“I will,” the king said. “But politics . . .”
Father would never have allowed matters to get so far out of hand, Kat thought. Her father had been a great man, even if he too hadn’t had much time for her as a child. But Peter doesn’t have the experience to lead the family.
She told herself, firmly, that she was being unfair. There was no way to get such experience, save by doing it. And Peter couldn’t have taken over a family leadership role until their father’s death. Any plans for a smooth transition of power had been wrecked when Duke Falcone had been assassinated. The Theocracy had probably never known it, but they’d done a great deal of damage to the Commonwealth. She dreaded to think where it might end.
“I’ll push the matter as hard as I can,” the king said. “I take the issue seriously.”
“I’ll make sure you have plenty of footage from Judd,” Kat said. She allowed herself a moment of warmth towards him. The king was trying to do something, which was more than could be said for the bottom-warmers in Parliament. “And from the next attacks.”
“Please,” the king said. He raised one hand in salute. “Take care of yourself, Kat.”
“And you, Your Majesty,” she told him. The king was young, barely two years older than Kat, but he was carrying the weight of an entire sector on his shoulders. “Take care of yourself too.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ASHER DALES
“That was a boring flight,” Patti complained crossly as Dandelion entered the Asher Dales system. “We didn’t encounter a single pirate.”
“They probably saw us coming and ran the other way,” William said dryly. It would be a rare pirate who decided to pick a fight with two destroyers, particularly when they weren’t escorting any freighters. They might decide that the destroyers had to be transporting something small yet valuable, like datachips, but the odds were against it. “There’ll be plenty of pirates in our future.”
He raised his voice. “Helm, take us out of hyperspace near the planet.”
“Aye, Captain,” Lieutenant Tim Arthur said. “Vortex opening in twenty seconds.”
William smiled to himself, doing his best to project calm across the bridge. Asher Dales hadn’t been surveyed very thoroughly, neither by the original settlers nor the Theocracy, and there was always a chance, a very slight chance, of running into a gravity shear and being blown out of hyperspace. Thankfully, despite its proximity to the Gap, Asher Dales didn’t seem to attract many energy storms. He still wanted to survey the system himself as quickly as possible.
He tensed as the vortex opened, allowing the two destroyers to slip back into realspace. There was no way to be sure what they would encounter at their destination, despite Tanya’s assurances. The latest news from the Theocratic Sector had not been encouraging. Too many provisional governments were proving unstable, now that the common foe had been removed. Tanya’s father and his government might already have been kicked out of power.
“Local space is clear, sir,” the sensor officer reported. “I’m picking up one artificial construction in orbit. Warbook calls it a Class-III Orbit Station.”
“Transmit our IFFs,” William ordered. The orbiting station had once belonged to the Theocracy, but the resistance had captured it when the Commonwealth had liberated the system. An impressive feat, even though the locals hadn’t said much about how it had actually been done. “And then take us into high orbit.”
He settled back in his command chair as the holographic display began to fill with icons. Asher Dales had almost no spacefaring presence, save for the orbiting station, but that didn’t mean that the system was useless. Four gas giants, two rocky worlds, and a giant asteroid field . . . Asher Dales was poised to become an industrial powerhouse, if it ever had the chance to develop properly. William rather suspected that it would take decades. The Theocracy hadn’t even bothered to set up a cloudscoop!
But the inhabitants do have a chance, he thought. Assuming, of course, they manage to lure more outside investment.
“Captain,” the communications officer said. “We’ve been formally welcomed to their system, sir, and you have an invitation to dinner.”
He paused. “They also want to speak directly to Miss Barrington.”
“Then patch a link through to her cabin,” William ordered. It had been easy to tell that Tanya hadn’t enjoyed the trip, but she hadn’t complained. “And then inform them that I will be happy to accept the invitation.”
He kept a wary eye on the sensors as they approached the planet and entered orbit, but nothing materialized to trouble him. They’d have to inspect the orbiting station with a fine-toothed comb, he told himself firmly; the design was relatively common, dating all the way back to the UN, but the Theocracy had been the ones to turn the design into reality. It didn’t look as though they’d made a mess of it . . . He shook his head. He’d seen enough of what passed for engineering in the Theocracy to not take anything for granted.
“Prepare a shuttle,” he ordered once they were safely in orbit. “Miss Barrington and I will head down to the surface.”
Tanya met him outside her cabin, looking more cheerful than she’d seemed for the last two weeks. William understood how she felt, even though it wasn’t something he shared. There was never any shortage of tasks on a starship, from the lowliest midshipman to the commanding officer himself. Boredom was rarely a problem. Tanya, on the other hand, had been confined to a tiny cabin. She hadn’t even been able to see the stars outside.
“We made it,” she said as they entered the shuttle. “Thank you.”
William lifted his eyebrows. “Did you doubt it?”
Tanya said nothing. William smiled as he motioned for her to strap herself in, then took the pilot’s chair for himself. It had been a long time since he’d flown such a shuttle, but he’d managed to keep up with his flying certifications over the last year. Besides, it wasn’t easy
