the rebels were transmitting from, but you have just shot out our only link with the outside universe. All our other aerials were slaved to this one. Without it, we are completely out of contact with the Empire. Which means that the ceremony that was to be transmitted live in two days' time, as ordered by the Empress herself, will no longer be possible. Unless your people can put the bloody aerial back together again!'
'Ah,' said Kassar. 'Yes…'
'May I also point out,' said Toby, perhaps enjoying the moment just a little too much, 'that if you hadn't shot the aerial down, I would have been able to put a rebuttal piece on the air in a few hours, thus undoing whatever damage the broadcast might have done. An awful lot of people are going to be really unhappy with you, Cardinal, if your people can't get the aerial up and working again soon.'
Kassar looked at the shattered pieces of aerial lying across the metal slope. 'Oh,
'Couldn't have put it better myself,' said Stephanie. 'I shall expect hourly reports from your people until the aerial is functional again. And if it isn't ready in time for the ceremony, I will personally have your balls. Assuming the Empress doesn't get to them first.'
She nodded briskly to Daniel, and the two of them turned and strode back down the slope and into the factory complex. Kassar glared at their backs and hurried after them. Toby and Flynn looked at the wrecked aerial. They seemed fairly cheerful, all things considered.
'Was that really Jack Random, do you think?' said Flynn.
'Oh, yes. I cross-checked our earlier sighting against Imperial News' files. It's him, all right. Looking a bit battered by life, but in damn good shape considering his age and history. And if I did have any doubts, that broadcast just put them to rest. That was classic Jack Random. Exactly the kind of thing he was famous for.'
'Then, those shots of the clones building the drive were the real thing?'
Toby looked at Flynn firmly. 'I don't know. If, just for the sake of argument, they were true, then you can be bloody sure the Wolfes would have us killed out of hand if we were found sneaking around there in search of an exclusive. There are limits to how you can treat people, even if they are only clones. Lionstone must want those drives really badly.'
'So we just ignore the story?'
'Since when were you so idealistic? People are dying all across the Empire every day. There's nothing we can do about it. Every now and again we get a chance to put some small thing right, like Beatrice's hospital, but don't let it go to your head. Even if we did manage to get footage of the clones working on the drives, the odds are we couldn't get it on the air. Not now. And you can bet Imperial News would disown us on the spot. Learn to content yourself with little victories, Flynn. If you like having your head attached to your shoulders.'
They stood in silence for a while, thinking their separate thoughts. Flynn stirred finally. 'If Jack Random could win a victory here, it could be the start of the great rebellion itself.'
'God, I hope so,' said Toby. 'Lots of good material to be found in a war. Reporters' reputations can be made on the battlefield.'
'You speak for yourself,' said Flynn. 'The moment the shooting starts, I shall be diving for cover and keeping my head well down, and you can do your own camera work.'
'The trouble with you, Flynn,' said Toby as they started back down the slope toward the complex, 'is you have no ambition.'
'My ambition is to live to a hundred and three,' said Flynn firmly. 'At which point I hope to be shot by an outraged wife.'
'Sometimes I wonder about you, Flynn,' said Toby. 'And sometimes I'm sure.'
* * *
In the early hours of the morning, when things were traditionally the quietest, Jack Random, the professional rebel, and Ruby Journey, the foremost bounty hunter of her day, according to her, emerged from the farthest trench the rebels controlled and sat on the edge of the jagged metal field, looking across at the huge factory complex, silhouetted against the rising sun. The Wolfe forces had recently been driven back and were too busy establishing their new front to be any threat. They also hadn't got around to setting up snipers yet. Random and Ruby would have known they were there, even if they couldn't see them. So they sat casually together, enjoying the strange and vivid hues of the sunrise.
It was the first day of summer and already uncomfortably hot with the sun barely above the horizon. Random and Ruby had come out onto the surface ostensibly to study the ground for the day's attack, but actually they were just looking for a little time in each other's company. Conditions underground were crowded at best and often claustrophobic, and after a while even the best intentioned of people could really get on your nerves. The Rejects had taken to treating them both like heroes of legend, promised saviors who would lead the rebels to inevitable victory over the forces of darkness. Neither Random nor Ruby were particularly happy about this.
'I was never meant to be a hero,' said Ruby firmly. 'The pay's lousy and the working conditions suck. I'm a rebel because I was promised first crack at the loot when the Empire finally falls apart. And because that cow Lionstone put a bounty on my head. The way some of these Rejects have been looking at me, you'd think I could do the three-card trick with one hand while walking on water. I have a horrible suspicion they're going to start asking for my autograph soon.'
'It's in people's nature to want heroes,' said Random. 'Someone to follow, who'll make the hard decisions for them. They build us up larger than life, pin all their hopes and dreams on us, and then turn nasty when we let them down by being only human after all. I've seen this all before, Ruby. It's one of the reasons I gave up being the professional rebel and ran away to hide on Mistworld. I got tired of carrying everyone else's hopes and expectations on my shoulders. They were never that broad in the first place. I've spent most of my life trying to get people to think for themselves and take responsibility for their own destinies, but it's an uphill task. All too often they'd rather cheer and follow a leader, some smiling charismatic bastard who can inspire them into being more than they thought they were. I sometimes think they'd be happy to drag Lionstone off the Iron Throne and replace her with the first smooth-talking hero to come along. Even me.'
'Emperor Jack,' said Ruby. 'I like it. You'd shake things up.'
'I'd hate it,' said Random. 'No one can be trusted with that much power, not even me. It's too much of a temptation. I've seen the way power corrupts, even when people take it on with the best of intentions. Perhaps particularly people like that. There's no one more dangerous than a man who knows he's right. In the end he'll sacrifice any number of people in the name of his belief, friend or enemy. In my experience people can't be trusted in the singular when it comes to power. Democracy works because it's a mass consensus. On the whole people are always better off when they can throw out any leader who starts believing his own press releases.'
They watched the metal plain before them in silence for a while. The early morning was eerily quiet after the roar of battle only hours before. There were fires burning here and there, and the occasional Empire war machine, riddled with disrupter fire and abandoned where it fell, sparked and twitched and dreamed of killing. The factory complex was a dark forbidding shape studded with dull crimson glows that came and went, like doors opening and shutting in hell. The faint shimmer of its protective Screen could just be seen in the growing light. Like an ogre's castle, protected by magic, fueled on innocent blood, powered by hate and fury.
'What's up with Storm?' said Ruby. 'He's been going all funny around you just lately. I thought he was supposed to be your friend?'
'He is,' said Random. 'We've known each other since we were teenagers. Fought side by side in more battles than I care to remember. You should have seen him then, Ruby. Handsome, dashing, deadly with a blade in his hand. I was the one they sang songs about, but he was the one who got all the women. He was my good right hand, the one thing I could depend on in a changing universe. But now I'm… changing, and he can't cope.'
'You look younger,' said Ruby.
That was an understatement, and they both knew it. Random had shed twenty years of hard living over the past few weeks and now looked to be a man in his late thirties. His frame bulged with new muscles, and a new energy burned within him. His face had filled out from the gaunt mask it had once been, though many of the old lines of pain and worry remained. All in all, as far way from the shattered wreck of a man Ruby had first encountered on Mistworld.
'I feel younger,' said Random. 'Stronger, faster, fitter. I feel like I used to feel when I was a legend.'
'Could it be jealousy?' said Ruby. 'Because you're younger and he isn't?'
'I don't know. Maybe. I'm beginning to remember things about Alexander Storm. Toward the end, he lost his
