Hellhole Inferno

by Kevin J. Anderson

  And then she found Bolton. He wanted to help her, wanted to do anything for her, in his complex relationship … not just as a husband, but like a brother, a friend. Bolton was there, giving everything to her, making her stronger.

  And as doubts weakened the entire group and dampened the surge of eager telemancy, Encix grew increasingly desperate, channeling all her energy into destroying Keana, the focal point of the resistance.

  Keana knew what her opponent was trying to do. Encix wanted to wrest control, pull together their telemancy, and force the converts over the critical point before their questions and fears could grow too strong. Keana responded by drawing on the sum total of her own strength while she tried to connect with the overwhelming number of shadow-Xayans on the planet, pulling them to her side.

  It was a war of telemancy.

  The liquid in the slickwater pools churned and frothed. Geysers blasted upward, and thunderheads congealed overhead. As the struggle raged, Encix fought back. Static electricity in the air caused lightning to leap from hilltops to the clouds. The wind became a deafening roar.

  Keana remained immobile, as if her feet were rooted to the core of the planet. Facing her, Encix writhed, her soft body twisting. She raised herself up on the forepart of her body, holding her arms up in the air.

  Keana felt a cold rush sweep through her, a weakness inside her gut. Encix was somehow stealing power from her.

  But she dug deeper, fought back. Keana had a direct pipeline into a reservoir of strength and lost memories that the aliens could not understand. In all the simmering lives trapped within the surging slickwater, she found young and hopeful Devon Vence, who rose to the forefront, seizing his chance to add strength in this final clash … and beside him was his beloved Antonia Anqui, both of them lost in the slickwater, but now reawakened on the cusp of ala’ru.

  Together, they made Keana stronger.

  Deeper still, she found more allies, more lost souls willing to throw in their lot with her desperate last stand: Fernando Neron, the first human to find the slickwater, the man who joined with the Xayan philosopher-leader Zairic … and Vincent Jenet, Fernando’s hapless friend who had gone to Sonjeera in hopes of peace, but was murdered along with the rest of the entourage by Diadem Michella.

  Even the human linerunners Turlo and Sunitha Urvancik, who had been duped into trying to resurrect Zairic back in the quarantined warehouse. They were all connected through the slickwater network … and they did not all agree with the Armageddon vision of Encix. They made Keana stronger.

  Unable to wait, she pushed back with her telemancy, holding nothing back, pressing harder and harder, pushing the invisible mental wall into Encix … causing her large body to bend backward.

  Then farther, nearly making her break.

  The alien finally thrummed a despairing sound and collapsed. Slickwater surged up from the ground, swirling, and as it touched the helpless and defeated Xayan, Encix dissolved, sloughing into a pile of thick gelatinous ooze that spread through the slickwater.

  Keana collapsed to her knees, but struggled to remain steady. The mounting telemancy had come close to creating an unstoppable wave of ala’ru, just at the very brink. Though Encix had been defeated, all that energy still throbbed inside Keana, desperate to be unleashed somehow.

  All these shadow-Xayans had summoned more than enough power that, if used in concert, they would fracture the fabric of the universe. But Keana held the delicate balance, drew the converts together, and did not let the telemancy dissipate. Instead, she used her skills to make her entire being like a net holding the shadow-Xayans in her embrace. She pleaded for them to understand, denying them the release of ala’ru.

  She succeeded, for the time being—but she could not promise them anything new, could not give them any chance for relief.

  Keana had accomplished what she needed to do, but it was a victory without joy, for she knew that even all that desperate energy would not be enough to drive away the fusillade of planet-killers that were going to crash into Hellhole in a matter of hours.

  The asteroids were coming.

  77

  General Adolphus was accustomed to facing hopeless battles and defying the odds, but this was a battle he simply could not fight. Even with all these ships, the competent and loyal people, and the cooperation of the Constellation’s greatest military commander, he could do nothing to save Sophie, or his world.

  Despite having so many vessels and resources available, his desperate evacuation efforts had collapsed. The Ankor spaceport had been taken over by shadow-Xayans, and all launches were forcibly suspended. Michella Town had rioted, and then slickwater erupted through the streets so that the people there were swept up in alien possession. And all contact with Slickwater Springs had been cut off. Sophie had sent him a desperate last message, her words abruptly silenced. The slickwater must have risen up there, too … and he couldn’t save her.

  Sophie …

  Adolphus sat on the Jacob’s bridge, watching the orbiting ships depart from the stringline hub. Hundreds of thousands had been saved, but not enough. Not nearly enough. The twenty asteroids hurtled in, each the size of a small moon, driven by ruthless alien telemancy; they could not possibly miss.

  “Keep trying to reestablish contact down there,” he ordered the comm officer—as he had done repeatedly. The young woman paused, as if to comment on the futility of this, but she turned back to her comm station and transmitted again, without receiving an answer.

  Percival Hallholme’s drawn face appeared on the screen. This mission had broken the foundations of his belief in the government he had served all his life. “We have run models, General—there is simply no time left,” the Commodore said. “Even under the best possible circumstances, we cannot dispatch more ships and expect them to retrieve any more evacuees.” The old man’s eyes were reddened, his face gaunt. “Fate itself was against us. The retrieval ships to the POW camp have not returned, and my son is still down there.” He heaved a devastated sigh. “We made our best efforts.”

  Adolphus’s heart felt like a hole in his chest. “We were betrayed, Commodore.”

  The General still had countless vessels capable of landing, loading, and evacuating, but the asteroids would hammer the planet within hours. His eyes burned, not with tears but with anger at his helplessness. How he wished he could do more to help his people.

  Hallholme said, “My own son and all of those other alien converts! I was able to speak with Escobar one last time, but—but it wasn’t him anymore.” The older man’s voice cracked.

  Adolphus wished he could hold Sophie one more time, speak with her until the last moment. Over the years he had been so stupidly reticent to tell her his feelings, afraid to show adequate warmth because of the persona he had created for himself, the hardened rebel commander.…

  As they orbited Hellhole, Adolphus saw the large bull’s-eye scar on the terminator line. The slanted light of dawn cast deep shadows of concentric circles from the old crater. He understood what the first impact had been like five centuries ago, for this planet and the Xayan race, but the new strike would be immeasurably worse.

  Up here in orbit he could do nothing to stop it. In all his life, after so many battles, this was his darkest hour.

  78

  From the dubious shelter of Walfor’s ship, Sophie had watched the slickwater storm as Keana and Encix engaged in their telemancy battle. Even though she was no shadow-Xayan herself, Sophie had still felt the titanic waves of mental energy building, the converts emanating barely controlled forces. It seemed to her that telemancy had turned each one of them into a volatile powder keg.

  In the sudden, crackling stillness following the death of Encix, Sophie rushed to the hatch. Tanja called after her, cautioning, “Careful, there’s still slickwater!”

  “I don’t think it matters anymore.” Sophie stepped out onto the ground and hurried over to the shaky-looking Keana. The pretty woman seemed to be boiling with static electricity, every cell in h
er body ready to go supernova. Her face was in a grimace, showing the effort inside of her. Wrestling with the writhing, uncontrollable telemancy she barely contained, Keana seized control of the many thousands of shadow-Xayans who filled the valley. The air thrummed in the last instant of a chain reaction.

  In a strained voice Keana said, “I’m holding them back … just barely. I won’t let them unleash ala’ru—I won’t!—but they are ready to explode. The Xayan race has never held so much power, and I can only make them suppress it for a short while longer. Too late? I feel the danger approaching!”

  The enormous asteroids were already having long-range gravitational effects. Hellhole’s unpredictable weather churned; growler storms appeared in a flash, rippling across the greenish skies.

  Sweating, Walfor shouted back at Sophie. “The impact is imminent. We’ve stopped ala’ru, and now we have to get out of here. My ship will still be in the atmosphere for some of the turbulence when the asteroids hit, but there’s a chance we’ll get away. My ship can fly fast enough to beat the asteroids—but we have to leave!”

  Sophie was distraught. “We can take a few people with us, maybe a dozen. Keana, get aboard!”

  Now that ala’ru had been prevented, they could flee after all. She could make it back to Tiber Adolphus—and together, they could watch and mourn the destruction of the world.

  Keana refused, forcing her words through the strain. “I cannot leave this planet now. I can barely hold back all this power.”

  Sophie clung to an idea. “Then use it to deflect the asteroids!”

  Keana turned to her, and her strange eyes looked as if they contained small grinding wheels, emitting sparks. “Twenty large asteroids, accelerated for weeks and still driven by the full force of Xayan telemancy … it would be an impossible task. The asteroids are too close. Even though I have prevented ala’ru, Zhaday and his faction are intent on annihilating themselves and all of us.”

  Walfor shouted from the cockpit. “Come on, Sophie! We have to go!”

  She held her ground. “Keana, you stopped ala’ru and killed Encix. Communicate with Zhaday! Tell him there’s no longer a threat—they don’t need to destroy the planet now.” Her voice hitched. “At least ask him to give us time to evacuate the innocents here.”

  But Keana shook her head. “Even if Zhaday listened, the Ro-Xayan telemancy isn’t enough to halt the asteroids now. And neither is mine. The mass and energy involved … even with all the enormous power of our telemancy—even if I could somehow coordinate my efforts with Zhaday and use all our combined telemancy, it’s not physically possible to divert them. And the Ro-Xayans have made up their minds. They won’t take the risk.” She looked up, glanced at the ship. “But Ian Walfor is right—you can get away. Go! It’s the smallest of victories, but it’s all I can offer.”

  The air thrummed as thousands of shadow-Xayans waited. Turbulent clouds masked the sky.

  Keana let out a long, disappointed sigh. “So much energy, just waiting to be released…” Her shimmering eyes suddenly brightened. “We can’t move the asteroids or fight the Ro-Xayan telemancy that drives them—but I have another idea.”

  * * *

  With two objects on a collision course, one could be moved, or the other, yielding the same result. It all depended on the frame of reference.

  Keana reached out with her expanded mind, and Uroa assisted her, tapping into the Xayan presences all around them. Through her burgeoning mental bond, Keana reminded them of who they were, made them remember how the Xayan people had taken a last desperate chance by dissolving themselves in the slickwater when there was no hope of escape from the first asteroid strike.

  With all the power that Keana-Uroa now channeled, she also tapped into the stored and still-unawakened Xayan lives that were pooled in the slickwater, which generated energy beyond even what Encix had summoned when she tried to push them over the brink of ala’ru.

  But Keana directed that energy not to an evolutionary transformation, but elsewhere.

  She connected with and pulled together every one of the shadow-Xayans, including Bolton Crais and Escobar Hallholme at the camp, Cristoph de Carre at faraway Ankor, and thousands more in Michella Town. The pool of available telemancy grew deeper, wider, and more restless. She was strong enough to sense Zhaday and the Ro-Xayans huddling inside their hollowed asteroid colony, grimly prepared to eradicate their race forever.

  Keana would not let that happen. Instead, she absorbed all the telemancy from all the shadow-Xayans. It would be so easy to do, so tempting to trigger ala’ru and ascend. But she used that power in a different way.

  Instead of expending the energy to push toward their evolutionary leap, she called on all Xayans to release their enormous reservoirs of power.

  And move the entire planet.

  79

  Moments before …

  From the bridge deck of his flagship, Commodore Hallholme was speechless.

  He had always thought the expression was mere hyperbole, but he found himself completely unable to form words as he watched. The awe and inevitability of the cosmic shooting gallery left him unable to do anything but stare.

  Huge, cratered rocks hurtled toward the planet like a broadside of cannonballs aimed at a sailing ship. There could be no doubt that these asteroids were driven by a hostile and supremely powerful force.

  And Escobar was down there, where he could not be saved.

  Frustrated and helpless, Percival had already withdrawn his ships to well beyond the stringline hub. He felt a deep sense of dismay. Not only had they lost the planet but most of its population as well. All so unnecessary, so malicious.

  In moments, everything on Hellhole would be smashed to rubble and burned to cinders. Everything. The totality of the impending destruction was still incomprehensible to him.

  He felt a sick anger to realize that Diadem Riomini would actually be pleased by this result. He would probably even congratulate the Commodore for completing his mission so thoroughly.

  But Percival had already burned that bridge. He’d publicly defied orders and broken with the corrupt Constellation, declaring to his crew that he could not in good conscience follow barbaric commands. Most of his crew were appalled by the ruthless punitive measure and they supported him … but not everyone. Even after the asteroids struck, he would still have a great fight on his hands, a mutiny.

  The biggest blow, though, was that his son remained trapped down there—by choice, apparently. Someday, Percival was going to have to return to Qiorfu and tell his two grandsons about their father, although he would alter the stories somewhat. Percival had always enhanced the reminiscences of his own war exploits.…

  Feeling fatalistic as the asteroids hurtled in, he opened a comm channel to the Jacob. Percival’s battles with this man had been legendary. “General Adolphus, I’ve had too much time to assess how we’ve come to this juncture. I know what you blame me for and, for what it’s worth, I apologize for my actions.”

  Percival didn’t think the apology was worth much, especially now, but the General accepted it with grace. “Thank you, Commodore. If you and I had been on the same side all along, think of how we could have changed human history. But it’s too late now.”

  The General signed off, and the Commodore sat back. Duff Adkins stood at his side, silent and tense. Everyone on the bridge seemed to be holding their breath as the asteroids moved inexorably forward. When Percival swallowed, his throat was dry. He knew he was about to watch the end of a world.

  And then the planet below—the entire gigantic sphere that filled much of the viewscreen—simply vanished, as if it had winked out of existence.

  He lurched to his feet, unable to believe what he had just seen. The bridge was filled with an uproar as technicians and bridge officers called up readings on their stations, trying to find out what had happened.

  The flagship suddenly plunged out of control, and the view from the main screen spun wildly. Emergency indicators flashed on all stations, an
d alarms echoed through the ship. The deck tilted, throwing Percival against his chair.

  Adkins shouted, “The planet is gone, Commodore!”

  Outside their ship, numerous other vessels were thrown into chaos, their courses altered and unstable. The stringline hub was a massive structure in space, the nexus of travel lines just hanging there, but with no planet beneath it.

  Percival realized that if Hellhole had indeed disappeared—he didn’t even try to explain that!—then it meant that the orbiting ships no longer had gravity to bind them, no center of mass to stabilize them. While their engines continued to apply thrust, they were hurled off in a chaotic scramble. To his dismay, two Consellation vessels crashed into each other, splitting one ship open. Bodies fell out. The other ship remained intact, but badly damaged and tumbling.

  “Helm, get control back!” Percival ordered.

  “I can’t lock on to anything, sir! All of our systems have gone insane!”

  “It’s open space,” Percival said. “Evasive action. Keep clear of other ships.”

  The asteroids continued to hurtle in, twenty unstoppable projectiles … but now without a target. They shot directly through the gap where planet Hallholme had been. There was no impact. They simply kept moving.

  Percival shouted on the open channel, and heard General Adolphus issuing similar orders to his DZDF fleet. “Withdraw! Avoid those asteroids—and avoid each other!”

  Hundreds of ships spread out, pulling away from what had been the planetary orbit. With amazing, unnatural speed, the cluster of asteroids began to spread out as well, altering their course, but they could not decelerate fast enough. He didn’t see any other collisions take place, although there were a few near misses.

  His navigator spoke up in a small voice, husky with disbelief, but somehow Percival heard him over the turmoil. “Commodore—this is impossible, but … I think I found it.”