can see no scheme or strategy that might enable me to overcome these reverses. Therefore, in order to save as many of my people as possible, in space and on the ground, I have contacted the rebel leaders and offered them my surrender.
'My advice to Your Majesty is to do the same, for the best possible concessions, while you still can. I will hand over control of the fleet to whatever authority replaces Your Majesty. I'm sorry, Lionstone, but I have my men to think of. There's been enough death and suffering. Who knows; perhaps this was all for the best anyway. Good luck, Your Majesty. If we both survive, perhaps we'll meet again in happier times.'
He signed off, and the viewscreen went blank while Lionstone was still drawing breath to scream abuse at him. She stared unseeingly about her for a long moment, beating on the arms of her Throne with her fists. The maids stirred uneasily below her, picking up on her mood. Finally her gaze fell on Silence and Frost, and she nodded slowly.
'I am surrounded by incompetents and traitors. But I still have you. My secret weapons. I place command of all my forces in your hands, Captain and Investigator. Defend the Empire. Slaughter the scum rioting in my streets. Don't dare fail me.' And the rage boiled up in her again, and her voice rose in a frustrated scream. 'Is there no one else to defend me from the rabble?'
'Well, there's always me,' said Alexander Storm.
Everyone looked round, startled, as the old rebel came strolling unhurriedly through the horrors of Hell. Jack Random walked behind him, pulling along a heavily chained and restrained Ruby Journey by a leash around her neck. When she tried to slow down or pull back, Random just tightened the leash till she couldn't breathe, and had no choice but to hurry and catch up. Alexander Storm came to a halt a respectful distance away from the maids, signaled Random to halt, and then bowed courteously to Lionstone and the others present.
'Your Majesty, honored guests; may I present my two prisoners, those most damnable rebels and traitors, Jack Random and Ruby Journey. Yours to do with as you wish.'
There was a long silence, and then the Empress Lionstone laughed and clapped her hands together girlishly. 'You see, my friends? It's not over till I say it's over.'
Owen Deathstalker, his ancestor Giles, and Hazel d'Ark had arrived in the great antechamber that was the only access to Lionstone's Court. A huge open chamber of gleaming steel and brass, with huge intricately carved pillars of gold and silver, it stretched away in all directions, vast and empty and echoing. Normally it would have been full of the movers and shakers of Empire, all waiting impatiently for the great steel doors to open, and their chance to gain the ear of the Empress. But now the great antechamber stood deserted and abandoned. Owen and Giles and Hazel stood before the closed double doors, and looked at them thoughtfully.
'Bound to be locked,' said Owen.
'Oh, bound to be,' said Hazel. 'I take it you don't have any codes for this?'
'Afraid not,' said Owen. 'Don't suppose you brought any explosives with you, by any chance?'
'Afraid not,' said Hazel. 'Guess we'll just have to smash our way through by brute force and ignorance.'
'Get on with it,' said Giles. 'I've come a long way to be here, and I have much to do.'
Owen and Hazel exchanged a glance, but before they could say anything, there was a bright flash of light and Jenny Psycho, Toby Shreck, and Flynn appeared suddenly out of nowhere. Jenny surrounded herself with a psionic force shield, then dropped it a moment later as she realized no one was attacking her. Toby and Flynn checked to see that their camera was still with them and looked around with open mouths. Toby realized who was standing before him, and where he was, and gestured urgently for Flynn to start filming.
'What the hell are you doing here?' said Hazel, not all that welcomingly.
'The Mater Mundi wanted us here,' said Jenny Psycho. 'Any problems, take it up with her. Apparently she wants the downfall of the Empress shown live throughout the Empire. Why she wants me here as well… isn't yet clear to me. No doubt I'll find out shortly. So, bring me up to date. What lies between us and the Court?'
'Well, basically, these doors,' said Owen. 'Personally, I thought there'd be more security than this.'
He broke off and they all looked round as they heard the sound of approaching running feet. There seemed to be a hell of a lot of them. Those who had them drew swords and guns. Jenny gathered her power around her till it crackled on the air. Flynn sent his camera up to the ceiling, made sure it was pointing in the right direction, and then moved quickly to join Toby in hiding behind the others. He'd barely made it when a small army of Lionstone's personal guards came charging into the antechamber, armed with drawn swords and personal force shields. Owen took a firm grip on his sword. There had to be at least two hundred of them. Hazel glared at him.
'You had to open your big mouth.'
'Surrender!' yelled the officer in charge of the guards. 'You're massively outnumbered. You don't stand a chance.'
Owen grinned at Giles. 'He doesn't know us very well, does he?'
'Finish them quickly,' said Giles. 'Lionstone could be trying to distract us while she makes her escape.'
'Can I just point out, in an extremely nonthreatening way, that Flynn and I are very definitely noncombatants,' said Toby, from the rear.
'Kill them all,' snapped the guard officer, and led the way forward.
Jenny Psycho levitated into the air, spread her arms wide, and lightning blazed from her hands, striking down the first dozen guards. Hazel d'Ark shimmered, and suddenly there were a dozen of her. Hazels that might have been from other timestreams, all of them grinning nastily at the prospect of battle. Giles teleported back and forth among the guards, striking men down and disappearing again before he could be attacked. Owen smiled and shook his head. Show-offs. He hefted his sword, boosted, and went to meet the guards with death in his eyes. Two men and two women went to war against an army, and the numbers were no problem to them, no problem at all.
At first. The rebels cut their way through the guards with grim efficiency, and soon dead bodies lay everywhere, getting underfoot. The rebels killed and killed, but still the guards kept coming. Owen fought on, swinging his sword with both hands, and no one could stand against him. He was boosting, and strength and speed sang in his arms, but for every guard that fell, it seemed there were two more pressing forward to take his place. They swarmed around him, coming at him from all directions, and soon there wasn't enough room to swing his sword anymore, and all he could do was cut and stab. Backed by his boosted strength and speed, such blows were still devastating and deadly, but with enemies at his back as well as his front he couldn't relax for a moment. He fought on, spinning this way and that, holding his enemies at bay, knowing that if slowed down or hesitated even for a moment, he was a dead man.
Quick glances around suggested his friends weren't doing any better. The Hazels had become separated, scattered the length of the antechamber, but still fighting furiously. Owen had to smile. It seemed that whatever reality the various Hazels came from, she was always a hell of a scrapper. One of the Hazels was forced back in his direction, and Owen was glad to see it was the original. They moved quickly to fight back-to-back, and Owen was happy to have her there. They'd always made an excellent team.
He could see Giles fighting some distance away, roaring his ancient battle cries and bringing his huge long sword down like a hammer, guards surrounding him like attack dogs struggling to bring down a bear. He'd had to stop teleporting. There wasn't enough space left among the fighters for him to teleport into. It seemed to Owen that there were even more guards now than when they'd started, for all the dead bodies cluttering up the floor. They must be bringing in reinforcements. The cheats. Jenny Psycho was still hanging in the air, wreathed in lightning, but didn't seem to be lashing out with it anymore. This puzzled Owen till he saw the guards bringing in esp-blocker after esp-blocker, piling up the brains in their glass cases, trying to shut down Jenny's amplified powers by sheer attrition.
And for the first time it occurred to Owen that just maybe this was as far as he was going to get. He'd come so far, fought his way through so many obstacles, but even he had his limitations. Even a boosted man couldn't stand off a whole army. He remembered how it had all started, so long ago now, with him standing alone against a crowd of his own turncoat guards on Virimonde, outnumbered and about to die. Maybe he'd come full circle; only this time Hazel wasn't going to be able to save him. She was as deep in trouble as he was. It seemed crazy to Owen that after all he'd been through, he was finally going to fall to a bunch of armed guards, just because there were so many of them. He reached inside himself, trying to find the power he'd used on Mistworld to bring a whole building down, but there was nothing there. Nothing came to answer his call, no matter how desperately he tried. And he had no idea why.
He was soaked in sweat now, and he had to keep blinking it out of his eyes as it ran down his face. He was breathing hard, and it seemed to him that he wasn't quite as fast as he had been. Some of the guards' blows were
