Deathstalker

Moon smiled. 'Good. More exercise.'

Owen gave him a hard look. He had an unnerving feeling the Hadenman meant it. What with him and Ruby Journey, Owen was beginning to feel decidedly outclassed. He was also beginning to feel like the only sane person in the group. 'I'll get the screen, and then we'd better make a start. This ship is still going to explode eventually, and on top of that, we don't know how long the days are here. I have a strong feeling it would be a really bad idea for us to be lost in the jungle when darkness falls. I hate to think what kind of creatures go on the prowl during the night.'

'Maybe everything just goes to sleep,' said Hazel.

Owen raised an eyebrow. 'Would you?'

The little light that did filter through the canopy was a dull brick red, as though the air itself was glowing from the rising heat of the day. Sweat poured off Owen as he cut a rough path through the close-set trees of the Shandrakor jungle. He could have just hung back and let the Hadenman do it. Moon didn't seem at all bothered by the heat, and his sword arm rose and fell as tirelessly as a machine. But Owen had his pride and insisted on taking his turn. He was beginning to feel like the weak link of the group. Everyone else was either an amazing fighter, a psychopath or a legend. Or any combination of the above. Owen was used to being the best there was. He'd been trained and raised to dominate any situation, to be the leader and inspiration of any group. But none of his aristocratic upbringing had prepared him for life as an outlaw on the run. So he ignored the heat and the sweat and his aching arm and persevered, hacking a path through the thick vegetation with his sword, and tried not to think what that was doing to the blade's edge.

Everyone else stayed close behind him. Ruby and Hazel carried their swords at the ready. Random had a gun in each hand. And the Hadenman brought up the rear, strolling coolly along as though this was nothing more than a pleasant walk in the park. Owen's mouth twitched grudgingly. For Moon, maybe it was. They all kept a careful eye on the surrounding jungle. They could hear things moving along with them, hidden from sight, keeping a respectful distance. The portable screen saw to that. It wasn't as powerful or impenetrable as a force shield, but its energy field established a perimeter around the group and administered a nasty shock to anything that tried to cross the line. The creatures learned quickly from the first few deaths, but still every now and again something would lurch suddenly forward from the dark between the trees to test the screen again. It happened just often enough to get on everyone's nerves and keep them jumpy, and their tempers were growing short. Innocent remarks took on insulting tones, with the result they stopped talking to each other for anything but the absolutely necessary, which suited Owen just fine. He didn't have the breath or the inclination for conversation, and he had a lot to think about.

There wasn't much about the original Deathstalker in the Family archives. A great fighter and better statesman, Warrior Prime to the Empire, and inventor of the Darkvoid Device: the enigmatic machine that put out a thousand suns in a moment, leaving their planets turning slowly in an unending night. The Darkvoid. The darkness beyond the Rim.

The Deathstalker took the device and all his notes with him when he fled, and when it 'disappeared along with him, everyone breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Nobody wanted that threat hanging over their heads all the time. It would have made the Emperor altogether too powerful. But there had been nothing in the archives to suggest what kind of man the Deathstalker had been. Brave, certainly; honorable, apparently; but what kind of man could have created a horror like the Darkvoid Device? And what happened to the friends, Family and supporters he'd left behind when he ran, left to the mercy of a furious Emperor? There was no record of what had happened to them, but Owen thought he could make a damn good guess.

So, assuming the Deathstalker was still held in stasis somewhere in the Last Standing, and assuming they could wake him, what would he be like? Would they be able to persuade him to join their rebellion against the Empire; an Empire probably very different from the one he remembered? And if he still had the Device, would they have the determination to use it again and cause the death of untold billions of innocents a second time… ?

Owen attacked the vegetation before him with new anger. His head was aching, and it wasn't just from the heat. The jungle stretched away before him, thick and dense and unforgiving. He would have liked to use his disrupter to blast open a path, but he didn't want to risk starting a fire. There was no telling how easily the trees would burn, or which way a wind might carry that fire, and it would be a pretty nasty and stupid way to die.

He didn't like the look of the trees. The trunks were four to five feet wide, with a dark red bark that was pitted and starred. The branches stirred unsettlingly, even when there was no hint of a breeze, and the crimson leaves were long and narrow, with razor-sharp serrations. Everyone had quickly learned to keep their hands to themselves. The colors of the remaining vegetation were bright and primal, solid yellows and blues and pinks, that clashed gaudily with the dominant scarlet. Either this planet hadn't discovered the benefits of camouflage or protective coloration, or it just didn't give a damn. Owen favored the latter explanation. Shandrakor didn't strike him as a particularly subtle planet. Up above him, he could hear things moving in the higher branches, keeping up with his party, but so far none of them had come down to check out the new intruders in their territory. Didn't stop them emptying their bowels all over the group, though. Owen was just grateful the screen protected their heads as well as their sides.

Out beyond the screen, the planet's creatures were getting on with their usual business of tearing each other into bloody pieces, and then eating as much as they could before something else jumped them. The din was appalling, with screams and roars and everything in between, but after a while it faded into the background. Owen supposed you could get used to anything eventually. He couldn't help wondering why the beasts of the jungle were keeping such a respectful distance. The screen and the disrupters had killed quite a few of them, but they hadn't struck Owen as being that smart. They should have just kept coming till they overwhelmed the party through sheer numbers, as they nearly had in the Sunstrider's airlock. Instead, they backed off and disappeared back into the jungle once the energy guns started firing. Almost as though they'd encountered such guns before and had learned the hard way to respect them. Which should have been impossible. Officially, no one from the Empire had visited Shandrakor in centuries. Mainly because no one knew where it was.

Unless the Empress knew, had known it all the time. A secret, perhaps, handed down from ruler to ruler, as something to be wary of and watch over. It made sense. Owen couldn't see any Emperor choosing to forget the location of the most powerful weapon ever invented. So, could Imperial troops have gotten to Shandrakor before the Sunstrider did? Owen scowled. It didn't seem likely, but he couldn't rule it out, either. If that was the case, things had just gotten a lot more complicated. It didn't mean everything was lost. He had the exact location of the Last Standing, thanks to the files his father had hidden in Ozymandius' memory. Unless the Empire had already been here for some time, searching… Owen cut viciously at the vegetation before him. Nothing was ever simple anymore.

Something huge howled in agony as it was brought down by something even bigger not too far away. The ground shuddered under its weight, and he looked quickly about him. The force screen would keep out most things, but he didn't know for sure whether it could stand up to something really large just dropping on it with all its weight. The screen might just overload and collapse. Great, thought Owen. Something else to worry about. The creatures were definitely edging closer again. Either they were getting over their fear of the screen and the guns, or they just didn't care.

'Take a break,' Hazel said behind him, and Owen gratefully came to a halt. He wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve and looked back at the rest of his party. Hazel looked almost as shattered as he felt. Ruby Journey was breathing hard, but her back was still straight and her head erect. Jack Random had taken the opportunity to sit down, ignoring the insects swarming around him. He sat with his shoulders slumped and his head hanging down, and sweat dripped from his face onto the ground, where the insects fought over it. Moon looked perfectly calm and collected, as though he could walk for miles yet. Owen hated him on general principles. Something large and blocky leapt out of the trees at them, then howled angrily as it hit the screen. It struggled against the energy field for a long moment, ignoring the shocks, but finally fell back, defeated. Owen couldn't help noticing that it was taking longer all the time for the screen to have an effect. Either the field was weakening, or the creatures were getting stronger and more determined. Owen knew which was the most likely, but he was too tired to care. He sat down, and after a moment, Hazel and Ruby joined him.

'Have you ever seen anything like this before, Hazel?' said Owen quietly.

'There's a couple of cities on Loki that are almost as dangerous to walk through, but no, I've never come across anything as unrelentingly lethal as this. I mean, don't they ever stop eating? You'd think they'd run out of prey at this rate. Surely they must stop sometime, if only to sleep and digest.'

'Maybe they're working shifts,' Owen suggested, and Hazel managed a small smile.