Hellhole Inferno (45 page)

“And you truly think I would have gotten rid of your assistant in such a way?” The old woman's expression was calculating, hard. “I knew you were behind that scheme, Ishop. That wasn't the work of a mere lackey. And I know full well how to control the people I need.” She narrowed her eyes, and her gaze seemed as powerful as the laser cutter in his hand. “You know me—do you really think I would waste a resource like that? Do you truly believe I would kill her when she might be useful to me as a way to keep you in line?”

Michella moved slightly, and he tensed, but her weapon was her words. “Laderna is still alive. I kept her preserved on Sandusky. Don't be an idiot.”

Ishop was so startled he couldn't stop himself from recoiling with the news. His mouth opened to say something.

But the Diadem was already moving, like a serpent striking. She grabbed the lamp beside her bed and swung it as hard as she could. The old woman was impossibly strong. She smashed the lamp hard against his bald scalp, stunning him, and she was up, using her foot to kick his hand that held the laser cutter, knocking it away. It clattered on the floor, spinning.

She swung the lamp again and pounded his head. Ishop reeled, now trying to defend himself against this unexpected whirlwind. He was a killer, but always a slippery assassin, not a direct fighter.

Michella was shrieking. “Guards! I'm being attacked! Guards!” Even if they were just shadow-Xayan guards from Hellhole, loyal to Sophie Vence or the General, they would still come rushing in response to her shouts. Within moments they arrived at the door and threw it open.

Michella had turned around, and Ishop was backed up with blood pouring from gashes on his head. Now she smashed him in the face with the lamp. Even as the guards rushed forward, the old woman let out a wild cry and shoved him, tripped him backward—and rammed him into the window that he had already cut and loosened with the laser.

The armored glass broke around him, falling in many pieces as he, too, tumbled outside. Ishop scrambled for balance, but fell over the sill and crashed on the ground, dizzy and disoriented, his head roaring with pain, blood streaming down his face. And there were shouts from Michella's room above.

And then a buzzing, pelting sound as the torpedo ants came after him.

Breathing hard, he knew he had to find shelter. He had lost the laser cutter, not that it would serve as a weapon against the swarm. In the pale gray light of approaching dawn, he saw the static of countless insects swirling in the air.

Ishop tried to run, dashing across a dry, stony clearing in the rear of the lodge. He hoped he could make it to some other building, although the people here would hunt him down. Michella would reveal that he had tried to kill her—would they even care?

As he fled, his foot broke through a hardened crust, and the ground collapsed beneath his weight. He tripped and went sprawling into a shallow hole. As he scrambled to get out, the hole widened, collapsing. Beneath him, the grainy dirt was
pulsing
 … and it reeked with a putrid odor.

The crater walls slumped, widening the hole, and the dirt squirmed and hummed. As he scrambled, trying to climb back out, he realized he was inside a buried nest of torpedo ants. They swarmed over his body, covering him, tearing him apart with thousands of small bites. He flailed, clawed at the crater wall, but the dirt continued to slough away, and he tumbled back down, even deeper into the nest.

Then the writhing, whistling ants parted to reveal a huge insect head and body, a nightmarish, wingless creature that was as large as a man, and glowing with a faint blue phosphorescence. The queen of the nest … maybe the queen of multiple nests. A diadem among the voracious creatures.

When Ishop opened his mouth to yell, thousands of smaller torpedo ants streamed down his throat, crawled into his ears and his nose, burrowing into his brain.

Ishop screamed for much longer than he should have, but no one heard him with the exception, perhaps, of the queen and her minions.

 

59

Duff Adkins stood on the command bridge beside Commodore Hallholme, putting on his best face as the stringline haulers approached the General's stronghold of Hellhole in an attempt to defeat him. Again. “The third time's the charm, Commodore. It's an old cliché, but appropriate under the circumstances.” The aide's smile made him look twenty years younger.

Percival could feel his own tension mirrored in his bridge crew as the fleet hurtled toward the target. “There's another oft-repeated phrase, Duff. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing again and again and expect a different result.”

Adkins chuckled. “But you're not doing the same thing, sir. This time we have an indisputable advantage.”

Knowing that the bridge crew was listening, Percival lowered his voice. “And yet, General Adolphus always finds a way.” For the benefit of his people he added more loudly, “But not this time. I'm sure he's run out of luck, and we have a far superior force than we've ever had before. Mr. Adkins, please join me in my ready room. We have last-minute plans to discuss before we arrive at the DZ stringline hub.”

Although he had no fondness for the music, the Commodore called for a resounding chorus of “Strike Fast, Strike Hard” to play throughout the fleet. That stirring patriotic refrain had launched his son's abortive assault against the General, but Diadem Riomini had insisted on reinstituting the theme.

The military stringline haulers now carried twenty of the warships he had rescued from Tehila, as well as fifty brand-new frontline vessels Riomini had built at the Lubis Plain industrial complex. Percival had been shocked to learn about the secret fleet. Such an operation did not take place overnight—had he been so oblivious in his retirement on Qiorfu? Had Escobar known what was going on? It struck Percival that the Black Lord must have been intending to overthrow the Diadem all along. Michella's recent actions had made it easy for him.

They were fortunate, Percival supposed, that Riomini had managed to ascend to the Star Throne without all that turmoil; however, those quiet and ambitious schemes only added one more facet to his doubts about Riomini as a worthy leader. Percival understood the law, and his obligations to the Constellation, but he also knew that loyalty and leadership needed to be earned. Diadem Michella had already caused him great consternation with her many unwise decisions. Back when she'd forced him to use dishonorable means to defeat General Adolphus the first time, her orders had broken a fundamental part inside him. He remembered thinking often that honor was like a crystal goblet—even if broken only once, it was still broken.

Though he would not speak ill of his leaders in public, Percival wrestled with his concerns that Lord Riomini was cast from the same mold, and might even be worse than Michella Duchenet. Riomini was not the type of leader who would inspire automatic loyalty. Nevertheless, Percival intended to score a final victory over the rival who had plagued him for most of his career. This would still be his personal triumph, no matter what the Constellation did afterward.

After Umber's administrator, George Komun, had guaranteed safe passage through the DZ stringline node, Percival wasted no time launching his strike. The military haulers departed from Sonjeera as soon as they were loaded with Lord Riomini's battleships, launching with no fanfare, no drills. Time was the most important factor.

By now Komun should have seized the Hellhole hub, but Percival couldn't guess how long the inexperienced man might be able to hold it against the General. The Umber administrator was certainly no match for Tiber Adolphus. Percival had to get there in time.

His fleet had reached the small planet of Umber, which was normally an insignificant stop on a list of unremarkable frontier worlds. Rather than establishing a forward base as he'd done at Tehila, Percival took only the time necessary to move the haulers onto the DZ iperion line. Then his ships were off again, heading straight for Hellhole.

In his ready room, he took a seat and gestured for Adkins to join him. “We have to do it right this time, Duff.” He clenched his fist and looked at his adjutant. “We have to do it
right
!”

“You will, Commodore. Even if he suspects we'll be back, the General can't possibly expect us so soon.” The adjutant called up models of a scenario. “In our best-case projection, this is what we should see when we arrive.” He showed an image of the DZ stringline hub surrounded by thirteen battleships from Umber. “We can anticipate that Administrator Komun will be able to hold the hub for a few days at least.”

“If his ruse worked in the first place,” Percival said. “Everything is predicated on his being able to commandeer and hold that station.”

Adkins populated the simulation with the General's own battleships. “We don't know how many vessels our opponent has. We can extrapolate from what he brought against us at Tehila, but I doubt if he would have withdrawn all of his ships from there.”

Percival turned away from the projections. “Duff, we'll just have to plan as soon as we see for ourselves. But this”—he waved his hand through the projection, distorting the images in the air—“is all a pretty fiction. We can plan all we like, but the real scenario never matches what we expected. We have to be swift, adaptable, reactive—and we have to be better at it than the General is.”

The bridge signaled that the hauler was starting its deceleration. Duff stood up, ready to march off to the command bridge, but Percival told him to stay. “Not just yet, old friend. As I said, we have to do this right.” He unlocked a cabinet beneath his desk and withdrew a bottle of the finest brandy from the Qiorfu vineyards. He recognized the irony of toasting with such a vintage, but saw no disrespect in the fact that this particular brandy had been distilled by Jacob Adolphus, their adversary's father. Percival snagged two small crystal glasses, set them on the desk, and poured two fingers in each. He handed one to Duff, who dutifully accepted the brandy but didn't seem to know what to do.

Percival clinked his glass against his companion's. “Since this seems to be a day for citing old quotes—” He took a sip of brandy, then quaffed the rest in one warm delicious gulp. “Once more into the breach.”

As soon as they returned to the bridge and Adkins took the deputy command station, Percival addressed all the ships that were connected to the hauler framework. “This is more than a rematch against our archenemy. This is—this
must be
—an end to the matter. History will view the battle we are about to commence as a watershed in the future of the Constellation. All ships, prepare to disengage from docking clamps the moment we drop off the stringline.”

Lord Riomini had equipped all of his new battleships with unorthodox weapons, old projectile guns with high-speed ultra-dense shells, hot scattershot bombardments, and destructive chaff. Percival continued, “I know you all haven't had much time to drill with the new artillery, but General Adolphus will not be expecting them at all. Our enhanced shields should protect us better—they proved their worth at Tehila. Thus, we have the elements of victory in our hands, and you are the major element.”

The hauler pilot transmitted from his dome high on the framework, “Arriving now, Commodore.”

Percival leaned forward to finish his address. “Now let's find out what's waiting for us.”

The haulers fell off the stringline and decelerated toward planet Hallholme. Active scanners sent out probe beams, and signals returned at the speed of light to paint a picture of the scene. The seventy Constellation warships disengaged from their docking clamps, fired up their engines, and raced in toward their target.

As images reassembled from the multiple sensors, Percival recalled the best-case projected scenario that Duff Adkins had just shown him in the ready room. What they saw was nothing like what they'd planned for. Nothing at all.

The stringline hub was a flurry of activity. All thirteen ships from Umber were identified—some severely damaged, others still moving. Additional vessels—cargo ships, civilian transports, large and small military craft—were in disarray. Lines of shuttles rose from both the Michella Town spaceport and another launch complex on the opposite side of the continent. Some of the arriving shuttles were taken aboard the large battleships, while others docked at the stringline hub. Even more shuttles were parked in orbit, holding for a docking node to clear. The activity looked frantic, desperate. No one seemed to be paying any immediate attention to the Army of the Constellation fleet.

Commodore Hallholme's ships swarmed in, easily outnumbering the Deep Zone warships. One of his pilots transmitted, “Commodore, which targets should we choose? There are so many civilian ships.”

Percival couldn't understand what was going on. He turned to his weapons officer. “What is the status of the DZDF vessels?”

“They don't seem prepared to defend or attack, sir. They're … preoccupied.”

Percival expected a scrambled consolidation of defenses in reaction to his arrival, but the General's vessels contniued their own urgent missions.

Piloted by impatient and aggressive captains, two Constellation ships launched rapid explosive projectiles at a pair of outlying DZDF vessels. The weapons struck home, destroying engines in the rebel craft. A flurry of outraged transmissions filled the comm channels, but the General's vessels did not round about and engage in a defensive attack; rather, the unusual activity continued unabated.

“This doesn't feel right to me.” Percival sat on the edge of his command chair, wrestling with his decision. “We could turn this into a massacre.” He had not forgotten that Diadem Riomini gave explicit orders for him to lay waste to the entire planet, killing not just the General's loyalists, but all civilians. According to his orders, Percival should just mow down every ship in front of him.