Deathstalker Coda

by Simon R. Green

  Joseph appeared before his Emperor, straight from his bed, looking a little tousled and distinctly wary. News this late in the evening was rarely ever anything he wanted to hear.

  "The time has come," Finn said crisply. "I want the Rookery crushed, and you're going to do it for me. I give you complete charge of all my armed forces, dear Joseph, and all I ask in return is that you should march into the Rookery and kill every man, woman, and child you find there. No one is to be allowed to escape. No mercy, no prisoners, no survivors. Burn the place to the ground, and leave not one brick standing upon another. I give you charge over all my soldiers, my Church Militant and Pure Humanity fanatics, all the thralls you can persuade to follow you, and all the air support you will need. This time, there will be no stopping us. You will keep pushing forward, despite any or all losses, until you come out the other side and the Rookery is no more.

  "And Joseph, dear Joseph—if you don't succeed, don't come back."

  Diana Vertue was out and about in the Rookery, despite the lateness of the hour. She'd got into the habit of making regular patrols on her own, ostensibly searching out spies and informers, but really just to immerse herself in the flow of life and the living. She'd been dead a long time, and she was still getting used to the unexpected fires and passions of the body she wore. People watched her go by, and sometimes smiled or nodded, but always from a safe distance. Diana Vertue was respected rather than loved. Jenny Psycho's legend had taken some pretty strange paths down the years, and it had been pretty extreme to begin with. Even Robert and Constance hadn't been able to sanitize her, not least because she was one of the few great heroes still around and kicking over the traces on a regular basis. Diana did like to think she'd mellowed a little since she returned.

  It felt good to be back in her body again, after so many years of existing only as a thought in the mass-mind of the oversoul; even if this wasn't, strictly speaking, her own body. The Psycho Sluts believed Diana had manifested herself again through an act of will, and she had done nothing to dissuade them. It all helped her reputation. She didn't tell them the truth because all her long years had done nothing to dull her natural paranoia. A secret shared is no longer a secret.

  Diana Vertue's original body had been very thoroughly destroyed in a battle with the uber-espers, over a hundred years ago. She'd been led into an ambush by someone she'd had every reason to trust, and her old tired body and mind had been no match for all the uber-espers at once. Her body was utterly consumed in mental fires, but at the last moment her mind was caught up and preserved by the oversoul. A psionic working performed so swiftly and so expertly than even the uber-espers didn't notice until it was too late. And so Diana Vertue had lived on, at peace and content in the mass-mind, until recent events had called to her and brought her forth again, renewed and revitalized in the fresh young body she'd kept preserved, in the event of such need as this.

  Diana had always had enemies, and knew the time would inevitably come when one of them proved stronger than her, so she made secret preparations for an emergency bolt-hole. After the war against the Recreated was over, Diana took advantage of her new (and fleeting) heroic status to do something awful, and unforgivable. She bullied the clone underground leaders into creating several brain-wiped adult clones, from her own tissues. This was a death crime, both for Diana Vertue and the clone leaders who agreed to it, but there were few indeed who'd ever been strong enough to say no to Jenny Psycho.

  She'd expected to die in one body and wake up in another, but the oversoul intervened. This had rather surprised Diana, who had never thought they'd want anyone as notoriously disruptive as her, but it seemed she was a hero to them, as well. And in their midst she had found unexpected peace of mind, and forgotten all about the clones.

  But she should have known; even heaven couldn't last forever. She couldn't abandon Logres to Finn, and leave with the rest of the espers in the Icarus Working; so when the floating city of New Hope took off for Mistworld, she had already left the oversoul and decanted her consciousness into one of the waiting clone bodies.

  It was still there, in its body bank, waiting to be occupied. She slid into it as easily as a hand into a glove, and the body bank had recognized her presence and revived the body for her. She sat up sharply, drawing breath deep into her lungs, the shock of the body's senses and sensations almost overwhelming after so long as a merely mental presence. After a while, she pulled herself out of the body bank, and tottered around the abandoned warehouse on unsteady legs. The other tanks were shrouded in dust and cobwebs, and there was nothing else in the warehouse, except the cold and the shadows. Diana checked the other bodies. Of the seven she'd put aside, only three were still alive. Diana brushed away the dust from one viewport, and a gray mummified face stared back up at her. Seeing her own dead face gave her a bad moment, but Diana was made of hard stuff, and she made herself turn away and put her new body through a series of exercises, designed to get the blood moving properly again. It had been a long time since she'd felt… human. The body didn't feel quite the way she remembered. There were differences. In some ways, it felt like haunting an uninhabited house.

  And she wasn't used to feeling so alone, cut off from the other minds of the oversoul. She could have reached them with her thoughts; Mistworld wasn't that far away for a powerful mind like hers, but she couldn't risk the contact. They might object to the things she'd done and the secrets she'd hidden, even from them. Besides, she needed to be a mystery, to her enemies and her allies. Keeping them unsure meant keeping them off balance. She allowed herself a distant kind of contact with her new followers, the Psycho Sluts. They were keen and sharp and enthusiastic, and openly worshiped her, which was a useful thing in itself, but she couldn't let even them get too close. She was a monster now, just like Finn. She'd sacrificed the lives and the souls of the seven women who would have been her clones, on the altar of her necessity.

  But then, whether as Diana Vertue or as Jenny Psycho, she'd always been able to do the harsh, necessary things.

  Just like her father.

  She enjoyed the company of the Psycho Sluts, though it was no match for the closeness of the oversoul, and did her best to be honest with them when she could. They wanted to know about how things really were, back in the days of the Great Rebellion, the history rather than the legend, and Diana told them, even when it made her look bad. She'd never cared about being a hero or a legend, except when she could turn it to her advantage. But… Was there never anyone special in your life? Alessandra had asked, and Diana was surprised to find she didn't have an answer, except… There was never time, or room, in the life I had to lead, for anyone but me.

  Diana Vertue increased the length of her stride, hurrying through the narrow streets, trying to leave such disturbing thoughts behind her. She was back, and she had much to do. And if inhabiting her stolen clone body made her feel just a little like one of the possessor ELFs, she tried hard not to think about it. Monsters did what they had to.

  Meanwhile, the Emperor Finn was having his own problems. Since most of the transmutation engines were lost or destroyed in the battle, or, more properly, balls-up at Mog Mor, he had lost one of his most potent threats for keeping the other planets in line. If the people knew how few engines he actually had left, he'd be fighting off rebellions all across the Empire. He needed a replacement threat fast, before some damned hero dared to call his bluff. He'd heard of what the rebel fleet had done to the engines he'd left orbiting Virimonde, showing how vulnerable the things were to a surprise attack by a strong enough force.

  So Finn went to see his pet clone master, Elijah du Katt, to see how his cloned army was coming along. He'd ordered five million new soldiers, all based on his own genetic makeup, but du Katt had only just produced the first batch, of under half a million. And the advance word on their condition… wasn't all he'd hoped for. Sometimes, Finn thought, things wouldn't go right if you killed them, chopped them up, and distributed the parts as party favors.

&
nbsp; Du Katt's laboratory was one of the most heavily guarded locations within the Imperial Palace. Finn preferred to keep his friends and allies close, where he could keep a watchful eye on them. Du Katt had one of the clone prototypes waiting for Finn when he breezed in. The lab itself was spotlessly clean, everything in its place, but it was perhaps just a little too brightly lit, too carefully arranged. Finn sighed inwardly. The odds were du Katt was running his own private projects again, and had tidied away the evidence a bit too thoroughly on hearing Finn was coming. Still, that was a matter for another time. Finn stood right in front of du Katt and the clone, and was pleased to see his proximity made the tic by du Katt's eye just that little bit worse. He considered the clone. It had a muscular body and a face that resembled his own famously good-looking features, but there were so many things wrong with the clone that Finn didn't even know where to start. The arms were of different length, there was a slight but definite hump on the back, and all the bones of the face were enlarged and distorted. The clone looked like Finn's idiot brother. Still, he held himself well, and his gaze seemed clear enough. Finn looked at du Katt, who flinched.

  "I told you, I warned you," he said quickly. "Providing so many clones from just the one sample, in such a restricted time inevitably meant a certain deterioration in the template, and certain… tolerable defects."

  "He looks like—damaged goods," said Finn, slowly circling the clone, who stood calmly, apparently unperturbed by the things being said about him. Finn sniffed loudly. "Can he fight?"

  "Of course, of course! Manual dexterity is well within acceptable limits. They have been programmed with knowledge of the sword and the gun, and to follow orders without question. As long as they're not too complicated, of course… There was a certain amount of brain damage, just as I predicted… But you asked for simple brute soldiers, and that's what you've got. He and his many brothers should be quite sufficient for the simple tasks you have in mind. Killing and property damage and… so on. They don't have a lot of personality, but that's probably just as well. You could have the whole of Batch One out on the streets tomorrow, if you wanted."

  Finn considered the matter. "Details, du Katt. I require details. What exactly is wrong with them?"

  Du Katt sighed. "They all exhibit acceptable minor malfunctions of the body. You understand, these are the best of Batch One. Forty-seven percent of the entire batch were so malformed as to be useless for your purposes, and had to be scrapped and returned to the protein banks for recycling. Of the survivors, none of them are too bright, and they've all shown definite violent tendencies. A significant percentage exhibit some or all of the symptoms for schizophrenia. And they all score very low on empathy. None of this should be a problem, considering what you want to use them for."

  "Quite," said Finn. "You have done well, du Katt. Get this batch out on the streets immediately. I want order restored, and I don't care how they do it. It might be best to issue them all face masks of some kind; I don't want them identified as clones just yet. And their features… might still be recognized. My face is worshiped all across the Empire, and I won't share that with anyone."

  The first new Imperial guards, all dressed out in full body armor and featureless steel masks, appeared on the streets of Logres in under three hours, and quickly proved themselves every bit as brutal and merciless as the thrall peacekeepers. There had been parts of the Parade of the Endless that remained almost civilized, if not actually free, just because the thralls couldn't be everywhere at once; but the new guards soon put a stop to that. Curfews were strictly enforced, all infringements of the law were punished by on the spot executions, and even the smallest signs of dissent or defiance were quickly stamped out. Sometimes literally. Joseph Wallace watched this new turn of events from within the safety of his bunker, and worried.

  He'd known Finn was working on a private project with du Katt, but the new guards still came as something of a surprise to him. More and more, Joseph was feeling left out of things, his power and influence much reduced. He was still nominally the head of Church Militant and Pure Humanity, but neither enjoyed the popular support they once had. No one believed in the religion or the politics anymore, given all the things Finn had done in their name. Just the hardcore fanatics remained, most of them personally loyal to the Emperor, not Joseph Wallace. People didn't even go to church anymore… because they were afraid to go out. Joseph felt lost. The people had turned against everything he believed in, and turned against him. And therefore deserved everything that happened to them.

  Although he would never have admitted it to anyone, even himself, Joseph's behavior had become increasingly erratic of late. He'd overseen the construction of a safe retreat for himself and his remaining loyal followers: a solid steel bunker deep in the heart of the city, staffed by the few people he felt he could still depend on. He had the place stocked with all the comforts and necessities of life, and surrounded it with every deadly defense known to man; and then he never left it, unless personally summoned by the Emperor. He had planned and launched what he thought were subtle and secret attacks against the thralls wearing his uniforms, disguised as purges against the unfaithful, but they weren't particularly successful. For every thrall peacekeeper who died, two more came forward to take his place.

  And so no one was more surprised than Joseph when the Emperor put into his hands the destruction of the Rookery. It had been a long time since Finn condescended to give Joseph his orders in person. (Their little chats didn't count. They never involved business. That was the point.) Joseph had half expected to be told that the Emperor had finally lost all faith in him, and was throwing him to the wolves, but instead… Joseph smiled, sitting in the center of his comm room, listening to the growing chatter of his assembling army. The Rookery would be a hard nut to crack, but success in such a dangerous venture would put him right back on top again. Not least because Joseph had no intention of giving back his army once the job was over. The Emperor should have used every means necessary to wipe out the Rookery after they drove off his last attack; but he'd hesitated. Finn said it was because he could be very soppy and sentimental over people who'd helped him in the past, but Joseph didn't believe a word of it. More likely, Finn had believed he might still need the special talents found only in the Rookery. Which was, of course, another reason for Joseph to be very thorough in destroying it. If he planned this campaign just right, Joseph could come out of it in almost as strong a position as the Emperor himself, and then… maybe it was time for a change at the top.

  In the end, Joseph Wallace put together one hell of an army. First he summoned every Church Militant and Pure Humanity fanatic he still had contact with, and had them plan the actual operation. He felt he could trust them to be suitably merciless and efficient. He also assigned them direct control of the invading force, as officers in charge, answerable only to him. The main bulk of the ground forces were made up of every soldier, trooper, and marine still left on Logres, plus a surprising number of thrall peacekeepers. Joseph made sure these latter would bear the brunt of the attack. The more dead thralls, the better for everyone. And finally, he called in every air unit still operating on Logres: every gravity barge, war machine, and gravity sled. This time, there would be no mistakes, no failures, no retreat.

  And when he was ready, when he was sure he couldn't add one more man, gun, or ship to his force, Joseph launched his attack without warning. His people flooded across the expanded and ill-defended borders of the Rookery from every direction at once, while massive gravity barges soared ominously over the crowded streets, firing their ranks of disrupter cannon straight down into the buildings below. The soldiers and the thralls and the fanatics cut down everyone in their path, showing no mercy, only varying degrees of exhilaration. Their orders were clear, their objectives simple, and it felt good to have a clear and obvious enemy to strike out at. Disrupters fired over and over, and fleeing crowds fell in waves. Swords and axes rose and fell, and blood flowed thickly in the gutters. Buildings e
xploded in showers of brick and stone fragments as energy beams stabbed down from the crowded sky. Fires broke out all over, and Joseph's warriors pressed forward, ever forward, determined that this time there would be no survivors to rise phoenixlike from the ashes.

  After the first shock, the people of the Rookery regrouped and fought back fiercely. Douglas had insisted that everyone in the Rookery's expanded territory undergo at least some weapons training. He'd always known this attack would come. And so men, women, and even children took to the streets with swords and guns and all kinds of improvised weapons. Others prepared booby traps, ambushes, and hit-and-run tactics. Those too old or too young for direct action took to the roofs, and rained down heavy objects on the attackers below. Everyone in the Rookery was a fighter now. They'd had to learn to fight, to survive. Finn had seen to that.

  Nina Malapert quickly put her people out on the streets, with every camera available, and broadcast the invasion live on her news site. Stand or fall, the whole Empire would watch as the Rookery fought back. The other planets needed to see that rebellion was possible—even if it ended in the slaughter of the last free people on Logres.

  The pace of the invasion faltered, slowed, and even stopped in some places. The old-school citizens of the Rookery were hardened and motivated fighters, proficient in every weapon under the sun, and a few forgotten everywhere except in the Rookery. They hit the Imperial troops hard, with subtle, unexpected, and thoroughly nasty tactics, and dead Imperial troops soon littered the streets, along with the bodies of the defenders. The newcomers to the Rookery also fought fiercely and well, these last peaceful citizens of a fallen Golden Age. All the things they'd suffered under Finn had put iron in their souls, and a driving need to put things right again. They threw themselves against the invaders, howling like animals, and the sight saddened Douglas a little. He had become a Paragon to fight the good fight, in order that the everyday citizens wouldn't have to. He had fought to keep them safe, and sane, and strangers to violence like this. He knew they had to fight now—in fact he depended on it—but he took no pleasure in the sight of innocence lost.