Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

payment. The Captain and the rest of the crew are dead. As the only survivor, the debt is now yours, Hazel d'Ark, and it is past time for repayment." He looked back at Random. "We require you to hand this woman over to us."
    "Don't waste your time," said Hazel. "Whatever price Captain Markee agreed to. I
    wasn't consulted, and I didn't agree to it. Besides, I couldn't pay it. I'm broke."
    "We don't want money," said Scour. "Your Captain made an agreement with us. The Shard was to provide us with fresh bodies; a percentage of those acquired during your work as cloneleggers. We always have a need for fresh bodies. Our customs and researches tend to use them up quite quickly. We cannot overlook the debt.
    That would be dishonorable. So we must have our pound of flesh. You will come with us, Hazel d'Ark, and we will make good use of you. While you last."
    "Like hell you will," said Owen, and his voice cracked across the silence, cold and hard and very deadly. "Hazel's my friend; no one threatens her while I'm here."
    "Thank you, Owen," said Hazel, "but I can speak for myself." She glared at the Blood Runners. "Your deal was with Markee, and he's dead. You never made any deal with me, so I don't owe you squat. You're not getting your hands on me.
    I've heard about people who end up in your laboratories. They end up begging for death to stop the pain."
    "What is pain," said Scour, "when the goal is knowledge? We are unlocking the secrets of life and death. You should be honored to assist us."
    "Take your honor and stick it," said Hazel. "You're not cutting me up an inch at a time."
    "Yes we will," said Scour. "It has been agreed. It is immutable, fixed, inevitable."
    "Crazy as well as ugly," said Owen. "Get out of my sight. There's nothing for you here."
    "Wait just a minute," said Gregor Shreck. "These people have offered us
    unlimited financial support. What's one life, compared to that?"
    "Right," said Kit SummerIsle. "I mean, she's only a clonelegger, after all.
    Every time one of them dies, the Empire smells a little better."
    There was a general murmur of agreement from the crowd. Owen looked to Jack Random for support, but he was chewing his lower lip and scowling thoughtfully.
    Owen's hand dropped to the gun at his side and then made himself relax. The Blood Runners were just holo images. They were no threat.
    "Hazel isn't going anywhere," he said flatly, glaring at the crowd. "Anyone who feels otherwise is welcome to come here in person, and I will send him on to join his ancestors. Form a queue, no shoving."
    "I have to agree with Owen," said Random. "We are not the Empire. We don't sacrifice individuals for someone else's good."
    Scour stepped forward, his crimson eyes fixed on Hazel's. "Then we will take her. You cannot escape, d'Ark. We have a teleport fix on you. You will come with us now. And we will take such pleasures from the mysteries of your flesh."
    A silver shimmering appeared in the air around Hazel, spitting static. Hazel tried to run, but the energy field hemmed her in, like an insect in a killing jar. Ruby Journey tried using her holo-breaker on the Blood Runners, but it didn't work. Hazel looked despairingly at Owen as he tried to get to her and couldn't. He hammered on the shimmering air with his fists, ignoring the pain as the energy field burned his human hand, but it made no difference. He still kept trying, until the field grew strong enough to throw him back. He glared across at the Blood Runners, who ignored him, their eyes fixed on Hazel. He knew they could have taken her by now. They just wanted to make a point.
    There was nothing he could do, but he had to do something. Something. He turned back to Hazel, already almost lost in the shimmering field, and suddenly will
    and need slammed together in his mind and awakened something dark and terrible down in the undermind, the back brain, that part of him changed and strengthened by his time in the Madness Maze. Power blazed up in him, crackling in the air around him like fettered lightning, bent to his will, and he became more than human as he took his aspect upon him. His presence was suddenly overpowering, his very reality magnified and concentrated into something so perfect it was almost inhuman. Everyone in the Hall stared at him, unable to look away, their eyes held with the fascination of a moth for a lamp, and he was burning so very brightly.
    He stepped forward, sank his hands into the shimmering teleport field, and ripped it apart.