He studied the ten-foot-high stone wall surrounding the town. It was solid stone and mortar, sturdy and well-constructed. A few energy blasts would take care of it. Men and women from the town stood watching from catwalks along the top of the inner wall. Most were armed with swords and axes and spears, but a few had energy weapons. Nowhere near enough to make any difference, though, and both sides knew it. The townspeople were all dead. They just hadn’t lain down yet. Razor breathed deeply of the icy air, centering himself. This high up on the plateau, there were few mists, and the air was sharp and clear. He gave the order to begin, and a hundred marines opened fire with their disrupters. The stone wall exploded, stone fragments and bloody flesh flying in all directions.
Smoke rose up, and sharp-edged rubble and small body parts pattered to the snow in an awful rain. There were shouts and screams as the survivors fell back from the great gaping hole in the wall. A few stayed to try and drag wounded from the wreckage, but the marines picked them off easily. More troops had moved into position on the other side of the town, and they blew that wall out, too. The townspeople had nowhere to go now, trapped between two advancing forces. Razor nodded to his staff officers, drew his sword and gun, and led the way into the small town of Hardcastle’s Rock.
The battle was grim and bloody, but it didn’t take long. The marines had the advantage of far greater numbers, massed energy weapons, and force shields. The townspeople fought bravely, men and women standing their ground fiercely. Swords rose and fell, and blood flew on the air, hot and steaming. There were screams and battle cries and roared orders, and bodies and offal lay scattered across the churned-up snow. There was no room or time for heroes, only two mismatched forces struggling in blank anonymity. Above the bedlam of battle came the occasional roar of energy weapons, followed by the sudden stench of roast meat. The troops couldn’t use disrupters much for fear of hitting their own people, but the few townspeople with energy weapons barricaded themselves in their houses and sniped desperately from shuttered windows. But in the end, the Imperial forces were able to pinpoint which houses were being used, and blew them apart with concussion grenades and shaped charges. The squat stone houses collapsed inward as the powerful explosions ruptured the walls, bringing down the roofs and crushing those inside. The marines advanced remorselessly from both ends of the town, driving all before them, cutting down those who wouldn’t or couldn’t fall back fast enough. Until finally the townspeople were caught and trapped and slaughtered in the middle of their own town.
When finally it was over a sullen quiet fell across what had been the town of Hardcastle’s Rock. The last defenders had fallen, and the few who had thrown down their weapons and surrendered, mostly women and children, stood huddled together in small, well-guarded groups. Houses burned to every side, crimson flames licking out darkening stone windows. The dead lay everywhere, mostly townspeople, some marines, well within acceptable losses. A few dozen marines moved among the fallen, marking wounded troopers for the med teams, and putting the wounded rebels out of their misery.
Investigator Razor stood in the middle of the town, in a small open space his troops had cleared for him. He looked unhurriedly around, not too displeased with the way things had gone. He’d lost more men than he expected, but then he hadn’t expected energy weapons in the hands of rebels. He raised a hand and summoned his main staff officers and his Second in Command, Major Chevron. Chevron was a tall, well-muscled man who looked as though he’d been born to wear body armor. He crashed to a parade halt before the Investigator, but didn’t salute. Technically, he was superior in rank to Razor, but they both knew who was in charge.
“The town is secure, sir,” Chevron said calmly. “The townspeople are either dead or prisoners, apart from a few still hiding in their homes. The town has fallen.”
“They had energy guns, Major,” said Razor. “Why wasn’t I informed that the townspeople would have energy weapons?”
“There were only a few, sir. Like the town walls, they were there to defend against local predators. Nasty things called Hob hounds. It was mentioned in the original briefings, sir.”
Razor just nodded, neither accepting nor rejecting the implied criticism. “Are we sure there are no more rebel settlements in the area?”
“Quite sure, sir. Just a few farmsteads, here and there. We can hit them from the air while traveling to Mistport. Word won’t get there ahead of us. Legion is jamming all frequencies. Apparently it’s not uncommon for communications to break down from time to time out here. Mistport won’t worry about lost contact for quite a time yet. By the time they do realize something’s wrong, we’ll be hammering on their front door.”
“So we have some time to play with. Good.” Razor smiled slightly. “Gather all the prisoners together and execute them.”
“Sir?” Major Chevron blinked uncertainly at the Investigator, caught off guard. “It was my understanding that prisoners were to be used as hostages and human shields . . .”
“Then you understood wrong. Was my order not clear enough? Kill them all. That includes those hiding in their houses. Do it now.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
The Major gathered up the nearest officers with his eyes, and gave the orders. They passed the order on to their men, who drew swords and axes already crusted with drying blood, and set about their task with calm, detached faces. Blades rose and fell, and the women and children and few men were quickly cut down. They barely had time to scream, and the only sound on the quiet air was the dull thudding of heavy blades sinking deep into human flesh. The hacking and chopping went on for some time, finishing off those who wouldn’t die immediately. Women tried to shield their children with their bodies, to no avail. The marines were very thorough.
Razor smiled. He wanted his marines to be sure of their duty. And besides, it was important that people not think he was growing soft in his old age. He knew there were those watching from the sidelines, waiting to take advantage of any perceived weaknesses in his handling of this mission. Starting very definitely with Major Chevron, who’d made no secret of the fact that he thought he should have been in charge.
Marines gathered around the few houses still holding rebels within. They tried setting fire to them, but the stone walls and slate roofs were slow to burn, so the marines settled for shooting out the shuttered windows, and tossing in grenades. A few townspeople burst out of their doors rather than wait to be finished off by fire or smoke or explosions. They came charging out, roaring obscure battle cries and waving their swords and axes, and the marines calmly shot them down from a distance. It didn’t take long, and soon every house in Hardcastle’s Rock was burning, sending a heavy pall of black smoke up into the lowering evening skies.
Toby and Flynn were right there in the thick of it, recording everything. Flynn kept his camera moving in and out of the action, flying quickly back and forth on its antigrav unit, hovering overhead when the action got a little too close, while Toby kept up a running commentary. Flynn grew sickened by the slaughter and wanted to stop filming, but Ffolkes wouldn’t let him, even putting a gun to the cameraman’s head at one point. Toby just kept talking, and if his voice grew a little hoarse at times, well there was a lot of smoke in the air. Toby and Flynn had grown used to recording sudden death in close-up on the battlefields of Technos III, but nothing there had prepared them for this. Technos III had been a war between two more or less equally matched sides. This was just butchery. Ffolkes wasn’t around when Razor gave the order for the executions. Flynn looked at Toby.
“I can’t do this. I can’t.”
“Keep filming.”
“I can’t! This is obscene. They’ve already surrendered.”
“I know. But it’s important we cover everything.”
Flynn glared at him. “You’d do anything for good ratings, wouldn’t you?”
“Pretty much. But this is different. People have to see what happened here. What Lionstone is doing in their name.”
Flynn’s
mouth twisted into an ugly shape, and his eyes were wet with tears, but he got it all on film, right down to the last bloody cough and shuddering body. When it was over he sat down suddenly in the blood-splattered snow and cried. His camera hovered overhead. Toby stood over Flynn, patting him on the shoulder comfortingly. He was too angry to cry.
“Bartok will never let this film be shown,” Flynn said finally. “He’ll censor it.”
“The hell he will,” said Toby. “He’ll be proud of it. His troops won a great victory here today. The first on Mistworld soil. You don’t understand the military mind, Flynn.”
“And thank the good God for that.” Flynn got to his feet again, waving away Toby’s offer of help. His camera flew down to perch on his shoulder again. Ffolkes came over to join them. There was blood on his armor, none of it his, and his face was very pale. He looked at the pathetic piles of mutilated bodies, then looked at Toby and Flynn almost desperately.
“Don’t worry,” said Toby. “We got it all.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Ffolkes said thickly. “This isn’t war.”
“Yes it is,” said Investigator Razor, and Ffolkes spun around immediately. Razor stirred one of the bodies with the toe of his boot. “These are scum. Enemies of the Empire. There are no innocents here. Just by choosing to live on Mistworld, they are automatically traitors and criminals, and condemned to death.”
“What about the children?” said Flynn. “They didn’t choose to live here. They were born here.”
Razor turned unhurriedly to look at him. “They would have grown to be traitors. Don’t have much stomach for this, do you, boy?”
“No,” said Flynn. “No, I don’t.”
“Don’t worry, boy. This is nothing, compared to what’s going to happen in Mistport. I’ll make a man of you yet.”
And he strode away, calmly giving orders. The marines gathered up the bodies of the fallen townspeople and piled them together in one great heap in the middle of the town. The pile grew steadily larger, the marines having to clamber up and over bodies to pile them higher, until finally it was all done. The great mound of bodies rose up above the burning roofs of the nearby houses. And then Razor had them set on fire, too. Smoke billowed up, and the scent of roasting meat was thick on the air. This was too much for some of the marines. They turned away from the bodies curling up in the flames, from the bloody flesh blackening and cracking, and they vomited into the snow. Officers stood over them and shouted abuse and orders. Flynn got it all on film.
“I’ll see Razor dead,” he said finally. “I swear I’ll see him dead.”
“He’s an Investigator, Flynn. Ordinary people like you and me don’t kill Investigators.”
“Somebody has to,” said Flynn. “While there are still some ordinary people left.”
The billowing black smoke rose high above what had once been the town of Hardcastle’s Rock, population 2031, as the marines trooped back to their ships for the flight to Mistport.
Two marines strode down the main street of Hardcastle’s Rock, passing a bottle of booze back and forth between them. Buildings burned to either side of them, and the great funeral pyre blazed fiercely in the middle of the town, sending a great pall of greasy black smoke up into the evening sky. For Kast and Morgan, career marines, it was just another job. They’d seen and done worse in their years serving under Bartok the Butcher. There wasn’t much to choose between the two marines. Both large, muscular men in blood-spattered armor, with broad cheerful faces and eyes that had seen everything.
They wandered on through the town, waiting for their turn to reboard the pinnace that would take them on to Mistport. First in, last out, as always. So far, they didn’t think much of Mistworld. It was freezing cold, with people who shot at you when you weren’t expecting it, and no comforts anywhere. So they went from house to house, checking those that hadn’t burned out too thoroughly for loot and booze, since there weren’t any women to be had.
“Miserable bloody place,” said Morgan.
“Right,” said Kast, leaning forward to light a cigar from a burning doorframe. “Still, good to be back in action again.”
“Damn right,” said Morgan. “Thought I’d go crazy sitting around the Defiant, watching that bloody Grendel planet. This is real work. Soldier’s work.”
Neither of them mentioned their time in the interrogation cells under Golgotha, sobbing and screaming as the mind techs dug pitilessly for information about the broken Quarantine. It was just good to be free and striking back at an enemy that could hurt. Spread the pain around a little. That was the Empire way, after all. They came across a woman’s body, somehow overlooked, sitting slumped just inside a doorway. As the marines stopped before her, her bloody head seemed to settle forward slightly, as though nodding to them. Kast dug Morgan in the ribs with his elbow.
“I think she fancies you.”
“Probably still warm, too. Toss a coin for who goes first?”
“Sure. We’ll use my coin, though. You cheat.”
They tossed for it, and Morgan won, but when he reached forward to take her by the shoulders, the woman’s head fell off and rolled away across the snow. Immediately the two marines were after it, laughing and shouting and kicking it back and forth in an impromptu game. The woman’s body lay slumped in the doorway, forgotten. Morgan punted the “ball” neatly through an open window and jumped up and down, punching the air in triumph.
“And it’s a goal! See, Kast, I told you. The old magic’s still there. I could have been a professional.”
“Yeah, and I could have been a Sergeant if my parents hadn’t been married. Move it. Time’s getting on.”
The rest of the town proved a disappointment, so Kast produced a packet of marshmallows, and they sat by the funeral pyre to toast them, swapping happy reminiscences of past campaigns. The evening continued to fall, little by little, and the pyre spread a crimson hellglow over the deserted town. Kast and Morgan sang old songs of comradeship and violence and lost friends, and finally marched out of the burning town singing the company march. The last of the pinnaces waited to take them to Mistport.
In Mistport, in the Abraxus Information Center, the children all woke up screaming. They sat bolt upright, mouths stretched wide, their eyes full of blood and death. The ones strapped to their cots thrashed and convulsed, desperate to be free. Chance moved among them, trying to comfort those who could still be reached, but the death cry of so many espers in Hardcastle’s Rock, too strong and potent to be denied, screamed on through the children’s throats. Slowly reason returned to some of them. Chance dosed the rest with strong sedatives so he could concentrate, and from the others gradually pieced together what had happened. And for the first time in a long time, he contacted Port Director Gideon Steel at the Mistport control tower.
Steel took a long time to answer, and when his fat face eventually filled the viewscreen he looked less than pleased to see who his caller was. “Make it fast. Half my duty espers have gone crazy, and the rest are catatonic. It’s bedlam in here. What do you want, Chance?”
“An Imperial force has just wiped out Hardcastle’s Rock,” Chance said bluntly. “It was a big force, and it’s on its way here right now.”
Steel frowned. “Are you sure? We’ve had no signals from that area, and our sensors are all clear.”
“The town is dead,” said Chance. “Every man, woman, and child. The Empire is here, Steel. Do something.”
“I’ll get back to you.” Steel snapped off the comm link and began issuing orders. He didn’t really believe the news, not least because he didn’t want to, but he couldn’t afford to take chances. He had the duty espers smacked around till they calmed down, and then had them spread their minds as wide as they could, while the control tower fired up the long-range sensors. It didn’t take the espers long to find a great void where the town of Hardcastle’s Rock should have been, a void they couldn’t penetrate. They also sensed something else, a presence, huge and powerful but hidde
n from them.
High above, Legion realized it had been discovered, and rejoiced. Its time had come to do what it had been created to do, to bring terror and despair and the end of all things to the Empire’s enemies. It threw aside its concealing shield, and spread its vast influence across the city of Mistport. The tower’s sensors immediately detected the orbiting Defiant and the hundreds of pinnaces bearing down on Mistport. Steel hit the alarm button even as his duty espers screamed and collapsed, unable to deal with the horror that was Legion. Tower personnel tried to revive them, but some were dead, some were insane, and the rest were beyond reach, driven into hiding within their own minds rather than face Legion. Steel used his emergency link to contact the esper union, but for a long time no one answered his call. Static flashed across the screen as the signal gradually deteriorated under Legion’s influence. Finally a wild-eyed man appeared on the view-screen, his face sweating and shocked.
“Get me someone in authority!” snapped Steel. “We have to raise the psionic shield! It’s an emergency!”
“We know!” said the esper, his eyes rolling like a panicked horse’s. “The Empire’s here! But we can’t do anything. It’s like a giant esp-blocker is covering the whole city. It’s shut down our powers. We can’t hear each other anymore. It’s all we can do to think clearly. Half of our people have had to go catatonic, just to protect their sanity. And the field’s growing stronger all the time! There isn’t going to be any psionic screen!”
Blood gushed suddenly from the man’s nose and ears. He looked surprised, tried to say something, and then his face disappeared from the screen. Steel tried to raise him again, but no one answered. And then the screen shut down, as all comm frequencies were jammed. Steel and his people tried all their backups and emergency procedures, and none of them worked. Steel sat in his command chair, surrounded by chaos and screaming voices. The psionic screen was out. The port’s disrupter cannon, salvaged from a crashed starship, were powering up, but without a working comm system there was no way to aim them. Port techs were working furiously to link the tower sensors into the comm systems, but there was no way of knowing how long they would last either. Already some of the weaker systems were shutting down, unable to function in the unnatural field emanating from the orbiting starcruiser.
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