Kassar backed away from Ruby, panting for breath, blood screaming from his wounds. He still held his sword, but it shook uncontrollably in his hand. Ruby went after him, still smiling. She'd had enough fun for the moment, and now it was time for the Cardinal to die. He saw the decision in her eyes and frantically held up his other hand.
"Back off, bitch! The controls for the prisoners' execution are wired into my glove. One step closer, and they're dead!"
"You're bluffing," said Ruby calmly. "If you could do that, you'd have done it by now, just for spite."
Kassar smiled. "Try me. What will your precious rebel friends think of you when they learn you could have saved the prisoners, but didn't choose to?"
Ruby shrugged, sprang forward, and brought her sword savagely down with all her strength behind it. The heavy blade sheared clean through Kassar's wrist, and his hand fell twitching to the ground. Kassar screamed breathlessly, dropped his sword, and grabbed the stump of his wrist, trying to squeeze it shut. Blood pumped past his gripping fingers.
"I've never given a damn what people think of me," said Ruby Journey.
"I'm rich," said Kassar, forcing the words past gritted teeth. His face was white as a skull. "Name your price."
"Now, that's more like it. How much have you got?"
"How much do you want?"
"All of it. Where is it?"
"In a safe. In my quarters. Gold. Payroll for the Faithful. Let me go, and it's yours."
Ruby thought for a moment. "Thanks for the tip, Cardinal. I'll check it out later. Now, say good-bye."
Her sword swung around in a long double-handed arc and cut off Kassar's head. It went bouncing and rolling away into the surrounding crush and was quickly lost to sight, kicked this way and that and trampled underfoot. Ruby smiled, satisfied. A good kill, and gold for afters. The day was looking up. She searched Kassar's pockets, found a set of keys, and went to help free the prisoners, humming a merry tune.
The fight went on, the rebels pushing back the Empire forces almost at will, until finally some security officer had the good sense to surrender. The idea caught on in a flash, and soon there were swords dropping and hands going up all over the place. And as quickly as that, the battle was over. Ruby and Storm freed the prisoners, and Beatrice ushered the clones out of the complex. There were cries of joy and relief as the rebel forces found their loved ones safe, and hugs and tears became the order of the day. Toby and Flynn covered it all, broadcasting live to an astonished Empire.
And that was when the factory blew up.
The first set of explosives to detonate set off all the others, and within seconds the whole factory became a great blazing fireball. The core of the building became a searing inferno, and blazing wreckage rained down on all sides. The outer walls blew apart, unable to contain the pressure, and the deadly heat ballooned outward, followed by a storm of flying red-hot shrapnel. There was nowhere the hundreds of people could hide—no cover anywhere. They were only seconds away from certain death when Random and Ruby reached out to each other, linked minds, and threw up a protective force field to hold back the flames and explosions. The firestorm raged against the shield, battering their minds, but still it held on and on until the force of the firestorm was spent and the shield was no longer needed. And only then did it disappear, and Jack Random and Ruby Journey sank to their knees, blood spilling from their nose and mouth and ears. They clung together, healing. The heat was devastating now, but bearable. The wreckage of the factory burned brightly, flames shooting up into the sky. After a while Storm came over to join them.
"Amazing. Is there anything you can't do?"
"Yeah," said Ruby hoarsely. "Save a whole safe full of gold bullion that just went up with that factory. Damn. I was looking forward to that."
Random was still laughing about that sometime later as he and Ruby and Storm led the rebels and clones back down into the tunnels under Technos III. The surviving Empire forces, disarmed, sat around and looked at each other and waited for somebody else to decide what they should do next. And out of the inferno, out of the blazing wreckage, out of the hell that was all that remained of the factory complex, came Half A Man, striding unhurriedly through the flames, untouched by the heat. He walked over to Daniel and Stephanie Wolfe, and shook his head slowly.
"Trained Church troops beaten like amateurs, and three Investigators dead. The factory utterly destroyed. Lionstone is not going to be pleased. If I were you, I'd start thinking up some really inventive excuses."
He strode off to bark orders at what was left of the Empire Forces. Stephanie stared mutely at the burning ruins of her factory. "All gone. Everything. We'll have to start again from scratch. If the Empress doesn't take the stardrive away from us for this fiasco."
"And both our spouses are dead," said Daniel.
"Ah, well," said Stephanie. "At least some good came of this." She glared into the leaping flames. "Our explosives couldn't have done all that. Someone else must have interfered."
"Probably," said Daniel. "Odds are we'll never find out what really happened here. It doesn't matter. It's over. I'm not needed here anymore. I'm finally free to go and look for Daddy."
And he strode away, without once looking back. "Danny!" Stephanie called desperately after him. "Come back! You can't just leave me here like this. I need you. Come back, you bastard!"
Flynn got that on camera, too. Toby Shreck stood beside him, grinning foolishly. "Live, Flynn. We got it all, live. We'll win every award going for this, and probably a few they'll make up specially. I haven't felt like this since one of the Family maids showed me what was what when I was fourteen."
"I don't know about you," said Flynn, finally lowering his camera, "but my hourly rate just went up. Way up."
"Damn right," said Toby. "I wonder what we should do for an encore…"
"Don't worry," said Half A Man, "I'll think of something."
Toby and Flynn looked at each other. "I don't know about you," said Toby, "but I think fame and fortune just got indefinitely rerouted."
Epilogue
PRELUDE TO WAR
And so begins the Rebellion.
Owen Deathstalker and Hazel d'Ark, along with the man who might be Jack Random, and Jenny Psycho, last manifest of the uber-esper, Mater Mundi, will head for Mistworld, not knowing the terrors that await them there. The Empire, together with the awful thing called Legion, is finally ready to invade the rebel planet. In Mistport, old friends will meet again, and long-buried secrets will finally come to light.
Giles Deathstalker, Finlay Campbell, Evangeline Shreck, and Julian Skye will head for what had been a pleasure world, but is now known as Haceldama, the Field of Blood. There they will find children's dreams turned to bloody nightmares, and risk the damnation of all their souls.
David Deathstalker and his friend Kit SummerIsle, also known as Kid Death, will head for the Deathstalker Standing on the planet Virimonde. Once it had been Owen's home, but David is determined to make it his. He can't know that the Lord High Dram, also known as the Widowmaker, has other plans for the peaceful backwater planet. Plans that will end in blood and death and horror, and the true test of friendship.
And finally, with Rebellion breaking out on a hundred worlds across the Empire, the War will finally begin. Captain Silence and Investigator Frost will be called home and placed in charge of defending Golgotha, as the rebel forces close in around it.
It will be War now, with little mercy and less honor, and damn all glory for the quick or the dead. And all of it pivoting around one man, Owen Deathstalker, the hope of humanity, the warrior who fights for peace, and knows so little of it himself.
Simon R. Green, Deathstalker Rebellion
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