Deathstalker Honor (22 page)

“About time you got around to me. Right, pay attention, and take notes if you have to, because I’m damned if I’m going through this again. Ever since the Fleet was blown apart during the rebellion by outlaw ships and those bloody Hadenmen vessels, we’ve been struggling to operate a bare skeleton service. Most of the starcruisers are gone, D and E class, and we’re having to rely on destroyers and revamped frigates to carry a workload they were never intended to handle. We’re short of crew too. There are plenty of volunteers, but it takes time to train real crewmen. Can’t let just anyone loose on a starship.

“We’re using the larger ships to protect food routes to the hardest-hit planets. There are lots of hungry people out there, but so far we’ve managed to avoid large areas of actual famine. Pirates have been a problem, attacking the convoys to sustain their black markets. We kill them as fast as we can catch them, but there are always more. What ships we have left over are on patrol, mostly out on the Rim, watching for the insect ships.”

His face disappeared from the screen, replaced by the familiar sight of an alien ship. It resembled a huge ball of sticky white webbing tangled together, tightly compacted. Weapons and force shields of unfamiliar design were there, unseen. One such ship had murdered every living soul in an isolated Imperial Base, and then almost destroyed Golgotha’s main cities before Captain Silence and his crew destroyed it. No one knew where the alien ship had come from, or what they wanted. The only certainty about the aliens was their murderous intentions. The image of the ship disappeared, replaced by General Beckett again.

“Given the limited number of ships at my disposal, I cannot risk launching any kind of preemptive strike. All I can do is respond to alien attacks, drive the ships off, and then try to clean up the mess they’ve left behind. So far we’ve been lucky enough to avoid the major destruction and slaughter the first ship brought to Golgotha, but luck has a nasty habit of running out. The bottom line is, people are dying out here on the Rim, and there’s damn all I can do about it! I must have more ships!”

“We’re building them as fast as we can, General,” Gutman said sharply. “But there are difficulties. There won’t be anymore E-class ships until we can establish a new stardrive factory to replace the one destroyed in the rebellion. And come up with something to replace the clones who previously performed the dangerous task of actually assembling the drive. And, of course, even D-class ships are horrendously expensive, at a time when every expense has to be weighed and justified. As long as the alien ships don’t pose an immediate threat to the main Empire—”

“You’ll sacrifice the people of the Rim planets to avoid having to raise taxes on everyone else.” Beckett snarled openly at the camera. “Rulers come and rulers go, but nothing really changes. Look, the insects came to Golgotha once, and right now we don’t have anything to stop them making a return visit. We still don’t know where they came from; they just appear out of nowhere, make their attack, and then disappear again.”

“As long as we keep them from getting too annoyed with us, there’s a real chance they will confine their attacks to the Rim,” said Gutman. “A bleak philosophy, I’ll admit, but in these desperate times we have no choice but to think in terms of the greatest good for the greatest number. We are not abandoning the Rim worlds. We authorize you to remain where you are, and give them all the protection you can. As soon as new ships are available, they will be sent to join you. But that’s all I can offer you. Now, unless you have anything else to bring up—”

“As it happens, I do,” said Beckett. “There’s something . . . happening out here on the Rim. Disturbing reports have been coming in from all along the Rim, concerning the Darkvoid. There are reports of . . . things coming out of the darkness. Voices of the dead crying warnings. Visions of wonders and nightmares, fleeting contacts with things that come and go in a moment. Espers have had dreams of a door opening and closing, and something awful peering through. There’ve been too many reports, from normally trustworthy sources, for me to just dismiss them. I am forced to the only logical conclusion. There’s something alive in the Darkvoid.”

For a long moment everyone was quiet. In the nine hundred and more years since the original Deathstalker used the Darkvoid Device, no one had really learned anything more about the vast area of utter night called the Darkvoid, save that ships which went into it rarely returned. Gutman turned to Owen and Hazel.

“Sir Deathstalker, you and Miss d’Ark were the last people to travel deep into the Darkvoid and return. Perhaps you could . . . shed a little light on this phenomenon?”

“This is all news to me,” said Owen. “We never encountered anything like that. Just because my ancestor created the Darkvoid Device, it doesn’t mean I’m any more of an expert than anyone else. If Giles kept any secrets about the Darkvoid, he never passed them on to me. But I really don’t see how anyone or anything could be alive in there. There’s nothing left in the Darkvoid to support life. No light, no heat, nothing to feed on . . . how could anything exist there?”

“Not life as we know it,” said Beckett from the viewscreen. “But who knows what nightmares might be lurking in the darkness, birthed in that moment of mass slaughter and utter horror?”

“That’s ridiculous!” said Owen.

“Is it?” said Beckett. “When you went into the Darkvoid, you came back with the revived Hadenmen, an old horror we thought we were well rid of. There could be anything in that darkness. Anything at all.”

Everyone was looking at Owen and Hazel, but they said nothing. There were things they knew about the nature and cause of the Darkvoid that no one else knew, but they had sworn long ago, for very good reasons, to keep those secrets to themselves. Besides, there was no obvious link between what they knew and the phenomenon Beckett had described. Or so they hoped.

“Speaking of the Hadenmen,” said Beckett after the silence had dragged on for a while, “we come to the last part of my report. I think we were all somewhat surprised when the revived Hadenmen joined the rebel forces to overthrow the Empress, and we were even more surprised when we discovered the augmented men were actually obeying orders, and taking prisoners when the Empire forces surrendered rather than just butchering them all, as they did in the past. They were, after all, the official Enemies of Humanity until the AIs of Shub replaced them in that role.

“You assured us they had reformed, sir Deathstalker. You said we could work with them. We should have known better. We should never have trusted cyborgs, men who threw away their humanity in the search for perfection through tech, who launched the great Crusade of the Genetic Church, dedicated to destroying Humanity and replacing us with themselves. The men machines in their golden ships. The butchers of Brahmin II. Well, sir Deathstalker, your old allies have returned to Brahmin II, destroyed their defenses, and taken control of the planet and its population. They’ve renamed it New Haden and surrounded it with a blockade of their golden ships. The few reports that got out before all communication was cut off said the Hadenmen had been experimenting on the prisoners they’d taken, turning them into new, improved Hadenmen.

“We have no idea of what’s happening down there now. And since we don’t have a hope in hell of getting past the golden ships, we have no way of rescuing the people of Brahmin II. Unless, of course, the Deathstalker has some ideas? He is, after all, the man who loosed the Hadenmen on Humanity again!”

A rising growl of anger moved through Parliament, from the MPs to those gathered watching on the floor of the House. It was a disturbed, dangerous sound, and only died reluctantly away when Owen glared about him. “They were a necessary evil,” he said flatly. “We couldn’t have defeated Lionstone’s Fleet without them. Ask General Beckett. I had . . . hopes the augmented men had moved on beyond their old agendas. I knew one Hadenman who was as fine a man as any I ever met. But it seems I have been betrayed again by those I placed my faith in. Still, let’s not exaggerate the dangers of the situation. They hold only one planet, and as yet they don’t have enough forces to do anything but defend it.”

“Are you suggesting we abandon the people of Brahmin II, to be turned into monstrosities?” said Gutman. “I don’t think the Empire would stand for that.”

“Why not?” said Owen. “Isn’t that what you were proposing to do with the people of the Rim planets? Sacrificing the few in the name of the many? But no, Gutman, I’m not suggesting we write off Brahmin II’s population, if only because the Hadenmen might eventually create a whole new army out of them. Hazel and I will go to Brahmin II, alone, and see what we can do to rectify the situation. Because I am, after all, responsible.”

“Hold everything,” said Hazel. “When did I volunteer to go on this suicide run?”

“Well, you don’t want to miss out on all the fun, do you?”

“There is that,” said Hazel. “I just like to be asked, that’s all.”

“The House gratefully accepts your proposal,” said Gutman. “And wishes you all good fortune. Because you’re going to need it. Is this acceptable to you, General Beckett?”

“Damn right,” said Beckett. “It’s his mess; let him clean it up. But just in case they fail, we’d better consider the practicalities of scorching the whole damn planet, and hope we get as many of the inhuman bastards as possible before they can escape. Beckett out.”

The viewscreen disappeared, taking Beckett with it. Parliament muttered quietly among itself. Gutman smiled down at Owen, who braced himself. Something bad was coming his way. He could just feel it. Gutman leaned forward, his voice entirely reasonable. “But before you leave us, sir Deathstalker, we feel there are a few questions we would like answered, concerning the various war criminals this House has sent you after. We can’t help noticing that you do tend to bring them in dead rather than alive.”

“For some reason they don’t seem to think they’ll get a fair trial here on Golgotha,” said Owen. “The fact that not one accused war criminal has been found innocent by these trials of yours has not escaped them. So, not unexpectedly, they tend to fight to the death rather than be taken. Don’t blame us for a situation you’ve created.”

“We prepare our cases very thoroughly,” said Gutman smoothly. “We find them guilty because they are guilty. Surely you don’t think I’d allow my fellow ex-aristocrats to be falsely accused?”

“This from the man who killed his own father to get on,” said Hazel. “Pause, for sustained hollow laughter.”

Gutman shrugged. “Things were different then. I am a different man now. Or don’t you believe people can change, my dear ex-pirate and ex-clonelegger?”

Hazel scowled but said nothing, for which Owen was very grateful.

“The war trials exist to show the people of the Empire that justice is being served,” said Gutman.

“They exist because they’re popular,” said Owen. “People need scapegoats. What are you going to do when you run out of the real villains, Gutman? Going to start investigating anyone who dares disagree with this new order of yours?”

“Only the guilty need fear the people’s justice,” said Gutman.

“And you decide who’s guilty.”

“Parliament decides.”

“And you speak for Parliament,” said Owen. “How utterly convenient.”

“Let us move on,” said Gutman. “Next on the agenda is a proposal which I think will guarantee some lively debate. I’m sure I don’t need to remind most of you that many seats will be contested shortly in the first free elections since the fall of the Iron Throne. What you may not be aware of is that many ex-aristocrats have expressed their intention to stand for many of these seats.”

“No way in Hell!” said Owen, his voice rising sharply over the growing murmurs around him. “The deal Random made was clear; the Families renounced political power in return for being allowed to survive as financial institutions. Let them get into Parliament, through bribes and intimidation as likely as not, and they’ll just end up running things again!”

“You really must learn to curb your paranoia, sir Deathstalker,” said a chilly voice, and everyone turned to look. Grace Shreck met their collective gaze with a mein of cool indifference, her nose stuck firmly in the air. Since Gregor’s forced withdrawal from public scrutiny, his older sister had taken over as head of the Family and, to everyone’s surprise, had done an excellent job of it. Toby and Evangeline had both been too busy and too reluctant to take over as the Shreck, so the position had fallen to Grace pretty much by default. Her time in the limelight seemed to have agreed with her.

Long, tall, and more than fashionably thin, with a pale swan-like neck, a pinched face, and a massive pile of white hair stacked on top of her head in an old-fashioned and frankly precarious-looking style, Grace made a striking picture among the more colorful birds of prey surrounding her. Ancient and austere, Grace hadn’t been out in public regularly for years. She’d hated attending Court, and only did so when bulled into it by Gregor.

But she’d taken to the less formal and infinitely less dangerous Parliament with astonishing ease, and was now a spokesperson for many of the older Families, who trusted her precisely because she’d been out of touch for so long, and therefore had no attachments to any particular Clan or cause. She wore clothes so old-fashioned they’d actually come back into style again, and possessed a quiet poise and brittle wit that had won her the respect of many. The acceptable face of the ex-aristocrats, the holo audiences adored her and would listen to arguments from her they would have shouted down from any other aristo.

“Everyone has a right to stand for Parliament,” Grace said primly. “A democratic right. Isn’t that one of the things you claimed to be fighting for, sir Deathstalker, that everyone should be treated equally? Ex-aristocrats have as much a right to be heard as anyone else. After all, you yourself were once a Lord. Are you saying you should be banned too, your voice no longer heard? You are not the only member of a Family to understand the concepts of redemption and atonement.”