half the tables in the place are discussing whether or not you met with an Imperial Representative.”
“They’re arguing the case,” Trouble pointed out. “They don’t know. Big difference.”
“The difference was big enough that your pet project of naming us United Sentients fell through,” Crossie countered.
That got a wince from the king.
“You and I agree, we can’t bring up the problem of Iteeche scouts disappearing without a trace while all we have is their own word. Your granddaughter here wanted to go do some exploring. You sent her to chase pirates instead. Sorry to say, the pirates didn’t provide her all that much of a distraction.” He gave her a respectful nod.
Kris returned a proud grin . . . showing plenty of teeth.
“Now she wants to take a swing at whatever is going bump in the night under the Iteeche beds. If a Longknife goes out there hunting bug-eyed monsters and finds something, how much of human space will believe her? Her word alone. If Kris Longknife and Vicky Peterwald come back saying they found something . . . ?”
“Assuming whatever they find doesn’t follow them home, nipping at their heels,” Grampa Trouble said darkly.
The king shook his head. “Last time I checked, I was the king, and nobody has asked me if I want my granddaughter rummaging around under the galactic inner springs to see if anything bites her,” he grumbled.
That took Kris aback. Then again, Grampa Ray, seventy years ago, when he was the President of the Society of Humanity, had pushed through the Treaty of Wardhaven. Under that rule, humanity had slowed down its expansion to a more reasonable pace, colonizing most of its known sphere before pressing on to explore and people a new layer.
The argument for that kind of measured pace had seemed logical after humans’ first wild exploration brought them up against the Iteeche . . . and a bloody war.
Did Grampa Ray want to keep at that measured pace?
Or did Grampa just not want a certain Kris to be the one putting her head in the potential lion’s maw.
The room fell silent. She suspected everyone there was trying to draw out the unusual meaning of the king’s revelation that blood might actually be thicker than water.
Kris was still struggling to manufacture a reply when the field marshal once again put his hand to his ear. “Two Swiftsure-class battle cruisers just came through Jump Point Beta. They say they’re from the Helvitican Confederacy and on official business. They want to know if Princess Kristine is still here?”
“Crossie, how many copies of that damn meeting did you send out?” the king demanded.
“Several,” the admiral admitted. “I didn’t think I’d get many responses.”
“I think you just got another one,” Mac said.
“Who?” came from several of the seniors in the room.
“Two Haruna-class battleships have jumped into the system. I don’t remember the last time we had a visit from Musashi.”
“Not since the war,” Grampa Trouble said.
“I take it you sent them a copy,” the king said, dryly.
“I just wanted them to know what was going on. I didn’t actually expect them to come all this way.”
“Your Highness, I have an incoming message for you,” Kris’s personal computer spoke from where she rode just above Kris’s collarbone. Nelly, very upgraded, very expensive, and very much no longer a compliant, obedient computer, was being nice today.
“Who’s it from, Nelly?” Kris asked.
“Rear Admiral Ichiro Kōta aboard the IMS Haruna. He would appreciate an appointment, at your convenience, to meet with you concerning certain matters. Oh, ma’lady, Rear Admiral Max Channing sends his compliments and also requests a meeting with you at your convenience. And Vice Admiral Krätz sends his compliments and says Her Royal Highness, Grand Duchess Vicky is dying to dish the dirt with you on how she got permission to charge off on this Mad Hatter idea.”
“He didn’t say that,” Kris said.
“He did. His very words. Cross my heart,” Nelly answered.
“What have we done?” King Ray asked the overhead.
Grampa Trouble scratched his right ear while not struggling very hard to suppress a grin. “You two families have been at each other’s throats for years. Maybe these two girls . . .” left all sorts of possibilities unsaid.
Kris herself wondered what kind of bridges she and Vicky, two Navy officers, might build between two families that had been hating each other’s guts for almost a century. She was pretty sure that Vicky’s dad had paid the kidnappers who killed Kris’s six-year-old little brother when Kris herself was ten. She was