Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

offer you some whiskey, Cardinal, but I've only got the one bottle. I feel I should at this stage in all honesty point out that I do have principles."
    "Mess with me again, and your principles will be going home in separate jars."
    Kassar about-faced and marched out with extreme dignity, slamming the door behind him. Toby waited a cautious few seconds, and then gave the closed door the finger before getting up and jamming two small wedges under the bottom of the door. That should put an end to any more storming ins. He turned back to the console and leaned over the screens again. He knew just the bit of tape he wanted. A nice stretch of Cardinal Kassar drilling his Church troops in the
    blistering summer heat; standing at his ease in the shade while shouting and bullying and generally carrying on like the tight-assed little dictator he was.
    Toby grinned and bit down hard on his cigar. He wouldn't even have to sneak this past Kassar. The damn fool was so full of himself he'd probably think it made him look good.
    Toby took another drink from his bottle and then put it firmly to one side. The uppers were rocketing through his system like ricocheting bullets, and he felt great. He called up some footage of the trenches surrounding the factory. The circles of hell from which no man returned unchanged. Patch in some shots of the elite Jesuit commandos drilling the fanatical Church troops, and then cut back to the wounded in the hospital tent. Toby rocked back and forth in his chair.
    Someone was banging on the door. The wedges would keep them out. Toby's fingers flowed over the keyboard. He was on a roll now. If the Wolfes and the Cardinal and all the other bastards thought they could keep him from filing the story of his life, they were crazy. They could view the tape as often as they liked; it wouldn't make any difference. They'd probably never even heard of the palimpsest method. Record something on a tape, then record over it. Playback just shows the upper recording, but the right kind of machine will pick up the earlier recording, still there, underneath. The process hadn't been around long, but Toby had always believed in being up to the minute. There'd be a stink afterward, but interest in Technos III would be so high the Wolfes wouldn't be able to censor him anymore. Toby Shreck laughed aloud and worked on into the early hours of the morning.
    A handful of Rejects led Jack Random, Alexander Storm, and Ruby Journey down through a series of dimly lit corridors and tunnels, far below the surface of Technos III. The tunnels grew increasingly narrow, sometimes barely wide enough
    for two men to walk abreast. The walls were smooth in some places, where they'd been blasted out of the living rock by energy weapons, and torn and jagged in others, where tools and bare hands had done the work. Random tried very hard not to think about the increasing weight of rock above his head. As the professional rebel, he'd spent his share of time working from hidden underground caverns and tunnels, away from prying eyes and sensors, but he'd never learned to like it.
    The tunnels twisted and turned and branched endlessly, a dark maze of such complexity that any outsider would be helplessly lost in a few minutes. Random had no doubt that was deliberate. The Rejects didn't trust anyone with their secrets all at once, not even him. He'd have been disappointed in them if they had. As always, he knew exactly where he was, but he didn't like to tell them and spoil their fun. So he strode along quite happily. Ruby at his side, Storm puffing along behind him. Random was getting a little worried about Storm. His old friend had been in the field with him for many years, fighting the Empire's best on more planets than either of them cared to remember. But they'd both known they were getting too old for it, even before they got their asses kicked so conclusively on Cold Rock. Since then, Random had been given a new lease of life, courtesy of the Maze, and reveled in it, but Storm had been left behind, still growing older and slower. He hadn't taken the growing differences between him and Random at all well, but Random was at a loss what to do about it. Storm was doing good and valued work as an adviser and strategist, but it wasn't the same, and both of them knew it. So when Storm had insisted on coming along on this particular mission, just to stretch his legs, Random hadn't had the heart to say no.
    "How many miles of these tunnels are there?"