Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

strike back. You know he would. And he has the transmutation engines. He’d destroy this world rather than give it up. I’ve worked for him. I know how he thinks.”
    “Can’t we cut the communication lines to the engines?” said Diana.
    “We keep trying,” said Nina. “But they operate strictly from comm lines within the Imperial Palace. Under Finn’s personal control.”
    “There are ways into the palace that even Finn doesn’t know about,” said Douglas, and all the others looked at him. He smiled slightly. “The palace was my home, remember? The royal family have always kept a few secrets to themselves. But we have to save those for real emergencies. We can’t throw them away on anything less than the final assault on the palace. Right, I think we’ve covered everything, so all of you can get the hell out of my room, and let me breathe again.”
    The meeting broke up, and everyone went their separate ways. Nina, to her news site operations room, for the latest intelligence. Diana, to patrol with the Sluts. Tel, to plot and conspire with his own personal band of spies and informers. And Stuart Lennox went back to his own room, just down the corridor. He’d been on his feet all day, training old and new Rookery citizens in how to be soldiers, and he desperately needed some downtime.
    That said, he was always happier in action rather than in planning sessions. Like everyone else on his home world of Virimonde, he had been raised as a warrior, and he preferred to think in simple, direct lines. He joined the raids into the outer city whenever he could, always up for a chance to kill Finn’s people. It didn’t satisfy like killing Finn would, but it would have to do, for now.
    His spirits lifted a little as he pushed open his door and entered the small but comfortable room he shared with his new boyfriend. Jas Sri was already there, bustling back and forth and tidying things up while he waited for dinner to be ready. Jas was a great one for tidying up, and even the dust had learned to lie in straight lines while he was around. Jas worked with Nina at the news site, a media tech who specialized in adapting donated alien tech to make the news site invulnerable to outside attack. Stuart and Jas had been together ever since Nina first introduced them. (Nina had introduced a great many personable young men to Stuart, and was quietly and happily relieved when Stuart finally took a shine to one.) Jas was good for Stuart, not least because he wouldn’t put up with excessive brooding or dwelling on the past. Jas Sri lived very thoroughly in the present. He was tall, thin, dark-skinned, and very intense, and inclined to dramatics when he had an audience.
    “About time you got home, honey,” Jas said, without looking round. “Dinner will be on the table in five minutes, and yes, there is pudding. There may even be custard, if you’re lucky. Try to remember to use the napkins, this time. And don’t drink from the finger bowl! I know you only do it to annoy me.”
    “True,” Stuart admitted, slumping into the easy chair. “You are a true touch of civilization in a barbarous place, Jas.”
    “And don’t I know it. You relax, honey, and I’ll find your slippers for you.”
    Stuart had to smile. Jas mothered him unmercifully, just as he tried to mother everyone. He claimed it was genetically hardwired into him. Either that, or a gypsy curse. He kissed Stuart briefly on the forehead, patted him on the shoulder, and then hurried back to the stove tucked away in one corner of the room. Jas was naturally touchy-feely, but had learned to rein it in around Stuart. He didn’t want to put any pressure on the emotionally damaged man. Stuart didn’t talk much about Finn, or the things that had happened while they were together, but occasionally he would let slip a telling fact or detail, of the horrors he’d been through. Some of what Stuart had endured made Jas’s blood run cold, and then he would bite his lower lip hard and try to be extra supportive without being smothering. And sometimes, when they lay together in the narrow single bed, Stuart would cry out miserably in his sleep, and Jas would have to hold and comfort him until it was light again.
    On the whole, Stuart did seem to be doing better. His many successful sorties into Finn’s territory had done much to restore his self-esteem, and he was once again the canny fighter he’d been as a Paragon. He and his hand-picked people had done serious