Deathstalker Honor

CHAPTER SIX

Cry Havoc

The Empire, dangerously weakened in its transitional state between the new and old orders, found itself under attack from all sides at once. And everything went to hell in a handcart. Old enemies came howling out of the dark, falling like wolves on undefended colonies out on the Rim. A massive fleet of Shub starships burst out of the Forbidden Sector, brushing aside the quarantining starcruiser, and laid waste to every inhabited planet in its path. Powered by the new alien-derived stardrive, they were effectively unstoppable by anything save the few remaining E-class starcruisers in the Imperial Fleet.

The great golden ships of the Hadenmen appeared out of nowhere, striking viciously at unsuspecting planets all along the Rim in The Second Great Crusade of the Genetic Church. It soon become clear they were emerging from hidden bases deep beneath the surfaces of uninhabited worlds. The Hadenmen had recently established secret Nests all across the Empire, not wanting to place all their eggs in one fragile basket again. The Deathstalker's destruction of Brahmin II had proven them right, and spurred on by the elimination of what should have been their second homeworld, all the Hadenmen Nests opened at once. The huge golden ships of feared legend ranged the long night again, bringing death and destruction and worse than death.

The insect ships were back too. Gliding silently out of the dark like huge, sticky balls of compacted webbing, driven by unknown forces, they passed unaffected through planetary defenses and discharged crawling armies of killer insects, eating whole cities alive and leaving nothing behind save bare, gnawed bones. They made no threats, issued no demands, could not be talked to or warned off. They just descended from the skies in silent horror and fell upon everything that lived. Soon there were whole planets out on the Rim covered by scuttling, seething insects, crawling blindly through the ruins of what had once been human cities.

The Empire wasted remarkably little time springing to its own defense. Parliament organized Golgotha into one great communications and tactical center, alerted all planets and colonies in the path of danger, and rushed ships, men, and weapons to defend those not yet fallen or attacked. Luckily, though Shub, Hadenmen, and insects shared a common enemy in Humanity, they showed no interest in any form of alliance. They went their own way, chose their own targets, and did not cooperate, even when it was clearly in their best interests to do so. But they didn't attack each other either, sticking strictly to their own territories, for the moment.

Planets and colonies fell, one by one, all along the Rim, and the three attacking forces moved steadily inward, heading for the greater concentrations of Humanity and the vulnerable heart of the Empire: Golgotha. Some colonists tried, against all Parliament's wishes and advice, to strike deals with those attacking them. It did no good.

General Beckett's devastated Imperial Fleet did what it could, but its capabilities were limited from the first. The few surviving E-class ships with the new stardrive couldn't be everywhere at once, and worlds under attack cried out for help all the time. Beckett sent what was left of his Fleet darting all over the Empire, pulling in every last ship with a crew and working guns, even those patrolling the Darkvoid, and rushed them from one trouble spot to another, but all too often they got there too late to do any real good. He then tried splitting up the Fleet, dispatching his most powerful starcruisers to defend those planets in most immediate danger. But Imperial starcruisers caught on their own were quickly outnumbered and outgunned, and had no choice but to run for their lives, usually heavily damaged. Unnerved by the loss of too many irreplacable ships, Parliament ordered Beckett to regroup his Fleet and pull them back to protect the more densely populated inner worlds of the Empire. Everyone else was left to fend for themselves. Whole populations struggled to evacuate their worlds, cramming themselves into the cargo holds of any ship with a working stardrive. Many never reached their destinations. Many more populations stood their ground and fought, ready to die rather than give up the worlds they had made their own, through generations of hard work and sacrifice.

The invasion had actually begun to slow when Shub launched its new wave. Vast armadas of new ships made their appearance, without the new stardrive but built from the harvested metal trees of Unseeli. From these ships issued great armies of Ghost Warriors and Furies and the deadly biomechanical aliens they had looted from the secret Vaults on Grendel. Unstoppable, implacable, they existed only to kill. Dead men with computer implants. Steel machines in the shape of men. Aliens bioengineered by some forgotten race to be perfect killing machines. Horror troops. Terror weapons. Just like the insects, they overran Humanity's armies, leaving only blood and bone behind. But still Humanity resisted, forgetting old animosities and diversions in the face of a common enemy. There were victories as well as losses, but never enough.

The Empire was being invaded on three fronts, by its most deadly enemies, and the fighting was spread across worlds already sickened and weakened by the length and bitter fighting of the rebellion. Some just didn't have it in them to fight anymore. There were shortages of everything needed to fight a war, the ships and weapons that ought to have stopped the invaders having been used up when Humanity fought itself. Shub and the Hadenmen and the insects had chosen their moment well. But Humanity fought on, and thanked God that at least the alien Recreated hadn't made an appearance yet. Because there was no one left to watch the Darkvoid.

The people called out for their heroes, the great warriors of the rebellion, but most were dead, or nowhere to be found. And the four greatest, the four survivors of the Madness Maze, had been sent off on distant, vital missions from which they might not return.

The army of the rogue AIs of Shub came to the planet Loki, world of eternal storms, and were invited in by human traitors. Ghost Warriors strode unfeeling through the howling winds of Loki, side by side with the human turncoats. Outer settlements fell quickly, and the central city of Vidar, overseer of the extensive mining operations, sent out a desperate call for help. There were no ships available, but it was a valuable planet, so Parliament did the next best thing, and sent them Jack Random and Ruby Journey.

The Defiance dropped out of hyperspace over Loki, hung around just long enough to drop a heavily armored pinnace, and then it was gone again, needed urgently elsewhere. The pinnace, wrapped in four times the usual amount of protective armor, dropped like a stone into the violently swirling atmosphere of Loki. Inside, the two living legends and their accompanying marine crew clung desperately to every handhold they could find, their crash webbing swinging them crazily back and forth. There were warning lights flashing all over the place, and everything not actually nailed down flew about the cramped cabin like so much shrapnel. The crew of a half dozen marines hunched their heads down into their shoulders, and did their best to hang on to their last meal. Random did his best to look stoic and experienced, while Ruby swung happily back and forth in her webbing, whooping loudly with glee at every new drop and lurch.

"Now, this is what I call a ride!" she yelled over the din of the storm and the pinnace's straining engines. "You'd have to pay good money for a ride like this back in Golgotha's theme parks!"

"Can't you do anything to settle this ship down?" Random yelled to the pilot at the front of the cabin. The floor dropped out from under his feet again, and he clung grimly to a nearby stanchion with both hands. "I have been in crashing elevators that were less uncomfortable than this!"

"Spoilsport!" said Ruby loudly. "You're getting old, Random!"

"Shut the hell up and let me concentrate!" the pilot shouted back, entirely unmoved. "The gyros are useless in weather systems like this; the conditions are changing too suddenly for the computers to cope. The best we can do for now is drop like a brick and hope conditions improve as we get nearer the surface. Though I wouldn't put money on it. If you don't like the way I fly, there are parachutes under your seats. Of course, the storm lightning will fry you the minute you open the outer hatch, but that's your problem. Thank you for flying with us, and for God's sake try to get some of it in the sick bags."

"Let the man do his job," said the massive Sergeant to Random's left. He was a thirty-year man with a trim, muscular form and an impressive number of combat drops to his credit. Half the Sergeant's face was covered with a spiderweb tattoo, and golden skulls and crossbones hung from both ears. His name tab said MILLER. "He's made this drop twice before, which is twice more than anyone else has. He knows what he's doing."

"I'm glad someone does," said Ruby, from the webbing on Random's right. "I mean, normally people who express an interest in visiting Loki of their own free will are immediately grabbed and locked up in a rubber room under industrial-strength sedatives, before they hurt themselves. Loki is the only planet in the Empire with worse weather than Mistworld. They only got colonists to come here by bribing them with massive land grants and more credit than they could spend in a lifetime. If the Empire needed an enema, this world is where they'd stick—"

"We had to come," said Random. "We're needed."

"I was quite happy back on Golgotha," said Ruby. "Living in a civilized city where the weather does what it's told, chasing down possible Shub connections. But no, Jack bloody Random has to go chasing off to be a hero again, and I get dragged along with him."

"You know we had to come," said Random. He looked back at the Sergeant. "You're sure Young Jack Random is down there somewhere?"

"Oh, yes. We've got holovid footage if you want to see it." Miller's mouth twitched as though he'd just tasted something sour. "The cameraman got fried before he could broadcast much, but we're pretty sure it's him. I thought you people said he died on Golgotha."

"He did," said Random. "Show us the footage."

The Sergeant made the connection through the pinnace's computers, and the holovid played back through Random and Ruby's comm implants, channeled directly through their optic nerves. The interior of the pinnace cabin vanished, replaced by a jerky, uncertain scene of a village in flames. Gusting winds fanned the fires, and black smoke thick with drifting smuts and cinders billowed through the still streets. There were bodies lying everywhere. Men, women, children, lying in great pools of blood. Not all the bodies were intact.

Ghost Warriors strode stiffly through the inferno, untouched by the intense heat. Dead men walking, their gray flesh rotting on their bones. And at their head, smiling and laughing, a sword dripping blood in one hand, was Young Jack Random. Tall, muscular, handsome, every inch the hero of legend. A severed human head hung by its blood-slick hair from his other hand. He stopped, suddenly aware of the camera, turned and struck a pose, standing half silhouetted against the crimson flames of a burning house. He smiled widely, showing perfect white teeth. His silver armor was running with blood, none of it his. He held up the severed head so it faced the camera, then laughed and gestured with his bloody sword. Two Ghost Warriors advanced on the camera. The footage cut off abruptly, and the pinnace cabin returned. Random and Ruby looked at each other.

"Well?" said Miller. "Is that him?"

"Oh, yes," said Ruby. "That's Young Jack Random, doing what he does best."

"So what's the story?" demanded the Sergeant. "Officially, the man died a hero, leading the street fighting in the Parade of the Endless. Unofficially, there were all kinds of rumors. Some say he was killed by his own side for betraying the cause. Others say you people killed him because he wouldn't go along with the deal you struck with Blue Block. Some say he never died. Just walked away in disgust from all the killing, but that he'd return again in the hour of the Empire's greatest need. Lot of people liked that one. Word is, when he first appeared on Loki, people flocked to him as a savior. Until word came back with the few survivors that he was leading an army of Ghost Warriors and wasn't interested in taking prisoners. So, talk to me. If I'm going to have to face that man dirtside, I have a right to know."

"Of course you have," said Random. "He's not a man. He's a machine. A Fury. You can understand why we thought we had to keep that quiet."

"Jesus," said Miller. "But… he was a hero. He helped lead the rebellion."

"Shub was taking the long view," said Ruby. "If we won, they wanted one of their own in a position of power and influence. We only found out his true nature by accident. An esper colleague of ours destroyed his body completely. Flattened him out like metal roadkill."

"So how come he's back here making trouble?"

"It would appear Shub has built another one," said Random. "Another me. I suppose I should be flattered. It's psychological warfare. Just a little something extra to undermine human morale. Or perhaps a lure to bring me here, for some purpose of their own. When we find the Fury, I'll be sure to see what he has to say about it. Before I destroy him again."

"If we can," said Ruby. "Furies can take a hell of a lot of punishment. Julian Skye was a powerful esper. There's no guarantee we'll find anyone of his caliber dirtside."

"Julian Skye killed the original?" said the Sergeant, his face lighting up. "Damn, I watch his show all the time! He was a real hero!"

"Yes," said Random. "One of the few of us who really was. I wish he was here now."

"Probably too busy doing close-ups," said Ruby. "While we get to do the dirty work, as always. What's the matter, Sergeant? Aren't two living legends enough for you?"

"No offense," said the Sergeant quickly. "Everyone knows your record. And I'm sure having the real Jack Random to lead them will do wonders for civilian morale."

The pinnace lurched wildly from side to side as it hit another patch of extreme turbulence. The crash webbing swung violently back and forth, slamming its human contents against each other. The cabin lights flickered and threatened to go out, but somehow hung on. Thunder rolled almost continuously, lightning crawling the length of the outer hull, and the winds howled like the storm given voice. From up front the pilot's continuous cursing grew ever more vicious as his hands darted over the controls. The Sergeant swung down out of his webbing, bracing himself against the sudden roll and sway of the drop with two separate handholds.

"I'd better go see if I can help the pilot! Back in a minute!"

He staggered off down the narrow central aisle, throwing himself into the co-pilot's seat and strapping in next to the pilot. Their lips moved, but Random couldn't hear anything. They'd switched to a private channel on their comm implants. Which implied really bad news. Random looked away and studied the other marines in their crash webbing opposite him. They paid him no attention, each lost in their own private rituals of comfort.

One was working a neon rosary, eyes closed, lips moving in silent prayer. Another was trying to tell an endless joke to the man beside him, who was pretending to be asleep. The others were passing a metal flask of something bracing back and forth. They didn't offer any to Random or Ruby. He gestured for her to lean closer. Normally a murmur would have been lost in the din, but Random and Ruby could always hear each other, no matter what the conditions. Just another gift from the Maze.

"I had been wondering why they wanted us here when we were doing so well uncovering Shub connections," said Random. "But if that really is Young Jack Random down there, then we could be the only hope Loki has."

"Maybe," said Ruby. "But why us rather than Owen and Hazel? They're the licensed troubleshooters these days. I can't help wondering if maybe our investigations were bringing us too close to something, or someone, that didn't want to be uncovered."

"No," said Random. "I would have insisted on this assignment, and they knew it. I need to do this. I wasn't there when my metal duplicate was destroyed. I never got my chance to face him, to test myself against him. I need to see him fall before me, Ruby. I need to tear him apart with my bare hands for all the terrible things he's done while wearing my face."

"And not just because for a while he seemed a better leader of men than you, and a much more plausible hero?"

"Of course not," said Random. "How could you think such a thing of me?"

They smiled dryly at each other, and then the side of the pinnace opposite them exploded. An entire section of the hull disappeared, blown away by a direct hit from a disrupter cannon. The marines were sucked right out of the gaping hole, their security hooks ripped out of the steel floor in a moment, gone before they even had time to scream. New alarm sirens sounded, and red warning lights flashed as the cabin atmosphere boiled out the hull breach and the temperature plummeted.

The pinnace spun as it fell, spiraling toward the planet's surface as the pilot opened up the engines, struggling to outrun and outmaneuver the enemy's tracking systems. Random and Ruby struggled for air as the cabin pressure dropped, and breathing masks fell down from above them. They tried to reach for the masks, but their crash webbing was being sucked toward the hull breach, and it was all they could do to hang on. Random fought for air, and prayed the security hooks would hold. There was nothing he or Ruby could do till the ship fell deep enough into the planet's atmosphere to equalize the pressure.

Then he looked over at Ruby and saw her struggling to release the webbing. He called out to her, but she wouldn't listen. The straps finally let go, and she lurched out onto the slippery steel floor, clinging to a nearby stanchion with fingers like claws. She let go with one hand and grabbed a steel gun locker on the wall. It was almost as wide as it was tall, and had to weigh the best part of a ton. Ruby ripped it off the wall, and with an effort that tore an agonized silent scream from her, she threw the locker in the direction of the hull breach, which sucked it into place, neatly covering the gap in the hull.

The cabin air pressure quickly reestablished itself, and Random fought his way out of his crash webbing and rushed over to hold the locker in place. Ruby was quickly at his side, blood dripping from her nose, with a hand welder she'd found in a tool box. It took only a few moments to seal the locker securely in place, and then they both collapsed onto the floor, their backs propped against the bulkhead. They were both breathing hard, but from effort now rather than asphixiation.

"Nice throw," Random said finally.

"Thanks," said Ruby. "Nice catch."

"You stay put and take it easy for a moment. I'll go have a word with the pilot."

Ruby nodded wearily, and gingerly massaged her aching shoulder as Random forced himself to his feet and stumbled down the aisle to the front of the pinnace. Neither the pilot nor the Sergeant looked around as Random joined them.

"That had to be a disrupter cannon," said Random, with a hand on the back of each of their chairs to steady himself. "Is there somebody up here with us?"

"I don't think so," said the Sergeant. "Sensors would have detected another ship, even in all this crap. Must be landbased."

"Then Shub must have supplied it," said Random. "There was nothing in the files to indicate the human traitors had access to that kind of weaponry."

"Well, they do now," said the pilot. "And we're a sitting duck up here. It's only the weather and the turbulence that's keeping them from locking on for another shot."

"Do we have any energy shields?" said Random, leaning over the Sergeant's shoulder to try to make sense of the control panels. There seemed to be a hell of a lot of warning lights flashing.

"No. Engines need all their power to fight the storms. And our armor was never intended to cope with energy weapons. Pilot, can you get us down any faster?"

The pilot opened his mouth to say something cutting, and then the window before him exploded into shrapnel as the pinnace took another direct hit. A hundred steelglass shards slammed into and through the pilot in a second, killing him instantly. Air rushed out through the window break. Random, having learned, pulled the nearest steel locker off the wall and plugged up the gap fairly neatly, and the air pressure stabilized again.

The engines whined as the pinnace dropped like a stone. Random hauled the dead pilot out of his seat, fastened himself in the command chair and studied the controls. They were a lot nearer the surface than he'd thought, but it was still a hell of a long way down. With no hand at the helm, sky and cloud and snatches of surface swept back and forth before the unblocked steelglass window. Random cleaned the controls of blood as best he could, being very careful not to activate anything till he was sure what it did. He looked across at the Sergeant in the copilot's seat, but even as he started to ask for help, he realized Miller was slumped forward, unmoving. Random reached out and pulled the Sargeant back in his chair. Miller's head rolled back, and he stared sightlessly up at the cabin ceiling, a large steelglass fragment protruding from one bloody eyesocket.

"Dead as a doornail," said Ruby, moving into view beside Random. "Our luck is running true to form."

"Haul his ass out of that chair and take his place," said Random. "I'm going to need your help to land this thing."

Ruby pulled Miller's body out of the chair and dumped it on the deck. She took over the co-pilot's seat and then looked over at Random. "You have flown one of these things before, haven't you, Jack?"

"Do you want the bad news or the really bad news?"

"Oh, shit."

"That just about sums it up. Those two disrupter hits did a lot of damage to the steering. And if I'm interpreting these controls correctly, we have associational damage too. Engine power is dropping, one of the main air tanks is ruptured, and the landing computers are shot to shit. Apart from that, putting this unfamiliar craft down in unknown territory in a never ending storm should be a piece of cake. Any questions?"

"Just one. Where did the Sergeant say those parachutes were?"

"Forget it. There's enough lightning out there to turn you into a cinder before you could even pull the ripcord."

"Escape pods? Gravity sleds?"

"In a ship this size? Hey, wait a minute… oh, shit!"

Ruby looked at him sharply. "I really didn't like the way you said that. What is it now?"

"Half the controls just shut down. Shrapnel from the window has riddled the main computers. We are now running entirely on backup systems. If I try to cut in the manual controls, this heap of shit will drop like a rock. It's only the few remaining automatic systems that are keeping the engines going."

"Oh, shit."

"Exactly. We are currently plummeting toward the surface of an unknown planet in a crippled ship we can't control, with all the glide factor of half a brick with a nail in it. Feel free to chime in if you have any bright ideas that don't include divine intervention."

"So what are we going to do? Come on, Random, you're the expert strategist. Think of a way out of this mess."

"Strategies require options, and we don't seem to have any. We're just going to have to trust what's left of the onboard computers to crash us as gently as possible."

"We can't be that helpless! We're Maze people, dammit! Superhumans!"

"Unfortunately, none of our abilities are any use in this situation. But we should be able to survive a crash that would kill anyone else. Hell, when I attacked the pastel towers back on Golgotha, they shot my gravity sled out of the sky and then set fire to me, and I still walked away from it."

Ruby stared at the useless controls before her. "There has to be something we can do. Something to improve our chances."

"There is," Random said suddenly. "Give me a hand."

He hit his strap releases and surged up out of his chair, his face alight with inspiration. He staggered up the slanted central aisle of the shaking ship, and started pulling loose all the remaining chairs and lockers. Ruby hurried after him, new hope in her heart.

"What is it? What have you thought of, Jack?"

"A cocoon. We're going to build a barricade around ourselves, layers of steel and padding, and hope it absorbs most of the impact on landing. Give me a hand here. We've only got a few minutes left before we hit."

Ruby joined him, tearing attachments loose. Everything that wasn't an actual part of the deck or the hull ended up part of the many layers of barricade at the front of the cabin. Finally they ran out of junk and time, and retreated into the heart of the cocoon. They'd left just enough room for the two of them to force their way in, and they sat together in each other's arms, wedged together so tightly they could barely breathe. The alarm sirens had blended into a single hysterical tone now, and the red emergency lighting had given everything the color of blood. The storm still raged around them, slapping the craft this way and that.

"I never thought I'd die like this," said Ruby Journey. "Just sitting helplessly, waiting for the end. I deserved a warrior's death. A chance to die fighting, on my feet, and take some of my enemies with me."

"We're not dead yet," said Jack Random. "Never give up hope, Ruby. It's all that keeps us going."

"I always loved you, Jack. Always will. I might not be very good at showing it, but…"

"It's all right. I know. Love you too, Ruby. If we get out of this alive, you want to take another stab at living together?"

"Hell, no. I don't love you that much."

They laughed quietly together.

"At least they've stopped shooting," said Random. "Either the storm's thrown us out of range, or they must think we're all dead."

"Let us be thankful for small mercies," said Ruby. "You know, that attack was no accident. Someone down there knew we were coming."

"Yes. We'll have to ask a few pointed questions about that later. Even if it's only through a spirit board."

"I won't die," said Ruby. "I'm not ready to die yet. There's still so much I meant to do."

"I suppose everyone feels like that. I'm… more or less content. I've achieved more than I ever expected to. And I got to meet you, eventually. I'll settle for that."

"You always were willing to settle for too little, Jack."

They laughed again, and then the breath was slammed from their bodies as the landing computers cut in and hauled back on the engines, fighting to turn the last of the descent into a landing. The pinnace's speed fell drastically, the hull groaned and flexed, and lights flickered on and off, the scream of the straining engines louder than the storms outside. Random and Ruby held each other tightly, their heads buried in each other's shoulders. And then the pinnace struck a towering black mountain a glancing blow in passing, and the whole right side of the craft bulged inward. The pinnace struck one obstacle after another on its way down, its heavily armored hull absorbing most of the blows, but Random and Ruby took a lot of the impact too. Fires broke out in the back of the pinnace, and smoke drifted down the cabin, thick and black and choking. And then the ship finally hit the ground.

The impact seemed to go on forever. The pinnace skidded across an unyielding, unforgiving surface in a sea of sparks and flames, slowing only gradually, until finally the nose slammed into a dark cliff face, and the pinnace came to a final halt. The engines were cut off automatically, and for long moments there was only the roaring of the gale-force winds as they blew out the flames and rocked the broken-open wreck of the pinnace back and forth.

Jack Random's first awareness was of being rocked pleasantly to and fro like an infant in its cradle. It felt wonderfully comfortable, and all he wanted was to lie there and enjoy it, but part of him knew he couldn't do that. Reluctantly he opened his eyes, and was greeted with the hellish red glow of emergency lighting. At least the damn alarm sirens had shut up at last. He didn't know how long he'd been unconscious, but he could hear fires burning at the back of the craft. Not a good sign. He could taste blood in his mouth. He tried to move his arms, and sharp pains erupted in his sides. Several careful movements later, he was satisfied he'd broken most of his ribs, and there was enough blood seeping into his mouth that he had to keep spitting it out. Definitely not a good sign. He gritted his teeth against the pain and tried to stand up, but the crash had compacted the barricades around him and Ruby so tightly that there was no room to move. Ruby's eyes were still closed, and she was breathing harshly through her mouth.

"Ruby! Wake up, dammit! I can't do this on my own!"

"Stop shouting," Ruby mumbled without opening her eyes. "I've got a headache."

She lifted her head slowly, and Random winced as her face came into the light. There was a deep and nasty wound on her forehead, blood streaming down the side of her face. But when she opened her eyes, they were clear and rational.

"Congratulations," said Random. "We survived the landing. Unfortunately, the ship is on fire. We have to get out of here, fast."

"So what's stopping us?" said Ruby.

"We're stuck in our cocoon, and I can't find enough leverage to free us. Any suggestions?"

"Our feet are still on the deck. If we can't push back, push up."

So they braced themselves against each other, refusing to cry out at the pain of their various injuries, and forced themselves to their feet. After that it was a simple but painful task to free themselves from the cocoon that had saved their lives. Leaning heavily on each other, they headed for the single airlock. Neither of them were particularly steady on their feet. Jack's vision wasn't as clear as he would have liked, and his head ached abominably. He just hoped he didn't have a concussion. Ruby was favoring one leg, and one of her eyeballs was red with leaking blood inside. Really not a good sign. Jack decided he'd think about all that later. First get out of the damned pinnace. He hit the airlock controls, and nothing happened. He hit them again, as hard as he could in his weakened state, but the airlock inner door remained stubbornly shut.

"What's taking so long?" said Ruby petulantly. "I want to lie down. Get some sleep."

"In a while," said Random. "Right now, try talking to this door. It won't listen to me."

"Airlock's linked to the main controls. And they were wrecked in the landing."

"Can we repair them?"

"Maybe," said Ruby, frowning as she tried to concentrate. "If you're good at jigsaws. Anyway, don't be in such a hurry to leave. From what I remember of the files, surface conditions are atrocious. It's cold, high background radiation, and the wind never stops blowing. Let's just sit here and wait to be rescued. I'm tired."

"I'm afraid we can't do that, Ruby. There's a fire in the hold and it's coming this way. And the engines—"

"Could blow any time. Yeah. I remember. Damn. You're just full of good news, aren't you? All right, there should be manual controls for the door, top and bottom. Toss you for which of us has to bend over."

In the end, Jack nearly passed out from the pain when he tried to bend down, so Ruby had to do it, cursing and complaining all the way down. They cracked the inner airlock door open inch by inch, stumbled into the lock, and hit the explosive bolts that blew the outer door open. Random put his head out cautiously, and winced as the bitter night wind hit his exposed face. It felt like razors. He pulled his head quickly back in.

"Nasty."

"Told you," said Ruby. "The locals wear protective armor when they have to go out, which is as rarely as they can get away with."

"We don't have the time to improvise any armor. We need to put some distance and protection between us and this ship in case she blows. I'm pretty sure I saw a cliff face within walking distance, and what might have been caves."

"You'd better be right about this, Random. Okay, you lead, I'll follow."

They lurched out into the freezing dark, and the wind sent them staggering sideways for a moment before they could get their footing. The cold cut into them like a knife, and there was something abrasive in the wind that seared their exposed skin raw. They huddled together and staggered away from their crashed ship toward the great dark cliff face in the distance.

Their progress was maddeningly slow. Strength and determination could do only so much in the face of broken bones and crippling pain. They stumbled on, supporting each other. It wasn't full dark yet, but there was only a small moon, dropping a sickly blue light over the nightmare landscape. They were in a valley, surrounded on all sides by huge, eerie shapes that rose up unexpectedly out of the gloom. There was no sign of anything living. The wind howled like something dying. The cliff face didn't seem to be getting any closer.

"What are our chances of rescue?" said Ruby after a while.

"Bad," said Random. "The storm and the attack threw us way off course. The last location I had put us about two miles from the main city, Vidar. No other settlements in walking distance. And after a crash like ours, they might not bother with any rescue. They wouldn't come this far just to identify a few bodies. Even if two of them were rather famous bodies."

"So," said Ruby, "first we get to the cliff face. Then we climb the cliff face till we find a cave. Then we sit and heal. And then we get to walk two miles through this shit to the nearest civilization. Wonderful. Assuming we get through all this alive, I am going to find whoever's idea it was to send us here, rip out his spleen, and make him eat it, one bite at a time."

"You must be feeling better if you can talk that much. Let's speed up the pace."

"You're a bastard, Jack. Have I told you that recently?"

"Shut up and keep walking."

"Why the hell did I agree to come here?" said Ruby.

"You volunteered. Said you were bored. Wanted a little excitement."

"This is very definitely not what I had in mind."

"Ah, you never want to go anywhere fun."

They clung to each other as the wind whipped sharply about them, pushing them this way and that like some playground bully. They screwed up their eyes against it till they could barely see, and it filled their noses and mouths with dust that irritated their throats. The ground beneath their feet rose and fell sharply for no obvious reason, hard and unyielding, so that each step sent painful vibrations shuddering through their exhausted bodies.

Random tried to get some impression of his surroundings. The shapes they passed were some kind of black basaltic rock, but their strange, enigmatic shapes had a subtly troubling quality. There was something almost organic about them, something strangely familiar, like shapes seen in dreams, full of significance. Random shook his head, trying to drive out the unsettling thoughts. It was just his imagination that the rocks looked like creatures who might awaken at any moment, and turn and pursue him with the slow malevolent patience of all creatures in nightmares. He looked back at the pinnace. It was almost lost in the darkening twilight, but he could see well enough to be astonished he and Ruby had survived at all. The ship had cracked open in several places, the thick armor plating split and buckled like paper. More than enough to kill any human passengers. Anyone merely human.

At least the engines hadn't blown up yet.

Random turned his head away and concentrated on the cliff face before him. It was definitely closer. Which was good, because he felt like shit. Every step jolted his broken ribs, and he was pretty sure he had serious internal injuries too. There was always blood in his mouth now, no matter how often he spat it out. Ruby was leaning on him more and more heavily, and had stopped complaining, which was always a bad sign. They had to find shelter soon, somewhere they could rest and hopefully heal. Even the more than human had their limits.

When they finally stumbled to a sudden halt at the base of the cliff, it seemed like a miracle. Random spotted a cave opening and pointed it out with a harsh croak that was all that was left of his voice. They hauled themselves up the jagged cliff face with a last burst of strength, buoyed by a possible end to their struggle. The cave opening was a good ten feet in diameter, its interior an impenetrable darkness. Random pulled a penlight from his sleeve, and played the thin yellow beam around the cave's entrance. The interior stretched away before him, farther than the light could penetrate. Still leaning on each other. Random and Ruby stumbled into the cave.

It went some way back, and they followed the tunnel until they reached the sealed end, and then collapsed on the hard rock floor, their backs against the comforting support of the end wall.

The air was still now, and perhaps fractionally warmer, though the never ending storm still howled outside, as though angry at being cheated of its victims. Random and Ruby sat together, shoulder to shoulder, their breathing and their heartbeats slowly returning to normal. Their various pains seemed comfortably far away for the moment, though neither had the strength to move another inch. Random turned off his penlight. Might need the power yet, and besides, there was really nothing he needed to see right now. He felt deathly tired. Since passing through the Madness Maze, he'd grown accustomed to his occasional wounds healing quickly, but it had been a long time since he'd been busted up this badly. He wondered if there was a limit after all to how much damage his body could repair. If so, this was a hell of a time to find out. He could hear Ruby beside him, breathing jerkily through her mouth. She didn't sound good.

"Ruby? You still with me?"

"Unfortunately, yes." Her voice was strained and harsh. "I feel like shit. How about you?"

"I'm getting there." Random gritted his teeth against a sudden surge of pain from his broken ribs, and then had to cough, which hurt even more. A thick wad of blood and something else came into his mouth, and he spat it out. "Damn. I have a horrible feeling there was a bit of lung in that."

"You're just trying to cheer me up. I always knew I'd end up in Hell, but I never thought I'd get there while I was still alive. Maybe I didn't. Maybe we both died in the crash—"

"No," said Random. "If this was Hell, all my friends would be here. Sit. Rest. Get your strength back. When morning comes, we've got a two-mile hike ahead of us."

"Oh, shut up. I'm not going anywhere. Any chance we could contact anyone through our comm implants?"

"Afraid not. The constant storms create a supersaturated electrical and magnetic field. Plays hell with all kinds of communications. We've no way to let anyone know we're alive. Can't even send up a flare. We're on our own."

"Somehow I just knew you were going to say that. So, how are we supposed to find our way to Vidar in weather like this?"

"I can feel where it is," said Random. "So many people, I can feel their presence. Reach out with your mind. See if you can feel them too."

"Damn," said Ruby after a moment. "You're right. It's like having a compass in my head. I didn't know we could do this."

"Unlike you, I haven't been taking my abilities for granted," said Random. "I spent my spare time testing what I could do, trying to expand my limits."

"I'll bet you were a teacher's pet at school. It's a pity you didn't work out how to speed up our healing abilities."

"Be patient. They've got a lot of work to do. We'll heal, in time."

"Hope you're right. Random. I've never felt this bad in my life. Even hurts to breathe. If I didn't know better… I'd swear I was dying…"

Her voice trailed away. Random couldn't even hear her breathing anymore. "Ruby? Ruby? Can you hear me?"

"Don't shout! My head hurts enough without you yelling in my ear. Let me sleep. Maybe when I wake up, everything'll be fixed again."

"No! I don't think we can trust our bodies to do this much work on their own. We have to do it ourselves. Go inside, concentrate, and control the healing process. Otherwise, we might just drift off and never wake up."

"You're just full of words of comfort, aren't you? All right, I hurt too much to argue. How do you want to do this?"

"Try to find your healing power, the same way you found the compass. And once you've found it, work it for all it's worth."

Ruby nodded and closed her eyes. Random closed his and focused his thoughts inward, searching for something he'd know when he found it. He pushed the pains of his broken body from his thoughts, refusing to let them distract him. He shut down all his senses, sinking deeper and deeper into his own mind. He refused to die here when there was still so much work to be done. And he was damned if he'd die such a useless, pointless, stupid death. His anger burned fiercely through him, and something stirred in the back brain, the undermind, that secret part of him he couldn't see, where his power lived. And a new fire ignited there, bursting out through all the rest of him, burning away all pains and weaknesses in its purifying flames. He was remade and reborn, and Random howled in sheer exhilaration at being so alive.

His eyes flew open as he crashed back, already forgetting that hidden part of himself he'd so briefly touched. He raised his hands before him and flexed them, and they were fine. He surged to his feet, grinning like a fool. All his injuries had healed, all his pains were gone, and he didn't even have a scar left to show for it. He realized Ruby was standing beside him, stamping her foot on the ground to test that her leg wasn't broken anymore. She looked at him and laughed incredulously, and then they hugged each other fiercely.

"Damn," said Ruby when they finally did release each other. "I feel good! I feel like I could take on a whole damned army!"

"No pain anywhere?" said Random. "No weaknesses?"

"Hell, no! You?"

"I feel like I am twenty again. I feel like I could go one on one with a Grendel and dismantle it with my bare hands." He broke off and looked at Ruby thoughtfully. "And just a few moments ago we were both knocking on death's door. I'm amazed we even survived the crash, let along managed to drag ourselves here. Just the shock of so many major injuries should have killed us outright."

Ruby shrugged. "This isn't the first time something should have killed us, and we survived. It's part of being who and what we are."

"But we just did in a few seconds what a regeneration machine would have taken weeks to do. And I have no idea how."

"Random, will you for once in your life look on the bright side? We are no longer dying, we are back in shape again, and the pinnace didn't explode, after all. Count your damned blessings. Now let's get some sleep, so we can set off for Vidar at First light."

"Yes," said Random. "Sleep does sound good. But this is something we need to talk about in the future, Ruby. We don't know nearly enough about our powers. About what we might be able to do if we put our minds to it."

"We're doing all right," said Ruby. "The Madness Maze didn't exactly come with an instruction manual. So we learn by doing."

"There's still the question of how we do what we do. Where does the energy come from that powers our abilities? What did we just tap into to heal ourselves, to bring ourselves back from the brink of death? I'm already forgetting most of it, but what I can remember scares the hell out of me. It felt like tapping into God…"

"I think you're getting delusions of grandeur," said Ruby sternly. "Now shut up, lie down, and get some sleep. We've got a long walk ahead of us in the morning."

She turned away from him, lay down on the cave floor, and closed her eyes to indicate that as far as she was concerned, the conversation was over. Random looked down at her for a while and then lay down beside her. He knew questions didn't go away just because you didn't want to talk about them, but there was no point in pushing the matter now. Still, when this mission was over, it was well past time that all the surviving Maze alumni got together and tried to work out a few answers to the nature of their unique condition. Random had no real objection to becoming more than human; he just wanted some idea of where that road might be taking them.

In the morning they stood together at the mouth of the cave, looking out into the new light. The wind actually seemed to have dropped off a little, but the storm was still going strong. Loki's sun was mostly hidden away behind the boiling clouds, but its pale light was augmented by the lightning flaring constantly overhead, illuminating the land below with a stark bluish light. Random and Ruby watched in silence, getting their first real look at the landscape they'd crossed the night before.

The valley was full of eerie, grotesque shapes of black stone, standing in no apparent pattern, like so many silent watchful sentinels. Beyond them the pinnace still lay where it had crashed, up against a dark cliff face. It looked like a broken toy, too delicate for rough handling. At the far end of the valley Random could just make out an open plain, dotted with more of the dark, forbidding shapes. There was no sign of life anywhere: no vegetation, no insects, no open water. Only the wind-carved landscape, harsh and bleak and utterly alien.

"I suppose life never really got started here," said Ruby. "Just as well, really. The last thing we need is more complications on our little hike to Vidar."

"That is a terribly self-centered view, Ruby," said Random.

"So? What's your point?"

"I don't know why I ever take part in these conversations anymore. All right, lead the way. And keep your eyes open. Young Jack Random and his bloody Ghost Warriors aren't supposed to be anywhere near here, but you never know."

"Good point," said Ruby. "Let them all come. I could use a little action."

Random sighed and followed her out of the cave. Climbing down the cliff face proved a lot easier than going up, and soon they were striding through the valley toward the open plain. The storm winds were still blowing hard, but now they had their strength back, it didn't bother them nearly as much. Even the abrasive dust that got everywhere was only a minor irritant. Vidar's location burned in their minds like a beacon, and they headed for it in the straightest line they could manage. Time faded gradually into the background. With no significant landmarks, it was hard to tell how far they'd come, or how much farther they had to go. There was just the storm and the winds and the hard, unyielding ground and the city still somewhere up ahead. So they kept their heads down, screwed up their eyes against the dust, and kept going.

The world moved slowly past them, always looking much the same. Sometimes Random thought he saw something moving, right out on the edge of his vision. Something dark and slow and impossibly large. But by the time he'd stopped and turned to look directly at it, it was always gone, lost in the storm. He couldn't be sure he'd really seen anything. It was just his eyes playing tricks, providing the illusion of movement in a landscape where there was none. So he strode on, looking determinedly straight ahead. After all, what kind of life could possibly exist in conditions like this? Even Humanity wouldn't be here if not for the cobalt mines.

He was pretty sure Ruby hadn't seen anything. If she had, she would undoubtedly have taken a shot at it.

The dark stone structures passed slowly by, no one shape like any other, reminding Random of ancient statues of forgotten gods. They varied from simple monoliths the size of a man to great mountains with wind-cut crevices deep enough to drop a starship in. Random would have liked to think about something else, but there was nothing else. Maybe the stones were the evidence of past volcanic activity, driven up through cracks in the ground as molten rock, only to solidify once they hit the cold air. It was as good an explanation as any.

Oh, God, thought Random tiredly. I am really really bored.

And then they reached the top of a long rise and looked down, and there was Vidar, the main city of Loki, spread out on the plain before them. It was a great sprawl of squat black buildings, with dark towers thrusting up here and there—a shadowy fortress with red and yellow furnace eyes, like a mining operation in Hell. A tall metal wall surrounded the city, polished by the abrasive dust to a dark purple sheen, with two massive metal gates at the front. The faint shimmer of a massive energy Screen covered the whole city from the walls up. It had to be said that Vidar didn't look the least bit welcoming, but Random and Ruby were used to turning up at places where they weren't wanted. As long as it promised shelter from the storms, a clean bed, and a hot bath to soak in, Random was quite prepared to get down on his knees and kiss the ground inside its gates. Without looking at each other, Random and Ruby made their way down the long gray slope to the dark city below.

A local guard patrol intercepted them as they approached the main gates. There were six of them in full body armor, with improvised masks and hoods. They plodded determinedly toward Random and Ruby, stopping a respectful distance away. Each man had an energy gun in a thickly gloved hand, carefully targeted. Random and Ruby came to a stop too, just to be polite. One of the guards stepped forward.

"Who the hell are you?" he yelled, his voice only just carrying over the winds. "Our sensors confirm you aren't Furies or Ghost Warriors, but nothing human is stupid enough to travel the surface without armor!"

"We are Jack Random and Ruby Journey," said Random as courteously as he could while still shouting. "I believe you're expecting us. Sorry we're a bit late."

"But… we saw your ship go down yesterday, over two miles away!"

"We survived the crash, but our crew didn't. So we waited out the night in a cave and then walked here."

"You walked? Jesus Christ, maybe you are as good as the stories say. Follow me, I'll lead you in. But I'm afraid the weapons stay trained on you till we can positively verify your identity. Shub's been trying all kinds of tricks to get into the city. We don't take chances anymore."

"Understood. Now, do you think we could get moving? I've had enough of this storm and dust to last a lifetime."

"Welcome to Loki," said the guard leader, and turned and headed for the main gates. Random and Ruby moved after him, the other guards turning slowly to keep them covered. The main gates turned out to be two huge slabs of steel. Twenty feet high, to match the walls, and eight feet wide, they looked like they could keep out anything up to and including a Grendel in heat. They opened slowly in response to a signal from the guard leader, who led Random and Ruby in. The rest of the guards moved quickly in to surround them, and the gates slammed together, holding out the storm.

It was suddenly very quiet. The roar of the winds was gone, cut off as though someone up above had thrown a switch. Random slowly straightened his aching back and rubbed grit from his eyes. Beside him, Ruby was hacking and coughing, trying to clear the dust from her mouth and throat. They were in a huge airlock, big enough to handle fifty men at a time, if they didn't mind crowding. The air was comfortably warm and blessedly clear. Random took several deep breaths before turning to the guard leader, who was now wearily stacking pieces of his armor in the wall compartments. He was young, barely into his twenties, with a long, serious face under a thick shock of long yellow hair. There were already deep lines of responsibility and hard life around his mouth and eyes. He grinned suddenly at Random, an engaging, almost shy smile.

"According to the sensors and our computer records, you two are exactly who and what you say you are. And man, are we glad to see you!" He gestured to the other guards, who immediately holstered their weapons and set about removing their own masks and armor. They all looked young and sober and more than capable of handling themselves in a fight. Random guessed the weaker elements didn't last long on Loki. The guard leader stuck out his hand, and Random shook it automatically. The leader turned to Ruby, but she just gave him a hard look, so he put his hand away and turned back to Random.

"I'm Peter Savage, guard leader. I wanted to take out a search party to look for you, but the city Council was positive no one could have survived such a crash. I could have told them. I knew it would take a lot more than a crashing ship to finish off Jack Random!"

There was a loud murmur of agreement from the other guards, and Random looked around to find them regarding him with wide eyes and smiles and respectful nods. Random indicated Ruby, who'd finally stopped hacking and spitting on the airlock floor.

"I take it you know my companion?"

"Oh, yes," said Savage, his smile disappearing. "We know all about Ruby Journey. Please don't let her kill anyone important. Or set fire to anything."

"Your reputation preceeds you," Random said dryly to Ruby.

"Anyway," said Peter Savage brightly, "we're delighted to have you here, sir Random. Maybe you can turn this bloody war around."

"Our briefing was pretty basic," said Random. "Fill in the blanks for us."

Savage hesitated. "I'm supposed to take you directly to the city Council so they can instruct you on the current situation."

"You can start the process as we go. Tell me about Vidar. How well protected is the city?"

"Walls and doors of solid steel, over a foot thick," said Savage, leading them out of the airlock's inner door. "The force screen above the walls keeps out the weather. We need the walls and gates because we can't lower the Screen, even for a second, or the storms would devastate the city. It's not just the winds; the dust gets into everything. Tech is constantly breaking down."

"Don't the storms ever stop?" said Ruby.

"No, ma'am. But there are lulls sometimes. This way."

Beyond the airlock lay a simple pattern of narrow streets between low, squat, functional-looking buildings. There was little in the way of color or decoration. Vidar was a mining city, with little time for frills and fancies. People rushed by as Savage led his charges on, but they paid little or no attention to the newcomers. They all wore swords and energy guns, even in the supposed safety of the fortress city. Random found that significant.

"The rebel forces have made an alliance with Shub," said Savage. He made the last word into an obscenity. "They have an army of Ghost Warriors, a few Furies, and a whole bunch of high-tech weaponry that falls apart more often than it works. That's Loki for you. Even Shub can't find an answer to the dust. As a result most of our fighting tends to be hand to hand. Flesh and blood against living corpses and men of metal. Not exactly a level playing field, but that's Shub for you. Certainly the rebels don't seem to be objecting. Their leaders don't care about anything but winning anymore. The disrupter cannon that shot you down was as much a surprise to us as it was to you. They must be really scared of your involvement to risk revealing that powerful a weapon. Think of it as a backhanded compliment."

"Oh, we do," Random assured Savage, perfectly straight-faced. "And we plan to return the compliment as soon as possible."

Savage grinned. "I have to say, I'm really looking forward to working with you, sir Random. You always were my hero. I've seen all your holo shows."

The young guard all but brimmed over with sincerity, of a kind Random hadn't seen since his glory days, when he was the only hope against Lionstone's evil Empire. A lot had changed since then. If anything, such hero worship made Random feel old. He wasn't sure he was the man Savage remembered anymore. He felt slightly embarrassed, and Ruby's clear amusement didn't help at all. He moved quickly to change the subject.

"Where is everybody? I expected to see a lot more people in a city this size."

"With half the outer settlements overrun by the rebel forces, most of the mining equipment on Loki is being run from Vidar these days, which means we're all working overtime to keep the systems going. And… a lot of people here aren't going to be too sure about you, sir Random. There's a man out there with your face, leading the Shub forces, leaving blood and death and atrocities in his wake. Your name has become a curse. That's why you have an armed guard. In case there's… trouble."

"Let them start something," said Ruby calmly. "Let anyone start something."

"Anyway," said Savage hurriedly, "the rebels, backed up by Shub forces, have been systematically wiping out all the outer settlements, knocking out the mining equipment and killing everything that lives before moving on to the next target. They have us surrounded on all sides, and they're moving gradually inward, heading toward Vidar. Because whoever controls this city controls the world's only starport, as well as all the mining. If we fall, the whole colony falls with us. We don't have much of an army, just security guards and a whole bunch of volunteers, mostly refugees from settlements that have fallen. We can't even arm all of them. We've never needed an army before. We were always too busy fighting the weather to fight each other."

"How has your army done in the field?" said Random. "I take it there have been direct clashes, army to army?"

"Some," said Savage. "We go out when there are lulls in the weather. People die, but nothing gets settled. We have the numbers and the training, but they have Shub. It's all been… very inconclusive."

"Why hasn't Golgotha sent you reinforcements?" said Random, frowning.

"We asked," said Savage. "They sent you two. Apparently we're not very high on the priorities list. Everyone's screaming for reinforcements right now, and we're just another mining planet with a relatively small population."

"Just the two of us against an army of Ghost Warriors," said Ruby. "My kind of odds."

"The trouble is, she's not joking," said Random. "Ignore her. I do, whenever possible. How much farther to the Council chambers?"

"We're almost there, sir Random."

"Anything else I ought to know?"

Savage hesitated, and lowered his voice. "Watch yourself. The city Council has always done what it considers best… for the Council."

They walked the next few blocks in silence, each considering their own thoughts. Finally Savage stopped before an ugly, squat building apparently no different from any of the others, and led them through a series of surprisingly stringent security measures. Random was impressed. He still refused to give up his sword and gun when asked, though, and so did Ruby. No one was stupid enough to press the point. Savage knocked diffidently on a door with two armed guards, and a voice from within invited them to enter. Savage opened the door and then stood back to allow Random and Ruby to enter first. Random immediately strode in like he owned the place. He'd learned a long time ago never to appear polite or intimidated by local politicians. They just took advantage. Ruby was right there striding at his side, but in her case it was just natural arrogance.

They found themselves in a reasonably large room that had been decorated by someone with an extensive budget and absolutely no taste. Ruby felt right at home. Random had no interest in his surroundings. He took one look at the five men sitting rather pompously behind the long ironwood table at the far end of the room, and came to a sudden stop. Ruby immediately stopped with him, one hand dropping automatically to her gun. Random glared at the man sitting in the middle of the group, and when he spoke, his voice was cold as death itself.

"Andre de Lisle! What the hell are you doing here, you son of a bitch? Last I heard, you were rotting in a prison cell!"

"It's good to see you too, Random," said de Lisle calmly. "It's been a while since Cold Rock, hasn't it?"

A low growl of anger burst from Random's lips, and suddenly he was surging forward across the gap that separated them. The guards that had followed him in went for their weapons, but Ruby had already turned to face them, gun in hand. They stood very still. de Lisle barely had time to shrink back in his chair before Random had crossed the room, hauled de Lisle up out of his chair, and held the big, muscular man dangling before him, his legs kicking helplessly in midair. The other Councillors made shocked noises but didn't interfere. They weren't stupid. Ruby made the guards drop their weapons and line up against a wall, while Random effortlessly held de Lisle aloft, glaring coldly into the man's reddening face.

"So," said Ruby dryly, glancing over her shoulder, "I take it you two know each other."

"Oh, yes," said Random, his voice cold and level and very dangerous. "This piece of pond scum used to run the mining interests on a planet called Cold Rock. Treated his people like shit. Paid them the lowest wages in that sector and dealt with any protests through whippings, brandings, and the occasional mass execution. He lived the good life while children starved. When I brought my rebellion to Cold Rock, he funded the army that opposed me. Not surprising. He ruled Cold Rock in all but name. After I was betrayed and captured, and my rebellion collapsed, he saw to it that my cell contained a holovid, so I could watch him execute everyone who'd sided with me, and a further one in ten, chosen at random, to punish his people for having dared oppose him. Men, women, and children died under his orders. Sometimes he went along and watched. And laughed.

"His was one of the first arrest orders I signed after we overthrew Lionstone and her people. I made sure he got the same cell he gave me, for old time's sake. I wanted him hanged too, but he had a real good lawyer and a lot of connections. His kind always do. Even so, I was able to make sure he got life imprisonment, in solitary. No parole, no luxuries, no time off for good behavior. But now here he is, back in charge of a planet again. And I want to know why."

"Please put the Councillor down, sir Random," said Savage diffidently. "There are armed guards on their way, and I really don't want to have to order them to take you down."

"That's right," Ruby said easily. "You really don't want to do that. It wouldn't be wise."

Savage considered the point. "Then may I at least point out that Councillor de Lisle can't actually answer any questions while being strangled."

Random nodded reluctantly and dropped de Lisle onto the tabletop. Savage let out an audible sigh of relief. de Lisle lay on his back, massaging his bruised throat and gasping down air. Random jumped down from the table and turned to face the other Councillors.

"I don't know you, but I might just kill you all anyway for sitting with de Lisle. So sit tight and be quiet. Or I'll have Ruby reason with you."

"Yeah," said Ruby. "I can be very reasonable when I put my mind to it."

de Lisle resumed his seat behind the table. None of the other Councillors moved to help him. His face was very pale as he tried to pull the tatters of his dignity around him.

"Now," said Random almost calmly, "talk to me, de Lisle. Tell me everything. Explain how you came to be here in a position of power again. Bearing in mind that if your answer isn't extremely convincing, I am going to hang you from the city walls. In pieces."

No one in the room thought he was joking. de Lisle cleared his throat painfully.

"I was Pardoned," he said flatly. "The Empire needed someone with mining experience to run this hellhole, and candidates were, understandably, somewhat hard to find. I was offered the post on the condition I never leave this planet. I accepted. I should have known better. This planet is just one big prison."

"My heard bleeds for you," said Random. "I can't believe they gave a scumbag like you a Pardon."

"In return for a lifetime's service here," said de Lisle. "What's the matter, sir Random? Doesn't the great rebel hero believe in redemption through atonement?"

"Not in your case. But much as I hate to admit it, I'm going to need your local expertise. So, you're going to be my second in command, arranging the things I need. I'll take Peter Savage here as my liaison, if only because having to meet with you on a regular basis would undoubtedly turn my stomach. And don't mess with me, de Lisle. I won't be betrayed again." de Lisle nodded jerkily. Random looked at the other Councillors. "Someone fill me in on the political situation here. Exactly who are the rebels, what are they rebelling against, and what in God's good name led them to ally themselves with Shub?"

"My name is Bentley," said one of the Councillors, after they'd all spent some time waiting for someone else to start. Bentley was a tall, slender man with a shaved head and eyes so pale blue they were almost colorless. "I'm in charge of Security. Our situation here is really quite simple. The rebel leaders are the ex-Planetary Controller Matthew Tallon, and the ex-Mayor of this city, Terrence Jacks. They led the rebellion that overthrew the old order here under Lionstone. Your comrades in the great rebellion, sir Random. After throwing out or executing Lionstone's people, they put themselves in charge.

"However, they had no real experience in running a planetary economy, and were soon out of their depth, though they wouldn't admit it. They gave the people of Loki the vote, and after a series of blunders and mismanagement that nearly bankrupted the economy, the people voted them out of office. Tallon and Jacks took this badly, blamed the whole thing on hidden elements of the old order. They retreated to the outer settlements and gathered a new rebel force around them, mostly people disillusioned that the new order hadn't immediately made them all wealthy and powerful. It wasn't much of a force, and they weren't much of a problem. Until the Shub forces arrived to back them up. Apparently, in the last days of their power, Tallon and Jacks had secretly formed an alliance with the enemies of Humanity. And now Young Jack Random leads the rebel forces. Tallon and Jacks stay pretty much in the background these days."

"So," said Random. "I've been sent here to fight for the established order against old rebel comrades."

"Got it in one," said de Lisle, though he had sense enough not to smile when he said it. "Funny how things work out, isn't it?"

"Don't push it," said Random. "At least now I know why Parliament wanted me here. They think coverage of me fighting rebel forces will tie me more strongly to them, distance me from any forces that might oppose Parliament's authority. Well, we'll see about that. Right now Ruby and I need some rest. No doubt your quarters are the most comfortable, de Lisle, so we'll take them. You'll have to make your own arrangements. Any problems, talk to my liaison, Savage, and he will officially ignore them on my behalf. Savage, we're leaving."

"Yes, sir Random. Please follow me.

Random nodded to the Councillors, Ruby nodded to the guards she was covering with her gun, and they stalked out of the room after Savage. And for a long time in the Council chamber, no one said anything.

Some time later, when everyone but the night shift was safely asleep, Savage, Random, and Ruby moved quietly through the narrow streets, hidden inside concealing cloaks. Savage had already arranged it so that the guards on duty at the main computer center were friends of his, and they looked pointedly away as Savage led Random and Ruby in through the main door, using his new security rating to override the security systems. Once inside, Savage searched out the right terminal, then set about calling up all kinds of files he wasn't supposed to know about. If having Random staring over his shoulder made him nervous, he did his best to hide it. Ruby watched the door, gun in hand, just in case.

Random was surprised at how easy it had been. When he'd first explained to Savage that he wanted information only the main city computers were likely to have, he'd expected all kinds of problems. Instead, Savage had arranged everything with only a few quick calls to some old friends.

"Run the names and backgrounds of all the city Councillors," said Random. "What brought them here, and who put them in authority?"

"Officially, the voters did," said Savage, working his way past security blocks with the ease of long practice. "But since we're all very new to democracy here, the winners tend to be those with the most money to spend during elections. As to their backgrounds… they were all Pardoned war criminals. How about that? All five of them were arrested and tried for crimes against Humanity, convicted and imprisoned, but later offered Pardons if they'd come and run things here."

"And that includes Bentley, the Security chief?"

"Yeah. He was the first. Took up his position under Tallon and Jacks. Far as I know, he's always done a good job."

"Who authorized these Pardons?" said Random, frowning. "And whose idea was it to send them here?"

"That information isn't here, sir Random. Or if it is, it's buried so deep I can't get at it. But only someone fairly high up in Parliament would have had the authority to set something like this in motion, and keep it quiet. I can tell you none of the colonists here knew about this. A lot of us took part in the original rebellion, and there's no way we would have stood for that. Hell, maybe Tallon and Jacks had some justification, after all."

"There's no justification for allying with Shub," said Random. "Let's see what else we can find on the Councillors. Crack open their bank accounts. I want to see what they're being paid to run things here."

Savage had to use a lot of passwords he wasn't supposed to know, but he finally got the answers he was looking for. Even the best systems will fall to an experienced hacker, and as Savage diffidently pointed out, there wasn't a lot of things to do in Vidar when you were young and restless. Which was why Loki had the highest percentage of cyberats per population of any planet in the Empire. Random's smile at that fell away as he saw the figures Savage had dug up for him. The Councillors were taking a percentage of Loki's gross output. Not just a part of the profits, they were creaming money right off the top. They were also pocketing a large percentage of all tax monies, and every other public purse they could get their hands on, and depositing the money in banks on Golgotha. If this continued, the Loki economy would inevitably collapse, though no doubt the Councillors would have arranged their escape long before that became obvious.

Savage went from shocked to furious to a cold rage in a few seconds. "If the colonists knew about this, they'd drag the Councillors out of their beds and lynch them on the spot. But there's no way these people could have set this up themselves, sir Random. Someone much higher up has to be covering for them. Someone on Golgotha."

"Damn," said Random. "Maybe I am fighting on the wrong side. If Tallon and Jacks knew about this… Look, is there any way we can contact the rebel forces? Secretly? If we could persuade them to settle their grievances through the system, with my support…"

"You don't understand," said Savage, shutting down his terminal and turning to face Random. "You haven't seen what they've been doing. The rebels fight alongside the Ghost Warriors. They've been wiping out the outer settlements—whole towns and villages, murdered down to the last man, woman, and child. Afterward, the rebels help the Ghost Warriors collect the more intact adult bodies so they can be made over into Ghost Warriors. The other bodies… it's not just Shub that commits atrocities. Let me call up some vid footage we have from their last attack."

He activated a viewscreen, and Random and Ruby watched Shub and rebel forces destroy a town with fire and steel and horror. Savage watched their faces more than the screen. He'd already seen the vid footage, and knew he'd never be able to forget it.

Ghost Warriors went stalking through the street, killing everything that moved that wasn't them. Corpses, with gray and blue skin, metal eyes, and grinning teeth revealed by cracked and rotting lips. Some so badly damaged that bones showed through tears in exposed meat, or loops of tattered intestine hung from slashed-open bellies. Computer implants moved servomechanisms in dead limbs, and men and women who had fallen nobly in battle were raised again against their wishes to fight in the name of Shub. Terror weapons, horror troops, they could not be hurt, argued with, or stopped. As long as the armored computer implant remained intact, whatever remained of the body would keep going, obeying its merciless orders.

They stalked their human prey with inhuman patience. Buildings blazed around them, the leaping flames fanned by the endless winds. The living went blade to blade with the dead, to defend their homes or perhaps only to buy time for their loved ones to escape, but they all died in the end. The Ghost Warriors would not stop till all that lived lay still before them, dead as they were. That was how they had been programmed. They dragged the last few women and children from their hiding places and put on a show for the camera, tearing their victims apart with inhuman strength. Afterward, the Ghost Warriors built strange constructions from human pieces, dozens of feet high, with human bones as support and eyeless children's faces as ornaments.

The scene faded away, and the viewscreen shut itself down. Random let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He'd seen his share of death and slaughter and atrocity down the years, but this implacable, mechanical murder chilled his soul. He looked across at Savage.

"I saw people in there. Humans, not Ghost Warriors. They were killing too, and looting. Rebels?"

"That's right," said Savage. "They're a part of everything that happens. That village was called Trawl. Population maybe five hundred. I had family there. They're all dead now. Trawl didn't even have any strategic value, but the rebels destroyed it anyway. Just because it was there. And they killed everyone to send us a message: that there was nothing they wouldn't do, and that there was nothing we could do to stop them. I lost all that remained of my family in Trawl. There's nobody else. I am the last of my line, and my name dies with me."

"Yeah," said Ruby. "There's a lot of that about these days. I can't believe humans would fight alongside Ghost Warriors of their own free will."

Savage shrugged. "They're desperate. A lot of them have old scores to settle. And maybe… they've developed a taste for killing. I don't know. Sometimes I think the whole Empire's gone crazy. The old order was bad, but what we've got now is worse."

"It's just a transition," said Random. "There were always bound to be… difficulties in replacing one system with another. Things will get better in time."

"I'm sure that's a comfort to all those who die during your transition," said Savage. "Or to those who have to watch them die. What happened, sir Random? I always believed in you. Watched your battle against Lionstone on black-market vids. Prayed that someday, somehow, you'd succeed. Now I don't know what to believe anymore."

"Have faith," said Random. "Not in me, but in the people. They'll put the Empire back together again and make it stronger than it was. All this will pass."

"If you start talking about birth pains again, I may puke," said Ruby.

"Nothing of worth is ever achieved without pain and sacrifice," said Random, concentrating on Savage. "We owe it to those who have died to keep on fighting, to keep struggling, for what they and we believe in."

"I want to believe," said Savage. "I want all this death and suffering to have been for something. But what have we achieved if people like de Lisle can come back to power again?"

"Trust me," said Random. "I'll take care of him once I get back to Golgotha."

"Can you stop the rebels?" said Savage. "Can you stop the Ghost Warriors?"

"Of course we can," said Ruby. "We're the good guys. Right, Random?"

"Well, I am," said Random. "I'm not too sure about you." He looked straight at Savage. "We'll do everything we can to save this world from its enemies. I swear it, upon my blood and my honor. Now, I need you to work out a map for me, showing how much territory the rebels control and what direction they're moving in. I want some idea of what they're going to hit next."

Savage nodded and got to work at his terminal again. Random gestured unobstrusively to Ruby, and they moved off a ways to talk in private.

"Originally, I thought we'd been sent here to distract us from our investigations into Shub's connection on Golgotha," said Random. "But this is clearly more important. Shub has to be stopped here, and stopped hard, or they'll move from planet to planet, repeating these tactics."

"But what can we do against an army of Ghost Warriors?" said Ruby. "You made a real nice speech to that boy, but I don't see how we're going to back it up. Even trained soldiers have a hard time against Ghost Warriors, and this city's army is strictly amateur hour. Shub will chew them up and spit them out."

"I do have some experience plotting strategies against superior odds," said Random. "I did win my fair share of campaigns, you know."

"You lost just as many."

"That was then, this is now. If Savage's map shows what I think it's going to, I have an idea that may win us this war in one blow."

"A desperate last gamble, against overpowering odds, with everything depending on us. That sort of thing?"

"Yes," said Random. "That sort of thing."

"Ah," said Ruby, shaking her head, "business as usual. Look, just once, why not do the sensible thing; call in half a dozen starcruisers and have them blast the rebel positions from orbit?"

"One, there aren't half a dozen starcruisers available. Two, their sensors wouldn't work accurately through the endless storms. Three, if we escalate matters, so will Shub. We have to beat them with what we have here, so they'll think twice about trying this anywhere else."

"I hate it when you go all logical on me," said Ruby. "All right, here we go again. Time to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, one more time."

Savage called politely for their attention, and they crowded around his monitor to study the map.

"So far the rebel forces have been concentrating on hit-and-run attacks," said Savage. "They attack during lulls in the weather, destroy the target, and then disappear before we can retaliate. Travel has to be on foot, for us and them. Aircraft won't work on Loki; the storms are too much for them. In a sense, that's been our salvation. It limits the damage Shub's been able to do."

"What about force shields?" said Ruby. "A good Screen could handle any weather this world could throw at it."

"Loki's electromagnetic fields are very unusual. You wouldn't believe how much power it takes to maintain Vidar's Screen. Nothing short of a starcruiser could generate enough power to maintain a traveling shield on Loki for any length of time."

"This was all covered in the briefings before we left, Ruby," said Random. "I do wish you'd learn to pay attention."

"You're the brains in this outfit, Random. But even I can see what's happening on this map. The rebels have been surrounding Vidar, cutting the city off from outside help. This is their next target, has to be. Vidar itself."

"Right," said Random. "They're finally ready for the killing stroke."

"Then we have to do something," said Savage, turning to glare at Random and Ruby. "You've got to do something! You're the great heroes!"

"Easy, boy," said Ruby. "We can't just rush out and attack the rebel forces on our own. Even I'm not that crazy."

"So what do we do? Sit and wait for them to come to us?"

"Almost," said Random. "Rather, we make them come to us, in a setting we choose. We can't risk letting them lay siege to Vidar. This city wasn't built to stand off attacks by Ghost Warriors. We need to face them in the field. According to the briefing we were given, your computers can predict lulls in the weather, moments of calm in the storms. Is that right?"

"Well, yes. We're managing about eighty percent accuracy. But lulls never last for long."

"This one won't have to. We find our calm spot, occupy it to our best advantage, and then wait for the rebel forces to come to us. And then we kick their ass. The rebels may have Ghost Warriors, but you've got us. And we've never lost a battle yet."

"Come bloody close sometimes," muttered Ruby.

"Shut up, Ruby. We can do this, Peter. It'll mean leaving Vidar practically defenseless, but it's a necessary risk. Our powers will make the difference. One last battle to end it all."

"Hold everything," said Ruby. "This all depends on the rebels and Shub sending their whole force against us, to fight on ground they must know we've chosen and prepared. Why should they do that?"

"They'll come to us because we'll have something they want. Something they want very badly."

"Like what?" said Ruby.

"Us," said Random. "You and me. The secrets and powers of the Madness Maze. Shub will risk everything for a chance at us, and you can bet rebel spies in the city will have got the word out by now."

"Oh, great," said Ruby. "Just wonderful. We're going to be the bait in a trap, in a weather lull that may or may not last till the battle's over, with a whole army of Ghost Warriors intent on getting to us at all costs. Have I missed anything?"

"Actually, no," said Random. "How about it, Savage, what do your computers have to say about upcoming lulls in the weather?"

"Way ahead of you," said Savage, bent over his terminal. "And it looks like our luck's in for once. There's a major lull due in the next few days. It should last for several hours, and it'll cover half a square mile around a valley not too far from Vidar. This particular lull turns up on a regular cycle, so it's fairly dependable. Just what the doctor ordered."

"About time something went our way," said Ruby.

"Then let's go talk to the people who think they're in charge here," said Random. "We've got an army to put together, and not a lot of time to do it in."

In a steel and stone bunker deep beneath the surface of Loki, the rebel forces planned their next objectives. Or at least, the human element did. Young Jack Random and his Ghost Warriors took their orders from the rogue AIs back on Shub, and mostly they chose not to share their objectives with the human rebels, who were told what they needed to know and nothing else. The leaders of the human rebels, ex-Planetary Controller Matthew Tallon and ex-Mayor of Vidar Terrence Jacks, sat facing each other across a simple metal table in a cramped room with bare walls and a low ceiling that served many functions, as necessary. Tallon and Jacks got the room to themselves for the moment, because they were the leaders. They picked bitterly at the main meal of the day: protein cubes and distilled water, produced by Shub machines. All the elements necessary to sustain life, but nothing else.

"God, I hate this stuff," said Jacks, pushing the small chunks of protein about his plate. "It tastes of nothing, takes ages to chew, and it doesn't even come in any interesting colors."

"I know," said Tallon. "I'd kill for a thick steak and a decent wine to wash it down with."

"We've killed for less than that," said Jacks, and their eyes met across the table.

"There's been looting again, hasn't there?" said Tallon. "Even though I forbade it."

"You can't blame the men. I mean, the dead don't need their food anymore, do they?"

"But there's never enough to go around. Only enough for a taste, for a lucky few. Enough to remind a man how foul this stuff really is. So the men fight each other over the spoils when they should be conserving their strength for the struggle to come. We can't afford to lose any more people, dammit! I know our life is hard, but we chose it. We chose to be rebels rather than bow down to tyranny."

"And a hell of a lot it's got us," said Jacks. "Allied with the Enemies of Humanity."

"We had no choice! The Empire wouldn't protect us, and the power base they inflicted on us was hopelessly corrupt. Our only chance for a decent life lay with calling in Shub's help."

"You call this a decent life? Hiding in a hole in the ground, only coming out to kill our own kind?"

"Things will get better. You'll see. This is just a time of transition."

"What have we come to, Matt?" said Jacks. "Living like rats in our holes, standing by as the Ghost Warriors kill women and children. Some of our men have even started joining in. Taking out their anger and frustration on the defenseless. Are we any closer to winning this bloody war, because I can't see it. All I can see is us becoming as inhuman as the allies we chose."

"We do what's necessary." Tallon held Jacks's gaze unwaveringly. "We swore an oath during the rebellion against Lionstone, remember? Swore it on our blood and our honor, Whatever It Takes. That hasn't changed. We're still fighting the same enemy."

"Are we? Jack Random and Ruby Journey have come here to fight us! Two of the greatest heroes of the rebellion, the people who inspired us to fight, have come here specifically to fight us! How the hell did we end up on opposite sides from them! We can't fight them!"

"Yes, we can. There's just the two of them. What difference can they make against an army of Ghost Warriors?"

"Are you kidding? They overthrew Golgotha, toppled Lionstone from the Iron Throne, and remade the Empire! They're legends!"

"They're monsters. The Madness Maze turned them into something other than human."

"And what are we?" asked Jacks, and Tallon had no reply.

"My, my," said Young Jack Random from the doorway. "Do I detect despondency? You don't want to worry about Random and Journey. They may be legends, or monsters, but then, so am I."

The two humans looked around sharply, glaring at the machine standing at ease in the doorway. He was tall and handsome, clad in silver armor, every inch a hero. A killing machine with a hero's face, without mercy or compassion or honor. He smiled charmingly at Tallon and Jacks.

"Sorry to interrupt your meal, gentlemen, but I thought you should know there's been a change in plans, and we'll be moving out soon. Better get your people together and properly motivated. No more sneak attacks—we're going one on one with the colonists. Our army versus theirs, winner takes all."

"What brought this on all of a sudden?" said Tallon, rising to his feet. "We've nothing to gain from such open tactics, and everything to lose. What's changed?"

"Jack Random and Ruby Journey will be leading the city forces. And Shub wants them very much, dead or alive."

Jacks stood up too. "You want them so badly you're willing to risk all our lives, and our cause, just for a chance at getting your hands on them?"

"Got it in one," said Young Jack Random.

"No," said Tallon. "I can't accept this. My people are still exhausted from their last raid. You can't ask them to go out again."

"I'm not asking," said Young Jack Random, smiling. "Anyone who doesn't march with us dies here."

"You need us!" said Jacks.

"Now, where did you ever get that idea?" said the Fury. "You are useful, nothing more. Pray you don't outlast that usefulness."

"We can't fight Random and Journey!" said Tallon. "Not them. They're monsters. They can do things no one should be able to do."

"Not to worry," said Young Jack Random, still smiling. "We always thought some of the Maze survivors might turn up here. So we brought along a special little something just for them. Something that will make them merely human again. And then you'll have no trouble taking them, will you, gentlemen?"

"No," said Tallon. "We won't. They perverted and corrupted our cause. They made a deal with the Families instead of wiping them out. The same bastards are still running things, same as they always did. To hell with Jack Random and that psycho bitch Journey."

"We were betrayed," said Jacks. "After everything we'd done for Loki, after all our blood and suffering, and the good men we lost—in the end it was all for nothing."

The two humans looked at each other, seeing again old hurts from the past. Only by continually rehearsing their old wrongs and grievances could they keep their rage fresh, and excuse the terrible things they had seen and done in their alliance with Shub. They needed to believe they were still the heroes of their rebellion.

"When I took over as Planetary Controller, I thought the war was over," said Tallon. "I thought I could finally start making changes, real changes. But it was all a sham. My position meant nothing, my ideas were ignored. The people who actually ran things, who controlled the money and the bureaucracy, found more and more ways to obstruct and sideline me. I was helpless, little more than a figurehead, there to fool the people into thinking something had changed."

"So all that was left to us was to rebel again," said Jacks. "And this time make sure we had enough power on our side that we couldn't be denied. And so we turned to Shub, and they sent you, Young Jack Random. You and all your killing machines."

"And haven't we done an excellent job?" said the Fury. "Our forces haven't lost a single campaign."

"Campaign? You call slaughtering defenseless villagers a campaign?" Tallon glared at Young Jack Random. "It has to stop! I won't stand for this anymore! Stop the massacres now, while we still have some popular support left!"

"We only do what is necessary," Young Jack Random said calmly. "We must destroy the morale of the enemy so that when we finally come to Vidar, they will surrender rather than face extermination. Thus, a lengthy siege and much loss of life on both sides is avoided. You did agree to these tactics before we began."

"Yes," said Jacks. "We agreed. But we never thought it would go on this long. Never knew there'd be so much blood on our hands."

"Better a few hundred die in a few villages than thousands in the city," said Tallon. "That's how you sold it to us. But Vidar still shows no sign of surrendering, and now they have the real Jack Random and Ruby Journey. They have monsters on their side."

"Not to worry," said Young Jack Random. "You have me." And he smiled on them both, and turned and left.

Tallon and Jacks sank back into their seats again, not looking at each other. Tallon's hands were clenched into fists on the tabletop. Jacks looked sick.

"Monsters," said Tallon quietly. "Wherever I look, I see monsters."

"What have we done, Matt?" said Jacks. "We've unleashed something we have no hope of controlling."

"We have to go on," said Tallon. "We have to go to Vidar and win this, or all the blood and all the deaths will have been for nothing."

"But… say we win. Say we take control of Vidar and then Loki? You think Shub is just going to pull its forces out and leave us to get on with running things? What's to stop them just slaughtering us all and making Loki into another Shub planet?"

"We're allies," said Tallon.

"Are we? We're sure as hell not equal partners. Whatever Shub decides, we'll have no choice but to go along. We're damned, Matt, whatever happens."

"Then we're damned!" said Tallon. "And I don't care. Just as long as our enemies fall first. Just let me live long enough to see them all die, and I'll be happy."

Jack Random and Ruby Journey strode through the crowded corridors of the city Council building, and people hurried to get out of their way. There was bad news in the air. Everyone could smell it, but no one knew what it was yet, or where it might fall. So they kept their heads down and hoped not to be noticed.

It was barely morning when Random and Ruby received a call from the city Council, demanding their attendance at once. Normally Random would have told them what they could do with their demand, but the barely restrained panic filling the comm clerk's voice convinced him this was something he and Ruby should see for themselves.

The chamber door was being guarded by four armed men, but they moved quickly aside as Random and Ruby approached. One even opened the door for them. Inside, de Lisle and his people were standing together, staring unhappily at two large wooden crates on the floor before them. The crates appeared perfectly ordinary, but the Councillors were looking at them as though they expected a Grendel to leap out at any moment. It was a measure of how upset they were that they looked at Random and Ruby with open relief. de Lisle patted his sweating forehead with a handkerchief, and gestured at the crates with a hand that wasn't as steady as it might have been.

"These were waiting for us here in the chamber when we arrived for work this morning, along with a polite little note, saying A Present From Shub. Nothing else. We have no idea how they got here. I can only assume there are traitors among my people, rebel sympathizers. We haven't dared open the crates. They make threatening noises if they're touched. They make equally threatening noises if we try to leave. We've been trapped in here with them for almost an hour."

"Typical Shub terror tactics," said Ruby, studying the crates interestedly. "Have you tried scanning the contents?"

"Yes. The interiors appear to be lined with something our scanners can't penetrate."

"Could be a bomb," said Ruby, crouching down before the nearest crate and studying the lid with a professional eye. "No lock, no clasps, no obvious electronic countermeasures. Maybe a warning of some kind. I say we open the crates and see what happens."

"Sounds like a plan to me," said Random. "Ruby and I would probably survive a bomb anyway. But just in case, Councillors, I suggest you retire to the far end of this room."

The Councillors did so hastily, not bothering to take their dignity with them. Random crouched down beside Ruby.

"I don't think we'll encounter any booby-traps," he said thoughtfully. "Otherwise, they wouldn't have bothered with two. One would have been enough for a bomb, or any other terror weapon."

"Could contain some kind of Fury," said Ruby, frowning. "The crates are big enough for a smallish one. But why bother with a killing machine when a bomb would be just as effective?" She looked at Random and grinned. "Want to toss over which one of us gets to open the first crate?"

"I'll open the first," said Random. "You always cheat."

He took a firm hold of the lid on the nearest crate and yanked it open. A puff of refrigerated air rose, and Random and Ruby backed quickly away, but there was no other response from the crate. They moved cautiously forward and looked inside. A dead face with pure white skin flecked with frost looked up at them. The open eyes were frosted too. Random and Ruby looked at each other, and then looked back in the crate. A human body had been coiled inside the crate like a snake. He'd been cut open, from throat to groin, and his chest and abdomen were strangely… flat. Ruby raised an eyebrow.

"Whatever I was expecting, this isn't it. Anyone you know?"

"I don't think so. Why would Shub send us a dead man? And a carefully preserved one, at that?"

"And why arrange him like that? Why not just use a bigger crate?" She reached in and grabbed a handful of the dead man's hair. She tried to pull him out, but the body barely budged, stuck with cold and frost to the interior walls. The frozen tissues gave up loud cracking sounds as they reluctantly stretched. The long abdominal cut opened slowly like a mouth, and it was only then that Random and Ruby realized the body had been completely gutted. Everything inside the chest and abdomen had been removed.

"The cut's so precise it might have been made with a scalpel," Random said thoughtfully, and Ruby released her handful of hair. The head fell back against the crate wall with a loud thud. Ruby examined her hand. It was already covered with frost. She sniffed, untouched by the cold, and looked back at the hollow man.

"They really emptied him out, Jack. They didn't just take his guts; the bones are gone too. No rib cage, no sternum, even the collarbones are gone. But why send us an eviscerated dead man? Is this supposed to frighten us?"

"Maybe it's a warning of what they mean to do to us all," said Random doubtfully. "Kill us, empty us out, and make us into Ghost Warriors. Let's look in the other crate. Perhaps the answer's in there."

Ruby opened the second crate, waving aside the cold air that steamed up from inside, impatient to see what the crate contained. And then she wrinkled her nose and looked at Random. "This is really disgusting."

Random leaned over the second crate. A set of human organs had been arranged neatly on the floor of the crate, pale pink and gray and covered with shining frost. Carefully laid human bones kept them separate. The heart had been wrapped in a pretty pink ribbon, tied in a bow.

"The last time I saw anything like this, I was still a clone-legger," said Ruby, staring in fascination at the human remains. "What the hell is the point of this?"

"There's another note," said Random. "Under the heart." He reached in and carefully slid the paper out from under the solid organ. He studied the envelope carefully.

"Interesting. It's addressed to us. Shub knows we're here."

"Open the damned thing," said Ruby impatiently.

Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper with a set of printed instructions on it. Random unfolded it carefully, not wanting the brittle paper to crack apart in his hands. He studied the message in silence for some moments. Ruby pushed in beside him.

"Well? What is it? What does it say?"

"It appears to be a set of instructions, on how to put together a human in kit form. According to this, if you put the bones and organs back in the right order, close him up, and thaw him out, the human should start functioning again."

"Now, that is just too sick," said Ruby. "Even for me."

"Strange too," said Random. "I never knew Shub to show a sense of humor before."

Ruby shook her head. "It doesn't make any sense. Did they think this would frighten us?"

Random shrugged. "Let's see what the Councillors have to say."

He beckoned them over, and they returned to the crates, somewhat emboldened now that the crates hadn't exploded after all. Then they looked inside the crates. One just made it to the door before being sick. Two others retreated to the far end of the room again and refused to come back. Bentley and de Lisle stood their ground, though visibly upset.

"I know this man," Bentley said finally. "He volunteered to go alone and unarmed to try to negotiate a settlement with the rebel leaders. He used to be a friend and colleague of Terrence Jacks, the ex-Mayor. He thought that friendship would guarantee his safety. He should have known better. I tried to warn him, but he believed some kind of deal was still possible with goodwill on both sides."

"The rebels did this?" said Ruby. "What the hell for?"

"To send us a message," said de Lisle. "That they're not interested in negotiating. You can see now the nature of the foe we're dealing with. Shub is bad enough, but the rebels here are animals. We have to keep this quiet. It mustn't go beyond this room. Do you agree, sir Random?"

"Yeah. The people don't need to know about this. We'll just say the crates contained severed heads from the outer settlements. That's nasty enough to motivate them, without sickening them too much. Dispose of all this secretly. Incinerate it."

"I just had a thought," said Ruby, smiling wickedly. "What if we followed the instructions and put the human together? Do you think he'd work? I mean, Shub know a lot of things. He just might get up and start functioning again."

The Councillor at the door lost what was left of his breakfast. The other Councillors looked at her with open revulsion. Random shook his head.

"I don't think that's a road we should go down. Whatever we ended up with, you can be sure it wouldn't be human. Burn it, de Lisle. Burn it all. And then scatter the ashes just in case."

Things were relatively quiet after that. The rebels headed for Vidar in one great force, human and Shub, destroying all settlements in their path. The storm winds kept blowing, but everyone knew the lull was coming. Random and Ruby spent all their time struggling to turn Vidar's volunteer force into something like an army. There was no shortage of volunteers, but most had never fired a gun in anger in their life. They were tough enough, and brave, but turning even the most willing volunteer into a trained soldier takes time, and everyone knew that time was running out.

So it came as somewhat of a surprise to everyone when Random excused himself from the training exercise on the second afternoon, left Ruby in charge, and disappeared on a mission of his own. Wrapped in a long cloak, with the hood pulled down to conceal his features, Jack Random made his way through increasingly narrow and dirty streets into the really scummy part of Vidar. Every city has a part of town where the mostly respectable can come in secret in search of the pleasures that may not have a name, but certainly have a price. A few locals thought to intercept Random on his way and relieve him of any valuables he might be burdened with, but a glimpse of energy gun was usually all it took to make them back down.

Random had to kill one man, but he didn't seem the sort that anyone would miss.

Random finally reached his destination in the late afternoon: a broken-down drinking establishment that had probably looked sleazy and disreputable from the moment it opened. Random stood in the shadows on the other side of the street for a while, making sure he hadn't been followed. He didn't think anyone could sneak up on him anymore, but old habits died hard. Nobody looked up when he finally walked into the gloomy bar. It was the kind of place where everyone was careful to mind their own business.

There were no windows, and the lights were kept low to encourage confidentiality. There was an atmosphere of illegal smoke, cheap perfume, and general paranoia. Customers sat at cheap tables in twos and threes, talking business in lowered voices, pushing anonymous packages back and forth, or just sitting and staring into drinks they didn't touch while they waited for their contacts to show up. There was no sawdust on the floor. Probably someone had stolen it. Random had spent a lot of time in the past meeting people in places like this, searching for the kind of answers that could be found only in such company. He spotted his contact, sitting well back in the shadows, and moved over to join him.

"There had better be a damned good reason for bringing me here," said Random as he polished the seat of his chair with a handkerchief before sitting down. "I've been in some dives in my time, and this is definitely one of them. God alone knows what the booze is like here."

"Actually, it's pretty good," said Peter Savage. "For the price. And we're meeting here to talk because it's one of the few places where de Lisle's informers wouldn't dare follow me. I've been digging into those computer files."

"All right, what have you found?"

"It's worse than we thought. de Lisle and his cronies were sent here deliberately to wreck Loki's economy. Once they'd done their job and left, their bosses on Golgotha would have moved in and bought everything up at rock-bottom prices. Including the colonists. To pay off their debts they'd have had to take lifetime indentures. Slaves in all but name."

"Can they do that?" said Random. "I had Parliament pass a whole bunch of laws just to prevent things like that."

"The law isn't much good when presented with a fait accompli. No one suspected anything. They would have got away with it if the rebels hadn't made their alliance with Shub and thrown everything into chaos."

"Tallon must have found out about this. That's what made him desperate enough to call in Shub forces."

"Looks that way. Tallon and Jacks were big men in the original rebellion. Hard-line idealists. Heroes. It must have broken their hearts to discover it had all been for nothing."

"They didn't have to go to Shub," said Random. "They could have got word to Parliament. They could have come to me. I would have done something, if I'd known."

"You've been busy," said Savage. "How many people wanted to talk to you every day, and were turned away because there just weren't enough hours in the day to see them all? You had to rely on your subordinates to weed out the head cases and the time wasters. And you can bet good money that de Lisle's bosses would have made sure that word never got to you, one way or another."

Random sat quietly for a while. Savage sipped his wine and watched Random brood. Even sitting still and silent, the old professional rebel still looked sharp and dangerous. If anyone could still save Loki, it might be him. The murmur of hushed conversations went around the bar, rising and falling like a distant tide. Random sighed and shook his head.

"I won the rebellion. Threw down the Iron Bitch. And nothing's changed. I thought when the war was over, I'd finally be allowed to put down my burden and have a life of my own at last. I should have known better. No matter how many wars you fight, another always comes along. I tried to put away the warrior's sword and become a politician, a man of peace. But I don't believe in politics. Never have. I believe in right and wrong, not deals and compromises."

"And yet you agreed to the deal with Blue Block," Savage said carefully. "Because millions would have died if you hadn't."

"Yes, I saved lives, but only by compromising everything I ever believed in. I should have stood firm. Said no, and to hell with the consequences. People would have died, maybe whole worlds, but in the end we would have been rid of people like de Lisle forever. A fair price, perhaps. I don't know. All I know is that tomorrow I have to lead an army out to fight rebels who just might have right on their side, to protect the interests of scum like de Lisle. Where's the right in that? Where's the honor? I used to be an honorable man. I was famous for it. I wonder when I lost it."

"The rebels might have been justified in the beginning," said Savage. "But they lost all claim to the moral high ground when they called in Shub. What good to save the world if you lose your soul in the process? They have no excuses. Everyone knows how deals with the Devil work out. I've never forgotten the first footage I saw of Young Jack Random and his Ghost Warriors in action. Rows and rows of men, women and children crucified on metal crosses. I know where I stand, sir Random, and so does everyone else in Vidar. Even these scumbags sitting around us, making a last few, desperate deals, will be with us tomorrow, sword and gun in hand, to fight the war of man against machine. Even them."

"I'll give you good odds de Lisle and his cronies won't be there."

"It's not their world. No one expected us to survive when we first came here, let alone turn Loki into a viable colony, but we did it. Because we were so hard the storms of Loki just broke against us. If a whole planet couldn't defeat us, a few tin soldiers and walking corpses aren't going to do it. Even if they are led by Young Jack Random."

"Don't you worry about him," said Random. "I'll deal with him. And then I'll come back and deal with de Lisle. I give you my word."

"And Jack Random's word is good enough for me," said Peter Savage.

Random smiled for the first time, reached across and took Savage's glass, and tried some of the wine. He shuddered and put the glass down Firmly. "God, you must be tougher than you look if you can drink that stuff voluntarily." But the smile didn't last long, and his face fell back into brooding lines. "I've been here before, you know. On worlds like this. Cold Rock, Mistworld… but what Loki reminds me most of is Virimonde. What used to be Owen Deathstalker's world."

"The world Shub destroyed under Valentine Wolfe," said Savage, nodding. "I've seen the holo documentaries. We all have. But that's not going to happen here. We have an army."

"Yeah. I'm just glad Owen isn't here. It would break his heart to see another world faced with such destruction."

Savage leaned forward, his eyes shining. "What's he really like? The Deathstalker? Has he really done all the things they say he has?"

"Most of them, yes. You'd be surprised. If there's a single real hero to come out of the rebellion, it's him, not me. He's never compromised, never once wavered from what he believed in. The best kind of warrior—the man who never wanted to be one, but fought anyway because he believed in the Rightness of his cause. I'd given up. The Empire had broken me. But he brought me back… What is he like, really? A good man in bad times. The only really honorable man I ever met."

"Would he come to help us? If we asked?"

"Probably. But I have no idea where he is right now. Once… I would have known, just by thinking about it. We were that close. But we've become distant since then. Grown apart. Because I gave up who I was to become somebody else. Someone I thought I was supposed to be. You don't know what I'm rambling on about, do you, Savage, but you're too polite to interrupt. It doesn't matter. Tomorrow we go out to meet the army from Hell, and all problems will be decided then."

"I can't wait," said Savage, raising his wineglass in a toast to Random. "It will be an honor and a privilege to fight beside the legendary professional rebel!"

Random looked at him sadly and said nothing.

The human army, Loki's only hope, gathered noisily in the great square before the main gates in the city's huge outer wall. Everyone had a sword, and some had guns too. Men and women wielded their weapons with grim enthusiasm, and struck bold poses for the hovering holo cameras, which would be accompanying them into battle. The war would be broadcast live to those unfortunate enough to be staying behind, those too young or too old, the sick and the lame and those necessary for the city's security. Like de Lisle and his people, who had chosen not to make an appearance. There were no flyers, no ground vehicles; the storm might be heading for a lull, but the winds in the upper atmosphere would still be strong enough to toss gravity craft around like toys, and the dust still floating in the air would short out the motors of any ground craft. Vidar's army would go to victory or damnation on its own two feet.

Jack Random and Ruby Journey stood with their backs to the great airlock and watched the excited confusion, knowing that enthusiasm wasn't enough to win battles. When the Vidar army finally clashed with Shub and the rebels, some would inevitably break and run, simply because not everyone has a killer in them. It's not something any man can know until he's tested. But most would stand and fight and die bravely, because they knew they were fighting for something bigger than themselves.

Peter Savage was darting back and forth, trying to be everywhere at once, browbeating and cajoling different groups into some kind of order, desperate for his people to look good in front of his hero, Jack Random. The crowd goodnaturedly let Savage get on with it. Bottles of booze were being freely handed back and forth, and Random decided he'd better get his army moving soon. Still, it was a six-hour hike to the chosen spot, and that would sweat most of the booze out of them. So he let them drink a little before they had to leave. For all their enthusiasm and commitment, this was a crowd of strangers, brought together by need and duty and desperation. They had to win this battle or lose everything. They couldn't retreat if things went bad, and hope for a second chance. If they fell back, the Ghost Warriors would pursue them tirelessly, to the walls of Vidar and beyond.

Savage came over to Random, who nodded approvingly. "Doing a good job, Savage. They're actually starting to look like an army."

"Good," said Savage. "Because I've just received some news, and it's all bad. The Empire has become concerned enough to send two starcruisers, but they're only D-class, so they won't get here for at least a week. Their orders are to negotiate with whoever has control of the mining equipment—the colonists, de Lisle and his people… or the rebels."

"Can they do that?" said Ruby. "Strike a deal with Shub allies?"

"Sure, they can," said Random. "Politicians are nothing if not practical people. They need the cobalt this planet produces, and they'll deal with whoever they have to, to get it. Hard times make for hard choices, or at least, that's how they'll sell it to the public. If the rebels win, and give the appearance of distancing themselves from Shub, Parliament would do business with them. It doesn't matter. It's just one more reason why we have to win this battle. Pass the word, Savage. It's time we were moving out. The lull will hit our chosen location in just over six hours, and we don't want to be late."

Savage bobbed his head and hurried off into the crowd, shouting orders. Men and women gathered in their companies and formed ranks, as they'd been trained. Random turned to Ruby.

"Off we go to save the day one more time. You know, Ruby, I've missed this. Things are so much simpler on a battlefield."

"This is where we belong, Jack. Right in the middle of things, in blood up to our armpits. Peace was just a dream. You can't fight destiny."

"Maybe," said Random. "Maybe."

The great gates opened, and the last army of Vidar filed through the huge airlock and streamed out into the raging storm, disregarding the violent weather in anticipation of the fighting still to come.

They made good time across the dark, jagged landscape, and five hours later they passed through a narrow valley to reach the open plain where the lull was supposed to hit. They set up a temporary camp of reinforced tents and waited impatiently for the storm to pass. When the lull finally came, it was like a kind of magic. The wind's voice fell away like the end of an oratorio, and suddenly there was utter silence. The air was still, like the eye of a hurricane, and the dust settled slowly to the ground. It was like the end of the world, the last pause before Judgment Day. The army emerged from their tents and looked around them, seeing their world with new eyes. Most had never known anything but the endless storms.

People laughed and joked and cheered and slapped each other on the shoulder, as though the lull was a sure sign of victory. Savage had them start stripping off most of their protective armor, so they'd have more freedom of movement once the fighting began. And when that was over, everyone just stood in place, looking expectantly out across the open plain. The world was very still, as though holding its breath, waiting for everything to begin. And then the holo cameras out on the plain sent back the first pictures of the rebel and Shub forces. They were on their way. Random, Ruby, and Savage crowded around a small monitor screen and nodded, satisfied. The enemy had taken the bait and committed all their forces.

The Vidar army surged out across the plain and the enemy came to meet them. There was no time or need for subtle tactics. Two opposite forces crashed together, no quarter asked or given, and blood spilled on the dusty ground. Human fighters threw themselves against walking corpses, and the thought of surrender was alien to both of them.

Within an hour, most of the living on both sides were dead.

The battle was a mess, groups of fighters surging this way and that, each concerned only with their personal part of the war. Swords rose and fell, hacking at living and unliving flesh. Axes chopped through human meat and jarred on bone. And from everywhere came the sudden flaring and roar of discharging energy weapons. Men and women fell and did not rise again. Ghost Warriors fell too, blown apart by energy beams or surrounded and cut to pieces by howling warriors. The maddened mob surged back and forth on the blood-soaked ground, driven by rage and hatred that could be soothed only by victory or death. And among them moved the living dead, driven by cold disappasionate minds that killed and killed and felt nothing at all. The bodies piled up to every side, and still the battle raged on.

Peter Savage fell, unnoticed.

He'd stuck close to Random and Ruby, guarding their backs, awed and amazed. He saw men and Ghost Warriors fall under their blades, swept almost casually aside by superior strength and speed, and his heart swelled to be fighting in such company. He thought they were invulnerable, protected by fate and destiny, and because he fought at their side, he must be too. He never even saw the blade that came thrusting out of nowhere to slam into his rib cage and out again. Driven by servomechanism-assisted muscles, the blow threw him to the bloody ground, and ignorant feet stamped around him.

At first Savage thought he'd just had the wind knocked out of him, and tried to get up again. But his legs wouldn't obey him, and when he put his hand to his side, it came away dripping blood. Pain hit him then, and he cried out in spite of himself. He was no quitter. He kept trying to get to his feet, even as his lifeblood drained away. His place was at Random's side. But his body wouldn't listen. He died there, unseen and unremarked. Peter Savage was a brave man, and a hero, but he was never more than human.

Jack Random and Ruby Journey, so much more than human, fought savagely and tirelessly, dealing out terrible wounds and sudden death with every blow, and what small injuries they took healed almost immediately. They never saw Peter Savage fall, or even missed him until much later. They were too busy doing what they did best—surviving against impossible odds and killing everything within reach. The dead piled up around them, the blood-streaked skin of the fallen rebels lying next to the gray flesh of fallen Ghost Warriors. And Random and Ruby never even noticed that gradually, foot by foot, they were being separated from the main body of the fighting.

It took little more than an hour for the human forces on both sides to pretty much wipe each other out. They never even noticed that the Shub forces had moved away, so wrapped up in their own needs they never knew the real battle for the future of Loki was being fought somewhere else.

The long, narrow valley between the open plain and the city of Vidar hadn't looked like much when the city army marched through it, but Random had recognized its strategic importance. It was the only way to reach Vidar that didn't involve a days-long detour. If the Ghost Warriors were to reach Vidar while the lull still held, they had to pass through that valley. So when Random and Ruby finally realized how far they'd been herded from the rest of their army, they wasted no time in cutting their way out of the surrounding Ghost Warriors and ran like hell for the valley. All that remained was for them to defend the one strategic location that actually meant something. They soon outdistanced their pursuers and took up a position guarding the entrance to the narrow valley.

It was over a mile long but barely twenty feet wide, narrowing to ten at the entrance. Which meant two people could hold off an army. For a time, Random and Ruby stood together, leaning wearily on each other while they got their breath back. They'd had to cover a long distance at a dead run, and even more than human legs and lungs had their limits. And the fighting itself had been long and hard, with Random and Ruby having to operate at the very limits of their strength and speed. After a while their breathing slowed and their hearts no longer hammered quite so frantically in their breasts, and they were able to stand alone. They looked out at the army of walking corpses gathering in the open plain, and swore more or less in unison. There were almost a thousand Ghost Warriors, with swords and guns and a complete readiness to be destroyed if that was what it took to bring the enemy down.

"Can't say I like the odds," said Jack Random. "A thousand to two is just a little worrying."

"We've faced worse," said Ruby Journey.

Random looked at her. "If we have, I must have missed it. A thousand Ghost Warriors would cause even Owen Deathstalker to have doubts. However, they have to come at us from the front, so that means only a handful can reach us at a time. If we pace ourselves, we might just outlast the bastards."

"Unless they figure out some way to sneak up on us from behind. Or come down the sides of the valley."

Random looked back into the valley, frowning thoughtfully. "Unlikely. It would take them days to march around to the other end of the valley, and one way or another, we won't be here that long. And the sides of those mountains are pretty near vertical. No, Ruby, they have to come straight at us. Head to head."

"Best way," Ruby said briskly. "So all we have to do is hold the Ghost Warriors off until our side wins, and comes to relieve us, right?"

"No," said Random slowly. "From what I saw of the fighting, I don't think we can count on anyone joining us. We have to assume that we're all that stands between Vidar and Shub. If we can hold them off till the lull is over, and the storms return, then we'll have won. The city will be safe."

"What about us?" said Ruby.

"We made it to the city through the storms before. We can do it again."

"And the battle?"

"God knows," said Random. "Last I saw, the city army had the rebel forces on the ropes, but the real threat was always the Shub forces. And I don't think we made much of a dent in them. And there's something else that worries me."

"There's always something that worries you," Ruby said resignedly. "What is it this time?"

"I haven't seen any sign of Young Jack Random yet. He wasn't anywhere in the battle. I would have known. So where is he, and what is he up to?"

"Damn, you're right. That is worrying."

"If you don't like that one, you'll love this. Why aren't the Ghost Warriors attacking?"

"All right, I'll bite. Why?"

"Because they're waiting for someone. Most probably Young Jack Random. With reinforcements he didn't commit to the first battle."

There was a sound out on the plain, and they both turned to look. The sound quickly developed into the rhythmic hammer of marching feet and a second army of dead men came marching out of the distance, easily a thousand strong, with the shining silver, armor-clad figure of Young Jack Random smiling at their head. They joined up with the silently waiting first force, and then stood motionlessly in ranks, staring unblinkingly at the narrow opening to the valley—and the two flesh-and-blood legends who held it.

They ignored the two human forces still fighting doggedly some distance away. Shub knew where the real threat lay.

"Don't you ever get tired of being right all the time?" said Ruby almost angrily. "These are not good odds, Jack. We really might be in trouble here."

"If there's a choice between being taken dead or alive, I think we'd be wise to go for dead," said Random. "Vivisection is probably no fun at all if you're still alive when they do it."

"I'm glad I've got you to look on the cheerful side," said Ruby. "I suppose running like hell is out of the question?"

"Unfortunately, yes. We have to hold our ground to buy time. Time for Vidar's army to defeat the rebels. For the lull in the weather to pass and the storms to return. Or, if all else fails, for us to whittle down the number of Ghost Warriors to the point that the city might stand a chance. Either way, it's all down to us."

"Of course," said Ruby Journey. "It always is, isn't it?"

"We've got eight, maybe nine hours till the lull is over," said Random calmly. "We might last till then. After that things should get really interesting. Forget what I said earlier. They might just decide to come after us anyway, even through the storms. After all, they're dead. They don't feel the wind, or the cold, or the cutting dust. And Shub really does want us very badly. I wonder if that's why they sent Young Jack Random here, to be bait in a trap for us… It doesn't matter. No, Ruby, I think we have to accept that we're here for the duration. Until one side or the other has nothing left to gain."

"Hold everything," said Ruby. "I think the curtain just went up."

The entire army of Ghost Warriors came surging across the plain toward them, while Young Jack Random stood to one side and cheered them on with a cheerful human voice. The dead men were silent, the only sound the rumbling thunder of their dead feet on the hard, unrelenting ground. Random and Ruby hefted their swords and stood at the valley entrance, waiting.

"If we do fall here…" said Random.

"Yes?" said Ruby.

"At least it will be a good death. A warrior's death."

"Yeah. We were never meant for civilization, Jack."

"But if by some miracle we do come out of this alive…"

"Yes?"

"I'm going to do things differently. No more politics. No more compromises. I'm going to follow my heart and my conscience, and God help anyone who gets in my way."

"Sounds like a plan to me," said Ruby.

And then the first of the Ghost Warriors were upon them. Random and Ruby stood together and wielded their blades with more than human strength and speed, cutting the Ghost Warriors apart, literally dismantling the animated corpses until they fell helplessly to the ground. Those were quickly hauled out of the way so that more Ghost Warriors could take their place, and the struggle continued. Only five or six could enter the valley at a time, and Random and Ruby had no difficulty handling that many. At first. But there were always more Ghost Warriors to take the place of those who fell, and the dead never grew tired.

Random and Ruby fought on, but after the first hour they had begun to slow, and their strength was not what it was. There was never any break, and they dared not retreat so much as a step. Enemy swords were starting to get past their defenses, and their wounds were taking longer to heal. It had been a long, hard day, even for two living legends. Their breath came raggedly now, burning in their lungs. Sweat ran down their faces, stinging in their eyes and tasting of salt on their lips. The ground grew slippery underfoot with their own blood. Still the Ghost Warriors came, and Random had to admit to himself what he had always known. That while two warriors could hold off an army for a time, they couldn't do it forever.

So he did the only thing left to him. He reached out to Ruby with his mind, and their thoughts met and merged. In a moment that was no time at all, they reached deep within themselves, and power blazed up from the back brain, the undermind, up through their altered minds and out into the real world, where it became a wall of searing, consuming fire that surged away from Random and Ruby, burning up everything in its path. Ghost Warriors blackened and shriveled up, as though a part of the sun had come down and touched the earth. Dead flesh was consumed, given peace at last, and Shub tech melted down into pools of smoking liquid metal. Over a hundred Ghost Warriors were consumed in the first few seconds, and still the wall of heat roared on, devouring everything in its path. The army of Ghost Warriors turned to flee, but the wall of fire was faster, and pursued them out across the open plain.

By the time the flames snapped out, more than half the Shub army had been reduced to blackened husks, scattered across the plain in dark, featureless heaps. The survivors stood ranged before Young Jack Random, who was no longer smiling. Back at the valley entrance, Random and Ruby had fallen to their knees, heads hanging down in exhaustion. They'd put the last of their strength into maintaining that attack, and they had nothing left. The flames they had called up had not injured them, but now the heat radiating back from the scorched valley walls was almost overpowering.

"Now, that was a good one," said Ruby, her voice a toneless croak. "Think we could do it again?"

"Not a chance in hell," said Random. "But let's hope Young Jack Random doesn't know that. God, I feel bad."

"Same here. And we didn't even get most of them. I have a horrible suspicion we may have peaked too early."

"We had no choice. They would have overwhelmed us."

"The survivors still might." Ruby raised her head painfully slowly and looked out over the plain. "Shit. We got maybe half of them. And that smug metal bastard's still out there. Wonder what he's waiting for?"

"Probably to see how weakened we are. On your feet, Ruby. Maybe we can still bluff them."

But they couldn't get up without leaning heavily on each other, and even after they'd forced themselves up onto their trembling legs, their swords still hung limply from their hands.

"I don't know if you've noticed," said Ruby. "But our wounds aren't healing anymore."

"I noticed. I think that wall of flame took everything we had. Until we get a chance to rest and recover, we're tapped out.

We're… just human again. Nothing left but our guns and our steel and our good right arms."

"Good," said Ruby. "I always thought that was a more honest way to fight."

"There is still… one option," said Random.

"Is there, by God?" said Ruby. "I'd love to hear it."

"You get the hell out of here. Run. Make your way back to Vidar while I hold them here as long as I can. Maybe buy you enough time to get some kind of defense organized in the city."

"A nice thought," said Ruby. "But no."

"If you stay, we'll both die. Where's the sense in that? At least my way, one of us gets to live. Be logical, Ruby."

"I am. There are no defenses left to organize at Vidar. And you should know I never ran from a good fight in my life." She paused. "Everyone has to die somewhere. And I never thought I'd die in bed. Never wanted to. This is as good a way to go as any."

"I always wanted to die in bed," said Random, smiling. "Preferably with a belly full of good brandy and my arm around a beautiful woman. But if I have to go down fighting… I can't think of anyone else I'd rather be with."

"Oh, Jack, you say the nicest things."

They kissed once, unhurriedly, and then turned to look out at the enemy forces on the plain one last time. And saw Young Jack Random striding toward them, quite alone, his hands empty of weapons. The rest of the Ghost Warrior army stood still and silent, watching. Random and Ruby looked at each other.

"What the hell does he think he's doing?" said Random. "Surely he doesn't expect us to surrender?"

"Maybe he wants to surrender," said Ruby hopefully.

The steel machine in its human covering strode across the plain, smiling his interminable smile, and finally came to a halt a respectful distance away from the two humans guarding the valley entrance. He was still in disrupter range, but Random was pretty sure his Shub double was fast enough to dodge an energy beam if he had to.

"Well, well," said Young Jack Random pleasantly. "Here we all are again. Funny how we keep bumping into each other, isn't it? It must be fate. How are you both feeling?"

"Strong enough to kick your metal ass," growled Ruby.

"What do you want?" said Random.

"To fulfill my mission here," said Young Jack Random, standing tall and heroic in his silver armor. "To wipe out every living human on this planet and make it over into a Shub base."

"I take it your rebel allies don't know that," said Random.

"Oh, I think they probably do, deep down, but they don't want to admit it. The human talent for self-deception never ceases to amaze me. Still, they and their pitiful army are irrelevant now. While they're keeping your forces occupied, I will take my army to Vidar and destroy it."

"You have to get past us first," said Ruby. "And you've already seen what we can do when we put our minds to it."

"Yes, and very impressive it was," said Young Jack Random. "But not totally unexpected. Our files on you are really quite extensive. We've studied every use of your remarkable powers, on every occasion. And being the great brains that we are, we came up with an answer. You see, you're really talking to the rogue AIs of Shub. We're running all our forces on this miserable planet through this focus. That's why you couldn't kill us on Golgotha. Only a body died there, and we have so many bodies. This one is very special. We built something very powerful into it and then sent it here, knowing your human egos would demand you come to face it."

"Wait a minute," said Ruby. "You mean you staged all this, killed all these people, just to get to us?"

"Now, isn't that just typical of human egos?" said Young Jack Random. "No, my dear, you're not that important. Loki is a vital staging point in our expansion into Human space. But we did set things up to bring you here too. You Maze people fascinate us. And we are determined to have you in our laboratories so we can learn to do what you do. To that end, a very special device was installed in me. Its function, to suppress your more than human powers and abilities. The most powerful esp-blocker ever built." His smile widened. "And yes, it's been operating all the time I've been standing here. You are quite helpless. I advise you to surrender. If not, I will be obliged to hurt you."

Random and Ruby looked at each other and began to laugh.

Young Jack Random looked from one to the other. "I really don't see what use hysteria is in this situation…"

"You idiot," said Random. "Whatever we may be, we're not espers. We established that long ago."

And he reached inside himself and pulled up the last few sparks of his power, then surged forward, crossing the space between them with impossible speed. He raised his sword and brought it savagely down toward the Fury's head. Flames flared around the steel blade. Young Jack Random raised a hand as though to block the blow. The blazing sword sheared through the flesh and metal hand, buried itself in Young Jack Random's metal skull, and then continued on down in a shower of sparks, cutting through the steel and flesh body till it erupted out of his groin. The two halves of the Fury fell slowly away from each other, and lay sparking and spitting on the ground. Random stood over them, just a little out of breath.

"That… isn't possible," said a cold metallic voice from one side of the sundered head.

"It is if I believe it is," said Random. "Now shut the hell up and die."

He stamped on the left half of the metal head, and crushed it flat under his boot. Ruby came over and stamped on the other side of the head, and then they both used their disrupters on the two halves of the body, blowing them apart. And out on the plain, every one of the surviving Ghost Warriors suddenly collapsed and lay still, as though all their strings had been cut.

"Of course," said Ruby. "He said he was Shub's focus. With communications being so difficult on Loki, they needed a booster to maintain their control, and that was him. With him gone, they're just so much metal junk. You know what, Jack, I think we just won this war."

"Of course," said Random. "I told you everything would be all right. You should listen to me more."

Ruby laughed and hugged him. "We're heroes! We're immortal! We're going to live forever!"

They hugged each other for a long time, and then let go and just stood companionably together, enjoying being alive.

"I'm taking our survival as a sign," said Random. "No more pussyfooting. From now on I do what needs to be done, and God help the guilty."

"Sounds good to me," said Ruby. "Did you have anything particular in mind?"

"First we go find the two human armies, or what's left of them, and persuade them that their war is over."

"And then?"

"And then we go back to Vidar. And clean house."

Back at the city, the populace went mad with joy over the two legendary heroes who'd saved their city and their planet. So when Jack Random asked them to do something for him, they didn't hesitate. Soon the whole population of Vidar was gathered in the great square before the main gates, watching breathlessly as Vidar's surviving guards fashioned a series of nooses and hung them from the inner wall. To one side knelt Matthew Tallon, once Planetary Controller, and Terrence Jacks, once Mayor of Vidar, and the few dozen rebels who'd survived the last battle. They all had their hands tied behind them. They looked for mercy in the faces of the crowd and saw none. On Random and Ruby's other side knelt de Lisle and Bentley and all their people, down to the lowest bureaucrat, also securely tied.

"You can't do this!" howled de Lisle. "I was Pardoned! We all were! Parliament put us in charge here! You can't go against the authority of Parliament!"

"Watch me," said Random. "You and your people plotted to leach this colony dry and then move on. I call that treason."

"We have backers!" said de Lisle. "Powerful backers! I could tell you their names…"

"They'll be in the computers somewhere. We'll find them. There's only one thing I want to know. That man, killed and gutted and placed in two crates. That was your idea, wasn't it?"

"It was Bentley's idea," de Lisle said quickly. "We needed something to motivate you, alienate you from the rebels."

"Who was the man?" said Ruby.

de Lisle shrugged and looked at Bentley, who said nothing. Ruby kicked the security chief in the ribs.

"Nobody," said Bentley. "Just someone we used. He wasn't important."

"Everyone's important," said Random. "That's what separates us from Shub." de Lisle started to splutter some excuse, but Random just looked at him, and he fell silent.

"They deserve to die," said Tallon. "But we only ever had the best interests of Loki at heart. We rebelled because we had legitimate grievances. You of all people should be able to understand that."

"I understand," said Random. "But you allied yourself with Shub, the Enemies of Humanity. The end doesn't always justify the means."

"Jack," said Ruby quietly, "I'm really not sure this is a good idea. Hang a few to make a point, sure, but this… de Lisle's right. Parliament is never going to approve this."

"Then to hell with Parliament," said Jack Random. He gestured to the guards, survivors of the army he had led. They looked at him with worshipful eyes. Random gestured at the ropes. "Hang them. Hang them all."

The guards dragged the prisoners over to the inner wall. Most went quietly. de Lisle screamed and kicked and sobbed right until they put the noose around his neck and cut off his breath forever. Tallon looked back at Random and Ruby with prophet's eyes, and raised his voice so the crowd would be sure to hear.

"They're monsters! You can't trust them! They'll turn on you in the end, because you're only human and they're not. They're monsters! Monsters!"

The noose put an end to his words. Politicians and rebels hung side by side on the inner wall of Vidar, and the population of the city cheered and cheered and cheered.

Ruby looked at Random.

"Hang them all," said Random. "They're all politicians. All dirty. Hang them all."

It was raining. Hard. The rain had started falling on the world known as Lachrymae Christi several million years earlier, and showed no signs of letting up. Fueled by the massive ocean that covered three quarters of the planet, the rain fell from eternally cloudy skies onto the jungle that covered the world's only continent from shore to shore. It fell on the wise and the wicked, the plain and the glorious, the lucky and the unlucky, and the rain it raineth every day. Lachrymae Christi had never known summer or winter, sunshine or snow, and never once had its gray skies been blessed with a rainbow.

The rain fell on the planet's unfortunate colonists too, though colonists wasn't perhaps the correct word to describe them. They hadn't come to this world through choice. They were rounded up by gloved and helmeted men and herded into the holds of cargo ships, persuaded on their way by long electric prods and drawn guns. They traveled in hardship and despair, and were finally dumped on their new home to make what kind of life they could for themselves. Supply ships left the bare necessities now and again, but that was the extent of the Empire's compassion. No one gave a damn whether the unwilling colonists lived or died, as long as they stayed where they were put. They were banned from starflight, banned from civilization, from a Humanity that had turned its backs on them. But against all the odds, the colonists had survived, and prospered in their fashion. If only to spite those who had abandoned them there.

Lachrymae Christi was a leper colony.

The Sunstrider II dropped out of hyperspace and fell into high orbit over the world of eternal tears. Owen Deathstalker sat uncomfortably before the main viewscreen on his yacht's bridge, and studied the silent planet's image, hidden beneath its perpetually swirling shroud of clouds. He didn't know much about Lachrymae Christi. Not many did. It wasn't something respectable people talked about, as though just using the dreaded word might somehow attract the disease's attention. For centuries the Empire had boasted that its scientists had defeated disease, and that with the regeneration machines and the cloning tanks, nothing should stop a man of decent means from living a long and healthy life. It was a different matter for the poor, of course, but that was true of everything.

Then, some seventy years ago, leprosy had returned—an almost forgotten horror from Humanity's distant past—and the scientists could do nothing. It spread rapidly from world to world, infecting rich and poor alike, and soon it was everywhere. No one knew what caused or spread it, and there was no hope or comfort available for its victims. Only isolation, shunned by friends and neighbors. And so, rather than have the victims hanging around as a reminder of science's failure, it was decided that once diagnosed, all lepers would be given a one-way ticket to the Rim, and a world no one wanted, where they could be with their own kind, and Humanity could comfortably forget them.

Only some people couldn't, wouldn't forget.

Hazel d'Ark slouched onto the bridge and dropped bone-lessly into the chair next to Owen's. She scowled at the image on the viewscreen and sniffed loudly. "I can't believe you agreed to this mission, Owen. I swear if I leave here with less than my usual number of fingers, I am personally going to drop-kick you out the nearest airlock."

"There's really nothing to worry about," said Owen, trying hard to sound reassuring. "All the latest medical information says you can't catch leprosy by casual contact. I checked."

"They don't know that! They don't know anything for sure. They still haven't even worked out where the hell it came from."

"What exactly is this leprosy?" said Midnight Blue from behind them. The tall, dark warrior woman was leaning in the doorway, drinking a vitamin extract straight from the bottle. "We don't have anything like it where I come from."

"Same here," said Bonnie Bedlam, pushing past Midnight to claim the only remaining chair on the bridge. Her various piercings clattered loudly as she sat down. "Are there really people down there with bits falling off them?"

"Only in the worst cases," said Owen. "It's a neurological disease. Victims lose all sense of feeling. Even small wounds refuse to heal and become infected. Flesh rots and decays. It's a slow and very nasty way to die. There are some drugs that help, but not much."

"Is it too late to turn this ship around?" said Bonnie.

"I thought you believed in disfigurement as a fashion statement," said Midnight.

"There are limits," said Bonnie. "Though I never thought I'd hear myself saying that." She leaned in closer to Owen, and he did his best not to flinch away. "You know, Owen, this disease sounds too bad to be true. Could it be some bioweapon that got loose from a lab?"

"You're not the first person to suggest that," said Hazel. "Truth is, no one knows. It doesn't appear to be related to any other current disease. It could well have been some damn fool's idea of a last-ditch terror weapon. And it would explain how it just appeared out of nowhere."

"Of course, that could be nothing more than general paranoia," said Owen. "There was a lot of that about during Lionstone's reign."

"Yeah," said Hazel. "Mostly because they really were out to get you."

"True. Thank God things have changed since then."

Every alarm on the bridge went off at once, with flashing lights and sirens screaming loudly enough to wake the dead. Owen stared in disbelief at the control panels before him.

"I don't believe it!"

"What? What?" said Hazel.

"A Hadenman ship just dropped out of hyperspace right next to us! How the hell did they know we were going to be here?"

"Tell you what," said Hazel, stabbing desperately at the controls. "You ask them, and I'll concentrate on getting us the hell out of here."

"I thought Owen was supposed to be their Redeemer," said Bonnie.

"Yeah, well," said Owen, busily activating every defensive shield the Sunstrider II had, "after Brahmin II, I think we can safely consider that particular title obsolete." He hit the intercom switch. "Moon! Get your silicon ass up here!"

"I'm already here," said the grating tones of the augmented man. Tobias Moon strode over to stand beside Owen, studying the image of the vast golden ship on the viewscreen with his glowing golden eyes. "My people have found us again."

"Wonderful," said Owen. "Some days things wouldn't go right if you paid them. Shields are up, weapon computer systems are all on-line. Hazel?"

"I've put us into a dive, heading for cloud cover. Maybe we can lose them."

"Unlikely," Moon said calmly. "Hadenman sensors are far in advance of anything the Empire has. Also, that golden ship has enough firepower to vaporize a small moon. Or a large one, if they were patient. I suggest you concentrate on speed. The improved stardrive from the original Sunstrider is still far superior to anything the Hadenmen have."

"Thank the good Lord for small mercies," said Hazel. "Hang on to your breakfast, people. We are going straight down."

The Sunstrider II punched through the swirling atmosphere, the huge golden ship of the Hadenmen right behind her, like a whale pursuing a minnow. Both ships plunged down through Lachrymae Christi's atmosphere at dangerously high speeds, ignoring the violent weather systems that heaved and crackled around them. The golden ship opened fire, and the Sunstrider II's shields flared brightly, absorbing as much of the terrible destructive energies as they could.

Inside the yacht, all the alarm sirens were howling at once. The lights on the bridge went out, replaced after a heart-stopping pause by the dull red glow of emergency lighting. Owen's gaze darted across the control panels, looking for good news and finding none. More and more systems were shutting down as the main computers rerouted power to sustain the shields. Hazel managed to get off a few shots at the pursuing Hadenman ship, but they made no impression on the huge ship's fields. Owen kept one eye on their speed and elevation, and didn't know which worried him the most. If he couldn't throw off the Hadenmen pursuit soon, the Sunstrider II would be hard pressed to cut her speed back enough to be sure of a safe landing.

"Can someone please kill those damned alarms!" he said harshly. "I can't hear myself think in here!"

Hazel hit a section of the control panels with her fist, and a sudden blessed silence fell across the bridge. "Better?"

"Much," said Owen.

"Can we do anything to help?" said Bonnie.

"Prayer is probably a good idea about now," said Hazel. "Any good deities where you come from?"

"What's our exact situation?" said Midnight.

"Bad, and getting worse," said Owen. "We are outgunned, and pursued by a much larger ship with power to burn and one hell of a grudge against us. And if we don't figure out how to slow down real soon now, some unfortunate part of the planet below is going to end up with a crater you could drop a small moon into. Does the phrase deep shit ring any bells? Oz, any suggestions?"

"You could always offer to surrender," said the AI calmly in his ear. "Of course, they'd probably kill you slowly and turn you into Hadenmen… but it is an option you haven't considered."

"Thanks a whole bunch," said Owen.

"Can't we fight back?" said Bonnie.

"We don't have anything powerful enough to hurt them," said Hazel. "And anyway, our targeting systems just went offline. We need the extra power for the shields. Which are currently on the brink of collapse."

"There must be something we can do!" said Midnight.

"I am open to suggestions!" said Owen. "Moon, those are your people. Can't you… talk to them or something?"

"The augmented men undoubtedly consider me a traitor," said Moon, his thick, buzzing voice calm and unmoved. "Of us all, they want me dead the most. Our situation would appear to be hopeless. I estimate our shields will collapse in the next thirty seconds."

There was an explosion at the rear of the yacht, and the whole ship shuddered. The alarms came back on again for a few seconds before Hazel shut them up, running her hands frantically across the control panels.

"Hull breach, Owen! We're losing pressure, and we'll have to drop a hell of a lot farther into the planet's atmosphere before the pressures equal out. We have a small fire, but the automatic systems seem to be handling it. Rear shields are down, mid shields… are holding. For the moment. Twenty percent systems failures all across the board. We can't afford to take any more hits like that."

"Do we have escape pods?" said Bonnie. "Grav sleds? Any way off this wreck?"

"I don't believe this," said Owen. "I've already had one ship shot out from under me, and been forced to crash-land in a jungle. Why is this happening to me again? Moon, think of something!"

There was another explosion in the rear. The ship's engines were shrieking horribly. Warning lights blinked all over the control panels, and then everything shut down. Owen looked at the dead panels before him, and didn't have a clue what to do.

"Oh, shit," said Hazel. "Main computers just went down. Shields are down. All weapon systems off-line. Life support is failing. The engines are running out of control. This isn't a ship anymore, it's a missile. Owen, with all the computers down, we have no way of landing this ship."

Everyone looked at each other. Owen thought hard. He had to stay calm. Think it through. "We're all Maze survivors," he said hesitantly. "Maybe if we just bailed out, and hope we hit a deep enough part of the ocean…"

"No," said Hazel. "Not at this speed. We're tough, but we're not that tough."

"Oz?" said Owen. "There must be something we haven't tried."

"Sorry, Owen. Nothing I can do. Doesn't this remind you of our arrival on Shandrakor? I'm almost nostalgic."

"That's it!" said Owen, turning quickly to Moon. "When the Imperial starcruisers shot the hell out of the first Sunstrider, you integrated yourself with the ship's computers directly and guided us down! Can you do the same again?"

"Wait a minute!" said Hazel. "The last time he tried that, we still bloody crashed, and we were lucky to walk away alive!"

"Do you have a better idea?" said Owen.

"It's moments like this make me wish I'd stayed a pirate," said Hazel. "Moon, get on with it."

"I have already established a connection with the surviving computer systems," said Moon, just a little distantly. "A plan has occurred to me. It is somewhat extreme, but offers a seventy-three percent chance of success. All other alternatives present distinctly lower chances of survival."

"Oh, hell, go for it," said Owen. "But if you smash up my ship again, I'll melt you down to repair it."

"Oh, ye of little faith," said Moon calmly, and he shut down the engines. The few remaining controls went dead, and even the emergency lighting went out. It was very dark on the bridge, and very quiet.

"Moon," said Hazel in a dangerously calm tone of voice. "What have you done?"

"I've shut everything down," said the augmented man, his golden eyes glowing brightly in the dark. "I am hoping to convince the Hadenman ship that we are dead in the water. They should then call off their pursuit and remove themselves from the gravity well while they still can. Once I've estimated enough time has passed for them to be safely out of range, I will restart the systems and attempt a landing. Of course, with the sensors down I have no way of knowing whether they'll have left or not. And we will be very close to the surface of the planet by the time I restart the engines. Still, it's these little moments of drama that make life worth living, isn't it?"

There was a long pause in the utter darkness of the bridge. "I'm going to shoot him," said Hazel finally. "Moon, say something so I know where to aim. You're completely bloody insane!"

"Quite," said Moon. "Which is why the Hadenman will be fooled. They are incapable of such imaginative leaps. Fortunately, I am no longer limited to merely logical thinking."

"Oh, great," said Owen. "A Hadenman who's acquired a taste for Russian roulette. I feel sick. How much longer do we have to free-fall before you can restart the engines?"

"Ah," said Moon. "Now, that is the tricky bit."

"What?" said Bonnie. "What did he just say? And why have I got this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that I'm really not going to like his answer?"

"Well," said Moon, "to be absolutely sure the golden ship is out of range, I will have to leave it to the last possible moment, and then hope there are enough functional systems left in the ship to restart and control the engines. There will not, unfortunately, be any room for error."

"Right," said Midnight. "That is it. Time we were leaving, Bonnie. A good warrior always knows when to cut her losses and head for the horizon. Hazel, nice to have known you, but I think this would be a really good time for you to return Bonnie and I to our own dimensions. Not that I don't have any faith in your demented friend, but I really don't think I want to be here to see how this all turns out."

"Yeah," said Bonnie. "What she said."

"Tough," said Hazel. "I'm not entirely sure how I do what I do, but I'm pretty sure that if I were to send you back right now, you'd both still be traveling at your present speed. Which means you'd probably reappear at the exact spot I took you from, only traveling at something well past the speed of sound. When you eventually hit something solid, they'd have to scrape up your remains with a palette knife. Of course, if you really want to risk it…"

"Oh, hell," said Bonnie. "We wouldn't think of deserting our friends in their hour of need. Would we, Midnight?"

"Of course not," said Midnight. "Perish the thought. I think I feel sick."

"Moon," said Owen. "I'm really very sure the golden ship is gone by now. Start the bloody engines."

"Actually," said Moon, "I have been attempting to restart the engines for the past twenty-two seconds, to no avail. I can only assume the damage to the computer systems was more extreme than I conjectured."

Hazel made a noise in the dark. "Think of something, Owen!"

"Mostly I'm thinking about strangling Moon," said Owen.

"I have come up with another plan," said Moon. "Your stardrive is derived from alien technology, and therefore has its own, separate, systems. These appear to be intact. I believe I can maintain a connection long enough to use the alien drive to jump-start the standard engines."

"Hold everything," said Bonnie. "You want to activate a hyperdrive this far into a planet's gravity well? You could collapse the whole star system! Bad as things are, I have no desire to see what the inside of a black hole looks like!"

"Trust me," said Moon. "I'm almost sure I know what I'm doing."

There was a moment that seemed to last forever. Space turned inside out, stretching and almost tearing, and colors slowed to a crawl. There was a brilliant light coming from somewhere, but they weren't seeing it with their eyes. Angels were singing a single sustained chord, in a harmony almost too perfect to be borne. And then everything snapped back to normal, and the light was just the bridge's normal lighting and the song was the roar of the ship's engines as Moon fought to slow the Sunstrider II's plummeting descent. Owen looked dazedly about him, and slowly realized some of the control panels were back on-line again.

"We have sensors!" said Owen. "No sign of the Hadenmen ship, but the surface of the planet is coming up awfully fast! Brace yourselves, people! This is going to hurt!"

The Sunstrider II came howling down out of the clouds, slicing through the pouring rain so quickly that the water evaporated before it could even touch the hull. And then the jungle reached up and the battered yacht tore a ragged path through the trees, slowing gradually until finally it slammed to a halt in a cloud of steam and ripped-up vegetation. The engines shut down, and all was quiet for a while, save for the gentle, continuous hiss of rain falling on the super-heated hull.

Inside, the yacht's passengers sat slumped in their crash webbing, letting their heartbeats and breathing slow gradually back to normal. Apart from Moon, who had already thrown aside his webbing and was leaning over the control panels, studying the sensor readings. Owen sighed heavily.

"Well, there goes another bloody yacht. Let's all pray that the damage is repairable, or we're going to be spending an extended holiday in this charming little paradise. There isn't another supply ship due here for months. Moon, any life-form readings out there?"

"Just the jungle," said Moon. "Plant life in various forms. No animals, or insects. And no humans in sensor range. We are alone."

"Finally, some news from Moon that I can live with," said Hazel. "How far are we from Saint Bea's Mission?"

"Main computers are still down," said Moon. "I am currently unable to access that information."

"Oz?" said Owen.

"If the ship followed the trajectory I plotted, we're not too far from where we should be," murmured the AI. "The Mission should be located some ten miles north-northeast of here. Though that is of course an estimate. Things got a little hairy there at the end. Allowing for error, we could be talking a twenty-mile hike. Still, what's a few miles trekking through impenetrable jungle? The exercise will do you good."

Owen shook his head tiredly. "This is Shandrakor all over again, I just know it."

"Not necessarily," said Moon. "At least this time there are no hungry killer aliens out there. There is no animal life on the entire planet, apart from the colonists. Though the files do contain some rather disturbing accounts of encounters with large and mobile vegetation displaying a distinctly antagonistic attitude."

"Killer plants," said Bonnie. "Wonderful. Look, will somebody please fill me in on what the hell we're doing here? I was quite happily halfway through a four-day drunk when I got your message. You made it sound quite sane at the time."

"The state you were in, you would have volunteered for a mission to Shub," said Midnight. "How can you abuse your body in such a fashion?"

"Practice, darling, practice." Bonnie dropped the black warrior woman a wink, and she looked away, exasperated. Bonnie laughed. "Come on, somebody fill in the blanks for me. Do I at least get to kill somebody? Preferably lots of somebodies?"

"We're here on a mercy mission," Owen said patiently. "Mother Superior Beatrice Christiana, better known as the Saint of Technos III, resigned from running the reformed Church to come and run a Mission here for the leper colonists. Being who she is, she soon turned the Mission into a social and communications center for the whole planet, and combined the various scattered settlements into one people at last. They were actually on the verge of becoming a viable, self-sustaining colony when the Hadenmen attacked. Which is presumably what that bloody golden ship was doing here. Anyway, there's a force of Hadenmen down here, concentrating their attacks on Saint Bea's Mission. We are here to protect the Mission and its people."

"Why us?" said Bonnie. "Why isn't the regular army here, earning its pay?"

"Because the regular army doesn't give a toss about a colony of lepers. Everyone Saint Bea approached was busy elsewhere. Finally she approached me personally, and," said Owen, smiling ruefully, "I find it kind of hard to say no to a Saint."

"Next time ask me," said Bonnie. "I'll coach you. There are no Saints where I come from, Deathstalker. We eat them."

"Right," said Midnight. "One of the first things we did after overthrowing the Empire was to dissolve the established Church, and replace it with the Mystical Order of Steel. We are warriors, and we follow the warrior way."

"Sometimes I wonder if our worlds have anything in common apart from the Maze," said Owen.

"Well, there's always you," said Midnight, smiling a little too warmly for Owen's liking. "Wherever there's one of me, there's always one of you. We were fated to be together."

"Right," said Bonnie, idly tugging a gold ring piercing something Owen preferred not to look at. "Right…"

"Now, that is interesting," said Moon, still bent over the control panels. Everyone looked around quickly.

"I really hate it when he says that," said Hazel. "It nearly always means something quite appallingly nasty is going on."

"No, this really is interesting," said Moon. "I don't know what it means, but it definitely is interesting."

Owen moved over to join him and studied the sensor displays. "This makes no sense at all," he said finally. "It's like something is slowly… enveloping the Sunstrider. Some kind of organic material."

"Hold everything," said Bonnie. "Are you saying there's something on this benighted world big enough to swallow a starship?"

"Not as such," said Moon. "Nothing here but plant life, remember?"

"We're going to have to go out and take a look," said Hazel. "See what else can go wrong on this bloody mission."

"Better watch your language when we meet Saint Bea," said Owen, smiling. "She'll make you do penance."

"I already am," growled Hazel. "Ever since I met you."

For a while the airlock outer door refused point-blank to open. All the systems were functioning, but the door wouldn't budge. They tried cranking it open with the manual release, but all that happened was that Hazel broke two fingernails trying to shift it. She lost her temper completely and shot out the locking system with her disrupter. Owen and Moon dragged the door halfway open, and the party took turns squeezing through and dropping down to the surface below, gun and sword in hand.

Outside, the jungle was a riot of color, all of it in shades of red. The black trees had scarlet leaves, the shrubbery and foliage were a blushing crimson, and the thick, curling vines were a disturbing shade of pink. The local vegetation never saw any sun, so chlorophyll never really got started. Red was the order of the day in Lachrymae Christi's jungle, and a hell of a lot of it was determinedly draping itself over the Sunstrider II.

Owen and his companions cut and hacked their way clear of the airlock, were drenched immediately by the pouring rain, and finally turned and looked back at their ship. A network of shocking pink vines had already covered much of the outer hull from stem to stern, and more vines were crawling into position, inching doggedly forward like lengths of animated intestine. Thick leaves like scarlet palms slapped against the hull from all sides, adding still more layers, as though the jungle was trying to bury all traces of the intruding ship.

By the time Owen had taken all this in, the airlock opening had already disappeared behind a mat of bloodred vines. He struggled back through the clinging foliage and tried to cut through the vines with his sword, but the blade clung stickily to the vines, and he had to jerk hard to pull it free. He raised his disrupter and took aim. The energy beam punched a hole through the vines, and went on to do untold further damage inside the airlock. The blackened vines tried to catch alight, but the rain quickly put a stop to that. Owen watched numbly as the vines slowly but deliberately repaired and covered over the hole he'd made.

"Ah," said Moon. "Now, that is unfortunate."

Owen lost it completely. A shriek of pure rage and frustration burst out of him as he stamped around in a circle, hacking with his sword at any vegetation that got in his way. "That is it! That is bloody it! Not only have I lost my second yacht in a crash landing, not only have we now been cut off from all our supplies and extra weapons, not only is it at least twenty miles between here and the Mission, but it is pouring rain and I don't have my cloak with me! I am soaked! I hate being wet like this! Hate it, hate it, hate it!"

He kicked viciously at a patch of vines, got his foot tangled, and fell over. No one was stupid enough to laugh. He surged to his feet again, his face crimson as the surrounding vegetation, breathing hard. Moon looked at Hazel.

"Has Owen changed while I was gone? He never used to do that."

"No," said Hazel. "He didn't. Everyone stay put here while I go and have a quiet word with him."

"My Owen never did anything like that," said Midnight. "He was far too dignified."

"My Owen did all kinds of things," said Bonnie, tugging reflectively at one of her piercings.

"I'll just bet he did," said Midnight.

Hazel left Moon trying to make sense of the undercurrents in those last few comments, and moved cautiously forward. Owen was leaning with his head against the coal black bark of a tree trunk. His breathing had slowed somewhat, but he still had his sword in his hand. Hazel hadn't found Owen's outburst funny at all. In all the time she'd known him, he'd never once lost his temper like that. Given what he was capable of, if he got angry enough, Hazel found his sudden loss of control worrying. She stopped a respectful distance away and cleared her throat politely. Owen didn't look around.

"Go away, Hazel."

"What's the matter, Owen?" she said quietly. "It wasn't that bad a landing, all things considered. I mean, we're alive."

"It wasn't the landing," said Owen, staring off into the scarlet jungle. Rain ran down his face, and dripped from his nose and chin. "It's… everything. I am just so damn tired of everything going wrong. This was supposed to be a simple mission: show up, flash the powers, kick a few Hadenman butts, and move on to more important matters. Now look at us. Stranded in the middle of nowhere on a hellplanet colonized by lepers, while all hell is breaking loose in the Empire. I shouldn't be here. I should be out there, fighting the aliens or the Hadenmen or whatever the hell Shub's throwing at us this week. I have a duty, an obligation, to use my abilities to help Humanity. But no, I'm stuck here in the back of beyond when I'm needed elsewhere."

"You're needed here too," said Hazel. "Saint Bea wouldn't have asked for us unless things were really desperate here."

"They're lepers," Owen said brutally. "They're dying anyway. The Empire needs us more."

"Every planet, every people, is just as important as any other," said Hazel. "Didn't your time as an outlaw teach you anything? It's not just the big, important planets like Golgotha that matter. Everyone matters. I know what this is all about. It's hurt pride. You thought you could just drop in here, act the hero for Saint Bea, and then move on to something more high-profile. Instead you screwed up. You, the Deathstalker, the living legend. You think you're the only one that can save the Empire from its enemies. Well, you're wrong. The Empire is perfectly capable of defending itself without you. Even the mighty Deathstalker can't be everywhere at once. Humanity survived perfectly well before we marvelous Maze people came along, and they'll manage just as well when we're gone. The Maze may have made us more than human, but it didn't make us gods. Now cut the crap and shape up, or I'll slap you a good one."

Owen finally turned his head and looked at her, and something in his cold eyes made Hazel wonder if she'd gone too far. But she held her ground, and after a moment Owen relaxed just a little, and tried a smile.

"You wouldn't really hit me, would you?"

"Damn right I would."

"Okay, I surrender. No more tantrums. Let's go and see what kind of a fix Saint Bea's got herself into."

Hazel hesitated. "Are you… all right now, Owen?"

"No. But I am back in control. I'm just… tired. Tired of things never going right for me. Just once I'd like to take a trip on a ship that doesn't crash, or get attacked, or land me up to my ass in trouble. You said it yourself: I'm supposed to be the great hero, the savior of Humanity, and I can't even make my own life work out properly."

Hazel had to laugh. "Owen, everyone's life is like that. Now, let's get back to the others and work out what we're going to do next before we all drown in this bloody rain. Doesn't it ever let up?"

"Not for the last few million years. Maybe we could fashion umbrellas out of the local plants."

"I don't think they'd like that," said Hazel, looking around her at the surrounding vegetation, all of which seemed to be constantly if slowly on the move. "This stuff gives me the creeps. Plants should know their place."

They returned to the others to find Bonnie and Midnight ostentatiously not talking to each other. Moon had given up trying to make sense of the situation, and was pretending interest in a quivering purple shrub the size of a small house. Owen gave his crashed ship a last look. It was already so deeply buried under crimson vegetation that it might never have been there.

"All right," he said loudly. "Cut the chatter. It's at least ten miles to Saint Bea's Mission, so the sooner we get started, the sooner we can get there and get out of this rain. Oz, give me directions to the Mission."

"Of course, Owen. Just head out of this clearing in the direction of those three trees leaning together, and I'll guide you from there. I feel I should brief you about some of the more impressive local vegetation. It can be rather dangerous."

"You mean it's poisonous?"

"More like homicidal. Animal life never really got started here, so the plants prey on each other for space, light, water, rooting, etc. Down the millennia they've developed some very nasty tactics, and lots of ways of expressing their displeasure when thwarted. I suggest you all stick very close together, and be prepared to defend yourselves."

Owen passed this on, and the others received it with varying degrees of disgust.

"As if this planet wasn't unpleasant enough," said Bonnie. "Bad enough my piercings will probably rust up in all this rain, but now we have to hack our way through miles of killer plants. I can feel one of my heads coming on."

"Look on it as a challenge," said Midnight. "A warrior never quails from adversity."

"You look on it as a challenge," said Bonnie. "And I'll stand back and watch you doing it."

"Cool it," said Hazel. "I mean, come on; how dangerous can a few mobile shrubs be?"

"I have a horrible feeling we're going to find out," said Owen. "Moon, you take the point. Feel free to shoot or cut up anything at all you don't like the look of. And let's try to set a good pace, people. I hate to think what this place is like when it gets dark. And in case you were wondering, yes, all our torches are back in the ship."

"Somehow, I'm not surprised," said Hazel. "God, I hate rain."

* * *

They followed Oz's murmured directions into the rain-soaked crimson forest, fighting the urge to look back at the mound where their ship had been. The Sunstrider II was their last link with civilized, technological Empire. From now on they were on their own.

There was little shelter to be found anywhere, rain dripping remorselessly from every surface. They were all soon soaked to the skin, and rain squelched inside their boots with every step. Their hair was plastered to their faces, and they had to keep blinking their eyes to clear them. The ground under their feet was mostly mud, flattened and compacted like stone in places, but it could change without warning into inches-deep gunk in which the party slipped and skidded, when they weren't tripping overexposed roots or various kinds of creeping vine or ivy.

It was a constant struggle to push their pace to more than a slow walk, and the unrelenting rain beat down on them like a feeble but persistent bully. After a while Owen took off his jacket and draped it over his head in an improvised hood. It meant he was now cold as well as wet, but it was worth it for the simple relief it offered. The others soon did the same, except for Moon, who didn't seem at all bothered by the rain, and couldn't understand why everyone got so surly when he said so.

The jungle stretched off in every direction for as far as they could see into the driving rain. Dark-boled trees soared hundreds of feet up into the sky, their branches weighed down with curling leaves the color of blood. Owen reached up to touch one of the leaves, and then swore mildly as the serrated edge opened his fingertip like a razor. He gripped the leaf more firmly, and was surprised to find it thick and pulpy, and unpleasantly warm to the touch. He let go, and sucked thoughtfully at his lacerated finger, ignoring Hazel's acerbic remarks with the ease of long practice.

Owen was becoming increasingly convinced that on some level the jungle was aware, if not actually sentient, and knew intruders were passing through it. Leaves rustled as the party approached, and fell silent after they were gone. Vines circled slowly on tree trunks like dreaming snakes, and tall stalks would turn to face the party as they passed, quivering agitatedly till they had been safely left behind. Owen also couldn't help noticing that at least half the vegetation seemed to be slowly but determinedly stalking the other half.

The first attack caught them all by surprise. Long, flailing tendrils with inch-long thorns lashed out at them from every side at once, striking with unexpected strength and speed. The barbs drew blood, and the tendrils sought to wrap themselves around their prey with springy tenacity. But they parted easily under the keen edge of a steel blade, and the oozing remnants sprang away again. More tendrils struck down from above, but the party stood their ground, hacking and cutting about them till the tattered remnants were forced to retreat. Owen drew his disrupter and blasted one of the areas where the bloodred tendrils had seemed to spring from. The others followed suit, and soon there were a half dozen small fires burning around them. There was a certain amount of quivering and rustling in the surrounding foliage, but what was left of the tendrils showed no signs of further aggression.

Owen put his gun away and looked at the others. "Anyone badly hurt?"

"Just scratches," said Hazel. "Damn, those things were fast."

"Should we do something about the fires?" said Moon. "They could spread—"

"Let them," said Midnight, wiping away blood from a cut on her face that had come dangerously close to an eye. "Treacherous bloody things. Let them all burn."

"The rain should take care of the fires," said Owen. "And the surrounding foliage looks too drenched to catch sparks. But let's try to remember, there could be colonists' settlements not that far away, so if you have to use your guns, aim carefully."

"Yes, leader," said Bonnie. "I'm sure that would never have occurred to us. How ever did we manage till you came along?"

Owen ignored that and gestured for Moon to lead off again.

The slow march continued, slogging through deepening mud until their legs ached from the strain. Moon continued to treat it all as a casual ramble, stopping every now and again to pull up some unfamiliar piece of plant life, compare it against his data banks, and announce happily that since it wasn't officially identified, he had the right to name it. Unfortunately, this tended to involve very labored puns in Latin, which no one but Moon understood or appreciated, so after a few pointed death threats from certain members of the party, he kept his enthusiasm to himself, silently studying everything that didn't shrink away fast enough.

Given the general denseness of the jungle, and the way all the plant life fought for every square inch of light and rain, Owen had expected to spend most of his journey hacking a path with his sword, but after the incident with the barbed tendrils, the jungle seemed to be going out of its way to slowly open up a path before them. Owen thought some more about how aware the jungle might be. He raised the subject with Oz, who responded with a running commentary on what was known of Lachrymae Christi's plant life. Most of this was monumentally boring, and Owen tuned it out until something odd caught his attention.

"Hold it, Oz, back up. No insects at all here? Are you sure?"

"Quite sure. Like animal life, they just never caught on here. The plant life is so aggressive on all levels that all other kinds of life never found an ecological niche to prosper in."

"But if there's no insects, and as far as I can see no flowers… how do the plants propagate? How does fertilization occur?"

"Well, it certainly doesn't involve the birds and bees. Take a look over to your right, about four o'clock."

Owen looked, and saw two large masses of foliage moving together, rocking back and forth. "Wait a minute. Are they doing what I think they're doing?"

"I'm afraid so. You should think yourselves lucky you didn't arrive in the rutting season. Do you want to know how the trees do it?"

"No!"

"Suit yourself. You've led a really sheltered life in some ways, Owen."

The AI went back to talking about how the rain drained away through the ground, and ended up in vast subterranean lakes that fed the jungle's great root system, and Owen went back to not listening.

They trudged on for another hour or so, getting even wetter and more miserable, before the jungle moved against them again. They'd fallen into a plodding routine, following the path that opened up before them, until Oz suddenly pointed out that the path was slowly but surely turning them off course. Owen yelled for everyone to stop, and they all snapped out of their half daze, guns at the ready. Owen calmed them down and explained the situation, and took the point so he could follow Oz's directions more exactly. But when he tried to turn aside from the path, the red foliage clumped stubbornly together before him, forming a thick, ragged wall. Owen drew his sword and cut the wall with all his strength, but just as before, his blade clung stickily to the foliage, limiting the amount of damage he could do. He pulled his sword free, stepped back, and opened fire with his disrupter. The energy beam blasted a narrow tunnel through the plant wall, lined with blackened and burning edges. But as soon as Owen moved forward, the scorched sides just closed together again, like a slow-moving man trap.

"Stubborn, isn't it?" said Hazel. "The jungle really doesn't want us deviating from the path it's chosen."

"Maybe it's hiding something," said Midnight. "Some vulnerable part of itself."

"Little baby jungle things?" said Bonnie. "Could we be trespassing on a nursery?"

"How long would it take us to go around whatever it is?" said Moon, looking at Owen.

Owen consulted with Oz and then shook his head. "Depends on how large an area the jungle is protecting. Let's try curling around it. If it looks like it's taking us too long, we'll see what high explosives will do. You do have some, don't you. Hazel?"

"Never without them," said Hazel cheerfully.

Owen led the way cautiously around the blocked-off area, gun in his hand, and looked carefully about him for possible traps or ambush points. For the first time he was forced to consider the possibility that parts of the jungle might not just be aware, but actually sentient. He tried to visualize what kind of drowsy, sluggish thoughts a plant might think, and wasn't surprised when he couldn't.

He led the way for a good half hour before realizing something was wrong. Apart from the foliage drawing slowly back in front of him to form the path, nothing in the jungle was moving. Not a vine or a branch or a leaf. He stared about him into the endless twilight, straining his eyes against the denseness of the jungle and the never ending rain, but all was still and silent. The only sound was the heavy squelching of his party's boots diving in and out of the mud, and the steady patter of the rain. Owen hefted his disrupter. His instincts were screaming that he was walking into a trap, but he couldn't see anything dangerous or even threatening. If anything, the path ahead seemed wider than usual. But he was haunted by a sense of imminence, of something about to happen. Hazel moved up beside him.

"You feel it too, don't you?" she said quietly.

He nodded. "The jungle's watching us. It's planning something."

"Intelligent plants," said Hazel. "Spooky. Would it help if I apologized for all the salads I've eaten?"

Owen smiled briefly. "I doubt it. You see anything?"

"Not a damned thing. What do we do?"

"Keep moving, and be ready to react whenever whatever it is hits us. We've fought Hadenmen and Grendels. I doubt there's anything a bunch of plants can throw at us that we can't handle."

"Getting cocky again, Deathstalker."

While they were busy talking, the ground dropped out from under their feet. Owen's stomach lurched as he plunged down into the mud and just kept going. He scrabbled about him for something to cling onto, but all the surrounding vegetation had drawn back out of reach. There was only the mud, thick and confining, sucking him down. The others were yelling all around him, and from what he could see were just as badly off as him. The mud began moving, circling like a slow-motion whirlpool. The mud was already up to Owen's waist, and he was still sinking. He fought to stay upright, and tried to remember what he'd heard about dealing with quicksand. You were supposed to be able to swim in it, if you kept your nerve, but when Owen tried to move his legs, they barely responded at all. The mud smothered his movements easily, thick and clinging and bitterly cold.

The circling speed of the mud was increasing all the time, a whirlpool now of mud and grasses and loose vegetation a good twenty feet in diameter, churning remorselessly in a widdershins motion, pulling in everything around it like a slow, determined meat grinder. Owen tried to see how the others were doing, but the mud held him firmly, creeping up his stomach toward his chest. He held his arms above him, but there was nothing to cling onto. A great sucking sinkhole appeared in the center of the whirlpool, pulling everyone toward it. Owen could hear the others shouting, but they didn't seem to be making any sense. His constant struggle to stay upright and keep his face out of the mud was tiring him out, and getting him nowhere. His heart pounded frantically, and panic threatened to overwhelm his thoughts. Drowning in mud was supposed to be a really bad way to go.

He could almost feel the thick, soft weight of it forcing its way down his throat as he sucked for air that never came…

Owen took a deep breath and forced himself to be calm. He had to work through his options, think of a way out of this, or he was a dead man. He craned his neck and saw Hazel fighting the mud with all her strength. The mud was already over her chest. Moon had stopped struggling, his face calm. Owen couldn't see Bonnie or Midnight. He hoped they hadn't already been swallowed up. The point was, none of them could help him. He was going to have to do it himself. The mud was getting colder all the time, sucking up his body heat. His teeth had begun to chatter. He was being carried inevitably closer to the sinkhole, the churning mud and grasses moving faster and faster. Owen didn't know where the mud ended up after it had been through the sucking hole, but he didn't think he'd enjoy finding out firsthand.

He tried to summon his Maze powers, but he couldn't calm his mind enough to call them up. He tried to reach out to the surrounding foliage, looking for something to grab onto, but it was all well out of reach. Think, think. If he couldn't go to the foliage, maybe he could bring it to him… He still had his disrupter in his hand, held up out of the mud to protect it. He aimed carefully and shot a nearby tree dead square at the bottom of its wide trunk.

The energy beam punched straight through the trunk, and the tree toppled slowly forward across the whirlpool, the splintered remains of its lower trunk and heavy roots holding it in place. The surging mud brought Owen sweeping around and slammed him hard against the black trunk. The impact knocked the breath out of him, but he clung to the trunk with both hands, and it held him in place, even against the steady pull and pressure of the mud. The others also hit the trunk as they came around, and clung to it and each other. After that it was only a matter of strength and determination to drag themselves along the tree trunk and onto firmer land. They crawled a safe distance away and then collapsed on their backs, letting the rain slowly wash the mud off them. They lay there for some time, getting their breath back, until finally Owen forced himself back onto his feet. He beat away some more of the mud from his legs and waist, and glared at the slowing whirlpool.

"That was no accident," he said flatly. "We were herded here. The jungle wanted to be rid of us. On some level it must be aware, capable of cooperating against anything it sees as a threat."

Hazel sat up slowly. "So how are we going to get to Saint Bea's Mission if the whole damned jungle's determined to stop us?"

"We just have to be more determined than it is," said Owen. He consulted Oz to make sure he'd got the direction right, and then blasted an opening in the foliage with his disrupter. He waited till the crimson vegetation had closed together again, and then borrowed Hazel's disrupter and blasted it open again. "From now on we take it in turns to keep blasting a trail, using our guns in sequence as they recharge, backing it up with explosives as necessary, until the jungle learns to respect us and allows us to go where we want to go."

In the end, it was as simple as that. The jungle eventually got fed up with being incinerated, and went back to opening up a path in the direction the party wanted to go in. The scarlet and purple vegetation shook angrily around them for a while, but made no further moves to threaten them. Owen continued on point, weapons at the ready, carefully checking the way ahead for booby-traps. The rain kept falling, and they were all shuddering from the cold. Any normal human would have been in serious trouble by now, sliding into shock as their core body temperature slowly lowered, but all five of the party had been through the Maze. And Moon was a Hadenman.

Along the way, as much to distract himself as anything, Owen brought Bonnie and Midnight up to date on the background of Saint Bea and her Mission. When the rebels had finally won the war on Technos III and put an end to the fighting. Mother Superior Beatrice hadn't felt she was needed there anymore. So she returned to Golgotha, and set about rebuilding the established Church by throwing out all the political and corrupt elements. Turning the quasi-military organization of the Church of Christ the Warrior into the pacifistic Church of Christ the Redeemer wasn't easy, but it helped that the Saint of Technos III had a huge popular following, not least due to Toby Shreck's docu footage of her working in the slaughterhouse field hospital of Technos III as a nurse, and that the majority of the Church wanted change. Most of those who would have objected either had died in the rebellion or were on trial for crimes against Humanity.

But after achieving this miracle. Mother Beatrice found herself declared a Saint on all sides, especially by the media, and this upset her greatly. So as soon as the new Church was up and running, she renounced her leadership and went to Lachrymae Christi to minister to the lepers, who needed her more than anyone else—and perhaps because it was possibly the only place the media wouldn't follow her.

Before her involvement, lepers had just been dumped where their ship landed, and left to live or die as best they could. Supply ships were infrequent. Saint Bea changed all that. She used her influence and contacts to get food and tech and medicines dropped on a regular basis, and built her Mission into a spiritual and communications center for the whole leper population. And all went well. Until the Hadenmen came. Augmented serpents in paradise.

"Damned if I'd call this place paradise," said Hazel. "Why did she contact you, Owen, and not me? Or Jack and Ruby?"

"Apparently Jack and Ruby are off on a mission of their own somewhere. And she probably thought I'd be more… approachable."

"More of a soft touch, certainly."

Owen grinned and shrugged. "My life's been tough enough without having God mad at me."

"I never really thought of you as religious," said Hazel. "You've broken enough commandments in your time."

"I'm what the Empire made me," said Owen. "I was raised to believe in the Families first, the Iron Throne second, and God when I had time. But of them all, only my faith in God remains. I like to think that Someone out there watches and cares." He looked at Hazel. "How about you?"

"I believe in hard cash and a loaded gun," Hazel said briskly, and Bonnie and Midnight nodded more or less in unison. Hazel would have left it at that, but she could see Owen wanted more. "I live my life by my own rules, and I've always had problems with authority figures. If there is anything after this life, I'll deal with it when I get there. As for Saint Bea, all right, she's done a lot of good in her time, but so have we. She saved lives in her hospital, and we saved whole worlds by killing the right people. In the end, which of us made the most difference?"

"Saint Bea is a real hero," Owen said firmly. "She was a volunteer. An aristo who gave up everything to minister to the needy. We were all dragged into the rebellion, kicking and screaming all the way. So when she asked for my help, I couldn't say no. And how does God reward me? Crashes my ship and strands me on a leper colony. Thanks a whole bunch, Big Guy."

Hazel looked back at Bonnie and Midnight. "Didn't you have anyone like Saint Bea on your worlds?"

"Nah," said Bonnie. "The Church fell apart after the rebellion. Nothing's really replaced it. We live for the day, and let eternity take care of itself."