Hellhole Awakening

by Brian Herbert

  Goler called for the lumberjacks to stop their work. “We’ll make this place a memorial to all those who died here. We’ll erect a tall goldenwood plaque and inscribe the names of those who died so that these victims are never forgotten.”

  The lumberjacks were covered with mud, but they were smiling. Leaning on brooms and rakes, they looked at him with something he had not seen much of before—admiration. “Cheers for the governor!” one called, and others took up the cry, adding to it, “Cheers for Tasmine and the governor!”

  Goler was deeply moved, but he could not help but wonder how many similar memorials would have to be made before this war was finally over.

  20

  They finished the entire bottle of brandy. Turlo and Sunitha played games, enjoyed a slow meal, made love … and waited.

  They knew with a high degree of certainty when the five military haulers were due to pass these coordinates. With the stringline cut and the iperion dissipated around the blown substation, the haulers would careen off the path. Moving at hyperluminal speeds, they would cover an immense distance and stray far from where they expected to be. It all depended on how swiftly the hauler pilots reacted to being off-stringline and brought their great framework vessels to a halt.

  The Urvanciks needed to find them, so that General Adolphus had his verification.

  “This is going to be a good day,” Sunitha said. She noted the coordinates where they had left the silent marker buoys to anchor the last segment of stringline back to Hellhole.

  “Keep running quiet, no sensor signature,” Turlo said, “but leave our own detectors open. When those haulers get disconnected, they’ll squall like a baby with diaper rash.”

  The Constellation fleet—one hundred fully armed ships with fifteen thousand crewmembers—were gung ho and intent on fighting their sworn enemy. But they would fall flat on their faces.

  After the time had passed, they combed over their own sensor records and found a tiny blip that indicated when the fleet had flashed by, traveling much too fast for any normal detection. “They’ve run off the rails and gone off into the void,” Turlo said. He considered opening their second bottle of expensive brandy, the one he had hidden well enough that even his wife didn’t know about it, but they needed to be at their peak alertness.

  Still, it was a damned long time to wait.

  Five hours after they detected the first flicker in the sensor traces, panicked transmissions began to come over the comm. “Looks like they overshot by several light hours,” Sunitha said. “A few billion kilometers past Substation Four.”

  “Do you think they’ll ever find their way back to the right point?” Turlo asked.

  “Not likely. Why would they carry the precise coordinates for a substation that they could easily detect … until it was blown up?” She grinned. “They’ll have an approximate location, and we know they’ll try to find it, but I’m thinking of finding a needle in a haystack the size of a solar system.”

  Turlo locked in the coordinates of the fleet’s frantic transmissions, and Sunitha accelerated the Kerris toward the position. In sensor silence they approached the stranded ships, drifting in without any engine noise or thermal output, coming just close enough so that their long-range imagers could spot the huge ships drifting aimlessly.

  Exactly as expected: five military stringline haulers loaded with numerous battleships. Sunitha took plenty of images. “The General might want these for his scrapbook. Now let’s go deliver them.”

  * * *

  Most of the buildings in Michella Town were eyesores, and this factory was no exception. Initially constructed as a cavernous warehouse for rare export minerals for the Diadem’s tribute payment, Sophie Vence had converted the facility into a manufacturing plant for rugged vehicles. Now the General joined her on an inspection to see how the machine lines had been retooled to create military equipment.

  To defend Hellhole, he had ordered twenty unmanned weapons platforms to be assembled as an orbiting picket line against the Diadem’s warships; so far, twelve had been deployed as sentries over the planet. The remote-operated launchers would be much smaller targets than the large guardian battleships, but could strike unsuspecting Constellation vessels.

  In addition, by sending blueprints and advice via stringline drones, Sophie had coordinated the conversion of ten additional factories on other DZ planets, so those worlds could take a hand in defending themselves.

  Sophie had installed a supervisory station in the warehouse rafters, and the window-encircled enclosure doubled as her office. From the high perch, Adolphus scanned the main-floor assembly lines and two levels of storage mezzanines. He heard the whir and click of the machines, watched as conveyors carried components to the eight weapons platforms being assembled.

  At the moment, though, he was far more interested in the Urvanciks’ report. Turlo and Sunitha looked pleased as they presented themselves, and Adolphus reviewed the grainy extreme-range images.

  “Marooned, just as you planned, sir,” Turlo said.

  Sophie smiled. “You’ve bought us a reprieve, Tiber.”

  “More than a reprieve—victory.” He looked at the two linerunners. “You’re certain Substation Three blew as well?”

  “As certain as we can be, General,” Turlo said. “As soon as the haulers rushed past, it should have automatically detonated. The fleet is trapped in the segment between the substations, cut loose. They have no stringline, and they’ll never find the unmarked end of a molecule-thin path in all the volume of interstellar space.”

  Adolphus tried to maintain his professional demeanor, although he wanted to sweep Sophie into an ecstatic hug. “A job well done—and that takes care of our immediate worries. With weeks of breathing room, we can put much more significant DZ defenses in place.” He smiled. “The Diadem is already defeated, even if she doesn’t know it yet.”

  “But what do we do about those ships?” Sophie asked. “I’d love to add them to our DZ Defense Forces, but they won’t surrender without putting up a hell of a fight.”

  “Maybe not right now.” Adolphus turned away from the factory line below. “We’ll let time and fear do our work for us. The fleet can’t reach Hellhole, and they can’t get back to Sonjeera. According to the intel, they have over fifteen thousand crewmembers, including a great many nobles and midlevel officers. Their warships were loaded in a rush for a mission they expected to last ten days, and they can’t possibly have enough supplies and life support to last for more than a few weeks.”

  Realization dawned on Sophie’s face. When her eyes sparkled, she looked ten years younger. The constant strain and uncertainty had made her appear careworn and tired, but now she was again the fresh-faced woman who had brought her young son to Hellhole, ready for a new start.

  Adolphus went on. “Even if they had the fuel aboard—very unlikely—it would take them three months, by my guess, to crawl to Hellhole, and at least five months to go back to Sonjeera. So we wait, while they sit alone and isolated in space, let them start to feel hungry and desperate. I don’t want to give them hope too soon—they need to feel completely defeated before we round them up.”

  He looked at the Urvanciks, who seemed to relish the prospect, and continued, “After a few weeks their supplies will be mostly gone, life support failing. Thousands of crewmen will have lost hope. That’s when I’ll come in with all my ships and accept their surrender. They will know it’s their only chance. We won’t have to fire a shot.”

  Sophie laughed. “We’ll add another hundred fully armed warships to our own fleet.”

  “Exactly—and remove them from the Army of the Constellation. We weaken them and strengthen ourselves at the same time. The tables have already turned.”

  21

  The mood aboard the Constellation fleet rapidly devolved from exuberance to confusion, then disappointment. They had set out to crush General Adolphus—strike fast, strike hard!—but now that the path had vanished from beneath them, the soldiers were bewildere
d. After a vague announcement of the delay, military music played over the intercom.

  On the bridge of the Diadem’s Glory, Escobar rested his elbow on the padded arm of the command chair, chin in hand, and stared at the starry view. A hundred warships, an intimidating force … but going nowhere.

  Gail Carrington stood next to his command chair—much too close, as far as he was concerned. When she spoke, her tone conveyed criticism rather than useful advice. “You must find a way forward, Redcom. Sitting here accomplishes nothing.” She was always watching him, breathing down his neck, reacting to his every movement with disapproval. He couldn’t recall her ever relaxing.

  “I’m not sitting here, Ms. Carrington. I am planning our next move. In order to ‘find our way forward,’ we must follow the stringline, one end or the other. Until then, we can’t proceed.” Escobar shifted in his seat, feeling like a failure. “Lieutenant Cristaine, it’s been six hours. Any word from the scouts yet?”

  “They’ve crisscrossed the vicinity of Substation Four, sir, but they have not yet reacquired the iperion path. Sensor logs give us the exact coordinates of where we went off the line, so we anticipate they’ll stumble on the severed terminus, given enough time. We are still searching for the substation itself.”

  Escobar shook his head in dismay. “Given enough time…” Once they found the substation, they could anchor themselves and reassess. But he didn’t want to reassess. He was a leader. He should be decisive. The son of Commodore Percival Hallholme couldn’t dither and bite his nails.

  Gail Carrington was watching.

  Bolton Crais stepped through the sliding metal doors, preoccupied and shaking his head. “I used my authorization to request that the ship-wide intercoms silence that patriotic music. It seems awkward to play a cheerful anthem when we’re just hanging here in space.”

  Escobar’s lips drew together. “Thank you, Major Crais. I should have thought of that detail myself. No need for ironic reminders.”

  Bolton focused his attention on the Redcom, ignoring Carrington. “I’ve also ordered the pilots to continue their simulation drills—in fact, I’ve increased the frequency of the training, to impose a sense of urgency. Everyone is convinced this is only a temporary setback … for now.”

  “It is only a temporary setback,” Escobar said.

  Near him, the comm-officer touched her earadio, then turned to the command chair. “Redcom, one of the scouts located the substation! It’s destroyed—sabotage, no doubt—but he did find the intact stringline that leads back to Sonjeera.”

  The bridge personnel cheered. Sounding relieved, Pilot Suri Dar transmitted from her isolated chambers on the hauler framework. “At least now we can go home safely.” Her voice rang out across the bridge.

  Escobar chided the stringline pilot. “Have all five haulers regroup at the ruins of Substation Four and await my orders. Major Crais, I want to see you in my office.” He forced himself to add, as if taking medicine, “And call the diplomats so they can participate in the discussion.” He looked at Gail Carrington. “You’re welcome to join us as well, Ms. Carrington.”

  She said, “I don’t need your invitation.”

  * * *

  Within an hour, the five haulers had rendezvoused at the ruined substation. Escobar hosted a small meeting with the door closed. Carrington looked hard and aloof, Bolton seemed worried, while Jackson Firth was full of ideas, none of which were practical.

  Escobar began the meeting. “General Adolphus has cut the stringline, and we cannot proceed to our target as planned—at least at the moment. We need to find an alternative way to complete our mission.”

  “We have the route back to Sonjeera, but that does us no good,” Carrington said. “Better if we find the other end of the severed stringline so we can go forward to planet Hallholme.”

  Escobar said, “We had precise data on where we fell off the iperion path, so we could backtrack to the substation—and even that took us half a day. With dissipation, the outbound end of the stringline will be much more difficult to find.”

  “Then we do the difficult thing,” Carrington chided.

  Bolton had already pondered the situation; he offered his advice before anyone else spoke. “If I may suggest another alternative? Even if the direct stringline to planet Hallholme is cut, we still have a roundabout way to get to the General—and to Keana. We could return to the Sonjeera hub and relaunch our fleet to a different Deep Zone world—say, Ridgetop or Candela. Once we overwhelm and secure the rebels there, we commandeer the General’s own DZ stringline network and proceed to Hallholme. We’ll approach from his flank, where he won’t expect us.”

  “Unless the General has blown all the direct lines from the Crown Jewels,” Carrington said.

  “The DZ cannot survive without help from the Crown Jewels! That would lead to mass starvation and hardship,” Jackson Firth said, then allowed himself a smile. “Hmm, but should that happen, we would be welcomed as saviors by the time we arrive.”

  Carrington said, “Supreme Commander Riomini has no intention of waiting that long. We must resolve this situation.”

  Escobar felt the weight on his shoulders. “I have no desire to bring the fleet back to Sonjeera, Major Crais, even if only to launch again for a roundabout assault. It would be embarrassing. We would appear to be returning in defeat.”

  “But it may be the only way to win,” Bolton said.

  Escobar could already imagine the catcalls and the ridicule, a sharp contrast to the fanfare that had feted them when they departed: “Strike fast, strike hard!”

  Jackson Firth brushed at his collar. “At the very least, now that we’ve found the return stringline, we must dispatch a message drone. The Diadem needs to know of this setback so she can alter her expectations accordingly. We should wait here for her orders.”

  Escobar leaned forward to skewer the diplomat with his dark gaze. “I am in command of this fleet, and I make the decisions.”

  Firth bristled. “Diadem Michella needs to know! We’re already delayed.”

  Bolton pointed out, “It will take days for a message drone to reach Sonjeera, and days more to return, not counting however long the Diadem takes to formulate her response.”

  “We can’t wait that long!” Frustrated, Escobar turned to Carrington, who sat brooding, offering no help whatsoever. “Ms. Carrington, feel free to make suggestions.”

  “I have yet to hear any plan that I am willing to endorse. I can state without reservation, however, that Lord Riomini would oppose having his glorious fleet return home without firing a single shot, stymied by a juvenile effort to impede our progress.”

  The diplomat actually raised his voice. “I insist! The Diadem must be informed.”

  Bolton added, “A discreet message drone with a coded report would be an acceptable alternative to having all our ships return to Sonjeera. The news could be kept quiet—I doubt the Diadem would want to advertise the setback. And in the meantime, we keep searching open space for the outbound end of the stringline. We might get lucky and resolve the problem before we receive a response.”

  Escobar was flustered, but he needed to make a decision, and that sounded like the best alternative. “Very well. We’ll anchor our five haulers here and send a private message back along the stringline. The Diadem and Supreme Commander Riomini must be informed. We can finesse the phrasing, make it a mere informational report, a courtesy message so that the Diadem can update her plans. This is not an admission of defeat.”

  “I can word it properly, sir,” Firth said with inappropriate brightness. “My team can be finished within the hour.”

  “Glad we can get some use out of you, Mr. Firth,” Escobar said while thinking otherwise. “In the meantime, I fully expect that somebody aboard will devise a viable solution before we receive a response from Sonjeera.”

  “Or,” Carrington said, “we could just find the other end of the stringline and be on our way.”

  Escobar ended the meeting and returned to
the bridge, where he sat in his command chair and tried to look important. Everyone kept glancing at him, and he could read their thoughts, sense their anxiety, disappointment, and disapproval. They expected more from the son of Commodore Hallholme. To be honest, Escobar expected more from himself.

  Once they sent the message drone racing back to the Crown Jewels, he felt the urgency increase. Anxious to solve the problem on his own, rather than let the Diadem give him an answer—or a reprimand—Escobar held private meetings with his engineers, who were also at their wits’ end. On impulse, he made a fleet-wide announcement, guaranteeing an extra six months’ pay and a personal citation from the Diadem (he was certain he could convince her of that, once they succeeded) to anyone who could offer a solution.

  In the ensuing hours, Escobar received numerous submissions of ideas, which his bridge staff vetted. A few suggestions were innovative, but most were ridiculous and poorly thought-out. Although it helped morale to maintain optimism, Escobar worried that they weren’t taking the situation seriously enough.

  * * *

  The message drone returned in only two days, far sooner than expected. Even under the highest stringline acceleration, it could not possibly have traversed the distance to the Crown Jewels and back in that time.

  Perhaps Lord Riomini had sent another fleet behind them, which was currently closing in. The message drone might have been intercepted and returned.…

  “A second fleet is not likely, sir. It took us weeks to prepare, load, and launch,” Bolton said as the two men went to inspect the recovered message drone. “They could never have dispatched another battle group in only a few days.”

  As soon as he looked at the returned capsule in the receiving bay, Escobar’s heart sank. “This is ours, still sealed.” Using the command code, he accessed the interior and found their own message inside, unread. “Why did it bounce back to us?”