Royal diplomacy diplomat.., p.1
Royal Diplomacy (Diplomat’s Apprentice Book 6), page 1
ROYAL DIPLOMACY
DIPLOMAT’S APPRENTICE™
BOOK SIX
LJ DIX
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May we all keep the stories coming!
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2024 LJ Dix
Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design
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LMBPN Publishing
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Version 1.00, August 2024
ebook ISBN: 979-8-88878-971-1
Print ISBN: 979-8-89354-353-7
THE ROYAL DIPLOMACYTEAM
Thanks to our JIT Readers:
Dave Hicks
Christopher Gilliard
Dorothy Lloyd
Daryl McDaniel
Zacc Pelter
Angel LaVey
Diane L. Smith
Jan Hunnicutt
Editor
SkyFyre Editing Team
CONTENTS
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Author’s Notes
Connect with The Author
Other LMBPN Publishing Books
FOREWORD
BY KEVIN MCLAUGHLIN
It’s not every day someone gets asked to introduce one of their mother’s first published stories. I wanted to do this justice, so for mood music I’ve settled on the soundtrack to Star Trek: the Motion Picture.
Why that? Because in December 1979, six-year-old Kevin and his mom attended a premier showing of the movie in New York City. Now, I’d been to movies before.
I’d never been to a movie with a standing ovation before.
I’ve still never been to a movie with two standing ovations since.
Here I am, forty-four years later, writing science fiction novels for a living. A cautionary tale, parents: Be careful which movies you take your kids to when they’re young and impressionable! You, too, might end up with an author for a child! (Gasps of horror!)
The wonderful thing about the story above is that I am sure I got at least one detail wrong. I’m equally sure my mother will want to correct me on it. I’m triply sure she doesn’t get to do that here, so this story will go to print precisely the way I wrote it. Why?
Because it isn’t really the truth of stories that matter so much as it is the emotions the stories convey.
For me, that silly movie was formative. I was already hooked on SF, thanks to Star Wars, Godzilla, and other stuff. But being present for the energy in that theater was awe-inspiring for a bright kid. I could feel the intensity of emotion in all the adults around me. That was all because they were united by a story—or rather, by the emotions behind the story. It was maybe the first time I realized that stories could change the world, and I’ve never lost my interest since.
It was maybe a year or so later that Mom gave me her old manual typewriter so I could begin writing my stories. She was trying to write back then, too. I’d go to sleep at night listening to soundtracks and the tack-tack-tack of an electric typewriter. She wrote some great stories! But sadly, they never saw publication.
Until now, anyway.
The book you’re holding is a story I was told when I was young. I still remember Mom telling us this one many times on long drives in the car. The other stories set in this universe, the tales of Anwyn and her friends, are a piece of my childhood as well. Of course, Mom rewrote these things because people change over time, so all her experiences over the past forty-ish years have been poured into the new versions of the stories.
Stories carry weight. They change the world. The story you’re about to read was one that helped change mine. I hope you enjoy it and all LJ Dix’s other books as much as I did!
CHAPTER ONE
Anwyn was in trouble again. She was beginning to wonder if that was her natural state. At least this time she hadn’t done anything impulsive or risky. No. She was doing exactly what this particular job required.
Maybe someone should have had a deeper conversation with the client. She admitted she could have asked questions, but she was the newcomer on the team. She could have questioned this so-called simple courier job. Still, shouldn’t someone with more experience have caught that?
This time the trouble consisted of dodging in and out of narrow corridors on a space station, attempting to pull a fast one on the people chasing her. This job had turned into a textbook case of the old saying about Murphy’s Law—what can go wrong, will go wrong.
The courier job started simply enough. They had done their planning. Everyone on the team who would be outside the ship had memorized the convoluted map of the station's interior. She could also pull it up and see her position relative to the other team members and the ship.
Despite that, everyone had missed one fact that should have been obvious in retrospect. If a major corporation hired a high-priced courier, it meant the company had reason to believe there would be difficulties. Willingness to pay the rates the team charged should have been a clue that this wasn’t the easy job the client had claimed.
They had finished a job on Midway for a regular client when the request came in from AllBythia, a major manufacturer of high-tech goods. A miniaturized model of a top-secret new design needed to be hand-carried from a subsidiary on Alliance to the home office on Bythia.
The team made it to Alliance in two days. During the trip, Anwyn, Mark, and Drew studied information about the station that Shir-ella provided. Mark would meet the contact disguised as a dock worker. He would receive a package. Anwyn and Drew would be his backup.
Alliance Station One was one of the largest and oldest stations within League territory. It consisted of multiple layers of docks for ships ranging in size from massive landers and passenger liners through smaller traders without the standard lander to even smaller individually owned ships. That included mining ships getting supplies for multiple operations throughout the Alliance system, and smaller government couriers. Anwyn spotted one Mythri ship in the port listings and wondered if anyone she knew was aboard.
The station was home to thousands of dock workers, customs and other government employees, and the people who ran the shops, restaurants, schools, and medical facilities. Several thousand people also transited through it daily or weekly while traveling to or from the surface. Plus there were the crews of ships docked for various reasons. To accommodate all those people, the station had continued to expand in all directions, making the place a maze that even the most current maps couldn’t completely keep up with.
In other words, the place was a huge and overcrowded mess.
Once they left the team’s ship, Anwyn was nearly overwhelmed by the number of people she passed as she followed Mark at a discreet distance. They represented planets from inside and outside the League. She had to be careful not to lose focus as she watched the varied parade of sentient traffic. She was glad they had left Rehan on board when she realized she didn’t see any Hrithain in the crowd.
Anwyn and Drew weren’t in true disguise but had dressed to attract as little attention as possible. Shir-ella had produced clothing for Anwyn that imitated what might be worn by a typical shop worker. Drew wore the uniform of a station medic. Both should have been anonymous in these throngs.
Mark made the pickup in a food court in one of the many large concourses scattered throughout the station. The package had been taped under a table with a standard tabletop food synthesizer that offered the menu of the nearby food stand. He tucked the small parcel into an interior jacket pocket and nodded to acknowledge he had made the pickup. Then he nonchalantly strolled toward where the team’s ship, Rand’s Crossing, was berthe
Two men and a woman, working together, ambushed Mark before he reached the other side of the concourse. They bumped into him, nearly knocking him over. One of the men made a grab for Mark’s jacket and the courier package, but Mark evaded him. He slipped out of the other man’s grip and made it to a busy shop where he handed off the package to Anwyn.
“Who’s after you?” she asked through their implants as she vanished into the shop’s interior.
“Who knows? We need to get that back to Veraz on the ship.” He dodged out of the store and caught the eye of one of his attackers. “I’ll try to lead them away.”
“Be careful,” she warned as she found a rear entrance to the shop and slipped out into a station corridor designed for deliveries.
Anwyn wasn’t sure where the other two mercenaries were, but Shir-ella was giving her updates on the shortest route back to the ship. She ran down the corridor and turned right. Then it ended at a T-junction. This led her to another smaller concourse, still crowded with people shopping or crossing the wide space on some other errand. She crossed the open area, going straight through the busiest section to blend in with the crowd.
Shir-ella warned her that someone had seen the handoff and several people were searching for her. “Mark is on his way to you. Make it look like you gave the package back to him. He and Drew are going to fake another handoff to further confuse them. That will force them to split their forces. If they’re chasing Mark and Drew, you can make it back to the ship.”
Anwyn made her way through another busy concourse, keeping an eye out for Mark in the crush of people. She spotted him heading toward her, then he bumped into her and paused as if they were doing a handoff. He took off at a jog, pushing through the crowd, hoping to lose any pursuit.
“They’re hedging their bets and following both of you,” Shir-ella warned. “We’re still going to play the shell game with Mark and Drew, but find another exit from that concourse.”
She entered a shop and asked if there was a back way out. This brought her to another service passageway at the rear of this block of station convenience shops. She walked down the passageway, staying watchful for anyone suspicious. She stopped before reaching a door at the end of the corridor. Where to now? She checked the station map she had available.
Someone shouted behind her, and she glanced back to see a pursuer had followed her through the shop and into the passageway.
“Mark?” She tried to reach him on her implant. He should have been in range. She opened the door as someone shouted at her, slammed it shut behind her, and searched for a lock. No such luck, so she turned left in the wider passageway, knowing it led toward the docks and their ship.
“Anyone. I’m being chased, and I can’t raise Mark. Gonna need some help here.”
Shir-ella replied. The Pathian was tracking their locations from the ship. “He’s ducked into an office. There’s a busier corridor ahead of you. Drew should arrive there at the same time you do. You two can decide whether to do a real or fake handoff depending on what you see when you get there.”
She dodged around another corner, hearing running footsteps behind her. “It didn’t work last time. But we can give it another try.”
She reached the next wide area of shops and other services and slowed to avoid standing out in the crowd. She spotted Drew at the other end of a row of shops and walked toward him. It was time for a rapid decision. Keep the package and fake a handoff, or give it to Drew?
As he passed her, he shook his head and said over the implant, “We’re at a bad angle. They’ll see a handoff.”
She kept going until she had nearly reached the end of this section of the shopping area. She tried to look casual as she strolled through an arch into a second area, this one more focused on business than shopping.
“Shir-ella, there’s security all over. Maybe if I ask for help?”
“Could work,” Shir-ella agreed. “Give it a try.”
Her pursuers rushed into the concourse behind her before she spotted a member of security.
“Stop! Thief!” someone shouted behind her.
She glanced around and saw one of her pursuers talking with a member of security she had somehow missed. The man was pointing at her. The uniformed woman pulled out her stunner.
Anwyn didn’t wait to see if the woman would listen to her. Instead, she dashed through the open shopping area, shoving people out of her way and leaving them upset behind her.
She nearly growled in frustration. So much for an easy courier job. Anwyn threw herself around another corner barely ahead of stunner fire. Thank goodness she had thoroughly studied a map of this station and had a good head for directions. Still, being chased by Alliance Station One security hadn’t been in the original plan for this job.
She dodged into another side passageway, once again only a short distance ahead of stunner range. Where were Mark and Drew now? If she got caught, she still had the package. Security could hand it off to whoever was chasing her before they could get the situation straightened out.
“They got security involved before I could. They say I’m a thief.”
“You’re almost at the docks.” This time Veraz answered. “Mark is paralleling your course. As soon as you’re out of sight, hand the package back to Mark and allow security to catch you.”
“Veraz, I’ll be arrested.”
“No. You won’t.”
As she turned the next corner, she saw Mark ahead of her. She started to slip the package to him, but he shifted so she appeared to knock him down. When he got up, he brushed himself off and continued walking, shaking his head as if upset that she had run into him. The package was tucked inside his jacket.
Anwyn continued running, making it to the docks and rushing toward the Rand’s Crossing’s berth.
Security members spotted her and shouted. “Don’t let her board a ship!” one yelled.
Anwyn dashed at full speed down the docks. A stunner buzzed behind her, but she was thankfully out of range. If she didn’t reach the ship right away, the next shot was likely to hit her.
CHAPTER TWO
On this section of the station, all ships docked nose-in. Only a small portion of each craft was visible other than the ramp they extended to meet the station’s deck and the hatch. The rest of the ship was locked into a docking cradle and sealed against the station to prevent atmospheric leaks.
She was nearly at the ramp when Veraz appeared at the hatch of their ship, dressed in some odd uniform. He seemed taller, and a military-style cap hid his pointed ears. His light skin tone had darkened to a medium brown. Shir-ella had also done something that altered his facial structure. If Anwyn hadn’t been expecting him, it would have taken her a minute to recognize the man.
Veraz casually strolled down the ramp to meet Anwyn and the security members chasing her. At the shout of “Stop her!” Veraz grabbed her arm and pushed her behind him. He smiled at the oncoming security team.
“What has she done?” he asked mildly as the three people chasing her skidded to a stop in front of Veraz.
“Someone accused her of being a thief,” one woman replied and tried to reach around Veraz to grab Anwyn. A second woman stopped her partner and whispered, “Stop. Can’t you see who this is?”
“Who made that accusation?” Veraz asked sternly, although he was still smiling cordially.
The third member of security, a man wearing a senior rank, replied, “It was a prominent Alliance businessman, Your Honor. But if she’s with you…”
“Would it make you feel better if you searched her?” Veraz asked.
One woman stammered a denial, but the man stopped her. “I’ll admit it would make me feel better. If she didn’t steal anything, why was she running?”
“I imagine she was frightened. She communicated with me, and as I understand it, someone else was chasing her prior to you three becoming involved.”
“Well, yes, I believe that was the case.” He addressed Anwyn. “Sera, I’m sorry if we frightened you. Would you be willing to hand over your jacket for a quick search?”
