Deathstalker War

Empress, while strengthening the position of the newer Clans, who tend to support her. Damn, this is complicated. Levels within bloody levels. Oh hell, I can't think any more about this now. I can feel a really bad headache hovering over me.'

'Let's go to dinner,' said Kit. 'The world always looks better after a good meal.'

'To hell with dinner, I need a drink. Lots of drinks. Let's go to the tavern in town, and see Alice and Jenny.'

'Sounds good to me,' said Kit.

High in orbit above Virimonde, unbeknownst to most of those below, the Imperial starcruiser Elegance. Her master, General Shaw Beckett, sat unhappily in his private quarters, drumming the fingers of one hand upon the armrest of his chair. If truth be told, he had no appetite for his present mission, but the Empress's orders had been clear and quite specific, and as a good soldier he would do as he was told. It wasn't the first time he'd followed orders he'd had no taste for, and he doubted it would be the last. Life was like that, more often than not, under the reign of Lionstone XIV, the Iron Bitch.

Beckett was a large man, and extremely fat, and his chair groaned slightly under him with every impatient movement. All of his invited guests were late, but there was nothing he could do to hurry them. Too much concern might appear as weakness, and this would be a bad group to appear weak in front of. They'd take advantage. Beckett looked testily about his quarters. He felt like throwing things, but there was nothing easily to hand that didn't have some personal or sentimental value. Beckett liked to surround himself with personal items when he traveled, a little bit of home in a strange place. And if a General wasn't entitled to a few home comforts in his quarters, he'd like to know who was.

He thought about this to keep from thinking about other things. There was a great deal in the near future that he preferred not to think about until he had to.

The door chimed politely, announcing his first visitor. Beckett growled 'Enter,' and the door slid open to reveal Lord Valentine Wolfe, in all his morbid glory. He was dressed in exquisitely cut clothes of eye-blinding white, topped by a long black cloak with a scarlet interior. His long thin face was white as bone, save for the heavily mascaraed eyes and his wide crimson smile. A mane of jet black hair fell to his shoulders, with heavily oiled and scented ringlets. He carried a long-stemmed rose in one hand, its petals a deep purple, almost fleshy. The stem had vicious thorns that made Beckett wince just to look at them. Valentine stood posed in the doorway a moment, so Beckett could appreciate the spectacle, and then he drifted casually forward into Beckett's quarters. The door slid shut behind him, and Beckett felt a brief but very real twinge of unquiet, as though he was now trapped in a room with a deadly predator. As, in a very real sense, he was.

Valentine looked unhurriedly about him, taking in the various points of interest with his dark-lined eyes, and then dismissed them all with the merest twitch of one painted eyebrow. The Wolfe stopped before Beckett and bowed formally. Beckett nodded curtly in return, but didn't bother to get up. It took a lot of effort to heave all his bulk up out of a chair, and he was damned if Valentine Wolfe was worth it. He gestured at an empty chair with one fat hand, and Valentine sank languorously into it.

'Greetings and salutations, dear General. You've done amazing things with your quarters. I don't like them. But then, my tastes aren't often appreciated by others.'

Beckett snorted. 'Possibly because you're a drug-soaked degenerate who's so far gone you probably have to flip a coin to decide which way up you are.'

'Possibly,' said Valentine. 'Can I interest you in a little something, General?'

'You can not,' said Beckett firmly. 'I have no interest in clouding my mind with chemicals when there's work to be done.'

'Such a narrow attitude,' Valentine said easily, delicately sniffing his rose and briefly worrying a petal with his teeth. 'I've often found that the right substances, in the proper proportions and combinations, can be a positive boon to a man's thoughts, leading to greater clarity and comprehension. Many the insight I've been granted, while all around remained lost in darkness. If you could only see the things I've seen, dear General, and the wonders that have been revealed to me. I ride my expanded consciousness like an unbridled horse, trampling lesser souls beneath me. However, for the moment I am entirely at your service, and just dying to hear all about our mission here.'

'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 Wolfe'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