Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

what I did see seemed almost… familiar.”
    “Anyone who kills Hadenmen is fine with me,” said Hazel. “I mean, come on; what could be worse than an army of augmented men?”
    “I have a horrible suspicion we’re going to find out, come the morning,” said Midnight. “At least the Hadenmen were a known quantity. We could make plans against them. Now…” “Right,” said Bonnie.
    “The enemy of my enemy isn’t always bound to be my friend. Especially if they’re the Enemies of Humanity.”
    Hazel looked at her sharply. “Shub? You think there are Shub forces out there?” “What else could take out a force of Hadenmen so easily? You ask me, that jungle is full of Ghost Warriors and Furies.”
    “I want to go home,” said Hazel.
    “But what the hell would Shub want here?” said Owen exasperatedly. “There’s nothing here!”
    “Except the Red Brain,” said Moon, emerging suddenly from the gloom. “I can feel its presence more and more strongly all the time.” “Red…” said Bonnie. “Could it be some part of the jungle? Some plant that developed intelligence?”
    “It’s vast,” said Moon. “Very large and very complex, and utterly alien. What I can detect of its slow thoughts makes no sense at all. All I can be sure of is that it’s very dangerous. And it’s slowly becoming aware of our presence. If I was a little more certain of my humanity, I think… I’d be scared.” “But what is it?” said Hazel.
    “It’s the Red Brain,” said Moon. “And if it’s as powerful and as dangerous as I think it is, then I think Haden or Shub would be right to commit any number of troops here, either to seize it or destroy it.” “But then… why are they attacking the Mission?” said Owen. “We’re just in the way,” said Moon. “I don’t think Haden or Shub is in the mood to share its prize.”
    He turned and walked back into the gloom, and was soon gone. Hazel glared after him. “I think I preferred him when he was just inhuman. He was much less irritating.”
    “He’s certainly picked a hell of a time to go mystical on us,” said Owen. “Maybe we should send him to Saint Bea, and see if she can get some sense out of him.” “The Red Brain…” said Bonnie. “Sounds like one of those evil criminal masterminds from the old holo serials when I was just a kid. Maybe we should put out a call to the Grim Gray Avenger to come and save us.” “Did you have those shows on your world?” said Midnight. “I was always a big fan of his.”
    “Yeah!” said Hazel. “I had all his tapes, and his special decoder ring, the one you had to send away for…” Owen left them chattering happily together, and went off to get some sleep before he fell down.
    Saving his own life had taken a lot out of him. And he had a strong feeling that when morning came, and he finally saw what was waiting outside the Mission, he wasn’t going to like it at all. Dawn came suddenly on Lachrymae Christi, right on schedule. Everyone who could pack themselves onto the catwalks was there when the sunlight suddenly forced its way past the clouds, throwing back the gloom, and the view outside the Mission appeared again. And there, standing still and silent in the rain, in the clearing, all the way around the Mission, were rows upon rows of Grendel aliens. Owen looked dumbly down from the wall, his mouth dry, and could all but feel the confidence going out of the Mission’s defenders. Grendels.
    Gengineering killing machines from the Vaults of the Sleepers, held in suspended animation for unknown centuries, or perhaps even millennia, reborn again into an unprepared universe. Living horrors with spiked crimson armor that was somehow a part of them, and steel teeth and claws. Deadly, remorseless, invincible killers, they existed only to destroy, programmed by their unknown creators in all the subtle arts of slaughter. Shub had looted hundreds of thousands of them from the Vaults of the Sleepers, and no one had ever seen any of them again. Until now.
    “That’s it,” said Hazel grimly. “It’s official. Things just got worse.” “Are they really so much more dangerous than the Hadenmen?” said Mother Beatrice.
    “We stood a chance against the Hadenmen,” said Owen, almost bitterly. “I’ve killed any number of augmented men. I only ever killed one Grendel, and it very nearly killed me. It took my hand. I still have nightmares. And now there are thousands of them out there.”
    “Swords won’t