The three Stevie Blues were striding arrogantly together some way ahead at the edge of the light, on point, in perfect step with each other, fearsome sights in their leather and chains, like young savage furies on their way to demand vengeance. Finlay would have been a little more impressed by them if he hadn't been so sure they were complete and utter psychopaths. Though that was probably just the kind of troops you needed on your side when you were playing follow the leader into hell.
There were other groups of rebels, following other routes, heading for openings in the prison's security system that Hood's people had arranged, but there was no way of knowing how they were getting on. All forms of communication, tech or telepathy, were too open to interception. Hood's plan relied on a series of lightning strikes from a dozen different directions to get in, kill Wormboy, rescue the prisoners and get the hell out before major security reinforcements could arrive to spoil the party. Publicly, Finlay approved of the plan. It had the virtue of being uncomplicated, at least. Privately, however, he couldn't help remembering his tutors' oft-repeated dictum that plans rarely survived contact with the enemy. Once the fighting started, everything tended to go to hell in a hurry. Hood seemed confident there wouldn't be much actual conflict, given the rebels' advantage of surprise. Finlay wished he felt that confident, too.
The three Stevie Blues came to a sudden simultaneous halt, lifting their guns and peering suspiciously into the gloom ahead. Stevie One looked back as the rest of the party came to a halt. At least, Finlay thought it was Stevie One.
"There's a door here that isn't on the map. It's big and solid and very definitely locked. Should I blast it?"
"Not on your life," said Finlay quickly. "We're right on the edge of the prison itself, if the rest of the map can be trusted. A disrupter blast would set off every alarm in the place, and the cyberats can only cover so much. Hood, it's your map and your plan. What do we do?"
"There's no problem," said Hood. "My people are waiting on the other side. They'll open the door."
He strode forward and rapped twice on the steel door. It slid upward, and lights blazed into the access tunnel, revealing an army of armed guards in the room beyond. Hood laughed and blinked out of existence.
"It's a trap!" yelled Finlay. "Everyone back! Hood's betrayed us!"
And as quickly as that, everything went to hell. There was a clamor of raised voices in the narrow corridor, with shouts and screams and a confused mess of orders and naked panic. Those at the rear turned to run, but a heavy steel door slammed down from the ceiling, cutting off their escape. So much for telepathic invisibility, thought Finlay. He grabbed Evangeline by the arm and pulled her behind him, putting his body between her and the armed guards ahead. He just had time to wonder why they weren't firing yet, and why they were wearing masks, when thick clouds of evil-smelling gas burst out into the corridor from concealed vents in the floor. The first breath was enough to set unprotected rebels coughing and choking. Finlay tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go.
And then a sudden wind roared through the corridor, forcing the gas back upon the guards and dispersing it as fast as it could form. The hidden vents exploded in showers of sparks and collapsed in upon themselves, closing off the gas. Esper power crackled on the air like harnessed lightning, so thick and close that even a normal like Finlay could feel it. The guards realized the gas attack wasn't working and turned their guns on the rebels. Finlay raised his arm automatically, slapping at the bracelet on his wrist to activate his force shield. The roar of energy beams was deafening in the confined space, joined with the screams of the dying and the injured as rebels fell. There was the stench of burning flesh and melting metal as energy beams tore through bodies and ricocheted off the reinforced steel walls.
They knew we were coming this way, thought Finlay. They've got us trapped in a killing field. He picked a target almost without thinking and shot a guard in the head. The top of the man's skull exploded in a shower of boiled blood and brains, and the guards around him fell back, shouting with shock and disgust. They hadn't expected any resistance. Finlay grinned savagely. When in doubt, do the unexpected. He ran forward, brandishing his sword, yelling for the others to follow him, and no one was more surprised than him when they did. Evangeline was there beside him, yelling her Clan's war cry and holding a sword like she knew what to do with it. The surviving espers and clones were right behind them, firing guns if they had them, and esper power thundered among the guards.
Swords clashed on swords as the two forces slammed together, and the guards tried to make a stand. But even savagely depleted by the unexpected ambush, the rebels were still more than a match for the guards. The Stevie Blues stood together, the same grim expression on the same faces as fire roared from their hands. Guards dropped their swords and ran screaming as their clothes and hair burst into flames. Espers picked up guards with their minds and slammed them together with deadly force. Blood flew on the air. Bones cracked and skulls collapsed under the implacable mental pressure, and some guards just stood and stared with horror-filled eyes as telepaths ripped through their thoughts with tides of fear and depression and self-loathing. And those rebels who weren't espers took their revenges with the point and edge of unforgiving swords.
Eventually Finlay looked round for another target and found there were no more left. Guards lay scattered across the floor of the chamber in awkward, blood-soaked poses, like broken dolls thrown aside by a bored child. Only rebels were still standing, looking confusedly about them, and it nearly broke Finlay's heart to see how few of them there were. Out of the fifty or so who'd accompanied him into Wormboy Hell, only nineteen remained, and three of them were Stevie Blues. He took a deep breath, turned off his force shield and flicked drops of blood from his sword. Someone would have to take charge, and it looked like it was going to have to be him. He had no real authority, but he'd spent enough time in the Arena to know that sometimes confidence is everything.
"All right, listen to me! You can bet there are more guards on the way here, armed to the teeth, even as I speak. We have to form a perimeter. Anyone with esp, find a corridor opening and guard it. Everyone else, grab a gun. Anyone you see coming this way is almost certainly an enemy, so shoot on sight. If you kill the wrong person by accident, we can always apologize later. Now move it!"
The Stevie Blues and a handful of others nodded unresistingly and hurried off. Finlay turned to Evangeline. There was a smear of someone else's blood on one cheek, and she was staring dumbly about her at the heaped piles of the dead. There was more blood spattered across her clothes, some of it hers. Finlay took her by the arm and made her turn around to face him.
"Don't blank out on me now, Evie. I need to know what you know. How many other groups of us were there in this assault?"
"Five," said Evangeline, swallowing hard and visibly trying to pull herself together.
"Can we contact them, see if they were ambushed, too?"
"They were," said a quiet voice beside them. It was a short, slightly overweight man with wide eyes and an open face. He might have looked like an accountant, if it hadn't been for the sword he held in a businesslike manner and the blood that soaked his sleeve to the elbow. "I'm a telepath. Denny Pindar. I heard most of them die."
"Then we're on our own," said Finlay. "I say the mission is officially aborted, and I further say we get the hell out of here."
"No," said Evangeline. "If we just turn and run, then the others died for nothing."
"If we try to take on overwhelming odds in enemy territory for no good reason, we'll die for nothing!"
"No good reason?" Evangeline looked at him steadily. "You swore a death oath to bring this place down, Finlay Campbell. Is your word worth so little?"
"Damn. I was hoping you'd forgotten that. You're right, as usual. But what can we do with just the handful of people we've got left?"
"Find Wormboy and kill him. He holds this place together. Without him it'll fall apart into chaos. We'll be able to free the
prisoners and fight our way out of here."
"Great plan," said Finlay. "Have we got time to write our wills first? All right, let's look at the situation. Pindar, can you detect any hidden cameras or surveillance equipment here?"
The esper concentrated, then pointed at a wall decoration that looked just like all the others. Stevie One looked back briefly from guarding her corridor opening, and the decoration burst into flames. Finlay nodded his thanks.
"Evie, can we contact the cyberats? They might know more about what's going on."
"No, it was set up so that they could reach us, but not the other way round. Their comm units are specially shielded. Ours aren't."
"Then we'll just have to follow the map and hope it's not part of the trap, too." A thought struck him, and he looked at Pindar. "How come they didn't use esp-blockers against us? We'd have been dead in the water if they had."
The telepath shook his head. "There are no esp-blockers inside Silo Nine. They'd interfere with Wormboy's control. Security must have been banking on the gas and their superiority in numbers to make the difference. It did, with the other groups. They never had a chance to defend themselves. If you hadn't taken the initiative away from them by rallying us to strike first, we'd have just stood there and died like the others. We're not used to combat." He broke off, his eyes suddenly far away. "Company's coming."
Finlay looked automatically to the Stevie Blues. "Can you see anyone?"
"You won't see them," said Pindar. "They're shielded. They're battle espers."
"Oh, shit," said Evangeline. "We're dead."
Finlay glared at her. "We're not dead till I say we are. So they're battle espers—so what? We'll just stay out of their way."
"We can't," said Pindar. "They're coming from all directions."
Finlay glared at him. "Don't you ever have anything positive to say? Can we fight them?"
"If you really want to annoy them," said Evangeline. "These are espers specially trained and conditioned by the Empire to fight other espers. We can't talk to them, or reason with them, and they don't accept surrenders. They just kill and kill till there's no one left alive but them."
"There's got to be a way to beat them," said Finlay. "There's got to be a way. What about you, Pindar? Could you use your esp to fight them?"
"If I had to," said the telepath, blinking owlishly. "But they're much more powerful than any of us. And there's a lot more of them than there are of us."
"They'll only outnumber us if we stand here and wait for them," said Finlay. "So we'll go to them. God, I wish I felt as confident as I sound. Pindar, which of the approaching forces is the smallest?"
The esper thought for a moment, and then pointed at one of the corridor openings. "That way. Twenty-four espers, moving ahead of the main pack. No guards."
"Then that's the way we're going," said Finlay. "Stevie Blues, lead the way. Fry anything that moves."
"Sounds good to me," said Stevie One.
"Right," said Stevie Three.
The three esper clones set off down the corridor at a steady trot, conserving their breath. The chains on their leathers clattered loudly, like an angry chorus. Finlay hurried after them, Pindar and Evangeline on each side of him, and the rest of the party brought up the rear. It worried him that they were accepting his orders so readily; it probably meant they were still in shock. If they were going to have to fight battle espers, fighting at anything less than full strength would get them all killed. It surprised Finlay how much that mattered to him. They'd fought bravely. They didn't deserve to die. Getting soft, thought Finlay.
They pounded down the corridor, checking every opening as they passed, but there was no sign of anyone. Finlay was pleasantly surprised to note that they were still more or less following the original route on the map. If they stuck with it, it should lead them right to Wormboy. Eventually. It worried him that they hadn't encountered more guards. They must have been withdrawn to keep them out of the way of the battle espers.
They rounded a corner, and then the Stevie Blues skidded to a halt as Pindar shouted for them to stop. The party stumbled to a ragged halt, lifting guns and swords and glaring about them. Pindar stared straight ahead, frowning harshly. Finlay moved in close beside him and kept his voice low.
"What is it? What do you see?"
"It's what I don't see. It's too quiet. Too still. There should be some background random mental noise, but there's nothing. Nothing at all." .
Finlay turned to the Stevie Blues. "Roast the corridor ahead till it glows."
Stevie One grinned. "My kind of plan."
"Right," said Stevie Three.
A roaring wave of flames swept down the corridor as they concentrated, scorching the walls on either side till they glowed crimson. And then the fire stopped, thrown back by an invisible barrier. An esper just behind Finlay began to shake and shudder. People backed away from him as he convulsed. Blood gushed from his mouth and nose and ears. Finlay grabbed the esper by the shoulders, but the violent shaking threw him off. Evangeline pulled him away. The esper exploded into a crimson mist that filled the corridor, spattering everyone with blood and worse. Finlay aimed and fired his disrupter in one swift movement and then watched incredulously as the energy beam ricocheted off an invisible screen.
"Battle espers," said Pindar. 'Trained to perfection, conditioned beyond fear or weakness, programmed to fight to the death. Yours or theirs. The most powerful espers ever collected together. Supposedly. You'd need disrupter cannon to break through one of their force screens. And even then, you'd get better odds betting against the cannon."
"I'm getting tired of you," said Finlay. "You only ever tell me things I don't want to hear. Don't you have anything positive to suggest?"
"Yes," said the telepath. "Get them before they get us."
He stepped forward to form a line with the other espers, and they stood silently together, staring down the corridor. A group of the battle espers suddenly appeared to face them. And for a long moment, all they did was stand there and stare at each other. A trickle of blood ran slowly down from Pindar's left nostril. Another of his group began to shiver uncontrollably. More of the rebel espers came forward to face the Imperial forces. The corridor floor wrenched itself apart, splitting open in a long jagged line that shot toward the battle espers. It stopped several feet short. And that just left the Stevie Blues. They stepped forward in one simultaneous movement, brushed the hair out of their faces with the same hand, and frowned the same frown as they concentrated. Heat gathered on the air before them, savage and blistering. The walls on either side of them glowed a sullen red. The air shimmered. Beads of sweat ran down the Stevie Blues' faces, either from the heat or their concentration, and the angry blush on the steel walls began to move toward the battle espers. It got about halfway there, slowed to a crawl and then inched to a halt, no matter how hard the Stevie Blues scowled.
Finlay looked around, but the only people left uninvolved in the silent esper duel were him and Evangeline. He reached over to one of the rebel espers, took the gun from his unresisting hand and tried another shot at the Imperial espers. The energy beam faded out before it reached them, but it seemed to Finlay that it got a lot closer than the last one. He reached out for another gun.
"No," said Evangeline. "Energy weapons aren't the answer. They can control and absorb energy."
"Then what do you suggest?" said Finlay.
"The two sides are pretty much deadlocked. The battle espers are so hyped up on drugs and mental implants they'd sooner die than surrender or back off. But, with a bit of luck, that also means they're too involved with the struggle on a mental plane to defend themselves against a purely physical attack."
"So what do you want me to do?" said Finlay. "Rush over there and bang their heads together?"
"I was thinking of something a little more… dramatic." She fished in one of her pockets and pulled out a large round object. "Shrapnel grenade. Simple, effective, and extremely nasty at close range."
She pressed the stud, knelt down and rolled the grenade along the floor toward the battle espers. It seemed to move slower and slower all the time, but finally it got there. Finlay grabbed Evangeline, pulled her down and wrapped his body around hers as a shield. The explosion was deadening in the confined space, and shrapnel ricocheted off the steel walls, falling like jagged rain. An unfelt pressure in the corridor was suddenly gone, and Finlay rose unsteadily to his feet. His ears were ringing, and his balance wasn't all that it might have been. He discovered a sharp metal fragment sticking out of his thigh, looked at it dispassionately and pulled it out. The wound didn't bleed much. Evangeline stood up beside him, and he checked to make sure she was all right. She had a nasty cut on her forehead, dribbling blood down her face, but otherwise looked okay. Except that she was glaring at him.
"Will you stop grabbing me and pulling me around?" she said coldly. "I am quite capable of remembering to duck on my own, thank you."
Her voice sounded harsh but far away, as though they were both underwater. Finlay felt a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, but controlled himself. He didn't think Evangeline was in the mood to see the funny side.
"Where did the grenade come from?" he said, finally.
"Daddy always made sure that the female members of the Family went around fully armed, after the Iron Bitch took my cousin to be a maid. I thought a gun was a bit obvious, and too easily guarded against, so I decided on a grenade. Not terribly subtle, but I suppose it shows I am my father's daughter, after all."
Finlay decided he wasn't going to pursue that point any further just at the moment, and moved among the slowly rousing espers, checking they were all right. They'd all been blown off their feet by the blast, but no one was actually dead. Several had nosebleeds or headaches, and they'd all been cut or pierced here and there by ricocheting shrapnel, but they were taking it well. Finlay took a deep breath and moved slowly down the corridor to get a better look at what was left of the battle espers. He stopped quite a ways short rather than step in the blood and gore. A few of the mangled bodies were recognizable. Most weren't. He heard footsteps behind him and looked back, expecting Evangeline, but it was Stevie Two. He recognized the different colored ribbons in her hair. She looked at the carnage unflinchingly. .
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