Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

said Hazel. “End of the line. Funny. Always knew I was fated to die young. But I never thought I’d go out like this. So…
    helpless.” Owen put an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against him. “Hell,” he said, “we’ve been living on borrowed time since we first met. It had to run out eventually. And… I’m glad we had our time together. In a strange kind of way, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”
    “Yeah,” said Hazel. “It has been one hell of a ride, hasn’t it? And if we have to go out, at least we’re going together.”
    They sat down on the edge of the bed, side by side. They kissed once, as though they had all the time in the world, and then just leaned companionably together. “Who knows?” said Hazel finally. “We stood off a point-blank blast from a disrupter cannon back on Mistworld, remember? Maybe we’ll get lucky again.” “Hold everything,” said Owen, suddenly sitting up straight. “Follow that thought. We stood off that disrupter blast because we were linked together. Our minds were joined together. That’s how we survived!” Hazel scowled. “I’ve never liked linking. I don’t like letting anyone else into my mind.”
    “Hazel, this is no time to be modest! Would you rather die?”
    “Damn. All right. Let’s do it.”
    She reached out a hand, and Owen took it in his human hand. Their minds reached hesitantly out to each other, following the old mental link that held all the surviving alumni of the Madness Maze together. They drew closer and closer, until the power building between them slammed their minds together into one unified will and became something else. Something more. Something that pulled them right out of their bodies and up into the air above. They flashed through all the floors and rooms of the Standing in a moment, immaterial spirits, until they came at last to the computers Valentine had had installed in the room adjoining the security center. They hovered over the machines, held back for a moment by a strangeness they couldn’t name, and then they concentrated, and heard the machines thinking. It was both simple and very complex, a multitude of small but vital decisions flashing past faster than any merely human mind could hope to follow. But Owen and Hazel had come a long way from human now, and it took them less than a second to sink into the computer systems and pull out the data needed to stop the countdown. The program was interrupted; the bomb reset itself and waited for new instructions. Owen and Hazel ran swiftly through all the computers’ memories, just to make sure Valentine hadn’t left any other unpleasant surprises, and then they pulled free. The driving need that had held and bonded them together ran out, and they vanished from the computer room, separated, and fell back into their bodies again. They looked dazedly around them, getting used to breathing again, as the shutters disappeared and the room unlocked itself.
    “Wow…” said Hazel finally. “That was… something else.”
    “It’s what I’ve always said,” said Owen. “We do our best work together.”
    “Maybe. Let’s get out of here, Owen. There’s too much death in this place.” “And Valentine got away,”
    said Owen. “But I will find him. And for what he’s done, to my home and my world and my people, I’ll make a whole new Hell to send him to.”

Chapter 2
    Just Another Day in Parliament
    The Sunstrider II dropped out of hyperspace and took up orbit above Golgotha, homeworld and seat of power of the Empire, and Owen and Hazel couldn’t have cared less. Virimonde had taken a lot out of both of them. After the physical and psychological hammering they’d taken in the old Deathstalker
    Standing, it was all they could do to sit upright in their chairs and grunt responses to the main starport’s landing instructions. Owen keyed in the coordinates and let the navigation computers handle the landing.
    They were better at it than he’d ever be, and he was just so deathly tired.
    And besides, if he was being honest with himself, the Sunstrider II intimidated him. The Hadenmen, those enigmatic augmented men, had rebuilt the ship to resemble the lost original as closely as possible, but they hadn’t been able to resist “improving” it. Owen could handle doors that opened if he even thought about approaching them, and food synthesizors that knew what he wanted for dinner before he did, but navigation controls that worked on the same