Horizon Storms (51 page)

Or was her Roamer heritage enough in itself to make them doubt her, even after so many years of service? Though no one would tell her what was going on, she feared the EDF meant to do something to the Roamer clans. Something terrible.

865ROBERTO CLARIN

At Hurricane Depot, enormous mountains of orbiting stone circled overhead like the hands of a clock. In his private office in the north polar dome, Roberto Clarin reclined in his chair, looking up at the transparent sky. Every hour the mountains passed overhead in an endless parade.

When the original gas cloud had coalesced into the Couarnir star system, no habitable worlds had formed. In the liquid-water zone, scraps of leftover material had pulled together into two large chunks of rock that orbited around a mutual center of gravity, as if a stillborn planet had broken in half. The two components shared a thin, wispy atmosphere, and at the exact center of the rotating body was a stable Lagrange point—a perfect

sheltered spot, simultaneously protected and threatened by the obstacle course of debris.

Roamers had used material mined from the orbiting pair of bodies to build a central depot and fuel-transfer station sitting in the eye of the storm. Ships came in from above or below, threading a course through the safe polar zone of the two rotating planetary components.

Like an old Arabian bazaar at a caravan crossroads, Hurricane Depot had become a popular place where ekti cargo escorts could drop off their fuel for efficient distribution to other settlements. Roamer traders lived and worked there, and many more passed through. Metals, fuel, food, fabrics, and even Hansa merchandise were brought here for sale or trade. Two or three ships arrived every day, and their captains and crews shopped, haggled, or bartered their shipments for necessary or desirable materials.

Roberto Clarin was a dark-haired, loud-voiced man who insisted on sampling all the exotic foods that came through his station—his stomach’s equivalent of a tariff. Under his leadership, Hurricane Depot had thrived at first, though now with the hydrogue ultimatum against skymining and the trade embargo with the Big Goose, the station often looked like a ghost town.

His brother Eldon, a talented engineer, had helped design Hurricane Depot. For a while, the two men had been partners, but Eldon was an inept businessman who didn’t understand how merchandising and trade worked, though Roberto had tried to explain the simplest economic concepts over and over again. Eldon could comprehend esoteric physical calculations, stressors and flexors, material strengths, load paths, and energy-process trains, but simple financial calculations were a foreign language to him.

Eventually, frustrated and disappointed with each other, Eldon and Roberto had parted company. Roberto had taken Hurricane Depot to great success, and Eldon had designed new ekti-processing reactors for Berndt Okiah’s skymine. And there, the hydrogues had killed him. . . .

Today, according to the projected schedule, Nikko Chan Tylar was due to arrive, but the young man was usually late because he got easily distracted along the way. Roberto kept a landing bay open for Tylar’s ship, but he didn’t count on using it anytime soon.

The next group of ships that arrived, however, was not at all what 320

Roberto expected. As soon as he saw the full-scale EDF battle fleet, his astounded reaction was similar to what his brother must have felt when the hydrogues rose up to destroy the Erphano skymine.

The large Juggernauts kept themselves safely outside the orbiting rocks, but scout ships, minesweepers, and Thunderhead weapons platforms blundered into the danger zone, using their weapons to blast away debris and clear a wider channel so that the Mantas could descend to the central depot.

Knowing what the Eddies had already done to Raven Kamarov’s ship, Roberto instantly realized they were after more of the Roamers’ hard-won ekti stockpiles. Damned pirates! “I guess picking on single ships is no longer good enough for you. Whetted your appetite for more, did it?”

He triggered evacuation alarms throughout the main station and sent warnings to any incoming Roamer craft. Cargo ship captains raced to their vessels. Within minutes, three spacecraft had already launched, dispersing quickly. Roberto was grateful to see them get away.

General Lanyan, the head of the Eddies, sent a smug transmission.

“This facility is currently under Hansa interdiction, by order of Chairman Wenceslas. All matériel, resources, and privately owned vessels are hereby confiscated in the name of King Peter for use by the Earth Defense Forces.”

Opening the communications channel himself, Roberto stood from his seat, suddenly self-conscious that he wore sloppy, casual clothes, and that his belly made him appear less than imposing compared with the EDF

commander. “General, it doesn’t matter whose name you invoke—your King and your Chairman have neither jurisdiction nor authority here. The Roamer clans never signed the Hansa Charter. This depot is a privately owned facility, and you have no right to lay siege to it or confiscate our possessions.”

Despite his bluster, Roberto knew that with all those battleships, the General could simply swarm in and take whatever he wanted. Roamer security depended on camouflage and secrecy, but they had no real defenses.

Now that the EDF had discovered Hurricane Depot, the Roamers were all just cornered rabbits.

The General scolded him. “Our war against the hydrogues gives us the justification to take vital war supplies. According to some broader defini-

tions, you scum are part of the human race, too. You should be ashamed of yourselves for not doing your duty.”

“Because you provide such shining examples of Hansa decency? You’re nothing more than thieves.”

On the image screen, Lanyan gave him a cold smile. “Thieves are motivated primarily by greed. We, however, have a legitimate claim on these resources, and the law is on our side.”

“The law? Whose law?”

“The treaties your ancestors signed when they departed on the Kanaka.” Lanyan cited chapter and verse, explaining the terms accepted by the forefathers of the Roamer clans. “You are still bound by those agreements. Therefore, we are impounding your stored stardrive fuel and taking your cargo escorts and other spacefaring vessels that we can turn to military use.”

Manta cruisers pulled up against the large station. Lanyan continued:

“I advise you to allow us access to the docking ports. If we don’t receive your cooperation, we’ll use our jazers to open this place like an aluminum can, and then we’ll take whatever floats out.”

Roberto swallowed hard. Without a doubt, Lanyan meant his threat.

He signaled to his docking bay crew. “Disarm all hatches. Let the thugs in.”

Another delivery ship streaked away, trying to escape, but patrol Remoras swept in and surrounded it, fired enough blasts to cripple its engines, then attached grappling beams. The captain of the delivery ship shot his weapons, but it was a useless gesture. Within moments the Eddies had taken over the ship and arrested its crew.

Roberto groaned. The Mantas had already docked, and uniformed Eddy soldiers had begun to flood into the facility, accompanied by imposing Soldier compies. Overhead, the second half of the planetoid orbited, casting its shadow onto the observation dome. He heard bootsteps marching down the corridors; the EDF had already found the control center.

Within moments, General Lanyan himself stood at the doorway. “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it needs to be.”

322

On time at Hurricane Depot...well, at least within an hour. That was a record, as far as Nikko was concerned. He had already delivered wental water to two uninhabited planets and now felt exhilarated at having done such a good job. He looked forward to relaxing for a night in guest quarters and eating good food in the cafés, exotic recipes cooked by families that remembered their ethnic heritage from Earth.

He’d been to Hurricane Depot dozens of times, usually piloting a cargo escort for ekti tanks or ferrying food from the Chan greenhouse domes.

Nikko did better when he could see his destination and fly by the seat of his pants rather than relying on complex navigational systems. By now he knew the approach through the rocky obstacle course like the back of his hand.

This time, as Aquarius approached the orbiting planetoids, he saw two EDF Juggernauts circling the outer perimeter beyond the binary rocks. The Eddy ships had blasted away much of the boundary field to clear a safe path; dust and rubble drifted in unpredictable orbits, heated and accelerated by numerous explosions.

Three clan cargo ships streaked away, pursued by fast Remoras. The clans had modified many of their craft with “sprint” engines for superior acceleration, and now the fleeing ships scattered in all directions, faster than the infringing military vessels could follow.

“Shizz, what the hell is going on here?” He reached for the comm system to call Hurricane Depot’s control center, but realized it might be smart to keep quiet. The Aquarius was a small ship coming in on a high polar vector; he was sure the EDF hadn’t seen him yet.

Nikko intercepted a warning broadcast. “This is Roberto Clarin. The EDF has seized control of Hurricane Depot! They’re confiscating all our supplies. No doubt they’ll kill everyone here.” The message was a standard EM signal, blasted out into space. It would take years to reach the nearest inhabited system, but incoming Roamer vessels—like Nikko’s—might also intercept it.

He sat in his cockpit white-knuckled and angry, not knowing what he could do. The stored vials of powerful wentals in the Aquarius thrummed and vibrated with questions and concerned curiosity. He growled aloud,

“Remember what I told you about our stupid reasons for wars? You’re witnessing one of them here.”

Below him, EDF workers efficiently stripped Hurricane Depot of all food crates, all ekti tanks, all cargo, all personal possessions. Nikko eavesdropped on conversations transmitted over the EDF frequencies. The Eddies were joking and sneering, amused at the Roamers’ attempts at resistance. “They’re robbing us blind!”

As he watched in horror, Nikko felt the wentals’ deep disquiet. It is like a hydrogue attack . . . only these soldiers have betrayed their own people.

All the inhabitants of Hurricane Depot were being taken into custody and loaded aboard Manta cruisers. The station chief Roberto Clarin had apparently been seized as a prisoner of war, though no formal war had been declared. Nikko feared that the military would simply make all those people from Hurricane Depot “disappear.”

“Clear everyone off the station,” General Lanyan’s voice transmitted.

“Take your time and do a thorough job. The Chairman wants no casualties, if at all possible. He believes it will help us secure better capitulation terms from the Roamer clans.”

“Capitulation?” Nikko growled to himself. “To those pillaging barbar-ians?” From the Aquarius, he recorded files and files of detailed eyewitness images to prove the EDF involvement. But it would be no surprise to the clans, not since he’d found the wreckage of Kamarov’s ship.

“I’ve got to get a warning back to Rendezvous,” he said, anxious to depart but unwilling to leave until the whole operation was over. He kept his engines primed for sudden high acceleration, in case he needed to run.

We can transmit the message, the water entity said. All wental-bearing ships will know what has happened here. They can spread the word swiftly among the Roamers.

Nikko looked at the shimmering containers he kept near him on the piloting deck. “You can communicate with each other faster than I can send a signal?”

We are all basically the same entity. What one of us knows, all wentals know.

Nikko gasped. “Like telink through the worldtrees!”

324

The verdani are similar to the wentals. That is why we were allies in the ancient war.

Within an hour, most of the EDF battleships packed up and departed from the gravitationally stable island between the orbiting planetoids. The Mantas took their spoils of war and accompanied the guardian Juggernauts, threading their way out of the debris zone. On the fringe of the system, they kept station and waited.

But two cruisers remained behind, still attached to the now-abandoned depot facility. The cruisers fired up their engines and used heavy acceleration to push the delicately balanced station away from its stable point.

Then the Mantas disengaged from the docking rings and pulled back as the enormous habitat cluster continued to move.

The depot’s position had always been relatively precarious, located accurately between the poles of the two orbiting mountains. Now the added boost from the Mantas’ powerful engines tipped it from the saddle point.

Like a ball gradually rolling off the top of a hill, Hurricane Depot tumbled and began to pick up speed as it fell out of gravitational equilibrium.

“I can’t believe this,” Nikko said. The Aquarius continued to take a full sequence of images. “I simply cannot accept what my eyes are showing me!”

Hurricane Depot drifted away. Already it was being battered by a can-nonade of outlier rocks and ice. Nikko used his ship’s observation scopes to obtain higher resolution. A large meteoroid smashed through one of the cargo hulls, ripping open a gaping hole. Other debris continued to pummel, dent, and smash the tumbling station—and still it kept moving, falling toward the nearest of the tide-locked orbiting planetoids. Venting atmosphere gave the facility an added nudge.

When Hurricane Depot finally collided with the hurtling mountain, it was like a helpless rodent run down by a speeding vehicle. In an instant, it was over.

The rough-edged planetoid slammed into the habitat complex and flattened it into scrap metal, plumes of escaping air, and flickers of fire, as wisps of stored fuel ignited and battery packs exploded. Shrapnel splashed outward, spraying a slow-motion fantail of cluttered flotsam.