For a long moment Owen's sword seemed to hesitate, as though frustrated by some unseen energy barrier, and then all the Maze's gifts and strengths concentrated themselves in Owen's blow, a more-than-human impetus that would not be denied, and the sword crashed on. The great and heavy blade cut down through Half A Man's human face, right next to the energy's dividing line, and then carried on down, cutting the human half away from the energy until the crimson blade erupted from the groin in a rush of blood and guts. Owen staggered backwards as his sword came free, all his strength and speed disappearing as he dropped out of boost. Hazel and Giles caught him and kept him from falling. And together they watched as Half A Man's human half fell to lie thrashing and bleeding to death on the platform. The energy half still stood where it was, motionless.
"How the hell did you do that?" said Hazel.
"Damned if I know," said Owen.
They moved forward to stand over the twitching human half, giving the energy half a wide berth. The human half was dying by inches, but it was dying. Guts and organs had fallen out of the huge wound down its side, and blood streamed across the platform, welled over the edge, and dripped onto the tracks below. Owen watched the half man die with divided feelings. Half A Man had been his enemy, opposed to everything Owen now believed in, but it was hard not to see in him a man shaped by implacable outside forces into a legend he had never chosen for himself. Owen could understand that. It was the story of his life, too. He knelt down beside the half body, and took the trembling hand in his. The eye in the half head had sunk right back in the socket, but it rolled slowly over to look up at Owen. Half A Man tried desperately to say something, but couldn't make his mouth work. Owen leaned over him, but his enemy was already dead. Owen gently pulled his hand free from the dead grip and got to his feet.
"What do you suppose he would have said?" murmured Hazel.
"Damn you to hell, probably," said Owen. "He always was single-minded, for a man with only half a brain."
Giles clapped Owen on the shoulder, making him jump.
"Well done, kinsman. You fought a good fight, for an historian."
"I could have used some help," said Owen. "Why didn't you two join in?"
"Oh, I couldn't allow that," said Giles. "It wouldn't have been sporting."
"Stuff sport," said Owen. "This is war."
"And war is the greatest sport of all," said Giles. "You're an historian. You should know that."
"It's only sport to the victors," said Owen. "Not to the victims and the orphaned and all the poor bastards dragged into it against their will."
"Uh, guys," said Hazel. "I think we have a problem…"
They both looked round to follow her pointing hand. The sundered energy half was still standing where they'd left it, but its shape was slowly changing. The coruscating energy pulsed and flowed, pushing at the boundaries of its form. It was becoming something else, something different, no longer bound or dictated by its human half. The slowly changing shape grew more disturbing as it became more distinct, until Owen had to fight not to look away. It was becoming alien, and more than alien. It had width and breadth and depth, and other dimensions, too. Owen couldn't see so much as sense them, and they made his head hurt. Hazel fired her disrupter at it, and the energy beam bounced harmlessly away. The energy shape burned horribly brightly, like a hole cut in reality through which some malign god's light was shining. And then it was gone, and the memory of it faded thankfully from Owen's mind like a nightmare best not remembered. Owen let his breath out in a long shuddering sigh, and only then discovered that Hazel was gripping his arm so hard it hurt. She let go as soon as he saw it and pulled her composure briskly about herself again.
"Well, that was different," she said, just a little breathlessly. "Anyone here have any ideas as to what the hell that was? Or what it was becoming?"
"A problem for the future," said Owen. "As I have a horrible feeling it'll be back someday, along with the aliens that created it. We may only have traded one threat for another."
"Let them come," said Giles. "Let them all come. They'll be no match for the Empire we shall create. Now let's go. We don't want to keep the Empress waiting."
He strode off down the platform, and Owen and Hazel fell in after him. Hazel looked at Owen.
"I hate it when he gets all confident like that. It's just asking for trouble."
"I couldn't agree more," said Owen. "But at least as long as he's in front of us, I don't have to worry about what he might be doing."
"And when the shooting starts, we can hide behind him," said Hazel. "He's wide enough."
"I can hear every word you're saying," said Giles calmly. "And I don't find it in the least amusing."
"Tough," said Hazel. "Serves you right for eavesdropping. And get a move on, or I'll kick your ankles."
"I wonder if it's too late to go back to the rebel leaders, and ask for some new companions," Owen said wistfully.
They came flying out of the scarlet sun on the early-morning skies, a vast armada of fast-flying gravity sleds. There were thousands of them, blackening the sky, one-man sleds with souped-up engines for more speed, armed to the teeth with bolted-down energy guns and heavy projectile weapons, with long ribbons of bullets. They came in low, well below the usual sensor levels, and were over the Parade of the Endless and heading for the pastel Towers of the Families before any of the Clans even knew they were coming. They whipped between the tall buildings of the city, rising and falling on the thermals, flashing by too fast for the automated weapons systems to draw a bead on them. Thousands of sleds shot across the city, manned by rebels, espers, clones, anyone with a raging need for justice in their hearts, and a willingness to fly into Hell itself for a chance at bringing down the Families.
They swept over the struggling crowds in the streets below, ignoring the fighting. That wasn't their mission. An occasional weapon fired up at them from the heaving masses below, but the sleds were small, evasive targets, hard to hit. The Empire's huge gravity barges tried to block their way, hovering in place like floating battle stations, but there were only a few of them, and the sleds just soared over and around them, come and gone in seconds, too unpredictable for the barges' computerized firing systems. No one had ever thought to use one-man sleds like this before. Until Jack Random did. They filled the skies, thundering along, with the sun at their back, heading for the Towers, an army of retribution flying on wings of fury.
Jack Random, Ruby Journey, and Alexander Storm led the way, flying side by side. They'd lowered the sleds' force shields for more speed, and the wind of their passing whipped at their faces, driving tears from their eyes. The early-morning chill cut right through them, despite the heating units in their outfits, but they ignored it, intent on what was to come. Storm felt it the worst in his old bones, but he just clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering, and concentrated on keeping up with the others. He wasn't going to be left behind.
Random looked down at the Parade of the Endless flashing by below him, and found it hard to believe that after all the many years and all the many battles, he'd finally brought his crusade home to Golgotha. To the Families who ran and ruined everything in the name of profit and privilege. They outlawed him and banished him, did their best to break and kill him, but now here he was, back to present them with the bill. And payback was going to be a real bitch.
He laughed aloud, the wind whipping the sound away almost before he heard it. The Empire was going to fall today, and he was going to help bring it down. And when he had it on its knees and begging for mercy, he'd spit in its eye and kick it in the teeth. He worked the sled's throttle mercilessly, trying to force out even more speed, but the sled was already exceeding its safety limits. Random could see the first of the Towers in the distance, and he couldn't wait to get to them. The Clans had to know he was coming by now. They'd have set up their defenses, adjusted their computer aiming systems to compensate for the sleds' speed and maneuverability. They'd be waiting for him. And he didn't
give a damn. This was judgment day, and he was bringing down the hammer. It was almost enough to make a man believe in religion. He grinned harshly, the wind forcing his lips back into a wolf's snarl. It was a good day for someone else to die.
He looked across at Ruby Journey. In her black leathers and white furs, standing rock-steady on her bucking sled, face grim and implacable, she looked like some dark Valkyrie out of legend, come to take the dead heroes to Valhalla, whether they wanted to go or not. Her sled was loaded down with weapons of all kinds, right up to the last ounce of weight that wouldn't interfere with her speed. Everything from energy guns to grenades to throwing knives. Ruby liked to be prepared. She looked around, caught his eye on her, and grinned at him. She was on her way to a lifetime best in looting and mayhem, or quite possibly her own death, and she'd never looked happier.
Random smiled back at her, then turned to look at Storm, flying on his other side. The canny old warrior had strapped himself securely onto his sled, but even so he still seemed to shake and shudder with every sudden movement of his craft. His long mane of white hair flew out behind him as he stared unflinchingly into the rushing wind. He was too old for this kind of mission, and everyone knew it, including him, but he'd insisted on coming along, and Random hadn't had the heart to say no. He understood Storm's need to be in at the kill after giving so much of his life to the struggle against the Empire. So he'd put the old man right next to him, where he could keep an eye on him, and just hoped Storm could keep up. Hopefully the old warrior's reflexes would keep him alive long enough to reach the Towers. A lot of people weren't going to make it. There were bound to be heavy losses once the armada hit the Towers' main defenses. Everyone in the armada knew that. But they'd all volunteered anyway. They knew the one-man sleds were the only force fast enough, mobile enough, and versatile enough to get past the defenses and into the Towers. Where the Families thought they were so safe.
Ground forces would have had to struggle for days against the heavily manned and armed Towers, fighting their way up floor by floor to reach the Families barricaded in their heavily defended top floor. Losses on both sides would have been enormous, with no guarantee that the Families wouldn't just abandon their Towers and flee elsewhere before they could be captured. Gravity barges had guns strong enough to blast a way in, but they were too slow, too unwieldy. The Towers' superior firepower would have blown them out of the sky before they could get close enough to do any real damage. Espers were helpless in the face of so many known esp-blockers. Which was why the Clans had retired to the Towers—the one place where they felt really safe—at the first sign of real trouble.
Random was here to teach them different. He'd thought about this plan for years, in the trenches and foxholes of endless battles on endless worlds, dreaming of what he'd do when he finally brought the war home to home-world. He'd thought of every problem, refined every detail, and now here he was, living his dream. Do or die. Death or glory. And he couldn't have been happier either.
Gravity barges lifted off from the Towers' private landing fields and launched themselves into the sky to meet the armada. They were great lumbering ships, with heavy armor and superior firepower, but the sleds were upon them in seconds, and ran rings around them. They snapped back and forth, whipping around the slow-moving barges, too small and too fast for the larger ships' tracking computers. They'd been programmed for vessels their own size, or stationary targets. The sleds shot past them, more and more all the time, so the barges opened fire anyway, disrupter cannon blazing from the huge vessels' sides, aimed at what seemed like the greatest concentrations of sleds.
The sleds scattered immediately, but there were so many of them the barges couldn't miss all the time. With no force shields to protect them, they exploded into flames and fell from the sky like so many burning leaves. Dozens were blown apart in the first few seconds, screams sounding briefly in the wind, and then the survivors of the first rank of sleds threw themselves in close to the barges, so they couldn't keep firing without hitting each other. Ducking and dodging the barges' few smaller weapons, the sleds opened up with their own disrupters. At first they were too few to hurt the barges' force shields, but soon there were hundreds of them, and hundreds more, buzzing around the barges like bees around a bear, hitting the shields again and again until they overloaded and burned out, unable to cope with being hit so often in so many places at once. The sleds fell on the barges, their weapons tearing ragged holes through the heavy armor by sheer persistence. As the sleds' fire continued, inner explosions rocked the barges, and smoke billowed out the holes, thick and black and shot with flames. One by one the great heavy ships lurched or tilted helplessly in the air, drifting in the wind, already beginning their slow but inevitable descent to the ground. The armada of one-man sleds, only slightly depleted, left them behind and headed for the first of the pastel Towers, standing tall and proud against the early-morning sky.
The sleds filled the sky now, thousands of them descending inexorably on the last redoubts of the Clans. The Towers waited till they were safely in range, then opened up with their own disrupter cannon, blowing great holes in the armada. Sleds plummeted from the sky, twisted metal wrecks leaving long shaky trails of smoke and fire behind them. The majority pressed on. There would be time for grieving later. The Towers' guns punched through the massed sleds again and again, filling the sky with blood and screams, explosions and shrapnel, but still the armada pressed on. There was no point in turning back now. The Towers would only shoot them in the back. And this close to their target, there was no longer any point in evasive tactics, so they just opened their throttles all the way and bore in on the Towers like so many guided missiles, driven by rage and determination and a lifetime's grievances. Random was still right there at the front, with Ruby and Storm at his sides. He was howling and roaring now, shouting old battle cries and slogans, and hundreds of responses rose up behind him. For many, Jack Random's name was battle cry enough. The rebels fell howling on the Towers, and the sound of their blood rage filled the morning sky.
The Towers' disrupters fired again and again, blasting sleds out of the sky, their blackened husks falling on all sides. Hundreds of good men and women died, blown apart with their craft, consumed in fire, or thrown from their sleds by the impact of nearby explosions. They screamed in fear and pain and rage as they fell to the earth far below. Random and Ruby and Storm still led the advance, fire and explosions and people dying all around them, whipping their sleds through daring, dangerous maneuvers as the thermals around the Towers rose up to meet them. Behind them, the oncoming sleds darkened the sky, casting a dark, looming shadow over the Towers. For all the hundreds that had fallen, and continued to fall, there were still thousands of them, and they would not be denied. And the leading sleds were close now, so close the Towers' disrupter cannon could no longer train on them. They shot inside the defensive perimeter, heading for the great steelglass windows on the top floors. Random thought he could see faces staring out, eyes wide with fear and shock, and his heart warmed at the sight.
He was still grinning when a disrupter beam from Tower Chojiro hit his sled. He grabbed the controls and hung on grimly as the sled bucked beneath him, and then the whole control panel exploded. Blinded by smoke and flames, Random hung on to the dead throttle as the sled dropped out beneath him. The sled fell like a brick, leaving the smoke behind, and Random could see the armada falling away above him, leaving him behind. Random cursed and struggled with what was left of the controls. He wasn't afraid of dying. He was too angry. He hadn't come this far, been through this much, to fail now.
The sled's engine coughed briefly, and the sled lurched beneath him, almost throwing him off. Random snarled something indistinct, and concentrated on the controls, trying to coax a miracle out of the burning remnants of the crippled sled. And one of the gods he was praying to must have been listening, because the sled's engine fired back into life. It sounded ragged and uncertain, and the sled lurched and tilted this way and that,
but gradually its headlong plummet slowed to a halt, and then, as Random whooped and howled and shook his fist in triumph, the sled slowly began to rise again, heading up the side of the Tower Chojiro toward the Family on the top floor.
The sled's engine wanted to cut out at any moment, but Random wouldn't let it, nursing the controls along with scowling concentration. The armada was still flooding by above him, dark shapes racing unstoppably toward the many Towers. The guns still sounded, and great ragged gaps were appearing in the dark tide, but still the sleds pressed on. Some had already made contact, blowing holes in the steelglass windows and crashing into the top floors of the Towers. There were troops waiting for them with sword and gun, but the first wave of rebels fought well, with a fierce desperation, refusing to die until they had established a beachhead for those coming after them. Many of them died anyway, cut down by overwhelming odds, but more rebels were appearing all the time, and slowly, foot by foot, they forced their way into the Towers.
It was a fight the Families had never expected to have to fight. After the Wolfes' sled attack on Tower Campbell, most Families had added extra disrupter cannon on the roofs, and invested in a few gravity barges, but they'd never anticipated such a near-suicidal charge.
More and more gravity sleds made it past the Towers' defenses and crashed their way into the top floors. Random cursed regretfully as his sled slowly rose nearer the top floor of Tower Chojiro. He'd always meant to be one of the first in, fighting to provide a landing ground for those coming behind him. Jack Random had always believed in leading from the front. He couldn't see what had happened to Ruby Journey and Alexander Storm, but he couldn't think about them now. The sled lurched up past the last few floors, and came to a halt facing the top floor of Tower Chojiro. And Random's stomach lurched as he found himself facing a dozen leveled hand disrupters. Someone had smashed a hole through the steel-glass window but obviously hadn't survived it. Random's adrenaline kicked in, and everything seemed to move very slowly. He seemed to have all the time in the world to study the situation and think about what to do. He didn't trust his control over the sled enough to risk dropping below the guns' range, and he was moving too slowly to rise above it. And if he used up his last few moments trying to raise the sled's force shield, only to find it didn't work, the disrupters wouldn't leave enough of him to bury. So Random did the only thing he could, as time crashed up to speed again. He gave the sled all the speed it had, and slammed the craft right into the waiting guards.
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