Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

later. When we know what’s going on here, we can come back with what’s left of the Fleet, launch a surprise attack, and open up with everything we’ve got. That’ll wipe the smile off their faces.” “We can’t leave,” said Owen. “Look at those figures on the side of the screen. Those are life-sign readings. The majority of the population are still alive, and being held in the main city. A human shield against Empire intervention. The Hadenmen have always understood human weaknesses, even if they don’t share them.
    We have to rescue the colonists. We’re the only hope they’ve got.” Hazel sighed. “There’s always something, isn’t there? Why can’t things be simple anymore?”
    “They never were,” said Owen. “Except in retrospect. And the movies. How well do you know this city?”
    “Very,” said Hazel. “Our one lucky break. This is the city I was planning on breaking into anyway. I used to work there; it was the capital and main administrative center. Even ran the mines from there.”
    “Then that’s probably why the Hadenmen preserved it. What’s it called?”
    “Brahmin City. They weren’t the most imaginative colonists I ever ran across.” “Then take us down, Oz.
    Find a landing place reasonably close to the city outskirts, but far enough away that a boundary patrol won’t stumble over us.” “Shouldn’t be a problem,” said Oz. “As far as my scans can tell, there are no border patrols. Nothing’s moving outside the city. Damned fools are relying entirely on their sensors.
    Hadenmen always did put too much faith in tech. Hold on to your chairs. Here we go.”
    The Sunstrider II fell slowly out of orbit, drifting down like a solitary silver leaf unnoticed in the forest.
    Owen and Hazel studied the viewscreen intently as Brahmin City finally loomed up beneath them. New buildings rose among the old, tall silver shapes with sudden bulges here and there. Outgrowths of brightly shining tech piled on top and around each other, as though they had grown to their present shapes rather than been planned and constructed. The battered city looked as though it had been infected by some vast silvery parasite, shooting up in every open space and choking the old human remnants of the city that was. The Hadenmen were building themselves a new home, and there was nothing human in its form or nature. Nothing at all.
    They parked the Sunstrider II in one of the lesser craters, all that was left of one of Brahmin City’s suburbs. Owen and Hazel disembarked with gun and sword in hand, just in case Oz was wrong about the border patrols, but all was still and silent. No birds sang, no insects buzzed, and nothing at all disturbed the dusty air. Owen looked slowly around him, taking in the desolate landscape. It was every shade of gray, from scorched earth to beaten stone, and nothing lived in it for as far as the eye could see.
    A cemetery plot with no grass, no flowers, and no headstones, and nothing left of the dead to bury. The end of time will look like this, thought Owen. When we are all gone and life itself is gone to dust. It reminded him very much of Virimonde, and he wondered if he was always fated to arrive too late. Just once he would have liked to be a savior rather than an avenger. He put away his sword and gun. They felt small and useless in the face of so much death and destruction.
    Hazel was mooching around, kicking the gray ground to see the dust rise up in clouds and slowly settle.
    She had also put away her weapons, and looked distinctly annoyed that there’d been no one around for her to use them on. Owen took in a breath to call to her, and then coughed harshly as the dust floating in the air irritated his throat. The air everywhere was thick with it, a shifting gray haze like the ghosts of powdered buildings. It was even thicker higher up in the atmosphere, and the light of the falling sun shone through it in a gorgeous haze of faded colors, like a rainbow bought secondhand from a market stall.
    “Come on, Owen, there’ll be time for sightseeing later.” Hazel was impatient as always. “Brahmin City is just over that ridge on the horizon. An hour’s walk tops.”
    Owen fixed her with a suspicious gaze. “You said you knew a way into the city that the Hadenmen probably wouldn’t have covered. Are you ready to discuss that yet?”
    “Well,” said Hazel, not meeting his gaze. “It’s a way in, but you’re not going to like it.”
    “I haven’t seen a