Hellhole Inferno by Brian Herbert Read Free Book Online

was more gray than blond. His eyes looked sad, with heavy bags under them. He tried to dismiss Enva’s comment. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
    Enva said, “I just want to put in my name as a volunteer. I’ve always wanted to see Hellhole.”
    Reming blinked. “You want to see Hellhole?”
    Enva just shrugged.
    â€œI’ll keep you in mind if an opportunity arises.” The administrator took the resettlement reports from her, glancing at the lists of Candela refugee requests: lodging, food, homesteads. He made an angry sound. “Parasites. Why did they all have to come here?”
    â€œI believe it was because their planet was destroyed, sir,” Enva pointed out. The others just scowled at her.
    Reming shooed her away. “That will be all for now, Enva. I’m very busy.” He set the reports aside, and she knew he didn’t care about solving the Candela refugee problem, simply wished it would go away.
    But she had watched and listened, and wheels had begun turning in her mind. She decided to find out what was going on.

 
    6
    Candela hung mortally wounded in space, the corpse of a once-beautiful world.
    Even before the stringline scout ship arrived above the damaged planet, Tanja Hu felt acid tears burning her eyes as dismay and hatred boiled up along with a bitter helplessness about how she had been unable to prevent the disaster.
    Piloting the ship as they raced along the iperion path from Hellhole, Ian Walfor fell silent, considerate of her grief. He didn’t need to utter any comforting platitudes, did not gently squeeze Tanja’s hand, although she would have appreciated that.
    He decelerated toward the stringline terminus ring that had once been a symbol of hope, a new transportation network that connected all the DZ planets like a safety net. It should have been the start of a commercial golden age for her planet, for Theser, for new consortiums of trading partners.
    When Candela appeared before them now with all its devastating scars, though, Tanja couldn’t help but gasp. Even the normally loquacious Walfor had no words. Tanja’s throat constricted, and the tears blurring her vision could not dull the horrific image of the devastated planet. She felt as if they were attending the wake for a dead world. “I knew what to expect, Ian, but I had to come back anyway. I had to see it for myself.” She shook her head. “I had to know for certain what was left.”
    Tears trickled down Walfor’s face as well. His voice was hoarse. “The Constellation has inflicted plenty of harm on us, but we can’t blame them for this.”
    No, for the Candela tragedy she couldn’t blame Diadem Michella. The Ro-Xayans were entirely responsible for this.
    No one had even known about the militant faction of the alien race until they struck a deathblow against Tanja’s world. How could anyone fight such a powerful foe? And if Encix’s fears were correct, the Ro-Xayans would come back to finish their work on Hellhole with an even more appalling asteroid bombardment.…
    Tanja had been Candela’s hard and efficient planetary administrator, helping her planet thrive in spite of the Constellation, which was always there to demand tribute, but absent and unhelpful whenever aid was needed. She’d been an early rebel, along with General Adolphus, but in all of her plans and efforts, no one had thought to watch out for planet-killing aliens from the past.
    â€œI remember how much it hurt when my uncle Quinn and his village were buried in a mudslide—too much mining and too little safety, just so they could meet the Diadem’s production quota,” Tanja said bitterly. “I’d never been so heartbroken, never imagined the pain could be greater, but now … my entire planet has been murdered.”
    Walfor reached over, stroked Tanja’s long black hair. She closed her eyes and let him, then opened