Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

his remaining loyal followers: a solid steel bunker deep in the heart of the city, staffed by the few people he felt he could still depend on. He had the place stocked with all the comforts and necessities of life, and surrounded it with every deadly defense known to man; and then he never left it, unless personally summoned by the Emperor. He had planned and launched what he thought were subtle and secret attacks against the thralls wearing his uniforms, disguised as purges against the unfaithful, but they weren’t particularly successful. For every thrall peacekeeper who died, two more came forward to take his place.
    And so no one was more surprised than Joseph when the Emperor put into his hands the destruction of the Rookery. It had been a long time since Finn condescended to give Joseph his orders in person. (Their little chats didn’t count. They never involved business. That was the point.) Joseph had half expected to be told that the Emperor had finally lost all faith in him, and was throwing him to the wolves, but instead . . . Joseph smiled, sitting in the center of his comm room, listening to the growing chatter of his assembling army. The Rookery would be a hard nut to crack, but success in such a dangerous venture would put him right back on top again. Not least because Joseph had no intention of giving back his army once the job was over.
    The Emperor should have used every means necessary to wipe out the Rookery after they drove off his last attack; but he’d hesitated. Finn said it was because he could be very soppy and sentimental over people who’d helped him in the past, but Joseph didn’t believe a word of it. More likely, Finn had believed he might still need the special talents found only in the Rookery. Which was, of course, another reason for Joseph to be very thorough in destroying it. If he planned this campaign just right, Joseph could come out of it in almost as strong a position as the Emperor himself, and then . . . maybe it was time for a change at the top.

    In the end, Joseph Wallace put together one hell of an army. First he summoned every Church Militant and Pure Humanity fanatic he still had contact with, and had them plan the actual operation. He felt he could trust them to be suitably merciless and efficient. He also assigned them direct control of the invading force, as officers in charge, answerable only to him. The main bulk of the ground forces were made up of every soldier, trooper, and marine still left on Logres, plus a surprising number of thrall peacekeepers. Joseph made sure these latter would bear the brunt of the attack. The more dead thralls, the better for everyone. And finally, he called in every air unit still operating on Logres: every gravity barge, war machine, and gravity sled. This time, there would be no mistakes, no failures, no retreat.
    And when he was ready, when he was sure he couldn’t add one more man, gun, or ship to his force, Joseph launched his attack without warning. His people flooded across the expanded and ill-defended borders of the Rookery from every direction at once, while massive gravity barges soared ominously over the crowded streets, firing their ranks of disrupter cannon straight down into the buildings below. The soldiers and the thralls and the fanatics cut down everyone in their path, showing no mercy, only varying degrees of exhilaration. Their orders were clear, their objectives simple, and it felt good to have a clear and obvious enemy to strike out at. Disrupters fired over and over, and fleeing crowds fell in waves. Swords and axes rose and fell, and blood flowed thickly in the gutters. Buildings exploded in showers of brick and stone fragments as energy beams stabbed down from the crowded sky. Fires broke out all over, and Joseph’s warriors pressed forward, ever forward, determined that this time there would be no survivors to rise phoenixlike from the ashes.
    After the first shock, the people of the Rookery regrouped and fought back fiercely. Douglas had insisted that everyone in the Rookery’s expanded territory undergo at least some weapons training. He’d always known this attack would come. And so men, women, and even children took to the streets with swords and guns and all kinds of improvised weapons. Others prepared booby traps, ambushes, and hit-and-run tactics. Those too old or too young for direct action took to the roofs, and rained down heavy objects on the attackers below. Everyone in the Rookery was