“Who the hell is that?” said Alice.
“Can’t see any markings on it,” said Kit calmly. “It’s not one of yours, is it, David?”
“Don’t think so. It hasn’t got my crest on it. Besides, no one’s supposed to know I’m here. Whoever that is, it’s coming down at one hell of a pace. It occurs to me we might be a damn sight safer if we were to get away from the window. If that ship crashes anywhere near here, there’s going to be wreckage and shrapnel flying in all directions.”
“I think it’s still under control,” said Jenny. “More or less.”
The blazing craft swept over the tavern, the roar of its engines deafening at close quarters. The floor shook under their feet, and streams of dust and sawdust fell down from the beamed ceiling. They all ducked instinctively, but by the time they’d reacted, the craft had turned around and headed back again. The engines cut in and out, and then it dropped from the sky, crashing as much as landing in the courtyard outside the tavern. The ground shuddered under the impact, throwing the four observers off their feet. David got to his feet first, unlocked the main door, and hurried outside. He had some confused thought about hauling any injured out of the crashed ship, but the moment he got outside the door the heat from the blazing craft stopped him dead. He threw an arm to protect his face, feeling sweat pop out all over him. He tried to force himself forward, but his body wouldn’t obey him, flinching away from the awful heat. A hand grabbed him from behind and pulled him back into the tavern. Someone else slammed the door shut, cutting off the heat.
“Forget it,” said Kit, letting go of his arm. “No one’s getting out of that alive.”
“The hell they aren’t,” said Jenny from the window. “You’ve got to see this.”
The others hurried over to join her at the window. Outside in the courtyard, flames from the ship were rising higher than the tavern. But someone inside the craft had opened the emergency escape hatch, and two figures were emerging. As David and the others watched, the flames seemed to draw back from the hatch. Two women with the same face dropped down onto the blackened stones of the courtyard and headed for the tavern, apparently entirely unaffected by the blazing inferno around them.
“I know that face,” said Kit. “It’s the Stevie Blues.”
“How the hell are they doing that?” said Jenny.
“They’re clones, aren’t they?” said Alice excitedly. “I’ve never seen clones before!”
“If they’ve come looking for us, we could be in trouble,” David said quietly to Kit. “We owe the underground a lot of reports. It’s entirely possible the rebel council might have decided we need persuading to follow the party line.”
“Or, given that we know a lot about rebel plans, the Blues could have been sent to silence us,” said Kit. “Good thinking, David. I’ll make a paranoid out of you yet.”
“Okay,” said David. “This place has a back door. I suggest we use it. Now.”
“What is it?” said Jenny. “Do you know these people?”
“I don’t run from anyone,” said Kit to David, ignoring her. “Besides, there are only two of them.”
“Two battle esper firestarters are more than enough to reduce this place to ashes, along with anyone stupid enough to be inside it when they get here. Those are elves, Kit. Esper Liberation Front. The radical fringe of the radical fringe. The only time they take hostages is when they’re feeling hungry.”
“We can take them,” said Kit.
“Fine. You take the one on the left, and I’ll take to my heels. We can’t fight, Kit; we have the girls to think of. All right, plan B. We’ll talk them to death. No one ever accused the Stevie Blues of being particularly bright. Impulsive, psychotic, and more deadly than a Hadenman in a really bad mood, but not bright. If we keep our wits about us, I may be able to talk our way out of this.”
Kit sniffed. “I’d much rather kill them.”
“I know you would,” said David. “That’s your answer to everything. But your normal tactics aren’t going to be much use against someone who can melt your sword just by looking at it.”
“Good point,” said Kit. “All right, you talk to them. I’ll see if I can sneak round behind them, just in case.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” said David.
“Hold everything,” said Alice. “Do you know these people? I heard the word underground. Are they rebels?”
“Cool,” said Jenny. “I always wanted to meet some outsider rebels.”
And then everyone fell silent as the door swung open and two rebels with the same face stepped into the tavern. Young women in battered leathers with metal studs and dangling chains, over a grubby T-shirt bearing the legend Born To Burn. They were both short and stocky, with muscles bulging on their bare arms. Their long dark hair was full of brightly colored knotted ribbons, and there were splashes of matching colors on their faces. They might have been pretty, if it hadn’t been for their shared frown and the stern, dangerous look in their eyes. They nodded briefly to the Deathstalker, glared intimidatingly at the SummerIsle, and ignored the two girls.
“I’m Stevie One,” said the woman on the left. “This is Stevie Three. Don’t get us confused, or we’ll get cranky about it.”
“Right,” said Stevie Three. “We’re really quite different once you get to know us.”
“Good to see you again,” said David, trying hard to make his voice and smile seem natural. “What brings you all the way out here, exactly?”
“You,” said Stevie One. “But you can take your hand away from your sword. And SummerIsle, that is the worst case of sneaking around behind someone that I’ve ever seen. Now relax. We’re here to help. The shit is about to hit the fan in a major way, Deathstalker. You’ve been outlawed.”
David’s mouth dropped open. He could hear the girls’ shocked gasps, but for a moment he couldn’t say anything. It was as though someone had punched him in the stomach and taken away his breath. “What do you mean, outlawed?” he managed, finally.
“I mean, Lionstone wants your head on a stick,” said Stevie One. “Your holding is forfeit. Virimonde is no longer yours; and there’s a big reward waiting for anyone who brings Lionstone your head, preferably unattached to your body, so the Iron Bitch can spit in your eyes.”
“But why?” said David, almost plaintively. “I’ve been good. I’ve kept my head down, like we agreed.”
“Funnily enough,” said Stevie Three, “I don’t think Lionstone even knows you’re a rebel. She wants you dead because you encouraged local democracy and because you stood against her plans for mechanizing this planet. You shouldn’t have been so open with your Steward. And you really shouldn’t have threatened to go to the Company of Lords. Lionstone’s calling that conspiracy against the Crown. Every other Lord is scrambling to put as much distance as possible between himself and you. They can see which way the wind’s blowing. Luckily for you, Alice’s parents are rebels. They told us where to find you. The bad news is that Empire ships ambushed us on the way down and shot the hell out of us. So you can forget about hopping a lift offplanet. We’re all stuck here. Your best bet is to run like hell back to your Standing and barricade yourself in. We’ll try and work out some way to get you safely offworld. We can’t let the Empress have you. You’d be too big a trophy for her to boast over.”
“Oh, thanks a bunch,” said David.
“Hold everything,” said Kit. “What about me? Am I outlawed too?”
“Hell no,” said Stevie One. “You’re still the Iron Bitch’s darling. Her favorite killer, apart from the Consort.”
“Unless you try and defend the Deathstalker,” said Stevie Three. “In which case, you get to stand trial beside him.”
“She’s right, Kit,” said David. “We’d better split up. If they find you in my company, they could declare you guilty by association. I’ll take the flyer in the stable and head back to the Standing. You and the Blues can get the girls to safety.”
“Forget it,” said Kit. “I??
?m not leaving you. You wouldn’t last ten minutes without me.”
“You’d be putting your life at risk!” said David.
“Good,” said Kit. “It’s been far too quiet around here. I was only saying I could use a little action. But may I suggest we use the tavern viewscreen to check out the situation at the Standing first? You have enemies there, as well as friends.”
“Good point,” said David. “Alice, Jenny, you’d better get out of here. Go home, and keep your heads down till this is over. If they ask, you barely knew us. It’ll be safer that way.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” said Stevie Three. “You haven’t heard all of it yet.”
David stared at her. “There’s more?”
“You aren’t the only one that’s getting the chop,” said Stevie One. “The whole planet’s been outlawed. Normally that would mean a scorching, but Lionstone has plans for Virimonde. So she’s sending in the troops, to punish the rebellious and bring the survivors under direct Empire rule. The first troop ships should be landing by now. It’s war, Deathstalker. The whole planet’s under attack.”
“My parents,” said Alice, numb with the shock of the news. “They’re high up in the local underground. If the Empire’s infiltrated our ranks, they’ll be targets. We have to contact them, David!”
“First things first,” said Kit. “First we try the Standing.”
“You’re a rebel, too?” said David to Alice. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Hell, we’re all rebels here,” said Jenny. “Not much else to do for excitement on a backwater dump like this.”
“The Standing,” said Kit. “We have to know, David.”
They gathered together in front of the viewscreen on the tavern wall, and David put in a call to the Standing, using his emergency codes. The Steward answered immediately, as though he’d been waiting for the call.
“My lord, where are you? I’ve been trying to locate you for hours! It is imperative that you return to the Standing immediately, to answer the ridiculous charges set against you.”
“Where’s my Security chief?” said David. “He’s supposed to answer my emergency codes.”
“He is unavailable at the moment,” said the Steward. “Things are rather chaotic here, as I’m sure you can imagine. Tell me where you are, my lord, and I’ll send an armored flyer to fetch you, and bring you back safely.”
“Turn it off,” said Kit. “If he’s in charge, your people are dead. The Steward’s the one who sold you out in the first place.”
“I must insist on knowing where you are, my lord,” said the Steward. “You are in danger every minute you’re not under my protection.”
“Turn it off,” said Stevie One. “Before they trace the signal.”
David shut down the screen. He didn’t know what to say. It had never occurred to him that his own people might turn against him. Sure, he and the Steward had had words on more than one occasion, but to betray the Family that had fed and sheltered him from birth, that gave his life purpose and meaning . . . It had all happened so quickly. One minute he was the man who had everything, then suddenly he had nothing but a price on his head. Just like his cousin, Owen. Maybe the planet was jinxed. Laughter dangerously close to hysteria bubbled up inside him. He realized Alice was talking to him and tugging at his sleeve.
“My parents, David. I need to know about my parents.”
“Of course you do. You set the codes, I have to think. Kit, if the Steward’s got my emergency codes, my private security measures aren’t worth shit anymore. But that works both ways. If he’s got access to my codes, then I’ve got access to his.”
“What good does that do us?” said Kit.
“I should be able to patch into the Standing’s comm system, and through that into the Empire’s systems. We’ll be able to see what they’re seeing. I need to know what’s happening elsewhere on my world. I can’t believe Lionstone’s ordered a complete taking of Virimonde. The loss of life would be enormous. Appalling.”
“Since when has that ever stopped the Iron Bitch?” said Kit.
“Kit,” said David. “They said it’s all my fault. My people are going to die, because of what I did.”
“I’ve got the farm!” said Alice, and they all turned to look. The view on the screen was fuzzy, unfocused. Alice bent over the control panel, cursing under her breath as she tried to boost the signal. It finally snapped into focus, and Alice shrank back from the screen, one hand half-raised, as though to protect herself. She’d patched into one of the farm’s exterior sensors, showing the farmhouse from outside. The great stone building was under attack. The stonework was riddled with holes from energy guns, and part of the roof had been blown away. What remained of the thatched roof was burning fiercely. There were two bodies lying still in the courtyard, clutching projectile weapons in their dead hands. They’d both been hit by energy guns.
Alice shook her head slowly, as though to deny what she was seeing. “That’s Sam. And Matthew. My brothers. Where are the others? Where are my father and mother?”
David put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t feel it. The farmhouse’s front door flew open, and black smoke billowed out, thick and heavy. And out of the smoke, projectile weapons in hand, firing at an unseen enemy, came Adrian and Diana Daker. They kept up a steady fire as they ran for the stables behind the house. The camera was too far away to show their faces clearly, but their body language showed calm determination. They weren’t panicking.
Energy beams flashed around them, blowing holes in the farmhouse wall, but the Dakers were hard targets to hit. And then a company of Imperial marines appeared from behind the house, cutting the Dakers off from the stables. Adrian and Diana skidded to a halt, looking quickly about them, but there was nowhere they could go. The marines opened fire. Diana screamed and fell as one of her legs was shot out from under her, and then screamed again as an energy beam punched through Adrian’s stomach and out his back. He fell to the ground, still holding his gun. Diana tried to pull herself along the ground toward him. Adrian reached out a hand to her, and another beam blew his head apart. Two more blasts hit Diana, tearing her body in two. Her torso rolled away, leaving her legs shuddering on the ground. She looked across at her dead husband. Her mouth moved as she tried to say something, then the life went out of her, and she lay still.
Alice was making strangled mewling noises, her wide eyes fixed on her dead parents. Jenny took her by the shoulders and forcibly turned her away from the screen. All the strength went out of Alice, and she collapsed sobbing into Jenny’s arms. David gestured for Jenny to move Alice over to the bar and get her a stiff drink. Jenny nodded and gently persuaded her friend to move away out of range of the viewscreen. She murmured soothing words, but wasn’t at all sure her friend could hear her. At the viewscreen, David bent over the control panel, patching the screen into the signals going to the Standing. He jumped from one scene to another, trying to get some idea of what was happening to his world. And only then did he began to understand how widespread the horror was.
David and Kit watched silently as Imperial troops ran howling through an isolated village, shooting at everything that moved. Villagers came pouring out of their squat houses to face the invaders, but they had few guns, fighting mostly with swords and axes and farm implements. The troopers had battle armor and force shields and energy weapons, but still the men and women of the village threw themselves at the enemy, making them fight for every inch of ground. But the troops had the numbers as well as the weapons, and they cut a swift and bloody path through the village, leaving the main street strewn with the dead and the dying. Soon they were cutting down the villagers as fast as they showed themselves. The soldiers torched the buildings methodically, and shot down the elderly and the children as they ran out screaming. Soon the whole village was ablaze, thick black smoke rising up into the early-morning skies.
The scene changed to a nearby town. A small army of Imperial marines ran riot in the
narrow cobbled streets, killing and burning, destroying all possible centers of resistance. Local officials were dragged out of their offices and into the street and hanged from the nearest lampposts. There was looting and raping and the butchery of innocents. Blood ran in the streets, and men and women and children ran in terror before the invading forces, driven from their homes by an enemy intent only on victory.
David and Kit recognized the tactics. They were designed to shock and intimidate other towns and villages into surrendering without a fight. Resistance meant only death and destruction. That was why the holosignal was getting out. The tactics worked. The viewscreen jumped from town to town, showing whole populations being herded away from their homes and out into the open fields, their hands on their heads. Interrogation would come later. Those who didn’t move fast enough were shot. Anyone who protested was shot. And everywhere there were buildings burning, and bodies hanging in the streets, and carrion birds circling in the skies above.
To the cities came the war machines. Unstoppable battle wagons smashed through boundary walls, bricks falling like water from their armored sides. Mechanical constructs, beyond fear or panic or restraint, charged unflinchingly into enemy fire, soaking up endless punishment while their racked energy guns blazed, cutting through men and buildings alike. Whole blocks went up in flames as huge gravity torpedoes plowed through wall after wall, building after building, progressing in unrelenting straight lines from one side of the city to the other. Combat androids, robots shaped in the mockery of men for psychological effect, stamped through the streets, cutting and hacking their way through human resistance. Flesh yielded to unfeeling steel, and blood ran down metal arms and dripped thickly from spiked knuckles. There were machines small as insects, unblinking eyes in the sky, and vast metal assemblages bigger than buildings, slow-moving towers of destruction. Brick and stone tore like paper, wood burned fiercely, and men and women died screaming under remorseless metal treads. The machines slaughtered all who came before them, showing neither quarter nor mercy because that was what they had been programmed to do. Buildings fell, fires raged, and in the smoke-choked streets, sharp metal hooks tore through yielding flesh, and barbed flails ripped meat away from bones. The robots marched, the city fell, and the war machines moved on to their next appointed target.