Hellhole Inferno (57 page)

It reminded Sophie of one of the large clouds of predatory insects that occasionally gushed forth from nests on Hellhole, like the voracious torpedo ants that had killed Ishop Heer. Sophie tried to discern the forms—they were much larger than insects, and they looked
human
. She'd seen this before, when all the shadow-Xayans had flown across the continent. And she could make out the large alien form in the lead. Encix.

All of the converts at Slickwater Springs stared at the approaching swarm. Keana squared her shoulders. “It is Encix and thousands of new shadow-Xayans.” She paused for a long moment, then said in a smaller voice, her own human voice, “They may be too strong.”

*   *   *

As wave after wave of shadow-Xayans came from the skies toward Slickwater Springs, Keana stepped away from Walfor's landed ship and looked up, preparing to face them. Thousands of possessed humans came in, borne by telemancy, and hundreds more milled around the settlement. Keana was caught between the two groups—and she had to be strong.

Encix looked ungainly as she flew in the lead. Her extended alien body was not sleek or aerodynamic, but she still sped smoothly through the air. With Lodo absorbed by the Ro-Xayans, she was the only remaining Original, the last of those preserved in a vault deep beneath the crust—the last living Xayan who remembered the pristine planet, Zairic's ambitions, the terrible rift that had torn the race into factions. Encix was not aware that Lodo was gone, nor that Keana had a portion of his powers and memories, along with the combined strength of Zhaday and the other alien faction.

Standing by herself, Keana turned back to Sophie Vence, Ian Walfor, and Tanja Hu. “Remain inside the ship, for your safety. If I do not succeed, you may be able to escape.” She did not point out that if she failed to prevent
ala'ru
, there would be no place to which they could escape.

Seeing her rival, Encix maneuvered with telemancy. Keana did not flinch as the large Xayan's soft body settled to the ground in front of her. Like human-shaped raindrops, the converted shadow-Xayans gently landed all around her. They filled the grounds of the compound, spreading out around the slickwater pools, swelling into a huge army that covered the landscape.

Keana would have to stand against them, by herself. More important, she would have to stand against
Encix
—who was obsessively driven to achieve
ala'ru
. But Encix did not know what Keana knew.

The only surviving Original lifted her arms, rejoicing. “Can you feel it, Keana-Uroa? The power is in our minds and in the air. At last we have the numbers we need! The Xayan race has fully awakened, our minds and our memories are burning bright. And with the catalyst of our human partners, we are more powerful than our race ever was, even at its pinnacle before the asteroid strike.” Encix spread her alien fingers, and the air itself seemed swollen with energy.

A subvocalized humming sound came from all the shadow-Xayans she had brought with her. The converts from Slickwater Springs were more uneasy, having heard Keana's initial warning, but the sound grew louder until the hum became deafening. Encix called on them all, using her pure telemancy to whip them into a frenzy and drive them over the brink.

“Ala'ru!”
she shouted in her thrumming alien voice.

As storm clouds congealed in the sky—turmoil caused by the energy unleashed by so many shadow-Xayans—Keana could feel all of Hellhole tensing. Within herself, she summoned her own strength and commanded the Uroa presence to work with her, along with remnants of Lodo. Together, they called upon Keana's innate and grown telemancy, as well as the power and knowledge the Ro-Xayans had given her. Before, she and Uroa had proved that they were as powerful as Encix, and now Keana could draw upon even more alien strength.

But Encix could also summon more from all those gathered with her.

Interrupting the buildup of energy, Keana used telemancy to communicate with the newly arrived shadow-Xayans, as well as the vast numbers of converts across the planet. She had already revealed the dark secret of
ala'ru
to those who could hear her at Slickwater Springs, and now she did the same with the throng around Encix—the ones who had been immersed against their will at the POW camp and the forcibly immersed crews of the Constellation vessels that had landed to rescue them. Their human halves had been forced to join a cause they neither believed in nor understood. Keana sent them the truth, cracked through even the walls of delusions held inside the stored Xayan memories. And she stunned them all with her revelation.

Encix recoiled as she felt the weakness and sudden doubt spread around her and beyond, like unraveling threads in a vast tapestry. The Xayan leader struggled, then pulled the waves of telemancy into herself—and fought back against Keana.

The Original seemed to find an insane strength in the pinnacle of her race's destiny and her personal obsession. Her voice was an angry shout. “You must not weaken us now, Keana-Uroa! You are a shadow-Xayan, so you realize the importance of achieving our destiny. You
know
what we must do!”

Keana scoffed. “No, I know what that destiny
is
now, as do Uroa and the Ro-Xayans. None of Zairic's followers agreed to destroy the universe as a condition of advancing themselves. You tricked them into a destiny none of them really wants.”

“The whole reason our race exists is for the ascension!” Encix hammered back at Keana with her combined telemancy powers. Some of the still-deluded shadow-Xayans joined in, recklessly pursuing their false dream.

But inside Keana's mind, connected to the great ocean of telemancy and the stored lives of the Xayans, she was able to commune with others, rational alien minds astonished by the revelations, hesitant to take the risk. If they did not exactly support her, at least they withdrew their energy from Encix, much to the Xayan leader's shock.

But the tapestry of lives that Keana summoned contained more than the original Xayan race—the shadow-Xayans, forcibly converted, had their human halves as well. She could feel the doubts, the resistance, even the horror of all those people who had been swallowed by the inexorable flood of slickwater. They did not all want to help Encix—and now they fought back, pulling against the destructive Xayan destiny.

Keana clung to the unexpected support, called on their strength, and continued to send out waves of her own, taking the new converts away from Encix. She called upon their human partners to question what they were being forced to do. She felt all the shocked and beaten Constellation prisoners who had been shoved into the backs of their own minds, and the numerous refugees who had rushed to the Ankor spaceport.

She found Cristoph de Carre, and he fought back against Encix, against this unwanted abduction. He added a spark to the flames of Keana's own telemancy, and she grew brighter still. Inside her mind, inside
his
mind, she shared how much she had cared for his father, and through her eyes Cristoph could see Louis de Carre—which made him stronger still.

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.…