Free Of Fire and Night by Kevin J. Anderson

Brindle.”
    He reached into his grimy pocket and withdrew a brown and crumbly tangle of thin leaves. “I still have the worldtree frond that green priest gave me before I climbed into the encounter chamber over Osquivel.” He rolled it in his fingers, but the plant material was dry and dead. “It didn’t do me much good. Sometimes, I hold it as if I’m a green priest and I send imaginary letters in my mind to you and my parents . . .”
    Tasia saw the withered leaves and recalled when Rossia, the limping green priest with wide eyes, had reverently given the frond to Robb as if it were a talisman. “I don’t think drogues like worldtrees much.”
    “No. But in a weird sort of way, I think this little twig has kept me sane. I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Good memories are about the only things that keep us going here.” Robb shook his head. “But this nightmare isn’t one of the things I wanted to share. Not with you—not even with my worst enemy.”
    Leaning against him, she grunted. “Not even Patrick Fitzpatrick III?”
    He gave a rusty-sounding chuckle. “Whatever happened to him, anyway? Is he still a jerk?”
    “He’s dead.” She described what had happened at the battle of Osquivel after Robb’s encounter vessel disappeared into the planet. “Fitzpatrick was killed, and so were a lot of other good soldiers.”
    There was so much to tell him, so many things that had occurred since his disappearance. Unfortunately, she would have more than enough time to bring her companions up to date. First, she told them about the new rammers, how they’d been deployed swiftly to Qronha 3, and how she had been captured by the turncoat robots.
    EA piped up: “The renegade programming was embedded in the Soldier compies from the beginning. The Klikiss robots simply activated it.”
    Now one of the black robots loomed in front of the translucent wall. Tasia glared at the beetlelike machine as it pushed its way through. Smith Keffa cringed from the robot. Obviously trying to look brave for Tasia’s benefit, Robb said, “I don’t think it’s here to play checkers with the prisoners.”
    The robot spoke, as if for no other reason than to taunt them. “A Manta cruiser has arrived above Qronha 3. We have instructed the Soldier compies on board to take over. We are also activating the programming system-wide.”
    “What do you mean, system-wide?” Robb asked.
    “All Soldier compies, all across the Spiral Arm.”
    Tasia reacted with automatic outrage. “Humans have never done anything to Klikiss robots. What the hell do you intend to do?”
    “Exterminate you all.”
    Tasia put her hands on her hips, not caring how ridiculous she looked in front of the looming black machine. “That figures. The EDF declares war on the Roamer clans, and now Klikiss robots are trying to wipe out humans. Shizz! Can’t anybody figure out the right enemy these days?”
    “We know our enemies.”
    Having delivered its ominous message, the Klikiss robot departed.

14
    PATRICK FITZPATRICK III
    O n the open deck of his grandmother’s Colorado mansion, Patrick Fitzpatrick sat alone and stared at the mountains. He had turned off the environment screen so he could smell the biting, fresh air. The cold was the least of his problems. Snow etched the jagged tops of the majestic peaks, and the sky was an utterly transparent blue, so different from the claustrophobic habitats where he and his fellow EDF soldiers had been held by the Roamers.
    If he’d been back in the Osquivel shipyards, Patrick and his EDF comrades would have been hard at work processing metal, assembling ships, doing something productive. Right now, more than anything else, he wondered where Zhett Kellum was, what she was doing. Maybe she was burning him in effigy. . . .
    He’d been back home for three days now, a “war hero” with little to do except make public appearances, smile and wave. Some of the other refugees were media darlings—particularly feisty Shelia