James Axler – Judas Strike

As the door swung open, in came a dozen young sec men, their faces grim, hands full of rope.

“Hi, tubby,” Evander said, grinning. “Was I a convincing enough fool to bring on one of your fucking attacks?”

“I am baron,” Kinnison managed to whisper hoarsely. “This is my ville!”

“Was,” Griffin corrected with a grim smile. “Report, Colonel, how goes the revolt?”

“The mansion and armory are under our control. A few of his guards escaped into the jungle, but we released the Hunters to bring them down, so they’re meat in the ground. The gates of the ville are closed, the petey boats have only our men on board, and we have control of the Firebirds on the roof. The slaves tried to escape in the chaos, as you said they would. We shot some, and the rest went back to work. There is some fighting at the docks, but nothing we can’t handle. All is secure.”

It was so easily said. Maturo Island had fallen. Kinnison couldn’t believe he heard the words. Nightmare. This was another wild hallucination brought on by the jolt, nothing more. His ville was fine, everything was fine.

“Excellent work, Colonel,” Griffin said.

“Thank you, my lord.”

There it was. Chancellor no more.

“You and you,” Baron Griffin said, gesturing. “Bind that sack of shit with rope. Don’t worry about cutting off his circulation. It isn’t important.”

Pulling on canvas gloves to protect them from his sickness, the sec men bound Kinnison tightly. He wanted to fight back, to reach the machine pistol hidden in the bed, but his strength was gone. He felt like a fish on the beach, fighting to move, trying to breathe.

“How…?” Kinnison said, then broke into a cough, bloody flecks staining the floor. The sec men moved farther away. Dragging in a lungful of air, he tried again. “What…did you…give me?”

“Exactly what you came here for, fat boy,” Baron Griffin said with a sneer. “The jar was full of jolt. Not your painkillers and flash, with a trace of the drug. But pure quill jolt. Enough to stun a whale. I guessed it should be enough to dull your quivering bulk. Your own healer told me of the secret stash. I knew if a sec man offered you some openly, your natural paranoia would make you rush here for some clean drugs. You fell right into my hands.”

“And if you died,” a corporal said, “who’d give a fuck?”

The others agreed, some laughing, others staring with open hatred. Kinnison gave no reply, the growing buzz in his ears drowning out the world. He began to surrender to the warmth and closed his eyes. Then pain took the baron as his head snapped to the side, and he realized somebody was slapping him awake.

“Don’t you die on me,” Griffin snarled, back-handing his prisoner again. “I haven’t begun to take my revenge yet. Colonel, send some of your men to cast that new brat of his into the sea with a stone tied around its neck.”

“Yes, my lord.” The man grinned and exited the room.

“No!” Kinnison screamed, and in a rush of strength stood and charged for the usurper. Two sec man grabbed his bandaged arms, and he shook them off, the urge to kill driving him onward like a Firebird in flight. But Griffin merely laughed as the sec men wrestled him to the wall, pinned helpless under their combined weight.

“Not even a good try,” Griffin said haughtily.

“You’ll never keep the throne,” Kinnison growled, feeling the rush of strength ebbing away like the tide. “You can’t control the Firebirds!”

Leaning past the guards, Griffin whispered something into his ear and Kinnison went pale.

“Did you really think I never followed you?” Griffin asked, delighted at the expression on the man’s face. “Or listened at a keyhole? The rockets will obey my commands. I am in absolute control.”

“There’s still Lieutenant Brandon, sir,” a burly sec man reminded. “He’s got a dozen peteys, could be trouble. The ass is actually loyal to this blubbering thing.”

Griffin waved that aside. “Brandon is dead. That healer, Glassman, is in charge of those boats, spreading the word about the outlanders. If Captain Glassman tries anything, we nail his family to the front wall until he surrenders. Then we blow him out of the water with my Firebirds.”