“General, keep hitting the bug city. If we can squash the hive mind, we’ll be done here.”

“Look for yourself, Willis. Wehave been bloody well blasting the city!”

“If you want something done right. ” she said with a sigh. Willis transmitted to Tasia in one of the Mantas flying close beside theJupiter, “Commodore Tamblyn, if you would do the honors?” She had not only approved of Robb keeping his flag officer rank, but she had insisted that Tasia accept at least the equivalent rank.

“My pleasure, Admiral.”

HerJupiter cleared a swath through the bugs that were harrying Lanyan’s vessels. The General’s flagship climbed higher in the atmosphere, trying to reach orbit while the surviving EDF ships continued to fire, covering his tail.

Tamblyn grumbled over the comm, “He better not run away before we’re all finished with this job.”

Robb shouted to his father across the comm, “Dad, we’ve got enough firepower to put an end to this. Concentrate your jazers on the center of the hive city below. Do you have any more nukes for surface bombardment?”

The surface of Pym already looked like a moonscape after the flash-melters, nukes, and several rounds of carpet bombing, and now the Confederation ships increased the destruction tenfold. Ignoring individual battles with the broken-apart swarmships, Willis led another Armageddon run over the insect city. “Use all of our penetrators and the full load of strata crumblers. They’ve probably hidden their breedex deep, or we’d have hit it by now.”

They left a holocaust behind them. Every remaining structure was smashed to powder. Shockwaves hammered the entire Pym hive city. The surface itself was halfway molten.

“Damn, that’s got to be enough,” Robb said.

“We’ll know when it’s enough,” Tasia said, “because once we kill the breedex, all those other bugs won’t know which direction to fly.”

Lanyan’s ships kept shooting haphazardly at Klikiss vessels. Though Robb continued to call his father, he received no response. Willis was annoyed that Conrad Brindle wouldn’t reply to his son’s repeated transmissions.

“Let’s give it our biggest, balls-out bombing run.” Willis intentionally used an open transmission line so the EDF ships would hear as well. “General Lanyan, what have you got left? Flashmelters? Thermal-wave warheads? Atomics? Throw down everything but the kitchen sink — that ought to do it.”

“Yes, Admiral.” He sounded strained. “One last round to finish the job. I’ll have theThunder Child follow you in.”

Willis was confident this last bombardment would eradicate one more deadly breedex from the Spiral Arm. Best of all, Lanyan might actually learn a lesson in brotherly cooperation.

The EDF ships followed her on the bombing run, as she’d hoped. The smoking, cratered landscape directly below showed that the insect city had been reduced to complete ruin.

TheJupiterdumped its full load of surface armaments. No sense in being stingy now, she thought. The destruction was absolutely glorious, giving her a childlike thrill. Hot, intense waves scoured the surface, obliterating every last speck of the hive structures below. Behind her, the loaded Confederation ships dropped their weapons, slamming deeper, shattering the crust.

“Nobody’s going to want to settle down there for a long, long time,” Willis said. “Better take Pym off the Colonization Initiative list.”

Three of the EDF Mantas also made a final bombardment, even though it seemed redundant. There was absolutely nothing left on the surface.

“I think that’s a job well done, Admiral Willis,” Lanyan said.

Suddenly, from behind her, theThunder Child and two EDF Mantas began to open fireon her, targeting the Juggernaut’s engines.

“What the hell?” She slammed her fist down on the comm panel. “General, you’re either a bad shot or more boneheaded than I can describe.”

“I am acting on behalf of the Earth Defense Forces. You are deemed as great a threat to human civilization as the Klikiss are. Now that the Pym subhive has been eradicated, I plan on taking care of the second threat.” He called upon theThunder Child to open fire again.

Willis ordered her ships to take evasive action. Disgusted, she did not keep her opinions to herself. “That man has three testicles, and one of them is in place of his brain.” The EDF ships kept firing on her Juggernaut. “Get us out of here. Pym has lost its charm.”

As Lanyan’s ship closed in to fire upon the Confederation vessels, one of the Mantas flew directly between theThunder Child and theJupiter. For a moment Willis thought it was one of her own ships, but then she clearly saw the EDF chain-of-stars logo.

Conrad Brindle spoke over the channel as his Manta took heavy damage by intercepting shots fired by Lanyan’s weapons officers. “Robb, Admiral, you’d best get out of here. You’ve helped us pound the Klikiss, but if you stay any longer this isn’t going to end well.”

Willis glowered down at the smoldering remains of the hive city, then sounded a call for retreat across her battle group. “You heard the man. Pack it up and save your bacon while you can. We’ve done our part here. General Lanyan just never learned how to play well with others.”

82

Tal O’nh

Even without his eyesight, Tal O’nh could sense the mass and geometry of the structures around him — the sounds, the vibrations, thesolidity of the big shipyard complex.

The Solar Navy construction yards had been abandoned since the return of the faeros. When the fireballs had burst out of the dead sun of Durris-B and swarmed to Ildira, construction teams had evacuated the facility. The spacedocks, fabrication lines, administrative hubs, and skeletal frameworks of four incomplete warliners hung together above the planet’s atmosphere. It was a ghost town, a massive junkyard in space.

O’nh knew what to do with it.

Though corrupted by the fiery elementals, Rusa’h still thought like an Ildiran. He still believed, in some distorted way, that he was a guardian of his people. He would not be able to conceive that any Prime Designate could order something so drastic, so unspeakable. No Ildiran could — until now.

Though he had no eyes, the old commander knew the controls by touch. Aided by his few obdurate assistants, he had already activated the main panel, fired the attitude-adjustment rockets, and initiated the descent of the gigantic shipyards. None of them found any need for words; they all knew full well what they were doing.

The complex circled Ildira, losing altitude, touching the outer atmosphere, first with a whisper, then with a roar. The structural girders began to heat up with friction from the sky itself. He imagined it must be generating a bright light.