Hellhole: Awakening (51 page)

While Escobar kept his end of the transmission line blocked, General Adolphus began broadcasting his own images for everyone to see, real-time video of shuttle after shuttle of captured Constellation soldiers being taken down to the Michella Town spaceport. The prisoners of war were escorted to makeshift mess halls and received platters of rations. Nothing extravagant, simply preserved military meals—nevertheless, it looked like a feast compared with the rigors of starvation in space.

Before rebel technicians could punch through the codecall blocks on the
Diadem’s Glory,
Escobar opened the connection himself to show his own image. He glared into the screen while Adolphus spoke.

“I am providing for every one of your soldiers, Redcom, but before we grant relief to the crews aboard your holdout ships, I require a formal surrender ceremony. You have been a worthy opponent, and I bear you no personal enmity, but I suggest you accept my offer before your own flagship crew mutinies.”

“I refuse,” Escobar said automatically and added with false bravado, “My remaining warships have ample supplies.”

“Very well.” Adolphus shrugged. “If you believe discipline trumps hunger, we can keep you bottled up for as long as you like. We’re patient. Take your time.”

Escobar realized he was hyperventilating; he could barely see or concentrate. He knew he would have to concede sooner or later. Adolphus’s stringline facilities were too well guarded for Escobar’s handful of loyal ships to capture one of them. And the new stringline had no value as an escape route, since it led to only a deep-space graveyard.

Thoughts sped through his mind like weapons fire. How many more deaths did he want on his conscience? He knew the General was not exaggerating: the threat of a mutiny, the constantly playing images of well-fed prisoners, the bounty of colony food offered to anyone who laid down their arms, were irresistible to starving crewmembers who could not endure for another day, much less weeks. General Adolphus could indeed wait as long as he liked.

Escobar turned to his rival’s face on the screen. “All right, damn you! We’ll come over to your flagship.”

Adolphus gave a nod and a congenial smile. “I am glad you’ve seen reason. Shall I send a shuttle for you?”

“We can get there ourselves,” Escobar snapped. He tried to end the transmission, but for several moments his opponent’s codecall override kept it open, until it finally shut down.

*   *   *

Back when Gail Carrington was forcibly sedated, Escobar had read her private orders from Lord Riomini. He knew she had been instructed to kill him should he fail—and by any definition he had surely failed. Now, in his dim quarters where he prepared himself for surrender and shame, Escobar was half-convinced she would murder him in front of everyone. Perhaps that would be for the best anyway.

This defeat was entirely Escobar’s fault, and because of him, a full fleet had fallen into the hands of the enemy. Because of him, the Constellation might well lose the war, thanks to all those warships he had inadvertently handed to the Deep Zone Defense Forces. The General would have enough military might to overthrow the Diadem and her government. And once word of the humiliating surrender ceremony got back to Sonjeera, even his father’s legendary triumphs would be swept aside. Escobar’s own sons would grow up in disgrace—if either of them survived this revolution.

Carrington and Major Crais entered his quarters. Escobar rose stiffly from his desk chair and looked at the ceremonial sword hanging on the wall. He remembered when the old Commodore had given it to him before Escobar departed on this mission. The library screen, where he had viewed so many of his father’s exploits, was blank.

He turned to Carrington, his hands at his sides and fingers loose, as if to make it clear that he had no weapon. He tilted his chin up in a gesture that might have been interpreted as pride, but Carrington probably saw it as baring his throat. He remembered how she had slit the jugular of the naïve young comm-officer before he could send a distress message.

Maybe that was how she intended to kill him as well.

Before she could make a move, though, he surprised her by saying, “I understand that we must snatch these ships from the jaws of our enemy, at all costs. As Redcom, I have access to certain fleet command codes that are not in any standard manual. I … I still have a way to turn this around.”

Carrington seemed surprised. “I’m listening, Redcom.”

He looked away from the quiet Bolton Crais. “The majority of our troops have deserted us already, and the General demands our surrender. But I refuse to allow our remaining fleet to become part of his Deep Zone Defense Force. I’ll destroy the ships first.”

Bolton said, “He already
has
most of our fleet, sir. The ships are in low orbit, being boarded. What can we do about it now?”

“We can render them useless,” Escobar said with a hard smile. He felt a chill go down his back.

“Continue,” Carrington said, as if she were his superior.

“For logistical override, all of the command computers in this battle group are linked and accessible from the
Diadem’s Glory.
Those systems were installed and recalibrated at Aeroc before the fleet departed for the Sonjeera hub.”

“I know—I handled a lot of it,” Bolton said.

Escobar drew a breath. “I can trigger a cascade shutdown throughout all of our ships. There is a command virus embedded deep in the operating computers, and I can render the engines useless. The ships will drop out of orbit and burn up. Those soldiers who can’t get to the evac pods will die, but at least history will remember that we did the right thing.”

“Acceptable, Redcom.” Carrington nodded. “You have surprised me.”

Escobar felt sick, though, after he had fought so hard to keep his soldiers alive, and now he would be the direct cause of their deaths. It was an ignominious way to end his own career, and his life.…

Bolton had paled, and he fidgeted as he wrestled with his own thoughts. “But if our goal is to prevent General Adolphus from commandeering our warships, it may not be necessary to slaughter our personnel as well. The deserters are being taken off, but those who remain aboard our ships are the most loyal fighters, the ones who refused to surrender. They don’t deserve that.”

“It is their duty to die,” Carrington said, as if the answer were obvious.

“But it’s not necessary!” Bolton said. “Allow me to modify the plan: I can add a delay to the virus trigger. Give the General enough time to evacuate our personnel, let him put his own people aboard—and
then
the virus can activate the autopilot. I can reprogram it. The result is the same: Our ships will still burn up in the atmosphere.”

Escobar seized on the hope. “I have enough blood on my hands already. That seems like a good solution.”

Carrington looked as if she would argue with the idea, but then her thin smile was like a razor slice on a bare throat. “And by that time, our captured ships will be infested by
his own people.
Yes, Major Bolton, I can see the advantage in that.”

Escobar felt some of the weight lift from his chest. “And the General won’t be able to do anything about it.” He would still be a prisoner, but his plan would snatch the prize right out of rebel hands in a bold final gesture. “We will set the virus timer before we go to our surrender ceremony. It’s not the victory I had hoped for, but it will deny the advantage to the enemy.”

Carrington still looked dissatisfied. “We must do more than that, gentlemen. We have to eliminate General Adolphus himself, or all our other efforts will be irrelevant.”

79

After so many recent setbacks, Diadem Michella’s subjects had begun to grumble more loudly. The disruption of stringline traffic through the Sonjeera hub had been a disaster, and her engineers were working to exhaustion—and astonishing expense—to reconnect the iperion lines throughout the Crown Jewels. Also, despite vague excuses the government released to the media, the people knew the war against General Adolphus wasn’t going well, and that the original fleet had been lost. Not-so-discreet mutterings among rebel sympathizers were mounting.

Ishop had provided her with an excellent distraction, and he knew he would be rewarded for it.

With great publicity and indignation, Michella would expose Lady Enva Tazaar’s involvement in the assassination attempt and her collusion with General Adolphus. She was the perfect scapegoat.

By a stroke of good luck, Lady Tazaar had been on Sonjeera when the alien psychic blast severely damaged the hub and disrupted stringline travel. She could not go home to Orsini, and the Diadem’s guards arrested her—in public, with many media imagers in place; they timed their operation well, bursting through the door during a lavish dinner party and evichord musical performance. The startled noblewoman was hauled away to prison—for effect, Ishop suggested she be placed in the same cell where Governor Goler had been held. Tazaar’s party guests were questioned and eventually released, though under a cloud of suspicion. They helped spread the rumors.

The media played the story constantly, and Ishop arranged for the proof of Enva Tazaar’s conspiracy to be released in several stages, each piece more damning than the previous, which kept the scandal alive and at the center of attention. The distraction gave the Diadem breathing space to have her crews restore commercial traffic among the core worlds.

Though Ishop knew Enva Tazaar was guilty, he felt a twinge of remorse, considering what had happened to the Osheers seven centuries ago. It was also a shame that Enva was so strikingly beautiful and intelligent; he felt sure they could have made a fine team, two aristocratic lines raising themselves to great heights. Even Laderna approved of his assessment. In fact, Enva’s overall scheme to ally herself with the rebel General, assassinate old Michella, and reach an accord with the breakaway Deep Zone worlds had a great deal of merit. Secretly, Ishop and Laderna admired her large-scale planning.

But he chose to look on the bright side. With the Tazaars stripped of their family wealth, their holdings on planet Orsini would be ripe for the taking. And once the nobles accepted Ishop back into their fold, he was going to need a planet to rule. Yes, the timing would be perfect.…

The sentencing of Enva Tazaar was such an important event that Diadem Michella chose to officiate over the punishment herself. For the occasion Ishop wore his finest suit with gold buttons, part of his new wardrobe of expensively tailored outfits; Laderna said it made him look like the nobleman he actually was. As part of his reward for service, the Diadem had granted him a seat of honor in the front row for the proceedings. He sat there now, smiling and proud, gazing up at the old woman. But he was inexplicably nervous, and he felt perspiration on his smooth, clean-shaven scalp, as if he were the one accused rather than Lady Tazaar. Laderna sat in the general audience chamber as well, several rows back.

The immense entrance doors swung open, and a hush fell over the chamber as four soldiers in dress military uniforms escorted the prisoner in. Enva Tazaar attempted to walk with her head held high, but the heavy symbolic chains weighed her down. This once elegant noblewoman wore no gown or expensive jewelry, but rather a drab brown prison jumpsuit; her long blonde hair was matted, and she looked gaunt. Ishop saw the flicker of her gaze, the haunted aura of fear.

The evidence against her had flooded public broadcasts; all nobles in the chamber had seen the complete classified report (which had also been leaked to the media). Enva Tazaar’s attorneys had filed protests and appeals, but they were merely pro forma gestures, not expected to accomplish anything.

As the prisoner shuffled forward, already ruined, the noise in the chamber increased; some nobles shouted insults, and Ishop noted that many of them were the same people who had been guests at her dinner party.

“Traitor!”

“Strip her naked and parade her through the streets!”

“Kill her!”

“Make her suffer!”

Enva halted at the foot of the Star Throne, and Ishop could not help but think of images from the much-publicized treason trial of General Adolphus more than a decade ago. She stared defiantly at the Diadem and did not plead for mercy. She had enough political savvy to know she had been caught in an unbreakable trap. As Enva held her head high, Ishop could not suppress his admiration for her.

Her father, Azio Tazaar, had been one of the early victims on Ishop’s list; by murdering the dyspeptic old blowhard, he had been responsible for placing her in power. She was magnificent now … but he had also engineered her downfall.

Seeing this broken noblewoman made him ponder how
his
Osheer ancestor had reacted when he was hauled before the ruling council, disgraced and stripped of his noble titles and wealth, hearing the decree that his descendants were to be cast out of the ranks of nobility for seven centuries. His hands clenched into fists.

The Diadem maintained a long and hateful stare, then said in a measured tone, “Lady Tazaar, you attempted to have me killed, and now I shall return the favor. You wanted to seize the Star Throne for yourself, and worst of all, you plotted with the Constellation’s greatest enemy.”

The anger rolling through the nobles sounded like the threatening growler storm Ishop had endured on his first visit to Hellhole.

“Every member of the Council has had a chance to review the files, as well as the ridiculous rebuttals your attorneys submitted. As Diadem, I am ready to make my pronouncement.” She sat back on the Star Throne, then surprised Ishop by looking directly at him. “I must express gratitude to my faithful aide Ishop Heer for offering a neat solution. His office discovered a useful and interesting clause in ancient Constellation law. We had all but forgotten about the provision, but it seems most appropriate now.”

Ishop maintained a demure, respectful smile as everyone looked at him, but he had no idea what the Diadem was talking about. His heart pounded hard.

Michella continued, “There is an old proviso in the Constellation Charter that can be used in extreme circumstances, when a noble so significantly breaches acceptable standards of behavior that simple censure will not suffice.” She squared her bony shoulders, made her voice more ponderous. “Enva Tazaar, you are stripped of your family wealth, including planet Orsini, but because your crimes against the Constellation are so extreme, your family must pay the price as well. Therefore, all members of the Tazaar family and their descendants are banned from the ranks of nobility for a period of
seven hundred years.
”