Smaller consolidation teams had seized and occupied the outlying stations, metal-walled storage depots, domes filled with hardy and exotic crops. The severed solar mirrorfilm drifted until it finally draped like a reflective shroud over a tiny asteroid.

Overhead, battle-ready Remoras cruised in careful circles through the rubble field. Because of the ruptured containment dome, the main asteroid was unstable, wobbling and precessing. The EDF pilots practiced taking potshots at anything that moved, rousting out clan ships that attempted to hide in the shadows of orbiting rocks.

A small vessel lunged away from the greenhouse asteroid like a rabbit bolting out of hiding. The pilot dodged and changed course repeatedly, making up his trajectory as he went.

Stromo sat upright in his command chair. "Stop that ship from escaping!" he bellowed over the general comm.

Six patrol Remoras spotted the fleeing craft and set off in pursuit. From just the glimpse on his external screens, Stromo thought it was a butt-ugly ship, a collection of mismatched parts cobbled together. But the fleeing craft actually sparkled sparkled as it flew, and its sprint engines took it on high-G-force loops that even fast EDF fighters couldn't match. as it flew, and its sprint engines took it on high-G-force loops that even fast EDF fighters couldn't match.

Stromo adjusted the flagship's sensors to follow the escaping spacecraft as it shot about like a pinball, ricocheting through the asteroid field, partly to avoid collisions, but probably just to get away. The pilot took ridiculous risks and flew maneuvers unthinkable to Stromo. Before long, the ugly craft left the EDF's best Remoras far behind. It was embarrassing.

"Break off pursuit," Stromo said. "I've decided to let at least one Roacher ship get away to spread the word of another crushing defeat. They've got to change their minds sooner or later." The words sounded false as he spoke them, but he raised his voice to inspire confidence.

He watched the displayed suitcam images as Ramirez led her troops through tunnels and into the domed enclosures. He could toggle from one recording lens to another in order to get as many views as he wanted. It was the next best thing to actually going out and doing the operation in person.

The people inside the domes put up little resistance. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and-thankfully-smart enough to realize it.

Stromo estimated they would take a few hundred prisoners. How could so many of them crawl around in these rocks? En route to Hhrenni, while planning the details of this mission, he had given instructions for two Mantas in the assault force to reconfigure their decks. Low-ranking soldiers' quarters were turned into holding pens, not secure enough to be prisons, but sufficient to hold the captives until they could be delivered to the Klikiss planet along with the detainees from Hurricane Depot and Rendezvous.

Finally, Ramirez announced, "Admiral Stromo, this asteroid is secure. We're ready to receive you over here."

He stood up and straightened his uniform. "Do I require a suit?"

"No need, sir. Plenty of atmosphere in here, though it's a bit chilly."

Once he made his way inside, he wished he had brought an oxygen mask after all, just to cover the stink. The asteroid air was redolent of metal and dust reprocessed with fertilizer chemicals. It smelled like a latrine. Did these Roamers actually use human feces to fertilize their plants? How barbaric!

Under the damaged main dome, EDF engineers had rigged up light panels powered by temporary battery cells. A cluster of Roamer prisoners stood among ruined plants and gardening equipment. It looked like a hurricane had hit this place.

Stromo squared his shoulders. He enjoyed playing the part of a conquering military leader. "Who's in charge here?"

"I bet you think you you are," answered one middle-aged man with reddish-blond hair. His round, rough face bore the red marks of a recently worn oxygen mask. Dried blood at his nose and hemorrhages in the whites of his eyes showed that he must have been exposed to the explosive decompression. are," answered one middle-aged man with reddish-blond hair. His round, rough face bore the red marks of a recently worn oxygen mask. Dried blood at his nose and hemorrhages in the whites of his eyes showed that he must have been exposed to the explosive decompression.

Stromo glanced at the blasted hole in the dome. Gummy clots of a translucent substance blocked most of the leaks, though he could still hear air hissing out into space. "I know know I'm in charge. But is there a particular Roamer I should be talking to?" I'm in charge. But is there a particular Roamer I should be talking to?"

"I'm Crim Tylar. You can talk to me as well as to anybody else."

"I intend to make this an orderly evacuation," Stromo said. "We'll move all your personnel to a holding planet. You might even consider it a vacation after living on a floating rock like this."

"We made these asteroids tolerable enough. Until now."

Stromo smiled coolly. "You can use Roamer ingenuity to help establish a new Hansa settlement. A step toward making up for all the times when you shirked your duty to your fellow man." Looking down at the tattered and uprooted plants, he saw fresh vegetables and recognized the bright red color of ripeness. He realized how hungry he was for good, fresh food. "Oh, tomatoes!"

But as he bent over, Crim Tylar stomped on the plant, sending a splurt of red juice and seeds up onto the Admiral's leg. "I didn't grow them for you you."

Stromo froze, but managed to keep his temper in check. The EDF soldiers would open fire if he gave the order, but he didn't want to let this blow up into an impossible situation, especially with himself in the middle. Instead, knowing it was childish, he snapped, "Roachers don't understand the concept of sharing."

Chapter 8-CESCA PERONI.

When the Roamer clans scattered, Cesca needed to get the old former Speaker to a safe, isolated place. At Jhy Okiah's suggestion, Cesca took her to Jonah 12, hoping to stay with the small group of engineers there just long enough to gather her thoughts and to come to a decision about what to do.

Only a week ago, Rendezvous had been attacked-destroyed-by the Earth Defense Forces. The first wave of chaos and confusion hadn't yet finished sweeping through the dispersed clan settlements, and it would be some time before the Roamer families could be brought together, but as Speaker of the clans, Cesca was determined to establish efficient communications again. In spite of the current turmoil, she planned to get an emergency network in place as soon as possible and had already sent out scouts, temporarily enlisting all of the small mining base's long-range ships to gather and distribute information.

Cut off, the independent clans would be as hungry for news and guidance as Cesca was to talk to them. As soon as she received word back from some of the more important family heads, they would create a provisional council and choose a new center of government. She prayed that the scouts' Guiding Stars would help them get the word out swiftly. If they did not, she feared that the hotheaded clan members who had demanded the provocative ekti embargo in the first place might act rashly, and get themselves killed in the process.

Long ago, the clan leaders had planned for various disasters, and designated several gathering points for Roamers in times of emergency. Although Rendezvous, the primary gathering point, was now gone, Cesca hoped to visit the few that remained in order to rally her people. Unfortunately, only two days after they settled in at Jonah 12, old Jhy Okiah's suddenly declining health forced Cesca to change her plans. Despite the former Speaker's protests, Cesca insisted on staying at Jhy Okiah's side. "This place is as good as anywhere else," she said. "I've sent out messengers, and there's no ship to spare anyway. I'll stay here with you while we wait."

Hydrogue depredations had put the families on higher alert for years-though few had expected that the greater threat would come from the Hansa government itself. Because of this constant state of vigilance, many ships had escaped the Eddy battle group at Rendezvous and were now spreading the alarm to hidden clan settlements, unmarked transport ships, and secret Roamer industrial facilities. By their very nature, Roamers were independent, bound only by loyalties, honor, and a loose system of laws. Rendezvous had been one of their few acknowledged safe havens. Right now, their very looseness and independence made the clans a difficult target for the EDF thugs, but it also created great problems in forming a united front.

But only a week had passed. Only a week. Cesca knew she could consolidate the people, and she hoped the Big Goose would now ease up, assuming the Roamers were broken. But in that, they would be very much mistaken.

Jhy Okiah had thought to hide on Jonah 12, because her youngest son had established the new base here. Not long ago, enthusiastic and ingenious Kotto had drawn up blueprints, run simulations, and convinced clan leaders to contribute funding and labor. The surface of Jonah 12 was made of hydrogen-rich ice, lakes of liquid methane, and other small-chain hydrocarbons that were useful for Roamer industries. And so Kotto had set up operations here, on a frigid chunk of rock and ice in the outer darkness of a system that some early clan explorer had named after a man who'd been swallowed by a whale.

Swallowed in darkness. With everything that had happened to the Roamers, Cesca felt as if she were in a similar situation...

Ambitious workers had set down modular domes in a base that was powered by a small-pile nuclear reactor. Moving like fat penguins, grazers trundled over the uneven terrain, gouging long troughs. Machinery cooked gases out of the harvested ice, sifting out hydrogen molecules that were recondensed for ekti processing; lightweight elements were diverted for colony use or for shipment to other clan settlements. Unwanted exhausts boiled up from each slow-moving grazer like clouds of steam from an old-fashioned locomotive. In the supercold environment, the processed exhaust refroze immediately, settling back down like thick, vaporous snow. Railgun launchers shot barrels of pure hydrogen ice up to a drifting ekti reactor that would catalyze the hydrogen into ekti, the valuable allotrope used as stardrive fuel.

Remembering her son's wild plans, Jhy Okiah had wanted to see Jonah 12 for herself, even though Kotto was currently off investigating a hydrogue derelict found in the rings of Osquivel. His chief engineer, Purcell Wan, temporarily in charge of operations, had provided living quarters for Cesca and the former Speaker.

It had been more than a decade since the old woman had set foot on another planet, and even in Jonah 12's low gravity she was barely able to breathe or move. Cesca suspected that the weight of the recent disaster and their uncertain future pressed on her friend more heavily than gravity did...

Now as she sat next to Jhy Okiah on her narrow bed, Cesca saw that the light had dulled in the old woman's eyes. Watching the EDF ships blast Rendezvous, destroying the connecting cables and girders of the cobbled-together space rocks, had been a direct blow to her.

Inside their small habitation bubble, Cesca made pepperflower tea for both of them and sat sipping. Jhy Okiah just held the cup in her hand, letting the warmth penetrate her papery skin. Thick transparent windows on the curved sidewall of the chamber showed a fantastic landscape of molded hydrogen ice, but the old woman focused instead through the chamber's skylight, staring at the panoply of stars.

"I suppose I should be cheering you up," Cesca said, "but I've got so many questions in front of me, and every answer I step on seems to be a trapdoor."

The former Speaker's wrinkled, colorless lips formed a weak smile. "Leave your metaphors to the experts, Cesca."

"I feel more qualified to be a poet than a leader." She blew out a long breath to release her frustration. "What a mess! How am I supposed to meet with the Roamer clans? The facilities and settlements are so diffuse, how will I get word to everyone to announce a clan gathering? And where should we hold it? We're all outlaws now. Is it even safe to bring all the families together again in one place? What if the Hansa already found out about our gathering points? Dangerous!" She put her elbows on her knees.

"You're letting impatience get the best of you. Rushed decisions are often bad decisions." She patted Cesca gently on the arm. "It took only a few minutes to destroy Rendezvous, but it'll take a long time to bring the clans together again. Spread the word, and the clans will know eventually."

"But I have to do something. I want to rally the clans, inspire them, tell them not to surrender. If I'm the Speaker, shouldn't I go to Earth and demand restitution?"

"They will seize you and hold you as a political prisoner."

Cesca sipped her tea without tasting it, just for something to do. She fretted. "I should at least go back to Rendezvous and survey the damage...if there's anything left at all."

"Those damned Eddies stole our central place and our history." Tears welled up in the former Speaker's eyes, and she drew a deep, rattling breath. "My timing is poor, Cesca. I should have died earlier, when you were handling everything so well."

"Don't talk about dying," Cesca said. "You need to stick around long enough to see how this all ends."

Sitting on her bed, Jhy Okiah squeezed Cesca's hand with surprising strength. "It does you no good to keep relying on me. You will figure out the solutions for yourself." The old woman sighed. "I wish Kotto was here. He always comes up with solutions."

"Crazy ones," Cesca said with a forced chuckle.

"But solutions nevertheless." She set her cup of pepperflower tea on a small shelf, then looked out through the skylight again, as if trying to count the scattered diamonds of distant suns. She suddenly smiled and pointed with one finger. "Oh, look. My Guiding Star!"

Cesca glanced up, following the old woman's gesture, but all the stars looked alike. She felt the sinewy hand clench, and when Cesca looked down again, the light had faded from Jhy Okiah's eyes.

Chapter 9-JESS TAMBLYN.

Encased within his alien water-and-pearl ship and protected by the power of the wentals, Jess descended into the raging depths of the gas giant Golgen. He had asked the water elementals to take him here so that he could see firsthand what he had accomplished in his first strike against the hydrogues.

His strange vessel plunged through wispy clouds and tearing winds; vapors scoured the exterior hull. Apocalyptic storms churned through the high-pressure seas of condensed atmosphere where enemy hydrogues had once lived. Seven years ago, as a brash and vengeful human, Jess had dealt a mortal blow to them.

He and his clan engineers from Plumas had fired short-period comets into this planet as if they were cosmic cannonballs. The impacts, like giant thunderbolts wielded by ancient gods, had been unstoppable, the shockwave concussions more destructive than the strongest thermonuclear bombs.

The huge gas ball was still marked with discolored blemishes like gangrenous wounds from the cometary fusillade. The intervening years had not quelled the atmospheric disruption; repercussions would continue for decades at least. The still-angry human part of Jess Tamblyn took satisfaction in that, a measure of revenge for the death of Ross and his Blue Sky Mine, which the aliens had destroyed...

But while he was focused on his past efforts to defeat the hydrogues, he suddenly received flashes of images, alarms, and thoughts from the wentals themselves-a burst of news sent through the interlinked water beings. The message was not clear, but Jess comprehended what was happening: The EDF had attacked another Roamer outpost, the home of Nikko Chan Tylar, who had barely escaped.

Jess's fourteen volunteer "water bearers" were quietly distributing wentals to the lakes and oceans of uninhabited worlds where they were free to grow, and the water-based beings were beginning to expand. Though wentals were similar to the verdani, the worldtrees of Theroc, Jess's volunteers had not been physically transformed to communicate directly with other wentals, as the green priests did with the worldforest.

Nikko was among the most susceptible, and most enthusiastic, of the volunteers. The water entities had allowed him to communicate with them, had even sent a quick alarm about the EDF strike on Hurricane Depot. But Jess doubted his other water bearers could read the details of the call that had just gone out from Nikko through the wentals.

In his own mind, Jess witnessed everything the young man managed to communicate to the wental water aboard his vessel. The Chan greenhouse asteroids had been seized, the Roamers living there captured, while Nikko himself outran the Eddy pursuers.

Now, as his ship descended into Golgen, Jess wrestled with his obligations. He was still a Roamer, and he felt honor-bound to do something to help-if he could. But the raid on the Chan greenhouses was already over, and so was the destruction of Rendezvous and Hurricane Depot. He could never get there in time to accomplish anything.

His water-and-pearl vessel would certainly startle the Eddy battleships, but he couldn't fight the whole military force, no matter what his powers were. He hoped his sister Tasia was not among the invaders. She had joined the Earth military, but he couldn't believe she was voluntarily preying upon Roamer outposts. Where was she now?

No, Jess knew he couldn't allow himself to grow distracted. Better that he continue his quest to resurrect the wentals. If the hydrogues were not defeated, these petty squabbles among humans would eventually become irrelevant...

Around him Golgen's clouds were impenetrable with stirred ammonia, hydrocarbons, phosphine, hydrogen sulfide. He felt an unexpected fear scrape like sharp fingernails along his bones. The reaction within him came from the wentals' deep-seated alarm as they remembered the centuries of death and near annihilation the hydrogues had visited upon them.

"Strange, but I think we were destined to be allies," Jess said. "Before I ever knew of wentals, I dealt the hydrogues a deep wound. I even used comets-frozen water-to do it. I'd like to see what my comets did."

As the water-and-pearl vessel descended past layer after layer of convulsing clouds, Jess peered through the translucent bubble. Wispy shreds of vapor pulled away at an equilibrium layer, and he saw startling wreckage: enormous fragments of segmented domes, broken curves that had once been the structure of a hydrogue metropolis. The cityspheres had shattered and imploded from the unexpected barrage.

The eerie alien cities must have been magnificent, and Jess wondered how many hydrogues he had killed in the process. He decided the number couldn't possibly make up for the innocent Roamer victims the hydrogues had slaughtered, or the whole populations of wentals they had eradicated ten thousand years ago.

The wentals said to him, Now that we are growing stronger, Golgen will be only the first of many victories against the hydrogues. Now that we are growing stronger, Golgen will be only the first of many victories against the hydrogues.

In all the wrecked components floating in the dense and turbulent atmosphere, Jess saw no sign of the Blue Sky Mine. The hydrogues had smashed his brother's facility years ago, and he doubted the liquid-crystal creatures had any memory of the innocent people they had slain.

He thought of the last time he had seen Ross proudly riding his own skymine. His brother had been making a surprising success of his commercial venture, proving himself to his lovely young fiancee. Cesca Cesca. Back then Jess's deepest worry had been hiding his secret love for her, knowing that she was betrothed to Ross...

In his mind, the wental voices offered a curious reassurance. We will release part of ourselves from this ship into the clouds of Golgen. The atmosphere has enough water molecules for us to spread and sustain ourselves. It will be a slow process, but we can gradually draw a diffuse wental mind together to secure and protect this place. We will release part of ourselves from this ship into the clouds of Golgen. The atmosphere has enough water molecules for us to spread and sustain ourselves. It will be a slow process, but we can gradually draw a diffuse wental mind together to secure and protect this place.

Sweat beads appeared on the outside of the water-and-pearl vessel, transmitted through the armored liquid hull. The droplets grew larger and thicker until they flew off like silver bullets into the restless storm layers.

We can calm the turbulence, dampen the disrupted weather, and tame Golgen again. Our wental essence will survive.

"You mean you'll occupy an entire hydrogue world?"

Not completely, but we will be here. Already, wental energy seeps through the clouds, questing up and down to fill the ruined heart of this planet. There are no longer any hydrogues here, and we will disrupt their transgates so they can never return.

"Now I know why my Guiding Star brought me here."

Golgen is safe. You may direct your Roamers to bring their skymines here again and gather all the ekti they desire.

Jess's heart leaped. A safe planet for skymining! "I am due to meet with my water bearers soon, and together we will spread the word."

Chapter 10-TASIA TAMBLYN.

This wasn't what she'd had in mind when she signed up for the Earth Defense Forces. Not at all. After her brother Ross was killed, Tasia had sneaked away from her family at the ice mines on Plumas in order to fight the hydrogues. The hydrogues hydrogues. She wanted to be in the thick of things, right in the middle of the war. Isolated on Mars, though, watching over a bunch of bottom-of-the-barrel students, she was as far from the conflict as she could possibly be.

Yanked from her Manta command, Tasia had been sent here to run kleebs through training exercises. What a waste! Admiral Willis insisted it wasn't a demotion, though the new assignment was obviously intended to keep her out of the way while the Eddies tilted at windmills in an infuriatingly unnecessary crackdown against Roamer clans.

Standing alone on the red rock outcropping, Tasia made a disgusted sound into her suit helmet, after making sure the comm was off. General Lanyan's Guiding Star must be a black hole...or a whole cluster of black holes, pulling him in a dozen different directions-all of them wrong! Wrong enemy, wrong priority, wrong war.

It hadn't been easy for her to leave her clan in the first place, to leave all the Roamers and her way of life, but she'd done it to fight against the monstrous aliens that preyed upon Roamer skymines-including Ross's. She wasn't like one of the shiny-eyed new cadets from Earth who joined the Eddies because they thought it was glamorous, or because the uniform would help them get laid. Tasia had thrown her not-insubstantial skills in with the EDF because she wanted to hurt the drogues.

The Roamer clans were not timid-hell, they lived in places that would have made most Hansa members wet their environment suits!-but the loose confederation of families kept no organized military force. If Tasia wanted to fight the drogues, then she had to do it with the EDF. Their goals coincided with her own. Supposedly.

Though she had served faithfully, no one had forgotten her roots. Since Roamers were considered hostiles, Tasia had been pulled to the sidelines, where she set up mock surface battles, guided raw recruits on high-atmospheric drops, and drilled them on tactical exercises in the classroom. Waiting in her bulky and uncomfortable EDF-issue environment suit, she stood facing the mock combat area on the rusty surface of Mars. She had chosen a high vantage from which she could watch the teams. She had deposited them out in the tangled canyons of Labyrinthus Noctis, the "Labyrinth of Night." The troops marched according to coordinated plans, like two sports teams vying for a championship.

At her side, her compy EA stared in the same direction she did; Tasia couldn't tell if the Listener model was actually seeing and absorbing details, or just imitating her owner.

Buzzing ramjet flyers soared through the thin Martian atmosphere, deploying a squadron of parachute troops that leaped out of cargo bays in the low Martian gravity. As they dropped, the troops unfurled gigantic batwings, tough films with sufficient surface area to provide resistance in the thin air. The unexpected parachute assault troopers were landing close to the objective.

"That's an unorthodox trick from Team Jade," she said to EA.