Deathstalker Honor d-4

by Simon R. Green

  Deathstalker Honor

  ( Deathstalker - 4 )

  Simon R. Green

  Owen Deathstalker became a hero after the great rebellion against the tyranny of Lionstone XIV, and now political factions are quarreling over who will replace the deposed Empress. But Humanity faces an even greater threat—an encroaching invasion fleet of alien origin...

  Deathstalker Honor by Simon R. Green

  They were, after all, official heroes of the great rebellion.

  Owen Deathstalker; outlawed aristocrat and reluctant warrior.

  Hazel d'Ark; ex-clonelegger and ex-pirate.

  Jack Random; the legendary professional rebel.

  Ruby Journey; the infamous female bounty hunter.

  Together, they fought impossible odds in the name of freedom and justice, and triumphed time and time again. They gathered an army of the bold and the valiant, the downtrodden and the desperate, and led them to victory. And in the great steel and brass Palace of the homeworld Golgotha, they threw down the Empress Lionstone XIV and destroyed the Iron Throne of Empire forever.

  They should have been feted and honored, raised to the heights and celebrated throughout the civilized worlds.

  They should have lived happily ever after.

  Unfortunately, life isn't like that.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Charnel House

  On the good ship Sunstrider II;

  "Bounty hunters!" said Hazel d'Ark disgustedly. "After all we've done, after all we've been through, we end up as nothing more than glorified bounty hunters!"

  "Beats our previous occupation," Owen said mildly. Tall and rangy, with dark hair and darker eyes, he lounged bonelessly in the lounge's most comfortable chair. "Chasing down war criminals is important work. I don't know about you, but I find being the hunter rather than the hunted much easier on the nerves. Besides, must be a nice change for you, being legitimate."

  "It's the principle of the thing!" snapped Hazel. "We used to be somebody! We led armies! We overthrew the Empire! Risked getting our asses shot off time after time, and all so we could end up doing Parliament's dirty work. Makes me want to puke."

  Owen was thrown for a moment. He would have been prepared to bet good money Hazel wouldn't recognize a principle if she fell over it on her way back from the toilet. But he rallied gamely and closed the discussion with an accurate if not entirely tactful point of order.

  "As I recall, this was all your idea anyway."

  Hazel glared at him, and then turned away to glower at the nearest bulkhead. She was in one of her moods again, and not about to be swayed by mere logic. Owen sighed, but had the sense to do it very quietly. Truth be told, he found bounty hunting something of a comedown too, but all the alternatives had been worse. When he was fighting the rebellion, he'd never really thought about what he'd do when it was all over. Mostly because he was usually too busy trying to keep himself from being killed, but also because he'd never seriously expected to see an end to the rebellion in his lifetime. Most people who stood up to oppose the Empress Lionstone XIV, also known as the Iron Bitch, tended to end up in early graves. Often with bits missing. But then, nothing in his life had ever turned out the way he expected.

  Looking back, he seemed to have spent most of his time stumbling from one crisis to another, acted upon as often as acting from his own plans and wishes. There had been schemes and conspiracies all around him, most of which he knew only by the brief shadows they cast across his life in passing. And in the end it seemed to him that for all his intentions and bold companions, and the mysterious powers he'd acquired from the Madness Maze, he had finally come to stand defiantly before the Iron Throne through his own sheer stubbornness, and a refusal to be beaten by odds that would have frightened off a more sensible man.

  He'd ended up a hero and a savior of Humanity, and no one had been more surprised than him.

  He'd expected to fail. Expected to die, and die horribly. Instead, he'd overthrown an empire that had lasted well over a millennium, deposed its ruler and destroyed her throne, and seen the end of practically every social and political structure he believed in. And that was when the problems had really begun.

  Lionstone's body was barely cold before the vultures began descending. Even while the last battles were being fought, the various parts of the rebel force had begun arguing fiercely with each other over what exactly should replace the old system. Even those few who'd been there at the end couldn't bring themselves to agree. Owen had wanted things to stay much as they were, with some political reforms and injustices punished. Hazel had wanted it all torn down, with war trials for all the Families, for crimes against Humanity. Jack Random insisted on democracy for all, including all clones and espers and other unpeople. Ruby Journey wanted the loot she'd been promised.

  They were soon joined in the Court by representatives of the clone and esper undergrounds, fringe political groups of all shapes and shades, and more religious factions than you could shake a stick at. All of them intent on having their own way. Luckily, they were all too tired to start another war just yet. The argument became a deadlock, and everyone stamped off in different directions to plot and plan anew. For the moment Parliament was running the day-to-day business of Empire, on the grounds that somebody had to, and they at least had some experience in the area. No one trusted them an inch, but there was nothing new there.

  Men and women who had once been allies, sworn to defend each other to the death and beyond, now fought each other viciously over points of dogma and precedence. Owen supposed he shouldn't have been surprised. He was a historian, after all. All the various rebel factions had ever really had in common was a shared enemy. And though they all bandied around words like justice and liberty, they meant very different things to different people.

  And then there was the deal Random had made, in the midst of the most desperate fighting, to depose but not destroy the aristocratic Families. Faced with an increasingly victorious army calling for their collective blood, the great Houses had banded together and offered to step down from power and privilege, in return for being allowed to survive as purely economic forces. That was the carrot. The stick was their threat to destroy the economic base of the whole Empire, and crash every civilized world back to barbarism. No one doubted they were quite capable of doing it. And so Random had made the deal, to save the lives of billions, but no one thanked him for it. The man in the street was cheated of his revenge, the rebels accused their beloved hero of selling out his political convictions, and the Families hated him for the loss of their precious nobility. Afterward, Random had to hire a secretary just to deal with all the hate mail and death threats.

  As if the situation wasn't complicated enough, Blue Block had emerged from the shadows to unite and control the Families and scare the crap out of everyone else. Blue Block had been the Families' secret weapon, a last-ditch defense to be used against the Empress if she ever seriously threatened the Clans' power and status. The youngest sons and daughters of each House were given to Blue Block, trained and conditioned to be loyal to the Families to the death and beyond. Unfortunately, Blue Block turned out to have an agenda of its own.

  In their hidden schools, faceless and nameless instructors taught the younger sons and daughters, none of whom would have inherited title or wealth anyway, that the Families as a class were far more important than any one House. And that loyalty to Blue Block therefore superceded any loyalty to individual Clans. They taught their charges other things too, some of them unspeakable, but that still remained a secret. For the moment.

  They were the ones who had come up with the deal to put to Jack Random, and now that they had emerged unblinking into the harsh light of public view, they were the ones who enforced it. Th
e Clans saw what they had unknowingly created and were afraid. And so they all bowed down to Blue Block, and kept their rage and plans for bloody revenge to themselves.

  Owen, Hazel, Jack, and Ruby were united in their horror of the Pandora's box of troubles they'd opened, but couldn't decide what to do about it. Random rushed from one meeting to another, desperately trying to keep a lid on things. It helped that most people were at least willing to listen to him. Everyone respected the legendary Jack Random. Even if they hated his guts. He spent the rest of his time trying to rebuild the very armed forces he'd just finished fighting, in case of attacks by the Empire's many enemies. The rogue AIs of Shub, the reborn Hadenmen, and any number of potential alien threats were all quite capable of launching an attack upon an Empire distracted by internal divisions.

  Ruby Journey meanwhile took every opportunity to loot anyone weaker than her, including several corporations, and lost no time in setting herself up in the kind of luxury she'd always wanted to become accustomed to. She had no interest in politics. If you couldn't hit or rob something, Ruby was mostly lost for an alternative. So she stayed out of the ongoing negotiations, and everyone else heaved a great sigh of relief.

  And Owen and Hazel had become bounty hunters, tracking down escaped war criminals. Officially, they were supposed to bring the villains back to face public trial, but privately it had been agreed on all sides it would be better if certain parties were killed while trying to escape. Owen and Hazel had nodded solemnly when this was explained to them, and decided they'd make up their own minds on the subject, as and when necessary. If there was ever to be any hope of stability in the new order Jack was trying to hammer together, the truly evil had to be punished, and seen to be punished. People like Valentine Wolfe, for example, despised right hand of the Empress and butcher of Virimonde. You couldn't send just anybody after a dangerous and subtle villain like the Wolfe, so that was where Owen Deathstalker and Hazel d'Ark came in. They were, after all, the most dangerous people the Empire had ever seen.

  All Owen had ever really wanted was his old life back, but almost from the moment the rebellion was officially declared triumphant, it seemed to him that everyone and his brother had begun fighting for a chance to grab a piece of the legendary Deathstalker hero. Every political party wanted him as its figurehead. Every cause sent representatives requiring he attach his name and his blade to their demands. Sometimes they even fought duels outside his quarters over who got to speak to him first.

  Then there were the holo news networks wanting endless interviews, and agents wanting to buy exclusive rights to his life story. They all wanted pictures and quotes and answers to increasingly personal questions. Not to mention product endorsements and book deals and merchandising rights. Hell, one company even wanted to manufacture a line of action figures based on him and Hazel and Jack and Ruby. Owen just wanted to be left alone, and said so increasingly loudly, but no one listened. So in the end he had fled Golgotha on the Sunstrider II, on what turned out to be the first of many missions as a glorified bounty hunter, licensed and paid by Parliament to clear up the Empire's more dangerous messes.

  Hazel was there too. She said she had just come along to get a little action to keep herself from getting soft, but Owen liked to think she was just bored spitless without an enemy to fight. Though it had to be said she'd never been one to sit around and contemplate the lilies of the field, and settling down to a peaceful and productive life was exactly what she'd become an outlaw to avoid. She couldn't even get drunk and start fights in bars anymore. Everyone knew who she was, and was scared witless to say anything that might upset her. So when Random had offered her a commission to track down and possibly execute missing war criminals, she'd jumped at the chance, and wasted no time in persuading Owen to join her. Even if she seemed to remember it the other way around. But then, that was Hazel for you. Never happier than when she could lay the blame on someone else.

  "We just dropped out of hyperspace over Virimonde," murmured the AI Ozymandius in Owen's ear. "Currently maintaining high orbit and all shields. I really don't know why you wanted to come back here, Owen. I mean, it's not as if you have any friends here anymore. In fact, I would have to say that the likelihood of our all ending up riddled with holes increases geometrically with every second we are dumb enough to stay here."

  "Nag, nag, nag," said Owen, subvocalizing so Hazel wouldn't hear. She didn't approve of him talking to an AI that was supposed to be dead and no one else could hear. "You never want to go anywhere fun, Oz. This is where our current quarry has gone to ground, so here we are too. Right now Valentine Wolfe is down there somewhere, along with certain aristocratic cronies, all of whom the current authorities would dearly like to see standing in a dock or hanging from a rope. And preferably both. Besides… I always said that one day I'd come home to Virimonde."

  There had been a time when Owen Deathstalker had been Lord of the whole planet of Virimonde. And then the Empress Lionstone had outlawed him and taken it all away. His own security people had tried to kill him for the reward on his head, and he'd had to flee for his life. He nearly hadn't made it. But Hazel had arrived at just the right moment to save his aristocratic ass, as she never tired of reminding him, and they'd been together ever since. He fell in love with her. He still wasn't sure how she felt about him. His cousin David had been made Lord in his absence, but he died not long after, trying to defend the planet from Lionstone's troops, led by Valentine Wolfe. The Wolfe had overseen the murder of millions of defenseless people, and the utter destruction of what had been a beautiful rural paradise.

  And now Valentine had returned, like a criminal to the scene of his crime, or a dog to its own droppings, and Owen had come back too, to bring belated justice to the destroyer of Virimonde. One way or another.

  He sighed quietly to himself. Through all his rebel wanderings, he'd always clung to the secret hope that someday he would be able to return home and take up his old life again as a minor historian of no real importance to anyone but himself. But he'd changed so much, in so many ways, till he wasn't sure, he recognized himself anymore. And given the reports he'd seen of the utter devastation awaiting him below, he wasn't even sure there was a home left to return to.

  "Run sensor scan," he subvocalized to his AI. "Locate my old Standing and see what kind of force they've got protecting it."

  "Way ahead of you as usual," sniffed the AI. "There's a fair-sized army surrounding the castle, which according to the comm traffic I'm picking up, Valentine and his associates are currently occupying. Typical. Nothing but the best for dear Valentine. And according to the information we were given before we left Golgotha, which I'll wager good money you haven't even looked at, there's also a hell of a lot of scientific equipment down there, along with scientists to run it. Though no one seems to know what or why."

  "Don't get uppity, Oz. Just tell me what I need to know."

  "Bully."

  Owen wasn't quite sure where he stood with Oz. The original Ozymandius had been the Family AI, handed down to Owen from his deceased father. It turned out to contain hidden Empire programming, and had acted as a spy for Lionstone before finally turning on Owen and trying to enslave him with control words it had placed in his subconscious. Owen had had no choice but to use his Maze-given powers to destroy the AI. Only sometime later Oz came back. Or a voice in his head that only he could hear, claiming to be the AI Ozymandius. Certainly it was just as knowledgeable and irritating as the original. Owen had accepted the situation for the time being, for as long as the AI remained useful. And because he hadn't the faintest idea how to get rid of the voice anyway.

  Besides, he'd missed Oz.

  "So, do I start the descent or not?" said Oz briskly. "We're fully cloaked, but there's no telling how long even Hadenman shields will hold up against the security systems Valentine's installed here. What used to be standard weather-control satellites have been upgraded with really heavy-duty sensors and more weaponry than your average Fleet cruiser. When the
Wolfe says Do Not Disturb, he means it."

  "Maintain orbit," Owen said firmly. "I want a really good idea of what to expect dirtside before I commit us to a landing. Scan the area surrounding the Standing, ten-mile radius, and report on the local population's situation."

  "Owen… I've already done that. There is no local population anymore."

  "What?"

  "I've scanned the surrounding areas to the limit of my sensors. There isn't a single living soul outside of the Standing for hundreds of miles. I'm sorry, Owen."

  Owen shook his head slowly. He'd read the reports on Valentine's destruction of Virimonde, watched Toby Shreck's filmed coverage, seen interviews with the few survivors to get off-planet, but he'd always assumed they were exaggerated. No one could oversee the murder of a whole planet's population just for the fun of it. Not even Valentine Wolfe. Deep down, part of him had desperately wanted to return home to the cheers of his people, overjoyed to have their rightful Lord back at last. He'd wanted to apologize for not being there to protect them. Wanted to promise them that things would be different now he was back. He'd keep them safe, protect them, guard them from all harm. They'd never be hurt again because he was off somewhere else being a hero of the rebellion. There was so much he'd wanted, needed, to say. He hadn't wanted to believe that all his people were dead.

  "What's the matter?" said Hazel. "Is there a problem?"

  "No," said Owen. "I was just thinking. About the way things used to be here."

  "Don't," said Hazel. "That's always been your problem, Deathstalker. Always living in the past."

  "I understand the past," said Owen. "Things were simpler then. I understood my world and my Empire and my place in it. Or I thought I did. Since then I've seen the destruction of everything I ever believed in, lost everything I ever cared for, and now to top it all, I find I can't go home again. Because Valentine Wolfe burned it all down and pissed on the ashes. Virimonde is dead."