“You’ll have to wait for the others to arrive,” said Beckett stolidly, not allowing himself to be baited. “The Empress’s instructions were quite clear.”
“And God bless the Empress,” said Valentine. He swung one long white-clad leg over the other, and let it swing quietly to and fro, the light gleaming on his highly polished boot. It occurred to Beckett that Valentine looked very like a pen-and-ink drawing, of the kind found in an instructional primer, probably with the word Debauchery written underneath. Beckett had to admire the Wolf’s calm, even if it did probably have its origins in a pill bottle. Ever since the debacle on Technos III, and the total destruction of his new stardrive factory, Valentine Wolfe’s fortunes had taken a severe blow. Where once he had been head of the foremost Family in the Empire, with an automatic place at the Empress’s side, he was now barely tolerated at Court, and then mostly for amusement value. Production of the new stardrive had been given over to Clan Chojiro, who were having to start again from scratch. This did not please Lionstone, who wanted the new drive installed in the Imperial Fleet yesterday, if not sooner.
The two Wolfes responsible for the Technos III fiasco, Daniel and Stephanie, had disappeared, leaving Valentine to shoulder the blame, which he did with a shrug, a shake of the head, and a charming smile. These things happen. Anyone else would have been ruined and utterly disgraced, and quite possibly no longer as closely connected with his head as he used to be, but Valentine Wolfe was made of sterner stuff than that. He made good all the financial losses out of his own pocket with nary a wince, publicly disowned his missing brother and sister, and fought back with a trump card few had known he had. Valentine, it turned out, had access to a secret source of extremely advanced high tech, and that had bought him his place here today and a chance at redemption in Lionstone’s eyes.
Valentine hadn’t told anyone that his source for the high tech was actually the rogue AIs of Shub, the official Enemies of Humanity. It would only upset people.
The door chimed again, and opened at Beckett’s command to reveal the Lord High Dram, Warrior Prime to the Empire, and official Consort to Lionstone herself. Also known, as far behind his back as possible, as the Widowmaker. Tall and lithely muscled, clad in his usual black robes and battle armor, Dram bowed to General Beckett and nodded curtly to Valentine. Beckett bowed in return. The Wolfe waggled his long white fingers in a friendly way. Dram pretended he hadn’t seen that, sank comfortably into the chair farthest from the Wolfe, and stretched out his long legs before him. He was handsome, in an unspectacular way, but his dark eyes and constant slight smile were utterly cold. Like Valentine, Dram had kept pretty much to himself on the trip out, staying in his cabin and speaking only to his own people. Beckett curled a lip mentally. Presumably the Lord High Dram felt himself too grand to socialize with the lower orders. Not that Beckett was complaining. The last thing he needed was the Empress’s Consort peering over his shoulder and making notes.
Dram hadn’t told anyone that he wasn’t, in fact, the original Widowmaker, but instead a clone of the original, grown at the Empress’s command. It would only upset people.
“How long before operations begin, General?” said Dram calmly. “I’ve been informed my people are fully prepared and equipped, and ready for action.”
“Soon, my Lord Dram,” said Beckett. “This will be your final briefing. We merely await the arrival of the last few principals.” The door chimed. “And hopefully, this will be them. Enter.”
The door slid open and Captain John Silence, Investigator Frost, and Security Officer V. Stelmach filed in. The Wolfe and the Warrior Prime both sat up a little straighter in their seats. These three officers from the famed Dauntless were familiar to anyone in the Empire who owned a holoscreen. Their checkered career had had more ups and downs than a bride’s nightie. They’d gone from heroes to outcasts and back again so fast that some people watching had been known to suffer from whiplash. Their current status was somewhat uncertain. On the one hand, they had failed in their mission to capture that most notable traitor and outlaw, Owen Deathstalker, and had been sent home defeated by his rebel allies, but on the other hand, they had quite definitely single-handedly saved the homeworld Golgotha from attack by a mysterious and powerful alien ship. When last heard of, the Dauntless had been touring planets on the outer Rim, essentially on punishment duty until the Empress decided to forgive their sins. And now here they were on the Elegance, far from their infamous ship. Beckett, Valentine, and Dram bowed courteously to them, and studied them openly. You didn’t get to see legends in the flesh that often.
Silence was a tall, lean man in his forties, with thinning hair and a thickening waistline. He didn’t look like much on a viewscreen, but at close quarters he had a presence that was almost overpowering. Everyone in the room knew that he was a dangerous man, but now they knew why. There was a calm certainty to the man, a quiet directness. John Silence knew where he was going, and only a fool would have got in his way.
Investigator Frost was in her late twenties, tall and lithely muscular and casually intimidating, like all Investigators. Trained from childhood to study and then kill aliens, or anything else that threatened the Empire. Even standing still and relaxed at her Captain’s side, she still looked ready to kill someone. Probably with her bare hands. Cold blue eyes blazed in a pale, controlled face, framed by auburn hair cropped close to the skull. She wasn’t pretty, but there was a definite daunting glamour to her, attractive and scary at the same time. She stood at Silence’s side, her hands comfortably near her weapons, as though she belonged there, and always had.
After two such godlike beings, a mere mortal like V. Stelmach had to be a disappointment, and he was. A quiet nondescript man, he looked more like some anonymous civil servant than an officer in the Imperial Fleet. Presumably working as a Security Officer did that to you, even on the amazing Dauntless. He stood nervously a little behind Silence and Frost, his eyes darting from one new face to another, as though expecting to be sent out at any moment. And yet this unimpressive little man had helped develop tech to control the deadly aliens known as Grendels, and together with Silence and Frost had survived dangerous missions that had killed many lesser men. So there had to be something to the man. Beckett made a mental note to check farther into the man’s background. If only to find out what the V. stood for.
He gestured for the three of them to sit down on the remaining chairs, and they did so. Silence and Frost seemed completely relaxed, though Beckett couldn’t help noticing that their hands were still casually close to their weapons. Stelmach sat on the edge of his chair, hands clasped tightly together so no one could see them shaking. Beckett cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention and wished he hadn’t. In this kind of company it made him sound weak and uncertain.
“Now we’re all here, I will proceed with the final briefing. You should all have been studying your general orders and objectives on the way here, but this is where you get the big picture. Virimonde is to be taken back under direct Imperial rule from Golgotha, by any and all means necessary. The local populace has been practicing forbidden forms of democracy, making their own policy, deciding their own lives and defying standard Imperial edicts. According to the Steward of the Deathstalker Standing, Virimonde’s Lord, David Deathstalker, has proven a weak and ineffectual leader, disregarding his duties and offices, not only failing to stamp out this treason but actually encouraging it. He is declared a traitor, and his Lordship revoked. He is to be removed from office, and along with his companion, the Lord Kit SummerIsle, they are to be brought back to Golgotha to stand trial.
“We expect there to be resistance. The Deathstalker and the SummerIsle are both warriors of some note, and we have reason to believe there has been considerable infiltration of the local populace by rebel agents. The entire population of Virimonde is, therefore, to be pacified and brought under direct Imperial control, by any and all means necessary. There’s no way of telling how prepared and armed the populace is, but we must
work on the assumption of a worst-case scenario. No chances are to be taken, no quarter offered. This is to be a punitive mission, an example to others. A high death rate is to be expected.
“The Lord Wolfe is in charge of the Imperial war machines, assisted by Professor Wax of Golgotha University. The Professor cannot be with us right now; apparently he doesn’t travel well. We can only hope his condition improves once we get him dirtside. The Lord Dram is in charge of the ground troops. A full army of marines and troopers who will take out the population centers and ready them for occupation by further troops. Captain, Investigator, Security Officer, you are personally responsible for capturing the Deathstalker and the SummerIsle, and bringing them back alive, if at all possible. Her Majesty has set her heart on putting them on trial. I will liaise among the three operations, coordinating your efforts. Lord Wolfe, you are to concentrate on the urban areas. Lord Dram, you will deal with the more scattered rural communities. Let’s all try very hard not to trip over each other. I want this done by the numbers, calmly and efficiently, and with the minimum necessary bloodshed. This is a punitive mission, but let us not forget that dead peasants can’t work. Now, let us discuss the logistics.”
The meeting dragged on for some time, as details were made clear, problems raised, and new solutions hammered out. Valentine surprized everyone with his keen grasp of the subject, while Dram seemed surprisingly reticent. Silence and Frost studied the most recent reports on the Deathstalker and the SummerIsle, and their latest known haunts. Stelmach remained silent and just nodded in the right places.
As a major food-production world, Virimonde was too valuable to be scorched, but its people could still be punished. The peasants must know their place, and what would happen to any who tried to rise above it. The wild card in all this was Valentine with his war machines. This would be the first time they had ever been used in a major operation. The Empress had always been intrigued by the potential of war machines, and they’d performed well in practice, but only a few had ever been tried and tested in the fires of battle. Virimonde would change that. And how well they did would decide Valentine’s future in the Court and in the Empire.
Eventually the last compromise was agreed on, the last detail ironed out, and they had a war plan everyone could live with. Beckett gave them as brief a pep talk as he could get away with, they all said God bless the Empress in a loud voice, and the meeting broke up. They all bowed more or less respectfully to each other, smiled meaningless smiles, and went their separate ways. Dram back to his troops, Valentine back to his machines, and Silence, Frost, and Stelmach back to their quarters. Silence and Frost were scowling heavily, and Stelmach’s stomach hurt. They had no illusions about their particular mission. The Deathstalker and Kid Death were known to be two of the deadliest fighters in the Empire, and overcoming them wasn’t going to be easy, never mind bringing them back alive to stand trial. But the three of them had developed a reputation for bringing off the impossible, so they were volunteered for the job. Their reward, should they survive, would be the return of the Dauntless from the Rim and reinstatement in the Empress’s good graces.
“If it wasn’t for my crew, I’d tell the Iron Bitch to go to hell,” said Silence, not caring whether the ship’s Security was listening. “I don’t do suicide missions. To the best of my knowledge, neither the Deathstalker nor Kid Death has ever been defeated in combat. Hell, they took on all comers in the Arenas, until no one would face them anymore.”
“They never met us before,” said Frost. “We can take them, Captain. Assuming we can locate them before the invasion proper begins, and everything goes to hell in a handcart.”
“I wish I shared your confidence,” said Stelmach. “I don’t even know why the Empress wanted me here.”
“You’re our lucky charm,” said Silence. “Just stay back out of the way, and we’ll do all the work.”
“Gladly,” said Stelmach. He hoped they couldn’t tell that he was lying. He knew exactly why the Empress wanted him on Virimonde. For some time now, Silence and Frost had been displaying near superhuman qualities in their missions. They were faster, stronger, and more capable than they had any right to be. Ever since their encounter with the enigmatic alien device known as the Madness Maze on lost Haden, they had demonstrated powers and abilities that bordered on the miraculous. Not to mention psionic. The Empress had no intention of letting rogue espers of such potential run around loose, so this mission, with its many obvious dangers, had been arranged for Silence and Frost, specifically to bring out their powers. And Stelmach would be right there to study and report on them.
He’d been sworn to silence, on fear of his life, and it was tearing Stelmach apart. He thought of Silence and even Frost as his friends, but he couldn’t defy orders that came directly from the Iron Throne. So he kept his mouth shut, fretted till his stomach cramped, and tried constantly to discover some way out of his predicament that wouldn’t get him killed either by the Empress or his friends. If they had powers, and Stelmach wasn’t even convinced that they had, they must have some good reason for keeping it quiet. Stelmach just hoped that when he finally found out what it was, it would be something he’d be able to include in his report. In the meantime, he worried a lot, and jumped whenever Silence or Frost spoke to him.
“What have we sunk to?” Silence said disgustedly. “Paid assassins, in all but name. All that nonsense about bringing them in alive to stand trial was just a smoke screen. They know we’ll never be able to defeat them without killing them. We’re supposed to kill them to save the embarrassment of bringing two Lords and heads of their respective Families to trial.”
“It’s our only way of getting our ship back from the Rim,” said Frost. “If the price for that is the death of two strangers, I have no problem with that. I’ve killed before on the Empress’s orders, alien and human, and no doubt will again. It’s part of the job.”
“It was never part of my job,” said Silence flatly. “I didn’t join the Fleet to kill people for political reasons.”
“Then you were remarkably naive, Captain,” said Frost. “In essence, that’s always been our final duty. To fight and kill those the Empress has declared enemies of the Empire.”
“We should be fighting the real enemies,” said Silence. “The Deathstalker and the SummerIsle are just a couple of kids with too much time on their hands. Probably never had a political thought in their lives. The Empire’s real enemies are the rebel underground. Owen Deathstalker and his people. Lionstone doesn’t take them seriously enough. You saw what happened on the Wolfling World. What Owen and his people have become. I don’t even know if they’re still human anymore. They’re the real danger. And that’s the only reason I’m doing this. Because we need to be back in a position to protect the Empress from the coming rebellion. She needs us, whether she wants to admit it or not.”
“You don’t like the Empress,” said Stelmach.
“Hell, no one likes the Empress,” said Frost. “At best, she’s an amiable psychopath. But she’s the Empress. I took an oath upon my blood and my honor to serve and protect her all my days. Right, Captain?”
“Right,” said Silence. “She might be a psychopath, but she’s our psychopath. Our Empress. Besides, she can’t live forever, and when she’s gone the Empire will still be here, if we’ve done our job right. In the end, we’re loyal to the Throne, irrespective of who sits on it. We preserve the Empire, for all its faults, because all the alternatives are worse. Without the central control of homeworld to keep things running, it would be only too easy for everything to fall apart, and all the worlds slide back into barbarism and mass starvation. And let’s not forget the various alien threats out there. We have to be strong and organized, to be able to stand against them when they come. We can’t afford luxuries like dissent anymore. Right, Stelmach?”
“What? Oh, yes; right. We have to be loyal. Whatever it costs us.”
Valentine Wolfe returned to his quarters alone. They were bare, stark, and char
acterless, which suited Valentine just fine. At any given time, what was going on inside his head was much more interesting than anything in the outside world. For the moment he had a pleasant buzz going, but nothing more. He had some thinking to do. He sat down in his favorite lounger, and turned on the massage program. He thought best when his body was well taken care of. He pulled one of the thick pulpy petals from his long-stemmed rose, popped it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. He and his Family were in deep trouble, and as always it was up to him to dig them out Clan Wolfe had lost the new stardrive contract when they lost their stardrive factory to the rebels on Technos III, but Valentine still had his secret contacts with the rogue AIs on Shub. And the unparalleled high tech they provided him had offered a way out of his dilemma. He presented some of it to Lionstone, as a gift to show his worth and loyalty, and then pointed out that his mastery of such tech made him the perfect choice to be in charge of the war machines in their first practical trials. And as simple as that, he was back in favor again.
Of course, his staying in favor depended on how well the machines performed on Virimonde, but he didn’t foresee any problems there. He smiled, and purple juice from the rose petal ran down his chin. He was sharp and bright and so in tune with himself he could feel his fingernails growing. Nothing could go wrong. He would succeed. It was his destiny. He was looking forward to seeing what his metal army would do to the poor peasants. There would be blood and fire and death and the destruction of cities, on a scale new even to him. He sighed deeply. Such fun.
Once he’d made a good showing here on Virimonde, Clan Wolfe would be placed in charge of war-machine production, and he could take his place at Lionstone’s side again. Where he belonged. He didn’t like being a lesser Lord. It offended his delicate sensibilities. And old enemies had been only too ready to crow at his fall from favor. In his apparent weakness they saw a chance for the settling of old scores. Preferably in blood. They were only waiting for him to fail on Virimonde, and then they would be circling him in Court like sharks drawn to the scent of blood in the water. Valentine sniffed. He would remember all their names when he came to power again.