Flynn got it all on film. Toby couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.
A marine Sergeant came forward, and calmly stirred the dead espers with his boot, to make sure they were dead. He nodded, satisfied, and then walked unhurriedly forward to look through the door at Toby and Flynn. Toby waited to die. He had nowhere to go, and wouldn’t have known what to do with a weapon if he’d had one. He felt strangely unconcerned, as though it felt wrong he should still be alive, when everyone else was dead. He glared up at the Sergeant unflinchingly, and hoped Flynn would keep filming to the last. The Sergeant stood over him and smiled.
“You’re a lucky boy, Shreck. Turns out the Empress is something of a fan of yours. She’s followed everything you’ve done recently. Think how surprised and delighted she was when the Elegance picked up your signal. So, you’re coming with us. You and your cameraman are now official Imperial reporters, and the Empress wants you covering the fall of the Deathstalker Standing. And no, you don’t get a choice. So hurry up, or you’ll miss it.”
He hauled Toby up onto his feet and slapped some of the dust off him. Flynn got up unaided. The Sergeant looked at him and winced.
“We’d better find you a cloak. Even reporters are supposed to have some standards. Come along, lads. The Empress wants the whole Empire to see what happens to people who dare rebel against her wise and just rule. Do a really good job, and maybe she won’t have you executed afterward for fraternizing with the enemy. Now move it!”
Toby and Flynn walked unsteadily out of the room of death and into the waiting arms of the Empire.
In the ancient Standing of his Clan, David Deathstalker sat on the edge of his bed, watching his planet die on the viewscreen before him. He clicked through channel after channel, but the scene was always the same. His people, fighting and dying. Fighting ground troops or combat androids or war machines, but always dying. The villages and the towns and the cities burned, and the countryside was full of refugees being rounded up by Imperial troops. One in ten would be executed later, as an example. Lionstone was very keen on tradition.
David turned off the viewscreen, and the bedchamber was suddenly quiet. He hugged himself as tightly as he could stand, trying to hold himself together, despite the blood-soaked bandages wrapped around his middle. The pain came and went now. He didn’t know whether that was a good sign or not. When it was very bad all he could do was sit very still, gritting his teeth so he wouldn’t call out, and wait for the pain to pass so he could think again. He felt hot and cold by turns, and sweat was dripping off his face. He tried desperately to think of something he could do to save the situation. His surrender had been turned down, and he couldn’t get a signal offworld to call on the underground for help. Down below, the few staff still loyal to him or the rebellion were fighting to keep the Imperial forces out of the Standing. They wouldn’t last long. Kit SummerIsle came through the open door, and David knew his news from his face.
“Captain Silence and the Investigator are leading a strike force against the main door. There’s no way our people are going to be able to keep them out.”
David nodded slowly. “They were never more than a holding action.” He struggled to get up off the bed and onto his feet. Kit hurried over to help him. David hung on to him. His legs-felt like they might go at any moment, but he wouldn’t give in to them. He forced them straight and smiled at his friend.
“This is it, Kit. Once the Standing falls, the rebellion here is over. I think I finally understand what it means, to be a Deathstalker. To fight the good fight, to put it all on the line, even when you know you can’t win.” He gestured at the old holoportrait of the original Deathstalker, on the wall at the foot of his bed. “Look at him. Like some bad old barbarian mercenary, in his leathers and scalplock. Giles, my ancestor. I wonder what he would think of me. We never really had a chance to talk. And then there’s Owen. I think I understand him a little better now. He tried to warn me, and I wouldn’t listen. He said I’d never be able to hold Virimonde, and he was right. The Empress gives and the Empress takes away. God damn the Empress.”
“You’re feverish,” said Kit. “Sit down again.”
“No. If I sit down now, I’ll never find the strength to get up again. Time we were leaving, I think.”
Kit looked at him. “The Standing’s surrounded, David. They have all the exits blocked.”
“There’s one they don’t know about.” David lurched over to the holoportrait and hit a hidden switch, and the portrait swung sideways, revealing a narrow passage. Lights came on, showing the passage stretching down into darkness. David smiled tiredly as he saw new hope rise in Kit’s eyes. “Secret passage. Owen told me about it. Saved his ass when they came for him. Finishes up in the flyer bay, in the caves below the Standing. We’ll grab a flyer, shove the throttle to max, and get the hell out of here before they know what’s happening. I can’t die yet, Kit. My people need me. If I can’t save them, maybe I can arrange for them to be avenged. You know, Kit, it’s taken a long time, but I think I’ve finally found my honor and my duty.”
“You are feverish,” said Kit. “Let’s go.”
They made their way slowly down the secret passage, David leaning heavily on Kit. Blood was running freely down his side now, and when he coughed, as he sometimes had to despite the pain, blood sprayed from his mouth along with the sound. But he kept going. He wouldn’t give up. A Deathstalker never gives up. His head swam sickly, and sometimes he thought it was Owen there in the passage with him, and sometimes it was Giles. But when his head cleared, Kit was always there with him, the only real friend he’d ever had.
They reached the end of the passage, and came to a stop while Kit peered cautiously out into the flyer bay. He snapped his head back in immediately, and a disrupter beam hit the top of the tunnel mouth, blasting debris from the stone ceiling. David was caught off-balance and fell heavily to the floor, pulling Kit down with him. They lay together on the stone floor, breathing heavily. Kit fired his gun blindly out the passage mouth, to discourage anyone from coming in after them. He looked for David’s gun, and found he didn’t have one.
“David,” he said urgently. “Where’s your gun?”
“I gave it to Alice, just before we crashed. She’s still got it.” David spit blood onto the floor, and pulled a face. “Kit, I just tried to boost, and nothing happened. There’s nothing left in me. No more fight. This is as far as I go.”
“Shut up,” said Kit. “Get your breath back, and we’ll head back up the passage.”
“No. I’m not going anywhere. I’m cold, Kit. So cold.”
Kit sat up, put his back against the passage wall, and cradled David in his arms, holding him close, trying to share his warmth with the dying man.
“Had some good times here, didn’t we, Kit?”
“The best.”
“Pity about Alice. And Jenny.”
“Yes.”
“Leave me, Kit.”
“What?”
“They want me, not you. Pointless, you dying here as well as me.”
“I can’t leave you, David. You’re my friend.”
“Then do as I ask. Don’t die for nothing. Kill me, and then go out to them. My death will put you in good with Lionstone again. Show her my head, and she’ll probably make you Lord of Virimonde. They’ll think you’re one of them, after all.”
“David . . . please. I can’t . . .”
“Yes you can. You have to. I don’t want to die here, by inches, screaming when the pain gets really bad. Do it, Kit. Be my friend. One last time.”
He coughed harshly, and couldn’t stop. Blood spilled down his chin. He tried to speak again and couldn’t. Kit hugged him tightly till the coughing stopped, then drew his knife and thrust it expertly between David’s ribs. The breath went out of the Deathstalker in a long sigh, and then he was still. Kit sat there for a while, cradling the dead body in his arms. David had been quite right. The Empress would take him back, as David’s executioner. She’d always had a
soft spot for her smiling killer. And it wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to go. The rebellion was over. Anyone could see that. So that just left Lionstone. He was a killer, and he had to go where the killing was. He carefully laid David’s body down on the passage floor and arranged his arms and legs neatly. He drew his sword and leaned over David. The Deathstalker’s face was very calm. Kit leaned down and kissed David on the bloody lips.
“My love.”
He straightened up and raised his sword.
CHAPTER FOUR
EVERYONE GOES TO GOLGOTHH
And so the war finally began, almost by accident.
The live broadcast of Virimonde’s destruction and the slaughter of its population by Imperial forces backfired badly. A roar of rage and condemnation spread across the whole Empire, planet after planet seeing its own possible future in the horrific images unfolding before them on their viewscreens. Insurrections arose spontaneously on world after world, sparks fanning into flames as the incoming images grew steadily worse. The lower classes took to the streets, protests quickly becoming riots, turning on anything that could be seen as representing Imperial authority. The moneyed classes were right out there with them, as often as not, driven from their complacency by shock and outrage, ready to fight and die rather than see their world mechanized like Virimonde.
The underground seized the opportunity before it, and sent its people out on every world they had access to, guiding and assisting the spontaneous uprisings. They supplied weapons, pointed crowds in the right directions, and put long-crafted plans into operation. Deep-planted sleeper agents committed sabotage, disrupted communications, and generally brought people together to do the most damage possible. The army responded by emptying its barracks and sending troops straight out onto the streets, with orders to shoot everything that moved. It might have worked, if so many people hadn’t been shocked and sickened by what they’d seen happening on Virimonde. They were too angry now to be properly scared. Men and women spilled out onto the streets, armed with whatever weapons they could find or improvise, and fell upon the Imperial troops in such numbers that not even massed energy weapons could stop them. All across the Empire, on world after world, there was blood and slaughter in the towns and cities, and official buildings blazed like warning beacons of the battle to come.
In the streets they cursed the name of the Widowmaker Dram, and tore down the portraits and statues of the Iron Bitch, and howled for revenge for the dead of Virimonde.
Increasingly isolated as well as outraged, the Lords added their troops to the rebellion, sending their armed forces out to fight the Imperial troops alongside the rebels. The Families were nothing if not survivors, and Lionstone had become a greater threat to them than any momentary uprisings. They’d always known she was crazy, but now she had become dangerously insane. If Lionstone had consulted them first, about David or Virimonde or even the mechanization, things might have been different. They’d have found some way to turn it to their advantage. But the first they knew of any of it was when their viewscreens showed them the rape of a Lord’s planet. It didn’t take too much imagination for any of them to see themselves as Lionstone’s next object of opportunity, outlawed so their planet could be next in line for mechanization under Lionstone’s direct rule. Faced with a clear threat to their lives, their position, and their wealth, it was inevitable that the Lords would tacitly encourage the rebellion. The lower orders could always be put back in their place later. And if many Lords saw in the chaos an opportunity to place themselves on the Iron Throne, they kept it to themselves, for the moment.
Suddenly, it seemed like everything was up for grabs. Anything seemed possible. Every group and faction and cause saw a chance to overthrow the way things were, and went out into the streets to fight for it. People who wouldn’t normally have spoken to each other without spitting became temporary allies, fighting side by side, held together by the shared aim of throwing Lionstone off the Iron Throne before she could destroy them all in her madness. In city after city, on world after world, the people went head-to-head with Imperial troops, and the cry of rebellion was on everyone’s lips.
The army and the Fleet could have coped with a few planetwide rebellions, but not everything at once. Stretched thinly across the Empire, attacked on every front and even from within by those sympathetic to the rebels and their cause, the Imperial forces were crippled by confusion. Starcruisers appeared over the worst trouble spots, but they’d never been intended to deal with planetside rebellions. Their only real threat was a scorching, and for the moment, at least, they were spread too thinly for that. Rebels in their crews sabotaged their communications, isolating them further. The underground had planned for this day, and the Empire, in its arrogance, had not.
On the planet Golgotha, homeworld of Empire, center of authority, outraged people filled the streets, rioting and looting and burning down the command centers. Because they’d had so much more to lose, they’d hesitated at first from open rebellion, but the underground had swiftly spread rumors that Lionstone was planning harsh new taxes, even more repressive laws, and was even planning to shut down their precious Arenas. After what they’d seen on Virimonde, the people were ready to believe anything of her, and these new threats hit them where they lived. Isolated protests were put down with such fury and bloodshed that even the hardened populace of Golgotha was shocked, and they rose up everywhere at once. The underground did its best to guide them in the right directions, while hiding its smiles. It had always known people need motivating, and what they won’t do for the right reason, sometimes they will for the wrong reason.
The authorities sent out every armed trooper they had, with orders to stop the riots at all costs and not to bother with taking prisoners. This just made matters worse, infuriating an already defiant population, and as fast as troopers put the rebellion down in one place, it just popped up in another, regrouping and re-forming faster than it could be dispersed. The underground disrupted all levels of communication, while using espers to organize their own forces. The Clans took one look at the growing chaos, called back all their troops, and retreated into their pastel Towers, safe behind organized levels of security. Encouraging the fighting on other worlds was one thing, but this was too close to home. So they kept their heads well down, avoided attracting attention to themselves, and let the rebels concentrate their hatred on Lionstone’s authority. And when the mess was over, and the rebels were tired and aimless once more, the Families would emerge and take control again, as they always had. Or so they thought. They didn’t know about the underground—its plans and its powers. They didn’t know about the people who’d been through the Madness Maze. They didn’t realize that the great rebellion had finally begun.
Parliament convened and agreed to stand aside and support whoever came out on top. Which surprised no one.
Above the worlds of Empire, starships clashed in the night. The underground had put out a call to the Hadenmen, and their great golden ships were abroad in the night again. Huge and fast and awesome, they were more than a match for the scattered Imperial starcruisers. As far as numbers went, the Hadenman ships were greatly in the minority, but they ran rings around the slower Empire ships, outgunning and outperforming them on every level. The Empire crews panicked, faced with the legendary old Enemies of Humanity, and put out general distress calls, demanding that all Imperial ships forget about the rebellions to face the greater threat of the Hadenmen. Starcruisers all across the Empire ignored Lionstone’s increasingly frantic orders and raced to meet the golden ships, only to fall one by one. Blazing wreckage cartwheeled slowly down through the atmospheres of unsuspecting planets. And the Hadenmen sailed on through the long night.
The Church of Christ the Warrior saw the second coming of the augmented men as a spiritual as well as a martial threat, and threw everything they had against the Hadenmen, ignoring the rebellion. They fared no better than the Fleet, once again distracting ships and troops that might have prevailed against the rebe
llion. The underground confused things even farther by spreading carefully placed rumors that Lionstone was planning to seize the Church’s tithes to replace her missing taxes, thus alienating the Church even more. Every little bit helped.
If Lionstone had had more than just a few E class starcruisers to call on, with their new stardrives and superior weapons systems, things might have been different. But after the rebels destroyed the Wolfe stardrive factory on Technos III, there were only five E class ships in service, and they couldn’t be everywhere at once. There were even open mutinies on some Imperial ships, as junior officers with rebel sympathies and underground connections led takeover bids on the control decks, backed by disgruntled lower ranks who hadn’t been paid for months, because of Treasury shortfalls after the Tax systems crashed. A surprising number of these mutinies succeeded, and the new rebel ships withdrew themselves from combat. They wouldn’t fight their own kind, but they would take no further part against the rebellion.
Meanwhile, Toby Shreck and his cameraman Flynn were right there in the thick of it all, getting everything on film, transmitting live as often as they could. Dragged from one bloody firefight to another by their Imperial minders, they did their best to cover everything as objectively as possible. The army officers supposed to be in charge of censoring their output were mostly too busy with their own problems.
On a battlefield pockmarked with craters on the planet Loki, the Imperial armies were overrun by wild-eyed rebel forces, and Toby and Flynn took the first opportunity to make a run for it. They didn’t get far among the body-filled craters before they were stopped by the advancing rebel forces, who luckily recognized Toby. A few even asked for autographs. Toby pleaded eloquently to be sent to Golgotha, where the real story was, and after a certain amount of discussion the rebels were happy to send them on their way. They understood the need for good propaganda, and it seemed only fair to all concerned that the two men who had covered so much of the story should be there for the final act when it happened. Toby smiled and nodded and agreed modestly in all the right places, and prayed no one would ask awkward questions about who was going to pay all the bills. No one did, so Toby and Flynn set off on the first of half a dozen uncomfortable journeys that would take them eventually to Golgotha, Lionstone’s Court, and the Hell that she had made there.