Chapter Forty-One

The Red Keep. Kings Landing.

Even without my psyker powers I would have easily able to sense the growing tension in the air. I felt sure that I'd returned to the capital just before the Lannisters made their move to seize power here in Kings Landing. As I reached out with my new sense I could almost taste the anticipation in the air. I knew that sometime very soon it would reach its peak and then the fun would start.

Despite the lack of any conflict between House Lannister and House Stark I figured that Cersei would want to forcible remove Eddard Stark from his role as Hand of the King, and even with me around as a distraction I felt sure that Lord Stark would have found the time to look into the death of Jon Arryan. If so then he could have discovered who was the true father of the princes and the princess. If so then the Queen would have even more motivation to get rid of the Starks.

His Grace had gone hunting like he did in the show, and since I was here to oversee a delivery I had an excuse to stick around in the Red keep so that I could watch the performance that was about to start. I wasn't sure if it was premonition or just a good guess, but I didn't think Bobby B would return to the Red Keep, at least not while alive.

To ensure my safety at this dangerous time I'd brought along almost my entire battle harem, I'd left a few behind to guard my ship, and squads of Navy Armsmen. I didn't think I'd be able to seize The Red Keep, not with so many Lannister soldiers around and so many gold cloaks, however that wasn't part of my plan, I only needed to be able to shoot my way out should the Lannisters be foolish enough to try to force me to stay here once hostiles started. Cersei was stupid enough to think that holding me hostage would keep her safe.

For now I was talking with the Hand of the King who was trying to convince me to sell guns to the Baratheons despite me having more or less stated that I wanted to replace the Baratheon dynasty by restoring the Targaryen one. The older of two Lord Starks that I'd met must have his own ideas about how to handle the coming of the Imperium. Not that those plans would matter soon.

"The fact of the matter is that House Lannister can pay more" I was saying "The crown is broke and House Stark can barely afford my services".

I'd already been generous with the wolves.

"Surely there is some arrangement we can come to" said Lord Stark "the only way to maintain any sort of balance of power will be ensure that all the noble houses have these weapons".

Eddard was no fool. He understood how dangerous it was to let the Lannisters get the lion's share of the guns.

"The issue is that you've nothing I want" I went on to say "I have plenty of land and I'm not interested in marrying a child".

At least Lord Stark hadn't offered me Sansa or worse Arya as a future wife. Other lords had and any father willing to trade his daughter for my favour wasn't worthy of my favour. At least Viserys had offered me someone older than 13 as a wife. Besides I needed him a puppet ruler.

"I want gold, silver and other rare metals. The only thing that I want from The North is for you to bend the knee and swear loyalty to the Golden Throne. You can stay out of the coming conflict and I give you my word that The North will be left to its own affairs as long as it pays some small tribute the Imperium".

As I reached out my supernatural power I could sense the conflict within The Hand even if his face remained passive.

"As for the Baratheons they don't have anything I can't get elsewhere" I said "But I wouldn't mind taking over Dragonstone for a time".

That got The Hand's attention.

"It's traditional the seat of the Heir to the Throne" said Lord Stark.

I could wait and ask Viserys to gift me the island after I gave him something really nice for this coronation.

"The island might make a good retreat to stay in when I visit this world" I said causally.

Actually I was interested in finding out if it had any hidden chambers were lost treasures were stored away. I wanted a Valyrian steel power sword because having one would be awesome and no amount of riches would convince a noble house to sell me their sword. I could offer much more than even Tywin Lannister could offer, but I figured that if I couldn't find enough of the steel to have a sword forged then taking one by right of conquest would be the easiest way to acquire what I wanted.

"I can talk to..." Stark started to say.

This was when Cersei's minions started to make their move. I'd felt their arrival only a few moments ago as my psykers senses weren't yet very refined.

"A little sooner than expected" I commented.

I didn't think the Queen would have struck will I was meeting with Lord Stark. Perhaps she feared what the Hand might have to say to me.

My time table was going to have to be moved forward. My allies should be ready to move by now and while I had a few matters to take of before I put my future brother-in-law on the throne that would happen within a few weeks, maybe a month at this rate.

"What is happening?" questioned Lord Stark.

Hadn't Lord Renly warned him that this could happen?

"King Robert must have had an accident while hunting. With him out of the picture the Lannisters are taking control of the Red Keep and the capital" I told Eddard Stark "That's gunfire, they're using the guns I supplied them as part of their coup. Which means it's time for me to leave. I'd go find your daughters if I was you".

Lord Stark called out for me as I left his office.

"Save my family and The North will bend the knee to the Imperium" he promised.

Well it would make things a easier for me if The North stayed out of the fighting and while any tithe collected from them would be minor I did like the Starks. Of course just getting the Starks to agree didn't mean every Northern House would simply join the Imperium, but I had ways of bringing them around.

"Very well" I said.

This would end my alliance with House Lannister as even if I claimed that their guards tried to stop me from leaving so I had to defend myself, someone would see me leave with Lord Stark. Not that it mattered as by now I'd gotten quite a bit of gold from House Lannister and I'd never intended to ally with them in long term. Stringing them along for a little while had simply been part of my plan.

As for Lord Stark his sudden desire to submit to the Golden Throne rather than the Iron Throne seemed to come out of nowhere, but I wasn't that surprised because Eddard must know that if Westeros was not united it could not withstand the Imperium. So like his ancestor he would bend the knee so as to avoid an invasion that would see his people suffer and die.

"Secure this tower and find the Stark girls" I ordered my battle harem "Armsmen you're with me".

While the Lannister soldiers had guns they weren't yet used to them and they only had crude autoguns, they were semiautomatic rifles and pistols. My troops had carapace armour, laser weapons, grenades, and most importantly both the training and experience to guide them in using those weapons. The Lannister soldiers knew little about stuff like covering fire and nothing about what explosives could do.

"Follow me Lord Stark and I'll take as many of your household as I can back to Winterfell" I promised "Don't fall behind".

As we began to move I voxed my ship and ordered that the next stage of the operation to begin. Soon the invasion of the Iron Islands would begin and I hoped to be there for the end of it so that I could claim the islands for House Thrax. The Iron Islands would make a decent enough foothold here in Westeros. But first I had to get out Kings Landing.

The sound of gunfire was replaced very quickly with the noise of lasers and screams as my battle harem began to cleanse the Tower of the Hand of anyone who wasn't loyal to the Starks. As we made into a dining room which contain Sansa and her Septa who had been having lunch, it begam clear that the two women had chosen to take shelter under the table once the shooting started. This was wise of them as my armsmen needed a clear line of fire when red cloaked Lannister men entered the room.

"Sansa!" I heard Lord Stark call out.

I kept my mind on what mattered right now.

"Secure the room" I ordered.

My battle harem would be able to fully clear the Tower of the Hand and would do so quickly so we just had to wait.

"My lord we have the youngest Stark daughter and someone who claims to be Syrio Forel on the ground floor" a voice said over my comm "Shall we bring them to you?".

Since my comm device was in my ear only I had heard that.

"No we are coming to you" I decided.

By now Arya Stark should have explored some of the tunnels under The Red Keep and as such would know a way out. It would be better to leave via an unexpected route and to exit the city as quickly as possible while the coup caused a distraction. By the time things had calmed down enough for Cersei to find out that we weren't dead or captured we'd be flying off in my pleasure craft, or so I hoped.

"Arya!" Lord Stark shouted as we entered the space she used as a training area. .

Neither the girl nor her dancing master had trusted that my battle harem was on their side so my super human warriors had been forced to restrain the First Sword and his student.

"Let them go" I ordered.

Arya ran to her father, and after they hugged I asked the girl a question.

"You look like an explorer" I said "Do you know anyway out of here than the guards might not know about?".

Of course she did so I ordered two members of my Battle Harem to stay close to her as she guided us the basement where the dragon skulls were kept. Along the way I ordered my armsmen and battle harem to begin falling back to let the Lannister take the Tower of the Hand. Lord Stark had yelled at any member of his household who could hear him to come with us.

"Visyers will want these moved back up to the throne room" I commented.

While I didn't think it was worth the risk to have a live dragon on my ship the bones of a dead one would make for a wonderful display and future king shouldn't mind gifting me one.

"Do you really want to give the throne to Viserys?" Eddard Stark asked me.

He was much more emotionally stable right now than his children and the few members of his household who'd my people had managed to save. At some point his daughter's direwolves had joined us and I had no when that had happened because of stealthy they moved.

"The current leadership is failing to impress me" I replied.

There was no more time for idle chatter. My battle harem and armsmen could be overwhelmed by sheer numbers so we had to keep moving.

"You two scout on ahead" I said to the members of my battle harem whose protective body suits and las pistols had seen some use this day "And I want a couple of you to cover the way we just came. Join us when you can".

When I heard shooting up ahead I double checked my hellpistol which was more deadly and only slightly heavier than the standard Laspistol. However, it was also more expensive in terms of the materials and manpower required to manufacture so they weren't made on mass to the extent that lasguns were. Because of this Hellpistols are usually carried by elite Imperial Guard troopers and higher-ranking Imperial Guard officers. They are granted access to this weapon by virtue of their service. I'd inherited mine from the last captain of my ship along with his power sabre a weapon that had not tasted blood since it came into my possession.

Now my laser pistol got a little use as I took cover behind a dragon skull. A large group of the gold-cloaks had tracked us here and so the battle harem members who I'd left behind to cover us were now falling back. They gunned down a lot of Lannister men before giving up ground and there more gold-cloaks than I'd been expecting.

When the time came I killed my first men with ease since I'd gotten basic combat training shoved into my head by the teaching engines. I should have felt bad about killing people only as it turned out I didn't and I could only put that down to all the changes I'd undergone.

I didn't have time to dwell on that as a massive figure appeared, one who was swinging a huge sword around despite not having a lot of room to move around. It took quite a few laser shots to bring him down, so many that one of my armsmen compared him to an Ork.

"That's The Mountain" I heard Eddard Stark say.

I'd not realised that until the Warden of the North spoke. The newly made corpse was indeed Tywin Lannister's favoured attack dog.

"The Princes of Dorne wanted him dead" I said "No doubt they'll need proof that he is gone. We'll take his dead".

One of my battle harem used her chainsword to remove The Mountain's head from his body, much to the distress of Sansa Stark who fainted and had to be carried by her father, and even I felt a little nausea as I watched the head get stuffed into a backpack of one of my guards.

"Fire in the hole!" warned an armsmen a few moments later.

No one else could be able to follow us that way as the entrance into the tunnels had been collapsed. It also meant we couldn't fall back, but since we wanted out of here that didn't matter much.

"Onward" I said.

The way ahead was clear right up until we exit the tunnel and emerged into daylight. As soon as we did many men in Lannister colours began marching towards us, but since they made no move to threaten us my battle harem didn't start shooting nor did the navy armsmen although I could feel their desire to. The men blocking our way weren't doing anything hostile other than baring our passage out of the city.

It didn't take me long to figure out how the Lannisters would know that we'd use this way to escape the Red Keep. Varys knew the secret ways in and out of the Red Keep, and would others, so I shouldn't be surprised that the Lannisters would have men ready to take us all into custody, or at very least take the Starks.

That the soldiers had guns didn't worry me too much as they were not aiming them at anyone. Also they were standing out in the open while my warriors found what cover they could and kept their weapons pointed at someone. They wouldn't start gunning down everyone in my path without my order due to how well they followed orders as long as none of the Lannister people made any openly hostile moves.

"Lord Thrax, you and your comrades are free to leave" said Ser Jaime Lannister as he stepped forward "We only want the Starks".

They either didn't no or didn't care that I'd killed some of their men so as to escape.

"Lord Stark has agreed to bend the knee to the Imperium, that makes him an Imperial citizen so I can't simply hand him over on your word" I replied "I'll be returning the Starks to Winterfell so that we can make our agreement more formal".

I really had no idea what legal rights, if any at all, an Imperial citizen actually possessed, and likely it varied depending on what world you were on, but Jaime Lannister was no lawyer and he didn't care about the law anyway.

"My orders are to take the Starks into custody" said the knight.

No doubt on his sister's orders despite her lack of any actual authority.

"The Hand of the King gave no such command" I pointed out "and the King is off hunting so there is no one with the authority here to order the arrest of the Stark Household".

I was only bothering to talk because I wanted to know more about what was going on. I didn't even know for sure if Bobby B was dead.

"My nephew commanded it" said the kingslayer.

So Joffrey was on the Iron Throne and that was all I needed to hear. That inbred sadist could not be trusted to be reasonable or to keep his word so I had now had no choice.

"Kill them" I commanded.

I shot Ser Jaime in the leg and he dropped the ground even as I took what cover I could find. The Lannister men had weapons that could defeat our amour only they weren't use to using guns even with the training that had been provided so they reacted too slowly and those not killed in mere seconds began to run.

"We'll take the Kingslayer with us" I decided.

Not killing him had been something I chosen on a whim. I felt sure Viserys would like to see Ser Jaime's head removed and I'd allow that since I didn't need as a bargaining chip as I didn't intend to barter a surrender with House Lannister. But my plans could change so it would be good to have an important Lannister as a hostage.

As for Ser Jaimie he did not enjoy being carried out of Kings Landing my one of bodyguards, and sadly for him her had no say in the matter. He'd enjoy his future even less since I'd started figuring out what I could do the human mind thanks to Littlefinger and I wouldn't mind another test subject.