Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

realized. For a moment there, the Second seemed to weigh nothing at all. I could have ripped him apart with my bare hands. And part of me wanted to."
    "I wonder if I'll get stronger, too," said Frost. "Or perhaps there are other
    surprises in store for me. I wonder what we might have become, if we'd made it all the way through the Maze…"
    "You can always ask the rebels, if we ever get another bash at them. They made it all the way through."
    "Either way, I think this is something else we should keep strictly to ourselves, Captain."
    "I couldn't agree more, Investigator. Let us talk of safer things. What do you think could have happened on Gehenna, that their only call for help was a voice in an automated beacon? Under normal conditions, all they had to do was call on an open channel, and an Empire starcruiser would have been there within hours.
    That's standard, no matter where in the Empire you are. Of course, we are right out on the Rim, but even so… Could it be the first rebel attack?"
    "I doubt it, Captain. First, they don't look anywhere near organized enough to mount a major attack. Secondly, I don't think they've got the resources to mount anything major yet. And thirdly… I've got a bad feeling about this. To take out a planetary Base so quickly and so thoroughly that they only had time to fire off a beacon would require weaponry of immense power. Perhaps greater power than either the rebels or the Empire could muster."
    "So what are we talking about here? The Hadenmen? Shub?"
    "Perhaps. But I can't help thinking the last time a Base fell silent, we ended up on Unseeli."
    "Where we discovered a crashed alien starship of a technology unknown to the Empire and quite possibly superior to anything we have, and a Base full of dead people." Silence scowled thoughtfully. "You think it could be those aliens again?"
    "Could be," said Frost. She smiled briefly. "And I'm just in the mood to kick
    some alien ass."
    "I've never known you when you weren't, Investigator. Personally, I'm just glad of a good excuse to put off our return to Golgotha. Possible alien attack is one of the few acceptable excuses we could come up with. But I have to say, I don't like the idea of our losing another planetary Base. It leaves us vulnerable to all kinds of things. And there's always the chance this is some kind of trap, designed to pull in unsuspecting ships."
    "Then, we'd better get there first," said Frost. "We are, after all, expendable."
    "You speak for yourself," said Silence.
    The Dauntless dropped out of hyperspace and settled into orbit around the planet Gehenna, the world of eternal fires. It burned like a blazing coal in the dark; continent-wide flames leaping and flaring but never dying down. Long ago something set light to the surface of the planet, and through some kind of chain reaction the fire had spread till it covered all the world. The poles had melted and the oceans had evaporated, and all that remained was the flames. The surface burned, consuming itself slowly but inexorably. There was evidence that Gehenna had once been inhabited by an alien civilization, but no trace remained of the aliens or their works. Only a handful of strange stone bunkers, huge and impressive but utterly empty, buried deep in the bedrock, away from the all-consuming fires. If they had any secrets, they remained a mystery. No one knew what had happened to the alien civilization: whether they were destroyed by some outside force, or whether they did it to themselves. Whether the fire came first, or was just an aftereffect of whatever destroyed an entire species so thoroughly that not even a hint remained of what they might have been.

    The Empire was of course very interested in something that could set an entire planet alight. It would make one hell of a weapon, and Lionstone wanted it. So she gave orders for a Base to be established there, right in the heart of the flames, protected by the strongest force Screen the Empire scientists could provide. According to the Dauntless's records, the scientists in the Base had been working there for nine years and were still no nearer to finding any answers.
    Silence led the away team himself. Partly because if the Base had been compromised, he needed to be right there on the spot making decisions, but mostly because he didn't want to go. He still felt like shit, his crew were still sneaking sidelong glances at him when they thought he wasn't looking, and he wasn't at all sure he was up to