Hellhole: Awakening (57 page)

Encix arrived at the fenced-in compound from the nearby shadow-Xayan settlement. The Original alien glided in silence, her stubby caterpillar feet flexing and carrying her along in a sinuous rolling movement. When the Constellation prisoners inside the fence saw her coming, they muttered in awe; some came close to the barricade, while others backed away in horror.

Adolphus knew that not many in the Crown Jewels even believed that the resurrected aliens existed; they thought the shadow-Xayans were nothing more than an odd religious cult that had seduced Princess Keana. But now the bizarre caterpillar-centaur creature stood before them, unmistakably not human.

Encix, Lodo, and the group of alien converts had been rocked by the destruction of the seed colony on Candela. The pain they felt through the ricochet of telemancy had damaged them collectively, setting back their progress toward
ala’ru.
All the mental power they had expended to quell the upheavals in the Hellhole impact crater, as well as the psychic blast that damaged the Sonjeera stringline hub, had drained the converts.

Encix turned her antennae toward the camp, then faced the General. “Are these your prisoners? Are you allowed to do with them as you wish?” He knew her voice well enough that he could tell she sounded anxious.

“I promised them safety and shelter.”

Encix hesitated. “That is a strange commitment to make to a rival faction that means to destroy you.”

Sophie’s voice was laced with scorn. “And obviously, they don’t all abide by those rules themselves.”

Encix continued to gaze ahead, regarding the thousands of human prisoners. “You are aware of how powerful the shadow-Xayans have become, how close we were coming to our ascension. That is all-important—more so now than ever! But time grows short, and we have been weakened with our recent expenditures of great telemancy. There is danger to us … but if all of these humans were to enter the slickwater, then we would certainly resurrect enough telemancers for
ala’ru.
”

“I’d be happy to dump them by the truckload into the slickwater,” Sophie said. “But I promised it had to be voluntary. That was the deal, even for people like this.”

Thrumming, Encix stared at the thousands of captured soldiers. “May I address the human who leads them? Perhaps I can convince them to make the choice themselves.”

Adolphus considered. “If you like, but I doubt you’ll make an impression. I’ll take you there.” He thought that maybe these prisoners could do something worthwhile after all.

Under guard, he and Sophie led the large alien to the camp’s main gate, where guards stood with their weapons shouldered. Although the locals were familiar with seeing the Original, Encix still intimidated many of them.

“We need to have a word with Redcom Hallholme,” Adolphus said. “I want twenty soldiers to come with me.”

When the gates opened, the guards led them to the central tent that Escobar Hallholme had chosen as his primary residence. When they approached the fabric structure, the Redcom waited for them outside. He still wore his Constellation uniform, which was now dusty, rumpled, and bloodstained. He stared at the hulking alien, and his eyes widened.

Encix turned to the General. “This is the man who betrayed you? Who was responsible for the loss of Jhera and Birzh?”

Sophie answered before the General could. “Yes, he’s the one.”

Adolphus answered differently. “This is the man I defeated.” He locked hard gazes with the gaunt Constellation commander. “Redcom Escobar Hallholme, may I present Encix, one of the Original Xayans who inhabited this planet before the asteroid impact.”

The enemy commander seemed alarmed and did not know how to respond. Encix spoke loudly through her pulsing membrane. “Red Commodore Escobar Hallholme, the Xayan race has need of your humans. Thousands of our lives are stored within the slickwater pools, and they require human hosts to awaken them, bodies and minds to share. Your people will be content with us, and they will be useful.”

Paling, Escobar turned to the General. “What is this … creature … talking about?”

Sophie explained, “They want you and the prisoners to immerse yourselves in the slickwater and take on a Xayan personality, so their race can ascend to a new evolutionary level. It is their holy grail.”

“None of my people will submit to that sort of inhuman … brainwashing!”

Encix was puzzled. “But it would give us numbers sufficient for
ala’ru
. That was our agreement, General Tiber Adolphus. We make no claims on your planetary colony, provided that you help us reach our destiny. These prisoners are defeated. Their faction is weak. You are their master.”

“I could give the order, but I am bound by my own honor,” Adolphus said, “and I
will
remain true to my word.” His gaze cut like razor wire when he turned it on Redcom Hallholme.

“I only tried to do what was necessary,” the Redcom said.

“And you failed.” Adolphus was matter-of-fact. “Now your fleet has become part of the Deep Zone Defense Force to protect my worlds.”

“Maybe so,” Escobar said,” but I will not allow alien access to my gallant soldiers. You may force it on them, but it would be taking dishonorable advantage of a defeated enemy.”

Adolphus scowled. “Perhaps you are right, Redcom. I’ll give it further thought.”

Sophie’s voice carried an acid bitterness. “We’d better rename the
Diadem’s Glory,
Tiber. Let’s call it
Hallholme’s Folly.
”

His heart ached to see her pain. Normally, he would have avoided a choice that seemed petulant, but he would grant her wish. “If you’re serious about that, Sophie, I’ll do it—for you. We’ll talk about it later.”

“I’ve already changed my mind,” she said, “and I don’t like any name that refers to the Constellation government—not the Diadem, and not the name Hallholme. We should come up with a more suitable name, a Deep Zone name.”

“All right, Sophie.” He turned about with a last glance at Escobar Hallholme. “I’m going up to supervise the final consolidation of your fleet. I’ll go aboard your flagship myself.”

Hallholme’s eyes had an angry, defiant sparkle. “You do that, General. My flagship is yours. There’s no way I can prevent it.”

87

The bridge of the captured
Diadem’s Glory
felt very much the same as his own flagship, but different somehow … colder and haunted. Adolphus had never intended to make those thousands of soldiers endure months of starvation, but that was the fault of the Red Commodore’s impetuous decisions.

The captured flagship was much newer than his
Jacob;
the systems seemed uselessly ornate. Not surprising; since his rebellion, the Army of the Constellation had paid more attention to trappings and unnecessary promotions. The last time he’d been aboard a ship like this was when he surrendered to Percival Hallholme.…

He felt confident now that he had plenty of extra vessels to disperse among the at-risk Deep Zone planets, guard dogs to protect against further depredations—and by removing so many ships from the Army of the Constellation, he had made it far less likely the Diadem would send further attacks against him. By the time Sonjeera completed repairs to its damaged stringline hub, maybe Diadem Michella would see reason. But he would not count on it. Undoubtedly, her warship-manufacturing facilities were running around the clock.

Or maybe someone would overthrow her. That would be for the best.

Adolphus paced around the bridge of Escobar Hallholme’s flagship, but chose not to sit in the command chair. That did not feel right.

Many of the surrendered vessels remained empty in low parking orbits, waiting for cleanup crews and spaceship specialists to complete inspections. A dozen programmers and engineers were gathered on the bridge of the
Diadem’s Glory,
working at control stations to download fleet data. Adolphus had already scanned some of the Redcom’s log to get the broad strokes of their ordeal. He wondered how much Escobar Hallholme had left out.

Since the Constellation crews had been removed from their captured ships, most of those vessels were on standby, with the systems powered down. Some of them had Adolphus’s inventory crews aboard, preparatory to reconditioning and refitting the craft. He’d also transferred over most of the personnel from the ten original DZ warships he still had, keeping only skeleton crews aboard, along with a handful of pilots for the onboard fighter craft.

The lights flickered on the bridge of the
Diadem’s Glory,
and the humming background noise took on a deeper, grinding sound. He heard a distant vibration, the flagship’s engines roaring unexpectedly, and the deck tilted.

“What’s happening? Report!”

The techs scrambled at their stations. At nav-control, a flushed young programmer said, “The engines just activated, and I’m locked out of the system.”

The other programmers reported being locked out as well.

Emergency signals came in over the comm. Another engineer looked at the flood of reports. “Same thing across the captured fleet, sir. The ships have gone rogue, setting their own courses and moving.”

“How could that happen?” Adolphus said. “Most of the ships are empty—we haven’t even finished sending engineering crews over!”

“Their autopilots switched on, sir.” The nav-tech hammered at his panels. “This ship isn’t responding.”

Adolphus reeled through the possibilities. “Is the fleet escaping? Under some kind of autopilot?”

“No, General. The ships have all begun to
descend
into decaying orbits. They’ll burn up in the atmosphere!”

With the autopilots activated and guiding the Constellation warships down into lower orbit, the minimal crews he’d placed aboard had little effect.

Panicked comments filled the codecall lines. “Can’t reassert control, General!”

“We’re locked out. Command systems nonresponsive—the ships have a mind of their own!”

“It’s not responsive, we can’t get the engines to stop! It’s a damned ticking time bomb.”

“Navigation systems are down. Crash course is locked in!”

“Everything’s dead. This ship is going down!”

Adolphus seethed as he listened to the cacophony of alarms and urgent messages. On the screen, he saw the green lines of the warships’ former orbits, along with plunging curves in red for their new suicide courses into Hellhole’s atmosphere. “Redcom Hallholme must have installed some sort of scuttling protocol before handing over his fleet.” He turned to the comm-officer. “Send a signal. On my orders, dispatch crews from our own battleships and bring experts up from the ground if you need to. I want full teams aboard every one of those captured ships. How much time do we have?”

“Not enough, General. Depends on where the ships were in orbit, but they’re all going down.”

“Find some way to disengage the autopilots! Cut them off manually, shut down the engines if you have to.” He stared at the dots on the screen.

He would not let all these newly captured ships slip through his fingers. He needed to get more people aboard the errant vessels and wrest control from the rebellious computers before they all burned up in the atmosphere.

“Other teams of programmers and engineers are heading for the nearest ships, General—our best people from the fleet. They’ll be aboard our shuttleboats within twenty minutes, but they have to catch up with each descending vessel.”

In a higher orbit, the
Diadem’s Glory
was surrounded by numerous smaller vessels like a shark accompanied by remoras; they drifted along in lockstep, guided by no human hand as they headed downward.

“Don’t waste a second,” Adolphus ordered. “I won’t let this whole fleet burn up before my eyes.”

In the flurry of activity, shuttleboats pulled away from the Hellhole defense ships and raced off to the rogue vessels. It required an ambitious and well-organized effort just to dispatch appropriate teams to the appropriate ships. He watched two small unmanned Constellation frigates scrape into the planetary atmosphere and begin heating up. As they continued their plunge, the empty vessels turned into comets in the air.

One engineering tech was in charge of the small crew on his flagship. “We have some operational controls, General. It’s only the engines, navigation, and control computers that refuse to respond.”

“
Only?
”

A female programmer wiped sweat from her forehead. “Best guess, sir, is that we’ll have to evacuate in half an hour.”

“Then we’ve got half an hour to salvage the ship.” Adolphus hurried toward the raw diagram on a status screen, where the display showed the alarming distribution of the out-of-control military ships.

The planet turned beneath them as the
Diadem’s Glory
continued its decaying orbit. Hellhole’s huge impact crater looked like a maw waiting to devour the ships plunging toward it.

Transmitting a ragged announcement, another team aboard a Constellation frigate abandoned ship, jettisoning themselves in evac pods before the craft burned up.

“Two more ships are entering the atmosphere!” one of the engineers called. “And three right behind them. They’ve got ten minutes left before the systems overheat.”

Adolphus saw a red tinge around his vision. “Are there people aboard?”

“Small crews, sir, but they’re having no effect whatsoever. Unable to reassert control.”

A static-filled transmission spilled out of the loudspeakers. “Our lower hull is burning up, systems are shorting out.”

Adolphus ran to the codecall. “Use the evac pods. Get out of there—there’s nothing left for you to do.”

Like spores ejecting from a mushroom, small lifeboats popped out of the dying vessels just before their hulls turned cherry red. One fuel tank exploded, spraying the wreckage in all directions. Within three minutes, the other three ships vaporized in the atmosphere.

By now, Adolphus could feel the bumpy turbulence as the
Diadem’s Glory
entered the upper atmosphere. He went to the flagship’s primary control panel. “Let me try something. I was trained in how these systems work.”