“Eminence, this just arrived from Candela—sent directly from the planetary administrator.” Ishop lifted the package, a cube less than half a meter on a side; it seemed heavy. “It’s unopened, but we’ve scanned it for explosives, poisons, or dangerous biologicals.”
“Candela? That’s a Deep Zone world, isn’t it? Bring the package along.” Michella gestured for her guards to clear the way. She couldn’t remember the name of the Candela administrator; no face came to mind at all. “Find us a place of privacy.” She glanced at Riomini, made her decision, and said, “Join us, Selik. Maybe it’s a surrender document after your attack on Theser. They know they have no option but to capitulate.”
The Black Lord frowned. “Then Administrator Hu should have sent a tribute payment as well.”
“The box isn’t that heavy,” Ishop said.
When they were inside a small, empty office, Michella commanded Ishop to unseal the pod and remove its inner wrapping. Impatient and dismissive, Riomini pushed him aside. “Allow me to present it to the Diadem.” He removed the last layer and tipped the box onto its side, then recoiled.
A human head rolled onto the table—Governor Marla Undine’s.
55
As Tanja stood on her balcony outside the Saporo Harbor office building, she gazed out at the military drills in the water below, the armed patrol boats ready to defend the government complex. Her six orbiting warships were on high alert for a Constellation response.
She had no doubt a retaliation would come, and no amount of regret or second thoughts would change that. Tanja had sent Governor Undine’s head to Sonjeera in an ill-advised fit of pique, and the old Diadem would have no choice. An attack was inevitable, but she would be ready.
Tanja’s migraines had come back, like a military attack inside her head. She remembered with a sharp pang that Bebe had always been good at soothing the pain.…
She felt numb and on fire at the same time, deflated and adrift. After the loss of Bebe, and before that Sia Frankov, and before that Uncle Quinn—not to mention the entire town of Puhau, all the people of Theser—Tanja had no desire to exercise restraint. She had not asked for permission, had chosen not to overthink what she had done. Too late now. All the ghosts of her dead friends and loved ones had demanded action, and Tanja hadn’t looked for any advice or instructions before she made up her mind. This was not a time for calmness, or for overconsidered acts.
And yet she knew she had made the situation far worse.
Watching the activity in the harbor, Tanja stood alone. She was not a military leader, and if she could give her own life instead and resolve the conflict, she would do so. But she had already crossed the line … or plunged off a precipice.
A tiny voice inside her head suggested that even Bebe would have chided her for such a brutal, poorly considered act. And General Adolphus would be furious over the moral and tactical issues, but Tanja could not retract what she had already done. She accepted responsibility for her action.
Tanja had sent an urgent but professionally worded message to General Adolphus, explaining what she had done and why, then requesting him to send more DZDF ships so she could stand against an expected attack by the Constellation.
Closing her eyes, she tried to focus, tried to find the inner strength she needed now. Her head pounded. She might very well have brought down the full force of the Diadem’s wrath on her beloved world.
* * *
Tanja Hu’s shocking message reached Adolphus while he studied preparedness records in Elba. Ian Walfor’s report about Theser had arrived only the day before, and the General was already scrambling for reports from all the other DZ worlds, placing every planet on high alert, prepping them to blow their stringlines. Apparently, Governor Goler had not been convincing … or maybe just too late.
With the turmoil and uncertainty caused by the vanished fleet, the plans of Adolphus had been unraveling; now Tanja’s impetuous provocation was like a planet-sized monkey wrench thrown into the works.
He looked up from the message, saw Sophie’s somber expression as she stood next to him at the desk. She had read the communiqué as well. She had reported the wondrous discovery of the old Xayan species being reintroduced by the mysterious ships—which would have fascinated him and demanded his attention for full investigation, but the Theser massacre and now this crisis with Tanja Hu had thrown a big steaming mess into his lap.
“I fear I have been overconfident,” he said. “Long ago the Greeks of Earth warned of hubris, and somehow I forgot the lesson. I may have overplayed my hand.”
She looked at him with her gray eyes, and he drew strength from her. She rested her hand on his shoulder. “Then you’ll just have to pull off another miracle—you’ve done it before. Maybe Goler can still find a way to resolve this diplomatically.”
He shook his head. “By destroying Theser, Lord Riomini threw fuel on the flames, and now Tanja Hu sparked an even bigger blaze. There won’t be any peace settlement.” After thinking for a moment he said, “I have to go to Candela.”
On another occasion, the thought of leaving Hellhole for another world would have gladdened him. This would be only the second time he had been off-planet since his exile.
Putting together the pieces of his plan, Adolphus used the secure codecall to contact Craig Jordan aboard the sixty patrol ships in orbit. “Mr. Jordan, I have reason to believe that Candela may be a target for a major Constellation retaliatory strike. Prepare fifteen of our most heavily armed battleships and load them aboard a hauler for immediate departure. I intend to deliver the ships myself.”
Jordan sounded shocked. “Fifteen ships, sir? That’ll leave us vulnerable!”
“Right now, Candela is more vulnerable, and I believe there’s a credible threat there. You’ll have to make do with forty-five ships at Hellhole.”
Even without the Constellation conflict, he had numerous crises to deal with here on Hellhole. Rendo Theris had sent an update that his engineers were preparing to blast and drain away the slickwater aquifers beneath the Ankor spaceport. Seismic reports from across the continent tracked the increasing quakes; numerous aftershocks triggered eruptions in the volcanic area of the impact crater—and they were getting worse.
“I’m going with you,” she announced.
He paused for a few seconds, because he would have liked her to accompany him, but then shook his head. “I need you here. Now, more than ever, I’ve got to be sure our operations run smoothly, and I can count on you.”
Sophie squeezed his shoulder. “Then at least I’m going to Ankor to see you off.”
With that, he didn’t argue.
56
The General’s fast flyer arrived at Ankor in late afternoon. The sky over the spaceport complex was a sickly shade of green mixed with sulfuric yellow from the volcanoes. For some time now, increasing eruptions had spewed lava from numerous active zones. Smoke tinged the air all across the continent. The troubled planet remained restless.
When he and Sophie disembarked, Adolphus felt a warm, dry breeze against his face, smelled the acrid sulfur of volcanic activity not far from the spaceport basin. Shuttles and upboxes were thrust into the sky from the paved fields, and passenger pods came down from stringline ships. A busy commercial day, hinting at how the Deep Zone could thrive … in normal times.
The new spaceport was undergoing expansion to accommodate the traffic, and now it was a maze of landing areas and one-story buildings. Rendo Theris hurried up to them, busy with his constant obligations. He was accompanied by the large, pale form of Encix rolling along beside him. Adolphus was surprised to see the Original alien out here.
Theris looked flushed, as always. “Sorry, General, it seems like there’s one disaster after another. We are preparing your stringline hauler for immediate departure to Candela, including the fifteen warships you requested to be loaded aboard. It’s a frantic day! The engineering team on the spaceport construction project is ready to blow release-channels to drain the slickwater
aquifers. Afterward, the site will be stable for expansion—or so they say—but that alien goo keeps welling up. Our geologists used seismic probes to locate the aquifers, and they’re drilling down to release the slickwater into a subterranean void, away from the spaceport. Safe and sound.” He shook his head. “But Encix here has concerns.…”
The Original alien moved forward on her caterpillar legs, and her voice carried a warning tone. “You were not wise to build a spaceport here in the first place, General Tiber Adolphus. It should be moved.”
He shook his head, adamant. “We don’t have time to relocate our whole operation and start again from scratch. We’re at war.”
The Ankor operations had been mostly complete when the four Originals awakened in their deep vault. The second, hidden spaceport complex linked to a major new stringline hub was the heart of the General’s plan for independence. Encix had urged Adolphus to abandon the entire facility and begin elsewhere, but that was something he would not do.
“I expressed warnings before. Now, however, you intend something else. If you use explosives against the reservoirs, you may provoke the slickwater and the Xayan lives within it.”
“Provoke the slickwater?” His eyebrows drew together. “We’re trying to drain it away.”
Theris let out a long sigh, shaking his head. “See what I mean, General? If the slickwater can survive an asteroid impact that wrecked the whole planet, how can we bother it with a few mining charges? We can release the pressure and run the problematic reservoirs out where they won’t cause any more trouble.”
Encix thrummed. “The slickwater has ways to protect itself … but that does not allay my concerns.”
“Your geologists confirmed the preparations, and we are ready to go.” Theris sounded exasperated. “It’s your call, General.”
“My first priority is to protect this planet, and the Deep Zone,” he said, looking at Encix. “And right now, the Army of the Constellation poses the greatest danger. For the defense of the Deep Zone, we need new landing areas and launchpads to keep the stringline network operating. This is a crucial time.”
“And a crucial time for us as well, General Tiber Adolphus,” Encix said. “My priority is to see that our race finally achieves ala’ru, and we are very close. To succeed, we require the slickwater.”
Adolphus knew he was being stubborn, but he had no time to discard so many preparations. Enough of his overall plan had already been tangled and disrupted, and he had to keep the rest from falling apart. “The slickwater can well up anywhere else it likes—just not here.”
After a long silence, Encix bent her flexible neck and did not object further. Looking relieved, Theris led them to a white groundcar that would carry them across the landing zones. “Your passenger pod is due to depart within the hour, sir. We can watch the drilling blast while we wait—it’s just on the perimeter fields.”
Encix surprised them by climbing aboard the open vehicle to join them. They rode over to a perimeter landing pad, near a group of uniformed workers who were watching monitors on mobile units. After disembarking with her companions, the alien stood there, swaying her soft body and murmuring to herself. Encix seemed disturbed, which troubled Adolphus.
Theris touched the codecall on his collar and deferred to the General. “They are ready whenever you give the word, sir.”
He looked at the alien, tried to read her smooth, strange face. “We mean no harm to the slickwater,” he said to her.
Encix swayed, and her soft feelers retracted into her forehead. “I understand that. And I will try to make the slickwater understand it as well, if necessary.”
Adolphus glanced at Sophie, whose brow was also wrinkled with concern. “We need the spaceport, Tiber.”
Adolphus nodded to Theris, and the spaceport administrator transmitted brief instructions to the geology teams. A moment later, they heard the dull thuds of a series of detonations, and felt the ground vibrate beneath them. One of the mobile monitoring units fell over.
Theris said, “That should have created an opening deep below. The slickwater can drain away into a new subterranean void, where it won’t bother our operations here.”
As the tremors died away, Encix suddenly twisted her upper body, then let out a strange moan. “No … the slickwater is coming back here.”
Cracks began to spread across the expansive paved landing zone, fissures that ran like lightning bolts, zigzagging in all directions. A swath of pavement in the adjacent empty landing zone subsided. Some of the workers tried to take readings from their implanted monitors, while others simply fled. The cracking sound grew louder.
Silvery slickwater oozed up through the openings like spilled blood. Amebalike tendrils oozed out through drainage lines and flooded the landing pad in a mirrorlike pool. As it was exposed to the air, ghostly images manifested, shimmering electrical shapes and helixes that swirled about like static storms.
Adolphus stared at them, and Sophie frowned. “We’ve never seen anything like that at Slickwater Springs.”
Then, in a burst of released energy, a group of the spectral shapes struck two of the spaceport workers hard and knocked them flat. A glowing cord of lightning lashed the ground like a bullwhip. More slickwater bubbled up, frothing and angry.
“Stay clear of the flood! Back to the vehicle!” the General yelled, and Theris did not need further encouragement.
Encix, though, remained where she was. “All this telemancy is like a scream in the air. I did not wish to exert so much power, but I will do what I can. The slickwater needs to understand … needs to be quiet.” The alien moved forward to the advancing flood that percolated up from the ground. With no hesitation, she waded into the slickwater. “I can feel the flood of stored memories and history. To tap into the telemancy reservoir and quell this reaction, I require as much contact as possible.”
She settled her sluglike abdomen into the quicksilver fluid and bent forward to immerse her upper body as well—torso, arms, even her face.
As the liquid pooled around Encix, the General felt an energy and pressure increasing in the air, static sparking everywhere. Guided by the Original, the combined telemancy accumulated and mounted, and Encix linked with the lost Xayans stored in the fluid. She soothed the reservoir and urged the slickwater to withdraw, as if it were a single living organism. The static and shimmering manifestations faded in the air as the slickwater responded to her.
As Encix nudged and controlled the liquid, the angry pools receded, dropping back through the cracks in the launchpad pavement, draining back into the ground.
Theris received word through his codecall headset. “Monitors say the slickwater is flowing into the subterranean void.”
Encix turned her alien face toward Adolphus and Sophie. “Although the shadow-Xayans may practice telemancy to defend this planet, I can still do some things better than they can. I am reluctant to exert so much power, but it was the only way to utilize these defensive measures.”
The pavement was badly damaged from the upheaval, but completely dry now that the slickwater had retreated. The shimmering, luminous manifestations had vanished, as the alien fluid returned to quiescence.
Standing alone where the slickwater had once been, Encix raised her humanoid hands to the sky. Her facial membrane vibrated with indistinguishable words, as if she were rejoicing.
Sophie was relieved. “Good. The slickwater is no longer a threat.”
“No,” Encix said. “The threat is not the slickwater.”
Adolphus turned toward Theris. “Have the geologists run deep seismic tests to make sure, but the spaceport should be stable enough now for continued expansion.”
Sophie remained troubled. “Encix, why would you need such a defensive mechanism in the first place? You said the Xayans were a peaceful race, what did they have to defend against?”
“We have long had enemies—dangerous enemies,” the alien said. “Your Constellation is not the only threat to this planet.”
Theris
touched the codecall receiver in his ear. “General, your passenger pod is ready to depart. Mr. Jordan has fifteen warships loaded in docking clamps aboard the stringline hauler.”
The General was troubled, but anxious to get to Candela. Knowing Michella’s temper, she could already have attack ships on the way. He strode toward the launching gantry with his passenger pod, throwing a glance back at the Original. “The Constellation is my more immediate concern.”
57
Aboard the Diadem’s Glory, a pair of rangers donned spacesuits, took cutters, bypass toolkits, and weapons, and prepared to go outside along the hauler framework to the isolated pilot’s blister.
Bolton addressed the two men as they suited up, while Escobar remained silent, watching them. “If you find any food supplies up there, you’ll both get a double ration. We need to find out what happened to the pilot.” Through a porthole in the spacecraft’s ceiling, he glanced up at the domed enclosure high overhead in the immense framework.
Pilot Suri Dar had sealed herself away up there and refused to respond to any communications. Bolton felt little confidence they would find good news, and he dreaded another disaster.
The day before, a major tragedy had taken them all by surprise. The pilot of the second military hauler, carrying twenty fleet warships, had suffered a psychological breakdown. In a thin, hysterical voice, the pilot announced that he would find his own way to planet Hallholme, declaring it the only way to save himself. His hauler veered away from the other four carrier ships and activated stringline engines, plunging into the unexplored vastness with no iperion path to follow and no chance of reaching the destination.
Bolton had been astonished. Twenty warships, gone! All the personnel … as well as all their supplies. A fifth of the Constellation fleet now forever lost. Madness!
He reeled from the magnitude of the foolish loss (and their failure to safeguard against it), although some members of the remaining crew expressed an irrational relief that at least the mad pilot had done something rather than just sitting there and waiting to die. Some even believed that if all the stranded haulers were to try finding their way to planet Hallholme, even without a stringline to follow, maybe at least one would make it.
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