Deathstalker

'We're going to Shandrakor. If my ancestor is there, he and Jack can take over this rebellion, and maybe then I'll be allowed to retire to the background and get a little peace. Oz, power the ship up. We're leaving.'

'Yes, Owen. I have a message from Mistport control tower.'

'Put it on.'

'Sunstrider, this is Mistport security,' said a harsh voice. 'You do not, repeat not, have permission to take off. Power down your engines; our people will be boarding you shortly.'

'Don't put money on it,' said Owen. 'Oz, are we ready?'

'Just say the word, Owen.'

'Get us out of here.'

The AI shut off the Mistport channel in mid-splutter, and the Sunstrider leapt up off the landing pad and into the sky. Several ships started after her, but they were no match for her speed. Sunstrider shot beyond the atmosphere and settled into orbit, ready to make its jump through hyperspace. And that was when things really went to hell.

'Ah, Owen,' said the AI, 'we have a problem. Two Imperial starcruisers are heading right for us. They must have already been here in orbit waiting for us. They're opening fire.'

'Shields up!' yelled Owen. 'I thought we left those bastards behind on Virimonde. What the hell are they doing here?'

'Hitting us with everything they've got,' said Ozymandius dispassionately. 'Shields are holding, but I don't know for how long. They were never designed to take this kind of punishment.'

'Two starcruisers?' said Jack Random. 'Two bloody starcruisers?'

'They must really want your aristocratic ass,' said Ruby Journey. 'This heap of yours have any weapons?'

'Nothing that'll stop a starcruiser,' said Owen. 'Oz, make the jump. Now.'

'I'm afraid that's not possible, Owen. I'm still working out the exact spacial coordinates. Jump too soon, without everything correct to the last decimal place, and we could end up materializing inside a sun, or something equally unpleasant. Port shield just went down. Brace yourselves.'

The ship shook and alarms shrilled as everyone staggered back and forth. The ship shook again and again, and smoke billowed into the lounge. Bottles fell from the bar and smashed on the floor. Owen clung to a wall bracket and thought frantically about what to do next. Somewhere entirely too close he could hear the crackling of a large fire.

'Oz, status report!'

'Bad, and getting worse. Half our shields are down, outer hull penetrated in seventeen places, inner hull breached in three. We're losing air fast.'

'Can't we try and run?'

'If you really want to annoy them. Just hold on, Owen. We'll be gone in a few minutes.'

'We don't have a few minutes! Go now! Make the jump!'

'I really cannot recommend that, Owen. If we jump now, I cannot guarantee a safe arrival.'

'Jump now! That's an order!'

'Yes, Owen. On to Shandrakor, and death or glory!'

The lights flickered and went out. Smoke filled the lounge. The ship lurched heavily as the stern blew apart in an echoing explosion, and then the Sunstrider dropped into hyperspace and was gone on its way to an uncertain destination.

CHAPTER SIX

Under the fishes, the City

John Silence, once again a Captain in the Imperial Fleet by Her Majesty's pleasure, sat stiffly in the command chair on the bridge of his new ship the Dauntless and tried unsuccessfully to get comfortable. It wasn't that there was anything actually wrong with the chair, it was just so new, like everything else. It didn't give in the right places, or make allowances for his habitual gestures, like the old one had. But that chair was long gone with the rest of the good ship Darkwind She'd been his ship for many years, and a good ship, too. Silence snorted silently. Here he was, with a new ship and a second chance he'd had no right to expect or hope for, and all he could do was find fault. Well, thought Silence, do what you're best at, that's what I always say.

But he had to admit the Dauntless was something special, even if she was still fresh from the stardocks, all sparkling clean and completely untested. If she lived up to even half the claims the engineers made for her, she'd be the fastest, best-gunned ship in the Fleet, and a genuine wonder of the Galaxy. She had the new stardrive, more disrupter cannon than any ship before, and force shields powerful enough to survive a dive into a sun. The Dauntless was a whole damn navy in itself, and Silence wasn't blind to the trust the Empress had placed in him by giving him the command. Any other Captain might have been tempted to just take the ship and run for the Rim, to build a small empire of his own, secure in the knowledge it would be years before any similar ships could come after him. But Lionstone had known he wouldn't do that. She had given him back his life and his commission, when she needn't have given him either, because she trusted him, and now he was her man, blood and bone and spirit, until they were both dead and gone to dust.

But until then, he was the new captain of a very new ship, where nothing could be trusted until it had been thoroughly tested and tried and proved reliable. Fine claims were all very well, but Silence reserved judgment. Engineers had a tendency to overenthusiasm, especially when it wasn't their butts on the firing line. Besides, Silence knew where the new stardrive had come from. The engineers had derived it from the drive in the alien ship he'd found crashlanded on Unseeli, barely a year ago. Silence supposed it was just possible the stardocks now had a full working knowledge of the alien technology, but just in case, he made it a point to know where the nearest escape pod was at any given moment. That was the other side to the Empress' appointing him Captain of the Dauntless; if nothing else, he was entirely expendable.

He deliberately put that thought aside and concentrated on the viewscreen before him. The Dauntless had dropped out of hyperspace and taken up an orbit around the planet Grendel some two hours ago, and he still couldn't get any sensible data out of his brand new sensors. The information they were giving him was questionable where it wasn't obscure, and no bloody use to him at all. Practically every question he put to his computers came back 'insufficient data,' and the ship's AI was sulking because he'd shouted at it. But he couldn't in good faith put off planetfall much longer. The Empress' orders had been quite explicit. He was to locate and open the Vaults of the Sleepers and subjugate or destroy whatever creatures he found in them. Nothing new in that; it was the Empire's standard attitude to all aliens. But the aliens on Grendel, or rather buried deep beneath its surface, were different. Vicious, unnatural killing machines, they'd slaughtered the last Empire team to encounter them. Some fool opened a Vault, and that was that. Hopefully things would be different this time. Firstly, he had some idea of what he was getting into, and secondly, when he finally got around to opening up a Vault, he was going to be backed up by a full company of fifty marines, ten battle espers, and twenty Wampyr.

Which should give him an edge, if nothing else.

Silence was frankly surprised that there were still twenty Wampyr left in the Service. Their uses were limited, they were expensive to maintain, they disturbed the hell out of anyone who had to work with them… and by now everyone knew all about plasma babies. And that was all he needed on a new ship with a new crew: a new addictive drug to tempt his men. They were probably already building illicit stills and cooking up new battle drugs in the labs, just to see if they could get away with it under a new Captain. Which was possibly why the Empire had insisted on supplying him with a new Security Officer: V. Stelmach by name. He hadn't volunteered his first name, and Silence hadn't pressed him in case it was something embarrassing. (Vernon, Valentine… Violet?) Big, broad, close-mouthed and entirely humorless, the Security Officer was never far from the Captain or the Investigator, keeping a watchful eye. Just a little reminder that the two of them still had to prove themselves. Silence did his best