Hellhole (71 page)

Bolton flushed. “Why does no one give a thought to rescuing my wife?”

“We would rescue her if we could,” Michella said, “but you are forgetting, dear boy, that she has defected to the other side. She is now an enemy combatant.”

Her son-in-law stalked away.

The Diadem nodded to Escobar Hallholme. Though he had only been following her instructions, the Redcom remained incensed for having been deceived into delivering the old FTL vessels to Ridgetop – another trick of the General’s. Adolphus had somehow blackmailed or otherwise coerced Territorial Governor Goler into switching his loyalty.

Michella had personally approved the action of Lord Riomini in promoting the younger Hallholme, giving him command of the assault force against Adolphus. She expected great things from him. And it wasn’t an unwarranted promotion, because Escobar had succeeded at every assignment he’d been given, and he came from an illustrious military family. She knew how eager he was to prove himself in action.

“Death to the rebel bastards!” Escobar said, raising his glass in a toast.

“Take no prisoners,” said Lord Riomini, sounding almost disinterested.

Michella nodded but suddenly felt unsettled. Despite her comment to Bolton, she remained disturbed that she could not save Keana and save face at the same time. As Diadem, she could not play favorites. All who allied themselves with Adolphus this time would die, noble blood or not. It was a necessary house cleaning that would cover the whole Deep Zone.

All the officers on the patio held their glasses, and the Diadem saw that it was time for their formal toast. At her signal, the men and women gathered in the traditional circle, facing inward and holding their drinks high in the air, as if launching the warships with their cheers.

“Brave officers, you know your assignments. You fight for the Constellation and for the eternal honor of your families.”

“To the stars!” The officers gave the traditional response in unison.

Michella quaffed the wine. Everyone followed her example, and then all shattered their glasses by hurling them onto the rocks beneath the patio.

Lord Riomini looked over the railing at all the broken crystal. “Just like
that
, Adolphus’s support will shatter.”

“No doubt,” Michella replied. “With this war, we will make his planet a true hellhole.”

THE CROWN JEWEL WORLDS

Aedl

Aeroc

Barassa

Cherby

Fleer

Indos

Jonn

Kappas

Klief

Machi

Marubi

Noab

Ogg

Orsini

Patel

Qiorfu

Sandusky

Sonjeera

Tanine

Vielinger

DEEP ZONE PLANETS

Aimerej

Ankheny

Argyth

Astervillius

Atab Abas

Balkast

Bija’dom

Blythe System

Boj

Brevor

Brezane

Buchad

Buktu

Candela

Casagan

Cles

Cobalt

Darenthia

Ehemi

El Kuara

Enesi

Erebusal

Eviticu

Haiasi

Hallholme/Hellhole

Hossetea

Karadakk

Karum and Kanes

Kirsi

Moloch

Nephilim

Nicles

Nielad

Nomolos

Ondor’s Gambit

Oshu

Osian

Qolme

Qotem

Ridgetop

Rinthi

Ronom

Salm

Setsai

Signik

Tehila

Teron

Theser

Thiop

Triol

Ueter

Umber

Vytr

Xodu

THE STRINGLINE NETWORK

During the Constellation’s early millennia, space travel among the main twenty worlds (the “Crown Jewels”) was accomplished through workhorse, faster-than-light spacecraft. The Crown Jewel star systems were close enough together to make this both a feasible and an efficient system, with travel times ranging between days and weeks.

More than a century before the reign of Diadem Michella Duchenet, a much faster stardrive was developed. Using the innovative new stardrive, vessels could achieve speeds a hundred to a thousand times faster than were possible with old FTL drives. However, because the ships were faster than any sensor systems or navigation controls could react, pilots were flying blind at superluminal speeds, unable to see where they were going or when to stop.

Such a system was not greeted with much enthusiasm.

A second, unrelated discovery, however, made travel with the faster engines practical at last. Ever since the first demonstration of the new system, physicists across the Constellation had sought a way to keep the superfast starvessels on track. They had to mark a clear path, a discrete route that constrained the ships from flying helter-skelter at unimaginable velocities.

A scientist from Vielinger, Elwar Cori, discovered that when a rare mineral, iperion, was processed and activated into a higher-quantum state, it could be used to create a line of crucial markers, a path of what was jokingly called “quantum breadcrumbs.” After a trailblazer ship had marked the path, or “paved the roadway,” high-speed starvessels could follow it and fly up to 1,100 times faster than was previously achievable.

Thus, transportation companies created stringline routes, a defined path from point A to point B. With substations and collimation units placed along the way, the stringline markings allowed the new hyperluminal ships to fly without fear of getting lost or crashing into unforeseen obstacles.

In the century before the reign of Diadem Michella Duchenet, lines were laid from Sonjeera to each of the Crown Jewel planets, each route ending at a terminus ring in orbit above the destination. Sonjeera was the main and only hub from which ships launched (a strict requirement imposed by the Diadem, because it was her treasury that had paid for creation of all the stringlines in the first place). Once the twenty Crown Jewels were connected with lines regularly maintained, citizens could travel amongst the planets within hours or, at most, days.

THE DEEP ZONE

Over the centuries, fifty-four habitable planets beyond the Crown Jewels had been catalogued in the galactic wilderness called the Deep Zone, a region that was peripherally mapped by probes and intrepid explorers. The planets offered tantalizing opportunities, but most Constellation citizens saw them as much too far away to bother with. Some were closer than others and some more worthwhile than others, but all were considered too much trouble for anyone but the hardiest and most desperate. Few people had the wherewithal, or the interest, to mount hugely expensive years-long expeditions just to see what was out there.

Still, over the years a few groups did trickle out, leaving the Constellation forever and setting up their own colonies on the nearer and more hospitable worlds: Ridgetop, Candela, Nielad, Umber, and Hossetea. Anyone who decided to colonize these planets knew it would be a one-way trip. No starship could go back and forth across such vast distances; the vessels didn’t have enough fuel, and there were no facilities on the other end. Upon arrival, the colonists abandoned or dismantled their ships, then set up their new lives.

But the expanded stringline network from Sonjeera out to the Deep Zone changed all that. By dispatching her trailblazer vessels to lay down new routes to the frontier, Diadem Michella opened up fifty-four new worlds to a land rush of disaffected people from the Constellation.

Naturally, the handful of people already on the planets, the ones who had consciously emigrated from the Constellation, were incensed about this. They had been surviving just fine without any help or interference from the old system, and they certainly didn’t want to pay huge new taxes. Several uprisings occurred, but the Diadem dispatched her military to squash them, particularly on Ridgetop, where the military eradicated the original settlement and re-established a Constellation colony.

Each of the Deep Zone worlds was run by a planetary administrator chosen (or at least approved) by the Constellation government. Five territorial governors oversaw ten to eleven planets each, administering the worlds from main offices on Sonjeera; their primary responsibility was to ensure that the colony worlds paid the required tribute to the Diadem whether they liked it or not.

ADKINS, DUFF – retired sergeant in Army of the Constellation, served under Commodore Percival Hallholme during General Adolphus’s rebellion.

ADOLPHUS, GENERAL TIBER MAXIMILIAN – leader of a failed rebellion against the Constellation, now the exiled leader on the planet Hallholme. Commonly called the General.

ADOLPHUS, JACOB – father of Tiber Adolphus, patriarch of Adolphus family on Qiorfu.

ADOLPHUS, STEFANO – brother of Tiber Adolphus.

AEROC – one of the Crown Jewels, ruled by Lord Selik Riomini, the Black Cord; original home of Antonia Anqui.

ALA’RU
– Xayan evolutionary and spiritual ascension. In translation, the Constellation word “soar” comes closest to the Xayan “ala’ru,” a word not easily expressable in other languages. Depending upon how
ala’ru
is pronounced (and to whom, and by whom), the word can mean various degrees of sacredness in the actions of the Xayan individual as he progresses toward a state of perfection and merges his psyche with those of his fellows. In its ultimate form,
ala’ru
refers to the ascension of the entire Xayan race, a word that is uttered with a great exhalation of passion, from the deepest portion of the alien soul.

ALLYF – one of the five preserved Xayans in the museum vault; he did not survive the long sleep.

ANKOR – isolated, high-security industrial outpost on Hellhole, Adolphus’s secret launch site.

ANQUI, ANTONIA – young woman on the run, originally from Aeroc, who chooses to settle on Hellhole. Her real name is Tona Quirrie.

ARMY OF THE CONSTELLATION – space navy and ground-based military that was consolidated during Adolphus’s rebellion, commanded by Lord Selik Riomini.

BARASSA – Crown Jewel planet, original home of the Children of Amadin.

BIRZH – Xayan memory, lover of Jhera.

BLACK LORD – nickname for Lord Selik Riomini, based on his penchant for wearing black.

BOJ – Deep Zone planet.

BUKTU – isolated Deep Zone planet, administered by Ian Walfor; cold and frozen, recently cut off from the Constellation stringline network.

CANDELA – Deep Zone planet administered by Tanja Hu.

CAREY, LUJAH – leader of the Children of Amadin group on Hellhole.

CARTER, ANDREW – one of Sophie Vence’s line managers.

CELANO GEESE – waterfowl native to Sonjeera.

CHERBY – Crown Jewel planet, original home of Franck Tello.

CHILDREN OF AMADIN – isolationist religious group from Barassa that has come to settle on Hellhole.

CIPPIQ – male Xayan, one of the four Originals.

CLES – Deep Zone planet.

CLOVIS, RENNY – one of the two site administrators at Ankor, partner of Tel.

CLOVIS, TEL – one of the two site administrators at Ankor, partner of Renny.

CODECALL SYSTEM – encrypted communications system used throughout the Constellation. When set up properly and operated by trained communications officers, it is said to be impenetrable – but some experts say this way of thinking is a fallacy, because there is no such thing as an ultimate form of any technology.

CONSTELLATION – stellar empire of seventy-four planets, twenty core worlds called the Crown Jewels and fifty-four frontier worlds in the Deep Zone. Capital is Sonjeera, ruled by the Diadem.

CONSTELLATION CHARTER – primary binding document that defines the government of the Constellation.

CORI, ELWAR – Vielinger physicist who discovered how to use processed iperion to mark a path in space, defining a constrained route that the new stardrives could use.

COTTAGE – private residence at the Pond of Birds used as a discreet retreat on the grounds of the Diadem’s palace on Sonjeera.

COUNCIL CITY – government center on Sonjeera.

CRAIS, ALBO – elder member of Crais family whose political ambitions were thwarted by Michella.

CRAIS, BOLTON – husband of Keana Duchenet, logistics officer in the Army of the Constellation.

CRAIS, ILVAR – current head of the Crais noble family.

CRAIS, NOK II – former Diadem, Bolton’s great-great-grandfather; the Council City Spaceport building was constructed during his reign.

CROWN JEWELS – twenty core planets in the Constellation, the most closely packed worlds and most civilized.

DE CARRE, CRISTOPH – son of Louis de Carre and manager of iperion mines on Vielinger.

DE CARRE, LORD LOUIS – planetary leader of Vielinger, lover of Keana Duchenet.

DEEP ZONE – the fifty-four frontier worlds in the Constellation, recently opened to settlement.

DEEZEE – derogatory term for a Deep Zone settler.

DESTINATION DAY – the scheduled completion date of Adolphus’s new stringline transportation network; commonly referred to on D-Day.

DIADEM – the leader of the Constellation government.

DOWNBOX – cargo boxes dropped from a stringline hauler down to the surface of a destination planet.

DOZER – large construction machine.

DUCHENET, DIADEM MICHELLA – current leader of the Constellation.

DUCHENET, HAVEEDA – Michella’s younger sister, rumored to be a witness to the murder of their brother, Jamos, as a child; she has not been seen in public for many years.

DUCHENET, JAMOS – Michella’s older brother, murdered when he was young (Michella is rumored to be responsible).

DUCHENET, KEANA – only daughter of Diadem Michella.

DZ – Deep Zone.

EDWOND HOUSE – building where Edwond the First, the Warrior Diadem, held war-cabinet meetings. Ishop Heer’s new residence.

EDWOND THE FIRST – former Diadem of the Constellation, also called the Warrior Diadem.