Hellhole: Awakening (2 page)

In Michella Town, Sophie managed warehouses full of incoming goods and a set of productive greenhouses; at the distant outpost of Slickwater Springs, she also oversaw the settlement of “shadow-Xayan” converts, human volunteers who had merged their consciousnesses with ancient alien memories. She performed her work with extraordinary skill and had become one of the largest commercial brokers on the planet. Adolphus had made her his chief quartermaster, whose job was to prepare everyone on Hellhole for the lean times ahead.

Now, ignoring the building storm outside, the General looked at all of his advisers, waited for silence. “I don’t expect it’ll come to an outright military confrontation. I have a plan.” He smiled. “It’s a matter of timing and strategic use of information. I still have many loyalists in the Crown Jewels, and some of them even work for the military. Very soon now, I expect to receive details of the offensive operation Diadem Michella plans to send against us, the exact numbers of ships and crew, as well as the precise departure date. She wants to make a grandiose gesture—which takes time. Enough time for us to prepare a trap.”

Craig Jordan grinned. “A trap! Now that’s what I like to hear.”

“Don’t cut it too close, sir,” Cristoph warned.

“The General can make it happen.” Sophie had no doubt in her voice.

2

Red Commodore Escobar Hallholme monitored operations in the command tower of the fleet base, gazing across the sunlit military operations that stretched as far as he could see. A blond man in his thirties, Escobar drew a deep breath, let it out slowly to quell his impatience. This was maddening. He had envisioned charging off to battle on a moment’s notice, overwhelming the enemy of the Constellation, planting his flag in the history books.

Such a large military operation had turned out to be more preparation than action.

After General Adolphus’s heinous act, thousands of soldiers had responded to the call, rushing to the main base on the planet Aeroc. They were the finest troops in the Army of the Constellation, with the most advanced equipment and the best training. In the name of the Diadem Michella Duchenet, they would grind this new uprising to dust and defeat the rebel General once and for all. Escobar would recapture the planet Hallholme—which was named for his father, after all—and earn his own prominent place in history, perhaps even a greater place than old Commodore Hallholme’s. And why not, since he was finishing the job the old man had left incomplete.

Escobar studied the mounting tallies on an interactive admin-image in the air to his right, noted the shipments received and distributed, the materiel and personnel yet to be launched, the armed vessels arriving from other Crown Jewel planets still waiting to be installed aboard one of the giant haulers.

For weeks, Aeroc had been a beehive of activity as the massive military operation was mounted. Crews loaded upboxes full of munitions and supplies for the fleet; each day, dozens of upboxes launched into orbit, where they were transferred to the one hundred capital ships installed aboard five huge military stringline hauler frameworks. Soon, fifteen thousand uniformed fighters and support crew would shuttle up on troop transports to fill the great vessels. The fleet carried a higher than optimal percentage of officers, because every noble family wanted to claim that a son or daughter had participated in the glorious, final defeat of General Adolphus.

Yes, it was an impressive operation, yet daunting and unwieldy.

Two weeks ago, Diadem Michella had stood in the Council Hall and declared war. Because the General’s announcement had taken the Constellation completely by surprise, the Constellation fleet wasn’t ready.

Escobar was anxious to
go.
“This is too damned slow!” he said into the unit’s receiver.

“We can’t leave before everything’s loaded, sir,” the response came over his earadio. Logistics Officer Bolton Crais was a silver major in the fleet and the mission’s second in command—not because of military prowess or competence, but because his wife, the Diadem’s daughter Keana, remained a prisoner of the General’s. “A poorly planned mission is a disaster waiting to happen.”

Escobar sighed, wondering if his father had ever been forced to wait for weeks before he engaged his nemesis. The old Commodore told interminable stories, but rarely included bureaucratic details. “What excuses do you have for me today, Major? Are we at least on your
revised
schedule?”

“I’ll be right up, sir. We need to talk about this.”

Escobar made a sound in his throat halfway between a groan and a growl. At least the situation would advance his own military career. Having recently been promoted to the rank of Redcom for this assault, he intended to demonstrate the superiority of his skills as a decision maker and leader. If Commodore Percival Hallholme had killed Adolphus when he had the chance, the rebel General would not now be tearing apart the Constellation.…

He heard the machinery of the tower lift, and Major Bolton Crais stepped out, tall and slender in his gold-and-black uniform, with the silver rank insignia on his collar. Crais stepped up to the projected columns of numbers that hung in the air. “A shortage of upboxes has created a new bottleneck, sir. Our crews have to wait for the containers to come back before we can load them again. As I explained in my memo several days ago, we were forced to decommission an entire shipment of defective upboxes, all from one manufacturer.”

Escobar scowled. “You’re supposed to be the logistics expert. You should have tested all of the upboxes ahead of time.”

Crais did not let the criticism wash over him, as a lower-ranking officer should have. “Sir, you opted not to waste time testing the new deliveries. Time was of the essence.”

Escobar did not know how to direct his frustration. “Our task force is on a fast track, Major. The Diadem wants Adolphus’s head delivered to her on a platter, and Lord Riomini demands the swift and efficient deployment of the fleet. It’s been weeks already!”

“I understand, Redcom. You, and the Black Lord, have my apologies. Swift and efficient are often at odds, however. From the moment I became involved, I began to discover problems with the planning, not to mention unrealistic expectations. The Army of the Constellation has been weighed down with bureaucracy and nepotism for years, and the past decade of peace has made our soldiers soft and unprepared for war.”

“You’re not filling me with confidence, Major.”

Bolton did not even seem embarrassed. “We also had a false bomb scare and had to evacuate half our ships.”

He sighed. “More excuses. Has the perpetrator been caught?”

“No, Redcom. Likely one of the General’s deluded loyalists causing problems.”

Escobar tried to calm himself by imagining the size and power of the force he would eventually bring to bear against Adolphus. Then all the delays would be forgotten. “Once we get the fleet to the Sonjeera hub and launch to planet Hallholme, it is only a four-day stringline flight. We can wrap up this bothersome uprising swiftly enough.” His words were clipped, his voice angry. “The sooner we depart, the sooner we defeat the General.”

Bolton looked away. “There’s … another snag, Redcom. The Diadem just issued a directive that we must bring back thousands of prisoners so she can hold a dramatic show trial. Our fleet has to be prepared to hold and control all those captives.”

Escobar shook his head. Did she understand what she was asking? “I understand the Diadem’s need for a grand spectacle, but I don’t think she comprehends the difficulties of transporting thousands of prisoners!”

Major Crais was all business, completely organized. “To that end, Redcom, I requisitioned large stockpiles of a stasis drug from Sandusky so we can sedate them en masse, and stack them like cordwood if we need to. It will make the prisoner situation manageable. The last shipment of the drug should arrive from Sandusky within two days.”

A delay, but not a disaster. “Yes, yes. But when do we actually launch the fleet? That’s the only detail I really care about.”

“Best estimate, sir—ten days.”

Each answer disgusted him more and more. “A week behind the original schedule! I hope to conquer the General before he dies of old age. You’re losing credibility, Major, and sooner or later your noble friends will no longer be able to protect you.”

“We’re loading as fast as we can, sir. Given the uncertainties of the engagement, we don’t want to leave behind anything important. If we take dangerous shortcuts, we risk high casualties. We need ample supplies so that we are in a position to impose what might be an extended siege.”

“Extended siege? The longer we delay, Major, the more lives we’re going to lose because the General has a chance to strengthen his defenses. He’s got to be expecting us. In fact, he’s probably surprised that we haven’t already bombarded his planet.”

“General Adolphus understands the complexities of large fleet movements, sir.”

Escobar grumbled as he paced the tower’s observation deck. “If we struck faster, we’d likely need half as many ships to take him out.”

“But we don’t want to take that chance. Lord Riomini and the Diadem don’t want to take that chance. Ten days, Redcom. You have my best estimate.”

“And I’ll hold you to it, Major.” Escobar turned to the windows and watched one of the upboxes surge up its launch chute and streak into the sky. With a ripple of sonic boom, it vanished into the blue.

*   *   *

As Bolton Crais rode the lift back down to his office, he reminded himself that he had actually pulled strings to be transferred to this assignment. Bolton’s marriage to the Diadem’s daughter had never been more than political window dressing. He was realistic about that much. She had cuckolded him, flaunted her affair with Lord Louis de Carre until political backlash brought down the de Carre family. Even so, Bolton cared a great deal for Keana, though he felt more like a brother to her than a romantic hero. He worried about her, especially now that she had fallen under the spell of the rebels. And, possibly, the aliens …

The Diadem might have abandoned her daughter, but Bolton still hoped to rescue her. He was determined to prepare the fleet properly so Keana could be saved. On his own authority, Bolton had added many key items to the fleet manifests, just in case; to avoid criticism, he had used his family wealth to purchase auxiliary life-support equipment, medical supplies, a pair of discontinued civilian trailblazers, even a cargo of iperion, to be used in the event of an emergency. To avoid drawing notice and a potential reprimand from Redcom Hallholme, he loaded the additional equipment aboard the stringline warships in innocuously marked containers.

Theoretically, the punitive mission should last no more than a couple of weeks, but many things could go wrong, especially in such a large operation. He would not let the Redcom’s impatience force him into making mistakes. Escobar Hallholme was not even a shadow of his illustrious father. Bolton was convinced the new Redcom was in over his head—and they had not even departed yet.…

The descending lift came to a stop, and Bolton stepped out, making his way into the military encampment. He organized his mind, monitoring all the loose ends that still needed to be tied together before the fleet could depart.

Ten more days. Even that seemed unrealistic.

3

During a decade of service, the linerunner
Kerris
had followed many stringline routes throughout the Constellation, both in the well-traveled Crown Jewel network and out to the far-flung Deep Zone. Turlo and Sunitha Urvancik flew the small ship, maintaining the iperion path that made hyperfast space travel possible.

Before throwing in their lot with the General, the two linerunners had always done their lonely work without drawing any attention. Now that the DZ had declared independence from the Constellation, though, the Urvanciks had to slip back to Sonjeera like thieves in the night. If they succeeded in this intelligence-gathering mission, they would help save Hellhole, perhaps even bring down the Diadem’s government.

“And that wouldn’t make me shed a single tear,” Sunitha said.

Turlo saw the hard expression on his wife’s face. Sunitha had large, dark eyes and dusky skin, a beauty that had not diminished as she grew older; her hair was still deep black, with only a few shadows of gray. “Nothing will bring Kerris back,” he said. “But at least it might help the scars fade.”

At the beginning of the General’s earlier rebellion, their only son had believed the Diadem’s propaganda and joined the Army of the Constellation. He considered himself a patriot. But in the war, after Kerris witnessed unspeakable things, his initial patriotism turned to disenchantment and then to outright shock. He had died a “hero,” according to the Diadem’s official consolation note, but Turlo and Sunitha learned later that their son had been killed in an accident caused by the incompetence of his own comrades. The Diadem’s note had placed the blame squarely on Adolphus, keeping the blood off her own hands.

Now Turlo believed Kerris would applaud their decision to side with the General. If only their son were still alive, he could join them in the fight for true freedom.…

“I just want life to get back to normal,” Sunitha said.

The stringline timer sent a signal chime through the cockpit, and the two became all business. Once they acquired the information from the loyalist spy, the General could finalize his defenses and set a trap before the Army of the Constellation came to destroy him.

Sunitha leaned forward to verify their position as space traffic increased on the outskirts of the Sonjeera system. “Need to make sure we’re not too close to the planet, not too far out.” All the Constellation’s stringlines converged at the central Sonjeera hub, but any vessel on the interdicted Hellhole line would arouse immediate suspicion. Without giving Turlo time to brace himself, she disengaged the
Kerris
from the iperion path and they coasted in toward the capital planet.

Officially, the two linerunners had been “lost” on one of their routes, written off as dead. If they were discovered now, secretly working for the rebel General, the Diadem’s torturers would make even their son’s lingering radiation-poisoning death seem easy.