Bold

by Mike Shepherd

  “You can call me sir, Kris. Otherwise, these sessions are going to go on forever.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kris said with a gentle smile.

  Do not start to like this bastard. Remember, he wanted you delivered naked to him for torture just a few years ago if the brags of one of his people can be believed.

  “Where were the Hephaestus and Poseidon assigned?” the Emperor asked.

  That brought silence from those around him.

  Vicky nodded to Admiral Waller, who sat in her entourage. He stood up. “Sir, the Hephaestus and Poseidon were assigned to the Greenfeld Reserve Fleet. When I left the capital, they were still trailing the reserve station with no crews aboard.”

  “You can’t believe a word that man says,” the Grand Duke shouted. “He broke his oath to you to run away and join the rebellion against you.”

  Kris was torn. Vicky had let her father talk during her time. Should she allow this cross talk? Cross talk, hell! That bastard was shouting.

  The admiral handled the interruption like a gentleman. “Your Majesty, may I answer that question?”

  “Go ahead, Rolf.”

  “Your Majesty, I left the capital one step ahead of an assassination squad.” The admiral paused here, and you could see his jaw tremble. “My beloved wife was not so lucky.”

  Oh, no. Kris had heard that his wife had been caught and delivered to the Empress. She had personally slit the woman’s throat and sent the video of it to her husband on Bayern.

  This is about to get so ugly.

  Kris got a good hold on her gavel.

  The admiral went on, his voice low and trembling with emotions. “My wife was caught by the assassins and murdered.”

  Kris and the Grand Duchess’s side of the room breathed a sigh of relief.

  The Grand Duke scowled. Did he want the full accusation?

  “I’m sorry, Rolf. I didn’t know,” the Emperor said, then turned to one of his courtiers. “Utz, you’re supposed to have a handle on our Navy. What do you know about those two battleships?”

  A young man, dressed even more flamboyantly than the rest of the Emperor’s retinue, if that was possible, began talking to the red-and-silver box he carried.

  “My Emperor, according to my files, they are still in the Reserve Fleet.”

  Harry turned to Kris.

  “According to my experience,” Kris said, “they are dust around a certain jump in the direct course from Wardhaven to Greenfeld.”

  Harry made a wry face. “So we add one more thing to the list of what one side thinks is true and the other says is false.”

  “So it would seem, sir.”

  The Emperor did not look happy, but the scowls he was throwing around were not meant for Vicky’s side. Now, they were aimed at his own.

  Finally, he shook his head. “Vicky, do you have more?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  He waved a hand for her to continue.

  Vicky put her head together with several of her team, and Mannie was the next to take the podium.

  “I was with the Grand Duchess when she was kidnapped. Later, I saw the bed that she was handcuffed to and left to die of thirst on. I was with the team that rescued her and shot down those who were trying to recapture her. They would not surrender but died resisting arrest. It was my investigators who traced the assassins back to the ship they had arrived on and followed their trail back to when they crossed from territory controlled by the Empress to Vicky’s sworn planets.”

  Having said that, Mannie began to provide full details of everything he had outlined in his opening statement. Kris knew the attack had occurred; her team had investigated it and verified every fact Mannie was now providing the Emperor. He listened intently, smiling when the mayor described how Vicky had struggled to get herself free of the bed’s iron embrace.

  “How long did it take you?” the Emperor asked his daughter.

  “Too long, and I got a splinter in my right boob.”

  “And I wasn’t there to kiss it and make it well.”

  “Sorry, no.”

  Kris wondered just how much information she was getting about this father/daughter relationship but refused to speculate further.

  When Mannie finished, the Emperor asked Vicky, “So that was why you didn’t come to court when I called you?”

  “No, Father. I admit I wasn’t quite as debilitated as the video made it seem. I was afraid for my life if I returned to the Palace and the assassination squads that seemed to dog my steps when I was there.”

  Kris had seen the video of the enraged Empress threatening Vicky that was piggybacked on the Emperor’s message calling Vicky to court. Strange that the Grand Duchess made no attempt to enter that into the record for her father.

  Then again, as the morning wore on, the relationship between father and daughter had warmed quite a bit.

  At eleven thirty, Kris gaveled the session to a close and offered the two sides the same arrangement for their lunch.

  The Emperor stood. “I would like to share my lunchtime with my daughter. You did say that you had done quite a lot of things you wanted to tell me about.”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “Your Majesty,” the Grand Duke interjected. “This is not proper. It just isn’t done during these kinds of things.”

  “Bruno, last time I checked, I was the Emperor, and I do believe I can do what I damn well please.”

  Bruno turned and stomped out. Several of his faction followed him. Others looked around, saw the Emperor heading for the other side of the room, and followed.

  “Nelly, tell Mary to change her luncheon arrangements. You might help by magicking up more tables in the Banquet Hall.”

  “Already doing it, Kris. I made the suggestion to Mary right after the Emperor opened his mouth.”

  “Good girl,” Kris said. She considered joining the Imperial couple for lunch, but saw Diana was edging her way through the crowd around the two and decided to give herself a break. She and Jack enjoyed their lunch and relaxed for a bit in their room. Nelly opened a window, giving them a gorgeous view of the forested hills with snow-covered mountains in the distance. The gentle breeze wafted the scent of pines into their room. Nelly really had the room open.

  The afternoon session proved to be interesting. For one thing, the Grand Duke as well as the Empress were not present. There were quite a few missing from the Imperial side.

  In fact, the Imperials had no one to take the podium when Kris gaveled the session open. It was an Imperial, dressed more as a businessman than a courtier, who finally stood. “Your Majesty. The Empire has been suffering inflation and severe scarcity of critical items needed to maintain production and employment. Might we ask the Grand Duchess what answer she can make to the claim that some people have been waging destructive economic warfare against our beloved Greenfeld?”

  The Emperor looked around his delegates, checking for anyone either raising an objection or offering a better use of their time. When he saw none, he shrugged toward Vicky.

  “Daughter, what have you to say to these charges?”

  “Father, neither I nor anyone who has sworn fealty to their rightful Emperor through me have had anything to do with such matters. In truth, we have suffered the same fate. Suffered it so harshly that some planets have been reduced to starvation and have been taken over by bandits. During lunch, Father, I told you about my efforts to bring food to Poznan and restore commerce to them. I would like to introduce a business leader from that planet to tell you how they were reduced to such devastation.”

  The Emperor nodded, and Vicky called up Mr. Arnsvider. He quickly, with broad brushstrokes, described how the loss of credit and the depredation of pirates reduced his planet’s access to critically needed raw materials and spare parts.

  “The people who wiped out State Security somehow forgot to t
ake their guns and ammunition with them when they left. A group of bandits got their hands on them, and from there, it was all downhill. Only the arrival of your daughter, the Grand Duchess, pulled us back from the brink of cannibalism. For that, we thank her and you.”

  He then went on to tell how matters had improved as trade opened up again, first with St. Petersburg, then with more planets.

  Through all this, the Emperor nodded along, occasionally resting his eyes on Vicky with a proud, fatherly smile.

  Mr. Arnsvider was followed to the podium by a long line of people from various planets. They described how they had been reduced to less desperate straits and walked back from them with the help of the Grand Duchess. She had secured the space lanes, then increased trade, first by barter but more recently with the help of banks and a respected currency.

  The afternoon went this way, with people from the Imperial side also going to their podium to tell their own stories. The Emperor’s face grew stormier by the minute. There were fewer and fewer members of the Empress’s faction present, and none of them were objecting to any of this.

  Then a man from Dresden came to the podium on the Imperial side. Like those before him, he described the destruction of the State Security apparatus. Economic dislocation soon led to strife as hungry people took to the streets. “And then the red coats arrived. The so called Security Specialists. These were led by Giorgio Topalski, now the Duke of Radebuel. To us, he will forever be known as the Butcher of Dresden.”

  The story went long. The man was reduced to tears well before he finished. The Hall of Mirrors became quiet, then silent as a tomb. Someone dropped a stylus; it resounded like a bomb.

  When the man finished, he sat down. The people on both sides of him scooted closer and put their arms around him as he gave himself up to wracking sobs.

  No one stood to claim either podium.

  Kris put her gavel down quietly, stood, and left the Hall silently. Slowly, others followed her.

  The man, with his description of the horrors he had experienced and the sharing of his grief had succeeded where the best of intentions and skills had failed.

  He had united both sides in their shared grief.

  62

  The banquet that night was a totally different affair. The Emperor said he wanted to be seated by the Grand Duchess. “Oh, and that guy that’s always at her side. Something tells me I better get to know him.”

  Nelly did away with the dance floor; they no longer needed neutral territory between the two sides. Without its taking up space, they spread the tables out, leaving more room for people to circulate. Other than the two tables, one for Kris and the other for the two Imperials, there was no assigned seating. People found someone they knew, or people they didn’t, and sat down to share a meal.

  For the first time since this started, Kris got to relax and enjoy eating without fearing it might end in bloodshed. When dinner finished without a boom, and people began to adjourn to the ballroom to share more drinks and talk, Kris leaned close to Jack.

  “There were a lot of empty chairs. Definitely no Empress or Grand Duke in evidence. Do you know where they are?”

  Jack shook his head. Before he could open his mouth, Nelly answered.

  “You remember that superhigh tech we’ve been waiting for them to kick off using?”

  “Yes, Nelly,”

  “Well they kicked it off hard this afternoon. They put up some sort of electromagnetic barrier around the main lodge that will fry any nano that gets within five meters of the place. I tried hardening a few but got nowhere. Whatever’s going on inside that lodge, we don’t know thing one about that.”

  “Jack?” Kris asked.

  “I tried to get a few Marines. Even tried to slip Mary Fintch into the kitchen to ask for a cup of sugar. No joy. There are Imperial Guards at every door turning away anyone not an Imperial.”

  “Hmm,” was all Kris could say to that. “Any idea what they’re up to?”

  “Not a guess, but they are certainly up to something. Since lunch, they’ve also been running limos, SUVs, and vans in and out of the lodge basement and circulating them into town. We tried following them, but they damn near ran our trailing cars off the road, and there are some pretty sharp cliffs on the drive into town that you don’t want to get knocked over. We’ve got cars in town, now, but it’s like some sort of snipe hunt.”

  “It looks like they might be doing what we’ve done a few times,” Kris said, remembering how she’d got out of Nuu House and up to the Princess Royal after the sniper attack.

  “Don’t you hate it when the bad guys and gals get as smart as you,” Nelly said dryly.

  Kris frowned as she puzzled this through, and at the pain in her breasts. She raised first one, then the other. They were heavy with milk.

  “Listen, no one seems to have any idea what the Empress is or is not doing. Things here seem to be pretty laid-back and don’t need us. I really could use a baby fix. I’ve had enough of pumping these jugs dry. I’d love to hold Ruth for a bit while she does the service for me.”

  “Can I go along, too?” Jack said. “I’ve missed seeing you and Ruthie together.”

  “Ensign Longknife, tell them to hold the next ferry up to the station for one Wardhaven Princess who desperately wants to see one tiny princess,” Kris said, standing.

  “Done, Your Highness,” came back at Kris only a moment later.

  Jack took no time at all to arrange a guard detail; the caravan was small. “I think it ought to be good enough, what with this being so spur-of-the-moment.”

  In no time, they were at the space-elevator station and on their way up. A call ahead to the nannies revealed that Ruth had been asleep for a while but would likely be awake by the time they got there.

  Kris and Jack managed to spend the ride up talking to each other about nothing that was world-ending. They were only a few minutes out when Jack called Security Central on the Princess Royal.

  “How’s everything tonight?”

  “Fine, General. Quiet watch. We’ve been getting some static on the cameras covering the pier tie-downs, though. I was about to dispatch two technicians to check Tie-down Number Two, the one that has all our housekeeping connections.”

  “How many Marines do you have covering that one?” Tie-down Two was the only one big enough for someone to walk aboard.

  “Two Marines, sir. They are reporting every quarter hour.”

  Jack looked at Kris.

  “Call them. Now!” Kris shouted into Jack’s commlink.

  “Yes, ma’am. Wait one.”

  They didn’t have to wait a full minute. “I got their usual report. When I tried to talk to them some more, I got the same report.”

  “We are Code Red,” Jack said evenly. “We are Code Red.”

  The five minutes until the ferry docked at the station were the longest years of Kris’s life.

  63

  Kris and Jack stood right behind the hatches as the ferry rumbled and bumped to a stop, their service automatics out, ammo set on deadly. Safeties were off and full auto was selected. Behind them, Meg and the Marine guard detail waited, their weapons locked and cocked.

  The hatch had hardly begun to open when Kris wiggled her way through it and hit the station at a dead run, Jack right behind her. The rest did their best to keep up, but Kris was going for the three-minute mile.

  She already knew that the two Marine guards at the pier tie-down were dead, shot through the eyes. Kris had ordered the nursery doors sealed, but any effort to raise them on net had failed. Now she took the escalator stairs three at a time down to their pier. The OOD got out of her way as she shot up the brow.

  I’ll render honors twice next time.

  The quarterdeck was still large. Her day quarters were a lot smaller. She slowed as she approached the door to the nursery.

  Behind it,
Ruth was screaming like she’d never screamed before.

  She and Jack approached the door, Meg right behind them, automatics up in a two-handed stance.

  “Nelly, make the wall disappear on one.”

  “Yes, Kris.”

  “One.”

  The wall went away.

  Kris’s blood froze.

  A man in station working clothes held Ruth suspended by the back of her onesie. He had a gun aimed at her tiny head.

  Beside him, another man, dressed alike but showing the signs of a tough fight, had a gun aimed at the top of Sally Greer’s head. She had one arm around his leg; another was a fist ready to slug him in the balls. If she could have killed the man with her eyes, this guy would be fried.

  The last Kris noticed was Warrant Officer, ret. Li O’Malley. She lay on her back, four bullet wounds weeping on her chest, eyes fixed at the overhead. Somebody had wisely gone for the center of his target’s mass.

  A service automatic was still grasped in Li’s dead hand.

  “Put the baby down, and we will let you live,” Kris said through clinched teeth, not letting her gun waver from its lock between the eyes of the guy threatening Sally.

  Jack was the better shot. He had his automatic aimed at the arm of the man holding Ruth.

  “No, I got a better idea. You give us safe passage to the Imperial Courier Ship MC-410, and we’ll leave the baby on the pier.”

  “You know you won’t do that,” Kris said. “As soon as that courier ship pulls away from the pier, there are nine battlecruisers that will blow it to hell. No, you’re going to keep the baby until it’s no longer convenient, then you’ll ditch her. Maybe she lives. Maybe she doesn’t. It’s no skin off your nose either way.”

  “So, maybe I promise that I’ll make real sure she lives.”

  They were negotiating, just as they had been doing down in the Hall of Mirrors. These guys had expected to die a minute ago. Now they could see a way to live. They relaxed ever so slightly.

  Kris gave her head a brief shake. “I don’t think you’ll have much control over what happens to her. I don’t see you doing this for fun. It’s got to be the money. Yet you’re talking to one of the richest women in human space, and you aren’t even giving me a chance to bid.”