Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

Sergeant? Aren’t two living legends enough for you?”
    “No offense,” said the Sergeant quickly. “Everyone knows your record. And I’m sure having the real Jack Random to lead them will do wonders for civilian morale.”
    The pinnace lurched wildly from side to side as it hit another patch of extreme turbulence. The crash webbing swung violently back and forth, slamming its human contents against each other. The cabin lights flickered and threatened to go out, but somehow hung on. Thunder rolled almost continuously, lightning crawling the length of the outer hull, and the winds howled like the storm given voice. From up front the pilot’s continuous cursing grew ever more vicious as his hands darted over the controls. The Sergeant swung down out of his webbing, bracing himself against the sudden roll and sway of the drop with two separate handholds.
    “I’d better go see if I can help the pilot! Back in a minute!” He staggered off down the narrow central aisle, throwing himself into the copilot’s seat and strapping in next to the pilot. Their lips moved, but Random couldn’t hear anything. They’d switched to a private channel on their comm implants. Which implied really bad news. Random looked away and studied the other marines in their crash webbing opposite him. They paid him no attention, each lost in their own private rituals of comfort. One was working a neon rosary, eyes closed, lips moving in silent prayer. Another was trying to tell an endless joke to the man beside him, who was pretending to be asleep. The others were passing a metal flask of something bracing back and forth. They didn’t offer any to Random or Ruby. He gestured for her to lean closer. Normally a murmur would have been lost in the din, but Random and Ruby could always hear each other, no matter what the conditions. Just another gift from the Maze.
    “I had been wondering why they wanted us here when we were doing so well uncovering Shub connections,” said Random. “But if that really is Young Jack Random down there, then we could be the only hope Loki has.” “Maybe,” said Ruby. “But why us rather than Owen and Hazel? They’re the
    licensed troubleshooters these days. I can’t help wondering if maybe our investigations were bringing us too close to something, or someone, that didn’t want to be uncovered.”
    “No,” said Random. “I would have insisted on this assignment, and they knew it. I need to do this. I wasn’t there when my metal duplicate was destroyed. I never got my chance to face him, to test myself against him. I need to see him fall before me, Ruby. I need to tear him apart with my bare hands for all the terrible things he’s done while wearing my face.” “And not just because for a while he seemed a better leader of men than you, and a much more plausible hero?”
    “Of course not,” said Random. “How could you think such a thing of me?” They smiled dryly at each other, and then the side of the pinnace opposite them exploded. An entire section of the hull disappeared, blown away by a direct hit from a disrupter cannon. The marines were sucked right out of the gaping hole, their security hooks ripped out of the steel floor in a moment, gone before they even had time to scream. New alarm sirens sounded, and red warning lights flashed as the cabin atmosphere boiled out the hull breach and the temperature plummeted.
    The pinnace spun as it fell, spiraling toward the planet’s surface as the pilot opened up the engines, struggling to outrun and outmaneuver the enemy’s tracking systems. Random and Ruby struggled for air as the cabin pressure dropped, and breathing masks fell down from above them. They tried to reach for the masks, but their crash webbing was being sucked toward the hull breach, and it was all they could do to hang on. Random fought for air, and prayed the security hooks would hold. There was nothing he or Ruby could do till the ship fell deep enough into the planet’s atmosphere to equalize the pressure. Then he looked over at Ruby and saw her struggling to release the webbing. He called out to her, but she wouldn’t listen. The straps finally let go, and she lurched out onto the slippery steel floor, clinging to a nearby stanchion with fingers like claws. She let go with one hand and grabbed a steel gun locker on the wall. It was almost as wide as it was tall, and had to weigh the best part of a ton. Ruby ripped it off the wall, and with an effort that tore an