platform!â
âWe canât !â Trolischet replied, her voice shrill. âWe have no ship!â
âAn evacuation ship is inbound,â Xander told her. âETA less than ten minutes! But you might not have ten minutes! You need to get everyone into evacuation pods, fliers, flight-capable suits, whatever you have that will carry you. All you need to do is to get off this damned reef before it decides to scratch!â
âThere are over two hundred of us, Captain! We couldnât save more than a quarter!â
âWell, then, save them, damn it! Or youâre all dead!â
Other Marines were targeting the snipers now as well, those that could still move and had not been completely engulfed by the advancing wall of balloon bodies and angry, lashing tentacles. Garwe pivoted, targeting a second sourceof high-energy electron beams, and then three bolts caught him at once, slamming into his Starwraith in a searing detonation of raw energy.
Warning lights winked on in his IHD, his defensive fields flickering and dimming beneath the overload. A half-second later, three more beams struck and his nanodefenses went down, slabs of active nano burned from the Starwraithâs outer shell, oily smoke boiling from a puncture in the foametal structure beneath.
Garwe cut his repulsors, dropping back into the relative cover of the tentacle-to-tentacle melee below. His pod jostled and bumped in the press of leathery balloon bodies and lashing tentacles as he rerouted the majority of his power flow to the task of repairing his outer-shell nano. He tried discharging a few thousand volts through what was left of his outer nano, but the attempt brought up more warning lights and no other effect.
The Krysni appeared to be learning quickly. Captain Xanderâs Starwraith had been hit again repeatedly, and Palin, Mortin, and Javlotel were down as well, large patches of their nanoshells burned and peeled away, exposed portions of their inner armor partly melted under the fierce heat of the enemy fire.
And it was all wrong . The two symbiotic sentient species of Dac IV werenât technic, and didnât have manufactured weaponry of any sort. Individual Krysni possessed a biological weaponâa toxin delivered through hollow, pressure-fired barbs like a terrestrial jellyfishâwhich they used when necessary against some of the mindless predators of Dac IVâs deeper atmosphere layers, but those were useless against a Starwraith, even one as badly damaged as Garweâs. And without a solid surface from which to mine and forge metals, indeed, without fire, the Krysni and their immense and sapient floating cities had never developed anything remotely like material technology at all.
Where in hell had they gotten electron beam weaponry? Who had taught them how to use it?
At the moment, the press of Krysni balloons around him were doing quite well without advanced technology. His crippled Starwraith was now covered by leathery blue bodies clinging tightly to his armor, their floater sacs deflated, with hundreds more Krysni clinging in layers on top of them. He could see what they were doing by picking up a visual feed from Blue TwelveâLieutenant Namuraâs wraith. It looked as though some hundreds of the creatures were clinging to him, with the outer layers inflating their bodies in an attempt to lift him clear of the deck. More and more Krysni floaters were hooking on, puffing up their bodies to well over a meter in diameter, taut-skinned globes filled with biochemically heated hydrogen.
He fired his X-ray laser, the beam punching through bodies and releasing a roiling cloud of smoke. More Krysni drifted in to replace the ones incinerated by his attack. He fired againâ¦and then a third time, each shot burning away dozens of the things, but then his power reserves plummeted and the laser cut out after the third pulse.
âBlue Flight, this is Blue Seven!â he called out. âMy
âWe canât !â Trolischet replied, her voice shrill. âWe have no ship!â
âAn evacuation ship is inbound,â Xander told her. âETA less than ten minutes! But you might not have ten minutes! You need to get everyone into evacuation pods, fliers, flight-capable suits, whatever you have that will carry you. All you need to do is to get off this damned reef before it decides to scratch!â
âThere are over two hundred of us, Captain! We couldnât save more than a quarter!â
âWell, then, save them, damn it! Or youâre all dead!â
Other Marines were targeting the snipers now as well, those that could still move and had not been completely engulfed by the advancing wall of balloon bodies and angry, lashing tentacles. Garwe pivoted, targeting a second sourceof high-energy electron beams, and then three bolts caught him at once, slamming into his Starwraith in a searing detonation of raw energy.
Warning lights winked on in his IHD, his defensive fields flickering and dimming beneath the overload. A half-second later, three more beams struck and his nanodefenses went down, slabs of active nano burned from the Starwraithâs outer shell, oily smoke boiling from a puncture in the foametal structure beneath.
Garwe cut his repulsors, dropping back into the relative cover of the tentacle-to-tentacle melee below. His pod jostled and bumped in the press of leathery balloon bodies and lashing tentacles as he rerouted the majority of his power flow to the task of repairing his outer-shell nano. He tried discharging a few thousand volts through what was left of his outer nano, but the attempt brought up more warning lights and no other effect.
The Krysni appeared to be learning quickly. Captain Xanderâs Starwraith had been hit again repeatedly, and Palin, Mortin, and Javlotel were down as well, large patches of their nanoshells burned and peeled away, exposed portions of their inner armor partly melted under the fierce heat of the enemy fire.
And it was all wrong . The two symbiotic sentient species of Dac IV werenât technic, and didnât have manufactured weaponry of any sort. Individual Krysni possessed a biological weaponâa toxin delivered through hollow, pressure-fired barbs like a terrestrial jellyfishâwhich they used when necessary against some of the mindless predators of Dac IVâs deeper atmosphere layers, but those were useless against a Starwraith, even one as badly damaged as Garweâs. And without a solid surface from which to mine and forge metals, indeed, without fire, the Krysni and their immense and sapient floating cities had never developed anything remotely like material technology at all.
Where in hell had they gotten electron beam weaponry? Who had taught them how to use it?
At the moment, the press of Krysni balloons around him were doing quite well without advanced technology. His crippled Starwraith was now covered by leathery blue bodies clinging tightly to his armor, their floater sacs deflated, with hundreds more Krysni clinging in layers on top of them. He could see what they were doing by picking up a visual feed from Blue TwelveâLieutenant Namuraâs wraith. It looked as though some hundreds of the creatures were clinging to him, with the outer layers inflating their bodies in an attempt to lift him clear of the deck. More and more Krysni floaters were hooking on, puffing up their bodies to well over a meter in diameter, taut-skinned globes filled with biochemically heated hydrogen.
He fired his X-ray laser, the beam punching through bodies and releasing a roiling cloud of smoke. More Krysni drifted in to replace the ones incinerated by his attack. He fired againâ¦and then a third time, each shot burning away dozens of the things, but then his power reserves plummeted and the laser cut out after the third pulse.
âBlue Flight, this is Blue Seven!â he called out. âMy
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