Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

around him, and was content. All Empire commands and machine instructions were routed through his systems, allowing him overall awareness of the invasion as well as individual control of his war units. He was contained inside a solid steel isolation tank, surrounded by control systems, lit by the glowing monitor screens. The ten-foot cube packed with tech would have been a claustrophobe's nightmare, but it didn't bother Valentine. Very little did, these days.
    Various drugs were racing through his veins, fighting for control of his mind and body, but his will held them all in check. Before coming to Virimonde, he'd finally yielded to temptation and taken the esper drug, and his dark mind had
    blossomed like a poisoned flower. He now had direct control of his own autonomic systems, balancing one chemical with another, so that he lived on the highest curl of a continuous wave. And if the universe and its people seemed a little less than real, well, they always had, to him. It was only a matter of degree.
    He could think faster, see farther, and plan in more detail than ever before, even as his emotions thundered within him, great storms of feeling that crashed against the unyielding rocks of his self-control. Valentine Wolfe was out of his mind morning, noon, and night now, and he loved it. His brain chemistry was altered beyond recovery, and he couldn't have been happier.
    People and events had become transparent to his supercharged insight, merely things and information to be manipulated to his best advantage. He could become Emperor, if he chose, but he wasn't sure if he could be bothered. For all his chemical highs, he was still dedicated to the search for the ultimate drug, the ultimate thrill and wonder. He wasn't sure what that was, or where he might find it, only that it was out there, and he hadn't found it yet. There was something still beyond his grasp, some further step to take; he could sense it. And he wanted it. To seize it and make it his, he would sacrifice every living thing in the Empire.
    In the meantime, he occupied himself with the destruction of Virimonde. As a distraction, it had its pleasing moments. He watched his war machines destroy whole towns and slaughter their populations, and smiled quietly to himself, his wide crimson mouth like a wound in the skull white of his face. He took an uncomplicated delight in the endless death and destruction, savoring it as a banquet of many courses. He was becoming a monster, and he knew it. He gloried in it.

    The machines moved to his order, directed by his will. His continuing alliance with the rogue AIs of Shub had brought him high tech advanced far beyond anything the Empire had. Their latest gift had been a computer system that enabled him to sink his mind into the metal consciousness of the war machines, and experience everything they did. He could become the war wagons and the combat androids, live in their steel heads, direct them as he would his own body. He could see through their sensors a world of perceptions far beyond the limited range of his human senses. He could plow through walls, fly high over buildings, and walk on metal feet through crowds of attacking humans and strike them down with metal fists. No one else could have done it, but Valentine's mind had been so altered by drugs and esp and Shub tech that it was no longer merely human. He'd been careful to hide that from Lionstone. She thought anyone would be able to control the war machines as he did once they'd mastered the new system. He let her think that, for the moment. It was useful for him to have sole control over something she wanted. In the meantime, her invasion of Virimonde gave him the chance to show off what he and his tech could do. And the slaughter and the suffering and the destruction were so delightfully diverting.
    Valentine had an absolute fear of boredom, and he'd exhausted so many of the usual sins and vices.
    Even as his mind moved in the machines, singly and en masse, he was still plotting his next move. He'd acquired the esper drug, through a combination of bribes and blackmail, from the same scientists who used to supply Dram. And since the man currently known as Dram wasn't taking the endlessly addictive esper drug from them, it was clear that whoever or whatever he was, he wasn't the original Dram. He wasn't a Fury; Shub had confirmed that, and they had no reason to lie to him. That left a clone, or an alien impostor, either of which
    raised fascinating