Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

ground, before the main assault.
    Men and women came running out of the square stone houses to watch the pinnaces falling out of the sky. Legion might be able to fool espers and sensors, but even it couldn't hide the roar of so many thundering engines from the people directly below them. At least, not yet. The townspeople gathered by the high stone walls surrounding their town, and watched and babbled excitedly as the ships just kept on coming. It didn't take them long to figure out what was happening. They'd spent most of their lives expecting and preparing for an invasion. The day the Empire came to reclaim Mistport as its own. Men and women
    ran to get their weapons and hide the children from what was to come.
    Troops filed out of the long narrow ships, weighed down by armor insulated against the bitter cold, carrying swords and energy weapons and force shields.
    The pinnaces had disrupter cannon, but they were being saved for Mistport.
    Marines moved quickly to establish a perimeter around the landing field, ignoring the town for the moment. Imperial troops stood in ranks, waiting for the word. Cold-eyed, seasoned, disciplined killers, eager to make a start.
    Sergeants barked orders, officers strolled into position, and still the ships fell, and more men came marching out onto the snow and ice.
    Toby Shreck and his cameraman Flynn, wrapped in heavy-duty furs, lumbered out into the cold, swore briefly, and began filming. They'd been instructed to cover everything, and Lieutenant Ffolkes was right there to see that they did. He watched the army assembling, and swelled with pride. It was days like this that made you glad to be a member of the Imperial Fleet.
    And finally, from out of the last ship to land, came the commander of the Imperial forces, Investigator Razor. He hadn't bothered with insulated armor or furs, wearing only the blue and silver of an Investigator's formal uniform. He didn't feel the cold, but then, everyone knew Investigators weren't really human. The Empress herself had placed Razor in charge of all ground troops.
    Partly because he had led invasion forces in the past, before his retirement, and partly to show that the Empress trusted him entirely, despite his age and Chojiro connections.
    Razor's staff officers gathered around him, bringing him up-to-date, anxious to show that everything was as it should be. Razor nodded curtly. It had never occurred to him that it wouldn't. Beginnings were easy to plan. His personal
    staff officer handed him a pair of binoculars, and he studied the town and the surrounding area. Normally he would have linked into the ship's computers through his comm implant, and accessed the sensor arrays, but with Legion blocking all frequencies, he'd had to arrange for low-tech aids for himself and his troops. Apart from the town there was nothing but snow and ice for as far as the eye could see, except for the long range of the Deathshead Mountains, plunging up into the sky. They looked cold and indifferent, as though nothing that happened below them could possibly be of any significance. Razor smiled slightly. He'd change that.
    He studied the ten-foot-high stone wall surrounding the town. It was solid stone and mortar, sturdy and well-constructed. A few energy blasts would take care of it. Men and women from the town stood watching from catwalks along the top of the inner wall. Most were armed with swords and axes and spears, but a few had energy weapons. Nowhere near enough to make any difference, though, and both sides knew it. The townspeople were all dead. They just hadn't lain down yet.
    Razor breathed deeply of the icy air, centering himself. This high up on the plateau, there were few mists, and the air was sharp and clear. He gave the order to begin, and a hundred marines opened fire with their disrupters. The stone wall exploded, stone fragments and bloody flesh flying in all directions.
    Smoke rose up, and sharp-edged rubble and small body parts pattered to the snow in an awful rain. There were shouts and screams as the survivors fell back from the great gaping hole in the wall. A few stayed to try and drag wounded from the wreckage, but the marines picked them off easily. More troops had moved into position on the other side of the town, and they blew that wall out, too. The townspeople had nowhere to go now, trapped between two advancing forces. Razor nodded to his staff officers, drew his sword and gun, and led the way into the
    small town of Hardcastle's