“He’s Intelligence, Tan!Shallegh’s right-hand man, according to Zhao. His hands are not clean and your meeting with him may be as dangerous as the battle.”
“Sufficient unto the moment is the evil thereof,” Annette replied. “Let’s get through the dog-and-pony show first, shall we?”
#
By the time she’d made it through a dozen kilometers of cheering crowds and at least two obstacle courses of reporters, the only thing Annette wanted to do was drag Elon back to her room and use him as a pillow.
Which meant, of course, that she kissed him goodbye, swiftly showered and changed, and took the underground tram to Wuxing Tower to meet with the sentient in charge of dirty tricks for her entire sector.
Shower or not, she was grouchy when she walked past the waiting Indiri into her office, waving for him to follow her.
“What can I do for you, Echelon Lord?” she asked finally.
“A lot, I suspect,” he replied. “Though I hesitate to get into your dark currents, Duchess. There are a lot of dead Kanzi floating around in this system who should have learned that lesson.”
“They shouldn’t have fucked with my people.”
“I agree,” Mak replied. “The Kanzi haven’t taken losses this bad in at least fifty long-cycles. Possibly more—certainly not against us in the last hundred, hundred and fifty.”
“Are we at war, then?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he told her. “That will be decided at a higher level than I. I’m receiving reports via starcom receiver of the progress of the negotiations. It helps the First Priest’s decision, I suspect, that Fleet Masters Ijean and Kalt are both dead.
“She can blame them for the attack, and if she attaches enough reparations, the Empress will accept.”
“Reparations that Earth won’t see,” Annette guessed.
“Hardly, Your Grace,” Mak objected. “The A!Tol are pragmatic, not stupid. Much of that money will be fed back to you, to help replace your warships, to pay pensions for your dead, to help accelerate the Uplift here.
“Certainly, no one will argue you haven’t earned your place as a Duchy in the Imperium. Humanity, it seems, is going to be having an outsized effect on the Imperium.”
“We try,” she said levelly.
“Which brings me, somewhat indirectly, to your Laian friends,” he said. “How did you even get them to consider settling?”
“I offered.”
“You realize that there are almost certainly beings in those ships guilty of piracy, murder, fraud or worse?” he demanded.
“Do you have proof?” Annette asked in turn. “Because let’s be honest, Echelon Lord: most of the Crew’s involvement in crime was very indirect. Are they probably guilty of something? Yes.
“But the only way we can change that is to give them a chance and let them contribute somewhere with an economy that isn’t built around piracy,” she concluded. “So, unless you can prove something major against a specific Laian, they’re under my protection and you’ll have to go through me to get to them.”
“Do not let one victory go to your head, Duchess,” Kal Mak warned, his bulging eyes flickering dangerously. “You remain a very small fish in the Imperium.”
“I know,” she told him. “But I am also a Duchess of the Imperium, Echelon Lord, and I will not be threatened. I swore fealty to help my people. If the Imperium chooses to turn on my people, then that oath becomes void.
“I see the Imperium as our best chance for the future. Do not make me change my mind, Kal Mak. I don’t think Tan!Shallegh or the Empress would appreciate it.”
He laughed, a wet barking sound.
“No, no, they would not,” he agreed. “If you’ll keep an eye on them and be responsible for them, then we’ll leave the Laians in your hands.”
“That is all I ask.”
“It isn’t much and we owe you more,” Kal Mak admitted. “There won’t be a war, Your Grace. The details are being sorted, but it won’t come to that.
“Which makes this twice now you’ve stopped us being dragged into a war with the Kanzi we don’t want.”
“And what about their slaves and the worlds they’ve conquered, Kal Mak?” Annette asked softly, looking through the window at the setting sun over Hong Kong. “Do they get no consideration in our calculations?”
“We can’t defeat the Kanzi, Duchess. Not without a war that would exhaust us both. I don’t like knowing that there are slaves across the border,” Kal Mak told her, the burble of his true voice suddenly deathly quiet under the translator’s speech. “If I could wave a hand and free them all, I would.
“But I also won’t ask billions to die to free them. A true war between us and the Kanzi will have no winner, only losers. We’ve seen it before.” The Indiri shivered. “Better to continue as we are, to suppress their territorial ambitions and do our best to encourage the more positive of their religion.
“It isn’t much, and I admit it, but more is beyond us today.”
She nodded slowly.
“And tomorrow?”
He laughed.
“Tomorrow, Duchess Bond, is another day.”
#
Harriet stood outside the apartment building in downtown Tokyo, hesitating. She hadn’t warned anyone she was coming. She’d seen enough of the news coverage to know that if she couldn’t face her parents and son now, she would never be able to.
But still she stood in the rain, indecisive.
And then the door to the apartment building sprang open and her father stood there. Her old and old-fashioned father, the government bureaucrat with the white hair in the black suit.
He didn’t seem surprised to see her.
“About time,” he said gruffly.
“What?” she replied, surprised.
“Been working on your honored mother for months,” he told her. “She’s about ready. Definitely won’t forgive you catching a cold on our doorstep. Kenji and Hiro are here for supper.”
He still didn’t smile, his face cold and stern as he told her everything was going to be all right.
“I knew you’d be coming home tonight.”
###
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Other books by Glynn Stewart
Duchy of Terra
The Terran Privateer
Duchess of Terra
Terra and Imperium (upcoming, see www.faolanspen.com for latest estimated launch date)
Castle Federation
Space Carrier Avalon
Stellar Fox
Battle Group Avalon
Q-Ship Chameleon
Rimward Stars (upcoming, see www.faolanspen.com for latest estimated launch date)
Starship’s Mage
Starship’s Mage: Omnibus
Hand of Mars
Voice of Mars
Alien Arcana
Judgment of Mars (upcoming, see www.faolanspen.com for latest estimated launch date)
ONSET
ONSET: To Serve and Protect
ONSET: My Enemy’s Enemy
Stand Alone Novels
Children of Prophecy
City in the Sky
Duchess of Terra (Duchy of Terra Book 2) Page 42