Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

worth far too much to expose them to unnecessary risks."
    "Stelmach, they are going to the front. One more word from you, and you can lead the way. Got it?"
    The Security Officer considered the question a moment and then nodded reluctantly. The team moved slowly on, the Wampyr in the lead. The marines muttered among themselves, not sure whether to feel relieved or insulted. The city moved slowly past them, dark and glittering and possibly aware. And finally, after one hour and seventeen minutes, they came to the Vault.
    It was huge, monolithic, its gleaming steel walls stretching away in all directions for as far as the lights could penetrate the darkness. The instruments went crazy over it, even those that had been functioning up until then. The Wampyr and the marines hung back, somewhat reluctant to approach the Vault now they'd finally reached it. It was too big, too vast for the human mind to comfortably encompass. Silence went up to it. Frost at his side. He reached out to touch the gleaming steel, and then hesitated at the last moment. It was as though there was a cold wind blowing constantly from the wall. He could feel it as a gentle pressure on his face. His reflection in the steel looked vague, distorted, like a ghost of himself, a premonition come back to warn him.
    "Set up the force shield," he said harshly, turning away from the wall. "Once we've opened this thing up, I don't want anything getting past us and out into the city."
    The marines came forward and bustled around setting up the force field generator, glad to be doing something they understood. It wasn't much of a generator, put together from parts they'd been carrying in their backpacks, but it would produce a force screen big enough to cover any hole they could hope to
    make in the Vault wall. The last marine finished his task with a little flourish and pressed the activating stud. A glowing force wall appeared, sealing off the team and their part of the wall from the rest of the city. They just had time to relax a little and look at each other confidently, and then the generator shorted out and the force field collapsed. Smoke curled up from the generator, and a few of the braver marines batted it aside with their hands as they looked the generator over, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Frost looked at Silence.
    "Great start."
    "Can you fix it?" Silence said to the marines.
    "Doesn't actually appear to be anything wrong with it," came back a quiet, tentative voice. "I think it's just being too close to the Vault that did it.
    All my instruments are going crazy. The readings don't make any sense at all.
    But you can forget about the force shield. There's no way we can hope to fix this down here."
    "How about the tangle field? That uses a lot less energy."
    The marines stepped suddenly back from the generator. The solid frame was melting, running away in long shallow streams of plasteel. Silence looked at it numbly. That stuff had a melting point in the thousands. Any heat strong enough to melt the plasteel should have been more than enough to reduce the entire team surrounding it to ashes. Frost stepped forward and prodded one of the melting streams with the tip of her sword. The steel tip steamed, but seemed unharmed.
    The Investigator pulled back the sword and sniffed the point tentatively.
    "Interesting," she said finally.
    Anything else you'd like to add?" said Silence after a moment.

    "Not right now," said Frost. "I'm going to have to think about this." She moved away, frowning thoughtfully.
    "You do that," said Silence. He looked back at the marines. "Set up the disrupter cannon. Make sure you've got a good field of fire for the guns. Now it's more important than ever that nothing gets past us."
    The marines set to work again, assembling the cannon from their packs. Stelmach moved in beside Steel.
    "Do you really think they're going to work any better than the generator?"
    Silence shrugged. "Damned if I know. But they'd better, or we've come all this way for nothing. According to the first team's record, it's going to take both of those cannon to make a hole in that wall."
    "We don't know why some things work and some don't," said Frost, moving back to rejoin them. "We could lose anything at any time. Our guns, our lights…"
    Stelmach shuddered suddenly. "Imagine being trapped down here in the dark."
    Frost shrugged. "Wouldn't bother me."
    "No," thought Silence, I don't suppose it would, at that. But even an Investigator needs