Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

I quit." He tossed the mop back into his room, just missing Tobias Moon as the Hadenman joined them in the corridor. Random looked at the fallen man and smiled unpleasantly. It was an expression his face seemed to fall into easily. "Good to know I haven't entirely lost my touch. Now let's get out of here before someone comes looking for him. Or us. We can decide where
    we're going later." He took a deep breath and let it out. "Nothing like a little gratuitous violence to stir the blood. I feel almost human again. You'd better have a good reason for disturbing my retirement, Deathstalker. I was happy being nobody. No demands, no responsibilities. You've woken me up, and I won't easily go back to sleep. If I'm going to try for the gold ring one last time, it's going to have to be worth it."
    "Stick with us," said Owen, "and you'll have all the action you can handle, and then some. It's us or the Empire now; death or glory. But then, for you I suppose it always is."
    "Something like that," said Random. "Something like that."
    Outside the Olympus health spa, the mists had come down thick and heavy, and the world was gray and silent. Owen looked around uneasily. Any number of assassins could be hiding out there in the fog. Hopefully, they were just as blind and disorientated as he was. Hazel looked left and right and scowled unhappily.
    "Don't tell me you're lost," said Owen. "That's all we need."
    "It's a long time since I was last here," said Hazel defensively. "And the fog isn't helping. Anyway, I thought you had a built-in compass that told you where you were?"
    "Oh, I know where I am," said Owen. "I just don't know where anything else is. I can point due north, if that's any help."
    "Follow me," said Hazel. "And stay close. It'd be only too easy to get lost and separated in fog like this, and we haven't the time to send out search parties."
    She moved slowly and carefully away from the spa, one hand held out behind her.
    Owen moved after her, almost treading on her heels. Random followed him, and Moon brought up the rear. The two walls of a narrow alleyway slowly formed out
    of the mists to either side of them as they walked on, gray and stained and characterless, with no clues as to their location. The only sound was the soft trudging of their feet through the packed snow. Owen tried hard to see the positive side.
    "If nothing else," he said finally, "it's got to be as hard for our pursuers as it is for us. We could walk right past each other in this fog and never know it."
    "Unless they're listening to you," said Hazel. "Or unless they've got an esper with them."
    "That's right," said Owen. "Cheer me up, why don't you?" He glanced back at the Hadenman. "How about you, Moon? See anything worth seeing with those amazing eyes of yours?"
    "Just fog and more fog," said Moon, and then he stopped suddenly, and cocked his head slightly to one side. The others stopped, too, and looked back at him.
    "What is it?" said Owen.
    "There's someone out there," said the augmented man. "I can hear their feet breaking the snow."
    "Which way?" snapped Owen, drawing his disrupter. "Give me a direction."
    And then he broke off as a tall figure formed slowly out of the mists before him. He started to raise his gun, and then lowered it again as he recognized the muscular goddess from the health spa. She walked toward him, smiling seductively, hands open to show they were empty. And then Moon stepped forward, his golden eyes blazing brightly.
    "It's a hologram. There's someone behind it."
    Owen's hand snapped up, and he fired his gun. The energy beam ripped through the hologram without harming it, and then the goddess disappeared in a moment as the
    beam exploded a wall beyond her. Owen caught a brief glimpse of a fleeting figure in the mists, then an energy beam snapped right past him and he dived for cover, yelling for the others to do the same. Within moments, Owen was alone in the mists, crouching beside the nearest wall to make a smaller target. He switched the gun to his left hand and drew his sword. For the next two minutes, both his gun and his opponent's were useless till their energy crystals had recharged, and that brought it down to steel. Unless the bastard had two guns.
    Or a friend with a gun. Owen cursed silently and strained his ears against the quiet. The hologram had been a good trick, and he'd very nearly fallen for it.
    He hadn't expected that kind of high-tech sophistication on Mistworld.
    He moved slowly forward,