Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

rusty as ours.”
    “Let’s just hope our captains are faster learners,” said Lewis.

    Finn’s loyalists were meeting down by the Havoc ’s engine bays. Apparently the strange radiations sleeting continuously from the ship’s stardrive made any kind of tech eavesdropping impossible. Brett was there, very much against his better instincts, and hoped they were right. There was no way he’d ever be able to talk his way out of this. He tried to stick to the middle of the crowd, putting as many people as possible between him and the engines. He’d heard about stardrive radiation, and had horrible visions of all his extremities rotting and dropping off in the night. Leslie Springfield was right out there in front, of course, haranguing the gathered faithful. They were responding well, cheering his every inflammatory statement. Brett checked that Rose was behaving herself, standing bored but patient at his side, and then looked inconspicuously about him. There were a lot of people here. Far more than he’d suspected. Hundreds of men and women, from all ranks and stations. The Havoc had a real problem on its hands, and quite possibly the other starcruisers too. A few faces looked back at him suspiciously. Brett gave them his best reassuring smile, and made himself concentrate on what Leslie was saying.
    It seemed that the Owen that had appeared to the fleet off Haden had been nothing more than a trick, just a Shub illusion, intended to distract everyone from their seizing control of the Madness Maze. The AIs were trying to steal Humanity’s rightful chance for transcendence. The AIs wouldn’t be able to transcend, of course, only humans could do that, but once they’d failed the AIs might decide to destroy the Maze, on the grounds that if they couldn’t transcend, Humanity shouldn’t be allowed to either. The crowd responded angrily. They understood that kind of thinking. It was what they would have done. Leslie went on, speaking persuasively. It was vital, he said, that the forthcoming clash between the two fleets should be decided as quickly as possible, so that the victors could return to Haden and rescue the Madness Maze from the treacherous AIs.
    The crowd cheered and roared, and Leslie let them. Brett didn’t know what to believe. He’d heard about the starcruisers’ AIs all going offline simultaneously. That had to mean something . He realized Leslie was speaking again, and paid attention. He was explaining that he’d spoken personally with the Emperor Finn, who had authorized and ordered a night of the long knives on every starcruiser in the rebel fleet. Any officer not known to be loyal to the Emperor was to be killed, struck down without warning, all in the one night; and then replaced by loyalists. It would be a coup, a sudden transition of power, and the battle would be stopped before it had even begun. It was much better than a general uprising; this way only the traitors would have to die, with no need for more casualties.
    Brett found himself nodding. This had all been very carefully thought out. It could work. Certainly the crowd was eating it all up with spoons, actually straining at the leash to get their hands on officers they despised. Brett had been worried that Leslie might call on him to use his powers of persuasion and compulsion, to sway the minds of the doubtful, but to his great relief it seemed he might not be needed after all. He’d only just started to relax when he discovered that Leslie had stopped talking, and everyone was staring at him.
    Oh shit. What did I just miss? Where’s the nearest exit?
    “Brett Random and Rose Constantine,” said Leslie, smiling down on them. “To you is given the most honorable and most dangerous assignment. It will be your responsibility to kill the traitor Deathstalker and his slut. You are the only ones who can get close enough, and the only ones powerful enough to remove these two obstacles to our glorious triumph. They must be removed, or all our plans will come to nothing. Do you forsee any problems with carrying out this mission, Brett?”
    “Problems? Me?” said Brett, trying hard to sound confident and devil-may-care. “No. No problems.”
    “It’s about time,” said Rose, almost languidly. “I need to go one-on-one with the Deathstalker. Find out once and for all which of us is the better fighter. And now we’ve both been through the Maze, it should be an especially . . . intense match. I can almost taste the blood. God,