Simon R. Green - Deathstalker - 2 - Deathstalker Rebellion

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Deathstalker Rebellion by

Simon R. Green

PROLOGUE

In the beginning was the Empire, and all was well. It was the great adventure of

humanity, springing out from its homeworld, pressing on into the endless dark in

search of new worlds and wonders. It was a time of heroes and marvelous deeds,

as humanity spread from world to world, and the frontier pressed remorselessly

outward. A thousand worlds, with a thousand civilizations, blazing so brightly

against the dark. The Empire.

It took four hundred years for the rot to set in.

Parliament became corrupt, the Company of Lords grew increasingly powerful on

the profits from plundered worlds, and the Emperor ruled over all with an iron fist

from his Iron Throne. Technology produced human clones and espers, declared

them nothing but property, and institutionalized slavery. It was still a great

Empire, but only if you were rich, or of noble birth, or had connections in the right

places. Everyone else worked hard, kept their heads down, and tried not to be

noticed.

And so it went for nine hundred years.

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By the time of Owen Deathstalker, the Empire was ripe for rebellion. Owen never

wanted to be a hero. Despite his Family's martial history, he always saw himself

as a scholar rather than a warrior. But when the Empress Lionstone XIV had him

outlawed and put a price on his head that had his own people scrabbling to kill

him, he had no choice but to run for his life and reluctantly grasp his destiny. He

fell in with fellow outlaw Hazel d'Ark, pirate, bon vivant and ex-clonelegger, and

together they fled to the rebel planet Mistworld, where they encountered Jack

Random, the legendary professional rebel, Ruby Journey, the female bounty

hunter, and Tobias Moon, an augmented man from lost Haden. Together they

traveled to the planet Shandrakor, with its boiling jungles and endless carnage,

and at the Last Standing of the Deathstalker Clan they discovered Owen's ancestor

of some nine hundred years earlier, the man called Giles, first Warrior Prime of

the Empire and creator of the terrible Darkvoid Device. He took them to the

Wolfling World, where they met the last Wolfling, sole survivor of his genetically

engineered kind. They passed through the Madness Maze and were changed,

emerging much more than they had been.

Together they would inspire and lead the greatest rebellion the Empire would ever

know.

In her palace of brass and steel, set within a massive steel bunker deep below the

surface of the planet Golgotha, the Empress Lionstone XIV, the beautiful and

adored, whose word was law and at whose whim blood flowed and people died

horribly. At her side, the Lord High Dram, Warrior Prime and Consort, called by

some Widowmaker, though never to his face. At her command, loyal subjects like

Captain Silence and Investigator Frost of the starship Dauntless. At her feet, the

Families jostled and conspired to win her favor, and hunted down her enemies

without mercy. Lionstone had strengths and surprises of her own and would not

easily be brought down.

And watching from the sidelines, waiting to see which way the wind might blow,

many who might be swayed one way or the other. Valentine, head of Clan Wolfe,

favored and powerful, a dandy and drug user of legendary proportions. Kit

SummerIsle, head of his Clan, called by some Kid Death, the smiling killer.

Cardinal James Kassar, fanatic and rising star of the Church of Christ the Warrior.

In the shadows, the clone and esper underground fought their losing battles and

dared to dream of freedom. They had allies in the cyberats, computer hackers and

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non-people by choice, and also in restless younger sons who knew they would

never inherit the Family name and riches. And just occasionally a hero would

come to them, such as Finlay Campbell, once known as the Masked Gladiator,

unconquered champion of the Arena; and Mater Mundi, Our Mother Of All Souls,

uber-esper and unfathomable mystery, powerful beyond hope or sanity.

All the players were in place. The stage was set. All that was necessary now was

for someone to strike the first blow. Owen Deathstalker, that reluctant hero,

headed for Golgotha in the company of Hazel d'Ark, on a strange golden ship run

by augmented men once known as the Enemies of Humanity; and though posterity

has no access to his thoughts, they were probably "Why me?"

CHAPTER ONE

Golgotha, Opening Gambit

Why me? thought Owen Deathstalker as he headed for the toilet yet again. He

knew he wouldn't really need to do anything once he got there, but his bladder

wasn't listening to reason. Not for the first time, it had ideas of its own. He was

always like this when the pressure was on, and he had too much time to think. The

afternoon before he'd made his first major speech at the Imperial Historians'

Convention, he'd spent so long in their toilets that they actually sent someone in to

ask if he was all right.

Owen sniffed, stepped inside the starship's single toilet, and pulled the door shut

behind him. It wasn't much; just a small steel cubicle with a gleaming steel bowl.

Owen unzipped and aimed carefully. He didn't want the others to think he was

incredibly nervous. It was the waiting that got to him. He was hardly nervous at

all during a fight. Usually, because he was too busy trying to keep himself from

being killed to have time to worry. But beforehand, his imagination always

insisted on picturing all the ways things could go horribly wrong in a hurry. And

his current mission of heading for Golgotha, the most closely guarded planet in

the Empire, in a golden ship built by inhuman beings who were once officially

known as the Enemies of Humanity, had never struck him as being that sane an

idea in the first place.

Even if it had been his idea.

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But it had to be said the Hadenman ship was the best choice open to the nascent

rebellion. His own ship, the marvelous Sunstrider, had been one of the fastest in

the Empire, but he'd had to leave it where it crashed, deep in the deadly jungles of

Shandrakor. And his ancestor Giles's vessel, the Last Standing, had been ruled out

very early on. A huge stone castle with a built-in stardrive was many things, but

inconspicuous wasn't one of them. The sleek golden ships of the Hadenmen,

however, were everything the rebels needed, and more. Incredibly fast, powerfully

armed, and so tightly cloaked there wasn't a sensor display in the Empire sensitive

enough to pick them up. In theory, anyway. The Hadenmen had been out of things

for a while.

The one thing the starship hadn't had was a toilet. Apparently, augmented men

didn't need such things. Owen hadn't inquired further. He didn't think he really

wanted to know. When Owen had discovered he and Hazel d'Ark had been

volunteered to represent the rebellion on this mission, he had argued long and

loudly against the decision. And when he lost, as he'd always known he would,

even before he opened his mouth, he had stated flatly that he wasn't going

anywhere with the Hadenmen until they installed a toilet. The Hadenman craft

might be incredibly fast and powerful, but it was still a long trip to Golgotha, and

Owen knew only too well what his nerves were going to be like.

So they'd added this cramped little cubicle especially for him and his nerves.

There was no washbasin, rug around the base, or even a seat to lift. There was no

toilet paper, either, but Owen had already decided very firmly that he wasn't going

to think about that eventuality. He looked at his reflection in the steel wall before

him; a man in his mid twenties, tall and rangy with dark hair and darker eyes. Not

exactly soft, but not the kind of person you'd be scared of meeting in a back alley,

either. Owen sighed deeply, finished what he was doing, zipped up again, and left

the toilet with as much dignity as he could muster.

Minimalist though it was, he preferred the look of the toilet to the interior of the

Hadenman ship. Its layout had not been designed with human comforts in mind,

like sense or logic, and some of its aspects were positively disturbing. Owen

concentrated on getting back to Hazel, who was sitting cross-legged on the deck

between two enigmatic protrusions of Hadenman machinery. She was busy

dismantling and cleaning her new projectile weapon, and she spared Owen only a

scornful glance as he approached. Hazel d'Ark was never bothered by nerves.

Give her something destructive to play with, and she was happy as a pig in muck.

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Owen sank down beside her, being very careful not to touch anything.

There were no seats or rest stations anywhere in the ship. Instead unfamiliar

inhuman technology filled the interior from stem to stern, with Hadenmen plugged

into it here and there as needed. The augmented men were part of the ship, or it

was part of them, and they ran it with their thoughts. Owen and Hazel fitted in

where they could, and tried not to look too directly at the incomprehensible

machinery. It made their eyes hurt. Lights came and went, of painful brightness

and unfamiliar hues, and the angles of the larger shapes were disturbing, as though

trying to lead the human eye somewhere it couldn't or wouldn't follow. Owen

settled himself as comfortably as he could on the unyielding steel deck, and

hugged his knees to his chest. The ship intimidated the hell out of him, and he

didn't care who knew it. He looked at Hazel, who was completely absorbed in

what she was doing.

A tall, lithely muscular woman in her early twenties, Hazel always looked as

though she was about to explode into action at any moment. Green eyes peered

challenging out at the world from under a mane of long ratty red hair, and her rare

smiles came and went so quickly they were often missed.

As usual, she'd loaded herself down with weapons. Her disrupter hung in its usual

place on her right hip, in its well-worn leather holster. Standard energy pistol,

powerful enough to blast through steel plate as long as the gun's energy crystal

was fully charged. And provided you didn't mind waiting the two minutes it took

for the crystal to recharge between shots. Her sword hung on her left hip, the

chased metal scabbard stretched out across the deck. Standard sword, heavy

enough to do real damage, without being so long it became unwieldy. Scattered

across the desk before her were the component parts of her projectile weapon.

Actually, there looked to be enough parts to make several weapons. Owen had no

idea the things were so damn complicated.

He had ambivalent feelings about the antiquated projectile weapons his ancestor

Giles had provided from the Last Standing's armory. They weren't nearly as

powerful or as accurate as energy weapons, but when they were pumping out

several hundred bullets a minute on full auto, they didn't really need to be. There

was none of that waiting for two minutes between each shot nonsense with them,

either. Hazel had all but fallen in love with the new (or more strictly speaking old)

type of weapons, and sang their praises at every opportunity. She'd taken to

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carrying several of the guns and enough ammunition to bulge every pocket she

had.

Owen remained unconvinced, as yet. He carried a projectile weapon of his own as

well as his disrupter, but he thought he'd wait and see how the gun performed in a

continuous firefight before he made up his mind. Personally, he thought Hazel

liked her new toys so much only because they had lots of separate pieces she

could play with.

And finally, when push came to shove, he still believed in cold steel as the answer

to most problems. A sword had no parts to go wrong, never ran out of ammo, and

didn't need to recharge for two minutes between use.

"You keep squeezing it dry like that, you're going to flatten it," Hazel said

casually. "Never known anyone spend so much time in a toilet. Check your guns

again. It's very comforting."

"No it isn't," said Owen. "There isn't a single comforting thing anywhere in this

unnatural ship, and that very definitely includes you."

"You never cease to amaze me, aristo. I've seen you fight appalling odds and go

charging into situations I wouldn't tackle for all the credits in Golgotha's Treasury.

You come from one of the greatest warrior Families in the Empire, but every time

we have to wait around for a bit, you get jumpier than a nun at a dating agency."

"I am not a warrior," said Owen determinedly, not looking at her. "I am an

historian who is temporarily—and under extreme duress—being forced to act as a

soldier of the rebellion. Personally, I can't wait for the rebellion to be over so I can

go back to being a minor scholar again, of no importance to anyone but myself

and with no pressures apart from the occasional symposium. I still don't see why I

was volunteered for this mission."

"Because it was your idea in the first place," said Hazel. "Serves you right for

being a smart-ass. If anyone shouldn't be here, it's me. I'm still not convinced any

of this is going to work."

"Then, what are you doing here?"

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"Someone's got to watch your back. Besides, I was getting bored just sitting

around back there. A complete lack of human comforts, far too much talking, and

no action of any kind. I need to be doing something, or I get cranky."

"I had noticed," Owen said dryly. "Trust me; the plan will work. It's been

discussed from every angle and subjected to intense analysis. Even the Hadenmen

liked it. This mission is just what we need to start the rebellion with a bang.

Something to make the whole Empire sit up and take notice."

"Oh, sure. They can all tune in their holos and watch us getting our ass kicked in

living color. Probably repeat it at prime time, with extra slow motion for the

gooey bits."

"I thought I was the nervous one?"

"You are. I'm just practical."

"So am I. That's why this plan is the best way to announce the rebellion's

presence. We can't hope to win a head-on fight. They've got far more men and

guns and ships than we have. So instead, we launch a lightning attack and hit them

where it really hurts. In their pockets. With the Hadenmen's help, we'll slip right

past Golgotha's defenses unobserved, sneak our way into the main Income Tax

and Tithe Headquarters, perform our little act of economic sabotage, and be gone

before anyone even knows we were there. It's really very elegant when you think

about it. We transfer a whole bunch of credits to our preprepared rebel accounts,

and then erase and scramble everything else.

"Thus, we not only kick the Empire and Church where it really hurts, and give a

major boost to rebel funds, but we also make a lot of friends among the general

populace when they realize the Empire won't be able to tax them again until

they've got all the records sorted out and reestablished. Which could take years.

Hazel, could you at least try and look interested in what I'm telling you? You

managed to avoid most of the strategy sessions, but you need to understand what

we're going to be doing down there."

"No I don't. Just point me in the right direction and turn me loose. If it even looks

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like an Imperial Guard, it's dead meat. I was good in a fight before we went

through the Maze, but I'm hell on wheels now. I've got all kinds of abilities I never

had before, and I can't wait to try them out."

Owen sighed quietly. "We're not just fighters anymore, Hazel. Like it or not,

we've become important figures in the rebellion. If we can pull this off, we'll

become heroes, even legends. People will look to us for inspiration on how to

strike back against the Empire, and they'll join the rebellion in droves. The

underground on Golgotha are committing a lot of their people and resources to

help us in this, just because they believe in us. By surviving everything the Empire

sent after us, we've become the hope of everyone who ever dreamed of being

free."

"If we're their only hope, they're in big trouble."

"Maybe," said Owen. "But whatever the truth of the matter, we have

responsibilities now. If we do pull this off, it'll be a sign that this rebellion has a

realistic chance of succeeding. The people might believe in us, but the cold facts

are that rebellions are extremely expensive to mount. Starships and rebel bases

don't come cheap. Remember how Jack Random had to deal and concede and

make questionable promises to questionable people, to get funding for his wars?

And he was the legendary professional rebel. He had to compromise; with the

credit we'll be lifting, we won't have to."

"All right," said Hazel. "Assuming, for the sake of argument, that we do bring this

off without being killed in horrible ways, what then? Turn pirate, and pick off

Empire ships between planets? Last I heard, the Empire was handing out some

really nasty deaths for piracy."

"Didn't stop you being one."

"I'm not exactly noted for my career choices. So what's the plan, Deathstalker? I

can tell you're just bursting to tell me."

"That's because it's such a good plan. As you'd know if you'd attended the strategy

sessions like you were supposed to."

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"Nag, nag, nag. Get on with it."

"We start small, picking our fights carefully, and build success on success until

we're a viable force within the Empire. Then we call on the people to rise up

against Lionstone. They've never dared in the past. Quite rightly, they fear

reprisals. They also value their comforts too much. They think they have too much

to lose. Unless their noses are rubbed in it, they don't like to think about where

those comforts come from, and who suffers to produce them. Our task is to change

the way people think, the way they see the Empire. First we educate them, then we

encourage them to rise up, and then we help liberate them. Classic strategy. If the

Empire really understood the lessons to be learned from studying history, they'd

ban it."

"You're really getting into this, aren't you, Deathstalker? You've come a long way

from the amateur scholar who just wanted the world to leave him alone."

Owen smiled briefly. "The world insisted on being heard. I can't go back to being

what I was, much as I might like to. I've seen too much, done too much. But don't

ever see me as some kind of warrior or hero. I might have to play the part for the

rebellion, but it's not me. I'll fight when I have to, and that's it. And when it's all

over, and the fighting's done, I'll be only too happy to climb back up into my ivory

tower and kick the ladder away. I've spent most of my life trying to be the scholar

I wanted to be rather than the warrior my Family expected. Circumstances may

compel me to act the hero, but circumstances change, and the moment I'm no

longer needed, I'll become an historian again so fast it'll make your head spin.

People watching will suffer from whiplash."

Hazel sniffed, fitting her gun back together with calm, practiced fingers. "It's

fighters, not dreamers, who make things change."

"I know what you want," said Owen, just a little testily. "You think all of us who

went through the Maze should use our special abilities to cut a bloody path

straight through the Empire to Golgotha, so that you could strut right into the

Imperial Palace and take on the Empress head to head. Well, you can forget that.

The moment we step out into the open, Lionstone will step on us, hard, even if it

takes half her fleet to do it. We're not gods or superhumans. We've been given a

few extra abilities, that's all. Very useful abilities, but only if used in the right

ways at the right times."

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"You're no fun," said Hazel. "What did the others think? I suppose they all wanted

to pussyfoot around, too?"

Owen frowned. "Giles wanted to spend the next few years gathering data from a

distance and develop hidden power bases throughout the Empire, before risking

catching Lionstone's attention. If we'd listened to him, we'd still have been sitting

on our ass twenty years from now, wondering if it was the right time yet. He

hasn't been the same since he killed Dram. He's gone all cautious and

noncommittal. Jack Random wanted to raise an army on the strength of his name

and fight the Empire world by world, like he used to. He had to be reminded

rather forcibly that his old way hadn't worked then and wouldn't work now. Ruby

Journey just wanted to kill someone as soon as possible. And the Wolfling…

wanted to be left alone. So I've been making most of the decisions, of late,

because everyone else was too busy sulking."

"Maybe I should have got more involved, after all," said Hazel.

"We all asked you at one time or another. You didn't want to know. You were

always off on your own somewhere, preoccupied with your own business.

Whatever that might have been. Target shooting with your new toys, or trying to

seduce a Hadenman, probably."

"I was busy experimenting with the new abilities the Maze gave us," Hazel said

hotly. "You might be afraid of the changes it made in us, but I'm not. We're all

stronger, faster, fitter than we were, but there's more to it than that. There's a

connection between us now, a mental link on some deep, basic level. It's not esp. I

can't read your mind or anyone else's. But we're… joined now, in some new,

primal way. Mind to mind, body to body, soul to soul. Anything you can do, I can

do, and vice versa. For example, I can boost now, just like you."

Owen looked at her sharply. Boost was both the gift and the curse of the

Deathstalker Clan. For short periods he could become all but superhuman;

inhumanly fast and strong, unbeatable with a weapon in his hand. A combination

of mental training, engineered glands, and secret chemical caches deep within his

body, boost was a jealously guarded Clan secret. It was also more seductive and

addictive than any drug could ever be. Owen had learned to use it only sparingly.

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