Deathstalker War

majority of the war machines seemed to be moving away. The huge war wagons were moving off through the billowing smoke, slow and steady like great land whales. Other machines roared or flew after them, disrupter beams still stabbing out like petulant slaps at what remained standing in the town. And robots shaped like mockeries of men stamped after them, dried blood coating their metal limbs. Silence stared after them, feeling small and insignificant. He wasn't used to feeling that way, and he hated it. He looked back at the others.

'All right, let's get moving while there's still enough rebel resistance left in the town to keep the machines occupied. If we can make it beyond the town's boundary, it should be relatively easy going to the Standing. Investigator, we are running, not fighting. I don't want you doing anything destructive that might draw the machines' attention to us. Is that clear?'

'Of course, Captain,' said Frost. 'I shall endeavor to restrain myself.'

'That'll be a first,' said Stelmach, and then shut up as the Investigator turned her cold gaze on him.

'Move it out,' said Silence, and led the way through the space where the door had been.

They stuck to the shadows and the smoke as much as they could, taking shelter and freezing in place whenever one of the machines seemed to be getting too close. Stelmach was terrified, but gritted his teeth and clenched his fists and somehow kept it to himself. He knew why the war machines had attacked the pinnace. Back on the Elegance, General Beckett himself had taken Stelmach to one side and ordered him to set the wrong security codes in the pinnace, so that it would be sure to come under fire. The Empress wanted Silence and Frost to be caught up in the action on the ground, so that they might have a chance to show off their alleged powers. If no natural opportunity arose, Stelmach was under orders to manufacture opportunities by whatever means necessary, then report on the results. Stelmach had wanted to say no. He'd wanted to warn Silence and Frost. But he hadn't. He couldn't. They were his friends, but his orders came from the Iron Throne itself. One loyalty had to give way to another, and Stelmach had sworn an oath upon his name and his honor to serve the Empress all his days, until death, if need be. His duty was clear. But still, as he stumbled along behind Silence and Frost, amidst the fires and smoke and devastation, he felt so bad he wanted to die.

He was thinking so hard he never saw the combat android step out of a side alley and aim a disrupter at him. Frost saw it, and knocked him aside at the last moment, throwing him to his knees. The energy beam seared over his head and blew apart the wall behind him. The top half disappeared, vaporized into brick dust, but the shattered lower half leaned forward and collapsed on top of Stelmach. He cried out once, raising his arms to protect his head, and then the bricks fell on him and slammed him to the ground, crushing him under their weight.

Silence blew the robot's grinning head away with a single shot, but its body didn't fall, so Frost shot out one of its knees, just to make sure. The metal body fell clattering to the ground, its steel limbs thrashing helplessly. Frost moved forward and yanked the disrupter from its hand, and shot the machine in the chest. It stopped moving. Silence and Frost put away their guns and hurried over to pull at the rubble covering Stelmach. He could hear them working, but he couldn't see anything. The smoke and dust had filled his eyes with tears. He could feel the weight of the broken wall pressing down on him like a bully in a schoolyard, but he didn't seem to be badly hurt. He could still feel his hands and feet, though he couldn't move an inch, trapped under what felt like half a ton of masonry. He lay still, breathing shallowly as the great weight pressed against his chest. They were calling his name, but he couldn't seem to find the energy to answer them. His pain seemed far away. He felt almost peaceful.

And then he heard the sound of approaching metal feet. Silence and Frost didn't seem to have heard them, still occupied in dragging bricks off him. Stelmach blinked his eyes as hard as he could, forcing the tears and dust out until he could see again. They'd cleared a space over his face so he could breathe, and looking past Silence and Frost laboring to free him, Stelmach could see a company of combat androids striding down the street toward them. And it occurred to Stelmach that he could just keep quiet. The robots might not notice him, still buried under rubble. They might just kill Silence and Frost and then go on, and he'd be safe. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut. But he couldn't do that. They were his friends.

He forced the warning out, yelling as loud as he could. Silence and Frost whipped around, saw the robots approaching, and their hands went to the guns at their sides. Only then remembering that they'd already used their disrupters on the first android, and the energy crystals in their guns still needed time to recharge before they could be used again. All they had were their swords. Metal blades against men made of metal, all of them armed with disrupters. Stelmach yelled at Silence and Frost to run. To leave him and run. But they stood their ground. They looked at each other, eyes locked on eyes, almost ignoring the advancing robots. Something passed between them—anger or desperation or something that might have been resignation. They turned to face the androids, who raised their disrupters. Stelmach tried again to yell for his friends to run, but he couldn't force the words past his dust-choked throat.

And then a great force arose around Silence and Frost, a presence beating on the still air like giant wings, building and building until it struck out in a rolling wave of power that tore the robots apart and scattered their shattered parts the length of the street. As quickly as it had arisen, the force was gone, and Silence and Frost were only, merely, human again. They looked at each other for a long moment, then they turned and looked at Stelmach, still held down by the rubble. He could see the calculation in their eyes. Knew what they were thinking, had to be thinking. They knew he'd seen them use their secret abilities, and knew that as Security Officer he'd be duty-bound to report them. But if they just walked away and left him, left him here to die in the blazing town, their secret would be safe, and no one would ever have to know. Stelmach understood. It was what he would have done. But even so, he wasn't surprised when they bent over him and started pulling the bricks away again. They weren't like him.

Eventually they got him out, and Silence helped support him while Frost briskly slapped some of the dust off his clothes. His head took a while to clear, but when it did he pushed himself away from Silence and made himself stand up straight.

'You saved me,' he said, his voice a harsh rasp that didn't only come from the dust. 'You didn't have to do that.'

'Yes we did,' said Silence. 'We're family. You'd have done the same for us.'

'You don't understand,' said Stelmach, forcing the words out. 'I'm responsible for our being here. I sabotaged the pinnace. The Empress had heard stories of your… powers. She wanted confirmation. So she ordered me to put you into danger and spy on you.'

'Never trust a Security Officer,' said Frost. Her hand fell to the gun on her hip. Stelmach made himself stand still.

'He didn't have to tell us,' said Silence.

'Yes I did,' said Stelmach. 'We're family.'

He and Silence shared a smile. Frost nodded, which was as close as she got to a smile when she wasn't killing something, and took her hand away from her gun.

'So,' she said. 'What do we do now?'

'We concentrate on getting to the Standing alive,' said Silence. 'Everything else can wait. We'll work something out. We always do.'

'I hate all this improvising,' said Frost.

They moved on through what was left of the town, making better time now that they no longer had to hide from the war machines. Silence and Frost gathered their power around them again, and hid the three of them from the machines' sensors. And so they were able to watch unmolested as the robots came marching down a street, driving a desparate army of refugees before them. Men, women, and children ran despairingly, lungs straining for breath, forcing themselves on despite the pain in their legs and backs and chests. The machines killed the slowest, or those who could no longer keep up, smashing their skulls with swift, efficient blows from their steel hands. Blood ran down the cobbled street and swirled thickly in the gutters. Finally the robots tired of this, or decided their priorities lay elsewhere, and they fell suddenly on the refugees, overtaking them in seconds, and tearing them limb from limb. They slaughtered them all in a matter of seconds, and then moved on, their metal feet stamping through a river of blood and gore. They passed right by Silence and Frost and Stelmach and didn't see them.

Stelmach looked at Silence and Frost. 'Couldn't you have done something? I mean, I know they're rebels, but…'

'No buts,' said Frost. 'The price for rebellion is death.'

'I don't know,' said Silence. 'That wasn't execution; that was butchery. I've seen war before. Seen men kill men for all kinds of reasons. But that was men, not machines. There were children there…'

Frost looked at Silence. 'Don't go soft on me, Captain. They brought this on themselves. They plotted and conspired to bring this about. They betrayed their oath and their honor and their duty, and finally themselves. They