The breedex mound writhed through a series of configurations — faces of other human colonists, random Klikiss heads, and then nothing more than a soupy, staticky mass.“Losing segments of my mind. Treachery! Destroy — ”

Basil didn’t know what was happening; apparently, neither did Margaret Colicos. She spoke in a crisp voice. “What trick is this, Mr. Chairman? A new EDF weapon?”

“I’d love to take the credit, Dr. Colicos, but I have no idea what’s happening.”

A shockwave rippled through all of the Klikiss warriors in the breedex chambers, and every insect nearby froze in place. One domate collapsed, falling in front of an arched doorway.

At the center of the chamber, the breedex became a quivering disconnected mass. Even the buried persona of Davlin did not respond.

Throughout the swarmship, and presumably all the other swarmships, the Klikiss had gone catatonic. If someone else — the Confederation? — had developed a weapon, Basil did not want to remain aboard the swarmship. With the monstrous creatures locked in place, he didn’t dare waste this opportunity.

“We’ve got to get out of here while the Klikiss are incapacitated. This meeting is at an end.” He felt hamstrung, not knowing how long the paralysis would last, and he could not guess how the erratic breedex would react if, or when, it regained consciousness. He did not want to be here when it did. “Run.”

Neither Margaret nor Anton argued. They had seen the Davlin personality subsumed. Together, they hurried along the twisting organic corridors, trying to remember the way back to the shuttle. When they finally reached the landing chamber, they found Klikiss warriors standing around the diplomatic ship like nightmarish sculptures. Their armored forelimbs were raised, spiny head-crests tilted back as if ready for attack. They didn’t move.

“Open!” he shouted to the pilot. “Open, dammit!” The hatch slid aside, and he bounded up the ramp.

“Mr. Chairman, you’re alive!” the pilot cried.

“Obviously. Get the engines started.” This strange species paralysis could end at any moment — or, if the Confederation was behind this, Peter could try to blow up the swarmship, and he’d certainly have no scruples about doing it while the Chairman was aboard.

With a lurch that threw the passengers off balance, the shuttle lifted from the slick resin floor, and the pilot guided them away. They accelerated out of the mouthlike cavern and emerged from the core, passing through an atmosphere-containment field and heading toward the closely packed component ships that served as an indistinct external shell. But rather than forming a rigid barrier, the component ships now drifted aimlessly, spreading apart.

Although the small alien vessels provided an overall geometrical shape to the swarmship, they were not physically connected. Gaps between the listless component craft gave the pilot just enough room to squeak between them. Within moments, they were free and flying away from the alien vessel into blessedly open space.

Then Basil spotted the wreckage of his EDF ships. He took in the disaster at a glance: the debris, the dying fires, the twisted ruins of General Brindle’s command. The carnage was appalling.

The Confederation battle group, however, was unharmed.

“Damn you, Peter,” Basil yelled. “Damn you!”

151

Nikko Chan Tylar

We just barely got away from the Klikiss on Llaro, and we scraped past the faeros on Jonah 12,” Crim Tylar muttered. “Now look what you’ve gotten us into, Nikko.”

“Yes. That’s my plan.”

Following the thousands of small tree-bubbles that swept like a deadly hailstorm toward Ildira, theAquarius and the other water-bearer ships plunged into a bizarre battlefield: wental-encased treelings, mist-swathed Solar Navy warliners, and Confederation vessels from Golgen. Nikko felt the exuberance of the warrior wentals singing through the hull, the new determination that Jess and Cesca had poured into them.

Then the firestorm suddenly increased as blazing reinforcements belched out of the nearby suns. Even though a misty wental sheath protected theAquarius from the faeros, he didn’t think there was enough moisture to stop the sheer number of fireballs. But he flew into the fray, nevertheless.

His ship’s hold still held a small reservoir of the energized water taken from Charybdis, and those wentals were restless, eager to join the battle. Some of them had formed themselves into icy projectiles, which Nikko’s father and Caleb loaded into the ship’s gunports.

As soon as they got close enough to the wild fireballs, Caleb launched the frozen artillery shells with great pleasure. While Confederation ships concentrated their attack close to Ildira, the water bearers and the wental-encased treelings fought their own battle, heading off to stop the blazing reinforcements emerging from the suns. Caleb shot his projectiles, annihilating one faeros after another. Unfortunately, he soon ran out of shells.

“Scored a hit every single time, but it doesn’t look like I made a dent,” he said, exasperated. “Can’t we make ice projectiles from the rest of the wental water in the hold?”

“If there’s time. We’re in the thick of things right now.”

Like transparent pearls, the wental-encased treelings streaked ahead to encounter the new wave of fireballs emerging from the suns. Caught up in the flow, theAquarius was swept along with the bubbles like a leaf in a windstorm. Nikko didn’t know what the innocuous-looking globes intended to do. They looked so tiny compared to the faeros. Nevertheless, he didn’t want to underestimate them.

Closing in on a flaming ellipsoid, the nearest tree-bubble expanded by orders of magnitude, inflating like a huge balloon. Stretching its outer membranes, the water sphere opened and turnedinside out. In an instant, like a fish gulping an insect, the bubble entirely englobed the fireball in a filmy prison. From within the bubble, the treeling added strength drawn from the worldforest — trapping the faeros. Though the elemental flame struggled, caught between the water and tree forces, it could not escape.

Before the numerous faeros could alter their courses, hundreds of the small tree-bubbles expanded and swallowed the fireballs, removing them from the battlefield.

“Well, look at that — they’re containing the bastards,” Crim said with a whoop.

The bubbles snared the unsuspecting faeros, scooping them out of space. Within minutes, fully a quarter of the freshly emerged ellipsoids had been captured within the thin liquid walls. When a tree-bubble had encased a fiery entity, it hauled the squirming and helpless faeros back toward the nearest star.

More tiny tree-bubbles flitted back and forth, searching for fireballs to snap up. The flaming elementals withdrew, apparently in a panic, and the small pearly spheres pursued them.