Deathstalker Rebellion by Simon R. Green
Beside him, Ruby Journey was laughing and whooping loudly as she spun to and fro in her webbing, enjoying every minute of the trip down. Random smiled at her. How could you not love a woman like that? He checked the sensor panels again, but they were still out, the pod's sensor spikes torn away by the shrieking winds. The proximity alarms sounded, harsh and strident, and Random braced himself. Either the ground was near, or they were about to crash into a mountain. Ruby whooped wildly. Storm had his eyes squeezed shut, as though that would make any difference. Random sighed and tried to remember if there were any mountains on Technos III. He didn't think so, but it would have been nice to be sure.
The escape pod slowed desperately as the engines gave up the last of their power to cushion the landing. The three occupants were pinned helplessly in their webbing, listening to the inner and outer hulls cracking from the strain. The lights went out, replaced by the dull red glow of emergency lighting. And then the pod slammed into the metallic surface of Technos III, plowed a long path through the scattered scrap and debris, and finally came to a halt against a massive protruding steel spur. The pod rocked back and forth and then settled itself. The sky was dark and forbidding, the winds were rising, and the first snows were beginning to fall.
Inside the pod, Storm still had his eyes squeezed shut and was trying to remember how to breathe. Random lay slumped in his webbing and thought, not for the first time, that he was getting a little old for all this. Ruby Journey wiped at her bloody nose with the back of her hand and laughed happily.
"That was great! Let's do it again!"
"Let's not," said Storm, still not opening his eyes. "I've had more fun in front of a firing squad. Next time, may I suggest we try and find a pod that's a little less past its sell-by date? Oh, God, I feel awful. Somebody please tell me we are safely down, because I'm not budging an inch until I'm sure the drop is over. And I want it in writing. With witnesses."
"Shut up, Alex," said Random easily. "We're down in one piece, and that's all I ever asked from a landing. And for an escape pod that's been sitting around in a Hadenman ship unused and untested for decades, I think it did pretty well."
"Now he tells us," said Storm. "I knew there was a good reason why I gave up personal appearances as a rebel."
"Shut up, Alex," said Random. "Ruby, the sensors are all out. Crack open the hatch and see what's outside."
Ruby disentangled herself from her webbing, threw Random a professional salute, and made her way carefully over the slanting floor to the one and only hatch. Random clambered slowly out of his webbing, wincing at several new bruises and a few old injuries, and moved over to persuade Storm to open his eyes. Ruby cracked the hatch and pushed it outward. The metal resisted a moment and then gave way. A blast of cold air and swirling snow swept into the pod, along with just enough light to fade the crimson emergency lights to a rather sweet pink color. Storm opened his eyes.
"Oh, wonderful. We've landed inside a birthday cake."
"Shut up, Alex. Ruby, what's it like out there?"
"Cold," said Ruby brightly. "And there's enough snow coming down to make an army of snowmen. Which is just as well, as there's no sign anywhere of a welcoming committee."
Random scowled. "According to the handful of instruments that are still working, we are in the right place, more or less. No doubt our contacts will be here soon. They must have seen us come down. Hurry up, Alex, shake a leg. We have revolutions to organize."
"I never did like fieldwork," said Storm, moving painfully toward the hatch. "Undercover is a young man's work. Usually, a young man who won't be missed too badly if it all turns pear-shaped."
"Whinge, whinge, whinge," said Random, half pushing Storm out the hatch. "Anyone would think you weren't happy to be here, striking a blow for freedom and democracy."
"Anyone would be right," said Storm, and then shut up as the full force of the cold hit him.
The three of them huddled together in the lee of the escape pod, sheltering from the driving storm. The jagged metal surface was already disappearing under a thick blanket of snow, and the rising wind was whipping up into a blizzard. They all turned up the heating elements in their clothes, hugged themselves fiercely, and beat their hands together. The cold was sharp enough to take away their voices, and their breath steamed thickly about their heads. The snow was so thick the sky was completely hidden, as well as the sun. It was supposed to be midday, but there was hardly enough light to see by. Random could feel Storm shivering violently beside him and began to be concerned. Storm's old bones couldn't survive this cold for long. Random didn't feel the cold too badly, but he'd been through the Madness Maze.
"This is undoubtably a silly question," said Storm through teeth clenched to keep them from chattering. "But why can't we get back inside the pod? It's got to be warmer than this."
"The pod's heaters got knocked out along with everything else," said Random. "And there's a small but definite chance the batteries are leaking poisonous gasses. If you want to take your mind off the cold, keep your eyes open for our contacts. In this blizzard they could walk right past us without noticing. But if they don't come soon, we may have to risk the gasses. You can't handle cold like this."
"I can handle any cold you can, you old fart," Storm said angrily. "I'm only six years older than you, I'll have you remember."
"Sure, Alex. Now, shut up and conserve your strength."
"Always were a bossyboots, Jack."
"How far are we from the rebel base?" said Ruby, trying hard to be tactful for once.
"We don't know," said Storm. "They wouldn't tell us. Just gave us landing coordinates and told us we'd be contacted. I hate going into situations blind. I just hope the paranoid bastards find us before the Empire forces do. We were promised a distraction to keep them occupied somewhere else, but I'm growing less trusting by the second. I would also like to point out that I am losing all feeling in my extremities."
"Don't worry," said Random. "At your age you don't use them for much anyway."
"You can go off people, you know," said Storm.
They fell silent for a while, the cold air searing their lungs. They huddled closer together, trying to share their warmth, eyes straining against the swirling snow. Dark outcroppings of metal showed dimly through the storm, but there was no sign of life anywhere. Random beat his gloved hands together and looked longingly at Ruby's thick furs over her leathers. He'd thought she just insisted on wearing them to keep up her barbarian image, but maybe she'd paid more attention at the briefings than he had. He wouldn't be surprised. There was a sharp mind at work behind her carefully crafted image. He coughed and sneezed harshly. Something in the air was irritating his throat. Even allowing for the bitter cold, the air was thicker than he was used to, and it smelled as though someone else had breathed it first. The locals had assured him it was breathable, once you got used to it. Random suspected it was an acquired taste. They'd said much the same about the changing weather, but Random wasn't convinced. The locals had also said the blizzard would make good cover for a landing. Random wondered if he'd be allowed to shoot the person who said that for criminal understatement.
He looked across at Storm, and his concern grew. There was no color left in the man's face, and he was shuddering violently. Random gestured at Ruby, and she took off her furs and wrapped them around Storm. It seemed to help him a little. Ruby wouldn't feel the difference. She'd been through the Maze, too. Random frowned. He'd been thinking of Storm as an old man, someone who ought to be happily retired, sitting in a book-lined study beside a blazing fire, with adoring grandchildren at his feet, but he really wasn't much older than Random. He still mostly remembered Storm as a tousle-headed young warrior, always laughing, ready to throw himself into the thick of things at a moment's notice. But that was a long time ago, and Random was shocked as he realized just how long. Storm had to be in his mid fifties by now, and the long years of struggle had not been kind to him. Random frowned and wondered if maybe he shouldn't have brou
"Heads up, people. Company's coming."
"Can you see them?" said Random, stepping forward to stand beside her.
"No. But I can feel them. They're coming this way."
Random concentrated, but couldn't feel anything. The Maze had changed them all in different ways. The first dark shapes began to appear out of the snow, and Storm forced himself to move forward and stand with his friends. It was a matter of pride. There were ten locals finally, standing before them all wrapped in furs, their faces hidden behind leather and metal masks in the shapes of stylized animal heads, none of which Random recognized. Except to note they were all pretty damn ugly. One of the locals stepped forward, looked at the three of them, and then pulled aside his mask to reveal a grim, heavily bearded face. It was a hard-used face and could have been any age. Several long scars marred his features, deep and pitted, and his eyes were dark and very cold.
"Where are the rest of you?" he said harshly, looking at Ruby.
"We're all there is," Random said calmly. "You talk to us about the local situation, and if we're convinced, we'll contact the underground and they'll send armed volunteers, weapons, and supplies. You understand there's a lot of calls on our limited resources. We have to be sure they go where they're most needed. I'm Jack Random. This is Ruby Journey and Alexander Storm. Give them plenty of room. They bite. Whom do I have the honor of addressing?"
"You're Random!" said the local incredulously. "I thought…"
"Yes," said Random regretfully. "Most people do. Just try and think of my age as experience on the hoof. Is there somewhere else we could continue this conversation? Somewhere a few degrees above absolute zero?"
"Of course. I'm Tall John. I command here. Follow me."
He pulled his mask back into place, turned, and set off into the storm without looking back. The locals moved off after him, as silently as they'd arrived. Random grabbed Storm and got him moving. Ruby took Storm's other arm, and the three of them stumbled off into the blizzard, hurrying as best they could to keep up with Tall John and his people. The pod was quickly lost in the snow behind them, and they soon lost all sense of direction. No matter where they looked there was only snow, and the dark figures trudging on before them. Time passed, and the bitter cold of the wind cut at them like knives as the pressure of the winds increased. And then the dark figures suddenly began to disappear, one by one. The last turned and beckoned them forward. He pushed aside his mask, revealing Tall John's face again.
"This is it. Welcome to the outer circles of hell."
He gestured at his feet, stepped forward, and descended into a gap in the snow that Random could only just make out through the blizzard. Random moved forward cautiously and suddenly found himself on the edge of a deep trench, some six feet wide, falling away deeper than his eyes could follow. He could just make out the steps cut into the near wall, and he followed the retreating Tall John down into the trench. Storm came next, slowly and very carefully, followed by Ruby. The trench turned out to be some fifteen feet deep, with snow and slush already ankle-deep at its bottom. Tall John was waiting for them and gestured for them to follow him into one of the many narrow runnels leading off from the far wall.
Random followed the local into a dimly lit tunnel barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast, and so low he had to keep his head bowed to avoid banging it on the roof. Roof and walls were both made of metal, crudely polished in places, and it occurred to Random that he'd seen nothing else on this planet. Except snow. He could hear Storm and Ruby following close behind. He glanced back, but Storm seemed to be holding up okay. It was discernibly warmer in the tunnel. The warmth slowly rose as they made their way on, until finally they emerged into a steel cavern some twenty by thirty feet.
The walls had been jaggedly cut from the many layers of compressed scrap metal covering the planet's surface, and no efforts had been made to disguise or cover this. There was no furniture, and the only light came from scattered candles in glass jars. A central metal brazier contained brightly glowing coals, and Storm headed straight for it with his hands outstretched. Random and Ruby joined him, though a little less quickly, for pride's sake. They both kept one hand at a time unobtrusively near hidden weapons. Random hadn't lasted this long by trusting people who just happened to turn up at a meeting place. He should have insisted on a password, but there hadn't been time. Random liked passwords. They appealed to his sense of the dramatic.
Tall John stripped off an outer layer of furs to reveal a tall rangy man with long dark hair, a steady gaze and a mouth set in a stern line. Beside him stood another of the figures from the storm, pulling open her furs to reveal a short, chunky woman with a great mane of knotted dark hair above a pale, round face. She flashed the three newcomers a broad smile and nodded to them amiably. Like Tall John, time and the world had used her hard, and she could have been any age at all.
"I'm Throat-slitter Mary. Don't mind Tall John. When you get to know him, he's really a pain in the ass. He and I will speak for the others. You'll meet them later. You're welcome here, but I have to say you're not what we were hoping for. We need reinforcements, weapons, supplies, and lots of them."
"We didn't expect two old men and a bounty hunter," said Tall John.
Random shrugged, not upset. "There's more to us than meets the eye. And if you can convince us of the strategic importance of your needs, you'll get everything you could hope for. So talk to us. Fill us in on what's been happening on Technos III. Your initial contact was intriguing, but short on detail."
"All right," said Throat-slitter Mary. "Short and to the point. Like me. We're fighting a trench and tunnel war with the Empire forces. At the center of everything is the factory, getting ready to mass produce the new stardrive. Around the factory lies a series of trench circles. The Empire controls the inner trenches, we control the outer, and we spend most of our time fighting over the ones in the middle. There's maybe fifteen thousand of us left. There used to be a lot more, but the years have whittled us away.
"We're all that remains of the original colonists of Technos III. Our ancestors were indentured workers, paying off the cost of their transport by terraforming the planet and establishing industries. Theoretically, once all the debts were paid off, Technos III was theirs. Only somehow there were always more debts for each new generation.
"The original company in charge went broke. Others came in and took over, running the planet as a business while they asset-stripped it. The companies came and went, but we stayed. We had to. Our ancestors had been genetically altered to enable them to survive on this world. Terraforming can only do so much. If you three stay here long enough, this planet will kill you in a dozen subtle ways. We can't leave this world without some pretty basic changes in our body chemistry, which we've always been denied. Officially, because it would be too expensive. Besides, where else were they going to find such a useful, trapped, workforce?
"As companies came and went, each more cheapjack than the one before, leaving their failures behind them to poison the land, the whole surface of the planet gradually disappeared under deserted factories, installations, and other high-tech junk. Right up until today. The Campbells were a bunch of bastards, but the Wolfes are worse. They don't give a damn for this planet. All they care about is their precious factory. Everything else has been left to rust and rot. We've inherited a world dominated by deserted mile-long factories, abandoned construction sites, and worked-out mines. The Wolfes, and the Campbells before them, chose this planet precisely because it's such a mess. They could do anything they liked here, and no one would give a damn. Who's
"Once the Wolfes have got their factory up and running, they'll be able to afford armies of mercenaries to force us back, so they can build more factories. And once that happens, they won't stop till we're extinct. We have to stop this factory coming on-line. It's our only hope."
"Sounds straightforward enough," Random said briskly. "It's a regrettably common scenario in the Empire these days, though this is perhaps a more extreme case than most. Tell me about the weather. I gather it's rather unusual here."
"That's one way of putting it," said Tall John. "Ever since the cyberats screwed up the weather satellites over two hundred years ago, the seasons here have lasted exactly two days, over and over again. The planet's various owners have been trying to repair the satellites for decades, with no luck whatsoever. Most life here couldn't adapt and died out. What little did survive, did so by being extremely tough. And not a little eccentric. During the winter, anything with any sense hibernates. In the spring, everything wakes up, explodes, and proliferates. They live, fight, and breed in the summer. Then they feed exhaustively and build nests in the autumn, deep down, away from the razorstorms and the hurricanes. Then they sleep through the winter so they can wake in the spring and do it all again. Life here is nothing if not adaptable. It's had centuries of practice.