Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

Durandal. We come as friends, in search of allies to join us in battle against a mutual enemy. Please respond. Or we’ll tell everyone else you were too scared to get involved.”
    The world on the main viewscreen was abruptly replaced by the head and shoulders of a dark, square-faced man. His eyes were angry and his mouth was a grim, flat line. He was dressed in battered and greasy furs, and had a pentacle tattooed on his forehead.
    “This is Port Director Ethan Tull. You can assume high orbit, but not that you are in any way welcome. We know how to deal with Imperial starcruisers, so behave yourselves. Is it true you have a Deathstalker on board?”
    “Lewis Deathstalker is with us,” Captain Price said carefully. “And his . . . companions. All of whom have been declared Outlaw.”
    “We know, we get the news feeds out here too, like everyone else. No Owen?”
    “He has gone to face the Terror.”
    “Yeah, that makes sense.” Tull’s scowl deepened. “Word is, you have John Silence with you.”
    “He is on board, yes.” Price looked deliberately vague. “Did you wish to speak with him?”
    “No one here wants to speak with John Silence. The Deathstalker and his companions may descend to Mistport, to talk. No one else. This world is no longer a part of the Empire, ever since Finn Durandal murdered our Paragon, Emma Steel. We are rogue again, and we will choose our allies very carefully. Send down a pinnace; we’ll guide it in. Any other ship even points in our direction, and we’ll do terrible things to it. You don’t want to know how.”
    “Probably not,” Price agreed, but Tull’s face had already disappeared from the viewscreen. Price looked back at Silence. “Well, Admiral. I think that went about as well as could be expected. Perhaps you’d like to take the command chair back, while I go and change my trousers.”

    And so it was that Lewis Deathstalker, Jesamine Flowers, Brett Random, and Rose Constantine went down to Mistport in an unarmed pinnace, feeling distinctly vulnerable all the way. Brett actually sat on Rose’s lap when the weather made the trip a bit bumpy. But the descent was otherwise uneventful, and the Mistport control tower brought them down onto the landing pads with practiced skill. Everyone in the pinnace then waited patiently until they were given permission to disembark.
    The cold hit the four of them hard the moment they left the pinnace, freezing air numbing their faces and burning in their lungs. They pulled their cloaks about them, and huddled together for warmth and comfort. Mistport was shrouded in fog, like the rest of the world; a slowly swirling thick gray blanket that cut Lewis and his companions off from everything around them. The other ships on the pads were just great hulking shadows, and the tall control tower showed only as the vaguest of glows. It was like being at the bottom of the ocean; cold and silent and very alone. It was always winter on Mistworld, always snow and ice and mists under a pale red sun. There was no sign of life anywhere. Brett blew on his hands, and rubbed them together fiercely.
    “I hate the cold. It’s unnatural, in these civilized days of weather control. I can feel my balls shriveling up.”
    “Altogether too much information, Brett,” said Jesamine.
    Brett carried on anyway, never one to let anything get in the way of a good moan. “I thought Silence would be coming down with us. Why isn’t Silence here? Does he know something we don’t?”
    “He was here before, over two hundred years ago,” said Lewis, peering distractedly about him into the curling mists. “He was part of the Iron Bitch’s invasion force. Mistworlders have long memories, and they bear grudges. Don’t you know your history?”
    “School was a sometime thing for me,” Brett admitted.
    “Well, color me surprised,” said Jesamine. “Pay attention, scumbag. Back when Silence was still just a captain in Lionstone’s fleet, the military invaded Mistport, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, and laid waste to much of the city. To us, John Silence is a legend. To the Mistworlders, he’s a war criminal who got away with it. Why do you want Silence down here anyway? You know very well he can’t stand the sight of you.”
    “Never hurts to have a legendary fighter on your side,” Brett said darkly. “Especially when it comes to negotiating.”
    “Two hundred years since Silence was last here,” Lewis said thoughtfully. “You tend