Kevin Anderson - The Ashes of Worlds

Prime Designate Daro’h, left in charge of the Prism Palace, was forced to flee as the faeros incarnate Rusa’h came for him, demanding to know where the Mage-Imperator was. Osira’h and her siblings used their unique powers to protect the Prime Designate and Yazra’h; they all escaped through water channels beneath the Prism Palace.

Returning from his rescue of the human colonists on Klikiss worlds, Adar Zan’nh found the burned warliners of Tal O’nh’s septa. As soon as O’nh and Designate Ridek’h warned him about the impending holocaust on Ildira, Zan’nh raced off with his ships. When they arrived, the Solar Navy warliners attempted to battle the fireballs, but they had no effective way to combat the living fire. The Adar did, however, rescue Daro’h, Yazra’h, Osira’h, and the other half-breed children. But they needed the leadership of the Mage-Imperator.

On his flagship warliner, Jora’h could sense the horrific events unfolding on Ildira. Through her treeling, Nira received news that the faeros were burning Mijistra, but her contact abruptly ended when the lone treeling in the Prism Palace turned to ash. Desperate to get back, Jora’h ordered his warliners to increase speed — only to run into Admiral Diente’s EDF battleships. Diente fired upon the warliner, damaged its engines, and captured the Mage-Imperator. Despite Jora’h’s urgent pleas about the disaster on Ildira, Diente escorted him and all the Ildiran captives to the EDF base on Earth’s Moon. Chairman Wenceslas came to see the prisoners, pleased at his easy victory, and told the Mage-Imperator that he must remain a “guest” of the Hansa until he abandoned his alliance with the Confederation and denounced King Peter.

The faeros had conquered Ildira, and Rusa’h installed himself in the Prism Palace. Now that he had discovered the telink/thismpathways through his other victims, the faeros incarnate was able to follow them back to the worldforest. Suddenly, green priest converts on Theroc burst into flame. From there, the hungry elemental fire spread to the towering worldtrees. The forest on Theroc began to burn.

1

Admiral Sheila Willis

Ten Mantas and one giant Juggernaut cruised across empty space, leaving Earth behind — possibly forever, as far as Admiral Willis was concerned. Though her ships still bore the markings of the Earth Defense Forces, their crews no longer served the Hansa. No, not after everything they had seen.

Chairman Wenceslas would have called them mutineers.How could anyone not feel bitter about that?

There’d been a time when Willis was young and naive (or perhaps just insufficiently jaded), when she had thought all decisions were clear-cut, all answers black-and-white. She had believed that the good guys were fundamentally different from the bad guys. Well, she’d left that attitude behind on Rhejak when General Lanyan’s brutality had forced her to make a previously unthinkable decision.

By seizing a whole battle group and turning her back on her beloved EDF, she had set wheels in motion — wheels that might well run her over. After dumping Lanyan, Conrad Brindle, and a handful of hard-line loyalists on the outskirts of Earth’s solar system, she was taking her ships to Theroc, to join King Peter and his Confederation.

No matter how many times she tried to rationalize her decision, though, it still felt like desertion. Her brain was simply wired that way. She scanned the people on her bridge for signs of uneasiness. Willis was surprised at just how many of them had volunteered to burn their bridges and join her. Abandoning their homes, friends, families, and possessions was not a decision to make lightly. Obviously, she wasn’t the only one who had smelled something rotten in the Hansa.

The last time she had brought these particular Mantas to Theroc, Willis had been under orders to arrest Peter as an outlaw ruler.

“Approaching destination, Admiral,” said her helmsman.

“Make sure you announce our arrival politely. We don’t want them to pee their pants when all these warships show up.” She took a few moments to adjust her posture, her uniform, her expression. Ready to go meet the new boss.

As soon as the eleven ships entered planetary orbit, however, Willis saw that something was wrong. A flurry of mismatched Roamer ships had been launched into erratic orbits. Cargo craft, fast scouts, lumbering barges all lifted off from the forested continent and raced away from the planet in all directions. Two of the larger Roamer ships nearly collided with each other.

Her young comm officer’s skin turned prominently pink. “Admiral, it’s total pandemonium down there! Frantic distress calls, screams — Theroc is being attacked, but I can’t see how.”

The threatening verdani treeships that circled the lush forested world like a crown of thorns were in trouble. Thrashing their enormous thorny branches, they did not even react to the oncoming EDF war vessels. They were battling some pervasive, unseen enemy.

“Ask how we can assist them,” Willis barked. She looked around for any unexpected threat. perhaps the return of the hydrogues or one of General Lanyan’s vessels. “Get close enough to respond as needed. We’re supposed to be the cavalry here — I’d like to make a great first impression.”

The feedback shrieks coming over the comm system were worse than fingernails scraping across a chalkboard.

Cruising directly in front of them, its boughs twisting and snapping as if in extreme internal pain, one of the thorny tree battleships literally burst into flames. Despite the cold vacuum of space, bright yellow-orange fire cracked out of its core and spread across the branches, devouring the energized wood.

On the high-res surveillance scans of the forests below, Willis saw intense blazes appear, spontaneously igniting and beginning to spread through the dense worldforest. exactly where she knew King Peter had established the Confederation’s headquarters.

2

King Peter

Another worldtree shuddered and then erupted into flames as the faeros possessed its heartwood. With sounds like cannon shots, the malicious fires crackled through the delicate fronds, striving toward the canopy — burning, but not entirely consuming the heartwood.

High up within the fungus-reef city, King Peter shouted for the people to evacuate. The smoke and heat in the air bit the back of his throat. From an opening in the organic walls, he and Estarra saw the flames race greedily up one trunk after another, but none of the living verdani turned to ash. Not yet.

The green priests who remained inside the white-walled tree city clamped hands like vises against their smooth emerald scalps as pain surged through the worldforest mind. The followers of Yarrod and Kolker, who were joined in their tightly bondedthism /telink web, had already suffered most of all.

A male green priest stuttered to a halt, then raised his arms in agony. The priest bent backward and with a wordless wail burst into flames. Other green priests stared at the smear of ash and burning coals that marked where the man had stood. Some wept; others collapsed to their knees.

Queen Estarra tugged her husband’s sleeve as they ran from the shuddering throne room. “Peter, we have to get Reynald and go!” Her beaded braids clicked and bounced behind her head.

In their private rooms, Estarra snatched their baby son from the arms of the Teacher compy OX, who had already gathered him up for the evacuation. Little Reynald was crying from the loud commotion and the smoke from brush fires.

OX was not at all panicked. “Before we hurry to the lift platforms, Queen Estarra, I suggest we soak a blanket with water. I will wrap it around the baby for protection as I carry him.” When Estarra was reluctant to relinquish the child, OX pointed out, “I am physically stronger than either of you, and neither the fire nor the smoke will affect me.”