Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

panel exploded. Blinded by smoke and flames, Random hung on to the dead throttle as the sled dropped out beneath him. The sled fell like a brick, leaving the smoke behind, and Random could see the armada falling away above him, leaving him behind. Random cursed and struggled with what was left of the controls. He wasn't afraid of dying. He was too angry. He hadn't come this far, been through this much, to fail now.
    The sled's engine coughed briefly, and the sled lurched beneath him, almost throwing him off. Random snarled something indistinct, and concentrated on the controls, trying to coax a miracle out of the burning remnants of the crippled sled. And one of the gods he was praying to must have been listening, because
    the sled's engine fired back into life. It sounded ragged and uncertain, and the sled lurched and tilted this way and that, but gradually its headlong plummet slowed to a halt, and then, as Random whooped and howled and shook his fist in triumph, the sled slowly began to rise again, heading up the side of the Tower Chojiro toward the Family on the top floor.
    The sled's engine wanted to cut out at any moment, but Random wouldn't let it, nursing the controls along with scowling concentration. The armada was still flooding by above him, dark shapes racing unstoppably toward the many Towers.
    The guns still sounded, and great ragged gaps were appearing in the dark tide, but still the sleds pressed on. Some had already made contact, blowing holes in the steelglass windows and crashing into the top floors of the Towers. There were troops waiting for them with sword and gun, but the first wave of rebels fought well, with a fierce desperation, refusing to die until they had established a beachhead for those coming after them. Many of them died anyway, cut down by overwhelming odds, but more rebels were appearing all the time, and slowly, foot by foot, they forced their way into the Towers.
    It was a fight the Families had never expected to have to fight. After the Wolfes' sled attack on Tower Campbell, most Families had added extra disrupter cannon on the roofs, and invested in a few gravity barges, but they'd never anticipated such a near-suicidal charge.
    More and more gravity sleds made it past the Towers' defenses and crashed their way into the top floors. Random cursed regretfully as his sled slowly rose nearer the top floor of Tower Chojiro. He'd always meant to be one of the first in, fighting to provide a landing ground for those coming behind him. Jack Random had always believed in leading from the front. He couldn't see what had happened to Ruby Journey and Alexander Storm, but he couldn't think about them
    now. The sled lurched up past the last few floors, and came to a halt facing the top floor of Tower Chojiro. And Random's stomach lurched as he found himself facing a dozen leveled hand disrupters. Someone had smashed a hole through the steelglass window but obviously hadn't survived it. Random's adrenaline kicked in, and everything seemed to move very slowly. He seemed to have all the time in the world to study the situation and think about what to do. He didn't trust his control over the sled enough to risk dropping below the guns' range, and he was moving too slowly to rise above it. And if he used up his last few moments trying to raise the sled's force shield, only to find it didn't work, the disrupters wouldn't leave enough of him to bury. So Random did the only thing he could, as time crashed up to speed again. He gave the sled all the speed it had, and slammed the craft right into the waiting guards.
    Their shots went wild as he was suddenly among them, but some hit anyway. The sled exploded, throwing Random forward over the controls in a cloud of flames.
    He flew blindly through the air, smarting from the heat of the flames, trying to get his feet under him. The guards scattered as what was left of the sled crash-landed among them and exploded again. Random hit the carpeted floor hard, driving the breath from his lungs. He curled into a ball, hoping the smoke from the explosions would hide him, desperately trying to draw his sword and gun. He could hear shouting and the crackle of flames and general chaos. And then what was left of the fiercely burning sled crashed down on top of him, pinning him to the floor, and there was only blazing heat and the roar of the fire all around him.
    The surviving guards called for reinforcements as they fought the fires breaking out all over the top