Hellhole: Awakening (62 page)

Percival knew all the logical reasons why he didn’t dare let General Adolphus capture him, even if it meant leaving his son behind. The great Commodore Hallholme could not be taken prisoner by the rebels! He could not allow Adolphus to capture his thirty ships, in addition to whatever the rebel leader salvaged from Escobar’s fleet. Surely, the General would turn them loose upon the Constellation.

Adkins remained silent, although the bridge crew continued to bustle around them. After a long moment, the aide cleared his throat and said, “I agree that escape is preferable, sir. You can report back to the Diadem and fight another day.”

“Believe me, this is not over.” He vowed to find some way to rescue Escobar and all the captured Constellation soldiers in the Hellhole prisoner-of-war camp, but he could not do it now.

As the Commodore’s ships began to retreat, General Adolphus shouted orders across the open channel. The refugee battleships from Candela raced in toward him, attempting to cut off his escape.

“We can’t fight,” Percival said. “We have to outrun them—all possible speed!”

They closed in on the giant stringline hauler, and the framework began to pull away along the iperion line where it had waited after dropping off the battle group. Now all those weaponless vessels raced back, trying to reach the hauler as the Deep Zone military accelerated after them.

Percival said over the fleet channel in a maddeningly calm voice, “I would prefer not to leave any ship behind. Therefore, I’m counting on all of you not to make that necessary.”

The outlying ships reached the stringline hauler, and with admirable precision they all linked up to the docking clamps. Just like a well-choreographed exercise. Percival was impressed by their efficiency, even though they had never drilled for such a speedy and large-scale retreat.

Two guards arrived on the bridge of the flagship escorting Erik Anderlos in cuffs. The Buktu deputy looked rumpled, having worn the same clothes since Percival’s raid on the frozen planetoid, but he no longer seemed tired and defeated. Apparently he understood that the attack on Hellhole had failed.

“So you’re running back to Buktu,” he said. “Why don’t you leave us behind? The General might be more lenient with you.”

“No time for that, I’m afraid,” Percival said. “Adolphus is already after us, and I need to be out of here as swiftly as possible.”

The flagship docked in its clamp on the stringline hauler. One by one, his warships acknowledged they were secure and ready for departure. “All vessels aboard, Commodore,” the hauler pilot transmitted.

Closing in, the refugee ships from Candela fired, trying to damage the giant framework vessel.

“Get us out of here!”

Weapon strikes began to pepper the stringline hauler as it lumbered along the iperion path, accelerating until the hellish planet and the General’s defense ships blurred in the distance and vanished. At unimaginable speed, the Commodore’s ships headed back up the line toward Buktu. Percival suspected that General Adolphus would be on their heels as soon as he could rally his ships.

The old Commodore sat back in his command chair, feeling sick with the taste of defeat.

94

Tanja chose to ride away from Candela with Ian Walfor, since his ship was one of the last to depart as the pair of deadly asteroids bore down on their collision course. Jacque, who had been held safely at the hub, came aboard the vessel after it docked, giving Tanja a long, wordless hug. Now the boy stood silently at a porthole, his eyes wide in horrified fascination.

The first impact would occur within hours.

In the chaos of mass evacuation, she had initially insisted that he go with the first loads of refugees down the stringline to Hellhole, but she wanted him at her side instead. She had agreed to allow Jacque to be with her when the asteroids struck. It was something he would never forget, something she couldn’t deny him. The death of a planet.

And being with the boy made her feel strong, too. The two of them had lost so much, and now they were like life preservers for each other. Besides her growing affection for him, Tanja saw the ten-year-old as an anchor to her humanity. Maybe it would drown out the other nightmare that haunted him.

Also aboard Walfor’s ship was the recovered, though still damaged, Original alien Tryn and the only surviving shadow-Xayan from the seed colony. The two of them wanted to witness the final hours of Candela as well. Twisted and bent over, Tel Clovis had difficulty moving, but he had leaned on the one-eyed Tryn as they boarded the craft together. They would all be the last witnesses.

Thanks to the extra ships General Adolphus had sent from Hellhole, shuttle after shuttle had loaded with passengers. Evacuees were packed aboard every possible vessel, using every drop of fuel that could be scrounged from Candela. Each person barely had room to move, and there wasn’t enough food or other supplies for so many. But they would have to last only a few days until they all got back to the Hellhole stringline hub.

The operation never stopped. Another loaded stringline hauler headed down the iperion line; the last few shuttles continued to climb up from orbit bearing the final refugees. That was all—no one else was going to escape. She had done her best.

Despite all her efforts, thousands of people remained down there, trapped. Many out in the frontier had no idea of the imminent disaster. Perhaps they were the lucky ones. The whole planet would be their graveyard.

The asteroids were still on course to strike, close enough to be visible in space.

The last fully loaded iperion cargo ships reached orbit and headed toward the partially assembled stringline hub with its lines to Cles and Theser. A dozen loads of the rare mineral substance had been launched from the mines; the workers had scrounged every possible scrap before abandoning the operations six hours earlier.

Walfor was sweating. “We’re cutting this close. Less than an hour until the first asteroid strikes, and the other one will hit before the end of the day.”

“After the first strike, it doesn’t matter,” Tanja said, shaking her head. “An impact of that magnitude won’t leave anything for the second asteroid to destroy.”

They stood in grim silence, and Walfor reached out to squeeze her hand. “You saved most of the people, Tanja. I never would have bet you’d rescue as many as you did. No one could have done better.”

She couldn’t feel good about her supposed accomplishment. Even so, she knew the credit was not all hers. “I couldn’t have done it without you, Ian.” Her eyes burned, and she closed her eyes to block the view, but forced them open again to make sure she watched every last second of her beautiful, pristine planet. “You might think our effort would matter … and it should. But rather than thinking of everyone who will survive because we led the rescue operation, I can’t ignore those thousands who are unaccounted for. We’ll never know how many we left behind.” Tanja looked away. “It doesn’t matter. I failed them either way.”

Moving with her unsettlingly soft gait, the malformed Tryn came into the small piloting deck, accompanied by limping Clovis. The Original alien waved her drooping, retractable feelers in the air while Tel leaned against her. “It is almost time.”

Walfor switched the ship’s comm-system to play the flurry of reports over the speakers. “All but five loaded ships have departed on the stringline. One hauler is left, waiting for the last evacuees.”

“They may as well stay and bear witness, as long as they’re safe.” She shook her head. “It’s not as if I can command them anymore.”

“You’re still the planetary administrator.”

“Not for much longer, without a planet.”

Jacque came to her side, and he was shaking with fear. She put her arm around his shoulders, but the trembling did not subside. On the screen, satellite sensors displayed the two incoming asteroids, which were clearly visible against the starfield. Compared to the size of a planet, they were tiny pebbles; nevertheless, each terrible impact would send reverberations through the crust.

The shock wave alone would kill most creatures—just like on Hellhole. Forests would be leveled, engulfed in flames; earthquakes would rip the continents apart. Cubic miles of the surface would be vaporized, saturating the atmosphere with ash. Nothing would be able to live on the devastated world for centuries. It would be a mortal wound, no doubt about it.

The misshapen Original alien made a low humming sound, saddened and disturbed. “When Xaya faced a similar asteroid impact, five of us had already sealed ourselves in the museum vault. We never observed the end of our planet. And I am deeply saddened to witness this one.”

“Here comes the first asteroid,” Walfor said.

On the far right edge of the screen, one of the gigantic rocks rolled in, a cratered irregular lump almost a hundred kilometers in diameter. The asteroid looked graceful, even casual, as it tumbled toward its target.

“It’s moving so slowly,” Jacque said.

“Just a matter of perspective,” Tanja answered. “It’s heading for Candela at fifty kilometers per second.” Much faster than any natural piece of space debris. The second asteroid was farther out, coming from a slightly different direction, aimed at the bull’s-eye of her world.

“Candela … I built a home here.” She stared down at the familiar continents, the wispy clouds, the patches of green, the coastlines. “It was a new hope for us, a place where we could live by our own means and build a society that was our choice. I never expected it to be easy, but who could have anticipated a disaster of this scale?”

Jacque looked up at her with his big brown eyes. His trembling had diminished. “Will General Adolphus find us a new home?”

“Yes.” Tanja tried to sound as confident as possible, but the dread was suffocating her. Why was this happening? Two asteroids coming in like bullets from a celestial firing squad—it had to be the work of an intelligence she could not fathom.

The first asteroid sailed along through the vacuum, then grazed Candela’s atmosphere and tunneled a hole through the sky. Burning its way to the surface, it struck with a slow-motion impact. Scarlet and orange shock waves rippled along with hot jagged fissures as the dissipating energy set the atmosphere on fire, carved an enormous crater in the crust, and shouldered aside mountain ranges.

Tanja caught her breath. Even Walfor let out a shocked sound. Beside her, Jacque wept.

In that one instant, everyone who had remained behind, everyone who had missed the evacuation call, was now dead. The impact had leveled every structure the colonists of Candela had ever built. The majestic floating towers in Saporo Harbor, the villages in the hills, the shadow-Xayan seed colony, the rich iperion mines.

A thrumming ripple echoed through Ian Walfor’s ship. Tanja couldn’t believe it was a feedback or shock wave from the asteroid strike, but then she realized it was a telemancy echo, a vibration of despair emitted by Tryn and Clovis. “Exactly like what happened to Xaya five centuries ago,” the Original said in a quiet, throbbing voice.

Tanja’s throat was dry, and her heart pounded. She forced herself not to turn away and hide from the end of her world, but she could think of no appropriate response to what she had just witnessed.

Two hours later they watched the second horrific asteroid strike, which was even larger than the first.

95

Ishop’s complete disbelief swelled inside of him like a gathering storm. The Council of Nobles had dismissed his legitimate claim! They had disregarded the law, the Constellation Charter—even though they had applied the same proviso when it suited their purposes. Even Michella had brushed him aside, after all he’d done for her, all the political messes he had cleaned up.

Because he was her most loyal aide, Michella had lavished praise upon him. She’d supported him, appreciated his work, trusted him with her life … so long as he knew his place. In her view, the most talented butler in the universe did not deserve even a minor seat at the master’s table.

His ancestors had been Diadems—and the nobles had
laughed
at him!

Michella seemed not to give any thought to how much blood he had on his hands because of her. Wallowing in dark thoughts, he wondered what difference a little more blood would make.…

He paced the patio of his townhouse, seething. Laderna came up from behind and held him close, and he felt the comforting softness of her caress. “You’re not alone in this—I’m still here,” she said in a gentle voice. “And
I
know you’re a nobleman, as good as any of them. Better, in fact.”

She never denigrated him, never laughed at his dreams, and she supported him regardless of his title. As a lord, he had planned—strictly in a business sense—to marry an acceptable noblewoman and establish a Heer dynasty, rebuilding the family name after centuries of neglect. He had been willing to keep Laderna around, perhaps even as his own trusted assistant—like he was to the Diadem—to do necessary but unpleasant work.…

Now all that had been dashed, and still she was here with him.

It was a typical sunny Sonjeera day, and Ishop decided he had to leave Council City. He took Laderna on the hovercycle—one of several flashy gifts from the Diadem, though one he rarely used. Now, as Laderna sat behind him and held on tight, he streaked off on a cushion of air and followed a winding road out of the city, skimming so fast that he felt he could race away from the insults the nobles had heaped on him.

Ishop turned into a tree-lined sanctuary, the new Hirdan Wildlife Park, and stopped at a brass dedication plaque at the gate. Laderna laughed at the irony as she read: “‘The land for this park was donated by Lord Hirdan, in honor of his deceased son.’” She chuckled. “One of our first accomplishments on the list!”

“Somehow I don’t see the humor right now,” Ishop said. “The list did me no good. All that work, all the terrible risks we took, for nothing.”

“Not for nothing! You exacted your revenge, and don’t tell me there wasn’t personal satisfaction in that. Besides, now we can enjoy this nice park.”

They rode the hovercycle to a lookout that showed off the grandeur of Council City. They absorbed the view in solitude, but were interrupted by a group of bicyclists, so they left. Continuing on the hovercycle, they found a grassy slope that overlooked a small blue lake; their only company was a flock of large white-winged birds.