"Mess with me again, and your principles will be going home in separate jars."
Kassar about-faced and marched out with extreme dignity, slamming the door behind him. Toby waited a cautious few seconds, and then gave the closed door the finger before getting up and jamming two small wedges under the bottom of the door. That should put an end to any more storming ins. He turned back to the console and leaned over the screens again. He knew just the bit of tape he wanted. A nice stretch of Cardinal Kassar drilling his Church troops in the blistering summer heat; standing at his ease in the shade while shouting and bullying and generally carrying on like the tight-assed little dictator he was. Toby grinned and bit down hard on his cigar. He wouldn't even have to sneak this past Kassar. The damn fool was so full of himself he'd probably think it made him look good.
Toby took another drink from his bottle and then put it firmly to one side. The uppers were rocketing through his system like ricocheting bullets, and he felt great. He called up some footage of the trenches surrounding the factory. The circles of hell from which no man returned unchanged. Patch in some shots of the elite Jesuit commandos drilling the fanatical Church troops, and then cut back to the wounded in the hospital tent. Toby rocked back and forth in his chair. Someone was banging on the door. The wedges would keep them out. Toby's fingers flowed over the keyboard. He was on a roll now. If the Wolfes and the Cardinal and all the other bastards thought they could keep him from filing the story of his life, they were crazy. They could view the tape as often as they liked; it wouldn't make any difference. They'd probably never even heard of the palimpsest method. Record something on a tape, then record over it. Playback just shows the upper recording, but the right kind of machine will pick up the earlier recording, still there, underneath. The process hadn't been around long, but Toby had always believed in being up to the minute. There'd be a stink afterward, but interest in Technos III would be so high the Wolfes wouldn't be able to censor him anymore. Toby Shreck laughed aloud and worked on into the early hours of the morning.
A handful of Rejects led Jack Random, Alexander Storm, and Ruby Journey down through a series of dimly lit corridors and tunnels, far below the surface of Technos III. The tunnels grew increasingly narrow, sometimes barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast. The walls were smooth in some places, where they'd been blasted out of the living rock by energy weapons, and torn and jagged in others, where tools and bare hands had done the work. Random tried very hard not to think about the increasing weight of rock above his head. As the professional rebel, he'd spent his share of time working from hidden underground caverns and tunnels, away from prying eyes and sensors, but he'd never learned to like it.
The tunnels twisted and turned and branched endlessly, a dark maze of such complexity that any outsider would be helplessly lost in a few minutes. Random had no doubt that was deliberate. The Rejects didn't trust anyone with their secrets all at once, not even him. He'd have been disappointed in them if they had. As always, he knew exactly where he was, but he didn't like to tell them and spoil their fun. So he strode along quite happily. Ruby at his side, Storm puffing along behind him. Random was getting a little worried about Storm. His old friend had been in the field with him for many years, fighting the Empire's best on more planets than either of them cared to remember. But they'd both known they were getting too old for it, even before they got their asses kicked so conclusively on Cold Rock. Since then, Random had been given a new lease of life, courtesy of the Maze, and reveled in it, but Storm had been left behind, still growing older and slower. He hadn't taken the growing differences between him and Random at all well, but Random was at a loss what to do about it. Storm was doing good and valued work as an adviser and strategist, but it wasn't the same, and both of them knew it. So when Storm had insisted on coming along on this particular mission, just to stretch his legs, Random hadn't had the heart to say no.
"How many miles of these tunnels are there?" said Storm, trying to keep the tiredness out of his voice and failing.
"No one knows for sure," said Long Lankin 32. The ex-factory clone looked as thin and malnourished as ever. He found the going hard, too, but like Storm he refused to be left out of things, so the two of them had naturally gravitated together. "The only maps are in the Rejects' heads, and they only know part of the whole layout. So we're protected if any of us are captured. The Rejects have been digging these tunnels for centuries now, repairing old ones and blasting out new tunnels, so the maps are always changing. Sometimes I feel I need a guide just to help me find the toilet in the early hours of the morning.
"The Wolfe security forces dig tunnels of their own, too, just to complicate things. Sometimes the excavating teams run into each other, and then all hell breaks loose. The war goes on down here, as well. Tunnel rats clawing at each other in the darkness. The mercenaries don't last long in the tunnels. They can't take the constant darkness and claustrophobia. The pressure drives them crazy. The Rejects, on the other hand, actually like it down here. The protective layers of stone and metal make them feel secure. Crazy bastards. No offense, people."
The twenty or so Rejects walking with them smiled and nodded, not insulted. Alexander Storm summoned up enough breath for another question.
"How deep do these tunnels go? It feels like we've been descending for hours. Any further, and we'll need an express elevator to get back to the surface."
"The surface can do without us today," said Specter Alice. She'd developed a fondness for Storm and attached herself to him whenever possible, to his clear distress. She was after all old and short and ugly, and her furs hadn't been washed since they were still on the animals that provided them. And there was madness in her eyes, right up front where everyone could see it. She smiled chummily at Storm and tried to take his hand. He avoided it with the dexterity of long practice. She wasn't put out.
"We're heading down to one of our man meeting chambers," she said happily. "Time you saw where the real decisions get made. Don't worry; we won't go down too far. Dangerous things live in the deep down. Creatures that have adapted to the depths and the dark, away from the weather and the war. Mostly, we don't disturb them, and they don't massacre us. Don't worry, dear; you stick with old Specter Alice. She'll keep you safe."
Storm smiled weakly, not feeling at all safe, and looked determinedly ahead in the hope of discouraging further conversation. Random had to hide a smile of his own. Storm had been something of a lady-killer in his day. At his side, Ruby sighed heavily, and he turned his attention to her. She was scowling, her mouth turned down sullenly.
"I hate walking," she said, apropos of nothing in particular. "I'm a bounty hunter, not a health freak. Where are all these tunnel rats and deadly creatures? I could do with a little excitement. I didn't come to Technos III to be a tourist. When do I get to kill somebody?"
"I like her," said Long Lankin 32. "She's got the right attitude."
They walked on and on. Storm had more and more trouble keeping up with the pace, even with Specter Alice at his side to encourage him. Random felt guilty. Every day he looked younger, felt younger, and Storm looked older. Where once they had been comrades in arms, now they looked more like father and son. Storm hadn't said anything yet, but Random knew his old friend was aware of the growing differences between them. Random tried not to think about the differences too much. He didn't like the idea that he might be becoming an altogether different person. Even if he did feel alive again for the first time in years. He fell back to walk beside Storm and wondered whether he did it out of friendship or pity.
"Why did we ever come here?" Storm said quietly to him. "War is young man's work. We're too old for this, Jack. We should be sitting beside a fire in a tavern, telling outrageous stories of our youth. We've earned that. We spilled enough blood, in enough battles. Why do we have to do it all again?"
"Because the war isn't over," said Random. "We swore an oath, remember? We swore upon our blood and our honor that we would fight the Empire until eit
her it fell or we did."
"Young men swore that oath," said Storm. "Young men who knew nothing about war or politics, or the reality of how the Empire works."
"Are you saying you don't believe in the Cause anymore?"
"Of course I still believe in the Cause! I'm here, aren't I? I'm just saying it's time for someone else to carry the banner. Someone younger, who doesn't feel the cold in his bones or wake up coughing his lungs up every morning. We've done our bit. And I'm too old to die on a strange world beside strange people, fighting to free a few clones from a factory."
"You'll get your second wind soon," said Random lamely. "You'll feel better then."
"Don't bloody patronize me, Random," said Storm, and they strode along in silence after that.
Until the Reject in the lead came to a sudden halt and raised a hand to stop those behind him. Everyone stood quietly together in the pool of the lanterns' light, staring into the gloom ahead of them, listening carefully. Storm looked anxiously about him, but Random and Specter Alice were too busy listening to pay him any attention. Random frowned, concentrating, reaching out with his altered senses. He could just make out a low, regular thudding, overlapping itself again and again, coming from somewhere up ahead in the tunnel.
"What is it?" he asked quietly. "What's coming?"
"Wolfe tunnel rats," said Specter Alice. "They have devices for detecting movement in nearby tunnels. They're close now. Brace yourselves."
And as suddenly as that, everyone had a weapon of some sort in their hands. Mostly, swords and axes, with the occasional length of spiked chain. Random and Ruby moved automatically to stand together, swords at the ready, leaving Storm to fend for himself. He glared at their unresponsive backs and hefted his own sword uncertainly. The steady thudding grew nearer and nearer. Random's free hand hovered over the disrupter on his belt, but he didn't draw it. He didn't like to think what a ricocheting energy beam would do in these close quarters. He just hoped the Wolfe fighters had had the same thought. The wall to his right cracked apart suddenly, torn from floor to ceiling, and men in armored battle suits lurched out into the tunnel. They moved surprisingly quickly amid the whine of supporting servo-mechanisms and tore into the massed group of rebels with massive axes and long swords that only powered armor could have wielded.
The two sides clashed together, the rebels darting around and among the slower armored men, searching out their blind spots and weak points with flashing swords and axes. There wasn't much room for maneuver in the confined space. Instead, there was an endlessly shifting, boiling mass of bodies packed together, taking a stand just long enough for a solid blow before slipping away again. The slower and the unlucky cried out, and blood spurted in the thick air, and those who fell to be trampled underfoot rarely rose to fight again. Swords and axes bounced harmlessly away from the solid plates of the Wolfe armor, but there were weaker, vulnerable spots at joints and junctures, for those who knew where to look for them. But the armored men could take a dozen hits and press on unharmed, while a blow powered by their servomotors could cut clean through a Reject's body. And there were far more armored men than Rejects.
One by one the rebels fell, pushed farther and farther back down the tunnel. Three armored men were down, dispatched by blows to neck or eyes, but only three out of many. Still the Rejects fought on, determined and far from desperate. Their long adaptation to Technos III's extremes had made them somewhat more than human, and they were much more used to the fighting conditions underground. They swarmed around the armored men, ducking and dodging blows with almost impossible speed, never letting up in their attack. And slowly, step-by-step, their retreat stopped.
Right in the thick of it all, Ruby Journey braced herself and swung her sword with both hands. The blade powered around in a tight arc and sheared clean through a soldier's armored neck. The helmeted head bounced away across the sea of heaving shoulders before finally falling to the floor, the look of astonishment still clear on the bloody face. Random laughed and roared his approval. He brought his sword around in an arc, only to see the blade bounce harmlessly back from a suddenly raised armored arm. The impact jarred the sword right out of his hand, and it fell to disappear in the mess of heaving bodies. The Wolfe mercenary grinned and drew back his sword for a killing thrust. Ruby saw and cried out, but she was too far away to help. Raw fury blazed up inside Random, and he punched his opponent in the chest with all his strength. His bare fist hammered through the battle armor and plunged on into the man's chest. The Wolfe soldier screamed horribly as Random's fist closed around his heart and tore it out. Random held the still beating heart up in his hand, blood running down his arm as he laughed victoriously.
For a moment the battle seemed to stop, everyone frozen where they were, and then it began again, only this time the rebels were forcing the soldiers back. Random and Ruby pressed forward and could not be stopped, and the Rejects took new heart from their example. More of the armored men fell, screaming. Some turned to flee, but there wasn't room in the packed space, and they just got in the way of their fellows. Specter Alice crowed victoriously as she straddled the shoulders of a man in armor, leaning forward over him, her bloody dagger stabbing again and again through the eyeholes of his helmet.
In the end, not one Wolfe soldier got away. Their broken armored bodies littered the floor, stretching away down the tunnel. There were rebel dead, too, but not nearly so many. It seemed there was blood everywhere, running down the walls and pooled on the floor. Random and Ruby grinned at each other, and the Rejects crowded around them to congratulate them and slap them on the back and shoulder. Random scrubbed happily at the blood on his hand and arm with a cloth, and had a nod and a smile for everyone, until his eyes met Storm's. His old friend had broken a little apart from the others. There was blood on his sword and his clothes, but little of it seemed to be his. He was breathing hard, and his sword trembled in his hand. He looked at Random as though he was a stranger. Random moved over to join him, but stopped some way short, held back by the coldness in Storm's eyes.
"Who are you?" said Storm. "The Jack Random I remember couldn't do things like that. Nothing human could."
"I've… been through changes," said Random. "I'm more than I was. But I'm still me."
"No you're not," said Storm. "I don't know who you are anymore."
He turned away and walked off down the tunnel by himself. Random let him go. If only because there was a certain amount of truth in what his old friend had said. He looked up to see Specter Alice staring at him. He shrugged, and she shrugged back and went after Storm. Ruby Journey had meanwhile cleared a space around her with snarls and curses, and was methodically cleaning her sword with what had once been a fine silk handkerchief. Ruby wasn't much for congratulations or camaraderie. She wouldn't feel like talking with him now, either. Random shrugged again. He'd just done what he had to, as he had so many times before.
But he could still feel the heart beating out the last of its life in his hand while he laughed. That wasn't like him. Not like him at all.
He pushed the thought aside as another occurred to him. He couldn't help wondering if the Rejects had deliberately chosen a path that would intercept armored Wolfe tunnel rats, just to see what the legendary Jack Random and his friends were capable of when not part of a Reject army. It was the kind of thing he would have done once. But though he was also impressed with the way the Rejects had handled themselves, ready to risk death just to test him, he was a little disturbed that they hadn't even tried to take any prisoners. There came a time when hatred just got in the way of winning a war. In the end you won more victories by accepting the other side's surrender than by wiping them out to the last man. Or did the hatreds run too deep, here on Technos III?
The Church troops, known collectively as the Faithful, were training together in the great open area between the factory complex and the first trench, and Toby Shreck and Flynn were there to cover it all. Absolutely no one was glad to see them there, but Toby and Flynn were u
sed to that by now. Officially, the soldiers of the Church of Christ the Warrior and the hardened Wolfe mercenaries were supposed to be one integrated fighting force by now, but both sides had centuries of tradition, not to mention white-hot enmity, behind them. Consequently, what had been intended as an orchestrated set piece of hard drill and weapons training was rapidly deteriorating into a complete mess, as the Faithful and the mercs strode to outdo each other in sheer viciousness, if not skill.
Cardinal Kassar was there in his black battle armor, topped with a billowing crimson cape, screaming orders and counterorders till he was purple in what remained of his face. The color clashed with his outfit and warned of future heart problems, but no one felt like getting close enough to tell him. He cursed and yelled at the top of his parade ground voice, trying to force his men to behave through sheer force of personality. But not even the horrible punishments he was threatening were enough to restore order. The mercs were damned if they were going to be shown up by a bunch of pansy hymn singers, and the Church troops were determined to show a bunch of professional thugs what could be achieved by people trained in the one true faith. It was all getting very nasty, and not a little bloody. Both sides got their heads down and got stuck in.
Jesuit commandos were running back and forth between the lines, screaming orders and breaking up fights with impartial venom toward both sides, using whatever force was necessary. They darted here and there, snapping at their charges like incensed sheepdogs, but even they couldn't be everywhere at once. Still, it was clear to practically everyone present that it was only their efforts that were preventing a complete breakdown of authority. Even battle-hardened mercenaries had enough sense to be wary of the Jesuit commandos. They were the elite of the elite, hardened cold-eyed killers said to be second in the Empire only to the Investigators themselves. They fought in battles alongside their men and kept body parts as souvenirs. And not the usual ones, either.