Hellhole Inferno (50 page)

Before dawn, now that the weather had eased and the torpedo ants had been driven back by concerted telemancy, Slickwater Springs sent the first group of evacuees to the Ankor spaceport for departure. The possessed humans proved their continued delusions by refusing to depart, claiming they had to remain on their sacred planet until they achieved some sort of magical ascension.

But Michella needed to leave this awful place, no matter what! Sophie Vence insisted that she would be in the last wave of rescued people, to ensure continued cooperation. The woman acted as if she were Michella's equal, when she was just the General's whore!

She was locked once again in her guarded bungalow, with two shadow-Xayans stationed outside. She was told to sit, wait, and cause no trouble. Desperate, she had watched from a mesh-glass window, still shuddering as she remembered the sight of the monstrous torpedo ant queen that the converts had brought up out of the ground and incinerated in the air. So many horrors here! Only a few scraps and bones of Ishop Heer had been found in the eradicated underground nest.

Ishop's betrayal shocked her the most. For years she had turned to him, depended on him, and he'd never let her down. He cheerfully accepted the most difficult and bloodiest of assignments. But somehow he'd held a grudge against her. Was it because she denied his absurd claims of ancient nobility? As if a modern Diadem would be bound by the decision from some centuries-old council! She was amazed he could be so stupid. And he had tried to
kill
her! She had seen the expression of pure evil as he trapped her in the room with voracious insects.

Well, he was dead at least. Nothing she needed to worry about any longer—she was far more concerned about getting rescued before the asteroids hit.

Fanatical converts continued to gather around the slickwater pools, as if communing with something. Though she was imprisoned here, Michella knew the possessed humans could drag her out at any moment and throw her into the alien pools. Better to have been killed by Ishop than that!

Michella was sickened to be held so close to the simmering alien contamination. Back on Sonjeera, she had been so afraid about a few possessed representatives that she'd ordered them killed and sealed away rather than let them spread their poison. Yet even that hadn't been enough. She had incinerated half of the Sonjeera spaceport and part of the capital city to prevent the corruption from getting loose. Such a sacrifice she had made, such a difficult decision, but it was necessary. And did the people of the Crown Jewels appreciate the terrible choice she had faced? Her skin still crawled at the thought of those disgusting aliens invading her mind.

And now the roiling source of contamination was right there, only a stone's throw from her prison. What if the insidious presence had leaked into the air, into the water? She caught her breath—maybe Ishop had been infected, possessed! Yes, that would explain his incomprehensible hatred toward her.

Worse, maybe
she
was already infected without knowing it. At this very moment, strange, powerful aliens could be seeping into her tissues, into her mind.… She wanted to scream.

Michella closed her eyes, tried to compose herself, and huddled down on the hard chair inside the bungalow. She had never felt so alone. The Constellation had deposed her, Keana had confronted and rejected her, Ishop Heer had betrayed her.

But she knew that Commodore Hallholme was up in orbit, fighting the General.… What if he didn't know where Michella was being held? If only she could communicate with him, then he could plan how to rescue her. She could promise him promotions, rewards, other planets to rule.

Michella knew there was a comm room inside the main lodge house. If she made her way there, she could send a message to the Constellation ships in orbit. She could give him the information he needed.

With a critical assessment, she looked at the wrinkled skin on her arms, the red and purple cuts and bites from the torpedo ants. She appeared frail, weak, injured—and that was to her advantage.

Michella Duchenet had ruled for the better part of a century. She might look like a fragile old woman, and for decades many of the nobles on the Council had been impatiently waiting for her to die. But she was more physically fit than Lord Riomini, thanks to her rigorous daily physical training regimen, guided by the most competent and expert assistants.

What she had never allowed others to know—not even Ishop—was that in addition to physical training, she had been privately instructed in deadly defensive techniques. Despite surrounding herself with guards and security measures, Michella knew that the last line of defense stopped with her. For forty years she'd been trained in how to fight. She was a deadly person, and now a desperate one.

She had one possibility, and she had to take the chance. Letting out a loud groan, she pounded on the door. “I am growing ill. Those insect bites are poisonous. I'm having a reaction.” She had already seen and assessed the two guards standing outside. She didn't know the extent of their alien powers, but could see that they were physically human. Their bodies had the same vulnerable points that she knew how to strike. She loathed the idea of touching them, but had no choice now.

A Diadem had to be decisive, and ruthless.

As they opened the door, Michella moved in a blur of speed, burning through her fear, using almost every scrap of energy she had. Her nails were long and sharp, trimmed to a razor's edge. Her knuckles were hard and bony.

She slashed across the eyes of the first man, then whirled to the second one, driving a hard punch into his larynx. As he clutched at his throat, she spun back to the first guard with a hard chopping blow to the base of his neck, then followed through with a pummeling fist on the thin bone of his temple.

As the man fell, still clutching at his oozing eye, she used her momentum to slam the second guard onto the floor. She stomped on his neck with her heel, crushing his spine. She delivered another front kick to the fallen first guard, striking him in the head and completing the job there. Both were dead in seconds.

There! She stood over their corpses, heaving great breaths, her heart pounding, but she was confident her body could take the exertion. Several scabs had broken open and were bleeding, but Michella ignored them. She couldn't afford to hesitate. Move faster, get a message to the Commodore, order a rescue.

She hauled both dead guards through the door into the bungalow so neither body would be seen. She searched their uniforms; though she loathed to touch their contaminated bodies, she needed the weapons. She relieved each man of a stun pistol, which she intended to put to good use.

Michella was even more pleased to see that the stunners also had a kill setting. No point in taking half-measures. Every person here had committed treason and deserved to be executed by the law of the Constellation. She was fully aware that under no circumstances would she be allowed to live if she were captured. Well, if she failed now, she would at least take out as many of them as she could.

Michella slipped out of the bungalow, closing the door so that it appeared to be secure, and darted away.

Slickwater Springs was busy with shadow-Xayans frantically immersing themselves in the strange water before the asteroids came, as if that could save them or their planet. Other unconverted humans were preparing to be shipped off to the spaceports. She ducked behind the bungalow and ran toward the main lodge. She knew where the comm room was.

Dressed in drab clothes, Michella moved as if she knew what she was doing and where she was going. For a few minutes at least, the old woman blended in so that others didn't give her a second glance—not at first. She only needed to maintain the illusion until she got inside the main lodge.

Just after she slipped in through a side entrance, two shadow-Xayans walked past her down a hallway, moving with intent expressions before turning into a larger briefing chamber. They paid no attention to Michella at all. When they turned a corner, she sprinted toward the communication chamber.

She had hoped to find it empty, but a man sat inside wearing a typical garment favored by shadow-Xayan converts, made from a fabric of processed red weed. He had a stiff military bearing, and she recognized him as Peter Herald, the first possessed man she and Ishop had met when they were delivered here to Slickwater Springs. He had just returned to join the shadow-Xayans after helping the General recapture the stringline hub from the incompetent George Komun.

Herald looked up when she rushed into the chamber. He saw her—and, unfortunately, he recognized her immediately. When the man rose from his chair, instead of shouting an alarm, his eyes narrowed, and she felt a sudden invisible lurch of telemancy reach out to her.

The psychic touch horrified her, like the slimy tongue of a demon caressing her face. Fighting it, she ripped out one of the stun pistols and fired at him without even aiming. The energy blast struck the man, too fast for him to respond with his alien defenses. He crumpled, falling onto the desk and then sliding to the floor.

Michella stepped up to the man, pointed the energy pistol again, and fired a long barrage on the kill setting, until she smelled burned flesh and singed fabric. She hoped it would be sufficient to neutralize the alien inside him. When the fallen man didn't move, she put the pistol away and rushed to the comm set. She didn't have much time!

Reality began to set in, though. She knew how to broadcast on the general military frequency, but did not recall the specific channel that would let her communicate privately with Commodore Hallholme. Everyone would hear her transmission demanding a rescue. Everyone would know where she was.

So be it.

She activated the comm. “This is Diadem Michella Duchenet calling Commodore Hallholme. Commodore, can you hear me? I've been taken prisoner. I am being held at this location. Send a rescue squad immediately.”

After a moment, he appeared on the screen. “I hear you, Eminence, but I am preoccupied at the moment.”

“Then assign a portion of your troops to come down and retrieve me! Follow these coordinates. Time is of the essence.” She provided details of her location.

“I'm afraid that won't be possible, Eminence. Those are not my orders.”

“I'm giving you different orders, Commodore!
I
am your Diadem—I command you to send a squadron to Slickwater Springs, take me to safety, and obliterate this place!”

On the screen, the Commodore seemed weary, and actually looked
annoyed
with her! “You no longer give the orders, Michella Duchenet. You are no longer Diadem. I am currently bound by emergency aid provisions from the Constellation Charter, and outside that I am operating under instructions from the duly-elected Diadem Selik Riomini. He gave explicit instructions that you should be left there to die, and his orders supersede yours.”

She seethed. “I know you, Percival Hallholme. You are loyal and moral, you would never leave me to die.”

He seemed to consider that, then said, “I do find the orders objectionable. I don't consider Diadem Riomini to be a particularly honorable person, but I could say the same about you. Your previous decisions have left me, the Deep Zone, and the entire Constellation in a precarious position. I have to find the best legal and moral course between two rocky shores.”

She was astonished by his insubordinate manner; she had never heard him speak like that. Yet before she could reply, he continued. “First, I have to arrange for the evacuation of all the Constellation soldiers being held prisoner. After I complete that mission, I can consider secondary matters, such as yourself.”

Abruptly, he terminated the transmission, and she stared at the blank screen in shock. She was speechless, unable to comprehend what had just happened. And she had no one there to speak to except the dead body of Peter Herald.

Shouts rang out from the corridor of the lodge building. Someone tried to open the locked door of the comm chamber. She heard rising voices outside, closing in.

Michella was trapped.

 

67

When Sophie discovered the dead guards in Michella's bungalow, she immediately felt anger mixed with sick dread. She couldn't imagine how the disarmingly thin and frail woman could have bested two shadow-Xayan guards, but the old bitch already had so much blood on her hands, what did two more murders matter to her?

She sounded the alarm around Slickwater Springs and called on the shadow-Xayans to help. Only about fifty nonconverts remained, after the first groups had been evacuated to the spaceports, but in the middle of the crisis she couldn't let Michella cause any delays. And the former Diadem needed to be held accountable for the crimes she had just committed.

The shadow-Xayans cast a web with their thoughts, searching the area with swift efficiency. Though they had paid little attention to the old woman at the time, many of the converts had still seen her. A female shadow-Xayan responded to Sophie. “According to our memory records, Michella Duchenet slipped across the compound, masquerading as a potential convert. Someone saw her enter the main lodge house. She is still there.”

Another convert stepped up. “Yes, she is inside the building. We can no longer sense Peter-Arnex, though. He was inside the lodge's comm-center.”

Sophie called upon the shadow-Xayans to help, and a group responded to her summons. “To the main lodge.”

Alarms sounded, primarily to keep the normal humans alert, but now that the shadow-Xayans had focused their attentions, they were better than any alarm system.

Sophie knew that Adolphus would not want his hostage harmed, but what good was the old deposed woman as a bargaining chip anyway? The Commodore's son would have been more useful … but Escobar Hallholme was still lost out in the Hellhole wilderness, due to his own stupidity. Cristoph de Carre had spent days searching for him and the other missing prisoners, but with the desperate evacuation under way, the search was being called off. Sophie believed those four fools were dead anyway.