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 game 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
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
'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
