Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

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 not to notice.
    He glanced across at Frost, standing rock-solid at parade rest beside his chair, her fierce gaze fixed on the view of Grendel before them. He hadn't had much chance to talk to her since Lionstone had pardoned them both. There'd been too much to do getting the ship ready to depart, the nature of their jobs kept them apart, and besides… he wasn't sure what he would have said anyway. The Investigator had saved his life, but he didn't know why. Anyone else, he might
    have made a few educated guesses, but Investigators had none of the softer