Deathstalker Rebellion (66 page)

He missed having room service to shout at, but otherwise this was business as usual. The whiskey burned in his chest and in his mind, the uppers hammered through his bloodstream, and the cigar smoke kept him balanced as he sorted the gold from the dross. He had to make this compilation look good. Really good. The live footage of Half A Man and his Investigators had made people sit up and take notice, and won him his best viewing share ever. But it hadn’t made him any friends among his fellow reporters, who had been be
sieging the Wolfe complex with requests, demands, and pleas for entry visas ever since. The Wolfes, not surprisingly, were stonewalling. They still thought they could control things, as long as it was just Toby Shreck and his cameraman. Toby grinned around his cigar. He’d show them.

But he couldn’t continue to rely on lucking into great found footage. He’d caught everyone’s attention, but to hold onto it he’d have to follow up with a bloody good program about what was really going on down here on Technos III. It hadn’t been easy. Everyone in and around the factory complex was being very careful about what they said in front of Toby, whether Flynn was with him or not. The word had come down from Above. Luckily, he already had enough good stuff to rock the Wolfes back in their luxuriously designed and expensive shoes. This particular compilation would make a fine example of what he could do, showing off his talent and establishing him as a major name in the news business. If it didn’t get him killed first. It would also be a perfect thumbing of the nose to all those who had snubbed or insulted him. He rolled his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, grabbed a few chocolates from the nearby box, and knocked back another belt of whiskey. He was supercharging now. Start with the Mother Bea footage. That was the mother lode.

He ran the tapes again, glaring in concentration at the tiny screens before him. He had two and sometimes three running at once, to keep up with his rocketing thoughts. Flynn had got some great panning shots of the hospital tent with the factory complex in the background, to show off the relative size of each. Then there were shots inside the tent, with the wounded lying still and silent, only sometimes moaning quietly on their narrow cots. He called up the master shot of Mother Superior Beatrice explaining who would and would not be allowed treatment, according to the Wolfes. Then a close-up of her tired, nearly defeated face.

“In the winter … I’ve seen the surgeons stop in mid operation to warm their hands in the steaming guts they’ve just opened up.”

Yes, that would make them sit up and take notice. The Sisters of Mercy were well loved and well respected throughout the Empire. They weren’t supposed to be forced to work in conditions like that, not even by the high and mighty Wolfes. Assuming, of course, he could smuggle this
past the censors. There were a lot of people who thought they were in authority here who’d demand to see the tape in its entirety before it went out. Toby grinned around his cigar. He had an idea or two.

More whiskey and another chocolate.

The next tapes were from the brief interview Half A Man had reluctantly granted him. He hadn’t wanted to, and Toby had had to use the Empress’s name as a threat more than once just to get the man to stand still long enough for Flynn to point his camera at him. Half A Man looked even weirder on holo film. Something about the energy field that made up his right side interfered with the holocamera, giving the field a strobing, shimmering look that was actually painful to the eye after a while. Look at it long enough, and it felt like you were falling into it. Into a hell without end. Toby sniffed. He’d just have to do a lot of cutting back and forth between Half A Man and himself. It’d distract from Half A Man’s speech, but he wasn’t saying anything new. Toby leaned a little closer, frowning at the screen before him. The half a face was hard to read on its own, but there was no mistaking the sincerity in the harsh, clipped voice.

“Anything that distracts humanity from defending itself from invading aliens cannot be permitted to continue. It must and will be stopped, by whatever means necessary. The Empire needs the new stardrive this factory will produce. The rebels through their actions are threatening that production. I will put an end to that threat, even if it means wiping out the rebel population, down to the last man, woman, and child. The Empire must be protected. I know what aliens are capable of.”

Toby pursed his mouth unhappily as he hit the tape stop. Any aliens who could produce such a thing as Half A Man had to be seen as a threat to humanity as a whole. But no one had seen a trace of those aliens for over two centuries. And there was always a chance negotiating with the rebels would put an end to the war a damn sight quicker than a ruthless program of genocide. They weren’t asking that much. But Half A Man saw this as a matter of principle. And authority. He could be very single-minded for someone who no longer had a single mind, and he wouldn’t even discuss the argument.

Toby’s fingers moved quickly over the console keys, calling up quick shots of the three Investigators Half A Man had
brought with him. Half A Man had refused point-blank to allow them to be interviewed, but Flynn had sneaked some footage anyway. Edge looked like a psycho killer who’d just had his favorite cutthroat razor stolen. Barr looked like a machine just waiting for orders. And Shoal … looked like she’d seen it all before and hadn’t been impressed the first time. They all looked very dangerous, completely unswerving, and entirely professional at what they did. Poor rebel bastards didn’t know what was going to hit them.

That was when the control-room door burst open, and Daniel Wolfe strode in, only to come to a sudden halt as he discovered how little room there was. It rather spoiled the effect of his dramatic entrance. He scowled at Toby as the reporter turned unhurriedly around in his swivel chair. Daniel leaned forward menacingly, and Toby just happened to blow cigar smoke in his face. Daniel coughed despite himself and did his best to tower over Toby.

“Listen to me, worm. I want to see every inch of your tape before it’s broadcast. This is a Wolfe complex, and we decide what leaves here and what doesn’t. You even try and sneak something past me, and I’ll have security throw you in the cells and have your superiors send a replacement who understands how the universe works. You’ll like the cells. On a good day you can look through the bars in your window and see the wall we put traitors against before we shoot them. And out here, we decide who the traitors are. So make the Wolfes look good. Make the factory look good. If you know what’s good for you. Little man.”

He stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Toby lifted the bottle of whiskey, toasted the closed door with it, and drank straight from the bottle. He’d been expecting pressure, but nothing quite so blatant. Bloody Daniel Wolfe and his ambitious superbitch sister. She was the one behind the threats. Daniel didn’t have it in him to come up with a speech like that on its own. Stephanie probably wrote it out and made him memorize it. Typical Wolfes. Thugs with pedigrees. A thought occurred to him, and he smiled nastily around his cigar.

He turned back to the mixing console, and it took only a few moments’ searching to call up the footage he had in mind. He ran the shots in slow motion. Daniel and Stephanie together. Michel and Lily together. Smiles and glances and shared body space. Everyone with an eye in their head knew
Michel and Lily were having it off. They’d been very careful not to say or do anything incriminating in public, but you only had to look at their body language to see the truth of how they felt about each other. The way their eyes sparkled when they met, the way their bodies oriented on each other no matter where they were in the room, the way certain words and phrases were subtly, unconsciously emphasized. He had it all on tape. They might as well have taken out peak time ads.

Of course, Daniel and Stephanie hadn’t noticed a thing, being rather more interested in each other. In fact, some of their quieter moments seemed to suggest that they might be a little closer in their affections than most brothers and sisters. Toby sniggered and beat a fast tattoo on the edge of the console with both hands. He couldn’t say anything outright, of course, but a little carefully arranged footage should do the job for him, with both couples. People in society would catch up on it and start the word spreading. Before too long the Wolfes would become a laughingstock, in and out of Court. That would teach Daniel bloody Wolfe to burst in and act the heavy with poor little Toby Shreck.

And that was when the door burst open again, and Cardinal James Kassar had his try at making a dramatic entrance ruined by crashing straight into the chair that Toby had thoughtfully placed before the door after the last visit. Kassar kicked the chair aside and glared at Toby, who leaned back in his chair and gave the Cardinal his best innocent face. It didn’t fool Kassar for a moment, but then it wasn’t meant to.

“I’ve had a communication from my superiors in the Church,” said Kassar, the cold controlled anger in his voice more than matched by the open fury in his ruined face. “The gist of which was, your live broadcast made both myself and the Church look ridiculous, because you didn’t wait for me to get there. They went on for some time, but they were basically just repeating themselves. The word ‘laughingstock’ was mentioned, along with ‘recall’ and ‘demotion.’ Listen carefully, you little toad, you are not going to ruin my career while furthering your own. From now on I see everything you’ve got before it goes out, and if you do anything that might undermine my or the Church’s authority here, I will personally excommunicate you with a rusty saw. Is that clear?”

“Oh, perfectly,” said Toby. “Couldn’t be clearer.” He took a quick drink from his bottle. “I would offer you some whiskey, Cardinal, but I’ve only got the one bottle. I feel I should at this stage in all honesty point out that I do have principles.”

“Mess with me again, and your principles will be going home in separate jars.”

Kassar about-faced and marched out with extreme dignity, slamming the door behind him. Toby waited a cautious few seconds, and then gave the closed door the finger before getting up and jamming two small wedges under the bottom of the door. That should put an end to any more storming ins. He turned back to the console and leaned over the screens again. He knew just the bit of tape he wanted. A nice stretch of Cardinal Kassar drilling his Church troops in the blistering summer heat; standing at his ease in the shade while shouting and bullying and generally carrying on like the tight-assed little dictator he was. Toby grinned and bit down hard on his cigar. He wouldn’t even have to sneak this past Kassar. The damn fool was so full of himself he’d probably think it made him look good.

Toby took another drink from his bottle and then put it firmly to one side. The uppers were rocketing through his system like ricocheting bullets, and he felt great. He called up some footage of the trenches surrounding the factory. The circles of hell from which no man returned unchanged. Patch in some shots of the elite Jesuit commandos drilling the fanatical Church troops, and then cut back to the wounded in the hospital tent. Toby rocked back and forth in his chair. Someone was banging on the door. The wedges would keep them out. Toby’s fingers flowed over the keyboard. He was on a roll now. If the Wolfes and the Cardinal and all the other bastards thought they could keep him from filing the story of his life, they were crazy. They could view the tape as often as they liked; it wouldn’t make any difference. They’d probably never even heard of the palimpsest method. Record something on a tape, then record over it. Playback just shows the upper recording, but the right kind of machine will pick up the earlier recording, still there, underneath. The process hadn’t been around long, but Toby had always believed in being up to the minute. There’d be a stink afterward, but interest in Technos III would be so high the Wolfes wouldn’t be able to censor him anymore. Toby
Shreck laughed aloud and worked on into the early hours of the morning.

A handful of Rejects led Jack Random, Alexander Storm, and Ruby Journey down through a series of dimly lit corridors and tunnels, far below the surface of Technos III. The tunnels grew increasingly narrow, sometimes barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast. The walls were smooth in some places, where they’d been blasted out of the living rock by energy weapons, and torn and jagged in others, where tools and bare hands had done the work. Random tried very hard not to think about the increasing weight of rock above his head. As the professional rebel, he’d spent his share of time working from hidden underground caverns and tunnels, away from prying eyes and sensors, but he’d never learned to like it.

The tunnels twisted and turned and branched endlessly, a dark maze of such complexity that any outsider would be helplessly lost in a few minutes. Random had no doubt that was deliberate. The Rejects didn’t trust anyone with their secrets all at once, not even him. He’d have been disappointed in them if they had. As always, he knew exactly where he was, but he didn’t like to tell them and spoil their fun. So he strode along quite happily, Ruby at his side, Storm puffing along behind him. Random was getting a little worried about Storm. His old friend had been in the field with him for many years, fighting the Empire’s best on more planets than either of them cared to remember. But they’d both known they were getting too old for it, even before they got their asses kicked so conclusively on Cold Rock. Since then, Random had been given a new lease of life, courtesy of the Maze, and reveled in it, but Storm had been left behind, still growing older and slower. He hadn’t taken the growing differences between him and Random at all well, but Random was at a loss what to do about it. Storm was doing good and valued work as an adviser and strategist, but it wasn’t the same, and both of them knew it. So when Storm had insisted on coming along on this particular mission, just to stretch his legs, Random hadn’t had the heart to say no.

“How many miles of these tunnels are there?” said Storm, trying to keep the tiredness out of his voice and failing.