Deathstalker Rebellion

map again, but he couldn't see a quicker route than the one Frost had already chosen. They'd get to the pinnace first. They had to.

And finally there was only one corridor left between them and safety, and the whole group found a second wind that brought them pounding around the final corner, and there they came crashing to a halt. Silence just stood there, a dozen yards from the air lock, his head filled with his own harsh breathing, his heart filled with despair. Between his small force and the air lock stood a hundred Ghost Warriors, eerily unprotected against the airless cold, with the dead Captain Pearce at their head. No, thought Silence numbly. That's not possible, there's no way they could have beaten us here! But these are dead men, a small voice murmured in the back of his mind. Maybe they know ways that the living cannot walk. His thoughts whirled crazily as he tried desperately to think of something, anything he could do to steal a victory from the jaws of certain defeat. Pearce smiled at Silence and Frost, his head perched crookedly on his broken neck.

'It's over. You must come with us now. The laboratories are waiting.'

'To hell with that,' said Frost calmly. She pulled a concussion grenade from her belt, primed it, and tossed it neatly into the middle of the massed Ghost Warriors. They barely had time to react before it blew, and the force of the blast threw dead men in all directions. Frost and the rest of her party hardly rocked on their heels, protected by their heavy hard suits. Silence laughed suddenly, back in the game again, and strode toward the air lock, kicking thrashing bodies out of his way. The others followed him, knocking the dead men down as fast as they got to their feet. The dead grabbed at their legs to try and hold them, but dead arms were no match for the hard suit's servomechanisms.

Silence hit the controls, and the air-lock doors cycled slowly open. The two security men were hacking at everything in sight with their swords, and dead flesh flew in the air though no blood flowed. The doors finally opened wide enough, and Silence yelled for his people to break free.

'Move it, people! We are leaving!'

Abrams and Fine broke away and threw themselves into the air lock. Cross went to follow them, then stopped as a dead man rose up before him. Cross raised his sword and then hesitated as he took in the gray face before him. It was a familiar face from an old holofilm, and it took him only a moment to place it.

'Grandfather…'

And in that moment the dead man raised an old-fashioned disrupter, placed it against Cross's armored belly, and pressed the stud. The energy blast punched right through the hard suit and out the back. Cross screamed, the horrified sound filling Silence's ears through his comm link, and then he crumpled slowly to the floor. Silence swung his sword with all his suit's power behind it, and sheered clean through the dead man's neck. The headless body fell away, and Silence sheathed the sword and grabbed Cross by the shoulders. He pulled the screaming man into the air lock and turned to look out at Frost, standing with her back to the doors, sword in hand.

'Get in here, Investigator! We are leaving!'

'I'm not coming with you, Captain.' Frost didn't turn around, but her voice came clearly through Silence's comm implant on the command channel, as though she was standing right beside him. 'I have to stay behind. Otherwise, one of these undead bastards will just hit the override from this side and keep the air lock from functioning. I have to stay here to hold them off while the rest of you go through to the pinnace. I've known this all along. You never did think ahead enough, Captain.'

'We'll risk it,' said Silence. 'Now, get in here. That's an order. We're not leaving without you.'

'You have to,' said the Investigator unemotionally. 'It's vital you get away, to report what happened here. The Empire must know that Shub is using stolen ships with dead crews. Once you reach the Dauntless, blow this death ship apart.'

'I can't open fire while you're still aboard!'

'Of course you can. It's the logical thing to do.'

'You didn't leave me to die on the bridge of the Darkwind.'

'That was different. There's too much at stake here. And at least my way, they won't be able to make a Ghost Warrior out of me. Please, John. It's the only way.'

She hit the air-lock controls with her elbow, and the doors closed. Silence had one last glimpse of the Investigator throwing herself against the advancing dead men, and then the doors were shut and she was gone. He turned away to operate the outer doors. He didn't say anything. He didn't trust his voice. His arms and legs were shaking inside his suit, from tension and something more. Cross was still screaming. The two security men had slapped temporary seals over the holes in his armor so he'd survive the crossing to the pinnace. One of them gave the all clear to Silence, and he opened the outer doors. It took them only a few moments to cross the empty space to the pinnace's lock and pass through that into the waiting ship. Cross fell silent as the emergency drugs the hard suit was pumping into him finally took effect. Abrams and Fine secured him in a seat and then strapped themselves in. Silence took the pilot's seat and patched into the pinnace's emergency channel.

'Dauntless, this is the Captain. I'm on my way back. I have three men with me, one seriously injured. We're all that made it out. The Champion is infested with Ghost Warriors. As soon as we're clear, open up with everything you've got. Destroy the Champion. Confirm.'

'This is the Dauntless,' said his Second in Command. We confirm. Destroy the Champion as soon as you've docked.'

It took only a few minutes to maneuver the pinnace back to the Dauntless and dock it, but they seemed to last forever, and all the time Silence saw a single valiant figure, fighting an army of dead men and hoping for a quick death from the Dauntless's guns. He patched into the main ship's sensors, and watched silently as cannon after cannon opened fire on the Champion. Her shields flared into existence immediately, but they were old, inferior shields, and the Dauntless's superior firepower battered them down and slapped them aside. Disrupter bolts hit the old ship again and again, blowing jagged holes in the hull. Escaping energies burned silently in the dark, until finally the Champion exploded in a bloody ball of hellfire, glowing brightly in the long night. Good-bye, Frost, said the Captain silently. I'll miss you.

He broke the comm link and sank back in his chair, feeling suddenly very tired. The two security men were manhandling an unconscious Cross out the air lock. He couldn't really believe that she was dead yet. He could still feel her presence through his metal link, like a ghost in his head, but presumably that would fade away in time, like the phantom pain from an amputated limb.

'Captain, this is Stelmach,' said a familiar voice in his ear suddenly. 'We're getting strange readings here on the bridge. There are reports of fighting coming in from all over the ship. Intruders, appearing from nowhere, killing our people. There are energy weapons discharging on all levels. Dear God, Captain, they're Ghost Warriors!'

'No,' said Silence. 'That's not possible.'

'They're here, Captain. I can see them through the security cameras! How the hell did they get off the Champion! We didn't track any escaping craft.'

'They teleported,' said Silence. 'The bastards teleported! That's what I'd forgotten. Remember what we saw at Court? Shub has the secret of long-range teleportation! Set up interior force shields throughout the ship, cutting off all infected areas. Have repair teams standing by in case disrupters puncture the shell. And warm up the auto- destruct. Just in case.'

And Frost died for nothing.

'Where's the nearest trouble site, Stelmach?'

'Two or three quite near you, Captain. Biggest group is one level down, Delta section, but the security force I sent hasn't got there yet. You'd better stay clear till I get word it's been secured.'

'Hell with that,' said Silence. 'This is my ship. I go where I'm needed. I have business with these murderous bastards. Silence out.'

He ran down the corridor, pushing the hard suit to its limits, and all he could think of was making the Ghost Warriors pay for Frost's death. He'd build a mountain of heads in her name. She'd like that. But it wouldn't be enough. It would never be enough. He took the elevator down to the next level, clenching and unclenching his hands impatiently. The doors opened to sounds of chaos not far away. There were shouts and screams and the sound of energy weapons discharging. That last brought him out of the elevator in a run. They weren't too far from the outer hull in Delta section, and all it would take was one really unlucky shot to puncture the hull. Explosive decompression