“Very clever,” I said, my tone mocking.
“Not so clever of you. Do you expect to torture the information out of me?”
I stood. “No, not torture. It never works. The subject simply tells you whatever they think you want to hear. Even if they do tell you the truth before they die, they’ll have told you so many lies, you won’t know which is the real story until it’s too late.”
Zukov’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “If not torture, then what?”
I tapped Zukov on the nose. “I was thinking I would bribe you.”
The count laughed. “Bribe me? I have everything I want. Selnikov has given me a seat at his right hand, a position in his court, and several star systems to add to my collection.He’s even elevating me to a prince. What can you offer me which could outweigh those rewards?”
I slid the zeroblade under his chin. “Your life.”
Zukov smiled knowingly. “Ah, threats. A language I understand.”
“It’s hard to enjoy rewards if you’re dead,” I said.
“It’s almost as hard to enjoy them from the catacombs of a gulag asteroid,” Zukov countered.
“Prisoners have been pardoned before. I do have some standing with the Emperor. Answer my questions, tell me where she is, and if she lives, I guarantee you can keep your eight favorite fingers.”
“Eight?” Zukov asked.
I shrugged. “I assume Astrid will want her pound of flesh. Eight is the best I expect to do. So, will you talk?”
“I owe you nothing. You’re no demon, you have no standing in the Empire.”
“I am still the Emperor’s Consort until such time as you see fit to execute her. Isn’t that your law? The Emperor is the Emperor until they are no more? And as the Emperor has not removed me from my position, I outrank you. Now tell me what I want to know,” I demanded.
Zukov chuckled. “It won’t work. You’ll fail, and you’ll die.”
“Then there’s no reason not to tell us. We’re dead men, what secrets could we spread?” I replied. “Besides, wouldn’t the honorable thing be to tell your foe why you betrayed them? I know you Imperials go in for that sort of thing.”
With another chuckle, Zukov said, “All right, why not? Ask me your questions, little corpse. Let’s see if my answers are to your liking.”
“Where is the Emperor?” I asked.
Zukov clucked his tongue. “Too soon. Rest assured she’s safe for now. We haven’t decided on the best way to kill her yet.”
“Why do you want her dead?”
“Your Emperor was murdering our society. We simply wished to return the favor.” I cocked my head, and Zukov explained further. “Since the coup, the Emperor has been instituting reforms, inspired no doubt by her time spent in your wretched little nation. Some modernization may have been necessary, but the Emperor was changing too much. She disrupted our society, disrespected our culture, threw aside millennia-old traditions for no reason other than she thought she knew better than generations of our forebearers. We had to stop it, so we had to stop this war.”
Despite my efforts, I know my confusion showed on my face. “What does the war have to do with it? I thought attacking the Royal Commonwealth and Urgan Despotate was as traditional as a demon could get.”
Count Zukov grinned, enjoying leading me about by the nose. “She’s using this war to eliminate her detractors. The traditionalists and warriors, they all went to fight, and they died, leaving the Emperor with none but her reformist allies at home. Fortunately, we saw the trap and forced several members into her court, but if the Emperor won her war, even the staunchest war hawk would fall in line. She would have all the support she needed to push through her infantile reforms. We could never hope to overthrow a victorious Emperor and gain the people’s support, so we had to stop her from winning.”
“Why not assassinate her? Why this shadow play with the Fall device?” I asked.
“We don’t just need her dead, we need her discredited. Your lover has made herself quite the little hero with this war of hers. The young lords and warriors adore her. They worship her every word. If she died now, public sympathy for her cause would be unstoppable. Reveal her to be another bloodthirstytyrant, or worse, a genocide, and they would see her message as the pile of rotten lies it is,” Zukov said with a snarl.
“How did you get a Fall device on New Melbourne?” I asked.
“It was already there. We took it from some cowardly Despotate soldiers, in horrible disrepair, but not beyond our engineers’ capabilities. We’ve been ready to activate the Fall device for years. All we needed was the activation codes.”
“And that’s where the Noble Federation comes in.” I phrased my question like a statement.
“Very good, Captain.” Zukov smiled. “Our spy reached out to their Federation contact, and a few weeks later, they delivered the codes to us. You have no idea the satisfaction of having your enemy hand you the key to their own destruction, but let me tell you, when we destroyed that planet and everything spiraled into our hands, it was orgasmic.”
