Hellhole

by Kevin J. Anderson

  A chill breeze passed through the air. Keana’s lips quirked in a secret smile and she spoke in her own voice. “My mother will be in for quite a surprise when she sees what we can do.”

  102

  On Aeroc, the broad and vacant prairie had become an improvised military camp, hastily erected. Under the fresh but stern command of Red Commodore Escobar Hallholme, the officers set up new divisions and prepared for a coordinated attack against planet Hallholme and the other unruly DZ planets. Out of the 182 noble families, major and minor, every one of them contributed to the new war effort.

  From the patio balcony of Supreme Commander Riomini’s palatial home, Michella Duchenet could not see the limit of the gathered forces as they stretched across the prairie. Munitions, soldiers, and supplies would all be loaded into military upboxes, and troop transports to be carried up to the stringline terminus above Aeroc. From there, the Constellation’s largest military ships would travel to the Sonjeera hub, and from there transfer out to the Deep Zone.

  Lord Riomini, Bolton Crais, and Escobar Hallholme stood beside her at the balustrade of the wide stone balcony. Fifty other officers were gathered outside on the balcony, most of them men. Since dawn, they had been going over tactical decisions in the Black Lord’s ballroom, which had been converted into a war room. Now, they would all share a sendoff toast in the cool late afternoon.

  The ships would strike Hallholme first and destroy the illegal string-line hub. That would cut off General Adolphus from any help he might expect from his fellow Deezee traitors. Then they would proceed to dismantle the illegal operations, execute the General, burn the shadow-Xayan camps, and pave over the slickwater pools.

  Afterward, her forces would proceed to the other Deep Zone planets and strike them one by one. Those fools didn’t have a chance. Michella allowed herself a small smile of anticipation.

  Two servants moved among the officers on the patio balcony, distributing glasses of sparkling Qiorfu wine. It seemed appropriate to drink a vintage made from grapes that the Adolphus family had once cultivated. Michella accepted her own glass but didn’t sip yet. She waited for the others to be served.

  “This is the largest task force ever assembled in Constellation history,” Lord Riomini said. “More than enough to annihilate the rebel bastards.”

  “I think it’s excessive,” mumbled Bolton Crais, who had been giving logistical advice to his superior officers.

  Escobar glared in his direction. “Not excessive, Crais. Reassuring. We do have to make our point. It’s good to give the military a real purpose again.”

  Bolton flushed. “Why does no one give a thought to rescuing my wife?”

  “We would rescue her if we could,” Michella said, “but you are forgetting, dear boy, that she has defected to the other side. She is now an enemy combatant.”

  Her son-in-law stalked away.

  The Diadem nodded to Escobar Hallholme. Though he had only been following her instructions, the Redcom remained incensed for having been deceived into delivering the old FTL vessels to Ridgetop – another trick of the General’s. Adolphus had somehow blackmailed or otherwise coerced Territorial Governor Goler into switching his loyalty.

  Michella had personally approved the action of Lord Riomini in promoting the younger Hallholme, giving him command of the assault force against Adolphus. She expected great things from him. And it wasn’t an unwarranted promotion, because Escobar had succeeded at every assignment he’d been given, and he came from an illustrious military family. She knew how eager he was to prove himself in action.

  “Death to the rebel bastards!” Escobar said, raising his glass in a toast.

  “Take no prisoners,” said Lord Riomini, sounding almost disinterested.

  Michella nodded but suddenly felt unsettled. Despite her comment to Bolton, she remained disturbed that she could not save Keana and save face at the same time. As Diadem, she could not play favorites. All who allied themselves with Adolphus this time would die, noble blood or not. It was a necessary house cleaning that would cover the whole Deep Zone.

  All the officers on the patio held their glasses, and the Diadem saw that it was time for their formal toast. At her signal, the men and women gathered in the traditional circle, facing inward and holding their drinks high in the air, as if launching the warships with their cheers.

  “Brave officers, you know your assignments. You fight for the Constellation and for the eternal honor of your families.”

  “To the stars!” The officers gave the traditional response in unison.

  Michella quaffed the wine. Everyone followed her example, and then all shattered their glasses by hurling them onto the rocks beneath the patio.

  Lord Riomini looked over the railing at all the broken crystal. “Just like that, Adolphus’s support will shatter.”

  “No doubt,” Michella replied. “With this war, we will make his planet a true hellhole.”

  APPENDIX A

  THE CROWN JEWEL WORLDS

  Aedl

  Aeroc

  Barassa

  Cherby

  Fleer

  Indos

  Jonn

  Kappas

  Klief

  Machi

  Marubi

  Noab

  Ogg

  Orsini

  Patel

  Qiorfu

  Sandusky

  Sonjeera

  Tanine

  Vielinger

  APPENDIX B

  DEEP ZONE PLANETS

  Aimerej

  Ankheny

  Argyth

  Astervillius

  Atab Abas

  Balkast

  Bija’dom

  Blythe System

  Boj

  Brevor

  Brezane

  Buchad

  Buktu

  Candela

  Casagan

  Cles

  Cobalt

  Darenthia

  Ehemi

  El Kuara

  Enesi

  Erebusal

  Eviticu

  Haiasi

  Hallholme/Hellhole

  Hossetea

  Karadakk

  Karum and Kanes

  Kirsi

  Moloch

  Nephilim

  Nicles

  Nielad

  Nomolos

  Ondor’s Gambit

  Oshu

  Osian

  Qolme

  Qotem

  Ridgetop

  Rinthi

  Ronom

  Salm

  Setsai

  Signik

  Tehila

  Teron

  Theser

  Thiop

  Triol

  Ueter

  Umber

  Vytr

  Xodu

  APPENDIX C

  THE STRINGLINE NETWORK

  During the Constellation’s early millennia, space travel among the main twenty worlds (the “Crown Jewels”) was accomplished through workhorse, faster-than-light spacecraft. The Crown Jewel star systems were close enough together to make this both a feasible and an efficient system, with travel times ranging between days and weeks.

  More than a century before the reign of Diadem Michella Duchenet, a much faster stardrive was developed. Using the innovative new stardrive, vessels could achieve speeds a hundred to a thousand times faster than were possible with old FTL drives. However, because the ships were faster than any sensor systems or navigation controls could react, pilots were flying blind at superluminal speeds, unable to see where they were going or when to stop.

  Such a system was not greeted with much enthusiasm.

  A second, unrelated discovery, however, made travel with the faster engines practical at last. Ever since the first demonstration of the new system, physicists across the Constellation had sought a way to keep the superfast starvessels on track. They had to mark a clear path, a discrete route that constrained the ships from flying helter-skelter at unimaginable velociti
es.

  A scientist from Vielinger, Elwar Cori, discovered that when a rare mineral, iperion, was processed and activated into a higher-quantum state, it could be used to create a line of crucial markers, a path of what was jokingly called “quantum breadcrumbs.” After a trailblazer ship had marked the path, or “paved the roadway,” high-speed starvessels could follow it and fly up to 1,100 times faster than was previously achievable.

  Thus, transportation companies created stringline routes, a defined path from point A to point B. With substations and collimation units placed along the way, the stringline markings allowed the new hyperluminal ships to fly without fear of getting lost or crashing into unforeseen obstacles.

  In the century before the reign of Diadem Michella Duchenet, lines were laid from Sonjeera to each of the Crown Jewel planets, each route ending at a terminus ring in orbit above the destination. Sonjeera was the main and only hub from which ships launched (a strict requirement imposed by the Diadem, because it was her treasury that had paid for creation of all the stringlines in the first place). Once the twenty Crown Jewels were connected with lines regularly maintained, citizens could travel amongst the planets within hours or, at most, days.

  THE DEEP ZONE

  Over the centuries, fifty-four habitable planets beyond the Crown Jewels had been catalogued in the galactic wilderness called the Deep Zone, a region that was peripherally mapped by probes and intrepid explorers. The planets offered tantalizing opportunities, but most Constellation citizens saw them as much too far away to bother with. Some were closer than others and some more worthwhile than others, but all were considered too much trouble for anyone but the hardiest and most desperate. Few people had the wherewithal, or the interest, to mount hugely expensive years-long expeditions just to see what was out there.

  Still, over the years a few groups did trickle out, leaving the Constellation forever and setting up their own colonies on the nearer and more hospitable worlds: Ridgetop, Candela, Nielad, Umber, and Hossetea. Anyone who decided to colonize these planets knew it would be a one-way trip. No starship could go back and forth across such vast distances; the vessels didn’t have enough fuel, and there were no facilities on the other end. Upon arrival, the colonists abandoned or dismantled their ships, then set up their new lives.

  But the expanded stringline network from Sonjeera out to the Deep Zone changed all that. By dispatching her trailblazer vessels to lay down new routes to the frontier, Diadem Michella opened up fifty-four new worlds to a land rush of disaffected people from the Constellation.

  Naturally, the handful of people already on the planets, the ones who had consciously emigrated from the Constellation, were incensed about this. They had been surviving just fine without any help or interference from the old system, and they certainly didn’t want to pay huge new taxes. Several uprisings occurred, but the Diadem dispatched her military to squash them, particularly on Ridgetop, where the military eradicated the original settlement and re-established a Constellation colony.

  Each of the Deep Zone worlds was run by a planetary administrator chosen (or at least approved) by the Constellation government. Five territorial governors oversaw ten to eleven planets each, administering the worlds from main offices on Sonjeera; their primary responsibility was to ensure that the colony worlds paid the required tribute to the Diadem whether they liked it or not.

  Glossary

  ADKINS, DUFF – retired sergeant in Army of the Constellation, served under Commodore Percival Hallholme during General Adolphus’s rebellion.

  ADOLPHUS, GENERAL TIBER MAXIMILIAN – leader of a failed rebellion against the Constellation, now the exiled leader on the planet Hallholme. Commonly called the General.

  ADOLPHUS, JACOB – father of Tiber Adolphus, patriarch of Adolphus family on Qiorfu.

  ADOLPHUS, STEFANO – brother of Tiber Adolphus.

  AEROC – one of the Crown Jewels, ruled by Lord Selik Riomini, the Black Cord; original home of Antonia Anqui.

  ALA’RU – Xayan evolutionary and spiritual ascension. In translation, the Constellation word “soar” comes closest to the Xayan “ala’ru,” a word not easily expressable in other languages. Depending upon how ala’ru is pronounced (and to whom, and by whom), the word can mean various degrees of sacredness in the actions of the Xayan individual as he progresses toward a state of perfection and merges his psyche with those of his fellows. In its ultimate form, ala’ru refers to the ascension of the entire Xayan race, a word that is uttered with a great exhalation of passion, from the deepest portion of the alien soul.

  ALLYF – one of the five preserved Xayans in the museum vault; he did not survive the long sleep.

  ANKOR – isolated, high-security industrial outpost on Hellhole, Adolphus’s secret launch site.

  ANQUI, ANTONIA – young woman on the run, originally from Aeroc, who chooses to settle on Hellhole. Her real name is Tona Quirrie.

  ARMY OF THE CONSTELLATION – space navy and ground-based military that was consolidated during Adolphus’s rebellion, commanded by Lord Selik Riomini.

  BARASSA – Crown Jewel planet, original home of the Children of Amadin.

  BIRZH – Xayan memory, lover of Jhera.

  BLACK LORD – nickname for Lord Selik Riomini, based on his penchant for wearing black.

  BOJ – Deep Zone planet.

  BUKTU – isolated Deep Zone planet, administered by Ian Walfor; cold and frozen, recently cut off from the Constellation stringline network.

  CANDELA – Deep Zone planet administered by Tanja Hu.

  CAREY, LUJAH – leader of the Children of Amadin group on Hellhole.

  CARTER, ANDREW – one of Sophie Vence’s line managers.

  CELANO GEESE – waterfowl native to Sonjeera.

  CHERBY – Crown Jewel planet, original home of Franck Tello.

  CHILDREN OF AMADIN – isolationist religious group from Barassa that has come to settle on Hellhole.

  CIPPIQ – male Xayan, one of the four Originals.

  CLES – Deep Zone planet.

  CLOVIS, RENNY – one of the two site administrators at Ankor, partner of Tel.

  CLOVIS, TEL – one of the two site administrators at Ankor, partner of Renny.

  CODECALL SYSTEM – encrypted communications system used throughout the Constellation. When set up properly and operated by trained communications officers, it is said to be impenetrable – but some experts say this way of thinking is a fallacy, because there is no such thing as an ultimate form of any technology.

  CONSTELLATION – stellar empire of seventy-four planets, twenty core worlds called the Crown Jewels and fifty-four frontier worlds in the Deep Zone. Capital is Sonjeera, ruled by the Diadem.

  CONSTELLATION CHARTER – primary binding document that defines the government of the Constellation.

  CORI, ELWAR – Vielinger physicist who discovered how to use processed iperion to mark a path in space, defining a constrained route that the new stardrives could use.

  COTTAGE – private residence at the Pond of Birds used as a discreet retreat on the grounds of the Diadem’s palace on Sonjeera.

  COUNCIL CITY – government center on Sonjeera.

  CRAIS, ALBO – elder member of Crais family whose political ambitions were thwarted by Michella.

  CRAIS, BOLTON – husband of Keana Duchenet, logistics officer in the Army of the Constellation.

  CRAIS, ILVAR – current head of the Crais noble family.

  CRAIS, NOK II – former Diadem, Bolton’s great-great-grandfather; the Council City Spaceport building was constructed during his reign.

  CROWN JEWELS – twenty core planets in the Constellation, the most closely packed worlds and most civilized.

  DE CARRE, CRISTOPH – son of Louis de Carre and manager of iperion mines on Vielinger.

  DE CARRE, LORD LOUIS – planetary leader of Vielinger, lover of Keana Duchenet.

  DEEP ZONE – the fifty-four frontier worlds in the Constellation, recently opened to settlement.

  DEEZEE – derogatory
term for a Deep Zone settler.

  DESTINATION DAY – the scheduled completion date of Adolphus’s new stringline transportation network; commonly referred to on D-Day.

  DIADEM – the leader of the Constellation government.

  DOWNBOX – cargo boxes dropped from a stringline hauler down to the surface of a destination planet.

  DOZER – large construction machine.

  DUCHENET, DIADEM MICHELLA – current leader of the Constellation.

  DUCHENET, HAVEEDA – Michella’s younger sister, rumored to be a witness to the murder of their brother, Jamos, as a child; she has not been seen in public for many years.

  DUCHENET, JAMOS – Michella’s older brother, murdered when he was young (Michella is rumored to be responsible).

  DUCHENET, KEANA – only daughter of Diadem Michella.

  DZ – Deep Zone.

  EDWOND HOUSE – building where Edwond the First, the Warrior Diadem, held war-cabinet meetings. Ishop Heer’s new residence.

  EDWOND THE FIRST – former Diadem of the Constellation, also called the Warrior Diadem.

  ELBA – Adolphus’s estate outside of Michella Town.

  ELBERT, WILL – one of Sophie Vence’s line managers.

  ENCIX – female Xayan, leader of the four Originals.

  ENGERMANN, OLV – owner of a machine-repair shop on Orsini, former boss of Vincent Jenet.

  FEN, ELDORA – planetary administrator of Cles.

  FLEER – Crown Jewel planet where Tel and Renny Clovis served a prison term, homeworld of the Duchenets.

  FRANKOV, SIA – planetary administrator of Theser.

  GAXEN – draft animals native to Sonjeera.

  GAVO – one of Tanja Hu’s cousins.

  GOLDENWOOD – valuable trees native to Ridgetop.

  GOLER, TERRITORIAL GOVERNOR CARLSON – admininistrator of Ridgetop and territorial governor of eleven planets, including Hallholme and Candela.

  GROWLER – colloquial term for a static storm on Hallholme.

  HALLHOLME – hellish frontier world, considered the most inhospitable of the Deep Zone worlds, also colloquially called Hellhole.

  HALLHOLME, CAPTAIN ESCOBAR – son of Commodore Percival Hallholme, current administrator of the Lubis Plain shipyards on Qiorfu.