Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

inevitable that they would take some damage, but as long as a spark of energy remained in their systems they pressed on, marching, limping or crawling on their bellies, never stopping. Men and women and children died screaming under metal hands, and Valentine was there.
    He'd wondered why the rouge AIs of Shub had insisted on supplying him with this particular gift, but now he thought he knew why. It was their way of showing him what it was like to be living metal, to be encompassed by the certainty of steel and tech, to be so much more than merely human, free from the limits of flesh.
    Valentine's scarlet smile stretched from ear to ear, a new satisfaction glowing in his mascaraed, fever-bright eyes. He spread himself through the entire metal army, growing larger and larger, blossoming through every system at once, his artificially boosted, drug-expanded mind living inside every war machine on Virimonde, and loving every minute of it.

    The man who was now the Lord High Dram led his troops howling through the blazing streets of a small town. Buildings burned to every side, thick black smoke billowing up into the early-morning sky. The heat from every side made Dram's exposed face and hands smart, and hot cinders floated on the air. His men spread out, plunging down every side turning and alleyway, searching out rebels and putting them to the sword. Suddenly his men began falling, as snipers opened fire from the upper story of a building up ahead. Dram roared orders, and a dozen disrupters opened fire at once, the joined energy blasts blowing the whole upper floor of the building apart in a shower of rubble and reddish clouds of pulverized bricks. Dram had his men toss a few concussion grenades into the lower floor, just in case, and then they moved on. Dram strode at the head of his troops, gun in one hand, sword in the other. Blood dripped steadily from the sword. There were screams and shouts and explosions all around, and Dram grinned so widely his cheeks ached. This was what he had been born, had been constructed and chosen, to do, and he loved every minute of it.
    He shouldn't really have been planetside at all. He should have stayed safely in orbit, setting overall policy and allowing General Beckett to take care of the practical side of things. Dram had started out with good intentions, but they hadn't lasted long once the fighting really got under way. He'd watched it all on the Elegance's bridge monitors, calling constantly for more information, his blood boiling with the thrill of battle. At first he tried to use his men efficiently, killing only those who needed to be killed, and keeping destruction of towns and cities to a necessary minimum. But all that stopped when the rebel population suddenly produced guns and weapons from nowhere and began fighting back. Dram watched his men die, and the rebels defying him, and a fury roared through him, that these peasants dared to stand against him. He'd taken it easy
    on them, and this was his reward. Dram watched his men die, and knew he needed to be down there with them, in the thick of it all, leading them to victory while personally cutting down those who dared defy him. He needed to smell the blood and death, feel his sword sinking into flesh and jarring on bone. And so he overrode Beckett's advice and warnings, and went down into Hell on the next available pinnace.
    And he loved it. He swung his sword with an arm that never tired, and no one could stand against him. He was the Warrior Prime, the Widowmaker, and he was everything the original had been and more. He stayed at the head of his troops, taking out rebel strongholds with gun and grenades, leading his men from one glorious victory to another. Buildings blazed around him, the rebels' dead lay everywhere, and the survivors ran before him, and he'd never felt so alive in his entire short life. His heart hammered in his chest, his breathing was deep and harsh, and he felt like he could go on fighting forever and a day, and never ask for anything else. From time to time it occurred to him that he wasn't fighting some faceless enemy, that the people he killed had faces and lives and histories of their own, and parents and children to mourn them, but even then he didn't care. They had defied him and his Empress and the way things were, and there was only one answer for that. If they had surrendered, he would have spared them. He was sure he would. They would have had to stand trial, and many would have