Deathstalker Rebellion by Simon R. Green
Storm smiled at her dazzlingly. "Of course. The rebellion can always use another canny fighter. Tell me, Owen, how is Jack Random these days? Last I'd heard, he'd taken a hell of a beating at the Empire's hands."
"He's… better than he was," Owen said carefully. "Try not to look too shocked when you see him. He's been through a lot."
"Are we going to stand around here chatting all day?" said Hazel ominously. "Or is someone going to check whether the program's finished running yet?"
The barricade filling the top of the stairs shifted suddenly, as someone underneath tried to move it, but it just settled itself more comfortably. And then an energy beam tore right through the mass of equipment, scattering fragments of molten metal in the air. The rebels ducked back and covered their heads with their arms. The security forces began dismantling what was left of the barricade.
"Let's save the official getting-to-know-each-other session for a better time," said Owen hastily. "I'll check the program. You shoot at anything that moves till I get back."
He sprinted down the corridor and into the computer room, and saw with relief that the program discs had finished their task and ejected themselves. He grabbed them, pressed the attached self-destruct, and watched with satisfaction as the discs were consumed in smoke flames. He wrinkled his nose at the smell and dropped the burning discs to the floor. Now, even if he or any of the rebels were to be captured, there would still be no way the Empire could reconstruct what the program had been. He ran back to the stairwell, where Hazel was spraying the disappearing barricade with bullets, to no obvious effect.
"Time to go," Owen said briskly. "The program's taken care of, and we have more than outstayed our welcome. Grab anything that's yours or might be useful, and head for the roof. There are gravity sleds waiting there."
"We can use the elevator," said Storm. "The cyberats have control of it."
"We'll use the stairs," said Hazel. "The cyberats' commands could get overridden, and it'd be a damn silly way to get trapped."
She headed for the stairs, without looking back to see if the others were following. Storm raised an eyebrow at Owen, as though surprised he wasn't taking charge. He was the hope of humanity, after all. Owen shrugged sheepishly and hurried after Hazel. Storm and the Stevie Blues followed behind. Owen kept his gun trained ahead of him, just in case, but there was no one lying in wait on the stairs, and they reached the top floor without incident. The gravity sleds were waiting where they'd been left, for which Owen was very grateful. This would not be a good time to have to walk home. Hazel was already aboard her sled and powering it up. Owen took Storm on his sled, while the three clones insisted upon crowding onto Hazel's.
The two sleds rose into the air and headed for the shattered windows they'd originally entered by. Energy beams stabbed the air around them as Dram and his people burst into the top floor, firing wildly. Owen and Hazel pushed the gravity sleds to full speed and shot away between the pastel towers, dodging and diving erratically to throw off the guards' aim. The sleds had force shields, but the power needed to sustain them would quickly drain the sleds' energy crystals of power they needed more urgently for speed. The Stevie Blues hung on grimly to the bucking gravity sled and fired back at their attackers. More guards appeared at the windows of other towers and opened fire on the sleds. Dram must have got the word out. Owen and Hazel darted in and out of the towers, fighting updrafts and dodging unexpected protrusions, and the energy beams came at them from every side.
A disrupter beam hit the front of Owen's sled a glancing blow, blasting it off course. White-hot metal spattered across his hastily flung-up cloak as he struggled to regain control. The cloak burst into flames. Storm pulled it free from Owen's shoulders and threw it overboard. It fell away, burning brightly, finally disappearing into the long drop. Owen fought the sled back under control, but its speed had dropped by half. Hazel dropped back to keep pace with him. Owen gestured for her to go on, but she shook her head stubbornly. Owen activated his comm implant.
"Hazel, will you please get the hell out of here! Dram will be putting sleds into the air anytime now."
"Exactly," Hazel said calmly. "You're going to need someone to watch your back. We can't let you die. You're the hope of humanity, remember?"
He would have argued more, but they whipped around the side of a tower to find themselves facing rows of armed guards waiting for them on top of the next tower. Owen and Hazel cursed simultaneously and threw the sleds into a dive. Energy beams slashed past them, and one hit Stevie Two squarely in the back. The force of the blast threw her over the side of the sled. The other two Stevies screamed in unison as the burning body plummeted toward the distant ground. Owen sent his sled plunging after her, pushing its speed well past its recommended safety limits. The engine whined protestingly, but he ignored it. He overtook the falling body, swept the sled underneath, and then surged up to catch her. The burning body slammed onto the deck. Storm wrapped his cloak around her, to smother the flames. Red warning lights glared all across the sled's controls, and Owen snarled back at them. He'd saved a life from the Empire's venom, and that was all that mattered.
Hazel's sled swept in beside him. Stevies One and Three were firing Hazel's projectile weapons at the guards, driving them back under cover. Hazel gestured back over her shoulder, and Owen glanced back briefly. Imperial gravity sleds were coming up behind and closing the gap fast. Energy beams flashed past the rebels' sleds, from behind and ahead. Warning shots fired, to show they'd got the range. Owen caught Hazel's eye and pointed upwards. She nodded, and the two sleds darted straight up, leaving the sheltering towers behind. Owen activated his comm unit again.
"This is Rebel One to Golden Boy. I can't come to you, so you'll have to come to me. Lock on to my signal and get your ass here fast."
There was no answer, but he hadn't expected one. The two Stevie Blues were firing down at the pursuing Empire sleds, tears for their fallen sister streaming down their cold, set faces. Their guns ran out of ammo, and the espers dropped the projectile weapons to the deck and grabbed two more from Hazel's belt. They opened up again, and one of the pursuing sleds suddenly erupted into flames and fell spiraling between the towers like a burning leaf. Owen and Hazel sent their sleds whipping back and forth over the towers, their Maze-amplified speed and reflexes enabling them to make decisions and pull off evasions their pursuers couldn't hope to match, but still the Empire sleds came on, remorselessly closing the gap with their superior speed.
And then the great golden ship of the Hadenmen appeared out of nowhere right before them as it dropped its cloaking shields, filling the sky, gleaming brighter than the sun. The pursuing sleds took one look and did everything but throw themselves into reverse. A few fired off useless shots at the huge ship, but most just settled for shuddering to an unruly halt in midair. Owen glanced back over his shoulder and saw Storm looking up at the ship with his mouth open. Even the Stevie Blues had stopped firing at their pursuers. Owen grinned and flew up into the open cargo bay doors in the ship's belly, Hazel right behind him.
"Get the hell out of here right now!" yelled Owen. "Go, go, go!"
The belly doors slammed shut, and Owen and Hazel landed their sleds. Owen slumped over the controls, exhausted, but made himself turn around as Stevie One and Stevie Three ran over to the sled. Storm was bending over the unmoving body of Stevie Two. He looked up as the esper clones reached him and shook his head sadly.
"I'm sorry. She must have been dead from the moment the beam hit her."
Owen wanted to say something, but couldn't. Stevie One nodded stiffly to him. "You risked your life to save her, even though she was just a clone. It's not your fault she didn't make it. We'll never forget what you did, Owen Deathstalker. Wherever you lead, we'll follow."
"But now there are only two of us," said Stevie Three quietly.
Stevie One put her arms around her and hugged her hard. After a while she let go, and the two Stevie Blues walked off a way to be by themselves for a while
"Nice flying, Deathstalker. Maybe you are the hope of humanity after all."
"You're never going to let me forget that, are you?" said Owen.
"Listen, aristo," said Hazel. "You need me to keep you honest. If you're the hope, we are in deep shit. Hey, Hadenmen! Any chance of showing us what's happening outside?"
A viewscreen appeared, hovering on the air before them. The planet was falling away below them, but a dozen starcruisers were coming after them. They were unusually large, bulky ships of a kind Owen didn't recognize. He looked at Storm, who was biting his lower lip and frowning.
"The Empress's new fleet," he said quietly. "E class, all with the new stardrive. Reputedly even faster than the legendary Hadenman ships. It would appear we're about to find out whether that's the case."
The Empire ships opened fire. Disrupter cannon fired in sequence, one after the other, so that the starcruisers could maintain a constant fire. The golden ship fired back, but the Empire ships were rapidly closing the gap. Owen assumed the Hadenmen's shields were still holding—on the grounds everyone on board would have been breathing vacuum by now if they weren't. And then the ship's engines roared, and the viewscreen disappeared as the Hadenman craft dropped into hyperspace and was gone. Owen let out a long slow sigh of relief, and Hazel slapped him on the back.
"Told you we'd make it, aristo. Personally, I was never worried. Not for a minute."
"Then, you should have been," said Owen. "If those new ships are typical of the E class, we are all in real trouble. Think of a fleet of ships as fast as my old Sunstrider. We'd been relying on the Hadenman ships to give us an edge, but it would appear they're not number one anymore. Which means, if we're going to go head-to-head with the Empire, we've got to have ships with the new stardrive, too."
"What the hell," said Hazel. "We can worry about that later. The mission was a success. The Tax and Tithe computers are toast, and we got most of the contacts out alive."
"We still lost one," said Owen.
"It wasn't your fault," said Storm. "You tried. These things happen. I'll go and have a word with Stevie One and Three. Offer them some comfort and a friendly shoulder to lean on."
He bowed formally and moved away. Hazel watched him go. "These things happen! He's going to be a real comfort, he is."
"I think we could both use a drink and some rest," said Owen. "Perhaps you'd care to join me, Hazel? Or we could have a meal together. Would you like that?"
"Not really, no," said Hazel. "No offense, Deathstalker, but let's keep our relationship professional, okay?"
She smiled at him briefly, then strode over to Storm and the two esper clones, gesturing for them to follow her. Owen watched them go. He was sure he must have been turned down faster than that at some time in his past, but he was damned if he could think when. Things like that weren't supposed to happen. He was a Lord, after all. And the hope of humanity.
"Nice try, though," said the AI Ozymandius through his comm implant.
"Shut up, Oz," said Owen. "You're dead."
CHAPTER TWO
Up to Gehenna and Down to Golgotha
Captain John Silence of the Empire starcruiser Dauntless was going home to die, and was trying hard not to give a damn. After all, he'd only failed in his mission and got most of his people killed. He looked at the brimming glass in his hand and pulled a face. The trouble with sustained heavy drinking was that after a while your tongue went numb, and you couldn't tell what you were drinking. Though given exactly what he was pouring down his throat in great quantity, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The food synthesizers could produce alcohol and flavorings, but the combinations, like the quality, were strictly limited. It was supposed to be red wine, but all the red part did was turn his teeth pink. Still, for a wine whose vintage was under ten minutes, it wasn't that bad. Not that it made any difference. He would have drunk it anyway.
His head hurt, his hands were shaking, and his stomach lurched this way and that when he moved. He'd been drinking steadily for almost three days now, taking time out to eat and sleep when he absolutely had to. He didn't drink much normally, and he was finding getting drunk and staying drunk harder work than he'd expected. But he kept at it. Nothing else to do. He was a failure, going home to report that failure to an Empress who'd kill him for it.
And all those good men lost…
He was heading back to Golgotha with bad news and worse, and while the Empress Lionstone might have pardoned him once for screwing up, she wouldn't put up with it a second time. He'd been sent to the Wolfling World on a straightforward mission. Accompanied by a contingent of trained adjusted men, the Wampyr, and the Empress's lover and right-hand man, the Lord High Dram, he'd been commanded to arrest and execute that most renowned traitor Owen Deathstalker, and all with him, and then return to Golgotha with the rebels' heads and the secrets of the legendary Wolfling World. They'd even given him the single Grendel alien ever to be subdued and controlled. An extraordinary and so far unique specimen. The mission should have been a walkover.
Instead Dram's body was down in the cargo hold, the Grendel alien had been killed, which was supposed to be impossible, and the three Wampyr who hadn't died fighting the rebels had been detained by the newly risen Hadenmen. Silence didn't want to think what for. He took another drink. The Hadenmen. Once the Enemies of Humanity. Defeated long ago in a fierce and bloody war, they were supposed to be extinct, or at best sleeping endlessly in the hidden Tomb of the Hadenmen. But Owen Deathstalker had found and woken them, and now they sided with the rebels. And God help the Empire. The walls were falling, and the wolves were running loose among the flock.
He downed another drink and another. He really wasn't looking forward to explaining to the Empress that the Wolfling World was in fact also Haden, home of the Hadenmen. Which meant the rebels now had access to the legendary laboratories of Haden, and all the wonders and horrors they had produced in the past. Science beyond reason, weapons beyond hope of stopping, and all of it aimed at the Empire. By his failure he'd signed the death warrant of civilization and quite possibly all of humanity as well.
No, he had nothing but bad news to lay before his Empress, and she would kill him for it. If his own men didn't do it first. All the men he'd taken down into the caverns deep below the frozen surface of the Wolfling World had died there, facing weapons and horrors they could not have anticipated. And instead of avenging them, Silence had been forced to take his ship and run. His crew didn't understand what he'd seen down there. Why it was vital he abandon everything and flee, to be sure the Empire would get advance warning of the threats to come.
So now his crew despised him. Many hated him. If the Investigator Frost hadn't stood by him and made it very clear she would personally avenge him if he died, he wouldn't have had to worry about facing Lionstone. There would have been a sudden, regrettable accident, and it would all have been over. Which might have been kinder, really, but you couldn't expect an Investigator to understand that. They were trained from childhood to hunt and kill aliens, and the subtleties of human behavior often escaped them. So he left the running of what used to be his ship to his second in command and sat alone in his cabin, drinking. To pass the time, as much as anything else.
There was a knock at his door, and he looked up, just a little blearily. He knew who it was, who it had to be. Only one person ever came to see him these days. He thought about getting up to open the door himself, but decided against it. He didn't trust his legs that much. So he worked his numbed tongue around his slightly slack mouth and said, "Door: open," with as much authority and clarity as he could manage. The door slid open, and Investigator Frost stepped into his cabin. She nodded to Silence, and looked unhurriedly about her as the door closed behind her. Silence didn't look. He knew the place was a mess. He'd never been particularly tidy, but normally his batman took care of things like that. He hadn't seen his batman in five days, and he found it faintly surprising just how bad things could
He did sneak a quick look at himself in the mirror on the wall opposite, and winced. A tall, lean man in his late forties looked back at him, with a pale lined face that could use a shave topped by a distinctly receding hairline. He looked rumpled and badly used, like the unmade bed he was sitting on. His uniform was a disgrace. He'd been sick down it twice, and the left sleeve had never really recovered.
The Investigator, on the other hand, looked utterly immaculate in a tight starched uniform with brightly polished buttons, as though she was just about to step out onto a parade ground. She was tall and lithely muscular, in her late twenties, though her eyes were much older. They were cold and blue, burning fiercely in a pale controlled face topped by auburn hair cropped close to the skull. She wore a gun on her hip, despite shipboard regulations, and a long sword hung down her back. Just standing there at her ease she looked ready and willing to take on a fair-sized army all by herself. And it was a brave man who would have bet on the army. She was handsome rather than pretty, and it was a brave man indeed who'd even smile at her without a direct invitation. In advance, in writing. Frost smiled only when she was killing something. She pulled up a chair, removed and discarded a dirty shirt with thumb and forefinger, and sat down facing Silence. He raised an eyebrow. Frost was usually impeccably formal, even in private.
"What are you doing here, Investigator?" he said tiredly, pleased his voice was still steady, if a little slurred.
Frost sniffed. "I thought we'd agreed you were going to stop drinking."
"You agreed. I just got tired of arguing."
"It won't help, Captain."
"It can't hurt, either," Silence said reasonably. "Things are already as bad as they can get."
"There's always the chance they might improve unexpectedly. We have to keep our wits about us, Captain. Be ready to take advantage of any opportunities that might arise."
"You take advantage, Investigator. I'm too tired, and I really don't care that much anymore. No matter what happens our mission is still a mess. Civilization is doomed, and my men are still dead. They were good men. They followed me into the Madness Maze because I ordered them to. Because I told them it was safe. And not content with that, I ended up sending the survivors head-to-head with Hadenmen. It would have been kinder to shoot them all in the back. Except, that's what I did, really." He sighed, as the familiar guilt and pain washed over him again. He'd lost men before, but never like this. Failed before, but never like this. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Investigator, I have some serious drinking to attend to."