And so they left the Tower and made their way through the confusion of the streets, then down beneath the surface, descending to the Imperial Palace by secret, hidden ways. And so they went down into darkness, heading for Hell.
Elsewhere in the chaotic streets of the Parade of the Endless, Finlay Campbell and Evangeline Shreck and Julian Skye followed Young Jack Random as he led a small army of rebels and underground supporters toward the Imperial ground troops’ main command center in the city. The center was supposed to contain the main decision makers and strategists of the planetside military. And despite everything the underground had done to try to cut them off from their forces, they were still very much in charge. So all that was left was to shut them down the hard way, by brute force. Unfortunately, since the command center was set inside a massive steel-and-stone bunker and guarded with practically every weapon known to man, it promised to be a very hard job. Which was why the underground leaders had volunteered Young Jack Random and the others to go and do the job. That was what happened when you got a reputation for achieving the impossible.
So Finlay slogged his way through the streets, shooting at everything wearing a uniform, and wondering what the hell he was going to do if and when he finally reached the bunker. He had no doubt he’d think of something annoying to do to it, probably involving high explosives. He was on a roll, after all. He could feel it. But somehow he had a strong feeling that breaking into the bunker was going to be a real bastard. He didn’t even have any of the incredible Maze people with him this time. Just one possibly rejuvenated esper, Julian Skye. Still, they were being led by the legendary Young Jack Random, hero and savior, who apparently could do no wrong. According to all reports he’d practically turned back the Imperial invasion on Mistworld single-handed. Maybe he’d think of something.
Finlay wasn’t sure how he felt about Young Jack. The man was brave and daring and a great fighter, to be sure, and heroic as all hell, and he always seemed to know just the right thing to say to motivate his followers, but . . . Perhaps it was just that the man was too perfect. Even the greatest of heroes was supposed to have some flaws. Young Jack didn’t even belch after a good dinner. Finlay smiled despite himself. It had been a long time since he’d felt jealous of anyone. As the Masked Gladiator, he’d been unbeatable in the Arena, and adored by all. And now here he was, following Young Jack Random like all the others, forgotten and ignored in the great hero’s shadow. Finlay shrugged. He could live with that, for now. There was work to be done.
Evangeline was also lost in her own thoughts. She was back on Golgotha again, back in the Parade of the Endless, not far from her father. Her hated, despised father, who loved her as a woman, not a daughter. Evangeline had fled to Shannon’s World, but now she was back. And it wouldn’t be long before Gregor Shreck found out, and then the threats of torture or death to her friend Penny would begin again. Evangeline scowled, barely seeing the crowd around her. Maybe she could get the underground leaders to promise Gregor’s safety, in return for Penny’s release, unharmed. They owed her a favor, after all she’d done for them. If Penny was still alive . . . she wouldn’t put it past her father to have killed Penny in her absence, out of spite. He was quite capable of such a thing. In which case she would find him and kill him, and to hell with the consequences. Finlay would understand. He knew all about revenge.
Julian Skye was thinking about revenge, too. About Blue Block in general, and BB Chojiro in particular. He had loved her with all his heart, and she betrayed him to the torturers and the mind techs. And sometimes it seemed all he lived for now was a chance to make her pay. Now, at last, they were in the same city again. When the rebellion was over, he’d find her, no matter where she hid, and then he’d make her suffer as he had. (Or maybe he’d fall on his knees and promise her anything, if only she’d love him again. He still dreamed that, sometimes. In his worst nightmares.) Julian Sky gripped his sword tightly, and the smile that stretched his mouth had little of humor in it. First the rebellion, and the cause he’d given his life to. There’d be time for personal revenge afterward.
All three had volunteered to be part of the gravity sled armada, for their various reasons, but the underground leaders had been unwaveringly firm that they were needed here more. So they fought their way through the packed streets, following Young Jack Random, and did their best to keep their inner turmoil at arm’s length until they had time to pay attention to it.
And so they fought their way through the madness in the streets, taking on troops, Security men, and anything else the Empire could throw at them. At every turn there were more armed men, as the increasingly desperate Imperials struggled to stop the rebel forces advancing on the command center. Energy guns flared, explosives tore holes in the packed forces on both sides, and swords and axes swung in bloody arcs. Dead and wounded alike fell to be trampled underfoot. No one had the time to see to them. There was only the endless, almost hysterical push forward by the rebels, and the slow, panicking retreat of the Imperials. Steel blades swung in short, brutal arcs, punching into yielding flesh and out again, and blood ran like rivers in the street, choking the overflowing gutters. Men fell and the push went on, and the command center drew slowly nearer.
And right there, at the front of it all, Young Jack Random stood tall and proud, swinging his great sword with both hands, and no man could stand against him. Their swords could not touch him or defend them from his wrath, and the men behind him roared his name as a battle cry. Finlay and Evangeline stuck close behind him, and were too busy to be jealous. Finlay was fighting at the peak of his powers, a dazzling display of swordsmanship that would have drawn cheers from his old Arena fans. Men actually tried to turn and run rather than face him. Finlay smiled his wolfish smile and killed them all anyway. He was doing what he was born to do and savoring every minute.
Evangeline guarded his back and his blind spots with dogged efficiency. Finlay had taught her how to use a sword, though she never felt any of his dark joy for slaughter. She fought as a means to an end and nothing more, and only sometimes suspected that for Finlay the means was the end. Julian Skye’s esper powers crackled on the air around them, deflecting disrupter beams and the occasional grenade. Now and again he’d gather his strength and let rip with a psistorm that sent armed troops flying helplessly in the grip of sudden storm winds, but mostly the fighters of both sides were packed too closely together for him to achieve much. He carried a sword and a gun, and used them with brisk efficiency. The fighting went on, time lengthening beyond counting, till both sides were ready to drop from exhaustion. And still Young Jack called his people on, to death or glory, and the destruction of Empire.
The rebels pressed forward, inch by inch, paying for every step with blood and death, until finally the command center’s steel-and-stone bunker appeared at the end of the street before them. The sight gave new heart to the rebels, and they roared their triumph as they surged forward behind Young Jack, driving the demoralized defenders back and back. Only the narrowness of the street and the fact that there was nowhere for the troops to run prevented a complete rout. And so the troops fought viciously, like the cornered rats they were, and through sheer desperation again slowed the rebel advance to a crawl.
The struggle went on, tides in the fighting moving this way and that, and Toby Shreck and his cameraman Flynn were there to cover it all, broadcasting live to the watching Empire. They hovered precariously above the crowd on a commandeered gravity sled, just high enough to keep out of range of the fighting while still close enough to get all the gory details in close-up. Flynn sent his camera swooping back and forth over the surging crowd, searching out the best footage, while Toby hung over the edge of the sled, narrating a breathless commentary with a voice grown rough through smoke inhalation and overuse. Both men were using every upper in Toby’s collection to keep them sharp and alert after so long on the air, and they had long since abandoned impartiality and distance for an almost hysterical need to capture history in the making. Th
ey both knew they’d never cover so important a story again. They spied the familiar faces of Finlay, Evangeline, and Julian, waved cheerfully, and called for them to smile for the camera. Finlay gave a short but very emphatic answer indicating that he was rather busy just at the moment, and Toby made a mental note to edit that bit out of any future repeat broadcasts. Flynn kept his camera rocketing back and forth, getting as much coverage of the bloodletting as he could. The viewers knew what they liked, and had to be coaxed to keep watching, even if this was history in the making.
Young Jack hacked and cut his way through an army of defenders, blood spilling onto the ground and streaming around his feet. His muscular arm rose and fell tirelessly, and none of the enemy could even touch him. His broad grin never wavered, and his calm eyes never blinked, no matter how close a sword blow came. He went for body shots, mostly. Short, vicious arcs that slammed his long sword into stomach and rib cage, and out again in a flurry of blood and guts. Traumatic wounds that stopped enemies immediately, but still left them staggering around to get in the way of their fellows. Their cries of pain and horror had great psychological effect on the enemy troops, while heartening the rebel side. And perhaps only Finlay and Evangeline and Julian found time to consider that such unpleasant methods weren’t really what might be expected from a renowned hero like Jack Random. Young Jack fought on, calling his followers on to victory. His enemies fell before him, and he trampled them underfoot, still smiling. His clothes were soaked with blood, none of it his. Near the end of the street, with the command center only yards away, he paused just long enough to throw a smile and a wink at Flynn’s hovering camera.
“You know; there has to be an easier way to overthrow an Empire . . .”
And then he got back to work, and the killing continued. Up on the sled, Toby gave Flynn a high five. A hero, a bladesman, and charming with it. Young Jack was a godsend. The audience would eat this up with spoons. The networks would be repeating that particular moment on news anthologies for years to come, no matter who won the rebellion. Toby had to admit he much preferred the Young Jack Random to the older counterpart he’d met on Technos III. Young Jack understood the importance of a good sound bite. Toby was glad someone here did. Most of the rebels were too busy to talk to him, and those who would were usually too earthy in their comments. You could only bleep so much.
Toby steered the sled as close to Young Jack as he could. When in doubt, follow the story. And so he and Flynn were perfectly placed to see the grenade come arcing out of the defenders and tumble almost unhurriedly through the air toward Young Jack. It passed right in front of Flynn’s camera, hung on the air for a long moment at the top of its loop, and then dropped directly toward Young Jack. Many of the rebels saw it coming, and screamed warnings, but in the tightly packed crowd of fighters, there was nowhere for Young Jack to go. The grenade exploded right in front of him, and his body took the full force of the explosion. The blast threw him to one side, crashing through friend and foe alike, and slammed him into the high stone wall that overlooked that side of the street. The wall swayed and then fell forward, collapsing on top of the people below. Dozens of other people, rebels and troops, had been hit by shrapnel from the grenade and they lay screaming in the street.
Finlay and Evangeline and Julian had been protected behind Julian’s hastily thrown-up force shield. As it dropped, Finlay quickly yelled for rebels to come forward and hold back the troops while he dug through the rubble of the fallen wall. Men and women rushed forward into the gap, yelling for Finlay to save Young Jack. Finlay was pretty sure the man had to be dead, but if there was even a chance . . . He bent over the nibble and started pulling away bricks, and soon Evangeline and Julian were there to help him. More people pushed forward, wanting to help but only getting in the way. Julian put up a force shield to hold them back, until they got the message. Finlay and EvangeAline kept digging. It didn’t take them long to find the first body parts. People had been torn literally limb from limb by the force of the explosion. They kept digging, forcing their way down through the bloody remains. Flynn’s camera hovered overhead, getting it all. Some of the body parts were still twitching. Finlay and Evangeline dug down through the pitiful scraps and remnants, arms bloody to the elbow, and finally they came to what was left of Young Jack Random. For a second they just stood there, stunned, and then Finlay turned and glared back at Toby and Flynn.
“Cut off the live feed! Do it now!”
Toby leaned off the edge of the sled to argue, looked past Finlay and saw what he saw, and made a sharp chopping gesture to Flynn. The cameraman nodded, and cut off the live broadcast, but kept the camera in place, still recording. Toby moved the gravity sled in over Finlay and Evangeline as they bent over the revealed body of the thing called Young Jack Random. The force of the grenade’s explosion had torn away much of his skin, revealing the gleaming blue steel beneath. His face was gone, leaving only a metal skull. The eye sockets were empty, but the white teeth remained, giving the metal skull a disturbingly human smile. Young Jack Random was a Fury, a spy from Shub, a machine in the shape of a man, hiding under a human appearance. And it was still alive. The lower part of the body was seriously crushed by the fallen wall, and one arm was missing, but the torso and head were pretty much intact. The Fury raised its metal head slightly and nodded to Finlay and Evangeline. When it spoke, the slightly echoing voice was calm, almost friendly.
“All right, I’m a machine. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends. You need me. Or who I’m pretending to be. I can be repaired. Cover my face, and no one will know the difference. Some of the truth is bound to leak out, but we can just tell everyone that I’m a cyborg. An augmented man. They’ll buy that, after all Jack Random’s supposed to have been through. You need me, Campbell. The rebels will follow a hero like me where they won’t follow someone like you. So get a cloak to wrap me in, stick me on the Shreck’s gravity sled, and I’ll lead your people right into the command center.”
“Do you really think that any member of Humanity would follow a thing from Snub?” said Finlay, his voice cold and tight. “Do you think we would? You represent the Enemies of Humanity. Sworn to wipe us out to the last man, woman, and child. No wonder you enjoyed the slaughter here so much. And what would you do, after the rebellion is over? Be a party to our plans and hopes, just when we’re at our most vulnerable? Do you really think we’d let a metal wolf like you into our fold?”
“You don’t really have much of a choice,” said the machine calmly. “My systems are already repairing themselves, and you don’t have any weapons here strong enough to destroy me. The grenade took me by surprise. It was unexpectedly powerful for its size. But soon I will be operating at acceptable efficiency levels again, and if you will not help me to pass as Jack Random, then I will fulfill my secondary programming, and kill every human here. What will that do to your push on the command center? Like it or not, you’re stuck with me.”
“Like hell,” said Finlay. “Julian, stamp this tin soldier flat.”
“Gladly,” said Julian, he called up his psistorm, compressed and focused it into a hammer of pure force, and brought it slamming down on the crippled Fury. The human-shaped machine flattened out like a starship had fallen on it, the metal cracking and shattering in a thousand places. Julian smiled coldly as the metal shape crumpled under the pressure of his mind. The esper concentrated, and the flattened metal rolled itself into a ball, shrinking and further compacting until all that remained was a solid sphere of metal, with no trace of life left in it. Julian smiled again.
“Repair that, you bastard.”
Finlay and Evangeline buried the sphere under a pile of body parts. Julian looked up at Flynn’s camera, still hovering overhead, and scowled thoughtfully.
“Oh no, not the camera, please!” said Toby. “We don’t have another!”
“We can’t let this piece of news get out,” said Julian. “No one must ever know.”
“We know how to keep our mouths shut,” sa
id Toby. “This wouldn’t be the first piece of film I’ve had to bury. Ask the Campbell; he’ll vouch for me.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” said Finlay. “But I think we can trust him to understand that if this piece of film ever surfaces again, there will be a queue of people waiting to kill him in slow and interesting ways. Right, Shreck?”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Toby. “I’ve seen you people in action. I don’t want you coming after me. It doesn’t really matter. I’ve already got enough great footage to make me immortal.”
“What about me?” said Flynn. “Don’t I get to be immortal, too?”
“I said immortal, not immoral. You just point the camera and leave the thinking to me.”
Flynn glared at him coldly. “I am an artist. It’s in my contract.”
“I know what you are,” said Toby. “Now shut up and point the camera.”
“Bully,” said Flynn. “You wait till your next direct to camera. I’ll make you look really podgy.”
“You’d swear they were married, wouldn’t you?” said Julian. “Finlay, we have to get our people moving again, before they have time to think about what’s happened here. If they panic, the whole push will fall apart.”
“Got it,” said Finlay. He stepped up onto the rubble so all the rebels could see him. “Jack Random is dead! The Empire killed him. Are you going to let his death be for nothing? Or will you fight on, as he would have wanted? Then follow me, to death or glory!”
It was as basic as that, but it worked. The rebels roared their defiance to the Empire and surged forward again, howling for revenge. Finlay led the way, with Evangeline and Julian at his sides. He’d never doubted that the rebels would follow him, in Random’s name. Sometimes a rebel leader can be a greater inspiration dead than alive. The defending troops had held their ground while they thought Random’s death would demoralize the rebels, but the new, even more determined attack was just too much for them. Outnumbered and outfought, they cracked and turned and ran, some throwing away their weapons to show they were no longer a part of the war, and as quickly as that the battle was over. The troops ran in all directions, desperate to escape the killing grounds, and the rebels cut down those who didn’t run fast enough.