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  “And here I’d hoped to dodge the zoo my mom would make of my wedding.”

  “Face an alien base ship out for blood, no problem. Face your mother in full wedding mode, run for the hills.”

  “Hills, hell, I ran for the other side of the galaxy.”

  They shared a laugh at that.

  “Well, look at the bright side,” Kris finally said. “If Vicky and the rest of the Peterwalds get us killed, at least we won’t have to keep our families happy anymore.”

  “You always are the optimist.”

  “Get us off this street and out of here!” yelled Agent Debot. “A bomb just went active ahead of us.”

  7

  Kris knew that Harvey was an old war vet. She’d just never seen him in war mode. He hit the brakes. Jack popped his seat belt and rolled over, putting himself between the front seat and a nursing Ruthie. Kris held on tight and leaned back to give Ruthie as much space to slow in as Jack waiting at the seat ahead.

  Harvey turned the hard brake into a “J” turn and had them headed back the way they came. The trailing SUV managed to follow them through these hard maneuvers.

  The lead one wasn’t so lucky.

  Its driver got the word late. He was in the middle of the hard brake when the road beside him came at him as if shot out of a cannon. Out of the corner of her eye, Kris saw the big black rig flip over on its side, but the armored box held. One of the doors had been raised, and men with automatic rifles were searching for targets even as Kris and her family went the other way.

  If this neighborhood was normally a quiet place, it wasn’t now. Sirens started shrieking from all directions as they closed on either the bomb site or Kris’s sedan. Fortunately, the motorcycle cops had been told to wait well back. They were the first to join Kris’s reorganizing cavalcade. The trailing SUV pulled ahead of Harvey just as Mahomet shouted, “I think there’s another bomb ahead of us.”

  “We’re hooking a left,” Foile said, to both Harvey and the rig ahead of them.

  Only Harvey was able to make the turn, but this time the warning got out quickly enough. There was no boom as the cycle cops and the SUV did hard “U” turns, then followed after Kris and family.

  “Turn left at the next block,” Foile ordered.

  “Right next chance you get.

  “Left again.

  “Right.”

  And with more lefts and rights, they made their way out of the neighborhood. Only when they were back on the expressway with police cars six deep before and after them did Kris breathe a sigh of relief.

  “What was that all about?” Jack demanded of no one.

  “I think,” Kris said, “that Vicky’s stepmommy wants us to know we are not welcome to stick our noses into her affairs.”

  “You think so?” Jack said.

  “Honey, I know so.”

  8

  Later that afternoon, Special Agent Foile had senior representatives from half a dozen police and security agencies in the library and, as it were, on the carpet.

  Kris settled herself in the back of the library well away from the blowtorch Agent Foile was wielding up front. She sorely missed Penny, who had chosen to stay on the other side of the galaxy. Coming from a police family, Penny had always been Kris’s liaison with local police. She was also great at translating Cop Speak.

  Just now, Kris was listening to a lot of Cop Speak.

  Leslie Chu settled into the chair next to Kris and began doing a very fine job as translator.

  “My boss is asking all those big boss men how it happened that their agencies didn’t even have a hint of that bomb. No chatter. No nothing.”

  “Do they have any answer?”

  “Nope. Nada.”

  “I guess I’ve been gone so long, even Wardhaven has forgotten what it takes to keep this damn Longknife safe.”

  “It kind of looks that way.”

  “Oh, did your boss give you the picture he asked me for?”

  “Oh, yes,” Leslie squeed softly, if that word even applied at that volume. “Ah, now my boss is telling them they’ve got to get their, ah, act together and keep it together until you leave for Greenfeld. He’s not telling them when that will be.”

  “Smart man since I have no idea, either.”

  “Anyway, he’s read them the riot act and told them all to straighten up and fly right. Ah, do you think you might have someplace on your staff you could assign us for a bit? My boss is burning bridges. What he said to the head of the Bureau is not going to be forgotten soon.”

  “I think I have some vacancies. You do know we’re heading closer to the Empress. It can only get worse.”

  “Yeah”—Leslie shrugged—“but it won’t be boring.”

  “Life around me is many things, but never that.”

  The agency heads left, softly talking among themselves. Hopefully, they were already planning ways to keep Kris safe and not the manner and fashion of their hanging Special Agent Foile up by his fundamentals.

  “Well, that went amazingly well,” Foile said as he joined Kris and his junior agent.

  “Kris said she may have room for us on her staff,” Leslie said.

  “Oh.” From the senior agent, that carried heavy freight.

  “From the looks of things, you might need a job,” Kris said.

  “Oh, I should think not,” he said, eyeing the departing agency chiefs. “Hmm, well, maybe.”

  “We’ll see how things are when I’ve got a squadron ready to sail and a whole lot of passengers for them.”

  “We can think about that later,” he said.

  Kris and Jack enjoyed a quiet evening at Nuu House. No one attempted to kill them right up to bedtime. Or if they did, they didn’t get past the electronics, Marines, and other guards.

  Nelly turned Ruthie’s car seat into a nice bassinet. Surprisingly, she let Kris sleep through half the night.

  The nanny taking the night watch was there the first time Ruthie stirred. She changed her diaper as Kris was slowly rising to wakefulness. “I gave her some pabulum before we put her down. You nurse her, and I’ll see if she’ll take more solid food and let you sleep through the rest of the night.”

  Kris seriously wondered if the afternoon bomb attack had been successful. She certainly felt like she’d died and gone to heaven.

  Over breakfast the next morning, Kris and Jack examined what they should do with their day.

  “If we’re only going to get eight ships, I want them all with crystal armor,” Kris said.

  Jack agreed. “What ships will we get?” he asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Kris said. “Nelly, anything?”

  “The Wasp has been taken into the yard for maintenance,” the computer said. “Two squadrons from New Canaan and Tangaroa will be coming through here in two weeks, and Commander Pett wants to join up with them for the trip back.”

  “Trip back?” Kris yelped.

  “All but three of the Wasp’s crew voted to go back. She will be taking on a couple of hundred volunteers for either the Navy or industry. It sounds like New Canaan and Tangaroa will also be traveling heavy.”

  “People want to go to Alwa?” Now it was Jack’s turn to yelp.

  Ruthie decided to join in, but her yelp was cuter than Jack’s.

  “It seems so,” Nelly answered them both.

  “Any chance we could shanghai the two squadrons of transients to add to our Wardhaven squadron?” Jack asked.

  Kris considered that for a long moment, then shook her head. “Do you really want to be responsible for Sandy not having the ships she needs? Can you think of any reinforcements we got that we didn’t need immediately if not sooner?”

  Jack shrugged. “I guess not, but I had to try. I was kind of hoping that since you trimmed them back so far, Admiral Santiago would have a while before
the aliens got rambunctious again.”

  “I thank you for trying, my ever-vigilant security chief, husband, and daddy,” Kris said, and leaned over to give him the kiss he deserved. “I’d like to think Sandy will have an easy time of it, too, but . . .”

  “I wonder how it’s going for her,” Jack said, then did a hard right turn. “So we settle for eight battlecruisers?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just said we don’t steal anything from Alwa. Everything else in human space is up for grabs.”

  “And you Longknifes are so grabby.”

  Kris made a grab for something else, and Jack moved to block her, but not too much. Unfortunately, the nanny with the morning shift entered to remove Ruthie.

  “Don’t let me interfere with anything. We always say, the more kids the merrier, and the more jobs for us,” she said with a cheerful smile that was aimed at Kris and not at all flirty toward Jack.

  She better not be.

  But the mood was broken, so they retired to dress in full admiral’s and general’s regalia and prepared to face the morning. “Upgrading the armor on the battlecruisers will take the longest,” Kris said, “so I guess we go see if Grampa Al will let us talk to him.”

  Special Agent in Charge Foile seemed to find his morning assignment much to his liking, as did Agent Rick Sanchez. “Will it be any easier to walk in this time than last?” the younger agent asked through a broad grin.

  “We shall see what we shall see,” Foile answered vaguely but with a sparkle in his eyes.

  Kris made sure Ruthie was all decked out in maximum cuteness, and, with her babbling happily, they departed in a well-armed and armored convoy for Nuu Towers.

  Kris did try to phone ahead. She got nowhere, so she made a quick call to Grampa Trouble, and, amazing as it might appear, the gates opened wide for her . . . and the doors as well.

  “Trouble has an in with Al?” Jack asked in surprise.

  “Trouble has ins everywhere. He knows where all the bodies are buried,” Kris said. Still, she noticed the ever-so-slight smile on Special Agent Foile’s lips and found herself wondering who had an in with whom.

  This time, they were ushered through the huge foyer of the building with its black marble and directly into an elevator. Kris smiled; it only went up fifty floors. There they transferred to another bank of elevators for the next fifty before transferring to a third elevator bank for the ride to the 150th floor.

  “Amazingly faster than the last time, I expect,” Foile said to Kris.

  “Are you packing spare gas masks?” she asked.

  “Sarin will get you through the skin,” the agent pointed out.

  Kris shivered. “Did he really have Sarin gas?”

  “I do not know,” Foile said. “I left too soon to see how they cleaned up the top three floors, and you kept me very busy for the next couple of weeks.”

  “Again, may I say, thank you for the warning.”

  “You’re very welcome,” the agent said.

  They reached the topmost floor; the elevator opened on a wide field of lush red carpet. There were only three people in evidence; they sat behind well-spaced desks and were doing their best to appear most busy. The executive offices were thirty or forty meters away, likely all with astounding views, but they were hidden for the moment behind rich mosaics of wood that provided their own view of stylized office parks and fabrication facilities.

  One even showed High Wardhaven Station with the Nuu space docks prominent.

  Given no hint of where to go, Kris headed for the largest desk, the one in the middle.

  “We are expected,” she said.

  “Are you now?” said the man, crewcutted and maybe with an automatic bulging the left shoulder of a suit that likely cost more than Jack’s folk’s home. “And your name?”

  Kris played the one card she had. Well, second card. Her other one involved accepting that perpetual job offer and coming to work for Grampa Al in his Tower of Insecurity. “Ruthie Anne is here to see her great-grandfather.”

  That brought a raised eyebrow from the even-more-neutral face of the secretary.

  The man began to speak into the desk’s commlink. Some new technology blanked out his words even though Kris was less than two meters away. Kris was no expert at lip-reading, but even she spotted the sequence “uniform of a four-star admiral,” followed later by, “Yes, the baby is cute.”

  After a few more exchanges, the secretary leaned back, and said, “You and the baby may enter.”

  “My security agents will check out the room, and my husband will accompany me,” Kris countered.

  The secretary took a melodramatic moment before nodding.

  9

  Kris stood, gently bouncing Ruthie on her left hip, while Senior Special Agent in Charge Foile and his sidekick, black box in hand, entered the door identified by the secretary’s slight incline of the head.

  The door closed behind them, leaving Kris to wonder if they would ever emerge, but they did. With a curt nod to Jack, Foile identified the room as satisfactorily secure.

  Jack led Kris to the door that Sanchez now held open for them.

  To say that Grandfather Alexander Longknife’s office was way past palatial was still an understatement. The Forward Lounge on the Wasp was rarely expanded to this extent. The wet bar to Kris’s right did fall short of the Lounge’s bar, but not by much.

  In a corner to her left, a waterfall descended in gentle ripples to a pond big enough to have a bridge across it in the Chinese tradition.

  Were there real koi in that pond?

  Apparently, yes, because one broke the surface for a moment. No holograms here. This was the real thing.

  Grampa Al himself sat behind a white alabaster table. No desk for him. There was also no conference table although two doors led right and left from his office. No doubt, one led to a bathroom, the other to a conference room likely the equal of this room.

  The man of business rose, motioning them toward a group of chairs not far from the bar. There were only three large, overstuffed armchairs. Beside one, a bassinet stood.

  Kris aimed herself for that one as Jack took the one between her and Grampa Al. He, however, headed for the bar. “What will you have this morning?”

  “I’ll have what you have, sir,” Jack said diplomatically.

  “A glass of soda water with a twist of lime,” Kris said.

  “You still not drinking?” Al asked.

  “I’m nursing,” Kris said. “I don’t want Ruthie to get drunk on her momma’s milk.”

  “A good excuse. Better than your usual one. General, I’m drinking chamomile tea; is that good enough for you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jack said.

  “Me, too,” Kris said.

  “So we are all seeking calm for this little tête-à-tête.”

  “We needed full MOPP gear for the last visit,” Kris put in.

  “Yes. You gave me quite the fright. Then an even worse fright when I discovered it was you. You finished by making a mess of the south side of this building.”

  “I regretted that, but your space shuttle was the only escape option I could figure out at the moment.”

  “Escape to a Musashi axe?” Al pointed out.

  “I was not found guilty,” Kris pointed right back.

  “Yes. You do seem to have all the luck of your generation,” he said, handing a cup and saucer of tea to Kris.

  “I seem to need most of it,” Kris said.

  “That I would not dispute,” he said, giving Jack his tea. “Do you, as husband and father, like your wife’s seeking out every available lion’s mouth to stick her head in?”

  Jack did not shoot back an answer but instead took a slow sip of tea as Al settled into his chair. Only then did he say, “That is the woman I married. Should I marry an eagle, then shackle her to a stove?
”

  “I foresee much sorrow in your life,” the older man said. For someone of nearly a hundred years, he looked well preserved, hardly much older than Honovi, Kris’s older brother. Hopefully, Al was being careful with his rejuvenation treatments. Some had paid a high price for using them as a fountain of youth.

  “As you likely know, I have been asked to serve as mediator between the Grand Duchess, Vicky Peterwald, and her father, the Emperor.”

  “More likely between her and that vicious stepmother of hers, the Empress,” Al cut in.

  “I was about to add that when you took the words out of my mouth.”

  “Yes, how unsanitary of me,” Al said dryly, sipping slowly.

  “I have been offered eight battlecruisers as an escort.”

  “Only eight. Anyone who takes that mission is either dumb, or bold out of their mind. Which are you, young admiral?”

  Kris shrugged. “I’m the one asked for by two sides, Vicky and her father, and ordered by another, your father, Ray.”

  “Ever the bold one he is . . . when it is someone else’s blood being pumped into the gutter,” Ray’s son said with a scowl.

  “So I have heard,” Kris admitted.

  “Then you have not listened very well.”

  “I am listening, as carefully as I can,” Kris said.

  “And you,” Al said, indicating Jack with his nearly empty teacup.

  “I’m listening, too, and doing what I can to increase the odds of her survival.”

  “Hmm,” Al said as he returned to the golden samovar of hot water to prepare himself another cup of tea. “And you came to me?” he asked, turning back to them with a full cup.

  “Yes. When the Earth frigates came out to Alwa Station, they were clad in a crystal armor that took in laser light and distributed it around the ship before radiating it back into space.”

  “I know. I negotiated with Earth for the rights to it. They wanted an arm and a leg. What good are low-cost frigates if they suddenly cost half your flesh just to add to decadent Earth’s wealth? Battlecruisers, did you call them?”

  “Yes. With all that armament and armor, they are as good as any battleship while being as fast and maneuverable as a cruiser.”