Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

gates, jumped the
    unconscious guards, and kept running. Out into the next corridor, just in time to see a dozen or more armed security men come running into the corridor from an intersection. They cried out on seeing Lewis, with his old uniform and holo disguise, and demanded to know what was happening. And then they cried out again and scattered in alarm as he opened fire with his disrupter. No more bluffing. He wanted Jesamine.
    He turned and ran the other way. He didn't think he'd hit anyone. He hoped he hadn't. They were just doing their job. But he would kill everyone he saw, if that was what it took to rescue Jesamine. If she was still here in the Tower . . .
    He had to find her, and soon, but he didn't even know where to look. She could be anywhere in the Tower, on any floor, if they hadn't already bustled her outside. No; she must still be around somewhere.
    They wouldn't risk taking her out while her fans were still rioting. Just the sight of her under arrest would escalate the trouble tenfold. Lewis ran on, plunging down corridor after corridor, as more guards came running from all directions. They'd seen his old uniform and holo face now, and knew who they were looking for. Some had guessed who he really was, and were using his name as a battle cry. They wouldn't hesitate to kill the traitor Deathstalker. Lewis gripped his gun tightly, and his ugly face was very determined and very cold.
    And finally, of course, he ended up in a dead end, with nowhere left to go. No doors, no windows, no hiding places; just blank walls and a corridor that went nowhere. Lewis spun around, sword and gun at the ready, like an animal at bay, and a whole crowd of armed and armored guards all but fell over themselves crashing to a sudden halt at the far end of the corridor. They saw they had their prey cornered at last, but they didn't seem too pleased about it. They looked at each other, shifting from foot to foot, and hefting their swords and guns uncertainly. It seemed they at least suspected who was hiding behind the holo face. Lewis reached up to the collar at his throat, and turned it off. No more hiding. The holo face blinked out, and many of the guards actually groaned as Lewis's familiar ugly features reappeared.
    He grinned at them, and growled deep in his throat, and was pleased to note that several of the guards'
    faces went pale.
    And then the guards raised their disrupters and pointed them at Lewis, and he understood they had no intention of even trying to take him alive. A dead traitor was much less trouble than a live prisoner who might insist on his innocence, and raise awkward doubts in the people's minds. Lewis's face flushed with anger as the force shield sprang into being on his left arm. It was a good shield, top of the line, but it would still only absorb or deflect a set number of hits before the energy crystal was drained, and then the force shield would collapse, and he would be defenseless. Had to be twenty, maybe thirty guards, and most of them had energy guns. Lewis calculated the odds coldly, and decided that what was left of his luck had just run out. No honorable end, no fighting chance; just shot down in secret, like a mad animal.
    He had a brief moment to regret all the things he meant to do, and never had, and that he'd never see Jesamine again, even to say good-bye; and then he heard more running feet on the way, and knew his time was up. So; if he was going to go down, best to go down fighting, and take as many of the bastards with him as he could. To be a Deathstalker, to the last. He looked at the guards, and saw some of them were still raising their guns. His reverie had only lasted a few seconds. What the hell . . . He raised his voice in the old family battle cry.
    "Shandrakor! Shandrakor!"
    And then he charged down the corridor, towards overwhelming odds and a certain death, smiling a terrible smile.
    Most of the guards were so astonished they just stood there and watched him do it. A handful of them
    fired their weapons, the energy beams searing past Lewis's head or ricocheting from his force shield, and then he was in and among them. He shot one man at point blank range, and then he cut about him with his sword, and blood and screams flew on the air. For a moment they actually fell back before him, frightened by his face and his reputation and his ancient, deadly name; and then they remembered how many they were, and their training reasserted itself. They fell on him, unable to use