Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

adored. Also known as the Iron Bitch.
    Her private chambers comprised the heart of the bunker, surrounded by layers of guards and protection, some of which never slept. The Empress had many enemies, and she liked it that way. Love passed and honor changed, but fear remained constant. Lionstone was the latest in a long line of rulers, and she had no intention of being the last. Her private chambers, where she only had to be herself, were bedecked with silks and flowers of a hundred vivid hues from a hundred different worlds. The air was perfumed with subtle and gorgeous scents that were also quite deadly, unless you'd been immunized to them.
    In the midst of it all, Lionstone sat at her toilet before a full-length mirror, attended by her surgically-altered maids in waiting. They moved about her with silent grace, like so many butterflies, dressing her in the armor and furs necessary for a formal appearance at court. Lionstone scowled at her reflection in the mirror. She had power over many things, but tradition wasn't one of them.
    So she suffered her maids to wrap her in the colors and robes of office, hitting and slapping the young women when they got in the way or as the mood took her, and studied her perfect face in the mirror.
    Lionstone XFV was tall and slender, towering over her maids by a good head and more. Her face was fashionably pale, but with none of the usual splashes of color that fashion dictated. She had little taste, and less discrimination, and didn't give a damn. She had no time for the wild colors and wilder trappings
    that engaged the attention of so many of her court, or anything else that might distract from the impact of who she was. She had long, sharp-edged features, with a wide slash of a mouth and brilliant blue eyes, topped by masses of pale blond hair piled up on top of her head. Her back was straight, her head erect, and her gaze could chill at a hundred yards. She was beautiful. Everyone said so.
    Her maids fluttered around her, adjusting a fold here and a hem there. Their hands were always moving, their touch gentle but sure. Lionstone trusted them completely; she oversaw the conditioning of each new subject before they were allowed to join the other maids. She never spoke with them, either in conversation or to enquire their opinion. They had nothing to say. Lionstone had had their tongues cut out, so they couldn't talk about her. She'd also had them blinded and deafened, and now they knew the world only through cybernetic senses. It wasn't fit or safe that anyone should have direct knowledge of Her Majesty in her most private and defenseless moments, so Lionstone's maids-in-waiting were deprived of the senses nature gave them in return for more perfect and controllable artificial systems.
    It was supposed to be a great honor to serve the Empress in person, and there was a long list of applicants, from the highest to the lowest in the land, but Lionstone would have none of them. To their private relief. Her maids had always been rebels or debtors or outlaws. Or perhaps just someone who had fallen from favor. The Empress had them mindburned and reprogrammed, and those who had once dared defy her now served as her most devoted slaves. The thought never ceased to amuse her.
    She'd done other things to them, too, but no one ever talked of that. Or at
    least, not when someone might be listening.
    Lionstone tapped her long-nailed fingers impatiently on the arms of her chair as her maids-in-waiting put the last touches to her appearance. She held herself immobile till the tall spiky crown cut from a single diamond had been lowered respectfully onto her head, and then she surged to her feet, scattering the maids with a wave of her arm. She studied herself in the mirror, and the reflection nodded approvingly back. The body armor fitted her snugly from throat to toe, dully gleaming where it wasn't disguised by thick luxurious furs from the inner worlds. Only her face remained bare, as tradition demanded. In an age of clones and other duplicates, the Empire liked to be sure exactly who was ruling them.
    There were other safeguards and protections built into her armor, and she ran quickly through a warm-up checklist as her personal computer implant flashed it up before her eyes. Everything checked out, not that she'd had any doubts, and she allowed herself one last glance at the mirror before striding out of her boudoir, leaving her maids to hurry after her. They quickly caught up with her and