Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

to buy it long enough for our engines to power up for a jump into hyperspace."
    Hazel's mouth was suddenly dry. "Captain, our two guns aren't worth spit against all theirs. There must be something else we can try."
    "Sorry, Hazel; nothing springs to mind. You know what they say: if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined."
    Hazel waited, but Markee had nothing more to say. She concentrated on her fire controls. Both the Shard and the starcruiser had force screens that could withstand a hell of a lot of punishment, but they also used up a hell of a lot
    of energy, and the Shard's shields would go down long before the Imperial ship's did. It came to Hazel then that she was going to die out in the empty spaces of the Rim, far from home and family and honor. Just as she'd always known she would.
    On the Imperial starcruiser Darkwind, Captain John Silence sat at ease in his command chair, looking out over his efficiently murmuring bridge: every man at his station, every system running smoothly, just as it should be. The small craft on the main viewscreen seemed surprisingly insignificant to be taking up so much of his time and attention. Still, nothing that small was going to give him any trouble, and the prize money its capture would bring would be a welcome bonus. At least that way something good might come of this mission. He tried to push the thought aside, but it persisted. He had better things to do than waste time hunting down some poor bastard who probably didn't even know he'd been outlawed yet. But man proposes, and the Empress disposes. She said go, and you went. If you liked having your head still attached to your body.
    He looked at the starship on the main viewscreen again and frowned slightly.
    Probably just a pirate ship involved in something dubious, but what was it doing here at the same time as the Darkwind! Could it have come to try and save the Deathstalker? Owen Deathstalker, Lord of Virimonde, holder of a proud name and title, condemned to death by the Empress' word. She hadn't said why, and Silence hadn't asked. One didn't. But Silence had quietly checked the files anyway, just in case there was something there he ought to know. If there was, he missed it.
    Owen Deathstalker might be descended from a famous warrior Clan, but in his case, the blood seemed to be running thin. His people ran Virimonde efficiently enough, but the man himself was just an amateur historian. Wrote long books on obscure subjects that no one ever read. Looking back was unofficially
    discouraged; there were too many subjects the Empire preferred its people to forget. Presumably the Deathstalker had stumbled across something he shouldn't have. Whatever it was, Owen Deathstalker wouldn't be writing a book about it this time. He was Outlawed, a nonperson with a price on his head. Literally. The Empress liked proof of her kills.
    Silence shrugged and sat back in his command chair: a tall, lean man in his forties, with a thickening waistline and a receding hairline he tried not to be touchy about. He sat in the command chair with a quiet dignity, as though he belonged there. He'd served the Empire to the best of his ability all his adult life, and if sometimes he found himself on a mission he had no stomach for, well, that was the Empire for you, under Her Imperial Majesty Lionstone XIV.
    Also known as the Iron Bitch. Silence stopped that thought short. It wasn't wise to let one's thoughts run free in some directions. You never knew when an esper might be listening. He concentrated on the pirate ship before him. Small craft, built more for speed than action. No threat to a starcruiser. But she shouldn't have been here… not just now. Silence looked across at his comm officer.
    "Do we have an identification on her yet?"
    "Not yet. Captain. Their AI is talking our ears off, but not actually saying much. It's trying to feed us some nonsense about being a medical ship on a mercy mission, but it's the wrong kind of craft for that, and it doesn't have the proper identification codes. Odds are they're just trying to keep us occupied while they power up for a hyper jump. Do we stop them. Captain, or let them go?"
    "We stop them," said a calm, cold voice, and Silence nodded to Investigator Frost as she came to stand beside him. Frost was in her late twenties, tall and lithely muscular, with a gun on her hip and a long sword hanging down her back.

    Even standing still she looked competent and extremely dangerous, like a predator