Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

simultaneously. All the captains knew who he was immediately. Owen's presence burned like a star, suffusing the whole bridge. Many of the crews cried out, and fell from their seats to kneel and bow to him. Owen looked at them accusingly, like a father disappointed in his children, and said, Stand down.
    And they did. All the captains on all the ships shut down their weapons systems, lowered their force shields, and canceled all invasion orders. Because this was Owen Deathstalker, returned in the hour of the Empire's greatest need, just as the legends always said he would. The captains rose from their command chairs, bent their knees and bowed their heads to him. Owen smiled on them.
    Stand by.
    He disappeared. Captain Price of the Havoc got to his feet again, and wondered vaguely why his cheeks were wet with happy tears. Admiral West was standing beside him, white-faced and trembling. She had not kneeled or bowed. She looked at Price.
    "It's a trick. It has to be a trick. It couldn't be… him. Finn said… We have our orders! Order the invasion!"
    "No," said Price. "It's over."
    They're monsters! All of them! We have to scorch the planet! Destroy them all!"
    "No," said Captain Price.
    The admiral looked round the bridge, and saw all the other faces turned against her. Some of the crew even looked at her pityingly. Admiral West lunged for the controls to start the scorch herself, and Captain Price shot her in the back of the head.
    Down in the workings around the Madness Maze, Owen Deathstalker looked at the Shub robot, and his voice held all its old authority.
    "The Terror," he said. "Where is it now?"
    The robot called up a navigation chart, and put it up on the viewscreen. "Here, Lord Deathstalker. Our projected course puts it not far beyond the remains of the dead planet Heracles Four."
    "I can get you there in about two weeks," said Silence.
    "Hell with that," said Owen.
    He reached out with his power, gathered up all their minds and joined them to his. Lewis and Jesamine,
    Brett and Rose, Captain Silence and the AIs of Shub were all joined together under the force of his will as Owen leapt up from the planet Haden again, and shot out into the stars. They flashed across space at impossible speed, heading for Heracles IV
    I always said you were the best of us, said Silence.
    They came to the dead world. Owen and all the others hung above it, in spirit. Laid out before them was the wreckage of a ruined planet. Dead cities full of dead people. The scars of huge fires. The scarred hulk of a murdered world. Owen reached out with his Maze-boosted mind, and found traces of the Terror, still lingering. Traces so strong that Owen could still feel them… still recognize them. In that moment, he knew what and who the Terror was, and the shock of that recognition broke his concentration, and he and all the others tumbled back across space, and back into their own bodies again. Owen looked at them all.
    "My God," he said. "The Terror… it's Hazel."