Deathstalker (37 page)

“I’m all right. I just wasn’t prepared for this when I
opened my mind. All I can see is space, stretching away in all directions. No life, or trace of life. We got here too late. Whatever happened here, it’s over.”

“Any idea of what happened?” said Silence.

“It’s too big,” said the esper. “I feel like a fly crawling across the stained-glass window of a cathedral and trying to comprehend its function.”

“Whatever happened here, it must have left impressions,” said Frost. “Go deeper. We have to know. What happened to the other Sleepers?”

The esper groaned loudly, cords of muscle standing out in his neck. “The violence … death and slaughter and more … the walls are full of it. There were thousands of the aliens here, too many to count, packed together like insects in a hive. Sleeping. Waiting. Then something broke in and woke them up. Ghost Warriors.”

Silence and Frost looked at each other. Ghost Warriors were human corpses used as weapons, guided by computer implants, controlled by the rogue AIs of Shub.

“The Vault was swarming with them, fighting the aliens, armed with strange weapons I don’t recognize. And in the end, they pulled the Sleepers down by sheer force of numbers and dragged them away. They took the damaged Ghost Warriors, too, for repairing and recycling later. The Warriors weren’t affected by the city because they weren’t really here; their controllers were safe back on Shub. Maybe it wouldn’t have affected them anyway; the AIs don’t think like we do.”

For a long moment, the esper didn’t say anything. Silence cleared his throat. “Why did they leave one alien behind?”

“As a surprise for whoever came after them. The AIs wanted you to know what happened here. They’re going to make Ghost Warriors out of the Sleepers and turn them loose on the Empire. Give me your disrupter, Captain.”

Silence frowned. “Is there something still in there?”

“Just give me your gun, Captain.”

Silence stepped forward and the esper turned unhurriedly to take the disrupter. Silence caught a glimpse of the Vault’s interior, and looked away as he stepped back. The esper was right. It was too big. The esper hefted the gun in his hand, as though surprised by the weight. Perhaps he was. Espers weren’t usually allowed weapons. He looked at Silence calmly.

“I’ve seen what Shub has planned for us. It’s horrible. I have no wish to see it happen. Goodbye, Captain. It’s been … interesting. I’d damn you and the Empire to hell, but hell is coming for you anyway.”

And he put the gun to his head, and shot himself. Silence cursed as the headless body slumped to the floor and knelt down to pry his disrupter from the esper’s hand. “Damn. That is not going to look good on my report. I should have known better than to give him a gun.”

Frost shrugged. “Espers. Fragile, all of them.”

Silence straightened up and bolstered his gun. “Sleeper Ghost Warriors … they’d be unstoppable in the field. But why come here now? Are they planning a new offensive? And if so, when and where? We’d better get back to the ship. The Empire has to know about this.”

“Something else to think about,” said Frost. “How did the Ghost Warriors break through our quarantine? The Captain of the
Defiant
was quite definite that nothing had got past him, let alone landed on Grendel, broke open the Vaults and carried away the Sleepers. The only answer that makes sense is that the AIs on Shub have developed some really effective new cloaking technology, powerful enough to blind all our sensors. Which is really bad news for all of us. It means the Ghost Warriors could strike anywhere, anytime, and the first we’d know of it would be when their attack ships started blasting our cities. We wouldn’t even be able to fight back; what use would our energy weapons be without sensors to aim them?”

“If you’ve quite finished lowering our morale, I’ve got something else that’ll spoil your day,” said Silence. “We’re going to have to check out all the other Vaults on Grendel, one by one, to see if they’ve been opened and emptied by the Ghost Warriors. And you saw what opening up just this one did to us.”

“Join the Fleet and see the universe. We have to be sure, Captain. There’s always Stelmach’s machine.”

“For as long as it holds up under these conditions. We can’t trust anything down here. Anything at all.”

Back on the bridge of the
Dauntless
, Silence sat slumped in his command chair and tried hard not to fall asleep through sheer weariness. He’d taken a little something to keep him awake and alert, but it was taking a long time
kicking in. Frost stood beside his chair, cool and collected as always. She looked as fresh and fit as if she’d just arrived on duty, but then, she always did. That was an Investigator’s training for you. The rest of his team were a mess. The few surviving marines were sleeping off sedation down in the med bay, recovering from shock and battle fatigue and exposure to the alien city. Silence felt very much that he would have liked to join them, but there was still work to be done. He had a hundred and twenty marines still on board, but he wasn’t about to risk them down in the undercity until he had some idea on how to protect them. The battle espers and the Wampyr were all dead. It bothered him that he didn’t care as much about their deaths as he did for the marines. He shook his head. He had more important things to think about. Like how Stelmach was getting on with examining the captured Sleeper down in the science lab. Silence raised the Security Officer on his personal screen. The man looked tired and preoccupied.

“Anything you feel like sharing with us yet, Stelmach?”

“Not much. The Sleeper is so different from what we normally consider as life that half my instruments won’t work on it. What information I am getting is enough to turn your hair white. One thing is becoming clearer all the time. This is a genetically engineered creature: a living killing machine, the perfect warrior class. Almost literally unbeatable on the physical level. We only beat it by cheating.”

“The Ghost Warriors beat them.”

“Yes, but according to the esper, they had weapons and numbers far superior to ours. Shub’s always been twenty years ahead of us. If not more. I’ll get back to you later, when I’ve got something more significant to say. Stelmach out.”

His face had only just disappeared from Silence’s private screen when the image suddenly cleared, and Silence found himself looking at the stern face of the Imperial Communications Officer on Golgotha. Silence sat up straight in his chair and tried to look alert.

“Captain Silence, you have new orders. These supercede all previous orders. You are to leave Officer Stelmach and his captive with the
Defiant
and proceed immediately to the planet Shandrakor. The traitor Owen Deathstalker is traveling there with other enemies of the Empire, including the notorious Jack Random, A spy in their company has provided
us with the exact coordinates for Shandrakor. You are to capture these people alive. They have knowledge of the exact location for the Darkvoid Device. You are hereby authorized to take any and all actions necessary to retrieve the Device and return it to the Empire. After you have the Device, you may execute the outlaws. This information is classified, your eyes only. Message ends.”

His face vanished from the screen. Silence looked at Frost. “Officially, you didn’t hear that.”

“Of course not, Captain. Pity we’re leaving Grendel just as it was getting interesting. Still, the Deathstalker, Random and the Device … now that’s what I call a mission.”

“The Darkvoid Device,” said Silence. “I can’t believe that nightmare’s turned up again after all these years.”

“We’d better hope it has,” said Frost. “It’s about the only thing I can think of that could take on the AIs on Shub, if they really are turning the Sleepers into Ghost Warriors. Still, Jack Random and the Deathstalker … I’ll enjoy killing them.”

“I thought you’d like that bit,” Silence said dryly. “Just remember we have to get our hands on the Device first. Dead men don’t share secrets. So, Shandrakor here we come. I always thought that planet was a myth, a legend, like the Wolfling World. Just goes to show.”

“What?”

“Pardon?”

“It just goes to show what?”

“I don’t know,” said Silence. “Something.”

“Very erudite,” said Frost. “Well, here’s one more thing for you to think about. Stelmach seemed pretty sure that the Sleepers were genetically engineered, which suggests rather strongly that they must have been created with a particular purpose in mind. Or at the very least, a particular enemy. What do you suppose could be so dangerous, so deadly, that the Sleepers had to be created to fight it? And is it still out there somewhere, just waiting for us to stumble over it?”

Silence looked at her for a moment. “I don’t know why I keep you around, Investigator. You can be really depressing when you put your mind to it.”

Frost nodded calmly. “It’s a gift.”

It was hot under the lights of the Arena, but then it always was. The Masked Gladiator lay on his back on the bloodied sands, looking up at the angel hovering above him on outstretched wings and wondered if he was going to die after all. He rolled to one side, grunting with the effort, and the angel’s clawed feet missed him by inches as it swooped past. The Masked Gladiator lurched to his feet, sword at the ready once again, and studied the soaring angel dispassionately. Whover had gengineered the angel had put a lot of thought into it. The wide feathered wings and a touch of psychokinesis enabled it to fly effortlessly, which meant it could attack from all kinds of interesting directions at incredible speeds. The claws on its hands and feet were long and curved, strong enough to tear right through his steelmesh armor, and more than enough to gut him quite efficiently, or rip out his throat in a moment, if he left it undefended. He watched the angel fly, half-silhouetted against the lights of the Arena, and the air was dry and hot as hell itself.

The angel swept back and forth around him, darting in and out, always staying out of reach of his sword. The creature had to be tiring just as fast as he was, but it showed no signs of slowing its attack. It swept in close, the battering air from its widespread wings throwing him to the sands again with brutal force. Somehow he clung onto his sword and got to one knee again, then the angel seized him from behind with muscular arms and carried him up into the air. The fierce grip forced the breath from his lungs, but at least his
arms were still free. The sands swept by below him with dizzying speed, and he looked away.

He could feel the angel’s panting breath on the back of his neck, and he slammed his head back into the angel’s face with all his strength. He felt as much as heard the angel’s nose break, and warm blood sprayed over his helm and shoulders, but its hold didn’t weaken. The Gladiator wondered hazily what the damned creature intended to do to him, and then he saw looming up before him the pennant hanging from its pointed steel pole, and he knew. All the angel had to do was drop him on the pole at this speed, and it would be over. And impalement was a slow, nasty way to die. He only had a few seconds. He couldn’t cut behind him with his sword with any strength, or reach the arms that held him, so that only left one option. He gritted his teeth, reversed his sword and thrust it deep into his own side, out his back and on into the guts of the angel behind him.

The angel screamed, and blood coursed down between them. They fell from the air like a stone and crashed to the unyielding sands. The Gladiator hit first, and the impact drove the sword deeper into the angel. It pushed him away, and he jerked the sword out of both of them. The angel screamed again as they rolled apart, and their blood fell heavily on the sands, but the Gladiator had chosen the location of his wound, and though he was hurt badly, and bleeding like a stuck pig, still he wasn’t seriously disabled. It wouldn’t kill him for quite a while yet. He blocked out the pain with the ease of long training and spun on the angel as it lay thrashing on the sands, clutching at its bloody stomach, wings fluttering helplessly. The sword had taken it deep in the guts and opened up a wide wound when it was jerked free. The Gladiator knelt over it, raised his sword with both hands, and brought it down on the angel’s neck with all his remaining strength. The sword bit deep, severing the spine, and the angel’s movements collapsed into juddering twitches.

The Gladiator looked down at it, his bloody grin hidden behind his featureless steel helm. The angel was no danger to him anymore. He cut its head off anyway, just in case. He got shakily to his feet and held up the head for all to see. The angel’s beautiful face was a mask of horror, and blood flowed down the Gladiator’s arm from the severed neck. It felt warm and soothing. He turned slowly round in a circle,
still blocking the pain, and the crowd went mad, cheering and shouting and baying their approval. The severed head showed up well on the giant viewscreen above the ranked seating.

The Masked Gladiator bowed courteously to the crowd’s roar and missed a step as his head went suddenly light. Enough playing to the crowd. Time to get the hell out of the Arena while he still could. It wouldn’t do his image any good at all if he had to be carried out on a stretcher. He couldn’t feel the blood he was losing, but he could see it coursing down his legs. He stomped off toward the nearest gate, rocking dizzily with every step, but still clinging to the angel’s severed head. Maybe he’d have it stuffed and mounted.