Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

placed our Army and fleet on full alert
    All reserves will be called up, and all industries shall be placed on a war footing for the duration of the emergency. This will, of course, prove somewhat expensive, and therefore all taxes and tithes have been raised by seven percent, effective immediately."
    She stopped and looked about her, as though inviting comment No one was stupid enough to say anything. There was more coining. They could feel it. Lionstone smiled graciously into the silence and continued.
    "The news we bring today is not all bad. Our scientists have recently perfected a new form of hyperdrive for our starships, powerful and inexhaustible beyond anything we have ever known before. Mass production will begin shortly, and every ship in our Fleet will be fitted with one."
    She waited again, but there was still no response, though thoughts were flying frantically behind a great many impassive faces. If this new drive could do everything the Empress implied it could, it would make all the other drives obsolete. Which would mean, among other things, that the Empress' ships would have an unbeatable advantage over all others. In order to compete, all privately owned ships would have to acquire the new drives, at no doubt exorbitant rates.
    Another form of indirect taxation. On the other hand, someone was going to acquire the right to mass-produce the drive, and that someone stood to make a hell of a lot of money… It took a moment before the courtiers realized the Empress was speaking again.
    "We regret to inform you that the elves have been busy again, spreading pain and destruction throughout our Empire, but our advisors assure us that they pose no real threat. They have limited numbers and little or no access to advanced weaponry. They will be stamped out. Is that not correct, my Lord Dram?"
    A man was suddenly standing beside the Empress' throne as the holo that had been
    hiding him fell away. Tall and dark, in jet-black robes and battle armor, he stood rigidly at parade rest, his stance almost inhumanly perfect. He looked to be in his early thirties, but no one knew how old he really was. He'd appeared apparently out of nowhere some ten years earlier, and guarded his secrets well.
    He was handsome in an unspectacular way, but his dark eyes and slight smile were utterly cold. He wore an energy gun and a long sword on his hips in the presence of his Empress; the only man in the Empire so entitled. He was the Lord High Dram, Warrior Prime of the Empire.
    Elected to that position by popular vote, he held it for life, though Warrior Primes tended not to live all that long. The Empress had bestowed on him control over the military, in all its aspects, and made him personally responsible for her security and safety. The finest fighting man the Empire had ever produced, bloodied in a hundred major actions, he was adored by the commoners, wooed by Parliament, and universally loathed by the Lords for his power and influence with Lionstone. The two of them were supposed to be lovers, but again no one knew for sure. Most of the court found the thought of the Empress having anything to do with something as warm and vulnerable as love frankly ludicrous.
    It didn't stop a hell of a lot of people trying to find proof one way or the other, so it could be used as leverage.
    Dram had made Warrior Prime after personally leading the attack force that destroyed the elves' main headquarters, hidden among the pastel towers in the floating city of New Hope. Dram and his marines had come falling out of the sun on gravity sleds and opened fire the moment they were in range. The fragile towers cracked and shattered as gunfire raked through them, and people ran screaming in the streets. The marines kept firing. The people of New Hope had
    known what they were doing when they allowed the elves to live among them. Dram had his orders, and taking prisoners wasn't one of them. So the towers fell and people died, and the elves were forced out into the open to fight or die.
    They never had a chance. Dram had the numbers and the weapons and the advantage of surprise. Most of the elves were mowed down the moment they showed themselves, and in the end the only ones who survived were those who ran. Dram left the city of New Hope in flames, a burning coal floating in the sky. He brought back the elves' heads so that they could be displayed on spikes, as a lesson for the wise and the virtuous. The people had clapped and cheered whenever Dram