Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

said "Kill them all. Open fire!"
    Hundreds of disrupters rose and targeted, and Roland and Laura charged forwards, into the face of the guns, roaring the Clan battle cry: Shandrakor! Skandmkor! An energy beam punched through Laura's breast and out her back, but she still kept going. A disrupter blew away Roland's left shoulder and arm, and he cried out loudly but didn't stop. The rest of the Clan were moving behind them now, racing into the blast of massed disrupter fire. Roland took an energy bolt in the head, and fell to the ground. Laura was hit again and again, and still momentum kept her going a few more steps before she finally stumbled and fell.
    The Clan was being mowed down on all sides, but still they ran on, defying the troops to stop them.
    Dozens were dead, and more were falling, but the savage, unyielding cry of Shandrakor! still rose over the roar of the energy guns. No one flinched, and no one hesitated. Men, women, and children charged into the face of certain death, hoping only to live long enough to reach their tormentors. More than half the Clan were dead by the time the first Deathstalkers reached the front ranks of the soldiers. They fell
    upon the troopers, bare hands against guns and swords, and the soldiers died screaming. Every Deathstalker was a warrior trained. The Church Militant fanatics fought back, but even their blind faith faltered in the face of such iron determination. Some began to falter and fall back. Eventually some turned and ran. The surviving Deathstalkers snatched up weapons from the fallen soldiers, and the real killing began. And above it all, the ancient battle cry.
    Shandrakor! Shandrakor!
    And the fanatics broke and ran, streaming away across the open plain. Faith based on fear was no match for grim determination based on courage. They ran, and the surviving Deathstalkers—some sixty men, women, and children—stood their ground with foreign weapons in their hands and turned their furious gaze on the one enemy who had not run. The Paragon Lola Martinez stood calmly before them, smiling her interminable smile, not even bothering to draw a weapon. One of the Deathstalkers leveled a gun at her, and then hesitated as the uber-esper Screaming Silence looked back at him through her thrall's eyes. Her augmented mind reached out across the countless light years, and struck down her enemies in a moment. Her esp was no less powerful for all the distance it had traveled, or through being focused through her human thrall. Screaming Silence had been absorbing and storing all the sound and fury of the battle, and now she threw it all back in the faces of the briefly triumphant Deathstalkers. The psi storms swept through their minds, and they dropped their weapons to claw at their bursting heads.
    Sound too loud and harsh to be borne blew their minds apart, and they fell screaming to the ground as all their senses were subverted and turned against them. The slightest touch became agonizing. Taste and smell became overpowering. Light was blinding. All their senses were made unbearably intense, until their minds broke under the weight of it. The last of the Deathstalkers lay still and silent on the blood-soaked ground; men and women and children with the agonies of their deaths still plain upon their faces.
    Screaming Silence looked upon her awful work, and laughed.
    The attack troopers began filing back in small groups, and Lola Martinez called harshly for them to regroup. They formed up around her, cheering loudly as though the victory was theirs, but none of them liked to look at the Paragon directly. Lola Martinez ignored them all, and strode past the piled-up bodies of the Deathstalker dead, heading for the open main gates of the Standing. And Emma Steel stepped out of the shadows of the gates and shot her through the chest.
    The energy bolt sent Lola staggering backwards. She cried out once, as much in fury as pain, and then she fell to the ground. Emma Steel glared about her at the attack troopers, daring them to do anything, but they just stood where they were, too stunned by the sudden change in events to do anything. Emma gestured urgently to Nina, who came running forward with her big gun, her camera bobbing along above her shoulder. Emma knelt beside the dying Lola, who glared viciously back at her. When she spoke, blood spilled from her mouth.
    "Nice shooting, Paragon. But don't think you've won anything. I'm not Lola Martinez."
    "I know," said Emma. "You're an