Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

outer defenses. The walls went down, here and there, and whole rooms and passages were devastated by ravening energies, their contents boiling out into the unforgiving cold of space. People were blown out into the vacuum on brief storms of escaping air, sometimes accompanied by flailing humanoid drones.
    The Shub fleet was blowing great chunks out of the Last Standing, and slowly the great old castle grew smaller and less mighty. Some of the guns were still firing, but many were silent.
    Diana Vertue could feel the castle dying about her. The floor shuddered under her feet now with each new explosion, and it seemed to her the lights were growing dimmer. She'd shut down the alarm sirens. She knew how much trouble they were in. She called up a map of the castle, and it appeared floating on the air before her. Dark areas showed which parts of the Last Standing had been destroyed. Most of the areas were dark now, surrounding a shrinking central core. Diana opened a comm channel to Jack Random and Ruby Journey.
    "You've done all you can. Let the fire computers take over your weapons. I need you here in the Hall with me."
    We don't have time to hold your hand, Vertue, Ruby said coldly. In case you hadn't noticed, we're getting our ass kicked good and proper.
    "Get back here, to the hall," said Diana. "Do it now. It's almost time to spring my trap, and I'm going to need both of you as backup."
    Ruby screamed. It was as much anger and surprise as pain and shock, but her cry was drowned out almost immediately by the larger roar of a continuing series of explosions. Random and Diana both yelled her name, but there was no response.

    Jack Random ran through the shaking corridors of the Last Standing, desperation
    driving him on. Dust was falling steadily from the ceiling like a fine mist, and the walls of the corridors sometimes bowed inward under impossible pressures.
    When he finally reached Ruby's fire station, he was drenched in sweat and gasping for air, and his head felt far away. The door to her room had been blown off its hinges, and air was rushing into the room past him. He held on to the shattered door frame with both hands as he looked into the room. A Shub energy blast had smashed a hole right through the stone wall and shattered the fire controls. The room was a wreck, and all the air and everything loose in the room was being sucked out the jagged hole. Including Ruby.
    She was spread-eagled across the hole, hanging desperately on by precarious white-knuckled hands. Her face was blue, and she gasped for air as it whistled past her. Random lurched into the room, hanging on to the wall, fighting the air as it tried to tear him away and sweep him off his feet. Ruby was trying to yell something to him, but there was no way he could hear her over the roar of escaping air. The lights were flickering now, and the dark of open space showed clearly beyond the broken wall. Random inched his way toward her, handhold by handhold, afraid to move too quickly and be swept away, but more afraid of getting there too late. Ruby's numbing fingers suddenly lost their grip on one edge of the hole, and she was sucked out through the hole, out into space, hanging on by her last handhold.
    Random howled her name, and released his holds, letting the rushing air propel him toward the hole. He twisted in midair at the last moment, and hit the wall beside the hole feet-first. The stonework gave under his weight, but still held together. Random crouched down, his knees banging against his chest, and grabbed Ruby by the wrist. His chest heaved, his lungs straining to drag in some air. He
    straightened up through sheer willpower, and slowly walked away along the wall, pulling Ruby after him. The pressure of the rushing air kept him from falling, even as it strove to tear Ruby out of his grasp. He slogged on, step by step, feeling his heart pounding dangerously in his chest, and blood pounding in his head. It seemed ages since he'd been able to take a proper breath. He couldn't spare the time or the concentration to look back at Ruby, and see how she was doing, or even if she was still alive, but he could still feel her wrist in his hand, and that was all that mattered.
    A lifetime later, he reached the open doorway, and pulled himself and Ruby out into the corridor. They fell to the floor in a heap as gravity reasserted its hold, and for a moment all Random could do was lie there and gasp down the thicker air in the corridor. When his lungs