"You have quite a force headed for that jump," he said.

  "Yes, it certainly looks like I do," she answered.

  "You're playing your cards that close to your chest, huh?"

  "Yep."

  "Okay. I can't mutter in my sleep what I don't know, now can I?"

  "My thoughts, exactly."

  When they finally jumped into the Dresden system, it was a shock to a lot of people.

  However, Vicky had prepared a formal announcement that she merely wished to pay a state visit to one of her father, the Emperor's, major planets.

  They took their time arriving at Dresden, one gee all the way. By the time they arrived, the local government had had enough time to lay on quite a party.

  The reception from the Governor General, with several Security Consultants at his side, was cold and formal. The reception at the dinner and dance that night was most warm.

  Vicky was invited to several gala affairs over the next three days and stayed busy from morning until midnight, cutting ribbons, judging art, dance, and singing, as well as dancing and talking herself.

  The nanos that Kris and her Nelly had left for Vicky did a very good job of clearing the air around her. Vicky spoke freely, and in turn was spoken to just as honestly, at least by some.

  The present situation was hard. Some risked even saying it was unbearable. The planet was a powder keg, ready to blow.

  "Haven't you considered a vote to leave this half of the Empire?" Vicky only asked once.

  "Oh, have we. Many of us regret not moving on it as soon as you signed the Edict of Succession on Cuzco, but we delayed, and the Red Shirts hired more thugs. The Governor General has bragged that if we vote, 97% will vote to stay loyal."

  "No doubt, the ballots have already been tallied," Vicky said, bitterly.

  "No doubt."

  Despite the normal desire of any Navy to add fresh fruit, meats and vegetables to their stores, Vicky's ships took on nothing from their host planet.

  Vicky regularly had her computer police up the spy drones and nanos on her flag, and dispatched Kit and Kat to check the other ships that had docked.

  Much of the fleet chose to anchor nose-to-nose and swing around each other. It likely looked paranoid, but it also looked necessary, all things considered.

  Whenever asked where she was headed next, Vicky dodged. She mentioned a lot of places, including several planets that offered everything from hunting, to skiing, to surfing, to other unique pastimes. There was even a new moon that specialized in gambling as well as wild sex.

  When asked about that one, Vicky tried to blush prettily.

  A whole lot of sailors were betting on that one.

  As Dresden fell behind them, Vicky put on 1.25 gees. The jump beacon they headed for was pinged and sent through the jump. It found no traffic in the next system. Vicky ordered the navigator to put the fleet through that jump at 45,000 kilometers an hour.

  She'd learned how to make fast jumps at Kris Longknife's knee. There were a few raised eyebrows, but no one questioned her order.

  As soon as they were in the next system, she told Admiral Bołeslaw which jump was his target. He had his fleet navigator set up a course, eyed the results, and turned to Vicky.

  "I see that Your Grace is headed for Greenfeld."

  "Is it already that obvious?"

  "The next system has only two jumps out of it. One leads nowhere. The other sets us on a course where the third jump drops us into the Imperial Capital System. Every sailor on every ship will know this within an hour of me giving this order."

  "Hmm. I believe someone taught me that a secret that cannot be kept is not a secret worth keeping."

  "I don't know who that might have been," Admiral Bołeslaw said, almost sounding innocent.

  "Advise the crew that Her Grace wishes to visit her father and introduce him to her new husband and their son. She may even arrange to have her husband ennobled."

  "And the size of this fleet trailing around behind you?"

  "Admiral Waller thought that at least a small portion of the fleet could use some experience navigating outside our own space."

  "That's just plausible enough. Although, Your Grace, every sailor that hears it is going to laugh his fool head off. We all know about the Battle of Cuzco."

  "No doubt all of you do, but, as you say, it has the benefit of being at least plausible. One must always be plausible," Vicky said, primly.

  The effort to ping the jump buoy ahead of them got nothing in response. The actual space distance traveled between the next three jumps that would take them to Greenfeld was long. Vicky would prefer to take this jump fast, as well.

  She flipped a mental coin, and told the navigator to take the next jump at 45,000 klicks. The smallest light cruiser was sent ahead by ten minutes, just in case.

  No doubt the sailors of that ship would have preferred to pass on this honor.

  However, again, the buoys were dead on both sides of the jump. They drifted, out of fuel, totally abandoned.

  The next system also showed jump buoys that had exhausted their consumables and were of no further value to safe navigation. What was the level of commerce in her father's half of the Empire?

  No, in the Bowlingame half of the Empire.

  Vicky would have to hold her tongue and her temper when she got to Greenfeld.

  In the last system out from the Imperial capital, Vicky again had her fleet ping the jump they headed for. While she was waiting for a response she didn't expect to get, she got a message that dismayed her.

  "This is the management and employee group on Nawak. Do you have any food that you would be willing to trade with us for what we have to sell? We have not had another ship go through this system in over twelve months. If you cannot trade us for food, is there any chance you might send a ship to lift us off?"

  "Computer?" Vicky snapped.

  "Nawak is an airless mining development. It is rich in iron, nickel, molybdenum, and a small amount of gold, silver, lead, tritium, and rare earths. It was established over a century ago and has a safe and secure natural environmental support system. They grow a large part of their own food, only importing meats as well as some fruits."

  "What's the date on that report?"

  "It was provided ten years ago, Your Grace."

  "Computer, could you ask Admiral Bołeslaw to drop into my day quarters as soon as he finds it convenient?"

  "He is already on his way, Your Grace," and the door to Vicky's quarters opened even as her computer finished informing her.

  "Did you get that message from Nawak?" he asked.

  "I just did. What's our food situation?"

  "Four stores ships joined us when we jumped out of Brunswick. I was planning on resupplying the fleet in Greenfeld orbit. I wanted to dock as few ships as possible on the space station."

  "Good," Vicky said, but she was thinking hard.

  "Do all our ships still carry five tons of famine biscuits for emergency distribution?"

  "Many of them landed the biscuits when the fighting got hard. No one wanted any extra weight aboard when the jinking got hard. However, four of our cruisers still show them in their loadout."

  "Can we afford to send one store ship and two cruisers down to Nawak? The famine biscuits will be landed. I'm not saying that we give the fresh food away, but I would ask the supply corps to be as generous in trading as they would if those were their own sons or daughters ashore. Oh, also see what spare parts they may need to keep their gear up and running. If we've got it in stores, declare it surplus and land it."

  "I think that can be arranged, Your Grace. I'd propose sending the Altair. She's a contract ship. Her merchant skipper can take on a cargo of trade goods without anyone getting their nose out of joint about the Navy getting into other people's business."

  "We wouldn't want that to happen, now would we?" Vicky said through a grin that she knew was way too sassy.

  This, however, was very interesting to her. Here was a minor colony just one jump away from Greenfeld that was being allowed to die, literally die, on the vine because it was off any major trade route. How many other tiny colonies were out there being ignored? Ignored even to starvation?

  "Admiral Bołeslaw," she said, now totally serious. "When we finish with this exercise, assuming we are not again at war with this half of the empire, remind me to contract with a number of tramp freighters, the sort of junkers that no one pays any attention to. I know there are plenty of tramp skippers willing to take on a load if the price is a bit above the market's going rate."

  "There are plenty of them," Bołeslaw agreed.

  "Get them food of every sort: fresh, dried, frozen, including famine biscuits, and send them out to the tiny colonies. Maybe the smaller colonies as well. Maybe include any of the colonies we haven’t heard anything from in a while. Let's see if we can establish trade with them even if the transport costs are above what the market would normally accept."

  "Do you think the Bowlingames will consider that an act of war?"

  Vicky scowled. "We're trading with them, not running our flag up. Hell, I'll even make sure they don't say a word about the option of voting to join my half. You think that might work?"

  Admiral Bołeslaw shook his head. "With the Bowlingames, you never know what will work and what won't."

  "Yeah."

  12

  Admiral, Her Imperial Grace, the Grand Duchess Victoria aboard the battleship Victorious entered the Greenfeld system just ten minutes after the light cruiser Karenburg. They came through a minor, rarely used jump whose beacon was no longer functioning.

  The Imperial Capital system had fallen on hard times.

  Still, one did not lead an unannounced fleet toward Greenfeld, even at a comfortable and sedate one gee. Especially if that fleet consisted of two dozen battleships, an equal number of cruisers, both light and heavy, as well as auxiliary ships, including four fast attack transports.

  People got nervous if you didn't clearly declare your good intentions.

  A much smaller fleet of just six battleships had jumped into the Wardhaven system not too long ago. They immediately demanded the planet's surrender under pain of being blasted back to the stone age if they didn't.

  They might have done just that, but a certain Lieutenant Kris Longknife and a handful of tiny attack boats had ended that noise. Them and every spit kit and volunteer that would report to the colors and get underway.

  Vicky often dreamed of having been there. Been in such a fight to the death. Unfortunately, she was pretty sure that had she, she would most likely have been on one of the battleships doing the threatening.

  Vicky still needed to have a serious talk with her dad about that particular bit of very undocumented history. While everyone knew Kris's side of the story, the battleships had vanished leaving no trace of where they came from.

  But Vicky's problem was to rescue her dad, not start a war. Certainly not to destroy the capital of her own Empire. Even if it did seem to be under new and inappropriate management.

  Standing on the Victorious' flag bridge with Admiral Bołeslaw just off screen, Vicky took a deep breath and began.

  "Hail, Emperor Henry I," she said, then went on for a good minute repeating after her computer all of her father's claimed titles. Why in heaven's name would Dad want to be "Defender of the Faith"? When the list wound down, she switched to herself.

  "Greetings from your daughter, Her Imperial Grace, Admiral . . . " and Vicky went into her titles, ending with "and heir apparent to the great Imperial throne of Greenfeld that you now hold. I come to bring you my husband so that we may properly bend the knee before you and present you with the uterine replicator holding the developing body of your first-born grandson. I look forward to seeing your smiling face, Dad."

  COMPUTER, CUT THE FEED.

  FEED CUT, YOUR GRACE.

  Vicky waited until the red light truly faded from above the forward screen.

  "I guess I should have had Mannie and the can with me when I sent the message. Oh, well, I'll do better next time. Sensors, what can you tell me about the system?"

  "It's pretty light on traffic," a lieutenant reported. One of Captain Blue's best students, she had the watch at the moment. "Most of the piers on the station are empty. At least, we can't identify more than a couple of dozen ships by their active reactors. Over a hundred hulks are tumbling along behind the station."

  "Very good. What have we got for warships?"

  "Two battleships, a trio of cruisers, two of them light, and six destroyers, all quite old, I suspect.

  "No doubt," Admiral Bołeslaw said, leaning close to her ear to whisper, and keeping his back to a screen that shouldn't be working, "someone will soon be in need of a change of underwear."

  "No doubt," Vicky agreed, and did her best not to allow her face to set in a feral grin. "It will be interesting how long it takes my dear former step-uncle to produce either my father, or a well-controlled puppet."

  "How will you recognize the puppet?"

  "I have no idea," Vicky admitted. It wasn't like they'd shared a lot of quiet moments together that hadn't ended up recorded for the Imperial media market. Even before Dad proclaimed himself Emperor, their palace had been most Imperial.

  "So, Admiral, how are we going to work this rather large non-invasion?"

  "As carefully as possible," he answered. "Obviously, we have to dock you and the Victorious. I'd prefer to keep the rest of the battleships anchored off the station. Twenty-two of them pair up well. The Gracious Grand Duchess doesn't have a ship that matches her tonnage, so we'll also dock her."

  "The Gracious Grand Duchess?" Vicky asked.

  "It was the old Savage, but no planet wanted to cough up funds to support something that nasty."

  "Gracious Grand Duchess," Vicky said, tasting it. "Nice."

  "I'll anchor most of the cruisers together as well. We'll berth two of them close to you."

  "So, two battleships and two cruisers."

  "And the two fast assault transports, the Imperial Defender and the Imperial Protector."

  "Need I ask what their old names were? Kick You in the Balls, or something?"

  "Or something." Bołeslaw said.

  "How will it go then?"

  "A heavy cruiser. Then Defender and Victorious at one pier. Protector and Gracious Grand Duchess next over, and the light cruiser covering the other side.

  It sounded like a plan.

  Several hours after a response should have arrived, a message flimsy was presented to Vicky during supper in her flag quarters with Admiral Bołeslaw, Billy, and the two pint-sized assassins.

  "This is interesting," Vicky said. "No visual, just words. I am told that my father is hunting in the north mountains. He and a guide have left the base camp and will not return for ten days, or until they slay a grizzly bear."

  "Ten days, huh?" Bołeslaw said.

  "Hmm, can we keep a fleet hanging around for ten days?" Vicky asked, with an artificial wide-eyed and innocence.

  "It would be hard to do," Admiral Bołeslaw said, sounding very professional. "Especially if we don't give anyone shore leave."

  "Yes, that would be a problem," Vicky said. "But, Computer, doesn't whomever sent this message have a worse problem?"

  "Your Grace?"

  "Didn't we introduce the grizzly to the cold northern and southern mountains?"

  "Yes, Your Grace."

  "And weren't the grizzlies in the north hunted to extinction?"

  "That was the report. As of five years ago, no grizzly bears had been spotted in ten years."

  "There were plans to reintroduce the bears, using breeding stock from the south. How did that progress?"

  "I have no report of it happening. Your father sold off his northern hunting lodge ten years ago. He has only used his southern lodge since then."

  "Admiral," Vicky said, grinning, "someone doesn't know his hunting."

  "No grizzlies up north, huh?"

  "Only down south, and I remember going on hunting trips with Dad to bag bears. It was always a great production and he never had less than ten shooters with him. He wanted to make the kill, but poor old timid Dad definitely wanted a lot of guns around to make sure the bear didn't take anything out of his hide."

  "So, this is all crap."

  "Put out by some banker who has never gotten his nose out of a ledger sheet."

  "Or, more importantly, asked anyone to check on what 'they just know is right.' Okay, Your Grace," Admiral Bołeslaw asked. "What do we do now?"

  "Oh, dear," Vicky said, with an artificial flutter to her voice, much like a butterfly with a ten-ton payload. "Having just begun a family of my own, I do feel an urgent need to revisit the scenes of my youth. I really want to show my new husband where I grew up and share fond memories of my old haunts."

  "Is any of that true?" Billy asked.

  "Not a word of it," Kit said.

  Kat nodded agreement.

  "Just asking. I want to make sure of my role here."

  Vicky smiled at her husband's double. He did look good enough to eat in his white, open neck shirt and slimming black pants. She had to keep reminding herself that he went to the other bedroom, not hers.

  This fake honeymoon was a bitch.

  "You, good dear, continue to be an assertive democrat, not aggressive, and let me win most of the arguments in a fashion that makes it clear to all listeners that I have won this battle, but you still intend to win the war."

  "Of course, Your Grace."

  "Honey. Sweetheart. Keep the ‘Your Graces’ to a minimum."

  "Yes, sweetheart," he said, and both of them laughed, as did the others a moment later.

  The Grand Duchess's Imperial Fleet continued on its course toward Greenfeld. After two days, they got a request for her intentions, now that her father was hunting.

  Vicky waited a day before telling them about her desire to share fond memories from her childhood with her loving husband.

  That seemed to end further communication. Even when the flagship asked for assignment to a pier, the answer was, "Wait one."

 

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