Metal Swarm Read online

  Copyright © 2007 by WordFire, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: December 2007

  ISBN: 978-0-316-02404-4

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  THE STORY SO FAR

  1 ORLI COVITZ

  2 SIRIX

  3 SAREIN

  4 KING PETER

  5 ADAR ZAN’NH

  6 PRIME DESIGNATE DARO’H

  7 MARGARET COLICOS

  8 ANTON COLICOS

  9 SIRIX

  10 NIRA

  11 SULLIVAN GOLD

  12 TASIA TAMBLYN

  13 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III

  14 ZHETT KELLUM

  15 DAVLIN LOTZE

  16 GENERAL KURT LANYAN

  17 NAHTON

  18 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS

  19 ORLI COVITZ

  20 SIRIX

  21 TASIA TAMBLYN

  22 KOLKER

  23 OSIRA’H

  24 ANTON COLICOS

  25 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

  26 FAEROS INCARNATE RUSA’H

  27 CESCA PERONI

  28 KING PETER

  29 MARGARET COLICOS

  30 SIRIX

  31 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS

  32 TASIA TAMBLYN

  33 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III

  34 GENERAL KURT LANYAN

  35 ADAR ZAN’NH

  36 NAHTON

  37 DAVLIN LOTZE

  38 ANTON COLICOS

  39 KOLKER

  40 SAREIN

  41 QUEEN ESTARRA

  42 GENERAL KURT LANYAN

  43 RLINDA KETT

  44 SAREIN

  45 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

  46 FAEROS INCARNATE RUSA’H

  47 CESCA PERONI

  48 ORLI COVITZ

  49 GENERAL KURT LANYAN

  50 SIRIX

  51 ANTON COLICOS

  52 KOLKER

  53 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III

  54 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS

  55 GENERAL KURT LANYAN

  56 HUD STEINMAN

  57 KING PETER

  58 SIRIX

  59 ORLI COVITZ

  60 ADAR ZAN’NH

  61 ANTON COLICOS

  62 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III

  63 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS

  64 SAREIN

  65 QUEEN ESTARRA

  66 MARGARET COLICOS

  67 HUD STEINMAN

  68 CELLI

  69 KOLKER

  70 GENERAL KURT LANYAN

  71 ROBERTO CLARIN

  72 SIRIX

  73 TASIA TAMBLYN

  74 RLINDA KETT

  75 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS

  76 DAVLIN LOTZE

  77 KING PETER

  78 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III

  79 TASIA TAMBLYN

  80 DAVLIN LOTZE

  81 JESS TAMBLYN

  82 DENN PERONI

  83 SULLIVAN GOLD

  84 SIRIX

  85 ORLI COVITZ

  86 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

  87 HYRILLKA DESIGNATE RIDEK’H

  88 ADAR ZAN’NH

  89 SIRIX

  90 ORLI COVITZ

  91 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS

  92 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III

  93 CELLI

  94 JESS TAMBLYN

  95 DAVLIN LOTZE

  96 ROBERTO CLARIN

  97 RLINDA KETT

  98 SULLIVAN GOLD

  99 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS

  100 MARGARET COLICOS

  101 TASIA TAMBLYN

  102 JESS TAMBLYN

  103 SIRIX

  104 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

  105 KING PETER

  106 DEPUTY CHAIRMAN ELDRED CAIN

  107 ANTON COLICOS

  108 TASIA TAMBLYN

  109 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS

  110 GENERAL KURT LANYAN

  111 ORLI COVITZ

  112 PRIME DESIGNATE DARO’H

  113 HYRILLKA DESIGNATE RIDEK’H

  114 NIRA

  115 TASIA TAMBLYN

  116 DENN PERONI

  117 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

  118 DEPUTY CHAIRMAN ELDRED CAIN

  119 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS

  120 TASIA TAMBLYN

  121 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS

  122 CESCA PERONI

  123 ADAR ZAN’NH

  124 KOLKER

  125 ORLI COVITZ

  126 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS

  127 PRIME DESIGNATE DARO’H

  128 MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

  129 MARGARET COLICOS

  130 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS

  131 DAVLIN LOTZE

  132 ADAR ZAN’NH

  133 NIKKO CHAN TYLAR

  134 DAVLIN LOTZE

  135 YAZRA’H

  136 TASIA TAMBLYN

  137 PATRICK FITZPATRICK III

  138 SIRIX

  139 ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS

  140 CELLI

  141 KING PETER

  142 CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS

  143 DAVLIN LOTZE

  144 JESS TAMBLYN

  145 FAEROS INCARNATE RUSA’H

  146 CELLI

  GLOSSARY OF CHARACTERS AND TERMINOLOGY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BOOKS BY KEVIN J. ANDERSON

  The Saga of Seven Suns

  Hidden Empire

  A Forest of Stars

  Horizon Storms

  Scattered Suns

  Of Fire and Night

  Metal Swarm

  Available from Wildstorm/DC Comics

  Veiled Alliances (graphic novel)

  To TIM JONES

  Who has taken me on countless real-life adventures to keep my imagination stoked for creating fictional ones

  THE STORY SO FAR

  Eight years of war against the alien hydrogues destroyed planets and suns and wiped out entire populations, both on human-settled worlds and on splinter colonies from the Ildiran Empire.

  Instead of uniting the factions of humanity against a common enemy, however, the stresses of war created internal struggles. Hopelessly outmatched against the hydrogues, the Terran Hanseatic League (Hansa) turned against an enemy they knew they could defeat, the scattered Roamer clans, declaring them outlaws for refusing to supply ekti, the stardrive fuel. The Roamers had good reason to break off commerce with Earth after discovering that the Earth Defense Forces (EDF) had destroyed a Roamer cargo ship flown by Raven Kamarov. Nevertheless, the EDF hunted down and destroyed Roamer settlements, even their center of government itself, Rendezvous. The EDF detained many prisoners of war from this conflict at the colony on Llaro, a planet abandoned by the long-vanished race of the Klikiss.

  While the scattered clans tried to forge a new government, Roamers found a group of black Klikiss robots frozen on Jonah 12, where Cesca Peroni, the Speaker for the Roamer clans, had gone into hiding. Many enclaves of these robots had been awakened around the Spiral Arm, and the machines went on a rampage, destroying the Jonah 12 facility. Cesca was rescued by the young pilot Nikko Chan Tylar, but the robots shot their ship down, and Cesca was critically wounded in the crash.

  The Klikiss robots, led by Sirix, had been mysterious fixtures for years, claiming not to remember their origin. All the while, they plotted to eradicate humanity, just as they claimed to have exterminated the original Klikiss race. After turning against xeno-archaeologists Margaret and Louis Colicos in the ruins on Rheindic Co, the robots killed Louis, but Margaret escaped, vanishing through a reactivated Klikiss transportal. Sirix also kidnapped the Friendly compy DD and tried to convert him to the robots’ cause. Expl
aining that humans were evil for enslaving their compies, Sirix “freed” DD from his programming restrictions. Instead of being grateful, DD used his newfound freedom to escape. He vanished through another Klikiss transportal, going in search of lost Margaret. Sirix and his robots, meanwhile, continued their sneak attacks on human colonies, including an old Klikiss world called Corribus.

  The only survivors on Corribus were the girl Orli Covitz and the hermit Hud Steinman, rescued by the trader Branson “BeBob” Roberts; they were eventually delivered to a new home on Llaro. After bringing them back to Earth, however, BeBob was arrested by EDF commander General Lanyan on old charges of desertion. Despite the best efforts of his ex-wife, Rlinda Kett, BeBob was sentenced to be executed. Rlinda and former Hansa spy Davlin Lotze saved him. During the escape, BeBob’s ship was destroyed, and Davlin faked his own death so that he could quietly retire. Rlinda and BeBob fled in her ship only to be captured by the Tamblyn brothers, Roamer water miners on the ice moon of Plumas.

  Jess Tamblyn had left Plumas to continue spreading and reawakening the wentals, watery elemental beings that had saved his life by charging his body with energy. Although this had endowed Jess with incredible powers, he could no longer touch another human being. Long ago, his mother, Karla Tamblyn, had fallen into an icy crevasse on Plumas, and her body had never been recovered. Jess located her deep in the ice and retrieved her frozen form, bringing it to the water mines. In the process, some of his wental energy seeped into her dead flesh. Before Jess could thaw her, he received the desperate message that his beloved Cesca Peroni had crashed on Jonah 12 after the robot attack and was in critical condition. Jess raced off to rescue her.

  He arrived just in time. Nikko was alive but helpless, and Cesca was dying. Jess carried them away in his wental ship, begging the water elementals to save Cesca. Though reluctant, the wentals agreed, and in their primordial oceans on Charybdis they altered Cesca, healed her, and made her like Jess. When the two returned to the Plumas water mines, they discovered that Karla Tamblyn, possessed by a tainted wental, had come alive and gone on a rampage in the underground facility. Rlinda Kett and BeBob had barely escaped Plumas in the Voracious Curiosity, but the Tamblyn brothers were trapped, with no way to fight the demonic woman. Jess and Cesca needed all of their elemental strength to defeat the tainted wental.

  Jess’s sister, Tasia, who had left her Roamer family to join the EDF and fight in the war, was captured by hydrogues and imprisoned in a bizarre cell deep within a gas giant. There she encountered several other human captives—including her friend Robb Brindle, who had disappeared five years earlier. Tasia and her fellow prisoners were tormented by hydrogues and their sinister allies, the black Klikiss robots.

  Pretending to cooperate with the Hansa, the black robots had covertly included special programming in thousands of Soldier compies that were manufactured to assist in the war effort. When the time was right, Sirix triggered that programming, and the computer virus caused Soldier compies to rise up all across the Spiral Arm. On ship after ship throughout the EDF, they turned on the human crews, slaughtering them and stealing Earth’s battleships. At the compy-manufacturing center on Earth, Soldier compies boiled out in an attempt to take over the city, and the desperate Hansa Chairman, Basil Wenceslas, had no choice but to call in an air strike to wipe out the factory and all human soldiers fighting in the vicinity. Expecting a public outcry, the Chairman conveniently let the figurehead King Peter take the blame for the tough decision.

  Peter had spent years resisting Basil, going head-to-head with the Chairman on his bad decisions. For more than a year, Peter had expressed concerns about the Klikiss-programmed Soldier compies, but Basil had severely reprimanded him for voicing his objections. After the revolt, Peter’s foresight was obvious to everyone—and Basil Wenceslas hated to be wrong. As the Chairman’s decisions continued to spiral out of control, Peter and Queen Estarra found unlikely allies in Deputy Chairman Eldred Cain, Basil’s heir apparent; Estarra’s sister Sarein, who had been Basil’s lover but was now afraid of him; the loyal Teacher compy OX, who had been Peter’s instructor; and Captain McCammon, head of the royal guard.

  Upon learning that Queen Estarra was pregnant, Basil commanded her to have an abortion, because he did not want his plans complicated by a baby at this crucial time. When Estarra and Peter refused, Basil accelerated his plot to get rid of them. He even brought out a replacement, bratty Prince Daniel, who made no secret of the fact that Peter and Estarra would “retire” soon. The King and Queen knew they had to escape before Basil killed them.

  After the hydrogue depredations worsened and the Soldier compy revolt stole the majority of the EDF fleet in only a few days, the Chairman saw that Earth was terribly vulnerable. Having already cut off contact with many Hansa colonies because of a shortage of stardrive fuel, he now abandoned every remaining world to concentrate his defenses on Earth. Ignoring the protests of the orphaned colonies, he summoned all functional vessels and placed them into service to protect the Hansa.

  Patrick Fitzpatrick III, grandson of former Chairman Maureen Fitzpatrick, was called back to active duty. He began as a spoiled recruit and became General Lanyan’s protégé; following the General’s orders, he himself had shot down Raven Kamarov’s cargo ship. After the disastrous battle of Osquivel against the hydrogues, however, he was rescued by Roamers. He and other EDF survivors were not allowed to leave Del Kellum’s shipyards in the rings of Osquivel because of the information they could reveal about the Roamers. During that time, Patrick gained a new respect for the Roamers and fell in love with Kellum’s daughter, Zhett. But duty required him to help his comrades escape. Though he acted as an intermediary with the EDF and allowed the Roamers to get away, Zhett resented him for betraying her and her clan. Later, as Patrick recovered on Earth, he urged his grandmother and others to make peace with the Roamers. When the EDF demanded that Patrick join in the defense of Earth again, he stole his grandmother’s space yacht and flew off in search of Zhett.

  The people of Theroc and their green priests also resented the tactics of Chairman Wenceslas, yet the great worldforest mind—speaking through the wooden golem of Beneto—insisted that the conflict was vaster than human politics. The verdani had barely survived an ancient war against the hydrogues, and now the worldtrees had to fight once more, forming an age-old alliance with the wentals.

  Jess Tamblyn, impregnated with wental energy, came to Theroc and allowed elemental water to combine with the worldtrees to create huge verdani battleships. After joining with the Beneto golem and other green priest volunteers, the living trees uprooted themselves and flew into space to join the battle. The wentals would also strike directly at the hydrogues, provided they could be delivered to gas-giant planets. The Roamers brought a large conglomeration of ships to Charybdis and other wental worlds, filled their vessels with the potent water, and launched to hydrogue-infested worlds.

  Facing the same terrible war, Mage-Imperator Jora’h prepared to defend the Ildiran Empire. Generations ago, Ildirans had begun a sinister breeding program on Dobro to create a telepathic savior who could form a bridge between Ildirans and hydrogues. Even Jora’h did not know the part he played in these schemes until it was much too late. His green priest lover, Nira, already pregnant with his daughter, had been whisked away to Dobro by Designate Udru’h as a breeding slave. There, over the years, she had given birth to five half-breed children, all with the potential to save Ildira. The Mage-Imperator dispatched his daughter, Osira’h, to communicate with the hydrogues. Although she brought the deep-core aliens to Ildira, the hydrogues were not interested in peace. Rather, they issued a terrible ultimatum: Jora’h must betray humans and help destroy Earth, or the hydrogues would wipe out the Ildiran Empire.

  After Nira and other human breeding subjects revolted on Dobro and overthrew Designate Udru’h, Nira was finally returned to Ildira, leaving the splinter colony with Jora’h’s son Daro’h. Back in the Prism Palace, Nira met the historian and scholar Anton Colic
os (son of Margaret Colicos) and a group of Hansa cloud harvesters led by Sullivan Gold. Sullivan’s people, including the engineer Tabitha Huck and the forlorn green priest Kolker, had rescued many Ildirans after a hydrogue attack, but the Mage-Imperator had not let them leave for fear they would report his secret agreement with the hydrogues.

  Jora’h did not accept the treachery easily. He quietly called his greatest experts to devise a way to fight back, also enlisting the reluctant aid of his human captives. Sullivan and Tabitha, though resenting their situation, worked to improve the Solar Navy.

  Nira, meanwhile, was finally able to communicate with other green priests and explain what had happened to her in the breeding camps. Kolker, also cut off from the worldforest, had formed a friendship with the old lens kithman Tery’l, who explained how all Ildirans are linked through thism. Later, even after he reconnected with other green priests, Kolker felt that something important was missing. On his deathbed, old Tery’l gave Kolker a prismatic medallion and told him to continue his quest for enlightenment.

  To enforce their ultimatum, the hydrogues sent diamond warglobes to stand sentinel over various Ildiran planets, ready to attack should Jora’h betray them. A cluster of hydrogue warglobes arrived at Hyrillka, the recent site of a ruinous civil war. Hyrillka was being rebuilt by the new Designate Ridek’h, a young and unprepared boy, mentored by the one-eyed veteran Tal O’nh. The threatening hydrogues, however, were unexpectedly destroyed by a force of fiery elemental beings, the faeros.

  The ever-spreading war ignited a hydrogue-faeros conflict, and the faeros were systematically being attacked inside their own suns. After the warglobes were destroyed at Hyrillka, a huge clash took place in Hyrillka’s primary sun. When the star itself began to die, Designate Ridek’h and Tal O’nh knew that the planet was doomed. They launched a full-scale evacuation. But after most of the people were gone, the faeros abruptly changed their tactics and rallied from inside their star, overwhelming the hydrogues. Faeros began to appear at a great many systems, battling hydrogues.

  The Roamers—led by Cesca Peroni—launched an all-out offensive, unleashing the water elementals against the hydrogues by dropping tankloads of wental water into gas giants. Battles raged in the cloudy depths, and the wentals eradicated warglobe after warglobe. Through Robb’s father, Conrad Brindle, Jess Tamblyn had learned that his sister, Tasia, was being held captive by the hydrogues. Jess fought the hydrogues, rescued Tasia, Robb, and the other prisoners, then raced away with the warglobes and Klikiss robots in hot pursuit. When Jess finally reached the edge of the atmosphere, several enormous verdani treeships and Conrad Brindle were there to assist them. They escaped.