Hellworld (Deathstalker Prelude) by Simon R. Green

cigars, but she didn’t see the point. Either way, it was going to be a hell of a long wait, so she might as well enjoy them while she had them.
    She glanced across at the other two statues, and was faintly disturbed by the way the gathering shadows suggested movement in the stone faces. She tapped ash from the end of her cigar, and wished fleetingly that she was somewhere else. Anywhere else. After the mess she’d made of the Grendel mission she’d thought herself lucky to be offered a place on a Hell Squad, but she was beginning to have her doubts. As an Investigator, she’d always had the security of knowing the Imperial Fleet stood ready to back her up. Now she didn’t have that anymore. She was on her own. If she screwed up again, they’d all pay for it with their lives.
    Krystel smiled determinedly. She would cope. She was an Investigator.
    Dr. Williams warmed his hands at the pleasant glow of heat from the field lantern. The evening was growing steadily colder, and the heating elements in his uniform could only do so much. He stretched out his left hand, and the sensor spikes slid out from under his fingernails. He slid the spikes back and forth a few times, enjoying the sensation, and then had them give him a rundown on the air around him. He didn’t expect to find anything harmful, but it was a good test of the sensors’ abilities. Tiny glowing numerals appeared before his eyes, via the optic nerves, giving him the exact percentages of the air’s constituents. Williams ran quickly through the numbers, and then dismissed them. There were a few interesting traces, though nothing that would cause any immediate harm, and no surprises. Pretty standard air, when you got right down to it.
    He retracted the sensor spikes, patched into the pinnace’s computers, and had them run a systems check on his adjustments. A rush of brief sensations flowed through him, like a series of tiny sparks glowing and dying, come and gone too quickly for him to decide whether they were pleasant or not. The computers were sparking each augmentation in turn into life, just long enough for it to be checked, and then shutting it down again once it had tested out satisfactorily. The whole thing was over in a matter of seconds, and Williams smiled thinly as the computers assured him all his systems were working normally. He was sure he would have been able to tell on his own if anything was wrong, but it was as well to check while he had the chance.
    He cut off the computers, and checked the readings on his implanted energy crystals. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief when they all showed a good 98 percent charge. Providing he was careful, they should last him till he could acquire some more. He tried to think what it had been like, being merely human, with no augmentations at all, and was faintly disturbed to find he couldn’t remember. He frowned. It hadn’t been that long ago. Perhaps it was just that he didn’t want to remember….
    He brushed the thought briskly aside, and lay back on his bedroll. He was tired, and he’d done all the chores he intended to. If there were other things that needed doing around the camp, let the others do it. He was a scientist, not a servant. He smiled faintly, savouring the word scientist. He’d been the best in his field before his fall; everybody said so. Even the ones who hated him, and there were a lot of those. The Wampyr would have made him rich and famous throughout the Empire if lesser men, jealous of his success, hadn’t whispered poison in the Empress’s ear….
    Williams scowled, and then quickly composed his features in case the others were watching. One day, the Empress herself would pay for what she’d done to him. All of those who’d betrayed him would pay, and pay in blood….
    His hands had closed into fists, and he forced them to open again. As far as the Captain and the Investigator were concerned, he was a quiet, harmless doctor, and he wanted them to go on thinking