the faeros,” Cesca said quietly. “That’s what matters. That’s what the wentals wanted.” They looked up and saw the remaining fireballs flitting away aimlessly, to be scooped up and whisked away by several tree-bubbles that dragged them to the nearby suns.

Jess smiled, feeling immensely relieved.

They heard a sound nearby. Steam still rose, scattered by churning thermal currents in the air. When the hot mist finally cleared, they saw the former faeros incarnate on his knees, wholly defeated. The fiery elementals had been purged from his system, and now he huddled there naked and weak, a mere shadow of himself.

Sobbing, Rusa’h turned his face up to the Mage-Imperator.

158

Deputy Chairman Eldred Cain

By the sharklike expression on the Chairman’s face, Cain could tell that all humanity had died within him. Basil Wenceslas, who had once been a smooth and talented leader, hard negotiator, and competent administrator, had tumbled headlong down a slippery slope.

OX stood beside the throne, his optical sensors flashing. “Chairman Wenceslas, I must point out that you have no legal basis whatsoever for this order. There is no precedent for your command.”

Cain positioned himself at the stairs leading up to the throne dais, between the Chairman and the King. “Sir, I urge you to reconsider.”

Basil ignored the compy and showed only contempt for his deputy. “You think I don’t know how you and Sarein plotted against me, Cain, subverting my authority at every turn? I’m the only one with vision, the only one who can lead the human race where it needs to go. You are such a disappointment.” He swept his gaze around the sealed room. “All of you — complete failures! Peter, Fitzpatrick — even you, Colonel Andez!”

General Brindle’s response over the communicator interrupted his rant. “Guillotine codes are confirmed, sir. As you ordered.” He sounded stiff and displeased. “The Confederation ships have been shut down, weapons and shields are inactive. Except for the Roamer vessels among them, all are dead in space.” The man’s voice wavered, distorted by static. “I fail to see, however, what you intend to accomplish here. I still need their help to retrieve the escape pods from my wrecked fleet.”

Basil lifted the communicator again. “General Brindle, I issued an order for you to open fire on the Confederation ships. Have you destroyed the enemy fleet yet?”

Peter spoke loudly enough to cut through the Chairman’s words. “General, this is your King. The Chairman has been deposed, and I command you not to listen to him. Queen Estarra is aboard theJupiter.”

“Actually,” Brindle said dryly, “she is in a small trader ship directly off my bow and directly in my line of fire. She and Ambassador Sarein have made quite a compelling case for me to switch my allegiance to the Confederation.”

Basil clutched the communicator and shouted so loudly that flecks of spittle flew out of his mouth. “Are you threatening a mutiny, General? Your entire lifetime of honorable service speaks against it. I gave you an order — ”

Brindle’s response overlapped the Chairman’s words in the brief transmission lag. “I do not believe this attack is warranted. Circumstances have quite plainly changed.”

“I didn’t ask your opinion, General. Destroy the Confederation ships!”

The EDF commander’s turmoil boiled up in his words. “I cannot open fire on a sovereign leader.”

Basil blinked as if he had never expected the General to defy him. “Don’t be ridiculous. The Confederation is not a legitimate government. They are a clear threat to the entire Hansa. Open fire!”

After a hesitation longer than the time lag required, Brindle replied, “I will not.”

His eyes flared, and his voice was like acid. “Your wife currently serves on an EDF base. I have had her watched, and now I will order her to be taken into custody. I never dreamed I would have to use strong-arm tactics to getyou to follow simple commands, General.”

Conrad’s voice was brittle. “And I never dreamed that a real leader would resort to taking innocent hostages or threatening loyal citizens. I have made a grave error in not realizing sooner that King Peter is my true commander-in-chief. I won’t let you use Natalie as a pawn.”

Basil turned as pale as curdled milk. He shouted, “If you do not do as you’re told, I will order you and your bridge crew executed as mutineers!”

Only a crackle of static came from the communicator. The EDF commander had cut off the transmission.

Basil spun to Andez, whose four guards stood close together in the sealed room. They seemed deeply unsettled now that General Brindle had abandoned the Chairman. Several of them seemed ready to throw down their weapons.

Basil, somehow, didn’t see it. “Colonel Andez, it is time to end this. I order Peter’s execution. Shoot him down for usurping King Rory’s throne.”

“He can have the throne!” the boy cried.

“You shut your mouth!”

Foreseeing a threat to Peter, OX immediately placed himself in front of the throne, using his hard polymer-and-metal body as a barricade. “I cannot allow you to harm the King. My programming prevents it. You will have to shoot through me.”

Andez’s hand twitched, but she did not draw her firearm from its holster. Too many of Peter’s guards pointed their weapons toward her; she and her handful of comrades were heavily outnumbered. “But, Mr. Chairman, even the EDF — ”

Basil grabbed her small sidearm from the holster at her hip and stalked toward the throne four steps away, as if he and Peter were the only two people in the room. All of the guards swung their firearms toward him, though Peter had given them orders not to fire.

“Mr. Chairman, drop your weapon! Now!”

Basil completely ignored them, as if they were inconsequential.

Stationed at the base of the dais steps, Cain did not hesitate. As the Chairman strode dismissively past him, he drew the ceremonial dagger that Captain McCammon had so proudly worn. Swinging the knife in a smooth arc, he threw his weight into the blow.

The blade slammed into Chairman Wenceslas’s back, piercing him below his left shoulder blade, slightly to one side of the spine. Cain drove the point between the ribs and directly into Basil’s heart.

The Chairman stopped as if he had walked into a wall. Cain gave the knife an extra thrust.

Everyone froze in shock. Peter pushed away from his throne and sidestepped the guardian compy.