Graham McNeill - I, Mengsk

"Not this time," he said. "Our new allies are readying another mission as well as the assassination of Mengsk, and I need to help them coordinate."

"Oh? And where might that be?"

"The shipyards at Dylar IV," said Samir Duran.

THE LAST TIME VALERIAN HAD WAITED FOR HIS father on Umoja, he had been seven years old. He remembered his wide-eyed optimism at the thought of meeting the heroic man who stood head and shoulders above lesser mortals. This occasion shared similarities with that day, in that Arcturus Mengsk was now literally head and shoulders above lesser men.

Emperor Arcturus Mengsk the First. It had a strange sound to it, as though it had not yet settled and was yet to earn its rank as a title.

Valerian stifled a yawn and wished he'd been able to sleep last night. He'd told himself it was simply that he'd drunk too much caffeine, but he knew it was the thought of his acknowledgment as the emperor's son that had caused his sleepless night. With the resources of the Dominion at his disposal, nothing would lie beyond his grasp. He could lead archaeological teams back to Van Osten's Moon or any number of sites that had recently come to light.

The day had dawned bright and warm, as though Umoja itself were preparing to welcome the new emperor, and the sun was a bloated red orb in the coppery sky. Valerian stood on the lawn before his grandfather's house, dressed in his finest suit and boots, with his ubiquitous scarlet cloak that accentuated his broad shoulders like armor. His sword was slung low by his left leg and a handcrafted blaster pistol was bolstered on the opposite hip. He presented a perfect image of an emperor's son, and despite his mother's reservations about today, he could see she was pleased with how fine he looked.

She sat in her wheelchair, wearing the most flattering clothes that could be tailored for her painfully thin form. Her hair was washed and cleaned and, even after all she had said about his father al the riverbank last night, Valerian could see she had put on a little makeup.

Even those cast aside by his father still made an effort to look presentable for him.

Standing with them was his grandfather, Charles Whittler, and Master Miyamoto— resplendent in his finest fighting robes—and behind them a line of Ailin Pasteur's servants. It had been Whittler's idea to have the serving staff stand ready to greet the new emperor, and though Valerian's grandfather had balked at the idea of putting on such a dog-and-pony show, Valerian had persuaded him that it couldn't do any harm.

"The great emperor likes to make us wait," grumbled Pasteur.

"Well, the Ruling Council did make him halt his ships beyond the outer marker," pointed out Whittler. "And gun cutters aren't exactly the fastest ships. A battlecruiser would have arrived here much sooner."

His grandfather mumbled something under his breath: Valerian didn't catch it, but could guess its substance. Ailin Pasteur and Charles Whittler had gotten off on the wrong foot and had never bothered to try and find the right one. He suspected his grandfather was unsure as to which of the Mengsks Whittler owed his loyalty, proving to Valerian that Ailin Pasteur was a shrewd judge of character.

"There," said Master Miyamoto, pointing to a spot of light in the orange-flecked clouds.

Valerian looked up, feeling his heartbeat shift up a notch as he saw the glowing cruciform shape of an aircraft dropping through the atmosphere. Two lighter ships swooped protectively around it, flying figure-eight patterns above and below the larger ship. Valerian fell a hand lake his and looked down to see his mother staring in apprehension at the approaching flyers.

"It'll be all right," said Valerian.

She looked up at him with a weak smile. "Remember what I told you," she said.

"I will," he promised.

The shapes resolved themselves from the clouds and Valerian saw that the central craft was a heavy gun cutter, a wide-bodied, pugnacious-looking aircraft long ago rendered obsolete by the development of the Wraith fighter. But it had range and was capable of interplanetary travel within a system, so had never quite vanished from the inventory.

With the losses taken in the war against the Confederacy, he guessed his father could not afford to be too choosy when it came to weapons of war. The other two ships were Wraiths, sleek air-superiority fighters that could engage ground and air targets with equal lethality.

The gun cutter slowed its descent and rotated in to land, its ventral thrusters kicking in as it approached the ground. Its bulbous engine nacelles were too wide to allow the craft to fit into the underground hangar, but the pilot contented himself with landing next to the platform's open hatchway. The Wraiths continued to fly overhead patrols as the gun cutter settled its heavy bulk onto the ground.

"That's never going to grow back," grumbled Pasteur as the cutter's jets seared the grass.

"You use robots to tend the garden, so where's the harm?" said Valerian with a smile.

"Not the point," replied his grandfather. "Lack of respect for others is what it is."

Further discussion w as hailed as the side hatch of the gun cutter rumbled open in a haze of steam. Smoke swirled as a dozen soldiers in combat armor jagged down the assault ramp and took up the position of honor guard on either side of it.

A shape appeared in the smoke and Valerian smiled at the theatricality of his father's emergence into the Umojan sunlight.

Emperor Arcturus Mengsk wore a long brown duster edged in gold thread and a brocaded internal lining. His suit was styled like a marine's dress uniform and finished with a glittering, wolf-head belt buckle. His boots were polished and a long sword was buckled at a rakish angle on his hip.

As Arcturus marched down the ramp, Valerian saw his father had aged, the silver in his beard and hair more pronounced than when he had last seen him. Yet for all the signs of maturity, his father was still a year shy of forty and carried himself with the confidence and power of a man half his age.

Everything about him radiated his absolute belief in himself, and Valerian knew that though in any other man this would be arrogance, with his father it was simply a statement of fact.

The soldiers fell in behind Arcturus as he crossed the lawn toward them with a purposeful stride. Valerian noticed the shock in his eyes at the sight of Juliana. In that one, quickly masked window, Valerian caught a glimpse of his father's fear of infirmity and things he could not call on his fearsome intellect and power to fight.

Valerian's grandfather stepped forward to meet Arcturus, his ambassadorial mask slipping into place as he shook hands with a man with whom he had run the gamut of emotions: admiration, mistrust, anger, forgiveness, and finally mistrust again.

"Arcturus, welcome to Umoja."

"I remember the last time you said that to me, Ailin," said Arcturus. "You didn't mean it then and I suspect you don't entirely mean it now."

"So long as you are here in peace, then you are welcome," replied Pasteur.

"Ever the diplomat, eh?" said Arcturus, turning to greet Valerian.

His father came forward with his arms open and his face alight with genuine pleasure. "My boy, it does my heart good to see you. You look well, very well."

"I am, Father," said Valerian, embracing him and enduring a series of hearty slaps on the back for his trouble. His father was at his ease with such comradely gestures, but Valerian had always found them awkward and forced.

Valerian broke the embrace and his father turned to Juliana.

"If you dare say I look well, I'll take that sword and stick you with it," she said.

"I was going to say that it was good to see you," replied his father. "But you look better than I was led to believe, so that's good."