One of the EDF ships suddenly exploded. The eruption took everyone by surprise. Flames and shrapnel hurtled outward in an expanding, roiling ball where the Manta had been.

Robb yelped. “Who opened fire?”

Like a chain reaction, a second Manta erupted in flames, its fuel tanks bursting. A Thunderhead went next, then one of the two newly repaired Juggernauts, the pride of the reconstituted fleet.

Taking his own initiative, theJupiter’s weapons officer shouted, “Targeting main swarmship! They’re firing on us — ”

“Don’t shoot!” Robb hadn’t seen the Klikiss clusters initiate any action at all.

“We have to help them!” Estarra cried.

Sarein looked dismayed. “But I don’t see any weapons fire.”

Another Manta exploded. The comm channels were filled with frantic, angry chatter. In a tumultuous reaction, the EDF battle group scrambled, powering their engines up, pulling their vessels into a defensive formation, ready to open fire.

Robb jumped to his feet, letting the command chair spin behind him. “Sound General Quarters — all alarms! Everybody prepare for attack fromany direction. Dammit, what’s causing those explosions?”

Another Manta cruiser broke apart in a gush of flames. The succession of explosions continued all along the EDF line. Admiral Willis veered her own ship away from the debris.

General Conrad Brindle’s face appeared on the communication screen, yelling at Robb. “What thehell have you done?”

Robb frantically searched for the comm button on theJupiter ’s command chair. Even before he opened a response channel, he was already yelling, “It’s not us! We didn’t do it!”

“You have attacked the Earth Defense Forces. With our backs turned! We trusted you, but Chairman Wenceslas warned me — ”

He cut his father off. “I never gave the order. Check your readouts — we’renot firing.”

Admiral Willis bellowed from the bridge of her Manta. “Mr. Brindle, you’d better have a damned good explanation for this.” Robb couldn’t tell if she was referring to him, or to his father.

Two disabled EDF battleships careened into each other. Explosions burst the hulls and spewed atmosphere. Flames spat through the breaches and ignited fuel vapor in empty space. Four more EDF ships mysteriously exploded. The rest of the ships had no place to run.

After a few seconds he realized that only EDF ships were suffering, not a single Confederation vessel.

It didn’t make any sense. Robb shouted, “I need confirmation! Make absolutely sure none of our ships have opened fire. Were any Confederation jazers or projectiles launched?” He was positive none of his ships would have initiated a strike on the EDF vessels — especially with the Klikiss looming over Earth.

Everyone on theJupiter ’s bridge ran from station to station, calling up data, yelling at one another. Estarra was staring in disbelief at the burning wrecks that drifted away from the defensive line.

The EDF was in ruins. Ships continued to spontaneously explode. Twenty of them, then thirty, then more.

“Every single target was an EDF ship,” the weapons officer said. “Fifty-three destroyed so far.”

Sarein cocked her head to the side. “Could this be sabotage? Could someone have planted explosives aboard?”

“Confirmed,” said the tactical specialist. “The detonations are not the result of weapons fire.”

More ships exploded in a chain reaction. Seventy ships. Eighty-seven. Ninety-two. Escape pods shot like dust motes out into space, but very few soldiers had managed to escape.

“All those people,” Estarra said. “How can we stop it?”

Though theGoliath was unharmed, it could still explode at any moment. The EDF Juggernaut spun and charged toward theJupiter, its jazer banks powering up.

“TheGoliath is coming for us!” the navigator warned.

“Get me a communication link back to my father. I need to talk with him — now!”

Estarra took a place at his side in a show of strength. “I can speak on behalf of the Confederation.”

“Ifhe’ll listen! The Hansa’s been telling him to distrust us for months, and now he must think all that paranoia was warranted.”

“Channel confirmed, sir.”

“Dad, those detonations wereinternal to your ships! Your fleet must have been rigged.” When no more explosions occurred for several minutes, Robb watched the remaining EDF ships warily. They all seemed to be ticking time bombs.

Finally, from a corner of the main screen, Conrad Brindle glowered at him. “Rigged, how? Almost a hundred ships, Robb — two-thirds of my fleet — with full crew complements! This is exactly the sort of thing the Chairman told us to watch out for.” The older man’s face conveyed the extent of the disaster more clearly than any sensor readout could. Distracted, he shouted into a different speaker, “All intact ships, prepare to retrieve escape pods.”

Admiral Willis flew her Manta in beside the Juggernaut, jumping into the conversation. “Check your records, General. I’ll bet my last paycheck that every one of those ships was repaired by the black robots.”

“I give you my word, Dad — it wasn’t us!”

Estarra spoke up. “Please, General, let us help you pick up the survivors.”

Robb could see that his father held his hands on the firing controls of his weapons. Finally, after a long, tense moment, Conrad’s shoulders drooped and he nodded. “We could use the help.” He called out to his tactical officer, “Review the records on those ships. Get to the bottom of this!” The connection cut off.

“You heard the Queen,” Robb said to his helmsman. “Let’s go pick up some escape pods.”

On the main viewscreen, throughout all the fuss, the swarmships hung motionless. They displayed no reaction whatsoever.

149

Tasia Tamblyn

Llaro was a tomb.

With the hard dry ground crunching under her feet, Tasia trudged through the ruins, looking for any signs of life. All the insect hive structures, tunnels, and expanded towers were empty and silent.

Tasia sniffed the air. “Right now, I’m more interested in answers than in the Klikiss themselves. Maybe they vanished again, just like they did thousands of years ago. I just want to make sure they’regone.”

KR and GU followed close on Kotto’s heels, recording data with their optical sensors. DD marched along with clear enthusiasm. “If we find Margaret Colicos, she will explain what happened here.”