Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

labor over machinery. This place must have a hell of a power source hidden away somewhere,
    if it can still operate a transfer portal after all this time."
    "Nine hundred and forty years," said Random. "Whoever built this Standing built it to last."
    "I've just had a really nasty thought," Hazel said quietly. "If this place is being run by computers; could it have been taken over by the AIs from Snub?
    They're supposed to have all kinds of technology that we don't."
    "You're right," said Owen. "That is a nasty thought. If you have any more like that, feel free to keep them to yourself. Things are tricky enough as it is without us getting paranoid. We're a long way from Shub, and the last I heard, the Enemies of Humanity were safely tucked away behind an Imperial blockade.
    Let's all please concentrate on the matter at hand."
    "You got us in here, Deathstalker," said Ruby. "What say you lead us to this ancestor of yours? I've got a few questions I wouldn't mind putting to him."
    "All right," said Owen, trying hard to sound confident. "Follow me."
    He strode off down the great hall, the echoes of his footsteps sounding loud and flat in the silence. The others moved quickly after him, not wanting to be left behind, trying very hard to look casual and unimpressed. Owen allowed his hand to rest quietly near his gun. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting to find at his ancestor's legendary Last Standing, but this wasn't it. This immense castle wasn't the last refuge of a desperate man, driven and harried to a planet light-years from civilization. This was a power base, designed for survival against overwhelming odds; a place to strike back from. But he never had. He had all this power at his command, but instead he chose to hide himself away in stasis, waiting for an awakening that never came. Owen frowned. Presumably the Empire had been just as overwhelming an enemy then as it was now, but Owen had a strong feeling he didn't have anything like the whole story. He strode on,
    trying to look confident and unthreatening at the same time. He didn't want to appear a threat. He was pretty damn sure the Standing had just as many security measures inside as it did outside.
    He reached the other end of the hall without incident, stepped through the open door and found himself somewhere else, completely unconnected to the hall. He'd just passed through another transfer portal. It didn't take Owen and the rest of his party long to discover two important things about the portals. One, Every door in the castle was a portal leading somewhere unexpected, and two, you couldn't go back through the door to wherever you'd just come from. And so the party jumped blindly from room to room, passing ever deeper into the depths of the Last Standing. Owen kept himself oriented with his internal compass, but he had no way of knowing exactly where in the castle he was at any given time. Or how to get out of it. All the rooms were perfectly clean and brightly lit, but with nothing to show they had ever been lived in. Owen became increasingly convinced that they were being watched at all times, but couldn't spot anything that might have been a sensor. Whoever was controlling the portals apparently had some destination in mind, but where and why remained a mystery.
    Owen kept walking and tried very hard to be patient. He had a strong suspicion that even if he had felt like being awkward, it wouldn't have made any difference. He was in someone else's hands now, for better or worse. He tried to keep his hand near his gun without being too obvious about it. They passed through room after room, all of them devoid of interest or personality. No fixtures or fittings, no comforts of any kind. Owen became increasingly convinced that no one had ever lived in the castle.
    Until finally they came to what Owen immediately thought of as a trophy room.

    Unlike the other rooms, this one was of a more comfortable size, though its contents were anything but comforting. A large glass case took up the center of the room, some ten feet square. And in that case, like trophies on display, stood three men in outdated battle armor. They were so still that Owen first thought they were models of some kind, but when he moved forward and pressed his nose against the glass, he quickly became convinced they were real. Their poses were stiff, their faces were blank, and there were bloody holes in their armor.
    "They're dead, aren't they?" Hazel said finally. "I thought at first