Deathstalker Honor

'No,' said Hazel firmly. 'He did that when he forgot what he was fighting for. He was Warrior Prime, in his day, defender of Humanity. When he decided he wanted to be ruler instead of defender, he betrayed us all.'

'He really was a legend,' said Owen. 'An authentic hero. He actually did do most of the things the stories say he did.'

'Yeah, including the creating and wielding of the Darkvoid Device. A thousand suns snuffed out in a moment, and no one knows how many billions dead. The greatest mass murderer in history.'

'He meant well. He always meant well. He just… lost his way.'

'Ah, hell,' said Hazel, slipping an arm through his. 'We all lose our way sometimes. You just killed the man, Owen. The legend lives on.'

'I can't go home again,' said Owen bitterly.

'You couldn't have anyway. You've changed too much. And mostly for the better.'

Owen raised an eyebrow. 'Only mostly?'

'Gosh, sir aristo, could you teach me to arch one eyebrow like that?'

'Go to hell, peasant.'

They stood together for a while, thinking their separate thoughts. 'Owen,' Hazel said eventually. 'Have you been manifesting any new abilities just recently?'

'Not that I've noticed,' said Owen. 'Why do you ask?'

'Well, I was wondering if you'd learned how to call up alternative versions of yourself, like I do.'

'Hell, no. I'd definitely have noticed something like that. That is one spooky ability, if you ask me.'

'Trust me, I know exactly how you feel. One of these days I'm going to see if I can get one of them to hang around long enough for me to ask a few pointed questions.'

'Do that,' said Owen. 'I'd love to hear the answers. I think.' And then he broke off and frowned suddenly.

'Now what?' said Hazel.

'Valentine,' said Owen. 'He said he'd left a surprise for me.'

'Oh, hell,' said Hazel. 'You mean we have to search the whole damned castle again?'

'I think we'd better. Valentine's little surprises are always unpleasant, and tend toward the dramatic.'

'Owen,' said Oz suddenly, 'I need to talk to you. Right now.'

'Not now, Oz. We're busy.'

'Well, you won't be soon if you don't pay attention. I've found something in your security computers. It appears to be a countdown.'

'A countdown?' said Owen. 'Toward what?'

'That's the problem. I can't find out. Whatever the program is, Valentine's locked it away behind a whole series of passwords that I'm having Hell's own trouble cracking. I'm currently scanning through the entire castle, trying to—oh, shit.'

'You've got that we're-in-real-trouble look on your face again,' said Hazel. 'What's happening?'

'Oz says he's found a countdown. And then he said, oh shit.'

'Ah,' said Hazel. 'We are in real trouble.'

'Oz,' said Owen determinedly. 'Could you please expand on oh shit?'

'There's a bomb,' said Oz. 'Planted deep under the Standing. And it's a really nasty one. Big enough to blow the entire castle to a bunch of free-floating atoms, and leave a glowing crater large enough to park a small moon in.'

'That sounds like Valentine,' said Owen. 'Vindictive to the last. If he can't play with the toys, no one can. Any chance you can defuse it?'

'Oh, shit,' said Oz.

'Your expression just changed again,' said Hazel.

'Unfortunately,' said Oz, 'in discovering the bomb and attempting to defuse it, I seem to have triggered another program…'

And that was when the steel shutters slammed down over the windows, the secret passage closed itself off, and the only door shut and locked itself with a very final-sounding series of clicks. Hazel looked wildly about her, gun and sword in hand again.

'Owen, talk to me! What the hell is going on here?'

'Valentine's accessed the last-ditch security programs, designed to protect the castle's occupants in time of emergency, and tied it in to any attempt to defuse the bomb. And since Valentine has undoubtably changed all the passwords, it's a fairly safe bet we have no way of getting the computers to unseal this room before a very large bomb goes off and makes the whole problem redundant.'

'Bomb?' said Hazel. 'What bomb? No one said anything about a bomb!'

'Oz did,' said Owen. 'Remember the countdown?'

'Hell with passwords,' said Hazel. 'I'll get us out of here.'

She aimed her disrupter at the nearest shuttered window, and fired before Owen could stop her. So he grabbed her and pulled her protesting to the floor—just as the searing energy beam ricocheted back from the unharmed shutter and passed right through the air where they'd been standing. Owen and Hazel tried to burrow into the carpeted floor as the beam bounced back and forth above them, ricocheting from shutter after shutter until finally it exhausted itself. Owen looked at Hazel.

'Please don't do that again. There are shutters everywhere now, even inside the walls, specially reinforced to stand off energy weapons, which I would have told you if you'd just waited a damn minute!'

'Don't you raise your voice to me, Deathstalker! This is your castle. Get us out of here. Do something!'

Owen considered panicking, but decided he didn't have time. 'Oz, how much time left on the countdown?'

'Two minutes, seven seconds, and counting.'

'Oh, shit.'

'I already said that. It didn't help.'

'What?' said Hazel, looking at Owen's face. 'What? What?'

Owen thought hard. There had to be a way out. He hadn't come this far, achieved so much, only to die from a simple trap like this.

'I really don't like the expression on your face,' said Hazel.

'How invulnerable are you feeling right now?'

'That bad, huh?'

'Worse. We've got two minutes before the bomb blows us off this world and into the next, and we can't even get out of this room. Unless you've learned Giles's trick of teleporting?'

'No. He never did get around to explaining how he did that before you killed him.'

'Oh, right. Blame me. Maybe if we all just talked to each other a little more…'

They stopped and looked at each other, and a strange calm settled over them. 'This is it, isn't it?' said Hazel. 'End of the line. Funny. Always knew I was fated to die young. But I never thought I'd go out like this. So… helpless.'

Owen put an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against him. 'Hell,' he said, 'we've been living on borrowed time since we first met. It had to run out eventually. And… I'm glad we had our time together. In a strange kind of way, I don't think I've ever been happier.'

'Yeah,' said Hazel. 'It has been one hell of a ride, hasn't it? And if we have to go out, at least we're going together.'

They sat down on the edge of the bed, side by side. They kissed once, as though they had all the time in the world, and then just leaned companionably together.

'Who knows?' said Hazel finally. 'We stood off a point-blank blast from a disrupter cannon back on Mistworld, remember? Maybe we'll get lucky again.'

'Hold everything,' said Owen, suddenly sitting up straight. 'Follow that thought. We stood off that disrupter blast because we were linked together. Our minds were joined together. That's how we survived!'

Hazel scowled. 'I've never liked linking. I don't like letting anyone else into my mind.'

'Hazel, this is no time to be modest! Would you rather die?'