Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

hopelessly gummed up. Hazel laughed mockingly.
    The Romanov roared with rage, grabbed the heavy table with both hands, and overturned it with one swift movement. Hazel launched herself from the table, tucked through a somersault in midair, and landed on the Romanov’s shoulders. Her legs wrapped around his neck and squeezed. His face went bright red, and he couldn’t get his breath. He started to raise his hands to tear her from him, and Hazel grabbed his exposed head firmly with both hands. “Let us understand each other,” she said calmly. “You annoy me, and I am going to rip your head off your shoulders. And your servomotors are so gummed up now that you haven’t a hope in hell of getting to me before I do it. Clear?” The Romanov considered the matter. Above the buzzing of his force shields he could clearly hear the shorting out of more motors. And he was going to have to breathe really soon now. He shut down his force shields and smiled hopefully at Owen.
    “I’d really like to surrender now. Please.”
    Hazel grinned triumphantly and loosened her hold a little. She looked across at Owen. “Up to you, Deathstalker. If you need to kill him, he’s all yours.” “Oh, hell,” said Owen tiredly. “Let’s take him back for trial. He’s too pathetic to kill. I just want Valentine.”
    “In which case, I’d really like to offer my surrender too,” said the Kartakis. He carefully unbuckled his sword belt and let it drop to the floor. He then removed his disrupter from its hidden holster with thumb and forefinger and let that fall too. Hazel nodded briefly.
    “All right, get over here with Lord Seize-up, and don’t make a move unless I say otherwise.”
    “I wouldn’t dare,” said the Kartakis.
    Hazel released her leg hold on the Romanov’s neck and clambered down from his shoulders. Owen waited till Hazel was clear, and then fixed the two aristocrats with a cold, unsettling gaze. “Where can I find Valentine Wolfe?” “He left just before you got here,” said the Kartakis. “Said he had a surprise to arrange for you. Didn’t say what, and we didn’t ask. One doesn’t with Valentine Wolfe.”
    “I’ve got him,” Oz murmured in Owen’s ear. “I’m still tapped into the Standing’s security systems.
    Valentine is currently at security central, running a very strange set of programs on the computers. But don’t ask me what they are. I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like them.”
    “It doesn’t matter what he’s got,” said Owen. “I’m going to kill him anyway.
    Hazel, you stay here and guard these two. Oz has got a lock on Valentine.” “Hold everything,” said Hazel. “I don’t want you running around this place on your own. We’re partners, remember?”
    “I know,” said Owen. “But I need to do this myself.”
    Hazel nodded reluctantly. “Don’t take too long or I’ll come looking for you.”
    “Understood. Watch these two carefully. You can’t trust them.”
    “Of course not,” said Hazel. “They’re Lords.”
    They exchanged a smile, and then Owen turned and left. Hazel sauntered over to the upturned table and leaned against it. The Kartakis moved just a little closer to the weapons he’d dropped, and then stopped as Hazel fixed him with a glittering eye. “Feel free to start something, my Lords,” she said. “And I’ll feel free to think up something even more amusing to do to you.” The two Lords looked at each other, and then stood very still. Owen made his way quickly through empty stone corridors, heading implacably toward what had once been his security center. He was prepared to cut down without mercy any man who got in his way or tried to hinder him, but he encountered no one at all. Which was strange. Where were the guards? Owen slowed just a little as he considered the matter. So far the only people he and Hazel had come across in the Standing were a few guards, two aristocrats, and a single lab technician.
    Where was everyone? And just what unpleasant surprise was Valentine planning for him? Owen scowled, and increased his pace again. He didn’t like mysteries. He just wanted, needed, to see Valentine lying dead and bloody at his feet. Owen might not have been able to save his people, but he could still avenge them.
    He made himself move faster, and soon he was running down the familiar stone corridors, his boots pounding loudly on the thick carpeting, no room in him for anything but guilt and pain and the need for the bloody