Deathstalker Coda

  "That is one hell of a big fleet," said Brett.

  "And we are dangerously weakened," said Silence. "All our ships took some damage, and we lost a lot of crew. We're covering all the main battle stations, for now, but there's no telling how long that will last once the shooting starts. Hopefully our opposite numbers don't know that. The Mistworld and Virimonde ships were unaffected, but I don't know how they'll stand up to Imperial starcruisers. If you've got any Maze-given aces to pull out of your sleeve, Deathstalker, this would be a really good time to reveal them."

  "Afraid not, Admiral," said Lewis. "It's all down to courage and honor now."

  "We're all going to die," said Brett.

  The Imperial fleet fell upon the rebel fleet with silent fury, all guns blazing, and in a moment the situation descended into chaos. Starships of all shapes and sizes flashed back and forth, maneuvering in three dimensions, targeting objects of opportunity as they went. Force shields flared brightly, dissipating deadly energies as disrupter cannon fired in volleys, cascading brightly in the long night. Enough firepower opened up to scorch the life from a dozen worlds, and here and there ships exploded like novas as force shields overloaded and went down. Often the victorious ship had gone on to another engagement before it even saw the results of its attack.

  With the ships' AIs down, concerted attacks were impossible. It was every ship for herself. Silence kept up an endless stream of orders, trying to enforce his combat strategies, but even he couldn't keep up with the state of battle. Basic computer targeting could give best estimates of where a ship would go next, but it was up to human gunners to hit the fleeting targets, preferably without hitting one of their own ships in the process. Men and women on both sides fired their guns with wild eyes and manic smiles, half out of their minds on adrenaline and battle drugs, operating as much by instinct as training. Mistworld and Virimonde ships darted in and out of the chaos, running rings around the bigger ships, showing unexpected speed and deadly aim. The people of Mistworld and Virimonde had trained to be warriors all their lives, and for them combat was like coming home. Their shields couldn't stand up to the occasional direct hit from starcruiser cannon, but they all fought and died with the Owen's names on their lips, his Family name their battle cry.

  Deathstalker! Deathstalker!

  Lewis and Jesamine were running down a corridor to reinforce a besieged gunnery crew when one of the Havoc's shields shuddered and went down, and a direct hit blew a hole right through the bulkhead. Air blasted out through the huge jagged gap, and Lewis and Jesamine were swept off their feet in a moment. The lights flickered and the gravity fluctuated as alarm sirens sounded, almost drowned out by the rush of air shrieking out through the hole in the wall. Jesamine tumbled towards it, turning head over heels. Lewis cried out, his voice lost in the bedlam, and threw himself after her. Jesamine grabbed at the edge of the hole with one hand, and hung there, half in and half out. Lewis slammed against her, and grabbed one of her arms, only to cry out again as his side hit a viciously sharp steel prong. The metal shard sank deep into his side. Lewis held desperately onto Jesamine's arm. She was already dangling out into the cold vacuum. Only the steel spike in Lewis's side kept him from following her. He fought desperately to draw a breath from the air racing past him. He slowly pulled Jesamine back, inch by inch. And then the disrupter cannon fired again, the whole bulkhead blew apart, and the corridor opened up to space. Lewis and Jesamine were ripped free from their precarious holds, and flew out into the deadly vacuum of space.

  Lewis held on to Jesamine's arm as they turned slowly end over end. The Havoc fell away behind them, rushing on to fight other ships. The battle raged silently around them, ships coming and going faster than the human eye could follow. Disrupter beams and flaring shields blazed brighter than the stars. It was cold and silent and very dark, and Lewis felt very small and unimportant. Just another piece of flotsam, floating in the night.

  After a while, he thought Why aren't I dead? And then he thought, more specifically, Why isn't my blood boiling in my veins? Why haven't my lungs collapsed? And why don't I feel any need to breathe? He reached down to the wound in his side, and found it had already healed. He felt quite good, actually. He would have liked to giggle hysterically, but that would have to wait until later. He pulled Jesamine in close to him, and checked that she was all right too. They grinned confusedly into each other's faces. And Lewis thought This is great! I can survive in open space! No one's been able to do that since Owen!

  Don't start showing off, Jesamine's voice said firmly in his head.

  Jes! I can hear you! Can you hear me?

  Yes! The Maze is just full of surprises, isn't it?

  Telepathy too! We can do anything!

  I wouldn't go that far, sweetie. When I reach a point where I can eat anything I like and still not put on any weight, then I'll believe in miracles. But since we're not dead after all, why don't we see if we can do some damage to the bad guys. See that ship over there? Let's pop over and ruin their day.

  Sounds like a plan to me, said Lewis.

  And all they had to do was think about it, and suddenly they were sailing across open space towards the Imperial ship they'd chosen. The Heritage was barreling along at full speed, but they caught up with her eerily fast. Her shields flared all the colors of the rainbow as they soaked up disrupter fire from all directions. Lewis slowed to a halt in front of the ship's hull, and then hit the force shield with his fist. The energies shuddered and rippled, but held together. Lewis and Jesamine hit the shield at the same time, and it collapsed. Lewis would have been seriously impressed, and a little worried, about the implications of that if he'd had the time, but he didn't so he just got on with it. He and Jesamine descended to the great steel curve before them, walked along the side of the ship until they came to an airlock, and then kicked it in.

  Once they were back inside again, they began breathing normally, as though they'd never stopped. Their hearing came back in a rush, and they both winced at the racket of overlapping alarm sirens. Lewis checked his hands, and then Jesamine's, but neither seemed particularly cold. They both shrugged, and looked around for someone to fight. They went walking through the enemy ship, and everywhere they went, people fled from them screaming. Many of them called out the Deathstalker name as they ran, and Lewis took a certain cold satisfaction from the terror in their voices.

  The battle went on, ship targeting ship, the occasional vast explosion as a craft blew apart, dead crew thrown tumbling through space like confetti. Silence's fleet fought well and strongly, but they were severely weakened by the loyalist uprising, and there was no telling which way the fight might have gone, when suddenly Carrion and his Ashrai came flying out of nowhere in their thousands, soaring across space on their widespread membraneous wings as though born to it. Carrion led his gargoyle aliens in sweeping attacks against the Imperial fleet, their huge forms slamming right through force shields as though they weren't there, to tear steel hulls with their terrible claws. And inside the Imperial ships voices arose, crying It's the dragons! Owen's dragons, come to punish us for not recognizing the true Deathstalker!

  Their morale never really recovered after that, and ship after ship surrendered. Silence's fleet quickly took control, blowing apart the few hardcore fanatical ships that refused to surrender, and suddenly it was all over. Admiral Shapiro had a nervous breakdown and shot himself rather messily in the face. Captain Vardalos of the Heritage reluctantly took command, and oversaw the general surrender, which Admiral Silence graciously accepted, to save further loss of life.

  Captain Vardalos sat slumped in her command chair. The main viewscreen before her showed both fleets at a standstill, surrounded by the drifting hulks of crippled or destroyed ships, and Owen's dragons flying unprotected through space. How could she have been so wrong? The blessed Owen really had returned, in the hour of Humanity's greatest need, just as the legends always said he would; and they had denied him. They had been found wanting in their faith. Damn
the Emperor and his lies.

  She looked up slowly as her second hovered uncertainly beside her. "Captain, they're here!"

  "Who's here?" Vardalos struggled to focus her thoughts. "Has Silence sent emissaries across already?"

  "Well, sort of. Lewis Deathstalker and Jesamine Flowers walked across open space, ripped open an air lock and walked right in. And now they're standing outside the bridge, demanding to talk to you!"

  Vardalos had to shut her eyes for a moment. It was all getting a bit much for her.

  "Let them in. Before they kick the door down."

  Fortuna let them in, and they came forward to greet the captain. To their credit, they didn't look especially smug. They'd had no trouble with the Heritage's crew after the surrender. They'd already been overwhelmed by what the Deathstalker and the diva had done, and the arrival of the Ashrai had been the last straw. Their spirits were so thoroughly broken they all but prostrated themselves before Lewis and Jesamine as they made their way to the bridge. A few even lashed themselves with improvised whips, as penance. Lewis and Jesamine gave them plenty of room.

  Captain Vardalos studied the man and woman standing before her. They didn't look all that special, but there was a terrible kind of grandeur about them. "Congratulations on your victory," she made herself say.

  "There are no victors here today, Captain." The Deathstalker's famously ugly face held no triumph, only regret. "Too many good men and women died, for no good reason. Finn has betrayed us all. I never was a traitor, and no more were Douglas or Jesamine or any of the others denounced for daring to take a stand against his evils. And yes, it is true; my ancestor Owen has returned. He has gone to stop the Terror, so that we can be free to deal with the Emperor. Will you fight beside us, Captain?"

  Vardalos felt a rush of relief. So many of her worries fell away in a moment, it was like putting down a dreadfully heavy weight she'd been carrying for far too long. She smiled at the Deathstalker, who didn't seem nearly as terrible now.

  "Of course," she said. "Our fleet is yours. If Finn would lie to us about something as important as the return of the blessed Owen, he'd lie about anything. He is not fit to be Emperor. Lead us, Deathstalker. You will not find us wanting again."

  And so the huge combined fleet slowly got under way again, heading towards Logres with rage and justice on their minds. Accompanied by Carrion and his army of Ashrai, and all the ships of Mistworld and Virimonde.

  An avenging army was coming home, and nothing would stop them this time.

  CHAPTER SIX

  *

  LAST CHANCES

  The Emperor Finn was talking at rather than to Joseph Wallace, who was more than wise enough to just sit there and listen, and try to smile and nod at what seemed like the right places. Joseph never looked forward to those infrequent occasions when he was summoned to the Imperial Palace so Finn could have one of his little chats. He rarely heard anything to make him feel good. Although he was, technically speaking, head of the Church Militant and Pure Humanity, and therefore, theoretically, the second most powerful man in the Empire, Joseph knew he held that position only because Finn liked having someone he could talk to and confide in, someone safe he could boast to about all the awful things he'd done, and planned to do.

  The Emperor's private quarters were a mess, bordering on actually distressing to the nerves. Finn never cleaned up after himself, and he refused to allow servants in anymore, on the not unreasonable grounds that they might be rebel spies sent to kill him. He kept the lights turned up far too bright, so nothing could hide in the shadows, even when he slept. Papers were scattered across every surface, often weighed down with plates containing the remains of discarded meals. More rotting bits of food had been trampled into the rich heavy carpet. The room stank, despite everything the air conditioners could do to clear the air. It was like being in an animal's den, Joseph decided. Some great and powerful carnivore, that didn't care about appearances because it didn't have to.

  Finn had reached a position where he could do anything he liked, and mostly he did. And he never did anything he didn't want to. That was, after all, what being Emperor was all about. And yet the state of his Empire kept changing. No matter what he did, or ordered done, things kept going from bad to worse, and Finn was unable to halt the decline. He wouldn't have cared, except he needed a strong and stable Empire to fight off the Terror. Which was why Joseph had been summoned so abruptly, so Finn could complain to him. Joseph Wallace, the second most powerful man in the Empire, with the power of life and death at his slightest whim, sat uncomfortably on his comfortable chair and did his best to look attentive while Finn strode up and down before him, gesturing angrily.

  "Sometimes I actually wonder if I'm cursed, Joseph." The Emperor kicked out petulantly at a pile of papers, and they scattered like leaves across the stained and discolored carpet. "I do everything I can, kill all the right people, order purges and persecute the people to within an inch of their lives, and still the bloody Empire won't work properly. All I want is for them to shut up and do what they're told, for the good of the Empire and me in particular, and all they can do is whine and complain and burn down important buildings. Disorder is spreading on the outer worlds, and there have been occasions of outright defiance here on Logres, in the Parade of the Endless itself. And just when I'm really short of people I can depend on. It seems like only yesterday that I had armies of fanatics and followers all but falling over themselves to do my every bidding. But where are they, now I need them? I'm down to just a skeleton staff on some planets." He stopped pacing and fixed Joseph with a glittering eye. "People are taking advantage. Defying my orders and regulations, and thinking they can get away with it, just because I'm a bit preoccupied at the moment. They've even started to feel they can walk the streets in safety, and we can't have that, can we? My peacekeepers should inspire respect, fear, horror, and an urgent need to run as fast as possible in the opposite direction. A cowed population is an obedient population. Right, Joseph?"

  "Oh, of course, Your Majesty. Absolutely. People should know their place."

  "I'm glad you see it my way, Joseph. Because I want you to take every transmutation engine you have, and put them in orbit around all the most troublesome worlds. And then I'll let the shifty little bastards know that if they don't behave, I'll have every living thing on their planet reduced to protoplasmic goo. That should concentrate their minds wonderfully. Why are you frowning, Joseph? You know I hate it when you frown, especially when I'm being visionary."

  "Oh, it's an excellent plan, Your Majesty, it's just… well, we don't actually have all that many transmutation engines left, after what happened at Mog Mor. You… we deployed most of our engines there, to deal with the Mog Mor threat, and nearly all of them were destroyed. And, as I'm sure you recall, it takes a lot of time and money to build transmutation engines. Work is progressing, but…"

  "Joseph," said Finn, calmly and very dangerously, "tell me something I want to hear, or I'll have your testicles stitched together."

  "Of course, the people don't know just how short of engines we are," said Joseph, thinking quickly on his feet. "Due to your wise decision not to allow any news coverage of what happened at Mog Mor. So, if we just put engines around a few selected worlds, we should be able to bluff the other worlds with the implied threat."

  Finn sniffed loudly. "I don't like to bluff. I like to do appalling things to people who upset me. And I can't afford to have a bluff called, even once. Most of the outer planets are only waiting for one definite sign of weakness on my part, and then the ungrateful little shits will rise up. And where one leads, others will follow… Maybe we should destroy a world anyway, just to show we mean business. Yes, I like that. Find me a planet no one will miss much, Joseph, and put an engine in orbit. And one day when I'm feeling really depressed… we'll have a nice fireworks display."

  He threw himself happily into a chair opposite Joseph, and crossed his legs languorously. "If only all my problems were that simple. Mos
t of my loyal people are currently manning the fleet I had to send out to stop the Deathstalker's fleet. That man is a pain. I killed his whole family, and he still won't take a hint. But my fleet will stop his. I've packed my ships with the very best military minds, and my most zealous and hardcore fanatics, to be absolutely sure they'll have no compunctions about firing on their fellow ships. Still no reports, I take it? No, of course not. Too early yet. But I want it to happen soon. I want to hear about a massive victory, and hundreds of ships burning in the night. I want to see Lewis's head on a spike… I need a victory, Joseph. A really impressive demonstration of how powerful my forces are, and how vicious and merciless I can be to my enemies. Something to cow the peasants and make them think twice about doing anything that might attract my attention. They just don't worship and adore me the way they used to, the ungrateful little turds. I always knew the public were fickle and not to be trusted, even back when I was just a Paragon. The number of times I had to reinvent myself, just to hold their attention… So, it seems I am forced to desperate measures."

  He smiled at Joseph, waiting for him to ask the obvious question. Joseph thought frantically. What the hell else could Finn have in mind, that would be worse than murdering a whole world with a transmutation engine?

  "What… precisely, did you have in mind, Your Majesty?"

  "I'm going to make a deal with the ELFs, and use their thralls on the streets to restore order and discipline. While wearing my colors, naturally. They won't take any crap from the peasants. They think they had things bad before; wait till the ELFs get to work! They have such wonderfully inventive minds, when it comes to terrorizing people."

  "'The ELFs?" said Joseph finally, so outraged he didn't even bother to keep it out of his voice. "You must be crazy! You can't trust those people!"