Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

hugged herself tightly. She could feel the weight of the vial of Blood in her pocket, tugging at her side like an impatient child. Her need was growing again, but she fought it down ruthlessly.

    She was still in charge for the moment. And perhaps… just perhaps she could use the trip to Mistworld as a way to break off from her Blood use. She'd be in a familiar place with old friends. The pressure would be less. She could do it.
    She was stronger than the drug. And all the while she thought this, she had to hug herself ever more tightly to stop herself trembling with her need for the Blood in her pocket.
    She made herself pay attention to what was being discussed and found that Jack Random the elder, Ruby Journey, and Alexander Storm had been chosen to go to Technos III, as representatives of the rebellion. A lot of people still weren't sure about Random, but no one was ready to count him out yet, so sending him to Technos III seemed to be the best way to make use of him. The planet was a factory world, and had been for generations. Most of the surface had disappeared beneath an overlay of sprawling mile-long factories, construction sites, and mining equipment. The air was so polluted you could chew it, and the local ecology had long ago been poisoned into extinction. No one cared. Nothing really important had been lost. The factories worked on, and production actually rose a little after they didn't have to bother about side effects anymore.
    These days it all belonged to Clan Wolfe and was given over to stardrive production. This was a long and complicated business, involving practically every resource on the planet, but since the Wolfes had Imperial backing, no one complained, or at least no one who mattered. The workers were clones and indentured servants, paying off family debts that went back generations. Given the current state of interest rates on old loans, you could be born and die in debt without ever affecting the original sum. Not surprisingly, there was a small but thriving army of rebels and discontents who'd scraped a precarious
    living among the discarded remnants of high tech and abandoned experiments that filled the great industrial wastelands.
    They were vicious, dedicated fighters. They had to be. There was no way for them to get off Technos III as long as Clan Wolfe was still in control.
    Of late, things had got so bad on Technos III that Valentine Wolfe had been obliged to ask for assistance to avoid any interruption to stardrive production.
    The Empress had shown her sense of humor by sending five companies of Church troops, together with a selection of Jesuit commandos, under the command of Cardinal James Kassar. Valentine and Kassar did not get along, so Valentine had taken the opportunity to fade even more into the background, leaving Stephanie and Daniel to run things as they chose. The Church was currently fighting the local rebels with evangelical fury, and losing. Kassar was beside himself with rage, not least because Lionstone wouldn't send him any reinforcements. Any problems on Technos III were his problems and his responsibility.
    Random, Journey, and Storm would make planetfall unnoticed, link up with the local rebels, and then lead them to victory over the Church forces. Hopefully, the locals would then agree to work with the main rebellion, to produce the new stardrive for the upcoming war. No one said anything, but everyone knew this was to be the make or break for Jack Random. Either he could bring this off, in which case he probably was the real thing, or he couldn't. Whatever happened, he was no great loss. They could always send in someone else to lead the rebels.
    Giles Deathstalker, Finlay Campbell, Evangeline Shreck, and the Wolfling were to go to Shannon's World. Famed throughout the Empire as the most luxurious pleasure planet of all time, something had gone terribly wrong there three years ago. No one knew what, but the few people who were brave enough to go there never came back. The Empress sent down a full company of marines. Nothing was
    ever heard from them, either. These days Shannon's World was quarantined—as much to prevent anything breaking out as anyone foolish enough to try to get in. The various owners were still arguing over who was going to pay for the major armed forces necessary to get the answers.
    Only one man had ever come back alive. Half-dead, half-mad, he had lived only a few days, mostly because he wanted to die. He renamed Shannon's World as