Deathstalker Rebellion Read Online Free

you, just so they wouldn’t have to be afraid of what you might do. We’re going to attack the Income Tax and Tithe Headquarters as planned. It’ll be thesignal for a new kind of war, a new kind of rebellion, where no one has to die unnecessarily.”
    “Like I said. Soft. And still far too prone to lecturing people. I was hoping the Maze might have cured you of that, but apparently not.”
    “Then why are you here, Hazel?”
    “Damned if I know, Deathstalker. I was hoping I was in for a little excitement, but it seems I was wrong about that, too. Doesn’t matter. This is the start of the rebellion, and I’m not missing out on it. And if things do go wrong in your carefully worked-out plan, I’ll be there to save your ass with my inhuman powers. Fair enough?”
    “You don’t understand, Hazel. I’m not afraid of the abilities themselves, just the price we might have to pay for them farther down the road.”
    Hazel looked at him expressionlessly. “You’re a fine one to talk. You took that new metal hand of yours from the Hadenmen fast enough. They could have built all kinds of hidden surprises into it, and you’d never know till they activated them.”
    Owen looked down at the gleaming golden artifact that had replaced the left hand he lost fighting a killer alien the Empire had brought to the Wolfling World. The new hand was perfect in every detail and responded to him just as readily as his real hand had. Though it always felt subtly cold. He looked back at Hazel and shrugged uncomfortably.
    “It’s not like I had a choice. I needed a new hand, and I can’t trust regeneration machines anymore. Not after my treacherous personal AI programmed the last one with control words the Empire could use against you and me.”
    “Ozymandius is gone, Owen. You destroyed him.”
    “Doesn’t make any difference. Who knows what other surprises might be lying in wait for us in any other Empire machine we trusted our bodies to? I don’t trust the Hadenmen completely, I’m not a fool, but right now they’re the lesser of two evils. They can only mess with my hand, not my mind. Besides, they did a really good job on this hand. Full sensory analogues, and far more powerful than the original. And I don’t have to trim the nails on this one.”
    “It’s still a product of the Hadenman laboratories,” said Hazel. “And I don’t trust anything that comes out of them further than I could spit into a hurricane. The last time the Hadenmen took on the Empire, it was as Gods of the Genetic Church, bringing transformation or death. Become a Hadenman or become extinct. Remember? You must have read about it in one of your precious books. And now here they are again, born again, and so polite and helpful and reasonable it’s downright spooky. I want to jump out of my skin every time one of them approaches me. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
    Owen nodded. He knew what she meant. They both looked silently at the augmented men running the golden ship. There were twenty of them, connected to their strange machinery by thick lengths of cable plunging into their bodies or immersed in gleaming technology like a man half submerged in water, their inhuman minds communing directly with their unfathomable technology on a level no human mind could understand or appreciate. Each Hadenman had a specific function aboard the ship and performed it perfectly, for as long as required. They did not suffer from boredom or fatigue, from inspiration or original thought. At least not while they were working. Perhaps off duty they were real party animals, but Owen rather doubted it. From what he’d seen of the Hadenmen as they went calmly about rebuilding their strange and unsettling city deep below the frozen surface of the Wolfling World, the augmented men had no attributes that were not strictly logical and functional.
    The only Hadenman Owen and Hazel had known at all well was Tobias Moon, who’d traveled with them for a while, but