Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

floor. The Clan Chojiro had already retreated to the floor
    below sometime back. More men arrived, and some fought the fires while others took up positions at the broken windows, keeping up a steady fire on the advancing sleds. Tower Chojiro had more disrupter cannon on the roof than most, and for the moment most of the one-man sleds were concentrating their efforts on the less well defended Towers. A handful of guards cautiously approached the blazing wreckage of the downed sled. There was no way anyone could have survived such a crash and its aftermath, but the guards were taking no chances. They'd been hearing disturbing things about some of the rebels. One of the braver guards leaned over the wreckage and poked it gingerly with the tip of his sword.
    The heat from the fire kept him from getting any closer, but he thought he could see a single blackened leg protruding from under the rear of the wreckage. He poked that with his sword too, and then leaped back as the leg twitched. He scrambled backwards to rejoin his fellows, and the whole wreckage lurched to one side as something underneath it rose up from certain death, determined to be free. The burning sled overbalanced and fell away, revealing a dark human figure. Its clothes were charred and smoldering, and the bare face and hands were blackened and red raw from burns. But its back was straight and its head erect, and the blistered hands held gun and sword securely. The eyes were pale slits in the dark face, but white teeth flashed suddenly in a disturbing smile.
    "I don't die that easily," said Jack Random.
    The guards stood where they were for a long moment, paralyzed at the sight of something that should have been dead and still, but instead had risen up to challenge them again. But they were trained Tower guards, conditioned to serve their Family unto death, and the moment passed. They threw the fear off with a cold shrug and started forward, swords raised to carve the burnt specter into a hundred pieces and see if it rose again. Random aimed his disrupter carefully
    and took out three of the guards with a single shot. They fell silently, and the rest came on. Random put his gun back in its charred holster, took a firm grip on his sword, and wondered how many he might take with him before they finally pulled him down. Even he had his limitations, and he could feel how close they were. Surviving the crash had taken a lot out of him, and he wasn't going to be given enough time to recover. He would have shrugged if it hadn't hurt so much.
    He'd always known he's die alone, overrun at last by too many enemies. And that was when Ruby Journey's voice suddenly grated in his ears.
    "Hit the floor, Random!"
    He threw himself down without questioning, and the room was immediately full of the roar of gunfire as Ruby opened up with the heavy projectile weapon mounted on her gravity sled, hovering outside the shattered windows. The guards jerked and convulsed as the bullets tore through them, falling helpless before a weapon they had never been prepared for. The few shots they got off went wild, and soon they were all dead, lying in tangled bloody heaps on the expensive carpeting.
    The gun finally shut off, and the sudden quiet in the room was almost deafening.
    Thick trails of smoke curled lazily on the air. Ruby ripped the heavy gun from its moorings, jumped easily through the shattered window, and hurried over to Random, who raised a tired hand in greeting. Ruby stared at the charred and blistered hand, then at his red raw face.
    "Jack… you look awful."
    "Thanks a whole bunch. I think it probably looks worse than it feels, though it feels pretty bad. But I'm healing. I can feel it. I'm still in the game." He looked down at the projectile weapon she had cradled in her arms. "Guess you were right to bring that thing along after all. Is it as much fun as it looked?"

    Ruby chuckled. "Bet your ass. Hold it for a while." She dropped it into his arms, and moved purposefully toward the dead guards. She knelt beside them and began going through their pockets with professional speed and skill. Random frowned.
    "Ruby, what are you doing?"
    "Just looking for valuables. Credits, jewelry, anything going."
    "We don't have time for looting!"
    "There's always time for looting. When I joined up with this rebellion, I was promised all the loot I could carry, and this is the first down payment. Though I have to say we're talking lean pickings here. Cheap bunch. Still, by this time