Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

had to run like hell as molten metal came dropping out of the sky like a deadly hail. As they trudged back into the snows outside the city, and temporary safety, Toby and Flynn gave up trying to interview the exhausted troopers after the negative replies escalated from the obscene to actual death threats.
    "Wonder where they'll send us next," said Flynn, after a while.
    "Somewhere where things are going rather better, I should imagine," said Toby.
    "Assuming there is such a place."
    "Bound to be. The defenders just got lucky here, that's all."
    "I don't know," said Flynn. "What were the odds of a gravity barge just happening to fall on the war wagons?"
    Toby looked at him. "What are you implying? That the rebels brought it down in some way? Forget it. They don't have that kind of weaponry. And if you're thinking of espers, even the infamous Inspector Topaz her own bad self couldn't have brought down something that big. Espers just don't come that strong. And that's without Legion scrambling their minds."
    "This is Mistport," said Flynn, darkly. "I've heard things about Mistport. Never wanted to come here in the first place."
    "It's certainly full of surprises," said Toby. "Did you see who was leading the rebel forces? Jack Random, looking just like his old holo pictures. Only, if that's Jack Random, whom did we see leading the rebel forces on Technos III?
    That man looked a lot older, and harder used. And I don't believe he could have got from there to here, in so short a time. Not without the Empire knowing."
    "Maybe one of them's a double. Or a clone." Flynn scowled. "Either way, there's a lot to this story that we're not being told."

    "Nothing new there," said Toby. "If we run across him again, maybe we can pin him down for an interview. I could name my own price for a piece like that.
    Prime time, guaranteed."
    "The powers that be, and intend to keep on being, would never let you show it."
    Toby grinned. "Where there's a wallet, there's a way."
    In the labyrinthian heart of Thieves Quarter, in the Blackthorn Inn, representatives of the esper union were fighting to keep track of what was happening. More people were arriving all the time, filling the crowded room, as news poured in from all over the city. The Council members, minus Albert Magnus, were still poring over the great map of Mistport, studying the situation with darkening scowls. The news was rarely good. The esper reps showed the positions of the gravity barges and sleds as small black shadows drifting over the map.
    Espers flying up to fight them showed as bright burning sparks. The sparks tended to blink out suddenly after a while, and no one needed to ask why. More shadows showed at the boundaries of the city, where the Empire forces had breached the boundary walls. The dark stains spread inward as the invading forces pressed on into the city despite all the defenders could do to slow or stop them. The shadows were holding only at the southwest boundary, where news of an unexpected victory was beginning to drift in.
    Chance's children lay huddled on blankets in one corner of the room, keeping up a steady, quiet babble of information and warnings as Chance moved among them, cajoling and praising and bribing them with bits of candy. Any one of them he left alone for too long tended to drift into waking nightmares, screaming and howling piteously. The esper union reps were hiding the Blackthorn's position and inhabitants with their superior mental abilities, but even they couldn't
    protect the Abraxus children from the horror of Legion. The never-ending scream, rasping in their minds and souls like the scrape of bone on bone, or the tearing of living meat. No one knew how the children experienced it, but the look on their small faces as they mewled despairingly and twisted in their blankets was enough to keep anyone from asking. Chance pleaded with the Council to let him sedate the children, but the answer was always no. They were too useful.
    A few espers teleported in and out with important messages, appearing and disappearing in puffs of disturbed air. Static sparked around them, discharging painfully through the nearest metal. They were risking their lives with every jump, and everyone knew it. Legion's scream was interrupting their concentration. Some never arrived. Just blinked out in one location, and were never seen again. Some arrived at the inn in pieces, or horribly rearranged. One materialized half inside the tavern wall. He was still