For a moment, no one moved. Valentine looked down at his severed arm, as the relaxing fingers let go of the swordhilt. A few drops of blood fell from the stump of his arm, and then stopped. And then Valentine laughed softly, a terribly sane and confident laugh, and four fingers and a thumb thrust out of the great wound at his elbow. A hand followed, and then the forearm, and in a moment Valentine was whole again. He stooped down and picked up his sword, kicked aside the severed arm, and gestured for Kit to come at him again. Kid Death raised his sword, thinking hard.
But even as their swords reached out to touch again, the Elves hit Valentine with everything they had. As long as Robert and Constance were in danger from Valentine, they hadn’t dared start anything, but now that his concentration seemed wholly on Kid Death, Crow Jane gave a telepathic signal, and a psistorm of violent energies hit Valentine from a dozen different directions at once. One polter grabbed the gun and whisked it away, while six others did their best to tear Valentine apart. Psychokinetic flames sprang up around him, burning so fiercely everyone else had to back away. Telepaths probed and picked at the locked doors of his mind. Valentine stood his ground, nanotech rebuilding his body faster than it could be destroyed, and laughed.
Robert and Constance stood their ground too, though voices and clutching hands tried to persuade them to flee. The whole Empire was watching, and the new King and Queen couldn’t be seen to be weak.
And when the psistorm finally collapsed, the Elves shattered and exhausted, and the last flames died away, Valentine Wolfe was still standing there, apparently untouched. He stopped laughing, and looked unhurriedly around him. “Everybody finished? Everybody had their turn? Good. Now that you all know I’m unstoppable, unkillable, and quite possibly immortal, who could be a more sensible choice as Emperor? You know in your hearts that I’m what you really need. What you deserve.” He turned slowly to face Robert and Constance. “Now,” he said, almost greedily. “Time to play ...”
Kit SummerIsle started forward again, and Valentine slapped him aside with one sweep of his arm, then advanced on the grim-faced but unmoving Robert. And then Daniel Wolfe appeared out of nowhere, teleporting in to stand beside his brother. Valentine glared at him. “What the hell are you doing here? I don’t need any help, from you or Shub. This is my business. Don’t you dare interfere.”
Daniel ignored him, looking out at the speechless crowd. “I speak for Shub,” he said, in a voice that was not entirely his own. “The war between the AIs and Humanity is now over. The AIs have called off all their forces and recalled their armada, to turn them against our mutual enemies, the Hadenmen and the Recreated. Examine your communications, and you will find proof of all I say. The nanotech plague is also at an end. The nanos have been rendered inert. The AIs cannot restore those already destroyed, but there will be no more victims. The long war between us is over. Rejoice.” Daniel turned to Valentine. “Only you remain, Brother; one last piece of unfinished business. I asked for the privilege of shutting you down, now that I am my own man again, and they agreed. So good-bye, Brother. Enjoy your time in Hell.”
And with those words, every piece of Shub nanotech in Valentine’s body shut itself down. All his wounds burst open at once, and Valentine fell screaming to the bloodied floor, as much in shock as in pain. He’d been so close to winning everything ... In moments he was soaked in his own blood, as he writhed helplessly at the feet of those he’d wanted so much to see crawling before him. He tried to lift his sword, to strike one last blow for spite’s sake, but there was no strength left in him. He bled to death, and no one made any move to save him. When it was over, Daniel bowed formally to Constance.
“Hello, Stepmother. I’m home, at last. Congratulations on your wedding. Hope you like the present I brought. I’m sure my father would look favorably on your new life. Shub never really had him, you know. They only had his body; his spirit has always been at rest.”
“I always knew that,” said Constance. “I’m glad you’ve come to know that too. Welcome home, Daniel. What the hell happened to the AIs? Is the war really over?”
“Oh yes. Diana Vertue ... opened their minds to new possibilities. Shub are our allies now.”
Captain Eden Cross appeared suddenly on a floating viewscreen, hanging above everyone’s head, breaking through Security on an emergency channel. “This is Captain Cross of the
Excalibur.
Since Shub is no longer a threat, we’re going to face the Recreated. But my ship is the only survivor of my fleet, and it’s in terrible shape. The Last Standing isn’t much better off. We’re calling in every ship we’ve got, and Shub is sending everything they’ve got to back us up, but the sheer size of the Recreated fleet is almost unimaginable. We can’t hope to stop them on our own. We need every ship that can fly and aim a gun. And we need every able man and woman left to crew them. This message is being broadcast all across Golgotha. If you can hear my voice, your Empire needs you. It’s time to make our stand.”
The screen went blank, and disappeared, and there was a long silence. Then Robert raised his voice, and all eyes turned to him. “You heard the man. We’re all needed. I’m reinstating myself as Captain, and taking my old ship out to face the Recreated. Let every man and woman here for whom duty and honor are more than just words, follow me. No ship is too small, no aid too slight. We must fight, or fall, together. And if we must fall, let whoever or whatever remains to write the history books declare,
This was Humanity’s finest hour.”
He strode out of the House, Constance at his side, and in ones and twos, and then in great streams, everyone in the House followed them out. Even the barely recovered Finlay Campbell, fresh out of the regeneration machine, brought up the rear, leaning heavily on Evangeline and Adrienne. By the time Toby Shreck made his way down from the control gallery, only Flynn was left, checking his camera for damage.
“Tell me you got all that, Flynn!”
“Every second, Boss, going out live to every planet in the Empire. Damn; if everyone else follows King Robert’s lead, we’re going to have an Imperial fleet of a size not seen since the days of the old Empire!”
“Damn right,” said Toby. “And we’re going to be a part of it. I’ve commandeered a news ship, and it’s waiting for us on the Parliament landing pads. I’m not missing out on the biggest story of my career.”
And then they both looked around sharply at a sudden noise behind them, and there was Kit SummerIsle, Kid Death, staggering out of one of the private rooms, bleeding from a dozen terrible wounds. They started toward him, and he tried to say something to them, but he collapsed, betrayed by his own dying body. Toby knelt beside him, looking almost in awe at the great wounds killing the most notorious assassin the Empire had ever known. None of them were due to Valentine; the Wolfe hadn’t been able to touch him. The whole of Kit’s body was soaked in blood, and one of his eyes had been cut out of his head.
“Who did this to you?” said Toby. “Who the hell could have done this to you?”
Kit tried to say something, but his mouth was full of blood. He said something that might have been David, and then he died. Toby and Flynn looked at each other over his body, and then went cautiously to search the room Kid Death had staggered out of, but it was empty, though there was a lot of blood on the floor, and two sets of bloody boot marks. They checked all the other rooms, but they were empty too. If there did still remain some secret, unknown killer, no sight or sound of him remained. So in the end Toby and Flynn just shrugged, left the House, and went to board their ship, to join the last great fleet of Humanity into battle against its last great Enemy: the Recreated.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Last Deathstalker
Among the dust of forgotten suns, in a darkness that no longer knew the light and life of stars, Owen Deathstalker and Hazel d‘Ark came again to the Wolfing World, once also known as lost Haden, in their ship
Sunstrider III.
In many ways this long neglected return felt to Owen and Hazel very much like coming home. Down in the subterranean mysteries of the frozen planet beneath them, they had walked through the Madness Maze, and emerged reborn as something new in the universe. And since that time they had done many things, some good and some bad, but all of them quite remarkable. They had rewritten the history of the Empire and of Humanity itself, and all it had cost them was control of their own lives, and of their destiny.
Once, there had been five remarkable people, survivors of the Madness Maze, but three of them were dead. Giles Deathstalker, that legendary hero and warrior, died at the hands of his own descendant, while Jack Random and Ruby Journey had died at each other’s hand. Owen and Hazel knew this, the moment they dropped out of hyperspace and the
Sunstrider III
took up its preprogrammed orbit around the Wolfing World. There had always been a strong mental link between the Maze survivors, neglect it as they would, and Owen and Hazel cried out in unison as the knowledge crashed in upon them, like the sudden amputation of part of their souls. Jack and Ruby had been their friends and more than friends, despite their many differences, comrades-in-arms and kindred spirits, and Owen and Hazel knew that for as long as they lived, there would always be a space in their hearts and a gap in their lives no one else would ever be able to make good.
“We’re the last now,” said Owen, sitting slumped in the bridge command chair, looking at the central viewscreen but not seeing it. The screen showed the shimmering icy surface of the planet below, all subdued blues and greens, but his thoughts were elsewhere. “The last of our kind. I feel like the last of a species doomed to extinction.”
“I don‘t,” said Hazel shortly. She sat at his side, her eyes also carefully fixed on the viewscreen. “The Empire has no shortage of freaks and superhumans and general weird shit these days. That’s always been a part of the problem, to my mind. Humanity getting above itself. Messing about with powers and abilities it has no business even knowing about yet. We’re not ready to be gods.”
Owen considered this. “Are you saying you won’t miss Jack and Ruby?”
“Of course I’ll miss them! Ruby was my oldest friend. She believed in me when no one else did, not even me. She always knew that we were somebody, that we were destined for great things ... You only ever knew her as a bounty hunter, and a killer. I knew her when she was so much more than that. You never knew what she lost, what she gave up, to become who and what she was. Her whole life was a tragedy, just waiting for a bad and bitter ending. But I never thought she’d die so young ... at the hands of the only man she ever loved.”
“Jack Random was always one of my heroes,” said Owen. “Studying history soon disillusions you about most heroes and legends, but Jack really did do most of the things they said he did. And even after they broke him, and he was safe being a nobody on Mistworld, he still found the strength to recreate himself, to be the hero and legend again, to risk his life and his sanity one more time because the cause needed him. And because I asked him to. I’m responsible for everything he became, and everything he did. The good and the bad.”
“Now that is just typical of you, Deathstalker,” said Hazel, turning to look at him at last. “Trying to take everyone’s burdens on your shoulders. Jack Random was responsible for his own life, and his own madness at the end. Ruby too. Whatever they did, and whatever end they came to, it was by their own choice and their own will. Just like us, when our times comes. To believe anything else diminishes them, and us.”
Owen looked at her. “Our time? Have you been having those precognitive dreams again? Is there something about our being here I should know?”
“No,” said Hazel firmly. “We have enough real threats to worry about without bringing in my dreams. Make yourself useful for a change; see if you can raise the Wolfing down below. We’re really vulnerable here in orbit, if there are any of the Recreated left in the Darkvoid.”
Owen nodded, and turned to the comm panels. Hazel watched him, scowling, and wondered why she was so reluctant to tell him about the dream she’d once had of her future. Of standing alone on the bridge of the
Sunstrider II,
while all hell broke out around her. Huge alien forces attacking from every side, strange ships and awful creatures beyond counting, nightmares let loose in the waking world, blowing the
Sunstrider II
apart for all its shields and defenses. Fires burning the length of the ship, alarms sounding endlessly, and the ship’s guns firing again and again and again. Below her, the Wolfing World. And no sign of Owen anywhere.
Now she’d come at last to the place of the dream, but the details were no longer accurate.
Sunstrider II
was destroyed, crashed on the leper world of Lachrymae Christi. All that remained of that ship was its unique stardrive, built into a hijacked Church ship. The new
Sunstrider III
didn’t even have any guns. So the dream was now impossible. She was safe from the overwhelming horror she’d felt, of the terrible inevitable doom she’d felt closing in around her. And no trace of Owen anywhere ... The dream was clearly now just a dream. That was why she kept quiet about it, or so she told herself. But the Wolfing World lay cold and silent beneath the ship, like a pale ghostly harbinger of bad things to come.
We are the last of the Maze people,
she thought tiredly.
The last of the great rebel leaders. And just maybe the last hope of Humanity. Why does destiny always land most heavily on the shoulders of those who feel least able of handling the burden?
She looked around suddenly when a familiar voice spoke from the viewscreen, and it wasn’t the Wolfing. The screen was now filled with the head and shoulders of Diana Vertue. She looked tired and strained and subtly different, and it took Hazel a moment to realize that Diana didn’t look like herself anymore. Her mouth was a grim flat line, and her eyes were dangerously dark and staring. A disturbing sense of menace and barely channeled madness surrounded her like a halo of flies. She looked like her old self; the deadly esper saint, Jenny Psycho.