Deathstalker Rebellion

'I know you're a true Deathstalker,' said Giles. 'That's all that really matters. You're a good fighter—for an historian. Is there… anything you'd like to ask me?'

'Well,' said Owen, 'I have been wondering… why do you wear your hair in a scalplock? I mean, that's the sign of a mercenary soldier.'

'Yes,' said Giles. 'It is. The Empire I remember is gone now, just a memory. The Emperor I swore to serve is long dead. Things haven't turned out at all how I expected. You always hope the future will be better, and your descendants will have an easier time than you had, but I saw the rot setting in, even then. And nothing's changed in the last nine hundred years, except for the worse. At least I've lived long enough to see the beginnings of a rebuilding. I'm no longer Warrior Prime. That was taken from me long ago, and so I became a fighter for other people's causes. Just like now. I'm a mercenary, Owen. Nothing more. Hence the scalplock. I always did have a weakness for the dramatic gesture. Are you sure there's nothing you'd like to talk to me about before we have to part?'

Owen shifted uncomfortably on his chair. Ever since Giles had killed his son Dram, he'd been trying to be a father figure to Owen, but Owen didn't want or need another father. He still had enough problems over how he felt about his actual father. So in the end the two men just smiled and nodded to each other, and went off in their different directions to get what rest they could before their separate journeys.

Two Deathstalkers, bound by blood and honor, guilt and perhaps a little feeling. Heroes of the forthcoming rebellion. Who had no way of knowing to what dark end destiny would eventually bring them.

CHAPTER SIX

Voices in the Dark

It gets strange out on the Rim. The starship Dauntless hammered through the darkness, a small silver speck in the long night. Captain John Silence sat in his command chair on the Dauntless's bridge, staring somberly at the main viewscreen before him. Not that there was much to see on the viewscreen. This latest tour of duty had brought him right to the edge of the Rim, where the normality of suns and planets and life gave way to the endless empty dark of the Darkvoid, which knew nothing of light and life. Except for the Wolfling World, whose mysterious depths held an army of reborn Hadenmen and the beginnings of a new rebellion. Silence's mouth flattened into a grim line. He'd been driven from that world in failure and disgrace, but even so he was in no hurry to return there in search of revenge. Unnatural powers had manifested in the dim vast caverns below that planet's surface, forces and events almost beyond human comprehension. Forces that had touched and tainted him, too. The Wolfling World was a dangerous place, and Silence had decided very firmly that he wasn't going back there without the entire Imperial Fleet to back him up. He knew the difference between courage and a suicide mission. It was essential that the rebellion gestating inside the Wolfling World be damped out and eradicated, but until he could convince the Empress of that, Silence had every intention of keeping a safe distance between him and the only living planet in the Darkvoid.

He sighed and shifted position yet again in his chair. He'd been on the bridge ten hours now, well past the end of his watch, but there was no point in standing down. He couldn't rest, and he couldn't sleep. Too many things had been happening recently. Disturbing things. His mission had seemed straightforward enough when Lionstone outlined it for him: patrol those planets in the Empire dominated by sentient alien species, and make it clear to them that they were to have no contact with any alien forces from outside the Empire or any rebel forces within it. Make promises of increased support on the one hand and threats of dire reprisals for disobedience on the other. The carrot and the bloody big stick. Never fails, with humans. But those few alien civilizations that had survived being brought within the Empire were anything but human.

It was quiet this far out on the Rim, far from Empire, traffic, and populated planets. The Dauntless was very alone, and sometimes that loneliness seemed almost too much to bear. Half the crew were taking tranquilizers or dosing themselves with illicit booze. Silence turned a blind eye. They all needed a little something extra to help them survive the soul-deep cold of the long night. Everyone except Frost, of course. Investigator Frost stood at parade rest beside Silence's command chair, as calm and composed as always. She'd been quietly studying the viewscreen for some time, but she didn't need to say anything for Silence to know she was impatient with the endless monotony. Frost always preferred to be doing something, and the long weeks of inactivity out on the edge of the Rim had been hard on her. It was a long way between the few alien planets, even with the new stardrive, and Frost was frankly bored. Personally, Silence felt he could live with a little boredom. Only a few more planets to visit and their mission would be officially over; though whether they would be allowed to return to the more inhabited sectors of the Empire remained to be seen. They knew too many things the Empress didn't want discussed.

But it wasn't just boredom and loneliness that made Silence so uneasy about being so far from the heart of the Empire. The new rebellion could begin at any time, led by people who'd become almost superhuman and aided by an army of the deadly augmented men. This rebellion, when it came, wouldn't be put down as easily as all the others. Silence felt a burning need, almost an obsession, to be back in his rightful place, orbiting Golgotha, protecting the Empress. Lionstone hadn't taken his reports about the strength of the new rebellion and its leaders anywhere near seriously enough. He'd tried explaining his concern to Frost, expecting a sympathetic ear, but she'd just shrugged and said if there was an Empire-wide rebellion, there'd be fighting enough for everyone, no matter where they were. Frost had always been a practical person, first and foremost.

Silence drummed his fingers on the armrests of his chair. Somewhere deep inside him, a small but persistent voice was clamoring for a drink to settle his nerves, but he wouldn't listen to it. He'd tried that, and it hadn't worked. He'd managed to climb back out of the bottle, with a little help from Frost, and he wouldn't give in to it again. He'd pulled himself back from the brink of failure and disgrace with his victory over the alien ship above Golgotha, and having been granted another chance against all the odds, he was damned if he'd be beaten by his own weaknesses. It had taken a while, but his crew had learned to respect him again, which pleased him. They were a good crew, mostly, and he wanted to be a strong Captain for them. Of course, there were still dark murmurs in occasional dark corners, where people wrongly thought the ship's security systems couldn't overhear them. The word belowdecks was that just possibly Silence and/or Frost were jinxed. Bad luck. Jonahs. Unfortunate things happened around them. After all, Silence had lost his last ship, the Darkwind, in a clash with pirates, and their last mission to the Wolfling World had gone to hell in a handcart in a hurry. And as everyone knows, went the murmur, bad things come in threes. Sweepstakes were running among the more superstitious crew members—not about whether something else really nasty would happen, but about what shape it would take when it did.

Silence let them get on with it. On the whole the crew were still sharp and well coordinated, performing their duties at an entirely acceptable level. The victory over the alien ship had raised their spirits and returned their confidence after the debacle of the Wolfling World. And most of them had lost someone they loved or knew someone who had during the alien ship's attack on Golgotha's main starport and city. An undercurrent of anger and a need for revenge burned in the crew's collective heart, hot and ugly. So far Silence hadn't been able to find a target or an outlet for it, but he had no doubt one would emerge eventually. Some alien species would do or say the wrong thing, and have to be punished. And then Silence would sit back and let the crew sink themselves in violence and revenge until it sickened them. A bit hard on the aliens, but after all, that was what they were there for.

On the whole Silence had chosen to let Frost take charge of the alien contacts. It was her area of expertise, after all. And if he was sometimes uncomfortable with some of her more extreme practices, he kept it to himself. She was responsible for the safety of the human species, and if that meant being ruthless as well as efficient, Frost had never been known to give a damn. Silence smiled slightly, in spite of himself. Certainly the Investigator had never been trained in diplomacy; or if she had, had gone out of her way to forget it. She just aimed herself at whatever passed for the aliens' authority figures, made her demands on behalf of the Empress, and issued dire warnings and threats of what would happen if she was disobeyed. It was often as blunt as that, but she got results. Silence had his reservations, but couldn't bring himself to disapprove. The safety of humanity had to come first.

He'd been the same himself, cold and curt and full of authority, until it backfired on him on a backwater