Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

anything better to do, moved over to the nearest door. There was a small viewscreen set into the solid steel. Finlay activated it, and the screen showed him what was inside the cell.
    The man spread-eagled on the metal table had been expertly flayed. Not a square inch of skin remained on him, but he was still very much alive. He moved feebly, struggling against unseen restrains. Raw red muscle glistened wetly. Naked eyes bulged from lidless sockets. Blood seeped constantly onto the table, carried
    away by grooves and runnels cut into the metal. New blood flowed into a pulsing vein from an IV drip. Finlay turned off the screen and leaned his forehead against the cold metal of the cell door.
    There was nothing he could do. He couldn't rescue everyone. He didn't have the time. The underground had been quite specific about that. He had to get to Skye before he could spill anything important. Finlay took a deep breath and let it out. To hell with them, and to hell with the Empire. He was damned if he'd let obscenities like this continue. He used the lock-scrambling mechanism the underground had provided, and the cell door swung silently open.
    Finlay slipped inside, and the man on the table whimpered in anticipation of fresh pain. Finlay leaned over him, making soothing shushing noises, and the prisoner quietened. It was only then that Finlay realized the man had been riveted to the table by firing metal spikes through his limbs and body. There were dozens of them. Finlay had no way of removing them, short of levering them out one at a time, and the shock alone would almost certainly finish the poor bastard off anyway. But he couldn't leave him to suffer like this. Finlay stood a moment, mind racing as he tried to come up with some other alternative, but in the end there was only one thing he could do. He smiled reassuringly down into the prisoner's naked, hopeful eyes, and slipped the point of his sword into the exposed, beating heart. There was a brief splash of blood, the flayed man jerked once, and then he stopped breathing. Finlay kicked at the table once in frustration and then left the cell.
    He stalked down the corridor, throwing open the cell doors one by one, freeing those prisoners he could. He killed the others. Some of them begged him to do it. The survivors spilled out into the corridor, milling about him, trying to thank him with voices grown raw from screaming. Finlay armed some of the
    sturdier ones with weapons from the guards he'd killed and then left them to their own devices. At least, that was the plan.
    There was the sound of running feet and then a full company of armed guards rounded the corner at the far end of the corridor, and came charging toward him.
    Finlay smiled. This was more like it. And then there was the sound of running feet behind him, and he turned to see another company of armed guards approaching from the other end of the corridor. The freed prisoners crowded in close around Finlay. He sighed regretfully. It would have been an interesting fight, but he knew his limitations. Besides, he had to think of the prisoners.
    He pulled the mindbomb from his pocket and pressed the big red button.
    The guards before and behind him stumbled to a halt, clutching at their heads and screaming. Their thoughts shattered and fragmented, their minds scrambled beyond sense or meaning, and in a moment they had changed from an organized army into a crazed, panic-stricken mob. Finlay and the freed prisoners watched, impressed, protected by their immediate proximity to the mindbomb device. Finlay turned it off and left the prisoners to deal with the still shrieking mob, while he went on about his business. A long delayed revenge filled the corridor, and blood spattered the shining steel walls. Finlay carried on opening doors and freeing prisoners, until finally he came to the cell with Julian Skye in it, and he stopped in the doorway, held by the shock of what he was seeing.
    The young esper lay on his back on another of the damned steel tables, held firmly in place by restraining straps. The back of his head had been shaved and cut open, and a section of the skull removed. Dozens of colorful wires disappeared into the exposed brain tissue, leading back into an ugly piece of machinery beside the table. Two mind techs, in their familiar white gowns,
    looked up from what they were doing and smiled pleasantly at Finlay as he hesitated in the doorway. They both had disrupters holstered on their hips, but