Carter agreed. “Betcha this one won’t be pretty, either.”

“Nope. No way I’m betting against that.”

When Kendig woke up, he found himself in a small room with a one-way window in one wall, and he was strapped firmly into what appeared to be a fairly typical metal office chair that was bolted to the floor. His legs were pressed against the front chair legs, his back was in firm, full contact with the chair’s back, and his forearms were strapped to the chair arms. His VR was completely blocked, and he was alone in the room.

“What the hell...?” he wondered. “Where the hell am I, and what’s going on here?”

Just then, a man came in wearing an Imperial Marines uniform, with some sort of braided decoration on his shoulder. Kendig had no idea what that meant, or who the man was, until he spoke.

“Hello. I am Captain David Black of the Imperial Guard. You have been taken into custody by the Imperial Police, and remanded into our custody. You are on trial in the High Court of Sintar on charges of espionage, sedition, attempted corruption of an Imperial representative, attempted assassination of the Emperor Trajan, attempted assassination of the Empress Amanda, attempted assassination of Consul Geoffrey Saaret, and the attempted murder of at least forty-six thousand, two hundred and eighty-three persons, which includes everyone in the Imperial Palace proper, the Imperial Research building, and the Imperial Administration building, both of which are connected to the Imperial Palace via large walkways in the basements. Or to put it simply: you, sir, are charged as a foreign spy, an attempted mass murderer, assassin, and terrorist. Emperor Trajan himself will hear your case. And you will provide him with the information he wishes to know, or suffer the consequences.”

Kendig gaped at the man.

What he thought was, Oh shit. They pegged me. Fifteen years, and I blew it, somehow. What he said was, “What the hell are you talking about? I’m no murderer! Spy?! Are you crazy? I’ve got a wife and kids!”

“We are aware of your espionage, and your attempted assassination of the Emperor, his family, his staff, and their families,” Black waved off the denial. “There is already sufficient proof to convict you, to include eyewitnesses, video, and the isolated triggering of the device you gave a Palace staffer... ‘Detective Gardenia.’ We desire to know who you are working for, and who you are working with.”

As he listened to Black, Kendig’s expression closed into a scowl as he realized they did indeed have him dead to rights. The use of the name and title he created to fool the Palace staffer clinched it. He was likely going to die, if not today, then very soon. But he would be damned if he was going to give them the information they wanted, or take his colleagues down with him.

“Go to hell,” he snarled.

“I see,” Black responded. “Very well. Dr. Withers, if you please?”

A bewildered Kendig watched as an older man entered the interrogation room carrying a small black bag. He opened it and extracted a pulse injector and a small ampoule with a yellow label, loading the ampoule into the injector.

“What the hell is that?” he demanded to know.

“If you will not voluntarily tell us what we wish to know, you will be drugged and the information obtained that way,” Black said, calm.

“NO!” Kendig shouted. “You can’t do that! It’s illegal!”

“Not for the Emperor,” Black said, holding up a staying hand to the doctor. “You – and your associates – have made a grave error, Mr. Kendig. You think our Emperor is a soft, spoiled jackanapes, like so many of the other polities’ leaders were. Not Emperor Trajan. Our emperors and empresses are not hereditary, you see. He was raised on a largely rural planet, in a log cabin, which lacked many of the amenities you, living here in Imperial City, are used to having. He entered the Imperial Marines, was stationed on Wollaston during its uprising, and was nearly killed during an attack on the base that he and only one other soldier narrowly staved off. He saw his family murdered here in the Palace, and rose to become Emperor despite it. By any chance have you seen the hellish maelstrom that is now all that remains of the capital planet of the Democracy of Planets?”

“Uh... uh, no.”

“Ah, well then, perhaps you would like to see. There is a short video available to you in VR now.”

Kendig opened the only channel now available to him and watched the video; it lasted perhaps a minute and a half, and it showed the final attack on Olympia. At the end, the planet was nothing but a roiling maelstrom of molten rock, studded here and there by massive supervolcanic eruptions. Holy shit, he thought, shocked. It’s the very mouth of hell. I knew they ‘took it out,’ but I didn’t realize they meant the planet itself. He exited the VR channel, slightly nauseated.

“Ah. There you are,” Black said pleasantly. “How did you like it?”

“That was...” Kendig began, but he had no words.

“Exactly,” Black said, becoming grim. “Emperor Trajan grew tired of the constant attacks on the Sintaran Empire – either provoked by the DP, or by the DP itself – and he chose to put a stop to it.” Black paused, then placed both hands flat on the tabletop between them. “Now, you tell me: Do you think Emperor Trajan is going to stop doing whatever is necessary to end this damnable war, once and for all, now that it’s transitioned to shadow warfare?”

“Oh shit,” Kendig whispered, and Black sat back, satisfied.

“So. I will give you one more opportunity to cooperate, Mr. Kendig,” he said. “Which will it be? Cooperation, or having the information forced from you, at some point during which you are likely to lose your mind?”

“Plea bargain?”

“We

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