Deathstalker Honor

much of the outer hull from stem to stern, and more vines were crawling into position, inching doggedly forward like lengths of animated intestine. Thick leaves like scarlet palms slapped against the hull from all sides, adding still more layers, as though the jungle was trying to bury all traces of the intruding ship.

By the time Owen had taken all this in, the airlock opening had already disappeared behind a mat of bloodred vines. He struggled back through the clinging foliage and tried to cut through the vines with his sword, but the blade clung stickily to the vines, and he had to jerk hard to pull it free. He raised his disrupter and took aim. The energy beam punched a hole through the vines, and went on to do untold further damage inside the airlock. The blackened vines tried to catch alight, but the rain quickly put a stop to that. Owen watched numbly as the vines slowly but deliberately repaired and covered over the hole he'd made.

'Ah,' said Moon. 'Now, that is unfortunate.'

Owen lost it completely. A shriek of pure rage and frustration burst out of him as he stamped around in a circle, hacking with his sword at any vegetation that got in his way. 'That is it! That is bloody it! Not only have I lost my second yacht in a crash landing, not only have we now been cut off from all our supplies and extra weapons, not only is it at least twenty miles between here and the Mission, but it is pouring rain and I don't have my cloak with me! I am soaked! I hate being wet like this! Hate it, hate it, hate it!'

He kicked viciously at a patch of vines, got his foot tangled, and fell over. No one was stupid enough to laugh. He surged to his feet again, his face crimson as the surrounding vegetation, breathing hard. Moon looked at Hazel.

'Has Owen changed while I was gone? He never used to do that.'

'No,' said Hazel. 'He didn't. Everyone stay put here while I go and have a quiet word with him.'

'My Owen never did anything like that,' said Midnight. 'He was far too dignified.'

'My Owen did all kinds of things,' said Bonnie, tugging reflectively at one of her piercings.

'I'll just bet he did,' said Midnight.

Hazel left Moon trying to make sense of the undercurrents in those last few comments, and moved cautiously forward. Owen was leaning with his head against the coal black bark of a tree trunk. His breathing had slowed somewhat, but he still had his sword in his hand. Hazel hadn't found Owen's outburst funny at all. In all the time she'd known him, he'd never once lost his temper like that. Given what he was capable of, if he got angry enough, Hazel found his sudden loss of control worrying. She stopped a respectful distance away and cleared her throat politely. Owen didn't look around.

'Go away, Hazel.'

'What's the matter, Owen?' she said quietly. 'It wasn't that bad a landing, all things considered. I mean, we're alive.'

'It wasn't the landing,' said Owen, staring off into the scarlet jungle. Rain ran down his face, and dripped from his nose and chin. 'It's… everything. I am just so damn tired of everything going wrong. This was supposed to be a simple mission: show up, flash the powers, kick a few Hadenman butts, and move on to more important matters. Now look at us. Stranded in the middle of nowhere on a hellplanet colonized by lepers, while all hell is breaking loose in the Empire. I shouldn't be here. I should be out there, fighting the aliens or the Hadenmen or whatever the hell Shub's throwing at us this week. I have a duty, an obligation, to use my abilities to help Humanity. But no, I'm stuck here in the back of beyond when I'm needed elsewhere.'

'You're needed here too,' said Hazel. 'Saint Bea wouldn't have asked for us unless things were really desperate here.'

'They're lepers,' Owen said brutally. 'They're dying anyway. The Empire needs us more.'

'Every planet, every people, is just as important as any other,' said Hazel. 'Didn't your time as an outlaw teach you anything? It's not just the big, important planets like Golgotha that matter. Everyone matters. I know what this is all about. It's hurt pride. You thought you could just drop in here, act the hero for Saint Bea, and then move on to something more high-profile. Instead you screwed up. You, the Deathstalker, the living legend. You think you're the only one that can save the Empire from its enemies. Well, you're wrong. The Empire is perfectly capable of defending itself without you. Even the mighty Deathstalker can't be everywhere at once. Humanity survived perfectly well before we marvelous Maze people came along, and they'll manage just as well when we're gone. The Maze may have made us more than human, but it didn't make us gods. Now cut the crap and shape up, or I'll slap you a good one.'

Owen finally turned his head and looked at her, and something in his cold eyes made Hazel wonder if she'd gone too far. But she held her ground, and after a moment Owen relaxed just a little, and tried a smile.

'You wouldn't really hit me, would you?'

'Damn right I would.'

'Okay, I surrender. No more tantrums. Let's go and see what kind of a fix Saint Bea's got herself into.'

Hazel hesitated. 'Are you… all right now, Owen?'

'No. But I am back in control. I'm just… tired. Tired of things never going right for me. Just once I'd like to take a trip on a ship that doesn't crash, or get attacked, or land me up to my ass in trouble. You said it yourself: I'm supposed to be the great hero, the savior of Humanity, and I can't even make my own life work out properly.'

Hazel had to laugh. 'Owen, everyone's life is like that. Now, let's get back to the others and work out what we're going to do next before we all drown in this bloody rain. Doesn't it ever let up?'

'Not for the last few million years. Maybe we could fashion umbrellas out of the local plants.'

'I don't think they'd like that,' said Hazel, looking around her at the surrounding vegetation, all of which seemed to be constantly if slowly on the move. 'This stuff gives me the creeps. Plants should know their place.'

They returned to the others to find Bonnie and Midnight ostentatiously not talking to each other. Moon had given up trying to make sense of the situation, and was pretending interest in a quivering purple shrub the size of a small house. Owen gave his crashed ship a last look. It was already so deeply buried under crimson vegetation that it might never have been there.

'All right,' he said loudly. 'Cut the chatter. It's at least ten miles to Saint Bea's Mission, so the sooner we get started, the sooner we can get there and get out of this rain. Oz, give me directions to the Mission.'

'Of course, Owen. Just head out of this clearing in the direction of those three trees leaning together, and I'll guide you from there. I feel I should brief you about some of the more impressive local vegetation. It can be rather dangerous.'

'You mean it's poisonous?'

'More like homicidal. Animal life never really got started here, so the plants prey on each other for space, light, water, rooting, etc. Down the millennia they've developed some very nasty tactics, and lots of ways of expressing their displeasure when thwarted. I suggest you all stick very close together, and be prepared to defend yourselves.'

Owen passed this on, and the others received it with varying degrees of disgust.

'As if this planet wasn't unpleasant enough,' said Bonnie. 'Bad enough my piercings will probably rust up in all this rain, but now we have to hack our way through miles of killer plants. I can feel one of my heads coming on.'

'Look on it as a challenge,' said Midnight. 'A warrior never quails from adversity.'

'You look on it as a challenge,' said Bonnie. 'And I'll stand back and watch you doing it.'

'Cool it,' said Hazel. 'I mean, come on; how dangerous can a few mobile shrubs be?'

'I have a horrible feeling we're going to find out,' said Owen. 'Moon, you take the point. Feel free to shoot or cut up anything at all you don't like the look of. And let's try to set a good pace, people. I hate to think what this place is like when it gets dark. And in case you were wondering, yes, all our torches are back in the ship.'

'Somehow, I'm not surprised,' said Hazel. 'God, I hate rain.'

* * *

They followed Oz's murmured directions into the rain-soaked crimson forest, fighting the urge to look back at the mound where their ship had been. The Sunstrider II was their last link with civilized, technological Empire. From now on they were on their own.

There was little shelter to be found anywhere, rain dripping remorselessly from every surface. They were all soon soaked to the skin, and rain squelched inside their boots with every step. Their hair was plastered to their faces, and they had to keep blinking their eyes to clear them. The ground under their feet was mostly mud, flattened and compacted like stone in places, but it could change without warning into inches-deep gunk in which