'There's no justification for allying with Shub,' said Random. 'Let's see what else we can find on the Councillors. Crack open their bank accounts. I want to see what they're being paid to run things here.'
Savage had to use a lot of passwords he wasn't supposed to know, but he finally got the answers he was looking for. Even the best systems will fall to an experienced hacker, and as Savage diffidently pointed out, there wasn't a lot of things to do in Vidar when you were young and restless. Which was why Loki had the highest percentage of cyberats per population of any planet in the Empire. Random's smile at that fell away as he saw the figures Savage had dug up for him. The Councillors were taking a percentage of Loki's gross output. Not just a part of the profits, they were creaming money right off the top. They were also pocketing a large percentage of all tax monies, and every other public purse they could get their hands on, and depositing the money in banks on Golgotha. If this continued, the Loki economy would inevitably collapse, though no doubt the Councillors would have arranged their escape long before that became obvious.
Savage went from shocked to furious to a cold rage in a few seconds. 'If the colonists knew about this, they'd drag the Councillors out of their beds and lynch them on the spot. But there's no way these people could have set this up themselves, sir Random. Someone much higher up has to be covering for them. Someone on Golgotha.'
'Damn,' said Random. 'Maybe I am fighting on the wrong side. If Tallon and Jacks knew about this… Look, is there any way we can contact the rebel forces? Secretly? If we could persuade them to settle their grievances through the system, with my support…'
'You don't understand,' said Savage, shutting down his terminal and turning to face Random. 'You haven't seen what they've been doing. The rebels fight alongside the Ghost Warriors. They've been wiping out the outer settlements—whole towns and villages, murdered down to the last man, woman, and child. Afterward, the rebels help the Ghost Warriors collect the more intact adult bodies so they can be made over into Ghost Warriors. The other bodies… it's not just Shub that commits atrocities. Let me call up some vid footage we have from their last attack.'
He activated a viewscreen, and Random and Ruby watched Shub and rebel forces destroy a town with fire and steel and horror. Savage watched their faces more than the screen. He'd already seen the vid footage, and knew he'd never be able to forget it.
Ghost Warriors went stalking through the street, killing everything that moved that wasn't them. Corpses, with gray and blue skin, metal eyes, and grinning teeth revealed by cracked and rotting lips. Some so badly damaged that bones showed through tears in exposed meat, or loops of tattered intestine hung from slashed-open bellies. Computer implants moved servomechanisms in dead limbs, and men and women who had fallen nobly in battle were raised again against their wishes to fight in the name of Shub. Terror weapons, horror troops, they could not be hurt, argued with, or stopped. As long as the armored computer implant remained intact, whatever remained of the body would keep going, obeying its merciless orders.
They stalked their human prey with inhuman patience. Buildings blazed around them, the leaping flames fanned by the endless winds. The living went blade to blade with the dead, to defend their homes or perhaps only to buy time for their loved ones to escape, but they all died in the end. The Ghost Warriors would not stop till all that lived lay still before them, dead as they were. That was how they had been programmed. They dragged the last few women and children from their hiding places and put on a show for the camera, tearing their victims apart with inhuman strength. Afterward, the Ghost Warriors built strange constructions from human pieces, dozens of feet high, with human bones as support and eyeless children's faces as ornaments.
The scene faded away, and the viewscreen shut itself down. Random let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He'd seen his share of death and slaughter and atrocity down the years, but this implacable, mechanical murder chilled his soul. He looked across at Savage.
'I saw people in there. Humans, not Ghost Warriors. They were killing too, and looting. Rebels?'
'That's right,' said Savage. 'They're a part of everything that happens. That village was called Trawl. Population maybe five hundred. I had family there. They're all dead now. Trawl didn't even have any strategic value, but the rebels destroyed it anyway. Just because it was there. And they killed everyone to send us a message: that there was nothing they wouldn't do, and that there was nothing we could do to stop them. I lost all that remained of my family in Trawl. There's nobody else. I am the last of my line, and my name dies with me.'
'Yeah,' said Ruby. 'There's a lot of that about these days. I can't believe humans would fight alongside Ghost Warriors of their own free will.'
Savage shrugged. 'They're desperate. A lot of them have old scores to settle. And maybe… they've developed a taste for killing. I don't know. Sometimes I think the whole Empire's gone crazy. The old order was bad, but what we've got now is worse.'
'It's just a transition,' said Random. 'There were always bound to be… difficulties in replacing one system with another. Things will get better in time.'
'I'm sure that's a comfort to all those who die during your transition,' said Savage. 'Or to those who have to watch them die. What happened, sir Random? I always believed in you. Watched your battle against Lionstone on black-market vids. Prayed that someday, somehow, you'd succeed. Now I don't know what to believe anymore.'
'Have faith,' said Random. 'Not in me, but in the people. They'll put the Empire back together again and make it stronger than it was. All this will pass.'
'If you start talking about birth pains again, I may puke,' said Ruby.
'Nothing of worth is ever achieved without pain and sacrifice,' said Random, concentrating on Savage. 'We owe it to those who have died to keep on fighting, to keep struggling, for what they and we believe in.'
'I want to believe,' said Savage. 'I want all this death and suffering to have been for something. But what have we achieved if people like de Lisle can come back to power again?'
'Trust me,' said Random. 'I'll take care of him once I get back to Golgotha.'
'Can you stop the rebels?' said Savage. 'Can you stop the Ghost Warriors?'
'Of course we can,' said Ruby. 'We're the good guys. Right, Random?'
'Well, I am,' said Random. 'I'm not too sure about you.' He looked straight at Savage. 'We'll do everything we can to save this world from its enemies. I swear it, upon my blood and my honor. Now, I need you to work out a map for me, showing how much territory the rebels control and what direction they're moving in. I want some idea of what they're going to hit next.'
Savage nodded and got to work at his terminal again. Random gestured unobstrusively to Ruby, and they moved off a ways to talk in private.
'Originally, I thought we'd been sent here to distract us from our investigations into Shub's connection on Golgotha,' said Random. 'But this is clearly more important. Shub has to be stopped here, and stopped hard, or they'll move from planet to planet, repeating these tactics.'
'But what can we do against an army of Ghost Warriors?' said Ruby. 'You made a real nice speech to that boy, but I don't see how we're going to back it up. Even trained soldiers have a hard time against Ghost Warriors, and this city's army is strictly amateur hour. Shub will chew them up and spit them out.'
'I do have some experience plotting strategies against superior odds,' said Random. 'I did win my fair share of campaigns, you know.'
'You lost just as many.'
'That was then, this is now. If Savage's map shows what I think it's going to, I have an idea that may win us this war in one blow.'
'A desperate last gamble, against overpowering odds, with everything depending on us. That sort of thing?'
'Yes,' said Random. 'That sort of thing.'
'Ah,' said Ruby, shaking her head, 'business as usual. Look, just once, why not do the sensible thing; call in half a dozen starcruisers and have them blast the rebel positions from orbit?'
'One, there aren't half a dozen starcruisers available. Two, their sensors wouldn't work accurately through the endless storms. Three, if we escalate matters, so will Shub. We have to beat them with what we have here, so they'll think twice about trying this anywhere else.'
'I hate it when you go all logical on me,' said Ruby. 'All right, here we go again. Time to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, one more time.'
Savage called politely for their attention, and they crowded around his monitor to study the map.
'So far the rebel forces have been concentrating on hit-and-run attacks,' said Savage. 'They attack during lulls
