Deathstalker Rebellion

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.

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 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.

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