Deathstalker Rebellion

enabling them to make decisions and pull off evasions their pursuers couldn't hope to match, but still the Empire sleds came on, remorselessly closing the gap with their superior speed.

And then the great golden ship of the Hadenmen appeared out of nowhere right before them as it dropped its cloaking shields, filling the sky, gleaming brighter than the sun. The pursuing sleds took one look and did everything but throw themselves into reverse. A few fired off useless shots at the huge ship, but most just settled for shuddering to an unruly halt in midair. Owen glanced back over his shoulder and saw Storm looking up at the ship with his mouth open. Even the Stevie Blues had stopped firing at their pursuers. Owen grinned and flew up into the open cargo bay doors in the ship's belly, Hazel right behind him.

'Get the hell out of here right now!' yelled Owen. 'Go, go, go!'

The belly doors slammed shut, and Owen and Hazel landed their sleds. Owen slumped over the controls, exhausted, but made himself turn around as Stevie One and Stevie Three ran over to the sled. Storm was bending over the unmoving body of Stevie Two. He looked up as the esper clones reached him and shook his head sadly.

'I'm sorry. She must have been dead from the moment the beam hit her.'

Owen wanted to say something, but couldn't. Stevie One nodded stiffly to him. 'You risked your life to save her, even though she was just a clone. It's not your fault she didn't make it. We'll never forget what you did, Owen Deathstalker. Wherever you lead, we'll follow.'

'But now there are only two of us,' said Stevie Three quietly.

Stevie One put her arms around her and hugged her hard. After a while she let go, and the two Stevie Blues walked off a way to be by themselves for a while. Hazel came over to join Owen and Storm.

'Nice flying, Deathstalker. Maybe you are the hope of humanity after all.'

'You're never going to let me forget that, are you?' said Owen.

'Listen, aristo,' said Hazel. 'You need me to keep you honest. If you're the hope, we are in deep shit. Hey, Hadenmen! Any chance of showing us what's happening outside?'

A viewscreen appeared, hovering on the air before them. The planet was falling away below them, but a dozen starcruisers were coming after them. They were unusually large, bulky ships of a kind Owen didn't recognize. He looked at Storm, who was biting his lower lip and frowning.

'The Empress's new fleet,' he said quietly. 'E class, all with the new stardrive. Reputedly even faster than the legendary Hadenman ships. It would appear we're about to find out whether that's the case.'

The Empire ships opened fire. Disrupter cannon fired in sequence, one after the other, so that the starcruisers could maintain a constant fire. The golden ship fired back, but the Empire ships were rapidly closing the gap. Owen assumed the Hadenmen's shields were still holding—on the grounds everyone on board would have been breathing vacuum by now if they weren't. And then the ship's engines roared, and the viewscreen disappeared as the Hadenman craft dropped into hyperspace and was gone. Owen let out a long slow sigh of relief, and Hazel slapped him on the back.

'Told you we'd make it, aristo. Personally, I was never worried. Not for a minute.'

'Then, you should have been,' said Owen. 'If those new ships are typical of the E class, we are all in real trouble. Think of a fleet of ships as fast as my old Sunstrider. We'd been relying on the Hadenman ships to give us an edge, but it would appear they're not number one anymore. Which means, if we're going to go head-to-head with the Empire, we've got to have ships with the new stardrive, too.'

'What the hell,' said Hazel. 'We can worry about that later. The mission was a success. The Tax and Tithe computers are toast, and we got most of the contacts out alive.'

'We still lost one,' said Owen.

'It wasn't your fault,' said Storm. 'You tried. These things happen. I'll go and have a word with Stevie One and Three. Offer them some comfort and a friendly shoulder to lean on.'

He bowed formally and moved away. Hazel watched him go. 'These things happen! He's going to be a real comfort, he is.'

'I think we could both use a drink and some rest,' said Owen. 'Perhaps you'd care to join me, Hazel? Or we could have a meal together. Would you like that?'

'Not really, no,' said Hazel. 'No offense, Deathstalker, but let's keep our relationship professional, okay?'

She smiled at him briefly, then strode over to Storm and the two esper clones, gesturing for them to follow her. Owen watched them go. He was sure he must have been turned down faster than that at some time in his past, but he was damned if he could think when. Things like that weren't supposed to happen. He was a Lord, after all. And the hope of humanity.

'Nice try, though,' said the AI Ozymandius through his comm implant.

'Shut up, Oz,' said Owen. 'You're dead.'

CHAPTER TWO

Up to Gehenna and Down to Golgotha

Captain John Silence of the Empire starcruiser Dauntless was going home to die, and was trying hard not to give a damn. After all, he'd only failed in his mission and got most of his people killed. He looked at the brimming glass in his hand and pulled a face. The trouble with sustained heavy drinking was that after a while your tongue went numb, and you couldn't tell what you were drinking. Though given exactly what he was pouring down his throat in great quantity, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The food synthesizers could produce alcohol and flavorings, but the combinations, like the quality, were strictly limited. It was supposed to be red wine, but all the red part did was turn his teeth pink. Still, for a wine whose vintage was under ten minutes, it wasn't that bad. Not that it made any difference. He would have drunk it anyway.

His head hurt, his hands were shaking, and his stomach lurched this way and that when he moved. He'd been drinking steadily for almost three days now, taking time out to eat and sleep when he absolutely had to. He didn't drink much normally, and he was finding getting drunk and staying drunk harder work than he'd expected. But he kept at it. Nothing else to do. He was a failure, going home to report that failure to an Empress who'd kill him for it.

And all those good men lost…

He was heading back to Golgotha with bad news and worse, and while the Empress Lionstone might have pardoned him once for screwing up, she wouldn't put up with it a second time. He'd been sent to the Wolfling World on a straightforward mission. Accompanied by a contingent of trained adjusted men, the Wampyr, and the Empress's lover and right-hand man, the Lord High Dram, he'd been commanded to arrest and execute that most renowned traitor Owen Deathstalker, and all with him, and then return to Golgotha with the rebels' heads and the secrets of the legendary Wolfling World. They'd even given him the single Grendel alien ever to be subdued and controlled. An extraordinary and so far unique specimen. The mission should have been a walkover.

Instead Dram's body was down in the cargo hold, the Grendel alien had been killed, which was supposed to be impossible, and the three Wampyr who hadn't died fighting the rebels had been detained by the newly risen Hadenmen. Silence didn't want to think what for. He took another drink. The Hadenmen. Once the Enemies of Humanity. Defeated long ago in a fierce and bloody war, they were supposed to be extinct, or at best sleeping endlessly in the hidden Tomb of the Hadenmen. But Owen Deathstalker had found and woken them, and now they sided with the rebels. And God help the Empire. The walls were falling, and the wolves were running loose among the flock.

He downed another drink and another. He really wasn't looking forward to explaining to the Empress that the Wolfling World was in fact also Haden, home of the Hadenmen. Which meant the rebels now had access to the legendary laboratories of Haden, and all the wonders and horrors they had produced in the past. Science beyond reason, weapons beyond hope of stopping, and all of it aimed at the Empire. By his failure he'd signed the death warrant of civilization and quite possibly all of humanity as well.

No, he had nothing but bad news to lay before his Empress, and she would kill him for it. If his own men didn't do it first. All the men he'd taken down into the caverns deep below the frozen surface of the Wolfling World had died there, facing weapons and horrors they could not have anticipated. And instead of avenging them, Silence