Hellhole (15 page)

None of them had intended to start a civil war . . . not then.

In a rage, Franck armed himself from the scout ship’s weapons lockers and marched into his family home. He gunned down the treacherous Hirdans as they were moving supplies in. Unified by the knowledge that they had all been betrayed, Adolphus’s second-string nobles swept away the remaining usurpers, locked them up, and reinstated the Tellos, claiming Cherby as a reconquered world.

Fearing that his own planet would face a similar takeover, Adolphus commandeered a group of larger military vessels on Cherby and flew off to Qiorfu. Arriving home, Adolphus discovered that his father had recently, and conveniently, died, and Lord Selik Riomini had already staked his claim to the holdings. His mother had been moved to a very small cottage off the estate, where she was under constant guard. A Riomini military adviser had been installed as the provisional governor, and the Black Lord himself planned to take up residence soon.

This was the last of many straws for Tiber Adolphus. He and his growing band of malcontents performed a daring raid, took over the Lubis Plain shipyards, and seized a fleet of old but still-functional warships.

Franck Tello gave a grim smile. “Second-string ships for second-string nobles.”

In an impromptu ceremony, his men unanimously granted Adolphus the rank of general.

Thus began the rebellion, on Cherby and Qiorfu. Throughout the military, a large number of second-string nobles – those most likely to be sympathetic to Adolphus’s cause – served as low-level communications officers. When he transmitted his shocking revelations of the Constellation’s treachery, the first people to hear the message were members of at-risk families.

After rescuing and moving his mother, and setting up a new identity for her, General Adolphus broadcast a passionate and convincing declaration of independence across the Constellation, calling for all second-stringers to rise up against the corrupt system. The initial message sparked spontaneous mutinies on numerous Constellation battleships; some of the crew uprisings succeeded, some failed. But the rebellion was born, and grew.

Adolphus led a campaign with his FTL ships for five bloody years across multiple systems, engaging in impossible battles, collecting many victories and many defeats. In desperation, Diadem Michella pulled together blueblood officers under the command of Lord Selik Riomini to form the powerful Army of the Constellation. And one of the battlefield commanders was Commodore Percival Hallholme . . .

Now, on the evening of the anniversary, Adolphus sat in his chair. He picked up the glass of Cabernet, swirled it a little, and raised a silent toast to his heroic men who had died, and to those who remained in exile with him. He took a long, slow sip.

The wine tasted bitter, but he forced himself to swallow. It was not the grapes, he suspected, but the memories. He drained his glass and spent the rest of the evening alone with his thoughts.

C
aptain Escobar Hallholme considered the Adolphus manor house an unpleasant reminder of Qiorfu’s former ruling family. The young officer would have preferred to raze the old mansion from the sloping hillside and build a new residence for himself. But his father insisted that the original structure be preserved for reasons he did not completely explain.

The old commodore did point out that, although it had been rebuilt, expanded, and redesigned numerous times, the manor house was the ancestral home of a respected family, long before the Constellation Charter was drawn up and signed by the original nobles. Portions of the redstone walls dated back more than two thousand years, and the olive groves carried their own weight of age. The structure held the gravitas of history – and, recently, of treason.

Escobar didn’t like the place. He didn’t need any reminders of all that history or the part his family had played in it.

He had just showered and shaved and stood in a thin, blue dressing robe on the second level of the manor house. A silver-service tray sat on a table near him, but he had barely touched his cup of dark, sweet kiafa. His wife had already taken their two children off to their tutors, and he would see them that evening at dinner, but for the time being he had plenty of work to do. That was one of the first lessons both his boys had learned, that their father had important responsibilities here on Qiorfu.

Fortunately his sons spent much of their time pestering their grandfather, delighted by his war stories. Escobar could not care less about the interminable reminiscences.

Throwing open a double window, he looked out on a lateral rampart with a guard station perched on it. He noted the ochre weathering of the stones in soft morning light, and in an objective moment, he did appreciate the beauty of the house in an antique sort of way.

As the ambitious son of the legendary Commodore Percival Hallholme, Escobar had his own military command, albeit a less glorious and fabled one than his father’s – so far. As a Unit Captain, he was in charge of the Lubis Plain shipyards and the company of Riomini troops stationed there. He had even married one of the grand-nieces of Lord Riomini, a charming enough girl with good connections, though they had very little in common. She was a good mother to his sons, however.

Escobar’s family shared the spacious house with the old man, and thankfully the residence had myriad rooms that each man could use for his own purposes. The room in which Escobar now stood had once been a master suite for the old Adolphus patriarchs. He had converted it to a sitting room where he sometimes conferred with visiting dignitaries. It was a place separate from the messy family areas where the boys were allowed to play.

Percival Hallholme had been granted the entire estate after his great victory against Adolphus. Situated on a promontory overlooking the plain, the house looked like the prow of a great ship from bygone days. Escobar had to admit that if he squinted, the bluegrass plain stretching into the distance resembled a sea, and the mothballed FTL vessels crowding the expansive yards looked like ships floating on placid water. Some of the old vessels were used for spare parts, but the Diadem insisted that the majority of the ships be maintained in a functional state as training craft and as a strategic reserve. Just in case . . . though against what, he didn’t know.

Each time Selik Riomini came to Qiorfu via stringline for an inspection visit, and to give his grand-niece a dutiful peck on the cheek, Escobar asked the Black Lord for more challenging duties. At the academy, Escobar had excelled at making tactical decisions in war maneuvers. He had been trained for action.

But he was over thirty now, and his career clock was ticking. With light brown hair and pale blue eyes, classical features, and a manner that looked both dashing and competent, he cut a striking military figure. Escobar wanted a chance to earn his own medals instead of riding on his father’s coat-tails. Conceding, perhaps in an effort to keep his grand-niece happy, Lord Riomini had promised him a more exciting assignment. Although there were no current wars or even any local disturbances, the Black Lord had said cryptically, “Be patient. There may be something coming up on Vielinger.”

Now he heard his father’s distinctive hitching gait as the old man moved along the hallway outside Escobar’s closed door. Even the most advanced doctors could not improve the old man’s limp; Percival’s tissue rejected replacement grafts, and he refused to wear complex prosthetics. His father told a lot of stories about his war years and purported battle injuries, so many tales and in such variation that it was difficult to sort fact from fiction, but Escobar knew a lot of the truth. When they saw the retired Commodore hobbling around in his military uniform, most people assumed the limp was from an injury suffered during the rebellion, but actually it was from a disease. In time, Escobar might show signs of the same degenerative condition, but doctors were already giving him preventive treatments.

His father tried the door handle. The fool thought he was being surreptitious. Escobar made a habit of activating the locks in this section of the manor house.

Knowing his father wouldn’t go away, he yanked open the door to see Percival standing there, his silvery muttonchop sideburns even puffier than usual. He’d once been quite muscular, but his physique had sagged on him. Percival took one look at his son standing in his dressing robe. “You’re out of uniform, soldier!” As usual, the retired Commodore wore his favorite gold-and-black uniform, threadbare in some places, its jacket wrinkled from the weight of the tarnished medals attached to it.

“I haven’t left my room yet, sir. I was just about to dress and go down to the shipyards.” His voice took on a hint of defensiveness. “It’s not combat duty, but I still do important military work. I’m responsible for keeping all those ships ready.”

The old man’s large gray eyes narrowed. “Maybe one day you’ll be fortunate enough to experience the glory of combat yourself.”

“We can only hope, sir.” Knowing what would come next, Escobar hurried into his adjacent bedroom to retrieve the black uniform that the servants had laid out. His outfit was gold and black like his father’s, but with new-style braids and modern tailoring. So far, he had only one medal to affix to the lapel, an award presented to him for efficient management of the Lubis Plain shipyards.

Standing too close behind his son, Percival launched into one of his interminable stories. “Have I ever mentioned how I got this scar on my forehead?” He touched the edge of his receding hairline. The old man could have had the scar removed, but opted to keep it on display like one of his war medals.

Escobar had, in fact, heard the story numerous times. His mother, now dead for seven years, had endured even more repetition, but she’d lovingly pretended as if each telling was the first time she’d heard it. Love made a person patient, he supposed. Escobar loved and admired his father, but there were limits.

Percival droned on, “I was a career military officer, and I served in several theaters of war before the formation of the Army of the Constellation, before I ever went up against General Adolphus.” He lowered his frame onto an antique divan, which made the furniture creak in protest.

Escobar pulled on his trousers, boots, shirt, and suspenders, then worked to secure his cufftabs. In his haste he dropped one, and it tumbled under the bed. He got down on his hands and knees on the soft carpet to find the ornament.

Unfazed, Percival continued talking. “I was in the Barassa campaign of ’99, you know, and the Tanine assault of ’02.”

Escobar located the cufftab and stood up. To his recollection, the old man had been in the
Machi
campaign in ’99, not Barassa, and during those engagements Percival Hallholme had made a number of command blunders that had garnered criticism from the Sonjeera high command. Escobar didn’t point that out, at the risk of engaging the old man in one of their long arguments. Instead, he said, “You deserve all the medals you got, sir.”

“The really big action, though, was when I faced off against General Adolphus and his rebels in the skies over Sonjeera itself. The climactic battle of the whole rebellion – a clash that decided the future of the Constellation.”

The Commodore heaved a long, wistful sigh. “It was eleven years ago, and I was on the bridge of my battle station, commanding the defense of the capital. And I could see quite clearly that we were going to lose!” He jabbed his finger toward his son, who was barely listening. “My entire fleet was out there, badly outnumbered. With no chance of driving off the rebel attack, I developed a key defense strategy – I filled those warships with seventeen thousand civilians we had taken from Crown Jewel planets, all of them members of the leading rebel families, including quite a few from right here on Qiorfu. We roughed up the civilians a little so they looked desperate, then transmitted their images – and dared Adolphus to open fire on us with his superior force.”

The retired old soldier paused, as if he had lost his train of thought, then touched the scar on his forehead again. “Ah yes! Right after I delivered my ultimatum, that’s when the traitor on my staff rushed from his station, pointed his sidearm at me, and actually fired! In that split second I jerked my head back and fired my own service automatic, killing him on the spot. The blackheart’s bullet, though, tore off a chunk of my forehead and hair along with it – as if I could spare any! If I hadn’t moved so quickly, I’d be dead myself. Blood was pouring into my eyes but I never passed out, never left my command station. With that traitor lying dead on the deck, I waved off anyone trying to attend to me – and I repeated my demands to General Adolphus.”

Rather than the usual ring of triumph in his voice, though, Percival sounded somewhat sad. “The Diadem had commanded me to win at all costs, and I did. I was facing an enemy with a fleet almost twice the size of ours, but because of my strategy, General Adolphus knew that if he opened fire, he’d be killing many thousands of innocent civilians. I had gauged him well.
Know your enemy
. The rebel general blinked. And at the crucial moment, he refused to open fire. I, however, did not.”

Percival sniffed. “We tore the rebel ships to ribbons. His own people howled for him to return fire on us, but we had left the codecall lines open, and our human shields pleaded for their lives. Adolphus wouldn’t step over that line, but we kept firing. In the end, the General had no choice but to surrender what remained of his force.”

Escobar slipped his jacket on, stood in front of a full-length mirror and secured his tie with a gold stickpin bearing the shield insignia of the Riomini family. “Morally sound on your opponent’s part, but a poor tactical decision. It cost him the war.”

The victory celebrations had painted Commodore Hallholme as a military genius. In that final battle, he had achieved victory for the Constellation while incurring minimal casualties on his side. That triumph had saved Percival’s checkered career, erased all mention of prior mistakes, and made him out to be a bold tactician with nerves of steel, and even – ironically – as a great humanitarian.