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
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.'
