Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

path. The storm winds kept blowing, but everyone knew the lull was coming. Random and Ruby spent all their time struggling to turn Vidar’s volunteer force into something like an army. There was no shortage of volunteers, but most had never fired a gun in anger in their life.
    They were tough enough, and brave, but turning even the most willing volunteer into a trained soldier takes time, and everyone knew that time was running out.
    So it came as somewhat of a surprise to everyone when Random excused himself from the training exercise on the second afternoon, left Ruby in charge, and disappeared on a mission of his own.
    Wrapped in a long cloak, with the hood pulled down to conceal his features, Jack Random made his way through increasingly narrow and dirty streets into the really scummy part of Vidar. Every city has a part of town where the mostly respectable can come in secret in search of the pleasures that may not have a name, but certainly have a price. A few locals thought to intercept Random on his way and relieve him of any valuables he might be burdened with, but a glimpse of energy gun was usually all it took to make them back down.
    Random had to kill one man, but he didn’t seem the sort that anyone would miss. Random finally reached his destination in the late afternoon: a broken-down drinking establishment that had probably looked sleazy and disreputable from the moment it opened. Random stood in the shadows on the other side of the street for a while, making sure he hadn’t been followed. He didn’t think anyone could sneak up on him anymore, but old habits died hard. Nobody looked up when he finally walked into the gloomy bar. It was the kind of place where everyone was careful to mind their own business.
    There were no windows, and the lights were kept low to encourage confidentiality. There was an atmosphere of illegal smoke, cheap perfume, and general paranoia. Customers sat at cheap tables in
    twos and threes, talking business in lowered voices, pushing anonymous packages back and forth, or just sitting and staring into drinks they didn’t touch while they waited for their contacts to show up. There was no sawdust on the floor. Probably someone had stolen it. Random had spent a lot of time in the past meeting people in places like this, searching for the kind of answers that could be found only in such company. He spotted his contact, sitting well back in the shadows, and moved over to join him.
    “There had better be a damned good reason for bringing me here,” said Random as he polished the seat of his chair with a handkerchief before sitting down. “I’ve been in some dives in my time, and this is definitely one of them. God alone knows what the booze is like here.”
    “Actually, it’s pretty good,” said Peter Savage. “For the price. And we’re meeting here to talk because it’s one of the few places where de Lisle’s informers wouldn’t dare follow me. I’ve been digging into those computer files.” “All right, what have you found?”
    “It’s worse than we thought. de Lisle and his cronies were sent here deliberately to wreck Loki’s economy. Once they’d done their job and left, their bosses on Golgotha would have moved in and bought everything up at rock-bottom prices. Including the colonists. To pay off their debts they’d have had to take lifetime indentures. Slaves in all but name.”
    “Can they do that?” said Random. “I had Parliament pass a whole bunch of laws just to prevent things like that.”
    “The law isn’t much good when presented with a fait accompli. No one suspected anything. They would have got away with it if the rebels hadn’t made their alliance with Shub and thrown everything into chaos.” “Tallon must have found out about this. That’s what made him desperate enough to call in Shub forces.”
    “Looks that way. Tallon and Jacks were big men in the original rebellion. Hard-line idealists. Heroes. It must have broken their hearts to discover it had all been for nothing.”
    “They didn’t have to go to Shub,” said Random. “They could have got word to Parliament. They could have come to me. I would have done something, if I’d known.”
    “You’ve been busy,” said Savage. “How many people wanted to talk to you every day, and were turned away because there just weren’t enough hours in the day to see them all? You had to rely on your subordinates to weed out the head cases and the time wasters. And you can bet good