A Night Without Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

ridiculous,” Laura said in her most contemptuous voice. “They have integral force fields, like me. You can’t shoot them.” Which was almost true. Kysandra’s biononics did have that energy field function, while the two ANAdroids wore force field skeletons under their light armor suits.
    “What in Uracus are
they
doing here?” Slvasta hissed.
    “I asked them to help,” Laura said. “Nobody else can take out the invaders on the ground. Now will all the morons waving medieval weapons around please put them away before you hurt yourselves?”
    Andricea flashed her a hateful glare before silently consulting Slvasta. He nodded, and the pistols were reluctantly holstered.
    “Good to see you again, too,” Kysandra sneered at the prime minister. “Imprisoned any innocents yet today? Some kid complaining his state-issue shoes are too tight, maybe?”
    “Uracus take you, Faller-whore,” Slvasta spat back.
    “Oh, for—Nigel was not a Faller, you bonehead cretin!”
    “He has given this world to them,” Slvasta shouted, spittle flying from his lips.
    “Nigel freed us from the Void,” Kysandra said coldly. “He sacrificed himself in that quantumbuster explosion so we would have a chance of a decent future.”
    “Falls have increased tenfold since the Great Transition.”
    “Because the Trees that survived the quantumbuster blast are no longer confined to the Forest formation they were locked into,” Marek said calmly. “Now they have dispersed into a high orbit ring, and the temporal loop is broken, so they can release their eggs with greater frequency. It was an inevitable consequence of liberation from the Void.”
    “Liberation! You call this being free?”
    The ANAdroid produced an expression of mild puzzlement. “Yes.”
    “Then I pity you.”
    “It could have been freedom,” Kysandra said sweetly. “But then you took over from the Captain.”
    “I am nothing like—!”
    “Ha! Even your own wife saw the truth—eventually.”
    “You corrupted her. It was your fault.”
    “Enough!” Laura said. “Everybody, forget your political pissing contest. This is the day we face extinction, so let’s not try to do that job for our enemies, shall we?”
    Slvasta gave Kysandra a furious glare. She matched it with the most indolent stare, taunting…
    “Kysandra, thank you for coming to help,” Laura said. “Four spaceships made it past the IA-505s—numbers two, four, eight, and nine.”
    “The squadrons did a good job then,” Kysandra said sympathetically.
    “Yes.” Laura gestured at the wormhole. “Can you handle them?”
    Kysandra patted the cylinder she was carrying. “Count on it.”
    “Okay, where do you want us to put you down?”
    Marek had been studying the table map. “Are these landing positions accurate?”
    “Yes,” the chief air marshal said.
    “Okay, nine and four are close together. Laura, drop me between them. I can deal with both of them.”
    “I’ll take number eight,” Kysandra said.
    Fergus grinned. “So I guess that leaves me with number two.”
    “All right, stand by.” Laura’s u-shadow sent a stream of encoded instructions to the gateway. The terminus started to shift.
    “Can you really do this?”
    The voice was soft, but anxious. Almost everyone in the crypt looked at Javier. The big man was staring at Fergus.
    “We can do this,” the ANAdroid said. “Even Kysandra. She might look like an angel, but she can be quite the warrior when she needs to be.”
    Kysandra winked at Javier.
    The terminus shifted, coming down to ground level, revealing a level expanse of rock-strewn desert sand, with dunes rising high up ahead.
    “Terminus is in the lee of a dune,” Laura said. “No sensor coverage. Picking up some low-level radiation out there.”
    “The exhaust,” Marek said. “We believe they used nuclear gas core rockets.”
    “That was my conclusion, too.”
    “Okay, my armor can cope with that. Let me through.”
    Laura sent a code to the gateway, and