James Axler – Judas Strike

The older sec man snarled and cuffed the other to the ground. “Idiot!” he roared. “Never salute with your gun hand! Do it again, and I’ll see you in chains!”

Kinnison nodded at the exchange. At least some of his guards knew their job. Before entering the fortress, the baron glanced down the great stairs and out in the harbor. The view was magnificent, the rising sun filling the sea with crimson fire. Then the baron noticed a lone PT boat steaming into the dockyard. Badly battered, the craft was riddled with holes, white smoke spurting from damage to its aft steam engine, and it was listing badly as if taking on water. For a brief moment, Kinnison thought the craft was Lieutenant Craig Brandon’s ship, PT 264, but that was impossible. Baron Kinnison had sent his chief sec man off with ten of the stout fighting craft, armed to the gunwales with Firebirds, to handle the problem of getting more flash from Cold Harbor ville. It was unthinkable that only a single vessel would return from such a simple task. Nothing less than a full fleet of pirate vessels could even challenge such an armada. He turned for the door and went inside. Just a trick of the light reflected off the dancing waters of the ocean. Nothing more.

But as he waddled along the cool corridor of the predark post office, the lord baron felt an unfamiliar shiver run down his spine. Odd, it almost felt like fear.

AFTER A HUGE breakfast, Kinnison went to the throne room to listen to petitioners from the lesser islands try to bargain for more black powder at lower prices. He really should have been walking through the mills, making sure the overseers were storing the powder properly. The last accident removed a chunk of the hillside larger than most villes. But the lord baron wanted the lesser barons to be present when he received the good news, not grubby techs and sec men.

The room was packed with visiting barons from other island villes and their attendants. Nobody was armed, not even with eating knives. Only his sec men standing guard in the corners were allowed to carry weapons in the presence of the lord baron. The huge room was lit by smoky torches even though it was morning, as there were no windows for an assassin to shoot through. The doors were double thick and banded with iron, and the walls of the throne room were covered with carpeting stolen from the ruins of a skyscraper on Forbidden Island. It cut down on the echoes of raised voices, which often hurt his ears these days.

A raised wooden platform supported his specially built throne with blasters hidden in both armrests, and steel plating under the seat was protection against bombs. Female servants stood attendant on either side holding trays of wine and small fried birds. More servants walked through the crowd offering brass mugs of tree-bark tea or warm coconut milk to the dignitaries. All accepted, but few drank. Hours passed as barons and sons of barons placed their cases before Kinnison. To some he said yes; to most it was no. It all depended on whether they looked him in the face when they spoke. Those that did were dangerous and got nothing, but the ones who averted their eyes out of fear received at least a portion of what they needed. But never all—nobody ever got everything they wanted. Keep them hungry and off balance. Ruling a ville was simply a matter of blasters, but controlling a hundred villes was a different matter entirely.

Accepting a mug from a full-breasted serving girl, Kinnison reached into a pocket and extracted a small purple capsule of predark design. He broke it apart between his strong fingers and sprinkled the powdery contents into the brew. He drank deeply and soon felt the telltale rush of warmth through his body. Jolt was the only thing keeping him alive these days. It cut his pain by half and gave the man back some small measure of his once formidable strength. Flash helped the open sores on his skin, but only jolt eased his pain. Unfortunately, he was needing larger and larger doses to achieve the same results and knew that one day he would cross the line and overdose, hopefully to die before wakening chained in his own dungeon. Anything but that.