Deathstalker War

'Hi there,' said Toby. 'Mind if we join you? We've brought our own bottle.'

'Now there speaks a civilized man,' said Owen. 'I understand you're interested in coming along with us desperate rebel types when we leave?'

'Damn right,' said Toby. 'You people are where the story is. Besides, we asked everybody else, and they all said no.'

'Fair enough,' said Owen. 'If you're looking for a good story, some of my associates are planning an expedition to a planet called Haceldama. I'll put you in contact with them. In the meantime, why aren't you interviewing Jack Random? He's the official hero of the hour.'

Toby and Flynn looked at each other, and then Toby leaned forward and lowered his voice. 'Are you sure that is Jack Random?'

Owen and Hazel kept their faces blank, but they leaned forward and lowered their voices, too. 'What makes you think that he isn't?' said Hazel.

'Because we saw him leading a rebellion on Technos III, just a few weeks ago,' said Toby. 'And he looked… different. Older.'

'Much older,' said Flynn. 'I've got it all on tape. And my camera never lies.'

'Lots of people have claimed to be Jack Random, down the years,' Owen said neutrally. 'Let's just say this one seems more convincing than most.'

Toby glanced back at Random, still surrounded by well-wishers and devoted disciples. 'Doesn't it bother you, that he's getting all the glory? You two did just as much as he. Flynn got most of it on tape.'

Hazel shrugged. 'Last thing I need is being bothered by autograph hunters. Let him be the hero, if that's what he wants. I was never very comfortable with the role anyway.'

'Heads up,' said Owen. 'I think he's going to say something.'

The speech that followed was a triumph. Short, sharp, lucid, and witty. A professional speechwriter couldn't have done better. Young Jack Random stirred the crowd's blood with praises for their deeds in protecting their city, and with promises of more battles against injustice to come. On to Golgotha! he cried, and everyone cheered and applauded. Owen and Hazel applauded, too, so as not to seem small, but neither of them was swayed by his words. He was still just too good to be true, for them.

But, all things considered, Owen felt basically upbeat. Things seemed to be going his way for once. The Imperial invasion had been defeated, Mistport had been saved, his own mission was apparently a great success, and he'd faced the prophecy of his own death and survived after all. Not that he'd ever really believed in it, but it was good to put it behind him. It was like having a new lease on life; and life was very good just then.

He and Hazel stood together and watched the crowd cheer itself hoarse for Jack Random, and were quietly content.

CHAPTER TWO

INNOCENCE LOST

They called it Shannon's World, because it was his dream, his vision. He all but bankrupted himself bringing it into existence, but the result was a pleasure world like no other, reserved only for the very rich, the extremely well connected, and the strictly aristocratic. Its location was a secret known only to the glamorous few, and for those inquisitive others who bribed or bullied their way to Shannon's World uninvited, state-of-the-art security and weapons systems waited to blow them out of this world and into the next. Shannon's World, where mountains sang to each other, fantasies and dreams became real, and the whole world was alive. A pleasure planet unlike any other, where even the weariest of souls could find rest and comfort and contentment.

And then the awful thing happened.

Afterward, Shannon's World cut itself off from the Empire, refusing to acknowledge any form of contact. Visitors were destroyed while still in orbit, no matter whom they represented. The Empress sent a ship. It never came back. She sent a starcruiser, which managed to land a full brigade of marines. Something killed them. So she tried a series of covert Security teams. Only one man returned from what had been the foremost pleasure planet in the Empire. He came back soaked in many people's blood, quite mad, his mind destroyed by what he'd seen, and died soon after, mostly because he wanted to. He renamed the planet Haceldama, the Field of Blood.

The Empress put the planet under Quarantine, stationed a starcruiser in far orbit to make sure whatever was down there didn't get out, and then turned her attention to other things. Thanks to the traitor Deathstalker and his growing rebellion, she had far more pressing worries than a pleasure planet gone bad. And so things might have remained, if the most important strategic and military mind in the Empire, one Vincent Harker, hadn't crash-landed on what used to be Shannon's World. In his head was information vital to both the Empire and the rebellion. The Empress sent down a company of her elite battle troops to recover him. They never reported back. Now, it was the rebels' turn.

In a hastily converted cargo ship called the Wild Rose, a small group of rebels watched the sensor panels closely, and hoped the new Hadenman cloaking system was everything it was supposed to be. The planet's defenses were powerful enough to batter down any force shield generated by anything less than a full starcruiser, and the cargo ship's shields were strictly rudimentary. Either the Hadenman device fooled the orbiting satellites, or the rebels wouldn't live long enough to know they were dead. The device squatted behind them, roughly bolted to the deck, all sharp edges and unexpected angles, with strange lights that came and went for no apparent reason. The rebels preferred not to look at it. The shape of the device hurt their eyes. They kept their gaze fixed on the sensor panels and the main viewscreen, watching the planet grow slowly beneath them, cool and blue and utterly enigmatic.

On board the Wild Rose was Finlay Campbell, the aristo turned rebel, daredevil fighter with a coldness in his soul, who had once been secretly the Masked Gladiator, undefeated champion of the Golgotha Arenas. At his side his lady love, Evangeline Shreck, daughter of the aristocracy, who lived for years with the secret that she was really only a clone, created to replace the daughter sexually abused and murdered by her father. On Finlay's other side, Julian Skye, the rogue esper rescued by Finlay from the interrogation cells under Golgotha. Skye was once one of the most powerful espers in the Empire and a daring rebel, but his time in the bloodstained hands of the mind techs had left him hurt and damaged, perhaps beyond his ability to recover. And finally there was Giles Deathstalker, the legendary hero who'd spent over nine hundred years in stasis, emerging to find an Empire he barely recognized. Rebels one and all, representatives of the Golgotha underground, desperate to find Vincent Harker before the Empire forces did.

Also along for the ride were Toby Shreck and his cameraman Flynn, heading toward a story darker and stranger than they had ever known.

Finlay stirred impatiently at the sensor panels. He'd never handled waiting well. His only prayer had always been, dear Lord, please deliver me into battle and danger up to my eyes. He had once been a master of fashion, a fop and dandy of great renown, a persona and mask he'd created to hide his secret other existence as the Masked Gladiator, feted darling of the Arenas. Now he was on the run from the Society he'd once moved in so freely, just another rebel among many, expendable enough to be sent on what many regarded as a suicide mission. He was twenty-six years old, and looked easily ten years older. His long hair had faded to a yellow so pale it was almost colorless. He wore it tied back in a single, practical pigtail. He had the look of a mercenary soldier; cold and dangerous but essentially uninvolved. He only joined the rebels to better protect his love Evangeline, and made no secret of his distance from the underground's politics. It was enough that they provided him with missions where he could test his courage and skill with weapons. Finlay Campbell was fast becoming that most dangerous of men—one with nothing left to lose. Only Evangeline kept him sane and focused, and both of them knew it.

Evangeline Shreck had lived most of her life in fear. Fear of being exposed as a clone and executed for the unforgivable crime of having successfully impersonated an aristocrat. Fear of her father's perverted love. Fear of always being alone. And then she found Finlay, and for the first time in her life she had a reason to go on living. If he died, she didn't know what she'd do. Unlike Finlay, she had no taste for danger and excitement, but as a clone she was fiercely dedicated to the rebel cause. And if the many tensions of her life were slowly tearing her apart,