Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

heavy blades sinking deep into human flesh. The hacking and chopping went on for some time, finishing off those who wouldn't die immediately. Women tried to shield their children with their bodies, to no avail. The marines were very thorough.
    Razor smiled. He wanted his marines to be sure of their duty. And besides, it was important that people not think he was growing soft in his old age. He knew there were those watching from the sidelines, waiting to take advantage of any perceived weaknesses in his handling of this mission. Starting very definitely with Major Chevron, who'd made no secret of the fact that he thought he should have been in charge.
    Marines gathered around the few houses still holding rebels within. They tried
    setting fire to them, but the stone walls and slate roofs were slow to burn, so the marines settled for shooting out the shuttered windows, and tossing in grenades. A few townspeople burst out of their doors rather than wait to be finished off by fire or smoke or explosions. They came charging out, roaring obscure battle cries and waving their swords and axes, and the marines calmly shot them down from a distance. It didn't take long, and soon every house in Hardcastle's Rock was burning, sending a heavy pall of black smoke up into the lowering evening skies.
    Toby and Flynn were right there in the thick of it, recording everything. Flynn kept his camera moving in and out of the action, flying quickly back and forth on its antigrav unit, hovering overhead when the action got a little too close, while Toby kept up a running commentary. Flynn grew sickened by the slaughter and wanted to stop filming, but Ffolkes wouldn't let him, even putting a gun to the cameraman's head at one point. Toby just kept talking, and if his voice grew a little hoarse at times, well there was a lot of smoke in the air. Toby and Flynn had grown used to recording sudden death in close-up on the battlefields of Technos III, but nothing there had prepared them for this. Technos III had been a war between two more or less equally matched sides. This was just butchery. Ffolkes wasn't around when Razor gave the order for the executions.
    Flynn looked at Toby.
    "I can't do this. I can't."
    "Keep filming."
    "I can't! This is obscene. They've already surrendered."
    "I know. But it's important we cover everything."
    Flynn glared at him. "You'd do anything for good ratings, wouldn't you?"
    "Pretty much. But this is different. People have to see what happened here. What
    Lionstone is doing in their name."
    Flynn's mouth twisted into an ugly shape, and his eyes were wet with tears, but he got it all on film, right down to the last bloody cough and shuddering body.
    When it was over he sat down suddenly in the blood-splattered snow and cried.
    His camera hovered overhead. Toby stood over Flynn, patting him on the shoulder comfortingly. He was too angry to cry.
    "Bartok will never let this film be shown," Flynn said finally. "He'll censor it."
    "The hell he will," said Toby. "He'll be proud of it. His troops won a great victory here today. The first on Mistworld soil. You don't understand the military mind, Flynn."
    "And thank the good God for that." Flynn got to his feet again, waving away Toby's offer of help. His camera flew down to perch on his shoulder again.
    Ffolkes came over to join them. There was blood on his armor, none of it his, and his face was very pale. He looked at the pathetic piles of mutilated bodies, then looked at Toby and Flynn almost desperately.
    "Don't worry," said Toby. "We got it all."
    "It wasn't supposed to be like this," Ffolkes said thickly. "This isn't war."
    "Yes it is," said Investigator Razor, and Ffolkes spun around immediately. Razor stirred one of the bodies with the toe of his boot. "These are scum. Enemies of the Empire. There are no innocents here. Just by choosing to live on Mistworld, they are automatically traitors and criminals, and condemned to death."
    "What about the children?" said Flynn. "They didn't choose to live here. They were born here."
    Razor turned unhurriedly to look at him. "They would have grown to be traitors.

    Don't have much stomach for this, do you, boy?"
    "No," said Flynn. "No, I don't."
    "Don't worry, boy. This is nothing, compared to what's going to happen in Mistport. I'll make a man of you yet."
    And he strode away, calmly giving orders. The marines gathered up the bodies of the fallen townspeople and piled them together in one great heap in the middle of the