“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 Twilight 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. 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 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 the teams 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?”

They glanced at one another. “We can go over specifications in detail, but that is not out of the question, Marquise,” Duke Vilflemmes acknowledged.

“Excellent. Now, although I have inherited a substantial amount of assets, I have to engage in some extensive retrofitting and crew recruitment, meaning my ships are going to be in dock for some time. I would like the docking fees waived for this period, approval given to my recruitment efforts, and furthermore, I would like to be allowed to take advantage of the information protocol Mimir, detailed in the Janus reports to you.”

Both men looked suddenly interested again. “You know the contents of the report from our brother Dukes?” Duke Kasper asked.

“I helped organize the data for maximum effect.” Both men exhaled in some surprise. Yes, the Janus Dukes looking out my eyes had trusted me. “A portion of the information is meant to be publicly released under confirmation and seal of the Orders as to its veracity. The responses should be... interesting. And, if someone has made the proper moves, extraordinarily rewarding financially.”

Both men quirked smiles again. “You are saying that there is information that will move markets of certain parties when released, and you are asking permission to take advantage of it?”

“Yes. And when you see the information in the Mimir protocol, you will probably be of the same mind as the Janus Dukes and deem some punishment is appropriate.”

They glanced at one another again. Truly, such financial matters were minor things before the monolithic power of the Orders. Financial ruin was simply a word away for men of such power, and they could disseminate wealth or poverty with a fingerstroke. While I had literally cost them billions with my vivic messaging, it was, in the end, a minor matter... and if it concerned the security of the Empire under Twilight Seal, cheap and reasonable!

Allowing me to punish some malefactors in their pocketbooks for actions they had taken cost the Orders absolutely nothing once again, but could indeed deal a brutal blow.

“There are times when members of our Orders must have access to black funds,” Duke Kasper said smoothly.

“I will provide a full accounting of the funds acquired through this transaction, and you can decide upon a number appropriate for future uses. I will assure that it is maintained in the event of emergencies,” I answered promptly, and that matter was quietly done with.

I lifted one more finger, and they looked at me once more. “There is a matter concerning the Orders that might place you in some minor conflict with the Mechanists if you agree to it, but was deemed worthy of developing by your counterparts on Janus.”

“Go on,” Duke Vilflemmes asked narrowly.

“There is a branch of human technology, long disused, that when developed properly, resulted in a type of tech that is extremely resistant to outside Warp interference, and more resistant to psychic probability tampering. However, it is not current AMT standard, and it cannot be made properly by the Mechanists.

“I know this technology because I developed it myself. My primary production contract was for the Twilight Orders back on Janus, and my compatriots are now carrying it forwards in my stead.” I flipped up a datacrystal between two fingers, and tossed it at them for Vilflemmes to catch mentally and set down before him. “Those are the performance specs of the technology. Specifically, it does not outperform AMT in standard usage, at best being on par. But, against the Warp and psychic interference, things the Umbrans and Coronals place premium importance on, it is unequivocally superior.”

“What manner of technology?” Duke Vilflemmes asked, unable to hide deep interest.

“It starts with electronics, relays, and circuitry, but it has been developed all the way up to entire ship redesigns, including drives and weapon systems, as well as personal armor, transportation, and weapons.”

Their faces changed despite themselves at the outrageous claims. “And this technology works?”

“To be honest, Your Graces, we are unable to keep up with demand. Equal to AMT, but superior against the Warp... let us say, the number of interested parties is vast.”

“What is required to start production?” Duke Kasper asked reasonably.

“I need to acquire the production license for vacuum tube technology from the Mechanists. It has been sitting on the shelf for something like six thousand years. I do not expect there to be any difficulties in such an acquisition, but without a market, it is not worth pursuing, Your Graces.”

“If this technology is capable of what you say, we are very interested, and you need not worry about interference from the Mechanists,” Duke Kasper stated firmly.

I had to smile. “Your dealing with the overt interference should be enough, Your Graces. I believe I can handle the rest.”

-------

The Goldilocks crew was already bubbling over having access to the Empire’s markets, and my kids with financial and math Talents were giggling strangely to themselves. They had full access to the funds, and accounts were getting set up and buys were being made after I walked out of the Castle and got busy on the public Boole. Anybody who was watching the amount of data getting moved back and forth would have thought I was carrying around a full hard drive server.

I had a noble’s half-cape behind me as I left the Dukes, nearly scaring the secretary to death as I strolled by, and I waited outside for the Umbran flitter to come pick me up. The scale of the tech I inferred meant they were actually dispatching a cruiser on station next to the six ships to take on the xenotech. If the Mechanists wanted a shot at it, they could wait in line... and I would like to see what some of that tech did to them.

I was pretty sure some of it was going to be shot, and a lot more burned in fusion fire, after all...