Bold

by Mike Shepherd

  Past Kris and Jack, Bill and a young woman from his staff stood beside Al and a young man. That led to Vicky’s four. Admiral Waller stood grimly at the head of the rebel section of the receiving line, an aggressive young Marine lieutenant colonel beside him: her left hand rested on a sword, her right was on a holstered sidearm.

  Kris took one look and saw trouble.

  NELLY, WHAT’S GOING ON THERE?

  GRAND ADMIRAL WALLER IS THE NAVY CHIEF OF STAFF. HE GOT OUT OF ANHALT ONE STEP AHEAD OF AN ASSASSIN SQUAD. HIS WIFE WAS CAUGHT. THE EMPRESS PERSONALLY SLIT HER THROAT AND SENT THE VIDEO TO WALLER. HIS YOUNGEST DAUGHTER IS HIS PLUS ONE.

  NELLY, KEEP AN EYE ON THEM. JACK, CAN YOU GET A PAIR OF MARINES IN CIVVIES TO FLY WING ON THOSE TWO?

  I ALREADY HAVE.

  OOPS. SORRY. JACK, IF YOU CAPTURED SOMEONE’S WIFE, WOULD YOU SLIT HER THROAT OR HOLD HER HOSTAGE FOR HER HUSBAND’S GOOD BEHAVIOR?

  KRIS, I DON’T MAKE WAR ON CIVILIAN WOMEN.

  WELL, THE EMPRESS IS, AND SHE’S NOT ACTING VERY SMART.

  YA’THINK?

  The reception line started. Ensign Longknife called out the first couple’s names, a Baron and paramour.

  PARAMOUR, NELLY?

  THAT’S WHAT THE CARD SAID. MEGAN READ IT RIGHT.

  DEAR GOD. THAT PALACE MUST BE A BURNING LAKE OF SEWAGE.

  IT SURE SMELLS THAT WAY FROM WHERE I STAND.

  But Kris quickly found herself with worse problems. Said Baron went down the line, got to Al’s boyfriend, and turned his back on the rebels in the last third of the line and blatantly stomped away.

  Kris was shaking a countess’s hand. She caught the uncivil developments out of the corner of her eye. A moment later, the next couple in bright Imperial dress did the exact same thing.

  The rebels, who had been looking reluctant to shake the Imperial hands, now formed into their own line. The elderly woman from Metzburg cut right through the Imperial line to smilingly present herself to Diana and shake her hand. The Imperial went for his sword, but the next rebel in line was a Navy officer with a dress sword at his side.

  Which begs the question, are they both cake cutters, or have these two brought seriously sharp steel to my reception?

  JACK?

  ALREADY ON IT.

  Out of nowhere, Major Henderson appeared, he of both sword and sidearm. He interposed himself between the Imperial line, and let the rebel pass, then he switched lines, blocked the next rebel couple and let an Imperial pass. He spent the rest of the hour, functioning as school crossing guard for some very rowdy kindergartners.

  Imperials went down the line of Imperials and Kris’s section . . . then turned their back, shunning the rebels. Rebels started at Kris’s segment and continued until the end of Vicky’s four couples.

  Somehow, no blood ended up on the floor.

  Dinner was an equally cold affair. The Emperor and Empress were invited in first. That meant they’d have to pass through the rebels who had collected around Vicky. Jack arranged for a Marine Honor Guard to form a double line down which the Imperials sashayed.

  Once in the Banquet Hall, more Marines escorted the Imperial couple to their table. Kris’s troika had arranged for the Emperor and Empress to be seated close to the far right corner. There were name tags at each place, but those nobles following in the Imperials’ wake quickly moved to take the places closest to the Imperial couple, ruthlessly displacing others.

  When all the tumult ended, Kris had Nelly check. Most of those surrounding the Emperor and Empress were of the Empress’s faction.

  Interesting.

  Now the Marine Honor Guard paraded into the Banquet Hall and just happened to form a riot-control line down the middle of the small dance floor. Almost there was a riot, but not quite.

  Jack maintained a Marine bland face through this all, but Kris noticed that he did allow himself a deep breath when the last of the two sides settled at their dinner table.

  YOUR MARINES WERE GREAT, JACK.

  AND THEY DID IT WITHOUT PRACTICING THE DRILL, Jack added.

  Vicky’s rebels had at least obeyed their table assignments as they took their seats to the left-hand side of the Banquet Hall. Kris’s troika had worked hard to distribute the representatives from all the different rebel planets around that third of the room. Hopefully, that would get them talking, sharing, and maybe help them see the others as allies rather than competitors.

  Kris and Jack, along with her brain trust and the locals who had wrangled invites, filled up the space between the two warring sides. Kris had hoped that the locals might mingle with the two belligerents. It seemed to work with Vicky’s side.

  The Empress’s father and brother made it plain that they were not interested in talking to the locals, and the rest of the courtiers and courtesans quickly followed their lead.

  While this nothing was going on, Nelly reported that the first-step trip wire on the staircase to the second-floor quarters had been tripped.

  WHAT SAY WE SEE WHAT WE CAN SEE? TURN OFF THE AUTOCANNON, THOUGH, Kris said, and eyed Jack. He looked to be following this development as well.

  WE HAVE A LONE MARINE AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, LURKING IN AN ALCOVE WITH A SUDDENLY MUCH SMALLER STATUE AND NO LIGHT.

  FINE, JACK.

  KRIS, I’M GOING TO PATCH YOU THROUGH.

  WHAT HAVE WE HERE? Kris heard. The question was followed by a feminine yelp.

  YOU ALMOST SCARED ME TO DEATH, SOLDIER.

  AND WHY WOULD LITTLE OLD YOU BE UP HERE?

  IT’S BORING DOWN THERE. NOTHING TO DO. I THOUGHT I MIGHT POWDER SOMETHING. NOW, YOU AND ME, I THINK WE COULD REALLY HAVE SOME FUN. I BET I COULD SCREW YOUR EYEBALLS OUT OF THEIR SOCKETS. WE COULD USE THAT ROOM RIGHT OVER THERE. I BET IT’S EMPTY.

  IT LIKELY IS SINCE IT’S HER ROYAL HIGHNESS’S ROOMS, BUT I KIND OF LIKE MY EYEBALLS WHERE THEY ARE.

  WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU? SHOULD I SEND MY BOYFRIEND UP HERE? DO YOU PREFER BOYS?

  ACTUALLY, I PREFER BEER AND PIZZA. NOW WHY DON’T YOU GO POWDER YOUR BOOBS SOMEWHERE DOWNSTAIRS?

  KRIS, I THINK THAT LAST WAS PUNCTUATED WITH A SWAT ON HER BACKSIDE.

  NELLY, I THINK YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT.

  HOW BEASTLY.

  IF HER MOTHER HAD PATTED HER DIAPERED RUMP A FEW MORE TIMES, SHE MIGHT NOT BE RUNNING AROUND HERE WITH ALL HER CHARMS HANGING OUT, Jack put in.

  Kris decided to skip the debate about the proper way to raise children for a few more years and turned back to the challenge at hand.

  The Emperor did not seem to have noticed how the Empress’s family was leading his court around by the nose. He had his head on his wife’s bosom as she fed him from her own plate.

  Diana shook her head halfway through the meal. “This is going to be harder than even I thought.”

  After dinner, there was light music, but no one attempted to dance on the floor that separated the two factions. People did mingle. Locals and rebels at least. Kris and her troika tried to talk with some of the Imperial entourage.

  She’d never seen so many people turn their backs on her.

  She did manage to make her way to the Imperial couple’s table.

  The Emperor looked up from between his wife’s naked décolletage. The sparkles that had covered her nipples were now shining in his hair. “Thank you for inviting us to this wonderful banquet,” he said. “I hope we can dispense with the receiving line next time. It was so tedious.”

  “I think we can arrange that,” Kris agreed.

  “Well, we really must be going,” the Empress said. “I cannot believe our advanced team agreed to start at eight thirty in the morning. That is disgusting,” she said, eyeing Kris.

  Kris smiled blandly, refusing to make any concessions to the agreed-upon ground rules by simply refusing to notice the question not actually asked.

  So the Imperial couple led the exod
us of their court, the Emperor’s head solidly resting atop the Empress’s bare boobs. The Duke of Anhalt had raised the skirts of his paramour and was pawing her bare ass as they followed the Imperial couple. He looked back to leer at Kris.

  Jack took a sharp breath in, then slowly let it out.

  “You sure I can’t kill those bastards?” he muttered low to Kris.

  “I’m sure we can’t. We’ve got to end this civil war.”

  “Wouldn’t killing them all end it?”

  “I’ll have to ask Diana about that,” Kris said.

  “She’ll never agree. What do you say we do it and then ask forgiveness?”

  Kris chuckled. “It’s worked for me plenty of times.”

  “See?”

  “Plenty of times when I was the subordinate, Jack. Remember, we have seven stars between us and a darling little girl we want to make a better world for.”

  “This being a grown-up isn’t all it was cracked up to be. You think if I warn Ruth Marie now, she could avoid it like her parents didn’t?”

  “Jack, what do you say you take me to bed, and we pretend we’re grown-ups and do that thing that grown-ups do?”

  “Raid the ice-cream locker?” he asked, brightly.

  “Think harder, Jack. You must remember something we can do?”

  “Harder, huh?”

  Kris managed to exit the Banquet Hall without being waylaid by anyone. By the time they got to the top of the stairs, it seemed that Jack had remembered something fun that grown-ups could do . . . and was eager to do it.

  57

  The morning did begin bright and early.

  For some.

  At 0815, when Kris and Jack walked into the Hall of Mirrors, Vicky and a major portion of her party were already there. They had the tables and chairs down the left-hand side of the conference room. Kris’s brain trust, with two comfortable chairs for Kris and Jack, held down the far wall of the room.

  There was a line of tables down the middle of the room where local court stenographers and other people with recording gear had set up shop. It was in the middle of the room in the hopes of delaying an attack from either side of the room against the other.

  The right-hand side of the room was reserved for the Imperials. It had tables, several comfortable chairs, and like the other two sides, a podium where one person could stand and address the room.

  There were two squads of Royal US Marines standing against the wall. Marines had stood guard through the night to assure that no bomb was placed in the room, their presence balanced by two squad of Imperial Guardsmen. Other than them and the prime minister bumbling around the podium, the Imperial side of the room was empty.

  Totally.

  Kris and Jack walked to their chairs at the other end of the room and stood. Kris bowed respectfully to Vicky, who returned it. She bowed respectfully to the Emperor’s first minister, an elderly man in a dark, conservative vest coat. His doublet fell all the way to his hose. It seemed like it took a moment for him to decide if bowing to Kris was a career-ending decision, maybe even life-ending, but he did return her bow.

  That done, Kris sat down.

  Diana came up behind Kris. “It’s quite possible that the Emperor is waiting for you two to get here.”

  “It is possible,” Kris allowed.

  Fifteen minutes later, as the minute hand on the clock above the door swept past the bottom of the hour, Diana was back. “Maybe he wants to be fashionably late?”

  “Possibly,” Kris allowed, and settled her gaze on the prime minister.

  He took Kris’s hard eye contact for a full minute before folding. He signaled to the captain of the guard detail. He came to the prime minister, was given some instructions, and hurried out of the room. The prime minister sat down to await the results of his, no doubt, gentle query.

  Kris checked the clock.

  It was fifteen minutes later that the guardsman returned. He bowed to the prime minister’s ear and whispered something.

  The poor old fellow turned around in his chair to eye the young officer. “No. No,” came in too loud a whisper and with a cracking voice.

  The guard captain nodded emphatically.

  The prime minister shook his head ever so slightly and cleared his throat. “I am charged by my master to begin the proceedings of the day,” he said, standing.

  “These proceedings will not open,” Kris said firmly, staying seated.

  “But Your Highness . . .” was not finished.

  Kris stood. “Your Imperial Master requested of our liege lord our assistance in resolving a difficulty he was having ruling his Empire. We are here at his request. We have reached an agreement on how to proceed. Your Master has agreed to proceed in that fashion. He charged some of his subjects to meet with me and agree on precisely how we will proceed. That agreement has been signed.” Kris knew her voice had been rising. That her rage was showing through.

  She didn’t care.

  “You may tell your Master that it is 8:29 in this hall, and it will remain 8:29 in this hall until your Master is prepared to meet his solemn commitments.”

  Without a word from Kris, Nelly backed the clock above the door to exactly 8:29 and froze its hands in place.

  THANK YOU, NELLY.

  THINK NOTHING OF IT, KRIS.

  The prime minister looked about to have a heart attack. He reached for his cane and hobbled from the room.

  Kris took her seat and prepared to wait however long it took.

  58

  Slightly less than an hour later, a flood of courtiers and courtesans heralded the imminent arrival of the Emperor. His entry was somewhat hurried. And harried.

  The Empress’s entrance was in full snit. Clearly, she didn’t want to be here nor think Harry should be. Apparently, she had lost the argument and was not happy about it. Maybe more so.

  She glared at Kris as she plopped herself down in the easy chair reserved for her.

  Kris ignored the drama from that side of the room. She stood; the clock above the door made a loud click and buzz before flipping over to half past eight.

  Kris made her way to the podium in front of her central party. “According to the agreed-upon ground rules, each side shall have an hour and a half to make statements or ask questions each morning and each afternoon. Who will go first each day will be determined by a flip of a coin. I have a Wardhaven silver dollar here. Would you both please provide a representative to check the coin and see it flipped?”

  The Emperor waved a languid hand, and the prime minister huffed his way over to Kris’s podium. Vicky said a whispered word, and Mannie hurried there, too.

  “Heads,” Kris said, showing Lady Liberty. “Tails,” was a stylized example of the rocket that had brought the first landers to Wardhaven.

  Here Kris found the ground rules had failed to determine who made the call. She let the prime minister call the toss. He called tails and won.

  The Emperor and Empress would address them first. The prime minister returned to his podium and shuffled the papers he had prepared. However, there was a commotion around the Imperial couple. It ended with the Empress stamping her way to the podium and shoving the prime minister aside.

  What followed was ninety minutes of the worst harangue that Kris had ever had the misfortune to sit through. Kris had stood through the ranting of the mad Great Guides of Xanadu that aliens were coming who would boil her eyeballs in her blood. She’d listened to the interminable harangues of the alien raiders’ Enlightened Ones, unable to understand a word but shaking with the hatred and murderous intent behind them.

  The Empress started with the calm and smooth reasoning that she had used when she first told her side of the story to Kris. But it only took her a few minutes to take a hard turn down Insanity Lane and dive into Crazy Lake. She never quite got around to foaming at the mouth, but she was m
ost definitely spewing spittle.

  The people seated at the central tables right in front of her got up and moved to seats away from the spray.

  Without moving her head . . . the last thing Kris needed was to be seen exchanging glances with Vicky . . . Kris did cast her eyes at the Grand Duchess.

  Vicky was pale as a sheet. Mannie rested a hand on her thigh. Vicky had one of hers on top of his. Her eyes narrowed, and her face took on a hardness as the Empress’s rant went longer and longer. The two of them put their heads together and soon were making use of their computers.

  KRIS, I HAVE GAINED ACCESS TO VICKY’S COMPUTER.

  NELLY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

  I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW WHAT VICKY AND MANNIE ARE DOING.

  Kris squelched a scowl. AND WHY WOULD I WANT TO KNOW THAT?

  BECAUSE SHE AND MANNIE ARE DOING A VERY GOOD JOB OF GETTING AT THE TRUTH TO ALL THE LIES THAT THE EMPRESS IS TELLING US.

  LIES?

  FOR EXAMPLE, SEVERAL OF THE RIOTS THAT SHE SAYS VICKY INCITED TOOK PLACE WHILE SHE WAS STILL SAILING WITH YOU. YOU DID NOTICE THAT THE EMPRESS WAS NAMING A LOT OF PLACES BUT NOT TOO MANY DATES.

  I HAD NOTICED THAT LACK.

  THE EMPRESS ALSO SAYS THE REBELS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THE PIRATES THAT THROTTLED COMMERCE.

  SHE SURE HAS.

  THE GRAND DUCHESS JUST GOT A LIST FROM ADMIRAL WALLER OF ALL THE “PIRATE SHIPS” THAT THE NAVY FOUGHT AND CAPTURED THAT HAD BEEN SOLD OUT OF THE NAVY FOR SCRAP, DELIVERED TO COMPANIES OWNED BY THE EMPRESS’S FAMILY, AND ENDED UP GOING APIRATING.

  DO TELL.

  YES, KRIS. I THINK THE GRAND DUCHESS’S REBUTTAL WILL BE A THING OF BEAUTY.

  Kris began watching the clock after it passed 9:30 “conference time.” This demonstration of mad intent would not go one minute past the ninety minutes the agreed rules allowed.

  At exactly ten o’clock, Kris stood. “Your time has expired.”

  Stopped in midsentence, the Empress drew herself up to her full height, and said, haughtily, “I am not finished.”