someone else take over now. No, they just wanted more. Even Jack. Into battle one more time, on some godforsaken rock I'd never even heard of, leading dumb peasants against trained Imperial troops, and all of it for nothing. All the blood and the fear and the death of friends. I just got tired of it all. So when Jack fell and was taken, I had a moment of very clear insight, and saw the futility of rebellion. Even if we were to win, and overthrow the Empress, she'd only be replaced by someone just like her. It's the nature of the job, and the way things are. So I gave up poverty and hopelessness for wealth and security. And a chance to strike back at the rebels and make them pay for all the years of my life they had wasted.'
'He was still your friend,' said Silence.
Storm glared at him. 'Is he? I don't know who this is anymore. He should be my age, but he's young, and I'm not. He's a man of power and destiny again, and I'm not. All my life has been unfair, and he's always been the most unfair thing in it.'
'Kill you,' said Ruby Journey thickly. They all turned to look at her, kneeling and weighed down with chains, fighting to hold her head up. She glared at Storm. 'He trusted you. Loved you like a brother. Fought beside you. I'll kill you slowly, you treacherous bastard. Rip your heart out and make you eat it before you die. Chains won't hold me. Drugs wear off. I'll see you dead before I am.'
'Oh shut up,' said Storm. He swaggered over to her, and punched her in the mouth. She fell backwards. 'I never liked you, bitch.' He started kicking her.
'That's quite enough of that,' said Owen Deathstalker.
His voice rang across the Court, sharp and commanding, and Storm fell back in spite of himself. Everyone turned to see Owen leading his companions through the inferno, toward the Iron Throne. Two Deathstalkers, both legends and men of destiny. Hazel d'Ark, the pirate turned hero. Psycho Jenny, the sacred madwoman of the esper underground. And, like two crows with great experience of battlefields, Toby and Flynn brought up the rear, there for the end of the story, whatever it might be.
Investigator Razor and Kit SummerIsle moved quickly to stand between the Throne and the newcomers. Storm hurried back to join Dram and Valentine Wolfe. Silence and Frost drew their swords. Stelmach drew his gun. The maids-in-waiting stirred angrily, and hissed at the new arrivals as Owen led them toward the Throne. They stopped beside Ruby Journey, who looked up at them and spit out a mouthful of blood.
'Took you long enough to get here.'
'Sorry,' said Owen. 'We got distracted. Need a hand?'
'In your dreams, aristo.' Ruby stood up and flexed her arms, and the enveloping chains shattered and fell away from her. Ruby smiled nastily at the stunned Storm. 'You didn't really think drugs and chains would hold someone like me, did you?'
Owen looked around him, taking in the smoldering ash pits, the burning angels, the great vents in the floor from which arose the screams of the damned. The crimson light, the rows of the impaled dead, and the tortured sinners hanging on their barbed chains. When he finally looked back at Lionstone, his voice was as flat and cold as his gaze. 'Nice place you've got here, Lionstone. It's you. Your taste always tended to the extreme, but I think you've really outdone yourself this time. You've progressed from the disturbed to the actually psychotic. You've become a sick person, Lionstone, a mad dog, a rabid animal; and it's our job to shut you down.'
Lionstone leaned back in her Throne, apparently unmoved. 'Welcome to our Court, outlaw. We've been expecting you. We even have a few guests here to greet you, specially invited with you in mind. For instance…'
She snapped her fingers, and a masking holoillusion dropped away, revealing the huge wooden cross set up behind the Iron Throne. And nailed to that cross, Mother Superior Beatrice Christiana, the saint of Technos III.
Her nun's robes were torn and bloodied, and her wimple was gone, replaced by a crown of thorns. Dried blood encrusted thickly around her pierced wrists and ankles, and more had run down her face from where the crown had been jammed forcefully onto her head. She was still alive and still conscious enough to feel the awful pain that wracked her. Her face was twisted away from its usual serenity, dragged beyond humanity into pure animal suffering.
'She seemed so eager to be a martyr that I thought I'd oblige her,' said Lionstone. 'If she's really sincere in her religion, she should take it as a compliment. A martyr's death is supposed to be the highest honor they can hope to obtain in this life. Isn't that right?'
'You bitch! You stinking bitch!' Surprisingly, it was Toby Shreck who broke first. He lunged forward, enraged beyond reason, as though he planned to free Beatrice by brute force. Flynn had to grab him and hold him back. 'Let me go!' said Toby, struggling to break free. 'I won't stand for this! Not her! She's the only decent person I ever met!'
'You'd be dead before you could get anywhere near her, boss,' said Flynn, almost shouting at Toby as he held him firmly. 'She wants someone to try something, so she can set her maids on them, as an example.'
'He's right, Shreck,' said Giles. 'Listen to your friend. We'll deal with this. It's what we're here for.'
'Right,' said Hazel. 'Make sure your camera's working. You're about to witness the death of an Empress. Convenient of you to build your own Hell, Lionstone. It means you won't have too far to go when we drag you down off your Throne, and cut your damned head off.'
'The show isn't over yet,' said Lionstone. 'Beatrice, this is your moment. Come on down, and kill these vermin for me.'
And as the rebels watched incredulously, Beatrice raised her head on the cross and smiled down at them. With one convulsive movement, she ripped her arms and legs free from the blocky nails holding her to the wood, and dropped lightly to the ground. She started toward the rebels, still smiling, and everyone by the Throne hurried to get out of her way. Lionstone was laughing. Toby stared stupidly for a moment, then gestured urgently to make sure Flynn was getting it all.
'She's not the real thing,' said Hazel. 'She can't be. Nothing human could have freed itself that easily.'
'Right,' said Owen. 'It's some kind of Fury, a machine. Lionstone just had it nailed up there to upset us.'
'And it worked,' said Toby. 'I can't believe I was fooled again. Is nobody what they appear to be anymore?'
'You'd be surprised,' said Owen. 'Now stand back and give us some room, journalist. This could get a little messy.'
'I knew you'd like her,' said Lionstone. 'Dear Valentine donated her. He had her constructed as a sex toy originally, when he couldn't get his hands on the real thing, but he quite rightly thought I'd get more use out of her. I've even had some special augmentations added, just for you. Aren't I good to you? Beatrice, dear, kill them all and bring me their heads.'
The thing that looked like Beatrice Christiana surged forward incredibly quickly. Disrupter muzzles emerged from the holes in her hands. Dazzlingly bright energy beams blazed through the crimson air, narrowly missing Owen and Hazel as they threw themselves to one side, and striking Giles square in the chest. The impact threw him to the ground. Hazel brought up her projectile weapon and opened fire, but the bullets rebounded harmlessly from the steel chassis under the flesh covering. Owen fired his disrupter, but the machine just ducked under the energy beam and kept coming. She was on Hazel before she could drop the gun and draw her disrupter, grabbed her by the throat with one hand, and lifted her up into the air. Hazel dangled helplessly, choking as the metal fingers cut off her air. She clawed at the metal arm with both hands, feet kicking a good yard above the floor.
Owen threw himself at the machine from behind, but she wheeled inhumanly quickly, and slapped him away with her free hand like a bothersome child. Hazel's eyes bulged as she fought for air. Owen was quickly back on his feet, boosted, and came at the Fury again. He ducked under the sweeping arm this time, and drove his sword at not-Beatrice's unprotected throat. Steel slammed against steel, and the impact jarred the sword out of Owen's hand. He didn't hesitate and slammed his fist into its metallic side with all his boosted strength behind it. Amazingly, the steel ribs dented under the blow, and she staggered to one side, still holding on to Hazel. Owen hit it again and again, ignoring the pain of his skinned knuckles, doing damage, but not enough to make her drop her prey.
And then Jenny Psycho stepped forward, a sword blade of shimmering psi energy emerging from her hand. She chopped down, and the energy blade sheared clean through the machine's arm. Hazel crashed to the ground, the steel hand still crushing her throat. She thrashed back and forth, tearing at it with both hands. Owen was quickly there beside her, and between them they broke the metal fingers one by one and pulled the hand away. Owen threw it to one side, and it lay twitching on the ground like a giant malformed spider.
The thing that looked like Beatrice stood facing Jenny Psycho, who grinned at it nastily. The energy sword
