Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

I'd betray Finlay, even for the Cause?"
    "This gets more fascinating by the minute," said Adrienne, coming over to join her. "Dear Finlay, the last best hope of the underground? I'm beginning to think you're right, and I never did really know him. Since you apparently know him better than I, what do you think? Would he go on a suicide mission if it was important enough?"
    "Oh, yes. That's what worries me. Most of his recent missions would have been suicide runs for anyone else. He never was very strong in the commonsense department, and since he lost his Family, he's become increasingly reckless. He feels guilty for having survived, when so many died. If this mission is so dangerous that even Finlay would hesitate, it must be really bad. I've got to go, Adrienne. Thank you for all your help; I wish there was something I could do for you."
    "There is," Adrienne said briskly. "Take me with you. There's no place safe here for me anymore now that I've made an enemy of your father. If I'm to find protection for my children, the only people left to turn to are the underground.

    Though, God knows what I've got to buy their protection with. Gossip, maybe. I know more secrets about more people than half the Court put together. Some of it has got to be prime blackmail material. Besides, whatever you eventually decide, you're going to need my help to convince Finlay. I always could talk him into anything. I think I'm going to enjoy being part of the underground."
    "What makes you so sure they'll accept you?"
    "What makes you think they'll have any choice? I can be very determined when I put my mind to something. Besides, I really can't wait to see this whole new Finlay I've never known. I have a feeling I might like him a lot more than the old one. Shall we go?"
    Julian Skye, rogue esper and agent of the underworld, had been handsome once, but that was before the Empire interrogators got their hands on him. They'd started with a vicious beating, not because they expected him to talk, but just to soften him up. They didn't even ask any questions. Two of them took it in turns holding him up, while the third worked him over in brutal, efficient ways, until every part of him moaned with pain. Then they hurt him some more. They paid special attention to his face. Damage there was psychologically damaging as well. Eventually they left, and he sat naked and alone in the interrogation cell, held upright by the thick straps holding him to the bare metal chair, waiting for them to come back and start again. One eye was swollen shut, his nose had been broken, and dried blood crusted his face. They'd left his mouth pretty much untouched. He was expected to be able to answer questions when they finally got around to asking him any.
    He'd been left alone to consider his position and worry about what was to come.
    And Julian Skye, who'd always thought he was a hero, was ashamed to find he
    couldn't stop crying. He was a young man, with a young man's courage and ideals, but he'd had the courage systematically beaten out of him. All he had left now were his ideals, and they didn't seem as strong and convincing as they once had.
    He finally managed to sniff back his tears, though the occasional harsh sob still took him by surprise, and looked around him as best he could. He was in a bare, featureless room, deep below the surface, in the dark metal bowels beneath the Imperial Palace. The walls were bright shining steel, without windows or details, showing vague distortions of himself in the painfully bright light from the single unit directly above him. He could feel the heat from the unit beating on the top of his head, as though his brains were on fire. The door was a dull black metal, right in front of him, sealed electronically. It could be opened only by someone from the outside with the correct access codes.
    Julian Skye sat naked in his metal chair, stripped of everything that might give him physical or psychological comfort. They'd even taken away his suicide option; a hollow tooth with poison in it. They ripped it right out of his jaw with a pair of pliers. He probed the gaping hole with his tongue now and again, as though hoping it might be there this time. It had been a small hurt compared to what came afterward, but he still cried when he thought of it. The tooth had been his last hope. He'd pissed on himself, and he couldn't clean it off his legs. Just more of the softening-up process.
    He knew he had no one but himself to blame for