“What about the bounty hunter?” said Razor. “There have been reports of her developing psi powers . . .”
“Don’t worry about her,” said Storm. “She’s drugged to the eyeballs and loaded down with so many chains and restraints it’s a wonder she can still stand.” He wandered over to her and kicked her behind the knee. She fell heavily to her knees, her chains clanking loudly. Storm laughed, and moved back before the Throne.
“I thought Jack Random was your friend,” said Captain Silence.
Storm shrugged. “He was. And then he let me down, by being only human. Legends shouldn’t get old and tired and slow, and lose more often than they win. I was tired of being a loser. I wanted to be on the winning side to, have wealth and luxuries and an easy life, to make up for all my years of nothing. No one was ever grateful to me for all the times I risked my life on their behalf, the bastards. No one ever said thanks, you’ve done enough, let someone else take over now. No, they just wanted more. Even Jack. Into battle one more time, on some godforsaken rock I’d never even heard of, leading dumb peasants against trained Imperial troops, and all of it for nothing. All the blood and the fear and the death of friends. I just got tired of it all. So when Jack fell and was taken, I had a moment of very clear insight, and saw the futility of rebellion. Even if we were to win, and overthrow the Empress, she’d only be replaced by someone just like her. It’s the nature of the job, and the way things are. So I gave up poverty and hopelessness for wealth and security. And a chance to strike back at the rebels and make them pay for all the years of my life they had wasted.”
“He was still your friend,” said Silence.
Storm glared at him. “Is he? I don’t know who this is anymore. He should be my age, but he’s young, and I’m not. He’s a man of power and destiny again, and I’m not. All my life has been unfair, and he’s always been the most unfair thing in it.”
“Kill you,” said Ruby Journey thickly. They all turned to look at her, kneeling and weighed down with chains, fighting to hold her head up. She glared at Storm. “He trusted you. Loved you like a brother. Fought beside you. I’ll kill you slowly, you treacherous bastard. Rip your heart out and make you eat it before you die. Chains won’t hold me. Drugs wear off. I’ll see you dead before I am.”
“Oh shut up,” said Storm. He swaggered over to her, and punched her in the mouth. She fell backwards. “I never liked you, bitch.” He started kicking her.
“That’s quite enough of that,” said Owen Deathstalker.
His voice rang across the Court, sharp and commanding, and Storm fell back in spite of himself. Everyone turned to see Owen leading his companions through the inferno, toward the Iron Throne. Two Deathstalkers, both legends and men of destiny. Hazel d’Ark, the pirate turned hero. Psycho Jenny, the sacred madwoman of the esper underground. And, like two crows with great experience of battlefields, Toby and Flynn brought up the rear, there for the end of the story, whatever it might be.
Investigator Razor and Kit SummerIsle moved quickly to stand between the Throne and the newcomers. Storm hurried back to join Dram and Valentine Wolfe. Silence and Frost drew their swords. Stelmach drew his gun. The maids-in-waiting stirred angrily, and hissed at the new arrivals as Owen led them toward the Throne. They stopped beside Ruby Journey, who looked up at them and spit out a mouthful of blood.
“Took you long enough to get here.”
“Sorry,” said Owen. “We got distracted. Need a hand?”
“In your dreams, aristo.” Ruby stood up and flexed her arms, and the enveloping chains shattered and fell away from her. Ruby smiled nastily at the stunned Storm. “You didn’t really think drugs and chains would hold someone like me, did you?”
Owen looked around him, taking in the smoldering ash pits, the burning angels, the great vents in the floor from which arose the screams of the damned. The crimson light, the rows of the impaled dead, and the tortured sinners hanging on their barbed chains. When he finally looked back at Lionstone, his voice was as flat and cold as his gaze. “Nice place you’ve got here, Lionstone. It’s you. Your taste always tended to the extreme, but I think you’ve really outdone yourself this time. You’ve progressed from the disturbed to the actually psychotic. You’ve become a sick person, Lionstone, a mad dog, a rabid animal; and it’s our job to shut you down.”
Lionstone leaned back in her Throne, apparently unmoved. “Welcome to our Court, outlaw. We’ve been expecting you. We even have a few guests here to greet you, specially invited with you in mind. For instance . . .”
She snapped her fingers, and a masking holoillusion dropped away, revealing the huge wooden cross set up behind the Iron Throne. And nailed to that cross, Mother Superior Beatrice Christiana, the saint of Technos III. Her nun’s robes were torn and bloodied, and her wimple was gone, replaced by a crown of thorns. Dried blood encrusted thickly around her pierced wrists and ankles, and more had run down her face from where the crown had been jammed forcefully onto her head. She was still alive and still conscious enough to feel the awful pain that wracked her. Her face was twisted away from its usual serenity, dragged beyond humanity into pure animal suffering.
“She seemed so eager to be a martyr that I thought I’d oblige her,” said Lionstone. “If she’s really sincere in her religion, she should take it as a compliment. A martyr’s death is supposed to be the highest honor they can hope to obtain in this life. Isn’t that right?”
“You bitch! You stinking bitch!” Surprisingly, it was Toby Shreck who broke first. He lunged forward, enraged beyond reason, as though he planned to free Beatrice by brute force. Flynn had to grab him and hold him back. “Let me go!” said Toby, struggling to break free. “I won’t stand for this! Not her! She’s the only decent person I ever met!”
“You’d be dead before you could get anywhere near her, boss,” said Flynn, almost shouting at Toby as he held him firmly. “She wants someone to try something, so she can set her maids on them, as an example.”
“He’s right, Shreck,” said Giles. “Listen to your friend. We’ll deal with this. It’s what we’re here for.”
“Right,” said Hazel. “Make sure your camera’s working. You’re about to witness the death of an Empress. Convenient of you to build your own Hell, Lionstone. It means you won’t have too far to go when we drag you down off your Throne, and cut your damned head off.”
“The show isn’t over yet,” said Lionstone. “Beatrice, this is your moment. Come on down, and kill these vermin for me.”
And as the rebels watched incredulously, Beatrice raised her head on the cross and smiled down at them. With one convulsive movement, she ripped her arms and legs free from the blocky nails holding her to the wood, and dropped lightly to the ground. She started toward the rebels, still smiling, and everyone by the Throne hurried to get out of her way. Lionstone was laughing. Toby stared stupidly for a moment, then gestured urgently to make sure Flynn was getting it all.
“She’s not the real thing,” said Hazel. “She can’t be. Nothing human could have freed itself that easily.”
“Right,” said Owen. “It’s some kind of Fury, a machine. Lionstone just had it nailed up there to upset us.”
“And it worked,” said Toby. “I can’t believe I was fooled again. Is nobody what they appear to be anymore?”
“You’d be surprised,” said Owen. “Now stand back and give us some room, journalist. This could get a little messy.”
“I knew you’d like her,” said Lionstone. “Dear Valentine donated her. He had her constructed as a sex toy originally, when he couldn’t get his hands on the real thing, but he quite rightly thought I’d get more use out of her. I’ve even had some special augmentations added, just for you. Aren’t I good to you? Beatrice, dear, kill them all and bring me their heads.”
The thing that looked like Beatrice Christiana surged forward incredibly quickly. Disrupter muzzles emerged from the holes in her hands. Dazzlingly bright energy beams blazed through the crimson air, narrowly missing Owen
and Hazel as they threw themselves to one side, and striking Giles square in the chest. The impact threw him to the ground. Hazel brought up her projectile weapon and opened fire, but the bullets rebounded harmlessly from the steel chassis under the flesh covering. Owen fired his disrupter, but the machine just ducked under the energy beam and kept coming. She was on Hazel before she could drop the gun and draw her disrupter, grabbed her by the throat with one hand, and lifted her up into the air. Hazel dangled helplessly, choking as the metal fingers cut off her air. She clawed at the metal arm with both hands, feet kicking a good yard above the floor.
Owen threw himself at the machine from behind, but she wheeled inhumanly quickly, and slapped him away with her free hand like a bothersome child. Hazel’s eyes bulged as she fought for air. Owen was quickly back on his feet, boosted, and came at the Fury again. He ducked under the sweeping arm this time, and drove his sword at not-Beatrice’s unprotected throat. Steel slammed against steel, and the impact jarred the sword out of Owen’s hand. He didn’t hesitate and slammed his fist into its metallic side with all his boosted strength behind it. Amazingly, the steel ribs dented under the blow, and she staggered to one side, still holding on to Hazel. Owen hit it again and again, ignoring the pain of his skinned knuckles, doing damage, but not enough to make her drop her prey.
And then Jenny Psycho stepped forward, a sword blade of shimmering psi energy emerging from her hand. She chopped down, and the energy blade sheared clean through the machine’s arm. Hazel crashed to the ground, the steel hand still crushing her throat. She thrashed back and forth, tearing at it with both hands. Owen was quickly there beside her, and between them they broke the metal fingers one by one and pulled the hand away. Owen threw it to one side, and it lay twitching on the ground like a giant malformed spider.
The thing that looked like Beatrice stood facing Jenny Psycho, who grinned at it nastily. The energy sword disappeared from her hand, and she made a beckoning gesture. Beatrice looked at the esper for a moment, a quizzical expression on her artificial face, then suddenly she convulsed, her back arching. Strange noises came from her mouth, and her chest and sides bellowed in and out. And then her mouth stretched impossibly as all her artificial guts came fountaining up and out, pushing the teeth aside as they came. More and more flew from her mouth, torn out by Jenny’s esp, and she staggered back and forth as the high-tech contents fell to the ground at her feet. Finally there was nothing left of it but an artificial shell, tottering on its feet. Her workings lay steaming and twitching on the ground, spread over a wide area. Jenny smiled again, made a pushing gesture with one finger, and the lifeless shell crashed to the ground and lay still. Owen and Hazel got to their feet, and looked at it.
“The girl had guts,” said Hazel, her voice just a little rough.
Owen winced, and moved over to Giles, who was sitting up and shaking his head muzzily. Owen helped him up. “You took a disrupter blast point-blank in the chest,” he said, almost accusingly. “Why aren’t you dead?”
“Force shield,” said Giles briskly. “I’ve been working on it since Haceldama. Takes a lot out of me, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. You could do it, too, if you practiced.”
“Never seem to have the time,” said Owen. “You know how it is; when you’re running a rebellion, it’s one damned thing after another.”
The rebels dusted themselves off, and turned back to face the Throne. Lionstone stared back at them unflinchingly. “You always break my favorite toys. Very well, let’s try something else. Owen Deathstalker, Hazel d’Ark, Code Blue Two Two.”
She smiled triumphantly as she spoke the control words implanted in Owen’s and Hazel’s minds by the treacherous AI Ozymandius, but then her smile faltered as they just stood there, unmoved. Lionstone tried the control words again. Owen smiled at her.
“That won’t work anymore. We’ve moved beyond that.”
Lionstone spun on Jack Random. “You are still my creature. Obey me. Kill your friends!”
Random smiled, and shook his head. “Sorry, Lionstone. I’m not under your control. Never was. Control words won’t work on what we’ve become. I only went along to be sure of ending up here, right in front of you, just in case Owen and the others didn’t make it. Ruby went along with it, once she realized what I was up to.”
Ruby sniffed. “If I’d known it entailed being chained up like an escape artist and kicked around like a rag doll, I’d have thought twice about it.”
“I had to be convincing,” said Random. “Besides, you’re always telling me how tough you are. I knew you could take it.”
“Well next time, I’ll be the one in charge, and you can get chained up, and see how you like it.”
“Kinky,” said Random. “Remember, Ruby, it’s all for the cause.”
“Stuff the cause. I’m in this for the money, and don’t you forget it.”
Random sighed, shook his head, and turned to look at Alexander Storm. The two men who used to be friends stared at each other.
“I’d been having my suspicions about you for quite a while, Alex,” Random said finally. “Little things I was beginning to remember about Cold Rock. Things about you that didn’t add up, compared to the man I used to know. I put it down to age at first. We all change as we get older. But I didn’t want to believe how much you’d changed, till you used the control words on me. So I went along, to find out who you really were these days. Damn it, Alex; did I really let you down so badly? I never meant for you to be hurt.”
“Oh, you always meant well, Jack,” said Storm. “You promised me all kinds of things, but you never delivered. So I went to people who would keep their promises. People I could trust. They looked after me, treated me well. More than you ever did.”
Storm was trembling with anger by the time he finished, almost spitting the words at Random, trying to hurt him, even now. Random sighed, and met Storm’s gaze unflinchingly. “You poor bastard. You could have come to me anytime. Told me. We could have worked something out. I would have understood. You were my friend, Alex.”
“You were always so bloody understanding! Saint Jack, the hero and savior of the downtrodden, who had time for everyone but his friends! I got sick of your endless nobility, of having to be the selfless hero again and again, and to hell with the lives we might have made for ourselves. This is all your fault, Jack. You made me what I am. You’re responsible for everything I’ve done. And now I’m going to die here, because of you. I know that. But I’ll hurt you one last time, before I go.”
He surged forward, a hidden knife suddenly in his hand, heading not for Jack Random, but Ruby Journey. His knife flashed for her throat before Random could even begin to react. But Ruby’s hand came up impossibly quickly, slapped the knife aside, and then she punched Storm over the heart with all her strength behind it. Her fist sank in as far as the wrist, right under the sternum. Storm stopped in his charge, as though he’d run into a brick wall. All the color went out of his face, and he crumpled to the floor, just an old man who’d been hurt so badly he couldn’t even breathe. The knife fell from his hand as the feeling went out of his fingers. Random was quickly there at his side, but by the time he’d taken Storm gently by the shoulders, the old man was already dead, his heart crushed to a pulp by a single blow. Random stood up and looked at Ruby.
“He was my friend, for a long time.”
“I know,” said Ruby. “That’s why I killed him. So you wouldn’t have to.”
Random nodded. He couldn’t bring himself to thank her, not now. Maybe later.
“This is all very interesting, not to say sentimental and downright sickening,” said Lionstone. “But the game isn’t over yet. I still have a few cards left to play. Let’s try an obvious one, this time. Guards! A Lordship to whoever brings me the Deathstalker’s head!”
The guards standing in ranks behind the Throne rushed forward as one, their holographic disguises as burning angels falling away to reveal the armored men beneath. The monofilament swords in their hands
were real enough, though, power-driven swords with an edge a single molecule thick, capable of cutting through anything. That many men, with that kind of weapon, could have stopped an army in its tracks. So the rebels didn’t let the guards reach them. Jenny Psycho gestured, the power units that maintained the monofilament edge suddenly shorted out, and the swords were suddenly just swords again. While the guards were coming to terms with that, Random and Ruby hit them with a rolling wave of pyrokinetic fire. The guards burst into flames, some dying immediately, others turning and running, as though they could leave the deadly flames behind. As they ran they lit the Court like so many blazing candles, until one by one they fell, and guttered out.
Lionstone stared blankly at the charred and steaming carnage around her Throne, and then turned to her maids-in-waiting. “Kill them! Kill them all!”
The maids surged forward like attack dogs unleashed. Pointed teeth showed in their snarling mouths, and steel claws snapped out from under their fingernails. They were trained and deadly beasts of prey, conditioned to die rather than fail, packed with cybernetic augmentations. And Jenny Psycho stepped forward to meet them alone.
“This has gone on for far too long. It’s time to end it now.”
Her mind leaped out and dropped upon the maids, sinking deep into their minds and battling the conditioning at its roots. The maids fell to the ground, screaming and crying out, rolling and clawing at the floor like animals as an invisible war was waged in their minds. Jenny ripped away the conditioning with her esp, undid the neural connections and reconstituted the damaged brain tissues, returning the maids to who they had been before Lionstone took them to be her slaves. It was all over in a few moments, and then Jenny withdrew from their minds. The maids stopped their animal behavior and sat up, suddenly human again for the first time in years. At first they were stunned, and then slowly they came to themselves—their old selves. Some screamed, and tried to hide their nakedness. Some screamed, remembering what they had done, had been commanded to do, by Lionstone. They shook and shuddered, unable to cry with their artificial eyes. And some just looked around them in utter confusion. Toby Shreck stared intently at one of the maids, and then stepped forward.