Deathstalker Destiny (40 page)

“We won‘t,” said Diana. “Have a little faith, Captain. My plan is dependent on the element of surprise. And what you don’t know ... I’m sure you can fill in the rest. Let me know when the Shub fleet comes into sensor range. Until then, Vertue out.”

The viewscreen vanished, taking Cross with it. Diana sighed, and then turned and caught Random studying her. She flashed him a weary smile. “And before you ask, no, I’m not going to tell you either.”

“You must have been very persuasive, to get Parliament’s approval and backing for such a ... nebulous scheme,” said Random.

Diana grinned. “You have no idea. Still; having the Mater Mundi in my corner was one hell of an exposed card.”

“Can’t you even tell me why you needed Ruby and me to come along? Even with all our abilities, there’s not a lot we can do, stuck in this castle.”

“You’ll know, when the time comes. Let’s change the subject.”

“Very well. You seem very much in control here. I wasn’t aware you were that familiar with the castle’s workings.”

“I contacted Owen and Hazel again, through the undermind. Owen gave me the necessary code phrases to get the security systems on my side, and a solid briefing on how to run things. Or, more accurately, on how to get the castle computers to run things for me. Captain Cross and his officers are obeying me because Parliament told them to. It helps that most of them still remember my Jenny Psycho days, and have a tendency to hide behind things if I start scowling.

“I’ve got most of the Navy people on board the castle manning the guns. You wouldn’t believe the sheer firepower this castle can muster. I’ve known starcruisers that would feel outclassed and intimidated. It’s a marvelous place, the Last Standing. A real breath of old Empire. I can’t believe you people just left it floating in orbit around Golgotha.”

Random shrugged. “After the rebellion, we didn’t need it. We all had places to be, things to do. And Owen ... always had ambivalent feelings about the Last Standing. It reminded him too much of Giles. In some ways, he never really got over having to kill his ancestor. I think perhaps ... he was afraid he might meet old ghosts here.”

“Do you believe in ghosts, sir Random?”

“Of course. When you’ve killed as many people as I have, and led so many good men to early deaths, they’re never far away.”

Diana’s face softened a little. “Must be hard, being a hero.”

“You should know. You were a saint, for a while.”

Diana pulled a face. “Only in other people’s eyes. I always knew the truth, even when I was Jenny Psycho. I always knew I wasn’t worthy.”

“Is that why you’re trying so hard now, to save us all with one last desperate throw of the dice?”

“You should know, sir Random. Wasn’t that one of your specialties?”

They smiled together, two legends who had both seen their lives made over into shapes they didn’t always recognize. Who had always known their duty, even when it backed them into unpleasant corners.

“Thanks for agreeing to help me,” said Diana.

Random shrugged. “I’ve always known who the real enemy is. Do we really have a chance to take Shub out of the game, once and for all?”

“I think so.”

“Is it anything we could use against the Recreated?”

“I don’t know.” Diana scowled. “It depends on what the Recreated are. What their true nature really is. They’re not just aliens. They’re everything Humanity has ever feared, since we first set out into space. Powerful, deadly, and so Other we can barely comprehend what they are. But somehow, they’re still linked to Humanity. They have access to the undermind. You saw the black sun over the sea of dreams. That was the Recreated. They scare me, in a way Shub never did. But if my plan works against the rogue AIs, and we all survive to tell of it, we just might have a weapon we can use against the Recreated too.”

“If, but, maybe; you’re not exactly filling me with confidence, Vertue. Aren’t you sure of anything?”

“Oh yes. Either we win this battle, or no one goes home.”

Random grinned suddenly. “The best kind.”

Diana decided to change the subject. “How much do you know about this castle? It’s really quite a fascinating edifice. I got a hell of a shock the first time I realized all the doors in this place are transfer portals. Jumping back and forth across the castle, blinking in and out of existence, is quite an experience. Thank God Owen showed me where to find a map in the computers, or we’d never get anywhere.”

“Oh, this place is impressive, all right,” said Random. “Full of wonders and mysteries. But you’d better warn your people to stick to the main routes, and not to go off exploring. There are still traps for the unwary here, and the Last Standing can be an unforgiving place.”

He didn’t say, but he was thinking of the hall of mirrors, where the reflections showed hidden pasts and possible futures to the viewer. And they were rarely things you wanted to see. Random had visited the hall soon after he came back on board, looking for hints or prophecies as to what he should do with his life. The mirrors stretched from floor to ceiling, endlessly turning, forming a maze that drew you deeper, deeper in. Random had looked in three mirrors in a row, and seen the same image in each: Jack Random, stumbling down a bare anonymous stone corridor, clutching at a bloody wound in his side. There was no telling whether he was seeing a near or a far future, and given how quickly his wounds healed these days, the scene shouldn’t have disturbed him as much as it did. But there was something about the cold desperation in his future self’s face that haunted him still. He had turned away and left the hall of mirrors, not wanting to see what else they might have shown him.

“What happened to all the people Owen let aboard?” he said, keeping his voice carefully calm and casual. “Last I saw, the castle was crawling with historians of all ranks and distinctions.”

“We left them behind, on Golgotha,” said Diana. “They didn’t want to go, but I had to insist. They’d made themselves very useful, describing and cataloguing and sometimes even identifying the castle’s contents. The Last Standing is a treasure trove of old-time tech and artifacts. The transfer portals alone could revolutionize on-planet travel. Though, it has to be said, some of the artifacts are rather disturbing. Did you ever come across the three stuffed human figures in their own display case?”

“Ah yes,” said Random, nodding slowly. “The Shadow Men. Legendary manhunters, in Giles’s time. The Emperor sent them after the Deathstalker, when he went on the run. They finally caught up with Giles, and he killed them all, and had them stuffed and mounted as trophies. That really should have told us something about Giles’s character.”

“Anyway, all the historians are gone now,” said Diana, after a long pause had made it clear Random had said all he was going to say on the subject. “We’re going to have to get really close to the Shub fleet for my plan to work, and force shields or no, we’re undoubtedly going to take one hell of a lot of punishment. No place for civilians. Besides; the historians were outraged to a man that we were taking such a valuable artifact as the Last Standing into battle. One of them actually accused me of treason against human culture for even considering letting the castle be damaged. He had to be hauled away, spitting and cursing to the last. The fact that their homes and universities and indeed the entire planet of Golgotha might not be around much longer if we didn’t use the castle to strike back at Shub didn’t seem to have got through to them. Historians. They spend far too much time living in the past.”

“Owen was a historian,” said Ruby suddenly, from the depths of her armchair. “He always said those who will not learn from the past are doomed to get their heads kicked in all over again.”

“Oh, you’re back with us at last, are you?” said Random. “Had a nice sleep?”

“I was merely resting my eyes,” said Ruby, stretching slowly. “When do I get to kill somebody?”

“Not too long now,” said Diana Vertue. “The Shub fleet should be showing up on our long-range scanners anytime now.”

Ruby scowled. “Killing machines is no fun. Just target practice. But they’ll do, till the real thing comes along.”

 

The huge Shub fleet approached Golgotha, homeworld of Humanity, with murder on its artificial minds. The rogue AIs of Shub had no interest in mercy or surrender. They were coming on a mission of genocide, the utter obliteration of the meat-based life that so offended them. They were in no hurry. They knew their prey had nowhere to go. Nowhere they could run that Shub couldn’t hunt them down. They were Humanity’s doom, and they would not, could not, be denied. Certainly not by the pitifully small array of human ships coming to meet them.

Shub had thousands of vessels in its fleet; huge inhuman structures like nightmares cast in steel. Nothing lived on those awful metal craft; the rogue AIs ran them all directly, simultaneously, their will carried out where necessary by Furies and Ghost Warriors. And facing them, the last defenders of homeworld, seven Imperial ships, only one of them a starcruiser. The AIs would have laughed, if they had possessed such a human thing as humor. But perhaps not, because behind that small collection of human ships came a terrible phantom from the past, the last hope of Golgotha: the Last Standing of Clan Deathstalker. A stone castle with its own stardrive and force shields, and forgotten weapons of a far greater power than any current Imperial vessel could boast. The rogue AIs searched their records for tales of the lost powers of ancient Empire, and something very like fear moved slowly through their artificial thoughts.

The Shub fleet sailed on toward Golgotha, and the castle and its attendants pressed forward to meet them. The starcruiser
Excalibur
took the point, its alien-derived engines powering force shields and weaponry of almost unimaginable might. Then came the six starfrigates, forming a defensive wedge behind the
Excalibur.
The crews had their orders. No turning, no surrender; hold their positions until their ships were shot out from under them. And behind them, the Last Standing, and Diana Vertue, and her last desperate plan to save Humanity. If she could just survive long enough to get close to the Shub fleet, everything might yet change. If her plan worked. A plan so desperate she hadn’t dared share it with anyone else.

The two forces came together, and neither would give way.

Afterward, no one could remember who fired the first shot. It didn’t matter. Both sides opened up with everything they had, and space was full of silent flaring energies as blazing disrupter beams impacted against unyielding force shields. The huge Shub fleet spread out and tried to sweep past the human defenders, overwhelming them by sheer numbers, but the Last Standing’s extensive weapons systems targeted and blew apart everything that came within range, its powerful guns slapping aside the lesser Shub shields like they were nothing. The rogue AIs quickly realized that they had to destroy the castle if they were to reach Golgotha, and concentrated their entire fleet’s firepower on the handful of human ships that stood between them and the Last Standing. Both forces came to a halt in space, as the unstoppable force met eight immovable objects.

The
Excalibur
shook and shuddered under the impact of so many energy weapons, but its shields held. The starfrigates weren’t so lucky. One by one their shields overloaded and went down, and one by one they were blown out of existence by the Shub fleet. But they went down fighting, chipping away at the far greater Shub vessels, weakening them enough for the
Excalibur’s
superior firepower to destroy them. Shub ships blew apart, expanding suddenly and silently in the unforgiving cold and dark of space, and as every Shub ship disappeared, the human forces moved a little closer, cutting down the distance between Diana Vertue and her prey.

She watched the starfrigates disappear on her viewscreen in the great Hall, and heard the death cries of their crews in her mind, but could not let herself grieve. She had to stay focused, for what was to come.

With all the frigates gone, the Last Standing had a clear field of fire. It opened up with all its hundreds of weapons stations, and Shub ships vanished in the long night. Giles Deathstalker had designed the Last Standing to be one great weapon, a last redoubt against the awe-some resources of the old Empire. Shub had nothing that could stand against it, save its overwhelming superiority of numbers. The rogue AIs threw vessel after vessel at the castle, hammering at its shields with relentless firepower; enough sheer energy to destroy entire worlds. The Last Standing pressed slowly forward into the ravening energies, but its shields were beginning to weaken now, and both sides knew it.

Diana Vertue stood alone in the great Hall, unable to shut out the screams of the dying. She’d always known most of the people she’d brought with her would have to die, to get her close enough for her plan to have a chance at working, but that didn’t make it any easier. She tried to summon up her old Jenny Psycho persona. Jenny wouldn’t have cared. But she’d been Diana Vertue too long now, been sane too long, and she couldn’t go back. She fought to hold back her tears. She had to go on. She was Humanity’s last hope.

Jack Random and Ruby Journey manned their weapons stations deep within the castle, targeting and firing their disrupter cannon faster than any human or inhuman mind could match. Together they blew great holes in the Shub fleet, destroying ship after ship, but they were too busy to exult. They were both boosting now, pushing their bodies to their limits, refusing to feel the pain as muscles and organs were worn down faster than they could regenerate. Their eyes were wide and unblinking, their faces dripping with sweat, their mouths stretched in unpleasant smiles. They could feel the life draining slowly out of them, and didn’t give a damn. They had set their honor and their lives on the determination that Shub should not pass, and they would not pause or falter till the Shub fleet was destroyed, or they were.