Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

forcing the gas back upon the guards and dispersing it as fast as it could form. The hidden vents exploded in showers of sparks and collapsed in upon themselves, closing off the gas.
    Esper power crackled on the air like harnessed lightning, so thick and close that even a normal like Finlay could feel it. The guards realized the gas attack wasn't working and turned their guns on the rebels. Finlay raised his arm automatically, slapping at the bracelet on his wrist to activate his force shield. The roar of energy beams was deafening in the confined space, joined with the screams of the dying and the injured as rebels fell. There was the stench of burning flesh and melting metal as energy beams tore through bodies and ricocheted off the reinforced steel walls.
    They knew we were coming this way, thought Finlay. They've got us trapped in a killing field. He picked a target almost without thinking and shot a guard in the head. The top of the man's skull exploded in a shower of boiled blood and brains, and the guards around him fell back, shouting with shock and disgust.

    They hadn't expected any resistance. Finlay grinned savagely. When in doubt, do the unexpected. He ran forward, brandishing his sword, yelling for the others to follow him, and no one was more surprised than him when they did. Evangeline was there beside him, yelling her Clan's war cry and holding a sword like she knew what to do with it. The surviving espers and clones were right behind them, firing guns if they had them, and esper power thundered among the guards.
    Swords clashed on swords as the two forces slammed together, and the guards tried to make a stand. But even savagely depleted by the unexpected ambush, the rebels were still more than a match for the guards. The Stevie Blues stood together, the same grim expression on the same faces as fire roared from their hands. Guards dropped their swords and ran screaming as their clothes and hair burst into flames. Espers picked up guards with their minds and slammed them together with deadly force. Blood flew on the air. Bones cracked and skulls collapsed under the implacable mental pressure, and some guards just stood and stared with horror-filled eyes as telepaths ripped through their thoughts with tides of fear and depression and self-loathing. And those rebels who weren't espers took their revenges with the point and edge of unforgiving swords.
    Eventually Finlay looked round for another target and found there were no more left. Guards lay scattered across the floor of the chamber in awkward, blood-soaked poses, like broken dolls thrown aside by a bored child. Only rebels were still standing, looking confusedly about them, and it nearly broke Finlay's heart to see how few of them there were. Out of the fifty or so who'd accompanied him into Wormboy Hell, only nineteen remained, and three of them were Stevie Blues. He took a deep breath, turned off his force shield and flicked drops of blood from his sword. Someone would have to take charge, and it
    looked like it was going to have to be him. He had no real authority, but he'd spent enough time in the Arena to know that sometimes confidence is everything.
    "All right, listen to me! You can bet there are more guards on the way here, armed to the teeth, even as I speak. We have to form a perimeter. Anyone with esp, find a corridor opening and guard it. Everyone else, grab a gun. Anyone you see coming this way is almost certainly an enemy, so shoot on sight. If you kill the wrong person by accident, we can always apologize later. Now move it!"
    The Stevie Blues and a handful of others nodded unresistingly and hurried off.
    Finlay turned to Evangeline. There was a smear of someone else's blood on one cheek, and she was staring dumbly about her at the heaped piles of the dead.
    There was more blood spattered across her clothes, some of it hers. Finlay took her by the arm and made her turn around to face him.
    "Don't blank out on me now, Evie. I need to know what you know. How many other groups of us were there in this assault?"
    "Five," said Evangeline, swallowing hard and visibly trying to pull herself together.
    "Can we contact them, see if they were ambushed, too?"
    "They were," said a quiet voice beside them. It was a short, slightly overweight man with wide eyes and an open face. He might have looked like an accountant, if it hadn't been for the sword he held in a businesslike manner and the blood that soaked his sleeve to the elbow. "I'm a