Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

entrance. Lewis shot across the sands towards the main gates, closing his mind if not his heart to the sounds of suffering all around him. Above the closed gates was a security control center, computers to run the automated systems. Like the security cameras . . . That at least was something he could do. Lewis took careful aim and blasted the center with his disrupter. The whole place blew apart in a satisfyingly large explosion, and all the security cameras went offline, dropping out of the air like dead birds.
    The thralls on the sands screamed the ELFs' frustration, as they realized their propaganda wasn't going out any longer. No doubt the media bosses were also doing a certain amount of screaming at being denied such prime material, and no doubt there would be any number of official complaints to come, but Lewis decided he wouldn't worry about that until later.
    He looked around to see what Finn was doing, and his stomach dropped. Finn's first thought was always to take out the bad guys. Preferably by the most direct route. Lewis saw immediately what the other Paragon was planning, and cried out to him, but it was too late. Finn wouldn't have listened anyway. He never did.
    Finn drove his gravity sled into the crowd at full speed, plowing through them like a battering ram. Both he and the sled were protected by the force shield at its prow, and he slammed through the screaming people, throwing them aside, bloodied and broken, as he sped towards the ELF he'd located in the crowd. The ELF threw himself into the air, but he was too late. Finn raised the sled's prow just a little, and hit the ELF head-on at full speed. The sled's esp-blocker shut the ELF's powers down, and his body
    was splattered all over the gravity sled's force shield. And all it cost was fifty or so dead and maimed innocents who happened to be in the way of Finn's sled. Finn didn't look to see. He was already circling over the crowd again, looking for another target of opportunity.
    Afterwards, he'd make all the appropriate noises to the families of those he'd injured and killed, but Finn didn't really care. All the Paragons knew about Finn. All he ever cared about was taking down the bad guys, and if some innocents got caught in the crossfire, well, that was regrettable but sometimes necessary. And people accepted that, because Finn was so very good at taking down the bad guys.
    Lewis had never accepted it.
    He shut out the horrid din of the crowd, and the thought of how many poor souls Finn might kill in the ruthless pursuit of his prey, and made himself concentrate on the main problem. There was an answer ...
    he could feel it. Something someone had said, not too long ago . . . The thought eluded him, maddeningly just out of reach. All right. All right; think it through. The crowd is trapped in the Arena. No way of getting them out of the Arena. Security would have sealed all the exits automatically. So the answer to the problem would have to come from inside the Arena . . . Security! Arena security used tanglefields and sleepgas to control the imported killer aliens! Dammit, he'd only just been discussing that with Finn and Douglas at Court!
    Obvious question: why hadn't the Arena security forces already activated the systems? Obvious answer: go and find out.
    Lewis drove his gravity sled right at the closed gates that led to the systems under the Arena. Smoke was still billowing out of the control center he'd blown up just a little earlier. The closed gates below looked to be made of sterner stuff, namely solid steel with electronic backups. Lewis pushed the sled to full speed, strapped himself into his crash webbing, and put his faith in the prow force shield. He was skimming just above the surface of the sands now, the air shrieking past him, heading straight for the closed steel doors. Thralls on the sand were running after him. They'd never catch him in time. The steel doors were rushing towards him now. They looked very solid. Lewis braced himself as best he could, and at the last moment fed all the emergency power to the force shield.
    He hit the gates dead-on, and punched right through them. The left door swung inwards before him, buckled and half torn away by the blow, locks and bolts flying through the air like shrapnel. The sled rang like a bell from the impact, and shook Lewis in his webbing like a dog with a rat. But the force shield held, and the sled kept on going. Lewis clung desperately to the controls and guided the sled at