Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

of the defenders and tumble almost unhurriedly through the air toward Young Jack. It passed right in front of Flynn's camera, hung on the air for a long moment at the top of its loop, and then dropped directly toward Young Jack.
    Many of the rebels saw it coming, and screamed warnings, but in the tightly packed crowd of fighters, there was nowhere for Young Jack to go. The grenade exploded right in front of him, and his body took the full force of the explosion. The blast threw him to one side, crashing through friend and foe alike, and slammed him into the high stone wall that overlooked that side of the street. The wall swayed and then fell forward, collapsing on top of the people below. Dozens of other people, rebels and troops, had been hit by shrapnel from the grenade and they lay screaming in the street.
    Finlay and Evangeline and Julian had been protected behind Julian's hastily thrown-up force shield. As it dropped, Finlay quickly yelled for rebels to come forward and hold back the troops while he dug through the rubble of the fallen wall. Men and women rushed forward into the gap, yelling for Finlay to save Young Jack. Finlay was pretty sure the man had to be dead, but if there was even a chance… He bent over the rubble and started pulling away bricks, and soon Evangeline and Julian were there to help him. More people pushed forward, wanting to help but only getting in the way. Julian put up a force shield to hold them back, until they got the message. Finlay and Evangeline kept digging.
    It didn't take them long to find the first body parts. People had been torn literally limb from limb by the force of the explosion. They kept digging, forcing their way down through the bloody remains. Flynn's camera hovered overhead, getting it all. Some of the body parts were still twitching. Finlay and Evangeline dug down through the pitiful scraps and remnants, arms bloody to the elbow, and finally they came to what was left of Young Jack Random. For a
    second they just stood there, stunned, and then Finlay turned and glared back at Toby and Flynn.
    "Cut off the live feed! Do it now!"
    Toby leaned off the edge of the sled to argue, looked past Finlay and saw what he saw, and made a sharp chopping gesture to Flynn. The cameraman nodded, and cut off the live broadcast, but kept the camera in place, still recording. Toby moved the gravity sled in over Finlay and Evangeline as they bent over the revealed body of the thing called Young Jack Random. The force of the grenade's explosion had torn away much of his skin, revealing the gleaming blue steel beneath. His face was gone, leaving only a metal skull. The eye sockets were empty, but the white teeth remained, giving the metal skull a disturbingly human smile. Young Jack Random was a Fury, a spy from Shub, a machine in the shape of a man, hiding under a human appearance. And it was still alive. The lower part of the body was seriously crushed by the fallen wall, and one arm was missing, but the torso and head were pretty much intact. The Fury raised its metal head slightly and nodded to Finlay and Evangeline. When it spoke, the slightly echoing voice was calm, almost friendly.
    "All right, I'm a machine. But that doesn't mean we can't still be friends. You need me. Or who I'm pretending to be. I can be repaired. Cover my face, and no one will know the difference. Some of the truth is bound to leak out, but we can just tell everyone that I'm a cyborg. An augmented man. They'll buy that, after all Jack Random's supposed to have been through. You need me, Campbell. The rebels will follow a hero like me where they won't follow someone like you. So get a cloak to wrap me in, stick me on the Shreck's gravity sled, and I'll lead your people right into the command center."

    "Do you really think that any member of Humanity would follow a thing from Shub?" said Finlay, his voice cold and tight. "Do you think we would? You represent the Enemies of Humanity. Sworn to wipe us out to the last man, woman, and child. No wonder you enjoyed the slaughter here so much. And what would you do, after the rebellion is over? Be a party to our plans and hopes, just when we're at our most vulnerable? Do you really think we'd let a metal wolf like you into our fold?"
    "You don't really have much of a choice," said the machine calmly. "My systems are already repairing themselves, and you don't have any weapons here strong enough to destroy me. The grenade took me by surprise. It was unexpectedly