Deathstalker Honor

absorbing as much of the terrible destructive energies as they could.

Inside the yacht, all the alarm sirens were howling at once. The lights on the bridge went out, replaced after a heart-stopping pause by the dull red glow of emergency lighting. Owen's gaze darted across the control panels, looking for good news and finding none. More and more systems were shutting down as the main computers rerouted power to sustain the shields. Hazel managed to get off a few shots at the pursuing Hadenman ship, but they made no impression on the huge ship's fields. Owen kept one eye on their speed and elevation, and didn't know which worried him the most. If he couldn't throw off the Hadenmen pursuit soon, the Sunstrider II would be hard pressed to cut her speed back enough to be sure of a safe landing.

'Can someone please kill those damned alarms!' he said harshly. 'I can't hear myself think in here!'

Hazel hit a section of the control panels with her fist, and a sudden blessed silence fell across the bridge. 'Better?'

'Much,' said Owen.

'Can we do anything to help?' said Bonnie.

'Prayer is probably a good idea about now,' said Hazel. 'Any good deities where you come from?'

'What's our exact situation?' said Midnight.

'Bad, and getting worse,' said Owen. 'We are outgunned, and pursued by a much larger ship with power to burn and one hell of a grudge against us. And if we don't figure out how to slow down real soon now, some unfortunate part of the planet below is going to end up with a crater you could drop a small moon into. Does the phrase deep shit ring any bells? Oz, any suggestions?'

'You could always offer to surrender,' said the AI calmly in his ear. 'Of course, they'd probably kill you slowly and turn you into Hadenmen… but it is an option you haven't considered.'

'Thanks a whole bunch,' said Owen.

'Can't we fight back?' said Bonnie.

'We don't have anything powerful enough to hurt them,' said Hazel. 'And anyway, our targeting systems just went offline. We need the extra power for the shields. Which are currently on the brink of collapse.'

'There must be something we can do!' said Midnight.

'I am open to suggestions!' said Owen. 'Moon, those are your people. Can't you… talk to them or something?'

'The augmented men undoubtedly consider me a traitor,' said Moon, his thick, buzzing voice calm and unmoved. 'Of us all, they want me dead the most. Our situation would appear to be hopeless. I estimate our shields will collapse in the next thirty seconds.'

There was an explosion at the rear of the yacht, and the whole ship shuddered. The alarms came back on again for a few seconds before Hazel shut them up, running her hands frantically across the control panels.

'Hull breach, Owen! We're losing pressure, and we'll have to drop a hell of a lot farther into the planet's atmosphere before the pressures equal out. We have a small fire, but the automatic systems seem to be handling it. Rear shields are down, mid shields… are holding. For the moment. Twenty percent systems failures all across the board. We can't afford to take any more hits like that.'

'Do we have escape pods?' said Bonnie. 'Grav sleds? Any way off this wreck?'

'I don't believe this,' said Owen. 'I've already had one ship shot out from under me, and been forced to crash-land in a jungle. Why is this happening to me again? Moon, think of something!'

There was another explosion in the rear. The ship's engines were shrieking horribly. Warning lights blinked all over the control panels, and then everything shut down. Owen looked at the dead panels before him, and didn't have a clue what to do.

'Oh, shit,' said Hazel. 'Main computers just went down. Shields are down. All weapon systems off-line. Life support is failing. The engines are running out of control. This isn't a ship anymore, it's a missile. Owen, with all the computers down, we have no way of landing this ship.'

Everyone looked at each other. Owen thought hard. He had to stay calm. Think it through. 'We're all Maze survivors,' he said hesitantly. 'Maybe if we just bailed out, and hope we hit a deep enough part of the ocean…'

'No,' said Hazel. 'Not at this speed. We're tough, but we're not that tough.'

'Oz?' said Owen. 'There must be something we haven't tried.'

'Sorry, Owen. Nothing I can do. Doesn't this remind you of our arrival on Shandrakor? I'm almost nostalgic.'

'That's it!' said Owen, turning quickly to Moon. 'When the Imperial starcruisers shot the hell out of the first Sunstrider, you integrated yourself with the ship's computers directly and guided us down! Can you do the same again?'

'Wait a minute!' said Hazel. 'The last time he tried that, we still bloody crashed, and we were lucky to walk away alive!'

'Do you have a better idea?' said Owen.

'It's moments like this make me wish I'd stayed a pirate,' said Hazel. 'Moon, get on with it.'

'I have already established a connection with the surviving computer systems,' said Moon, just a little distantly. 'A plan has occurred to me. It is somewhat extreme, but offers a seventy-three percent chance of success. All other alternatives present distinctly lower chances of survival.'

'Oh, hell, go for it,' said Owen. 'But if you smash up my ship again, I'll melt you down to repair it.'

'Oh, ye of little faith,' said Moon calmly, and he shut down the engines. The few remaining controls went dead, and even the emergency lighting went out. It was very dark on the bridge, and very quiet.

'Moon,' said Hazel in a dangerously calm tone of voice. 'What have you done?'

'I've shut everything down,' said the augmented man, his golden eyes glowing brightly in the dark. 'I am hoping to convince the Hadenman ship that we are dead in the water. They should then call off their pursuit and remove themselves from the gravity well while they still can. Once I've estimated enough time has passed for them to be safely out of range, I will restart the systems and attempt a landing. Of course, with the sensors down I have no way of knowing whether they'll have left or not. And we will be very close to the surface of the planet by the time I restart the engines. Still, it's these little moments of drama that make life worth living, isn't it?'

There was a long pause in the utter darkness of the bridge. 'I'm going to shoot him,' said Hazel finally. 'Moon, say something so I know where to aim. You're completely bloody insane!'

'Quite,' said Moon. 'Which is why the Hadenman will be fooled. They are incapable of such imaginative leaps. Fortunately, I am no longer limited to merely logical thinking.'

'Oh, great,' said Owen. 'A Hadenman who's acquired a taste for Russian roulette. I feel sick. How much longer do we have to free-fall before you can restart the engines?'

'Ah,' said Moon. 'Now, that is the tricky bit.'

'What?' said Bonnie. 'What did he just say? And why have I got this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that I'm really not going to like his answer?'

'Well,' said Moon, 'to be absolutely sure the golden ship is out of range, I will have to leave it to the last possible moment, and then hope there are enough functional systems left in the ship to restart and control the engines. There will not, unfortunately, be any room for error.'

'Right,' said Midnight. 'That is it. Time we were leaving, Bonnie. A good warrior always knows when to cut her losses and head for the horizon. Hazel, nice to have known you, but I think this would be a really good time for you to return Bonnie and I to our own dimensions. Not that I don't have any faith in your demented friend, but I really don't think I want to be here to see how this all turns out.'

'Yeah,' said Bonnie. 'What she said.'

'Tough,' said Hazel. 'I'm not entirely sure how I do what I do, but I'm pretty sure that if I were to send you back right now, you'd both still be traveling at your present speed. Which means you'd probably reappear at the exact spot I took you from, only traveling at something well past the speed of sound. When you eventually hit something solid, they'd have to scrape up your remains with a palette knife. Of course, if you really want to risk it…'

'Oh, hell,' said Bonnie. 'We wouldn't think of deserting our friends in their hour of need. Would we, Midnight?'

'Of course not,' said Midnight. 'Perish the thought. I think I feel sick.'

'Moon,' said Owen. 'I'm really very sure the golden ship is gone by now. Start the bloody engines.'

'Actually,' said Moon, 'I have been attempting to restart the engines for the past twenty-two seconds, to no