Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

diving for cover and keeping my head well down, and you can do your own camera work."
    "The trouble with you, Flynn," said Toby as they started back down the slope toward the complex, "is you have no ambition."
    "My ambition is to live to a hundred and three," said Flynn firmly. "At which point I hope to be shot by an outraged wife."
    "Sometimes I wonder about you, Flynn," said Toby. "And sometimes I'm sure."
    *
    In the early hours of the morning, when things were traditionally the quietest, Jack Random, the professional rebel, and Ruby Journey, the foremost bounty hunter of her day, according to her, emerged from the farthest trench the rebels controlled and sat on the edge of the jagged metal field, looking across at the huge factory complex, silhouetted against the rising sun. The Wolfe forces had recently been driven back and were too busy establishing their new front to be any threat. They also hadn't got around to setting up snipers yet. Random and Ruby would have known they were there, even if they couldn't see them. So they sat casually together, enjoying the strange and vivid hues of the sunrise.

    It was the first day of summer and already uncomfortably hot with the sun barely above the horizon. Random and Ruby had come out onto the surface ostensibly to study the ground for the day's attack, but actually they were just looking for a little time in each other's company. Conditions underground were crowded at best
    and often claustrophobic, and after a while even the best intentioned of people could really get on your nerves. The Rejects had taken to treating them both like heroes of legend, promised saviors who would lead the rebels to inevitable victory over the forces of darkness. Neither Random nor Ruby were particularly happy about this.
    "I was never meant to be a hero," said Ruby firmly. "The pay's lousy and the working conditions suck. I'm a rebel because I was promised first crack at the loot when the Empire finally falls apart. And because that cow Lionstone put a bounty on my head. The way some of these Rejects have been looking at me, you'd think I could do the three-card trick with one hand while walking on water. I have a horrible suspicion they're going to start asking for my autograph soon."
    "It's in people's nature to want heroes," said Random. "Someone to follow, who'll make the hard decisions for them. They build us up larger than life, pin all their hopes and dreams on us, and then turn nasty when we let them down by being only human after all. I've seen this all before, Ruby. It's one of the reasons I gave up being the professional rebel and ran away to hide on Mistworld. I got tired of carrying everyone else's hopes and expectations on my shoulders. They were never that broad in the first place. I've spent most of my life trying to get people to think for themselves and take responsibility for their own destinies, but it's an uphill task. All too often they'd rather cheer and follow a leader, some smiling charismatic bastard who can inspire them into being more than they thought they were. I sometimes think they'd be happy to drag Lionstone off the Iron Throne and replace her with the first smooth-talking hero to come along. Even me."
    "Emperor Jack," said Ruby. "I like it. You'd shake things up."
    "I'd hate it," said Random. "No one can be trusted with that much power, not
    even me. It's too much of a temptation. I've seen the way power corrupts, even when people take it on with the best of intentions. Perhaps particularly people like that. There's no one more dangerous than a man who knows he's right. In the end he'll sacrifice any number of people in the name of his belief, friend or enemy. In my experience people can't be trusted in the singular when it comes to power. Democracy works because it's a mass consensus. On the whole people are always better off when they can throw out any leader who starts believing his own press releases."
    They watched the metal plain before them in silence for a while. The early morning was eerily quiet after the roar of battle only hours before. There were fires burning here and there, and the occasional Empire war machine, riddled with disrupter fire and abandoned where it fell, sparked and twitched and dreamed of killing. The factory complex was a dark forbidding shape studded with dull crimson glows that came and went, like doors opening and shutting in hell.
    The faint shimmer of its protective Screen could just be seen in the growing light.