Storm took the cruiser in low and fast and put her down a
hundred meters from Twilight’s south lock. His weapons
started talking while he was still aloft. Shafts of coherent light
stabbed at everything outside the dome. Shellguns bit at the
stressglass of the dome itself, chewing a hole through it two
hundred meters west of the lock. Freezing atmosphere roared out,
mixed with dust in violent clouds. His searchlights probed for
enemies who never appeared.
The decompression was not explosive. The Twilighters would have
time to get off the streets, into buildings that could be sealed.
But time to insure personal survival was all Storm meant to allow
them.
Helmut captured the lock before Storm finished cycling down.
Darksword was moving the last of the raiders through it when Storm
hit dirt himself. Accompanied by Korando, Pollyanna, Thurston,
Lucifer, and Mouse, Gneaus set out for Twilight’s equivalent
of City Hall.
He had given orders to shoot anything that moved. He wanted
these Twilighters cowed fast. The tininess of his force compelled
him to hit hard and keep on hitting. He dared allow his enemies no
time to regain their balance.
The only resistance he encountered was a lone sniper who
surrendered the moment he received counterfire.
The entry to Twilight’s City Hall, like Edgeward’s,
was a massive airlock. The outer door was sealed. “Blow
it,” Storm told Thurston.
His son placed the charges. “Stand back, people,” he
shouted just before the Boom!
Storm clambered through the wreckage, checked the inner door. It
was not secured. “Rig something over that outer
doorway,” he ordered.
Mouse and Lucifer scrounged plastic panels and pounded them into
place. “They’ll still leak, Father,” Mouse
said.
“They’ll prevent complete decompression.
That’s all I’m worried about now.”
He did not want to hurt civilians. The ordinary people of
Twilight, like those of nations at war at any time, were simply
victims of their leadership.
He was in a generous mood. In other times and places he had been
heard to say that people were guilty of their leadership.
Storm and Thurston poised themselves, ready for the inner door.
“Go!” Thurston growled. Storm kicked. Thurston went
through on his jump pack, rocketing at an angle across a chamber
twenty meters by thirty. Laseguns probed for him. Their beams went
wide.
Thurston let go an antitank rocket. Before the debris settled,
Storm, Lucifer, and Mouse moved in, firing, and spread out behind
furniture. Pollyanna and Korando had enough sense to stay out of
action for which they had no training. They indulged only in a
little supportive sniping.
Thurston’s second rocket, accompanied by grenades from the
others, convinced the opposition. They surrendered. They wore no
combat suits. Only four of fifteen had survived the exchange.
Korando sealed the inner door before more atmosphere
escaped.
“Where’re the big people?” Storm demanded of
the prisoners, after folding his faceplate back.
“Where’s Meacham?”
He received surly looks in reply.
“All right. Be that way. Lucifer. Shoot them one at a time
till somebody answers me.”
They looked into his one grim eye and believed him. He was not
bluffing. He no longer cared, especially about Michael’s men.
The lives he valued most had been wasted already.
“Upstairs. Fourth level. Communications center. Yelling
for help.”
“Thank you. You’re true gentlemen. Lead the
way.”
They balked.
A twitch of his trigger finger got them moving.
The elevators were dead. Storm shrugged, unsurprised. His guides
led him to an emergency stairwell. Thurston blew the locked fire
door. The big man could have achieved his end with a lasegun bolt,
but he enjoyed the bangs.
A bolt poked through the smoke, stabbing a small, neat hole
through Lucifer’s right calf. The ambusher died before he
could take a second shot.
“Pollyanna, take care of him,” Storm ordered.
“You four. Up the stairs. Smartly now.”
Two went down before they reached the fourth floor. Three
snipers joined them.
While Thurston prepared to blow the comm center door, Korando
told Storm, “These men aren’t Twilighters.
They’re not even Blackworlders.”
“I didn’t think they were. Blackworlders would be a
little more careful about gunfighting in tight places. You spend
your life worrying about vacuum, you don’t go shooting where
you might put holes in the walls.”
“Exactly.”
“Stand back. When that door goes we’re going to get
a lot of fire.”
Thurston set off his charges. The counterfire came. Storm and
his sons hurled grenades around the door frame, frags first, then
tear gas, then smoke. After a brief pause they moved in.
Through the haze, using his infrared filters, Storm could see
men trying to get out other exits. “Mouse. Stop those men
over there. Korando, over there.” He and Thurston bulled
straight ahead, charging a group that looked like they could be
troublesome. They were a tough-looking crew, and among them Storm
saw his brother’s son Seth-Infinite.
Thurston announced his approach with a rocket. Hands flew up. In
all the smoke and tear gas the Twilighters could not determine the
number of their attackers.
Seth-Infinite managed to slide away in the confusion.
Storm herded the gagging prisoners to the center of the room. He
posted Mouse, Thurston, and Korando at doors. When Pollyanna,
supporting Lucifer, arrived, he left the main door to her. He sat
down and waited for the air to clear, for Helmut to report how it
was going elsewhere.
The comm boards around him chattered wildly as people all across
the city demanded instructions.
The air cleared enough. Storm opened his face plate.
“Which one’s Meacham?” he demanded.
A very sick old man, who fit Storm’s notion of an elderly
brigand, timorously raised a hand. The gases and smoke had left him
puked out and aguey. From the corner of his eye Storm caught
Korando’s slight affirmative nod.
“Would you mind awfully, sir, explaining what the hell
you’ve been trying to do? Would you kindly tell me why you
broke your contract with Richard Hawksblood in favor of a deal with
that bandit Michael Dee? Or Diebold Amelung, if you prefer? And,
for the sake of heaven, why you’ve been using nuclears on my
people in the Shadowline?”
Meacham’s jaw dropped. He peered up at Storm in
unadulterated disbelief. Gradually, an air of cynicism crept over
his tired old body.
“Ah. I see,” Storm said. “He’s done it
to you, too. Believe it or not, old man. It’s true. I
wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
Briefly, he sketched what had happened to Wulf.
“I didn’t know . . . ”
Meacham mumbled. Then, “We lost communications with the
Shadowline weeks ago. Equipment failure is what they told me.
Amelung’s son came back and said everything was going fine.
He said our troops were holding you and work on the mohole was
ahead of schedule.”
“It isn’t going fine at all. Not from your
viewpoint. The fighting is over in the Shadowline. You lost.
Because Hawksblood wasn’t in charge. Because some nitwit Dee
set it up that way. Now, tell me why the force that hit us
Darkside? I thought that was outside the rules.”
Meacham frowned. He was old, but obviously rugged. He was making
a fast physical comeback. “What are you talking
about?”
“About the convoy that’s besieging Edgeward and the
Whitlandsund. Somebody sent six armed crawlers with twenty-one
mining units in support. Half of which are no longer with us, by
the way.”
Meacham stiffened. “Colonel
Storm . . . I assume you’re Storm? Yes? I
don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.
I specifically forbade any action Darkside.” The old
man’s spirits were rising fast. “Establishing a
tradition of Darkside warfare would be insane, Colonel. It would be
bad for business.”
“And what’s become of Hawksblood, Meacham? Why is
Dee fighting me, leading Sangaree troops?”
The old man glared. “That’s not possible.”
Then his spirits collapsed again. He dropped into a chair so
suddenly Storm was afraid that he had had a stroke.
“Sangaree?” he whispered. “Sangaree? No.
That’s just not possible.”
There was a stir among the prisoners. The offworlders were
getting nervous. They knew, whether or not they were Sangaree
themselves.
“You don’t have to take my word, Meacham. Call
Walter Carrington at The City of Night. We sent him some of the
corpses we took in after fighting near Edgeward. He had his people
perform the autopsies. The word’s out to all the domes now.
Twilight is using Sangaree troops.”
“My nephew,” Meacham said in a barely audible voice.
“Talk to him. He was in charge of military affairs. A little
too anxious for the old man to die, I thought. Responsibility would
settle him down, I thought. That’s why I put him in charge.
He was too weak, I suppose. The devils. The bloody
devils.”
How pleased Dee must have been, finding such an ideally usable
man, Storm reflected. “Divide and conquer. The Dee way,
Meacham. Get them by the greed. No doubt there was a plan to
wrestle stock away from your directors. But their plans went sour.
We attacked when they were overextended. Their bomb crawler got
caught in heat erosion. Where is your nephew now?”
No one there would admit to being Charles Meacham. Storm glanced
at Korando. Korando shrugged. The elder Meacham surveyed his fellow
prisoners, shook his head. Then he rose and slowly walked to the
tumble of bodies near the door’Thurston guarded.
“Yes. Here he is. Caught up by his own sins.” He
shook his head wearily. “Children. They never quite turn out
the way you want.”
Storm sighed. It figured. The one prisoner who knew anything had
been killed. Probably by Seth-Infinite’s hand. He did not
check to see if the nephew’s wounds were in front or back. It
was too late to matter.
What now? “Mr. Meacham, I’m going to draw up
surrender terms. They’ll be simple. You’ll abandon your
claim to the Shadowline. You’ll agree to cooperate fully in
bringing to justice members of the conspiracy to use nuclear
weapons. You’ll agree to help ferret out any Sangaree on
Blackworld. You’ll aid in the rescue and evacuation of
personnel now trapped in the Shadowline. You’ll free Richard
Hawksblood and any of his men who might be imprisoned here. I
expect Richard will have terms of his own to
discuss . . . ”
“Gneaus?”
Storm turned. Someone was at the door guarded by Pollyanna and
Lucifer. “Helmut?”
The old warrior came to him slowly, wearily, his helmet open,
his face as pale and strained as it had become when he had learned
of his brother’s death.
“What is it, Helmut? You look awful.”
“Won’t be any more wars with Richard
Hawksblood,” Darksword muttered. He laughed. It was a soft
cackle of madness. “We didn’t get to him in time. They
had him down in the service levels. Gneaus, it was the work of the
Beast. It was like something from the Second Dark Age. Like the
camps at Wladimir-Wolynsk.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes. And all his staff. Beyond-the-resurrection. And
death was a gift for them.”
Storm stared into eternity, lost among disjointed memories of
what Richard had been to him, of what Richard had meant. All their
conflicts and hatreds . . . which had had their
own formality and inflexible
honor . . . “We’ll take care of
them,” Storm said. “An honorable funeral. Send them
home for burial. I owe Richard that much.”
One of the foundation stones of his universe had vanished. What
would he do without his enemy? Who, or what, could replace a
Richard Hawksblood?
He shook it off. Richard did not matter anymore. He had his own
plans . . . He drew his ancient .45, slowly
turned its cylinder.
“Father?” Mouse said softly. “Are you all
right?”
“In a minute. I’ll be okay, Mouse.” Storm
looked into his son’s eyes. Today and
tomorrow . . . What seemed to be a depthless
sadness stole into his soul. “I’ll be okay.”
“I evened scores a little,” Helmut said.
“Dee’s wife. One shot. Through the brain. May the Lord
have mercy on her soul.”
“Gallant, chivalrous Helmut,” Storm mused.
“What happened to you?” The Helmut he had always known
could not have slain a woman.
“I learned to hate, Gneaus.”
There was no way of resurrecting a brain-destroyed corpse.
“Seth-Infinite’s here in the city,” Storm
said. “We saw him.”
“Fearchild, too. He did Richard in. He was there when we
arrived. We’re hunting him now. The citizens aren’t
giving us any trouble, by the bye.”
“Good. Be kind to them. And watch all the exits from town.
Dees always have a bolthole.”
“We’ve accounted for most of their hired guns. We
get an estimate of fifty on hand. What I didn’t see anywhere
else seem to be here, except for maybe five or ten and the
Dees.”
“Helmut, be careful. They’ll be worse than any
cornered rats if they think the game is completely up.”
Worse than cornered rats. The Dees were intelligent, terrified,
conscienceless rats who went straight for the throats of those who
threatened them.
They attacked through the door where Thurston stood guard,
coming hard behind a barrage of rockets that slaughtered the
prisoners without harming Storm’s people. They came in
screened by a handful of Sangaree gunmen.
Thurston killed one attacker by smashing his skull with a rocket
launcher. Seth-Infinite shot Thurston point-blank, through the
faceplate.
Beams stabbed around the room. People scrambled for cover. A
rocket killed Albin Korando. Frog’s orphan had returned home
only to die.
Storm’s old .45 spoke. A Sangaree died. Beside Gneaus,
Helmut gasped and collapsed. Storm fired again, dropped another
Sangaree. He got down and tried to drag Helmut to cover.
He was too late. Beams had punched fatal holes through
Darksword’s helmet and chest.
Storm crouched and, unable to do anything, watched Pollyanna try
to pull Lucifer out her door. Beams found them both. Hers was a
minor wound. She got off a killing shot herself before fainting
from pain. Me and Mouse, Storm thought. So it’s finally here. The
last battle. It’s almost laughable. It’s so much smaller than
I thought it would be. Two of us
against . . . How many?
He peeped cautiously around the end of the console that
concealed him. Seth-Infinite, casually, was killing the last of
Storm’s prisoners. Getting rid of witnesses, Storm supposed.
Leaving no one who could repeat the name Dee. Startled, he realized
they might nuke the city if they escaped.
“Mouse . . . ” he moaned softly.
His favorite son lay on the floor before his door, his suit badly
discolored along one side. He looked dead.
“Uhn . . . ” Storm gasped.
Mouse’s head was turning slowly, toward Seth-Infinite.
Mouse’s suit had withstood the bolt. He was playing
possum.
“I should’ve left him behind,” Storm muttered.
He smiled grimly.
Where was Fearchild? Storm assumed the men who had come in with
the Dees were dead, killed by their employers if not during the
attack. None were in evidence, and no Sangaree would have stood by
while Seth-Infinite slaughtered his captured comrades.
An explosion slammed the console against him, tumbled him
backward.
He had seen the grenade arcing through the air, could judge
whence it had come. He seized Helmut’s fallen weapon, rolled,
bounced up, fired with both hands. He narrowly missed ending
Fearchild’s tale. Dee scrambled for better cover.
Storm’s .45 roared at Seth-Infinite. He plunged back
behind the console. The cabinet crackled as a lasebolt spent its
energy inside.
Storm moved to his left, to get near a wall that would make
flanking him difficult, and to make them turn their backs on Mouse.
He fired as he went, to hold their attention.
The .45 stopped thundering, cylinder spent.
Storm reached the last cover available. He paused to catch, his
breath.
Now what? They would be crafty-aggressive. They would be sure
they had him. He would have to do more than
stall . . . Was this the time for it?
He had decided there was a thing that had to be done before
Michael’s game could be beaten. The act would ruin all
Michael’s calculations, and blacken his heart with
terror.
Now was the time to do it.
He was afraid.
Faceplate open, laughing at Michael’s spawn, he rose and
hosed lasegun fire over the area where they were hidden.
A bolt pierced his lung two centimeters from his heart. It did
not hurt as much as he had anticipated. His weapon tumbled from his
hand.
Fearchild and Seth-Infinite rose slowly, their faces alive with
malicious pleasure.
Storm smiled at them. He croaked, “You lose, you
fools!”
Mouse shot with preternatural accuracy, a single bolt stabbing
through the back of each Dee skull. They did not have time to look
surprised.
Storm smiled as they fell. And smiled. And smiled.
“Father?” Mouse had come to his side. The
boy’s hands were on his arm, urging him to sit.
“A time for reaping and a time for sowing,”
Storm whispered. “My season had fled, Mouse. The season of
the
Legion is gone. But the rivers still run to the
seas . . . ”
He coughed. Funny. It still did not hurt. “It’s time
for the young.” He forced a broader smile.
“I’ll take you to the ship, Father. I’ll get
you into a cradle.” Mouse’s cheeks were wet.
“No. Don’t. This is something I have to do, Son. In
my quarters in Edgeward. A letter. You’ll understand. Go on
now. Take command. You’re the last Storm. I give you Cassius
and the Legion. Complete the cycle. Close the circle.”
“But . . . ”
“Don’t argue with orders, Mouse. You know better. Go
help Pollyanna.” Storm leaned against the console, turned his
back on his son. “Don’t rob me of this victory. Go
on.” Then, to himself, “Vanity of vanities, all is
vanity. What does a man
profit? . . . ”
Death descended on quiet, silken wings and enfolded him in
gentle, peaceful arms.
Storm took the cruiser in low and fast and put her down a
hundred meters from Twilight’s south lock. His weapons
started talking while he was still aloft. Shafts of coherent light
stabbed at everything outside the dome. Shellguns bit at the
stressglass of the dome itself, chewing a hole through it two
hundred meters west of the lock. Freezing atmosphere roared out,
mixed with dust in violent clouds. His searchlights probed for
enemies who never appeared.
The decompression was not explosive. The Twilighters would have
time to get off the streets, into buildings that could be sealed.
But time to insure personal survival was all Storm meant to allow
them.
Helmut captured the lock before Storm finished cycling down.
Darksword was moving the last of the raiders through it when Storm
hit dirt himself. Accompanied by Korando, Pollyanna, Thurston,
Lucifer, and Mouse, Gneaus set out for Twilight’s equivalent
of City Hall.
He had given orders to shoot anything that moved. He wanted
these Twilighters cowed fast. The tininess of his force compelled
him to hit hard and keep on hitting. He dared allow his enemies no
time to regain their balance.
The only resistance he encountered was a lone sniper who
surrendered the moment he received counterfire.
The entry to Twilight’s City Hall, like Edgeward’s,
was a massive airlock. The outer door was sealed. “Blow
it,” Storm told Thurston.
His son placed the charges. “Stand back, people,” he
shouted just before the Boom!
Storm clambered through the wreckage, checked the inner door. It
was not secured. “Rig something over that outer
doorway,” he ordered.
Mouse and Lucifer scrounged plastic panels and pounded them into
place. “They’ll still leak, Father,” Mouse
said.
“They’ll prevent complete decompression.
That’s all I’m worried about now.”
He did not want to hurt civilians. The ordinary people of
Twilight, like those of nations at war at any time, were simply
victims of their leadership.
He was in a generous mood. In other times and places he had been
heard to say that people were guilty of their leadership.
Storm and Thurston poised themselves, ready for the inner door.
“Go!” Thurston growled. Storm kicked. Thurston went
through on his jump pack, rocketing at an angle across a chamber
twenty meters by thirty. Laseguns probed for him. Their beams went
wide.
Thurston let go an antitank rocket. Before the debris settled,
Storm, Lucifer, and Mouse moved in, firing, and spread out behind
furniture. Pollyanna and Korando had enough sense to stay out of
action for which they had no training. They indulged only in a
little supportive sniping.
Thurston’s second rocket, accompanied by grenades from the
others, convinced the opposition. They surrendered. They wore no
combat suits. Only four of fifteen had survived the exchange.
Korando sealed the inner door before more atmosphere
escaped.
“Where’re the big people?” Storm demanded of
the prisoners, after folding his faceplate back.
“Where’s Meacham?”
He received surly looks in reply.
“All right. Be that way. Lucifer. Shoot them one at a time
till somebody answers me.”
They looked into his one grim eye and believed him. He was not
bluffing. He no longer cared, especially about Michael’s men.
The lives he valued most had been wasted already.
“Upstairs. Fourth level. Communications center. Yelling
for help.”
“Thank you. You’re true gentlemen. Lead the
way.”
They balked.
A twitch of his trigger finger got them moving.
The elevators were dead. Storm shrugged, unsurprised. His guides
led him to an emergency stairwell. Thurston blew the locked fire
door. The big man could have achieved his end with a lasegun bolt,
but he enjoyed the bangs.
A bolt poked through the smoke, stabbing a small, neat hole
through Lucifer’s right calf. The ambusher died before he
could take a second shot.
“Pollyanna, take care of him,” Storm ordered.
“You four. Up the stairs. Smartly now.”
Two went down before they reached the fourth floor. Three
snipers joined them.
While Thurston prepared to blow the comm center door, Korando
told Storm, “These men aren’t Twilighters.
They’re not even Blackworlders.”
“I didn’t think they were. Blackworlders would be a
little more careful about gunfighting in tight places. You spend
your life worrying about vacuum, you don’t go shooting where
you might put holes in the walls.”
“Exactly.”
“Stand back. When that door goes we’re going to get
a lot of fire.”
Thurston set off his charges. The counterfire came. Storm and
his sons hurled grenades around the door frame, frags first, then
tear gas, then smoke. After a brief pause they moved in.
Through the haze, using his infrared filters, Storm could see
men trying to get out other exits. “Mouse. Stop those men
over there. Korando, over there.” He and Thurston bulled
straight ahead, charging a group that looked like they could be
troublesome. They were a tough-looking crew, and among them Storm
saw his brother’s son Seth-Infinite.
Thurston announced his approach with a rocket. Hands flew up. In
all the smoke and tear gas the Twilighters could not determine the
number of their attackers.
Seth-Infinite managed to slide away in the confusion.
Storm herded the gagging prisoners to the center of the room. He
posted Mouse, Thurston, and Korando at doors. When Pollyanna,
supporting Lucifer, arrived, he left the main door to her. He sat
down and waited for the air to clear, for Helmut to report how it
was going elsewhere.
The comm boards around him chattered wildly as people all across
the city demanded instructions.
The air cleared enough. Storm opened his face plate.
“Which one’s Meacham?” he demanded.
A very sick old man, who fit Storm’s notion of an elderly
brigand, timorously raised a hand. The gases and smoke had left him
puked out and aguey. From the corner of his eye Storm caught
Korando’s slight affirmative nod.
“Would you mind awfully, sir, explaining what the hell
you’ve been trying to do? Would you kindly tell me why you
broke your contract with Richard Hawksblood in favor of a deal with
that bandit Michael Dee? Or Diebold Amelung, if you prefer? And,
for the sake of heaven, why you’ve been using nuclears on my
people in the Shadowline?”
Meacham’s jaw dropped. He peered up at Storm in
unadulterated disbelief. Gradually, an air of cynicism crept over
his tired old body.
“Ah. I see,” Storm said. “He’s done it
to you, too. Believe it or not, old man. It’s true. I
wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
Briefly, he sketched what had happened to Wulf.
“I didn’t know . . . ”
Meacham mumbled. Then, “We lost communications with the
Shadowline weeks ago. Equipment failure is what they told me.
Amelung’s son came back and said everything was going fine.
He said our troops were holding you and work on the mohole was
ahead of schedule.”
“It isn’t going fine at all. Not from your
viewpoint. The fighting is over in the Shadowline. You lost.
Because Hawksblood wasn’t in charge. Because some nitwit Dee
set it up that way. Now, tell me why the force that hit us
Darkside? I thought that was outside the rules.”
Meacham frowned. He was old, but obviously rugged. He was making
a fast physical comeback. “What are you talking
about?”
“About the convoy that’s besieging Edgeward and the
Whitlandsund. Somebody sent six armed crawlers with twenty-one
mining units in support. Half of which are no longer with us, by
the way.”
Meacham stiffened. “Colonel
Storm . . . I assume you’re Storm? Yes? I
don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.
I specifically forbade any action Darkside.” The old
man’s spirits were rising fast. “Establishing a
tradition of Darkside warfare would be insane, Colonel. It would be
bad for business.”
“And what’s become of Hawksblood, Meacham? Why is
Dee fighting me, leading Sangaree troops?”
The old man glared. “That’s not possible.”
Then his spirits collapsed again. He dropped into a chair so
suddenly Storm was afraid that he had had a stroke.
“Sangaree?” he whispered. “Sangaree? No.
That’s just not possible.”
There was a stir among the prisoners. The offworlders were
getting nervous. They knew, whether or not they were Sangaree
themselves.
“You don’t have to take my word, Meacham. Call
Walter Carrington at The City of Night. We sent him some of the
corpses we took in after fighting near Edgeward. He had his people
perform the autopsies. The word’s out to all the domes now.
Twilight is using Sangaree troops.”
“My nephew,” Meacham said in a barely audible voice.
“Talk to him. He was in charge of military affairs. A little
too anxious for the old man to die, I thought. Responsibility would
settle him down, I thought. That’s why I put him in charge.
He was too weak, I suppose. The devils. The bloody
devils.”
How pleased Dee must have been, finding such an ideally usable
man, Storm reflected. “Divide and conquer. The Dee way,
Meacham. Get them by the greed. No doubt there was a plan to
wrestle stock away from your directors. But their plans went sour.
We attacked when they were overextended. Their bomb crawler got
caught in heat erosion. Where is your nephew now?”
No one there would admit to being Charles Meacham. Storm glanced
at Korando. Korando shrugged. The elder Meacham surveyed his fellow
prisoners, shook his head. Then he rose and slowly walked to the
tumble of bodies near the door’Thurston guarded.
“Yes. Here he is. Caught up by his own sins.” He
shook his head wearily. “Children. They never quite turn out
the way you want.”
Storm sighed. It figured. The one prisoner who knew anything had
been killed. Probably by Seth-Infinite’s hand. He did not
check to see if the nephew’s wounds were in front or back. It
was too late to matter.
What now? “Mr. Meacham, I’m going to draw up
surrender terms. They’ll be simple. You’ll abandon your
claim to the Shadowline. You’ll agree to cooperate fully in
bringing to justice members of the conspiracy to use nuclear
weapons. You’ll agree to help ferret out any Sangaree on
Blackworld. You’ll aid in the rescue and evacuation of
personnel now trapped in the Shadowline. You’ll free Richard
Hawksblood and any of his men who might be imprisoned here. I
expect Richard will have terms of his own to
discuss . . . ”
“Gneaus?”
Storm turned. Someone was at the door guarded by Pollyanna and
Lucifer. “Helmut?”
The old warrior came to him slowly, wearily, his helmet open,
his face as pale and strained as it had become when he had learned
of his brother’s death.
“What is it, Helmut? You look awful.”
“Won’t be any more wars with Richard
Hawksblood,” Darksword muttered. He laughed. It was a soft
cackle of madness. “We didn’t get to him in time. They
had him down in the service levels. Gneaus, it was the work of the
Beast. It was like something from the Second Dark Age. Like the
camps at Wladimir-Wolynsk.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes. And all his staff. Beyond-the-resurrection. And
death was a gift for them.”
Storm stared into eternity, lost among disjointed memories of
what Richard had been to him, of what Richard had meant. All their
conflicts and hatreds . . . which had had their
own formality and inflexible
honor . . . “We’ll take care of
them,” Storm said. “An honorable funeral. Send them
home for burial. I owe Richard that much.”
One of the foundation stones of his universe had vanished. What
would he do without his enemy? Who, or what, could replace a
Richard Hawksblood?
He shook it off. Richard did not matter anymore. He had his own
plans . . . He drew his ancient .45, slowly
turned its cylinder.
“Father?” Mouse said softly. “Are you all
right?”
“In a minute. I’ll be okay, Mouse.” Storm
looked into his son’s eyes. Today and
tomorrow . . . What seemed to be a depthless
sadness stole into his soul. “I’ll be okay.”
“I evened scores a little,” Helmut said.
“Dee’s wife. One shot. Through the brain. May the Lord
have mercy on her soul.”
“Gallant, chivalrous Helmut,” Storm mused.
“What happened to you?” The Helmut he had always known
could not have slain a woman.
“I learned to hate, Gneaus.”
There was no way of resurrecting a brain-destroyed corpse.
“Seth-Infinite’s here in the city,” Storm
said. “We saw him.”
“Fearchild, too. He did Richard in. He was there when we
arrived. We’re hunting him now. The citizens aren’t
giving us any trouble, by the bye.”
“Good. Be kind to them. And watch all the exits from town.
Dees always have a bolthole.”
“We’ve accounted for most of their hired guns. We
get an estimate of fifty on hand. What I didn’t see anywhere
else seem to be here, except for maybe five or ten and the
Dees.”
“Helmut, be careful. They’ll be worse than any
cornered rats if they think the game is completely up.”
Worse than cornered rats. The Dees were intelligent, terrified,
conscienceless rats who went straight for the throats of those who
threatened them.
They attacked through the door where Thurston stood guard,
coming hard behind a barrage of rockets that slaughtered the
prisoners without harming Storm’s people. They came in
screened by a handful of Sangaree gunmen.
Thurston killed one attacker by smashing his skull with a rocket
launcher. Seth-Infinite shot Thurston point-blank, through the
faceplate.
Beams stabbed around the room. People scrambled for cover. A
rocket killed Albin Korando. Frog’s orphan had returned home
only to die.
Storm’s old .45 spoke. A Sangaree died. Beside Gneaus,
Helmut gasped and collapsed. Storm fired again, dropped another
Sangaree. He got down and tried to drag Helmut to cover.
He was too late. Beams had punched fatal holes through
Darksword’s helmet and chest.
Storm crouched and, unable to do anything, watched Pollyanna try
to pull Lucifer out her door. Beams found them both. Hers was a
minor wound. She got off a killing shot herself before fainting
from pain. Me and Mouse, Storm thought. So it’s finally here. The
last battle. It’s almost laughable. It’s so much smaller than
I thought it would be. Two of us
against . . . How many?
He peeped cautiously around the end of the console that
concealed him. Seth-Infinite, casually, was killing the last of
Storm’s prisoners. Getting rid of witnesses, Storm supposed.
Leaving no one who could repeat the name Dee. Startled, he realized
they might nuke the city if they escaped.
“Mouse . . . ” he moaned softly.
His favorite son lay on the floor before his door, his suit badly
discolored along one side. He looked dead.
“Uhn . . . ” Storm gasped.
Mouse’s head was turning slowly, toward Seth-Infinite.
Mouse’s suit had withstood the bolt. He was playing
possum.
“I should’ve left him behind,” Storm muttered.
He smiled grimly.
Where was Fearchild? Storm assumed the men who had come in with
the Dees were dead, killed by their employers if not during the
attack. None were in evidence, and no Sangaree would have stood by
while Seth-Infinite slaughtered his captured comrades.
An explosion slammed the console against him, tumbled him
backward.
He had seen the grenade arcing through the air, could judge
whence it had come. He seized Helmut’s fallen weapon, rolled,
bounced up, fired with both hands. He narrowly missed ending
Fearchild’s tale. Dee scrambled for better cover.
Storm’s .45 roared at Seth-Infinite. He plunged back
behind the console. The cabinet crackled as a lasebolt spent its
energy inside.
Storm moved to his left, to get near a wall that would make
flanking him difficult, and to make them turn their backs on Mouse.
He fired as he went, to hold their attention.
The .45 stopped thundering, cylinder spent.
Storm reached the last cover available. He paused to catch, his
breath.
Now what? They would be crafty-aggressive. They would be sure
they had him. He would have to do more than
stall . . . Was this the time for it?
He had decided there was a thing that had to be done before
Michael’s game could be beaten. The act would ruin all
Michael’s calculations, and blacken his heart with
terror.
Now was the time to do it.
He was afraid.
Faceplate open, laughing at Michael’s spawn, he rose and
hosed lasegun fire over the area where they were hidden.
A bolt pierced his lung two centimeters from his heart. It did
not hurt as much as he had anticipated. His weapon tumbled from his
hand.
Fearchild and Seth-Infinite rose slowly, their faces alive with
malicious pleasure.
Storm smiled at them. He croaked, “You lose, you
fools!”
Mouse shot with preternatural accuracy, a single bolt stabbing
through the back of each Dee skull. They did not have time to look
surprised.
Storm smiled as they fell. And smiled. And smiled.
“Father?” Mouse had come to his side. The
boy’s hands were on his arm, urging him to sit.
“A time for reaping and a time for sowing,”
Storm whispered. “My season had fled, Mouse. The season of
the
Legion is gone. But the rivers still run to the
seas . . . ”
He coughed. Funny. It still did not hurt. “It’s time
for the young.” He forced a broader smile.
“I’ll take you to the ship, Father. I’ll get
you into a cradle.” Mouse’s cheeks were wet.
“No. Don’t. This is something I have to do, Son. In
my quarters in Edgeward. A letter. You’ll understand. Go on
now. Take command. You’re the last Storm. I give you Cassius
and the Legion. Complete the cycle. Close the circle.”
“But . . . ”
“Don’t argue with orders, Mouse. You know better. Go
help Pollyanna.” Storm leaned against the console, turned his
back on his son. “Don’t rob me of this victory. Go
on.” Then, to himself, “Vanity of vanities, all is
vanity. What does a man
profit? . . . ”
Death descended on quiet, silken wings and enfolded him in
gentle, peaceful arms.