Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

it's far too late. Given the size of the attacking force, it's more than likely that I won't be seeing most of you again. The oversoul will do its best to gather your minds into itself as your bodies are destroyed, but that may not be possible. The Icarus Working must come first. There's still time for anyone to back out, if they don't think they're up to this." She looked around, but no one said anything. They didn't have to. There were no secrets in the oversoul. Crow Jane smiled on them all, and let her pride and honored esteem wash briefly through their minds. "All right, go and cause some trouble, you glory-seeking weirdos."
    She felt their silent laughter in her mind as one by one they rose up into the air, ascending under the power of their own minds, so many angry angels rising up to smite a hated enemy. Crow Jane watched them go, the gusting wind tangling in her long black hair and blowing tears from her eyes, till they were all out of sight.

    The espers flew through the cold thin air, protected from the harsh enviroment by the power of the oversoul. Far below, the world turned slowly, ignorant of the bitter war about to be fought in the heavens. There was no aerial traffic, none of the usual freight wagons that cruised the high altitudes; Finn had had it all diverted. He didn't want any witnesses to what he was about to do. His would be the only record of what happened here tonight; an official record, carefully edited to make him and his people look good, and make the espers look like monsters. The espers knew that, knew the terrible things Finn had planned for them, and flew on anyway. Memories of Lionstone's Empire still existed withm the oversoul, and what one knew, everyone knew. The espers flew faster, sworn to fight and die to the last man and woman, to ensure thatNew Hope would not fall again.
    Finn's fleet appeared over the curve of the horizon, and the espers smiled as they saw their enemies for the first time. Psionic energies crackled around them like harnessed lightnings. One hundred and twenty of them, set against gravity barges with the firepower of starcruisers, and gravity sleds beyond counting.
    The espers increased their speed, the chill wind whipping past them now. The foremost gravity barge targeted them with its tracking computers and the disrupter cannon opened fire. Energy beams seared through the space where the espers had been only a moment before. They scattered, streaking through
    the air in sudden zigzags, changing tack again and again, confusing the barge's battle computers with studied randomness. And then the espers were in and among the fleet, and the barges couldn't fire for fear of hitting each other. The armed men riding the gravity sleds opened fire with their weapons, but the espers were here and there and gone again, darting in and out of sight, flying too fast to be hit, too fast even to be anticipated. They couldn't be heard over the roar of engines, but they were singing their battle song and their death song, which were one and the same. Singing joyfully, the espers went to war.
    They flashed between and among the slower-moving gravity sleds, tricking the riders into shooting each other, and occasionally darting in close enough to tip the riders overboard, so that they fell screaming to their death far below. Energy weapons discharged all around the espers, but they blocked the crackling energy beams with the force of their minds, and sent them ricocheting back. Pure Humanity soldiers were thrown from their sleds, or burst into flames, so that their sleds spiraled slowly away from the fleet, heading earthwards with their scorched and charred burdens. Psychokinetic energies howled through the thin air, and sled engines blew apart. Sleds and riders fell like stones. Hand weapons exploded, blowing the hands and arms off their users. Hearts stopped, lungs flattened, brains crushed inside their skulls. The espers were running loose in the heart of the fleet now, and blood and death and screams accompanied them.
    Some espers were shot and killed, of course, dropping through the air like burning birds. Given the odds against them, it was inevitable. But they'd known that going in.
    And when they'd done all the damage they could, and their numbers had dropped to the danger point, the surviving espers threw themselves at the hulking gravity barges, darting and dodging past the withering defensive fire, and slammed into the exposed engine vents at the rear of the barges,