Tyrant's Stars: Parts Three and Four (2 page)

I
t was quiet.

The fighting outside didn’t reach the interior of the fortress at all. The Sacred Ancestor’s technology had become a barrier that repelled every last one of the enemy’s attacks. Seen from a distance, the fortress must’ve appeared to be wrapped in a ball of blue light, due to the ceaseless bombardment of lithium atom rounds and proton missiles. The fortress’s antiaircraft weapons were shooting down these inbound birds of death one after another, while laser and particle cannons seared enemy troops in rapid succession. Anyone could see the soundness of the fortress hadn’t diminished an iota.

The door on the elevator to the operations center opened and a dashing man in black appeared. The androids halted for a moment as they focused their electronic eyes on him. He was so exquisite, even their electronic brains were briefly left inoperative.

Glancing around the operations center, which seemed shrouded in a bluish twilight, D asked, “Where’s the count?”

“He’s not here,” one of the androids replied. “It isn’t in his nature to watch the fighting from afar. So he said he was going to join the action.”

“Do you know his location?” D asked.

A vast diagram in glowing lines appeared in the space before him: schematics of the fortress. A single red point gleamed.

“He’s in the second armory,” the android told the Hunter.

His fighting pose alone made his strength evident.

Taking a glance at Seurat’s figure-eight stance, the count smiled and said, “Oh, you’re good.”

It was a warrior’s nature to burn with a longing for battle when he encountered a formidable opponent. Going from a middle position to a low one, Braujou lowered the head of his spear. It was an invitation.

Seurat accepted it. Taking a step forward, he swung his sword at the right side of the count’s neck with all his might.

I’m
faster,
the count thought.

His spear was ready to deflect the edge of his foe’s blade—but it met only air. Seurat’s face was so close their noses were nearly touching. The assassin’s countenance was devoid of character, like a machine with eyes and a nose.

Steel bit into the nape of his neck. It ripped through the count’s skin and innards like they were water, only stopping when it hit his spine.

“Wish I could let that heal,” Seurat said, oddly enough, as he pulled his longsword back out.

Before the count fell, his foe pierced him through the heart.

The enemy assault seemed endless. A fresh volley of missiles exploded against the barrier, their light sliding across it like blue ripples.

“A hole has been made in sector three of the barrier!”

“Energy patch complete. Repairs took six nanoseconds. It’s believed the aerial projectile was a wormhole.”

Turning his back on the mechanical voice’s softly spoken account, D exited the operations center. Taking the electromagnetic elevator both vertically and horizontally, he headed toward the infirmary, where Sue was.

The elevator wasn’t a box, but rather a condensed, subdimensional version of the electromagnetic waves that ran through the center of an electromagnetic coil. Ignoring the law of inertia in instantaneous movements horizontally and vertically, the person inside didn’t feel any kind of shock at all. The door was merely an elliptical opening.

Without warning, D ordered, “Take me back to the floor we just passed.”

His destination was verbally relayed to the mother computer.

“Understood.”

As it gave this reply, an opening appeared in the center of the greenish glow.

A savage lust for killing blustered in. Anyone but D would’ve covered his face and curled into a ball.

When D stepped out, he saw a gigantic black figure that might’ve been mistaken for the count standing about thirty feet down the hall. At his feet lay the actual count.

The gigantic figure noticed D, too. Not bothering to sheathe the longsword he carried, he asked, “You’re D, aren’t you?”

Perhaps he didn’t expect an answer, because he immediately continued, “I’m . . . Seurat. One of Valcua’s seven. I just slew
this
one.”

He turned his eyes to the count, who lay at his feet, and then returned them to D.

D saw the giant’s right hand move to bat down all three of the wooden needles the Hunter had hurled.

“Just what I’d expect. . . from D,” Seurat said, the young man in black reflected in his narrow eyes. “No mercy for his foes... is what I’d heard ... But to take it to such a level... It makes me ... burn for battle now.”

A cracking sound came from his right hand as he adjusted his grip on the hilt of his sword. He still didn’t understand D.

While he was adjusting, D kicked off the floor, and by the time Seurat reflexively leaped back, raising his sword, the Hunter was above him, bringing his sword down fast—and splitting the giant’s head open to the bridge of his nose. D twisted his body in midair to avoid a lightning-fast thrust, something only the Hunter could do.

As he landed, another slash came at his head. With only the tips of his toes making contact with the floor, D made a bound to the right as he hurled a rough wooden needle. Aimed right between Seurat’s eyes, the needle disappeared the very instant it seemed to pierce the giant—missing him, just as D’s slash of a second earlier had.

Seurat charged forward, his sword splitting D’s left shoulder open. Bright blood went flying. It seemed to possess a will of its own as it slapped against the face of the still-pouncing Seurat, blinding him.

A black cyclone zipped to the chest of the stock-still assassin, sinking into him. The Hunter’s blade ran through his heart. At least, that was the intent... but the giant leaped back beyond the weapon’s tip, and the elevator to his rear opened. The blade of the sword disappeared.

As he wiped away the blood that covered his eyes, Seurat started to leap for the elevator, but then he stopped dead in his tracks. The huge figure who’d stepped through it blocked his way. Even on realizing that it was Count Braujou, with long spear in hand, Seurat didn’t look surprised.

“The one I destroyed was a well-made android. Are
you
the original?”

“Rest assured,” the count replied, smiling ferociously. “Though its innards might look just like mine, it won’t turn to dust when it’s destroyed. But you’ll be the one who falls now.”

Though he made a beautiful bound to avoid a horizontal swipe of the long spear, Seurat still found himself in an unprecedented predicament. Behind him an amazingly eerie aura closed in—D.

“D, this fellow wounded you and remains unharmed. What is he?” the Nobleman inquired, but perhaps he realized the Hunter might not reply, for he continued, “Are you one of Valcua’s seven?”

“My name is Seurat,” the giant replied.

“How polite of you to say so. And because you’ve made such a favorable impression on me, I’ll now send you to your reward!”

As the Nobleman took a fighting stance with his long spear, Seurat was the focus of a deadly determination. Against D and Count Braujou, even this fiend—who’d used a bizarre power to keep the android count from landing a single blow and made D’s blade disappear—seemed unlikely to escape unscathed. Nor were these the kind of men who’d be foolish enough to take turns fighting him one on one. Still, Seurat’s face was free of emotion as he took a figure-eight stance with his longsword.

“Well,” the count said, and then the air changed.

It felt like someone who had no place in this world had just appeared.

“But that’s...” the count began, his words sounding like a death rattle.

There was an incredible being there now. The overwhelming presence seemed to wrap around the count’s bones and crush them, leaving him reeling. The air he inhaled in a desperate breath burned in his chest like acid.

At the same time, a tone that was cool and unspeakably soft yet equally powerful said, “So, you’ve come, Valcua?”

“We meet again, eh?” came the reply, in a voice that was quiet but still had the angry ring of thunder to it. “I gave you a warning before you entered the village of Marthias. Do you remember?”

There was no reply. D merely stared at a single point in space.

“Good enough. You’re just a small fry, but an
interesting
small fry.

I believe I’ll grant you an audience. Right now, I’m in the fortress’s reactor. Get here within a minute’s time. If you don’t, the fortress will be reduced to a fireball before another minute has passed. Braujou, I leave your fate in that man’s hands.”

“There’s nothing I’d like better,” the count said in a tone brimming with confidence. On hearing D’s voice, he’d been freed from the spell of the Ultimate Noble.

The air eddied. Valcua’s presence had departed. There was no sign of Seurat, either.

Looking at D, the count heaved a sigh. “I’ll be a laughingstock till the end of my days, but may I ask you to do this?”

Before turning around, D gave a faint nod.

Watching the figure in black as he was swallowed by the elevator, the count let out another moan.

“Seurat, was it? It looks like I’ll have to analyze his power.”

The Nobleman’s nerves were far from calm.

Who was that man, and who was the overpowering “Ultimate Noble” who wouldn’t show himself?

Before a huge door, D halted. On the other side of the fifteen-foot-thick entry of ultradense steel, the reactor that gave life to the fortress burned with the intense energy released when protons came into contact with antiprotons.