Deathstalker

by Simon R. Green

  "Put the gun away," said Random. "You don't need it anymore."

  "Yes, I do," said Harding.

  "You can't hurt us," said Ruby.

  "I know that," said Harding. "I'm not stupid. I don't think anything can hurt you anymore. But I've said all I have to say. And I can't live with the things I did for you. With what I've become."

  He put the barrel of the gun in his mouth, and blew the back of his head off. His body crumpled to the landing pad with a quiet, defeated sound. And for a while all that could be heard was the quiet sobbing of the hostage, and the whirring of the news cameras as they got it all on film. Random moved slowly forward and looked down at the body.

  "I'm sorry, Grey Harding."

  "We have nothing to be sorry for," said Ruby. "Lionstone had to be brought down, for everyone's sake. Where was he, when it was just the five of us against the whole damned Empire?"

  Random looked at her. "We never did see Peter Savage fall on Loki, did we?"

  Ruby shrugged angrily. "People die in wars. Soldiers kill and die. That's what they're for. He got a chance to fight for something that really mattered. What else is there?"

  Random looked at her for a long moment, his face set and cold. "There has to be something else, Ruby. There has to be."

  Someone called out Random's name in an official tone of voice, and everyone looked round as a Parliamentary representative arrived at the landing pad with a company of armed guards. The representative wore his official scarlet sash proudly, but he was careful to keep the bulk of the armed guards between him and Random and Ruby. The reporters brightened up, sensing more possible conflict. Even the ex-hostage stopped sniffing, and paid attention. Overhead, the cameras jostled one another for position. The representative crashed to a halt a respectful distance before Random and Ruby, started to speak, and then took in the dead body lying on the pad with half its head missing. He swallowed audibly, then straightened his shoulders and did his best to fix Random with a commanding stare.

  "Don't bother," said Random. "Let me guess. We're under arrest, right?"

  "Well, yes…" said the representative.

  "Wrong," said Ruby. "We don't do arrest."

  "What does Parliament want this time?" said Random.

  The representative took in Random and Ruby's hostile faces, glanced at the dead body again, and abandoned his carefully prepared speech. "They need you Maze people. Your power and your insight. And with the Deathstalker and Hazel d'Ark dead…"

  "You're sure of that?" said Ruby. "There's no chance they're alive?"

  "I'm afraid not. Hazel d'Ark was abducted by the Blood Runners and taken to the Obeah Systems. The Deathstalker went after them. Nothing has been heard of either of them since. No one ever comes back from the Obeah Systems."

  Random looked at Ruby. "Try the mental link. We're much stronger together."

  They looked into each other's eyes, and their minds slammed together into a unison far greater than the sum of its parts. All around them they could see esper minds, burning like a forest of candles in the dark of the night. Here and there a greater mind burned like the sun or shone like a star, while other, stranger lights were too powerful to look at directly. Random and Ruby brushed against them as they rose high above the surface of Golgotha, and names swept briefly through their thoughts. Diana Vertue. Mater Mundi. Varnay… And then they were gone, left behind, as Random and Ruby's thoughts swept out beyond the planet, surging on through the populated worlds that made up the Empire. Lights came and went, some brighter than others, but nowhere did they find any trace of the two individual minds that had blazed brighter than suns or stars. Random and Ruby's thoughts raced from one side of the Empire to the other, and there was no sign anywhere of Owen Deathstalker or Hazel d'Ark.

  Random and Ruby fell back into their own heads, and their thoughts separated. They looked at each other for a long time.

  "They're not here anymore," said Random finally. "There's nowhere in this universe they could hide from us."

  "Then it's true," said Ruby. "They're dead. We're the last of the Maze people. The last of the original rebels." She turned away from him, so he wouldn't see her face. He didn't need to. "Hazel was my oldest friend," Ruby said quietly. "The only one who ever trusted me, and when I let her down, went right on trusting me anyway. She was my last link with my past, with the person I used to be, before all the madness started. She was a fine warrior and a better friend. I was never worthy of her."

  Random moved in beside her, trying to comfort her with his presence. He'd never seen Ruby really hurt before. "We'll both miss her. And the Deathstalker. A good fighter. A true hero. He brought me back from the dead on Mistworld. He believed in me when no one else did, including me. He made the rebellion possible."

  Ruby turned at last to look at him, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "What do we do, Jack?"

  "We go on," said Random. "They would expect that of us. Otherwise, they died for nothing."

  Ruby's face became calm and cold again. "Everybody dies. Everything ends. I've always known that. Nothing ever lasts."

  "Not even us?" said Random softly, but Ruby had no answer for him. He turned back to the Parliament representative. "Take us to Parliament. I have some things I want to say to them."

  Parliament was packed full, for once. Everyone wanted to hear what Random and Ruby had to say for themselves, about the mass executions on Loki. So of course Elias Gutman, as Speaker of the House, refused to let either of them say anything until the House had first listened to a series of reports on how the war was going. First up was Captain Eden Cross of the Excalibur, leading his section of the Imperial Fleet against the insect ships, out by the Shark Nebulae. A large viewscreen floated on the air before the packed MPs and the even more tightly packed public floor. On the screen. Empire ships went into battle against insect ships shaped like huge sticky balls of compacted webbing almost half a mile wide. Computers slowed the action down enough so that human eyes could follow it, and picked out moments of especial interest.

  Disrupter beams stabbed out from the Fleet, hammering against the unyielding shields of the insect ships, which flared and crackled with unknown energies, striking out in turn at Imperial ships the moment they came in range. Here and there a ship exploded silently, on one side or the other, as some attack overwhelmed someone's shields. It looked almost like an eerie dance, with each side advancing and retreating in turn, but every time a ship flared up and disappeared, someone died. Occasionally an insect ship would fight its way close enough to attach itself to the side of a Fleet ship, like a great white leech. And then the insects would breach the ship's hull and invade the human ship, and kill every living thing they encountered, until they were wiped out.

  Or until the humans were.

  The scene on the viewscreen changed suddenly, as the point of view switched to the security cameras inside a boarded Empire ship. Images switched swiftly from one scene to another, as different cameras tracked the insect invasion. They swarmed and scuttled through the steel corridors in a living, ravenous wave, all spindly legs and flickering antennae and clacking mandibles. Crewmen without armor fought bravely, till the insects dragged them down and ate them alive. Crewmen in hard suits finally arrived to blow great holes in the insect advance, destroying the aliens by the hundred, but there were always more, from tiny scurrying things to bugs the size of horses, slamming their heavy feet on the steel floors. When the disrupters fell silent, the crewmen tried flamethrowers, and when they were still pushed back deck by deck, they tried sealing off the lost areas and opening them to the cold vacuum of space. No crew ever abandoned their ship to save themselves. They knew how valuable ships were to the Empire these days. So they stood and fought and sometimes they won. But mostly they died.

  The scene changed again to show Captain Cross on the bridge of the Excalibur. His dark face was thoughtful but focused as he studied the course of the battle. Around him was a bedlam of noise as his bridge crew shared information from t
heir stations, and where necessary yelled a running commentary. More crew ran back and forth on urgent errands, their voices high with tension and excitement. Captain Cross gave orders in a calm, professional manner, and only when he was sure he could spare the time did he turn to look out of the viewscreen at Parliament.

  "As you can see, we're rather busy at the moment, so I'll try and keep this short. We've come up with a few new tactics that seem to be bringing us a measure of success at last. The insects are hard to kill, but they have their weaknesses. Battle espers are the key. If we can fight our way close enough to an insect ship, and hold our position long enough, the battle espers can sever the mental link between the ship's queen and her warrior drones. Without a queen to guide them, they're just insects, with no purpose of their own. Sitting ducks. The problem is getting close enough without getting our asses shot off in the process."

  His bridge lurched as a workstation exploded in smoke and flames, the screams only just drowned out by the emergency sirens. Somebody hit the station with a foam extinguisher, but the operator was already beyond saving. A security man put the poor bastard out of his misery with a shot to the head. Cross turned away from the screen and studied the instruments before him.

  "I'll have to get back to you later. We're almost close enough to take out a queen. Or possibly vice versa. Someone will contact you again, once the battle is over. Excalibur out."

  The viewscreen became clear again, taking with it the screams and sirens of the Excalibur's bridge.

  "Our next report comes from the planet Aquarius Rising," said Gutman, his voice calm and even. "The Fleet there is dealing with a newly discovered Hadenman Nest on that world."

  The viewscreen now showed E-class starcruisers clashing with golden Hadenmen ships over a large blue world. The infamous golden ships of legend were huge, bigger than cities, but caught in a battle in local space, their size became irrelevant. The firepower of the two types of ship was pretty much equal, and vast destructive energies passed between the heavily shielded vessels. The great ships whirled and clashed, with no quarter asked or given on either side. Humanity would never trust the Hadenmen again. Here and there, broken ships spouting radioactive fires spiraled slowly end over end down toward the planet's atmosphere and a fiery demise.

  The view changed to show D-class starcruisers in low orbit, pounding the exposed Hadenmen Nest with everything they had. Stabbing disrupter beams plunged down through the atmosphere, tearing the shining metal structures apart, and blowing up the energy centers. More scenes came, overlapping views from communication probes dropped by the Empire ships. Hadenmen ran desperately through burning streets, trying to reach their escape ships, only to find them shattered and destroyed on cratered landing pads. The few Hadenmen craft that did manage to get off the ground were blown apart before they even left the atmosphere. Some of the augmented men fought back from unfamiliar weapon stations, and strange energies flew up to shudder against the starcruisers' shields. But one by one the stations were identified and blown apart by pinpoint disrupter accuracy. Foot by foot, augmented man by augmented man, the Nest was destroyed.

  Radiation levels rose dramatically on Aquarius Rising. The air and the water and the earth would be poisonous for centuries. Where the Nest had been there was in the end only a great volcanic crater, spewing dust and smoke and magma high up into the atmosphere. Earthquakes tore across the continent and gave the lands new shapes. The blazing hulks of golden ships fell from the skies like fiery meteors.

  Aquarius Rising had been a pleasure world, once. The Empire destroyed it, to save it from the curse of the Hadenman.

  "And that was one of our… victories," said Elias Gutman, as the screen cleared again. "We're discovering new Nests all the time. The Hadenmen took good advantage of our misplaced trust to seed themselves all across the Empire. We were fortunate indeed that the Deathstalker and his allies were able to destroy New Haden, before it could become the communications center that would have linked the Nests together. However, only E-class starcruisers have the speed and the firepower to equal the golden ships, and their numbers have never been more limited than now. And if I hear one voice saying Build more, I'll have that person dragged outside and shot. The factories are running day and night as it is. Next up, we have a report on how the ground wars are going against Shub's forces on the outer worlds."

  The screen revealed a montage of swiftly changing images, showing great armies of Imperial marines clashing with equally large armies of Ghost Warriors, Furies, and Grendels: the Legions of the dead and the damned. Swords flashed and energy weapons flared, and the dead and the dying lay everywhere. The marines fought bravely, often to the last man, but their victories were few and far between. Often the best they could manage was a bloody standing action, holding their ground in the desperate hope of reinforcements. The marines had to burn their own dead to prevent Shub raising them again as Ghost Warriors. Battle espers were the Empire's only match for the machines in the form of men, the Furies, but there weren't enough of them to go around. Rushed from one danger point to the next, with never any time to rest, they died by inches from fatigue and overstraining of their powers, but still fighting bravely for as long as they could.

  No one was stupid enough to face the Grendels head on. The scarlet devils swarmed unstoppably forward on all fronts, killing every living thing they encountered. The marines' current best tactics involved using themselves as bait to lure the Grendels into an enclosed space, and then blowing the whole area sky high with previously placed explosives. Unfortunately, the Grendels were very hard to kill. Sometimes the charges did the job, and sometimes they didn't, and either way there always seemed to be more of the crimson aliens to replace those who fell.

  "And just to further complicate things," said Gutman, "the Grendels seem to be throwing off their Shub controls, and attacking the Shub forces as well as ours. This was considered good news, until it was discovered the yoked Grendels we'd been using as advance troops were also rejecting their conditioning, and turning on our troops. The Grendels are becoming wild cards in this war; completely unpredictable. There's also some evidence that the Grendels have been showing signs of increasing intelligence. Apparently the harder you hit them, the faster they adapt to meet the new conditions."

  The viewscreen went blank. The MPs and honored guests looked at one another, but no one seemed to have anything to say. Gutman looked out over the packed crowd till his eyes fell on Jack Random and Ruby Journey, and then he gestured for them to approach him. They did so, taking their time about it. People still hurried to fall back out of their way. Random and Ruby were used to respect, but naked fear was new to them. Ruby quite liked it.

  Eventually they came to a halt before Elias Gutman on his raised dais, and he looked down on them with all the authority he could muster. "Well?" he said heavily. "Do either of you have any comments you'd care to make on what we've just seen?"

  "We're getting our ass kicked," said Ruby. "We're outnumbered, outgunned, and using outdated tactics. Either we get our act together soon, or the whole damned human Empire will be nothing more than a footnote in Something Else's history books."

  "Diplomatic as ever, Ruby," murmured Random. "Though essentially accurate. Gutman; we can't face this many enemies on so many scattered fronts. We're potentially a match for any one of our enemies, maybe even including Shub, but dispersed as we are we're too ineffective to achieve any real victories. Our only real hope is to get our enemies fighting each other…"

  "We're working on it," said Gutman. "In the meantime, however, we need a secret weapon. Something powerful enough to reverse our losses and buy us valuable time to work out new tactics."

  "You're talking about the Darkvoid Device," said Random coldly. "And the answer's still no. Some cures are worse than the disease."

  "If you'd allow me to finish. Sir Random, I was about to say we need you and Ruby Journey. Your Maze powers have so far proved superior to everything that's been thrown at you. So; if you wil
l agree to fight on the front lines, as Humanity's defenders, Parliament is prepared to offer you both official Pardons for the crimes and atrocities you perpetrated on the planet Loki, against the rightly appointed government there."

  "I gave all the orders," said Random. "The responsibility is all mine. But since I've done nothing wrong, your offer of a Pardon is basically irrelevant. I'm proud of what I did on Loki. Still, much as I hate to agree with you on anything, you're right on one thing. We are needed. We might just be able to tip the balance. And with Owen and Hazel gone, we're the last of the Maze people. We have a duty to use our powers in the defense of Humanity."

  "Hold everything," said Ruby in an aside, "what's all this we stuff? I've never admitted to a single obligation in my whole life, and I'm not about to start now."

  "You mean you don't want to fight the bad guys?" Random asked, turning to her.

  "Of course I want to fight! I always want to fight! I just like to be asked, that's all."

  "I'll ask you later. Over several large drinks. For now just follow my lead, nod and smile in the right places, and concentrate on planning some really nasty tactics we can use against the bad guys, while I deal with Gutman."

  "Why can't I deal with Gutman?"

  "Because you'd lose your temper in under two minutes and kill him horribly."

  "Good point."

  And then the viewscreen suddenly came to life again, with a new report coming in. Gutman frowned as he listened to something on a secure channel on his comm implant. "We're getting live feed from… Virgil III, the latest planet infected with the new plague. No ships are allowed past high orbit, but they've sent down probes to take a look at what's happening."

  Automated probes swept through the streets of what had once been a human city. The air was full of inhuman screams and shrieks and howls. No transport was running, though some automated machinery continued here and there, to no purpose anymore. Some buildings had been set on fire by their occupants, and thick black smoke drifted on the disturbed air. And in the streets, running or stumbling or crawling—monsters. Things that had once been people, but were no longer. Men and women had been transformed by the plague into nightmare shapes of jutting bone and hideously stretched skin. Strange new organs had formed on the outside of their bodies, black and pulsing, with inhuman properties and purposes. Long curving horns strung with strings of neurons glistened on elongated heads, and legs had three or four joints. Human growth gone mad, without restraint or reason. Monsters lurched and stumbled through the streets, with insect eyes and too many limbs, tormented by inhuman hungers and desires. They growled and slobbered and cried in unknown languages, using sounds beyond or beneath human comprehension. Occasionally a long tentacle would whip up from a shadowed alleyway to snatch a probe from the air and crush it.