Chapter 471 - Far Future Ch. 181 – Entitled and Talking Money (1/2)
”I've already taken the liberty of killing the entire crews of all six ships, and they are being fed to the recyclers by the maintenance cyborgs as we speak.” Both men blinked. Yeah, the Love Potion#8 wasn't quite as bad as #9, but it was much faster. They had died in bliss, but they had still died fast.
”Naturally, they were kind enough to transfer their assets to my name first. I have de Krov's full authorization and agreement to inherit his Writ of Nobility. If the two Dukes Coronal would be kind enough to witness?” I pulled out a scroll from the side of the box and flicked it at them.
It spun lazily and too slowly through the air, was grabbed psionically and came to rest before Duke Vilfemmes, unrolling for his perusal.
He glanced at Kasper, who merely looked intrigued. With the stroke of a pen, they were giving me six ships, a noble title, and carte blanche to wander about the galaxy. It was an immense fortune... and it wouldn't cost them a credit. My pay was basically a drop in the bucket in comparison.
Indeed, the intelligence they were going to get off those logs was probably going to be damning a great many people.
Ruthlessness, cunning, power, domination, efficiency, thoroughness... despite themselves, they found themselves admiring me more and more. Of course, I was hitting them on all the subliminal levels, playing to their desires and expectations, yet breaking their tropes as I did so. Diplomacy checks at 50 are subtly impressive, and work perfectly well against post-Ten psions, too.
They could admire ruthless, ambitious people. The fact I had managed to do what I had done said all kinds of things about me.
”Kasper?” Vilflemmes asked, and was even cracking a soft smile.
”Why not?” Duke Kasper gave me a knowing, chilling smile. ”I have the feeling you have worked with our Orders frequently before, Colonel Rantha.”
”Yes, Your Grace. My record is embedded in my initial report.”
Vilflemmes pulled out a pen, and a glowing signature moved across the psi-active parchment. He pushed it over to Kasper, who also slowly and elegantly signed his name.
Psitech glowed and flashed, information was exchanged, and I was registered as the proper inheritor of the de Krov Writ of Nobility, in proper accordance with the laws and codes of the Empire of Tellus.
”Excellent. You can kill yourself now, my pet.”
His smile firmly in place, the Marquis smoothly reached up to the ruby amulet on his neck, tilted it upwards, and fired the Harlique-made hold-out weapon up into his own brain.
There was a hiss, his skull glowed from within, his eyes charred black, and he slumped as little threads of smoke came out his ears.
Chalice thrust out, five Stars and two Suns discharged in a hail of transpsychic power and vivic energy, and blew the length of his corpse almost instantly.
The startled Dukes watched his flesh and bone flake and burn away, super-charged by psychic energy, and he misted and his corpse fell away into white dust and threads of mist crawling across the floor.
My hair reached out, secured the amulet and his other jewelry, and I dropped the necklace around my own neck without batting an eye.
”This is a partial demonstration of what vivic energy does. Very notably, it consumes Warp and psionic energy and reduces them to unaligned harmonic background energy. Among the most important of things this does is means that demons who come here and are slain by vivic energy do not return to the Warp to bedevil us again.
”It also ensures that souls are cleanly dispersed into their afterlives, instead of being subject to the Warp, and it also feeds on necroic energies, if Death Walking events are common hereabouts,” I informed them helpfully.
”Could we not have gained more information from your predecessor, Marquise?” Duke Vilflemmes asked dryly.
”No. I pumped him quite thoroughly; he had approximately twenty hours before his brain melted down completely, and the process was already starting. I lifted the molmech-poison off the drow on my way through. Him and his officers made great test subjects for it, I'm sure you will agree.” I made a brushing motion with my hand, glancing at the nearest trash receptacle.
Duke Kasper raised his eyebrows, and with a rustle of motion, Marquis de Krov's flamboyant attire, his cyber enhancements, and his dust all went into the trashbin of history where he belonged. ”Will there be anything else you might be needing, Marquise?”
”Several things,” I went on with a completely straight face, and both men kind of looked at me. ”I'm going to need an Umbran forensic team or four to go over my ships and cart off the alien tech in place. I'm sure you will find it all quite fascinating, and if you could spring for the systems they replaced, that would be wonderful.”
Duke Kasper looked intrigued. ”That would be a minor matter.” The fact I didn't care if they were on my ships was unusual in and of itself.
”Excellent. The Promise is a cyber-warrior convertor ship. De Krov sold his cyberslaved 'borgs to anyone who wanted them. The technology is first-rate, and it would be a shame to waste it. I'm not going to be mass inducting refugees through it, but I assume the prisons of the sector are always full. With approval of the Orders Twilight, I would like to continue this work, with the specifications that the Orders have a devoted contract. I will have to do some considerable alteration of the psychological programming to make them viable for working with the Orders, but I believe having extremely disposable high-end combat troops for your use made from the scum of the Empire is agreeable, Your Graces?”