Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

Vault."
    Great, thought Silence. Just great. The one thing he'd been counting on was being able to avoid long exposure to the city's alien technology and its effects on the human mind. It also meant that they had that much less time to cope with whatever came out of the Vault. Silence thought hard.
    "Do we have any idea of why the mining machinery's broken down?"
    "No. Telemetry's out, along with the comm systems. The slightly good news is that at least the elevator's still working. For the moment."
    "So that even if it gets us down to the city, there's no guarantee it'll still be working when we want to come back up?"
    "You got it."
    "Marvelous. All right, we go ahead with the mission as planned. Unlike the first
    team, we've got battle espers and esp-blockers on our side. Hopefully one or the other will protect us from the city's influence. If not, we get to find out just how tough we really are. Get the marines moving, Investigator. Time is not on our side."
    The trip down in the elevator turned out to be something of an anticlimax. It was crowded, hot and stuffy, and distinctly claustrophobic, but since everyone was busy considering the horrors to come, nobody really noticed. With the comm systems out, there was no point in waiting for the marines' all clear, so Silence and the Investigator accompanied the first batch of espers down and hoped for the best.
    The city itself seemed quiet and peaceful, but Silence couldn't help thinking of it as the quiet of the graveyard. The marines had already set up a perimeter, with bright lights pushing back the darkness in all directions. They carried their guns at the ready and looked more than willing to use them at the first opportunity. Frost hummed something cheerful as she set off to inspect the perimeter, and Silence moved the espers off to one side. For the moment, he had all three of his esp-blockers working, hoping their field would be strong enough to protect the entire team. But, just in case, he briefed the espers on maintaining a full psionic screen, should it prove necessary. They agreed easily enough, their eyes elsewhere. Silence couldn't blame them. It was all he could do to keep from turning round to stare out into the darkness. Anything could be out there. Anything at all.
    The Wampyr waited patiently for orders. Stelmach was too busy looking around with an open mouth. Apparently seeing the city on a viewscreen was quite a different thing from seeing it up close and personal. He caught Silence looking
    at him and closed his mouth with a snap. He barked out orders, and the Wampyr moved unhurriedly to take up a formation around him. Whatever else happened, Stelmach was clearly determined on surviving to tell everyone else about it.
    Silence smiled crookedly. It wasn't a bad idea, surrounding yourself with a wall of Wampyr. He just wished he'd thought of it first. Frost came back from the perimeter, and he put on his best cool, calm and confident look. Though he didn't know why he bothered. It had never fooled her before. She nodded casually and moved in close, her voice little more than a murmur.
    "Perimeter's secure, for the moment. Nothing on the motion trackers, but the long-range sensors are malfunctioning. We have to consider the possibility that ail our tech could fall foul to the city's influence. No guns, no force shields, no anything. We could end up going one-on-one with the Sleepers armed only with our swords and bad intentions. I'm not even going to think about the repeaters breaking down. Of course, there's always the Wampyr. They're pretty deadly in themselves, and their strength and speed aren't reliant on tech. Maybe our superiors did know what they were doing when they insisted we include the Wampyr on our team. How are the espers holding up?"
    "Hard to tell. They're acting pretty spacey, but that's hardly unusual with battle espers. I'm relying on the esp-blockers to protect them and us for the moment. Let's get the troops moving. Investigator. The less time we spend down here, the better."
    "Spoilsport," said Frost. "You never want to do anything fun."
    The marines took the point, guns at the ready, lights blazing on their helmets.
    The cameras on their shoulders were still working, even though they couldn't transmit live to the Dauntless. The only way a record of this expedition would survive would be if someone returned to the surface with it. Frost moved with
    the marines, eyes alight, just waiting for some enemy stupid enough to start