Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

this planet and journey to some populated world, we could be in deep trouble. Those flashes of lightning contain billions of volts, theoretically, and we're pretty sure there are other forces at work down there, too. The bottom line is, we don't have anything that could stop them if they decided they were mad at us. What use is a weapon against something that has no physical existence?"
    "Great," said Silence. "Just wonderful. Something else to worry about. So we can't talk to them, let alone threaten them, and we're not even sure they know we're here."
    "Got it in one," said Frost. "All we can do is drop a hundred or so security drones to keep an eye on things, and then get the hell out of here."
    " 'Join the Imperial Navy and see the universe," " said Silence heavily. "Meet strange and interesting new forms of life, and run away from them. Navigator, get us the hell out of here. My head hurts."
    *
    The last planet they visited was Epsilon IX, and that meant hard suits. The gravity was five times standard, the air was a mixture of extremely noxious gases, any one of which would have been fatal on its own, and the air density was uncannily like the pressure of water you find at the bottom of a deep ocean trench. On top of all that, the entire world was a mass of goo; thick, slimy mud that covered the planet's surface from pole to pole. In some places it was only a couple of feet deep, and that was called land. Either way, it was messy as hell. There were hills that rose up suddenly overnight and then spent the rest of the day collapsing and sliding away.

    There were huge artificial constructs here and there that might have been
    buildings or machines—or both or neither. The native intelligent species created them when they felt like it, though they declined to explain out of what or what their purpose might be. The muck itself contained a handful of extremely rare and useful trace elements, and these were refined from the goo by specially designed automated mining machinery from the Empire. People couldn't live on Epsilon IX, even inside a fully Screened Base; human-built structures inevitably sank, and had to be constantly retrieved, which cost money.
    The mining equipment worked only because the natives looked after it. No one knew much about the native species. They appeared to be the only living things on Epsilon IX, which raised some interesting and rather unpleasant questions about what they ate. They had a mysterious link to their mucky environment that allowed them to thrive and prosper, but they weren't big on explaining that, or, indeed, anything else. They kept to themselves and did really nasty and inventive things to trespassers.
    Silence and Frost journeyed down to what passed for the planet's surface in a pinnace, which ended up hovering in midair while Silence and Frost dropped awkwardly out of the air lock in their hard suits. They landed knee-deep in the sludge, and slogged slowly through the thick mud, slipping and sliding and holding onto each other for support. There was something vaguely solid under their heavy boots, but it rose and fell unpredictably beneath the covering goo.
    The slime came in varying shades of gray, much like the sky above, which was disorienting, to say the least. Sky blended into surface almost imperceptibly, which did strange things so Silence's sense of orientation. Things like up and down, left and right, forward and backward ceased being absolutes, and became more like matters of opinion. The last time Silence had felt like this he'd been
    drunk for a week.
    He slogged along beside Frost, the hard suit's servomechanisms whining loudly as they struggled to overcome the planet's heavy gravity. Silence took a quiet satisfaction from the obvious difficulties Frost was having in plowing through the thick mud. It was good to know that even Investigators had their limits.
    They waded on for some time, while their surroundings rose and fell without any obvious meaning or purpose. Frost led the way with dogged determination. Silence supposed she knew where she was going, but didn't ask, just in case she didn't.
    He liked to think that at least one of them knew what they were doing.
    The pinnace hovered high overhead, far enough away not to intimidate any of the locals, but still close enough to come charging in for an emergency rescue if necessary. Silence was getting tired fast. Even with the hard suit's servomechanisms to help, the constant struggle to stay upright while