Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

Kassar screamed breathlessly, dropped his sword, and grabbed the stump of his wrist, trying to squeeze it shut. Blood pumped past his gripping fingers.
    "I've never given a damn what people think of me," said Ruby Journey.
    "I'm rich," said Kassar, forcing the words past gritted teeth. His face was white as a skull. "Name your price."
    "Now, that's more like it. How much have you got?"
    "How much do you want?"
    "All of it. Where is it?"
    "In a safe. In my quarters. Gold. Payroll for the Faithful. Let me go, and it's yours."
    Ruby thought for a moment. "Thanks for the tip, Cardinal. I'll check it out later. Now, say good-bye."
    Her sword swung around in a long double-handed arc and cut off Kassar's head. It went bouncing and rolling away into the surrounding crush and was quickly lost to sight, kicked this way and that and trampled underfoot. Ruby smiled, satisfied. A good kill, and gold for afters. The day was looking up. She searched Kassar's pockets, found a set of keys, and went to help free the prisoners, humming a merry tune.
    The fight went on, the rebels pushing back the Empire forces almost at will,
    until finally some security officer had the good sense to surrender. The idea caught on in a flash, and soon there were swords dropping and hands going up all over the place. And as quickly as that, the battle was over. Ruby and Storm freed the prisoners, and Beatrice ushered the clones out of the complex. There were cries of joy and relief as the rebel forces found their loved ones safe, and hugs and tears became the order of the day. Toby and Flynn covered it all, broadcasting live to an astonished Empire.
    And that was when the factory blew up.
    The first set of explosives to detonate set off all the others, and within seconds the whole factory became a great blazing fireball. The core of the building became a searing inferno, and blazing wreckage rained down on all sides. The outer walls blew apart, unable to contain the pressure, and the deadly heat ballooned outward, followed by a storm of flying red-hot shrapnel.
    There was nowhere the hundreds of people could hide—no cover anywhere. They were only seconds away from certain death when Random and Ruby reached out to each other, linked minds, and threw up a protective force field to hold back the flames and explosions. The firestorm raged against the shield, battering their minds, but still it held on and on until the force of the firestorm was spent and the shield was no longer needed. And only then did it disappear, and Jack Random and Ruby Journey sank to their knees, blood spilling from their nose and mouth and ears. They clung together, healing. The heat was devastating now, but bearable. The wreckage of the factory burned brightly, flames shooting up into the sky. After a while Storm came over to join them.
    "Amazing. Is there anything you can't do?"
    "Yeah," said Ruby hoarsely. "Save a whole safe full of gold bullion that just
    went up with that factory. Damn. I was looking forward to that."
    Random was still laughing about that sometime later as he and Ruby and Storm led the rebels and clones back down into the tunnels under Technos III. The surviving Empire forces, disarmed, sat around and looked at each other and waited for somebody else to decide what they should do next. And out of the inferno, out of the blazing wreckage, out of the hell that was all that remained of the factory complex, came Half A Man, striding unhurriedly through the flames, untouched by the heat. He walked over to Daniel and Stephanie Wolfe, and shook his head slowly.
    "Trained Church troops beaten like amateurs, and three Investigators dead. The factory utterly destroyed. Lionstone is not going to be pleased. If I were you, I'd start thinking up some really inventive excuses."
    He strode off to bark orders at what was left of the Empire Forces. Stephanie stared mutely at the burning ruins of her factory. "All gone. Everything. We'll have to start again from scratch. If the Empress doesn't take the stardrive away from us for this fiasco."
    "And both our spouses are dead," said Daniel.
    "Ah, well," said Stephanie. "At least some good came of this." She glared into the leaping flames. "Our explosives couldn't have done all that. Someone else must have interfered."
    "Probably," said Daniel. "Odds are we'll never find out what really happened here. It doesn't matter. It's over. I'm not needed here anymore. I'm finally free to go and look for Daddy."
    And he strode away,