Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

bare hands if they could; but still she fought with cold calculation, killing only when she had to, to survive.
    Right now, she was concentrating on getting to someone she could trust to guard her back. The Paragon she'd spotted was just ahead now, fighting with skill and precision, actually smiling slightly in the face of impossible odds. Not that she would have expected anything less from him. Emma didn't know many Paragons by sight, but everyone knew the classically handsome features of Finn Durandal.
    Finn didn't see her coming, being more preoccupied with looking good. He'd come out into the crowd because it could have looked odd, if not downright suspicious, if he hadn't. There was no plausible way he could have avoided knowing about the riot, or the assault on his fellow Paragons, and if he hadn't put in an appearence, people would have asked questions. They might even have begun to doubt him, and he couldn't have that. He still needed to be seen as the selfless hero they'd always thought he was. So he came roaring in on his gravity sled, jumped down into the thick of the fighting, right next to a hovering media camera, and got stuck in, smiting the ungodly with all his usual vim and vigor.
    Of course, there was no point in taking unnecessary risks. The people he'd chosen to fight were actually his own people, hand-picked bravos recruited from the smoke-filled dens of the Rookery; paid handsomely to put up a good fight and lose impressively, right where the camera could see it. And protect him from the genuine rioters while they did it. They blended in easily with the rest of the mob, largely anonymous in their previously supplied crimson Church outfits, and engaged Finn in lengthy, flashy but essentially safe duels that the watching home audience would eat up with spoons. And if none of these apparent bad guys were actually dying; well, that just showed how merciful and compassionate the great Finn Durandal could be.
    It was all going very well, until Emma Steel suddenly appeared out of nowhere, bound and determined to fight at his side. He knew her reputation. Everyone did. He couldn't fake a duel in front of her and hope to get away with it. So he shrugged mentally, and killed his own people. He did it quickly, before they could realize he wasn't pretending anymore; but even so, he thought Emma gave him a strange, almost puzzled look before the last of the bravos was dead, and the real crowd closed in around them, and they were both fighting for real.
    Finn was just planning a path that would take him (apparently by chance) to the edge of the roiling crowd, and relative safety, when there was a roar of displaced air above him, and he looked up sharply to see military gravity barges appearing in the sky above the not. Huge, dark vessels, bristling with rows of disrupter cannon, every one of them targeted on the crowd below. Loud broadcast voices called for the mob to throw down their weapons and surrender, or else. Finn and Emma stood back to back,
    sword and gun still in hand, looking quickly about them to see which way the crowd would go. The mob had found a taste for blood, and just might make a fight of it. And then the espers appeared, dozens of them, hovering in midair beside and among the gravity barges, looking down on the mess of mere humanity below them like so many angels standing in judgement. Their eyes glowed bright as suns as they hung unsupported on the air, the sheer sense of their presence almost overwhelming. When they spoke it was with one voice, sounding simultaneously in everyone's mind; a great godlike Voice that could not be defied or debated, only obeyed.
    Put down your weapons. Stand still. Wait quietly for the peacekeepers to come and take you away.
    All through the crowd, people dropped guns and swords and improvised weapons, their hands opening in spite of themselves. The compulsion in their minds shut down everything but their most basic thought processes. Their faces were blank, their eyes empty, all rage and passion and individuality gone in a moment. Only the surviving peacekeepers, security forces, and Paragons remained untouched, exempt from the telepathic geas. Emma slowly lowered her sword, looking wonderingly about her. Finn put away his sword and gun and walked away, unnoticed. Peacekeepers began slowly making their way through the calm, unresponsive crowd, searching out the troublemakers and rabble-rousers, and collecting discarded weapons by the armful. The telepaths