Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

while I'm here. The Empire threw me into Silo Nine and put a worm in my head to control me, but with the Mater Mundi's help I broke out. You can break out, too. Work with me, and we can all become more than we are. No one can compel me now; not even the worm they left in my head. The council said taking it out would kill me, but I don't believe
    that anymore. Watch. And learn."
    She pushed her long golden hair back behind her ears, so that her face could be clearly seen. She put a hand to her forehead and frowned, as though listening or concentrating.
    Her left temple bulged outward suddenly, and the skin broke, splitting apart.
    Blood ran down Jenny's face, but she ignored it. There was a sharp, cracking sound, and the bone of her skull broke apart at the left temple. Something small and gray and bloody crawled out of the crack, and fell into Jenny's waiting hand. It pulsed and twitched feebly, a genetically engineered horror that existed only to imprison and torture captive minds. Jenny closed her hand around the worm and crushed it with one swift gesture. Blood and gray pulp oozed through her fingers. Jenny opened her hand and let what was left fall to the ground.
    The crowd went mad, cheering and applauding and stamping their feet. Jenny Psycho began to speak again, but Finlay wasn't listening. He appreciated the theater of what she'd done, but distrusted her message. The call to direct action was all very well and fine—he'd raised it himself on more than one occasion—but there was nothing of strategy or planning in Jenny's call. All the underground had to do was trust in her and the Mater Mundi, and all would be well. And the crowd believed that because they wanted to. She promised strength and revenge and glory, and everything else the beaten down craved so desperately. Finlay looked out over the cheering crowd and wasn't impressed.
    Drowning men will clutch at any straw.

Chapter 4
    Raised Voices and Diversions
    Lionstone XIV, that most revered and feared Empress of a thousand worlds and
    more, was holding Court once again, and everyone that mattered, or thought they might, made haste to attend her. The Court itself was an arctic waste, this time, as real as holographic projections, strategically placed props, and temperature controls could make it. The Empress redressed her Court constantly, to reflect her whims and changing moods, or just to give her courtiers a bad time. Veteran Court attendees claimed to be able to divine much of Lionstone's mood from studying each new Court, but even when the news was bad, people went anyway. You had to, if you wanted your voice to be heard. Besides, if you stayed away too often, Lionstone might take that as an insult. And the people she sent to drag you there to hear her displeasure would not be polite about it.
    The Court itself was a single vast chamber somewhere within the Imperial Palace, set within a massive steel bunker deep below the surface of Golgotha. No one knew precisely how big the chamber was, for security reasons, but so far it had always proven big enough to hold whatever worlds or conditions Lionstone chose to re-create. Unfortunately, it also reflected her sense of humor, which could be pretty basic on occasion. Courtiers knew better than to sit down on anything, no matter how apparently comfortable, and approached the luxurious food and wine provided as a form of Russian roulette.
    It was a long way down to the Court. People made jokes about descending into hell, but not very loudly.
    Captain Silence, Investigator Frost, and Security Officer Stelmach stood together in the midst of a great crowd of courtiers, staring out over a bleak arctic waste that stretched off into the distance for as far as the eye could see. The snow was a good foot deep on the ground and more fell in heavy wet flakes from the brooding gray sky above. A thin mist pearled the air, thickening
    briefly here and there into impenetrable walls. It was bitter cold, searing exposed flesh and the lungs of those who breathed too deeply, and Silence turned up the heating elements in his uniform another notch. Frost didn't bother. It took more than mere cold to discommode an Investigator. She'd been trained to withstand far worse. Stelmach already had his heating elements running on full, but shivered anyway. He wasn't looking forward to meeting the Empress.
    Whatever else might prove to be an illusion, the cold was real enough; sharp enough to kill an unprotected man eventually. And