Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

didn't need to breathe, and energy crackled up and down the length of his power lance, that ancient banned weapon. He concentrated and his speed increased, until the first starcruiser loomed swiftly up before him. Carrion smashed through the ship's force shields like they weren't even there, and then hammered his way through the many layers of steel in under a second before bursting out the hull on the other side. He swung around and hit the ship again, targeting the engines this time, punching holes through the steel decks with joyous ease. Explosions rocked the starcruiser as he hung a way off in space, and he smiled in the cold and the dark as the Heracles slowly tore itself apart, the long steel ship blossoming into bright actinic flames, and the screams of the dying went unheard in the vacuum of space.
    Carrion turned his back on the stricken ship as it began its slow descent from orbit, falling slowly but inevitably to its death.
    The other starcruisers were slowly turning and maneuvering to face Carrion as he flew effortlessly towards them. They opened up with every gun they had, the disrupter cannon operated by the very best
    tracking systems, releasing enough destructive energies to take out a dozen ships, let alone one man, unarmed and unprotected. But he was Carrion, and he had been through the Madness Maze, and he had faced the Recreated. He was human and Ashrai and so much more. And in the end, nothing was left of the five starcruisers but a few radioactive shells, tumbling slowly end over end into the fiery grasp of Unseeli's welcoming atmosphere.
    Carrion hung alone in space, looking down on his adopted world, and thought of many things.
    John Silence walked unhurriedly through the shimmering metal forest, and where he looked, war machines exploded. He looked up, and where his gaze fell upon them, gravity barges malfunctioned and fell out of the sky, impaling themselves on the tops and branches of the metal trees, or falling in flames to the gray ground below. Violent explosions sounded all through the forest as the Imperial advance slowed and stopped. Troops ran screaming rather than face him, only to meet the Ashrai, deadly and unstoppable, taking back their world from those who would despoil it. They generated localized psistorms wherever they went, altering probabilities so that weapons malfunctioned and accidents happened and men fell dead from strokes and embolisms and heart attacks. Finn's people had no espers to protect them, only a handful of easily overwhelmed esp-blockers.
    And of course, there was Lewis Deathstalker and Jesamine Flowers, Rose Constantine and Brett Random, and the reptiloid Saturday, and no man could stand against them either.
    Finn Durandal sent an army to Unseeli. Religious fanatics, Pure Humanity to a man, trained soldiers. And in the end, they never stood a chance, because the Ashrai weren't interested in accepting surrender either. Men had come to Unseeli with death on their minds, and that was what they found.
    Lewis Deathstalker and his companions finally returned to the clearing in which they'd left the Hereward.
    It seemed very still and quiet. You'd never know a terrible war had been fought only a short distance away. Lewis and Jesamine nodded to Rose and Brett, and then they all looked in disgust at Saturday as he gnawed on what was very obviously the remains of a human leg. The reptiloid realized they were all glaring at him, and generously offered to share his meal with the others. He was honestly puzzled when they all loudly declined. He shrugged, and casually cracked open the long bone to get at the marrow.
    Lewis looked away, desperate for something else to concentrate on. All around, there were loud creakings and groanings as the damaged metal trees slowly regenerated, repairing the harm done to them.
    Soon there would be no traces left to show that Humanity had ever come to Unseeli. Lewis thought he could live with that.
    Jesamine made her way slowly over to the Hereward's airlock, and then leaned against the hatch, pressing her hot, flushed face against the cold metal. She was shaking with shock and reaction to all she'd been through. Not just from the strain of singing with the Ashrai, though her head still swam and her throat was raw with pain, but also from the sheer horror of the fighting she'd witnessed and been a reluctant part of. She'd thought she'd seen the rough side of life before, when she was starting out; seen men kill each other in the cheap