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Chapter 1

 

        Chiira, 12 Shiaa, 4400 Orthodox Calendar

        Friday, 8 November 2013, Terran Standard Calendar

        Chiira, 12 Shiaa, year 1326 of the 97^th Generation, Karinne Historical  Reference Calendar

        Biogenics Compound, Karsa, Karis

 

        Strange to think that this was his anniversary.

        Jason stood on an observation deck overlooking a large manufacturing bay in the massive Biogenics Compound, what many called the Shimmer Dome because of the ever-present security force screen that protected the facility from both physical attack and any attempt to survey the activities inside by spy devices.  Below, on the assembly floor, human, Faey, Makati, Kizzik, and Kimdori workers were installing the new line of biogenics mainframes in the line of Gladiator II exomechs, the staple e-mech that formed the backbone of the Karinne ground forces.  The old Gladiators had served them well, but thanks to the research team, they had all been refitted to such a degree that Myleena gave them a new designation.  Old Gladiators were put on an assembly line on one side, and they were stripped down and rebuilt with new armor, new weapons, new biogenic mainframes, and new interface systems.  When they were piloted out the door on the far side of the bay, they went out with the new designation of Gladiator II.

        Jason didn’t need to be here, but Myleena asked him to come see the operation for himself now that they had it going full tilt.  It certainly was a big shock to see this place.  This building was only built last year on the sprawling ground under the security dome, in one of the open spaces they’d intentionally left for expansion, and now it was going at full capacity, producing 20 refitted Gladiators a day.  At that pace, they’d refit the entire line of 1,890 Gladiators, they’d be finished in just a few months.  Once the refits were done, this facility would produce new Gladiator II units from parts manufactured on the continent, which was the way things worked with all Karinne units.  They were either partially assembled or had their pieces built in factories on Karsa, and then shipped here, to the Shimmer Dome, so the biogenics could be installed and final assembly could be done.  The cruisers and other starships were a little different, though.  For those, the biogenic mainframes were sent up and installed in an ultra-security bay that only the high-security segment of the shipyard could enter.  The shipyard workers had no idea what went on in that bay.  They built the shell and did some of the internal fitting, then it was towed into that bay and the doors were closed, where the ship was completed.

        The average shipbuilder never saw the weapons, armor, shields, or computers installed on the ships they built.  Those were only seen by the most trusted within the Karinne organization.

        He had to admit, they had quite an efficient system.  It was odd to see more than Kimdori down on the floor working on their most secret technology, but those workers were beyond trustworthy.  They were Karinne subjects, and what was more, they had passed rigorous screening to ensure both their discretion and their loyalty.  They were the new face of the new house of Karinne, transplants from other parts of the Imperium, brought by the Kimdori, sworn into the house and to its secrets.  And these people, workers, engineers, scientists, even farmers and housekeepers, were all absolutely trustworthy.  Though the workers below didn’t know the true secrets of biogenics—only the Kimdori and an elite segment of Faey and human engineers knew those secrets—they definitely knew enough to threaten Karinne technological superiority if they ever defected.

        But they’d never do that.  They were down there because they believed in Karinne, believed in what they were doing, and they were loyal to Jason and the house.

        Those transplants were just a small example of a larger truth.  The continent of Karsa was completely restored, and what was more, it was populated now.  When they first arrived here on Karis, they were less than 2,000 people here.  They were settlers, people willing to rough it, people selected by the Kimdori to be the new backbone of Karinne.  But now there were over six million people on Karis, living in Karsa, Brena, and the interior frontier city of Arrion.  They had real cities now with real governments, and people who came here did more than farm or help reclaim the planet.  There were factories now, farms and factories and new businesses, as people came in and helped make Karis a thriving planet in more than one sense.  As the Kimdori moved in and rebuilt a section of the continent of Karsa, people literally raced in to claim it, set up shops and farms, build factories or ranches.

        The Kimdori were the reason for it all. They found suitable people willing to make a fresh start and didn’t mind living out of contact with the Imperium, and they brought them here.  And here, they found a gold mine of opportunity.  They didn’t have to buy a house.  They simply found an empty house and filed a claim with the Karinne Provicial Government.  The government didn’t allow anyone to claim more than one building of the same kind, so they usually had no trouble.  After they had a place to live, they decided what kind of work they wanted to do, and they went about getting it going.  Some people came to farm in the vast tracts of newly fertile farmland in the interior of the continent.  Some went into manufacturing, either producing goods for Karis or goods sold in the Imperium.  Others took advantage of the microbe-free environment to take up ranching, and because of that there were now one hundred times more animals living on Karis than there were sentient beings.  The Kizzik especially seemed quite adept at ranching, but what they ranched were large insectoid creatures that produced a nectar the Kizzik liked almost to the point of addiction  Those big beetle-like creatures thrived in the southern reaches of the Karsan plain, where it was hot and dry, and the Kizzik that had come here had a booming business selling the nectar back to Kizzik Prime.

        Not directly, though.  Karis was still a closely guarded secret.  There was plenty of commerce going on between Karis and the outside, but it was done carefully, through shell companies that concealed just where the goods being traded were either going to or coming from.  That was Kumi’s realm, and she rode jockey over it like a little queen.

        Karis was so diverse, they even had Parri here.  That still surprised Jason.  It turns out that the oye fruit that the Parri cultivated on their homeworld, that everyone thought would only grow there, could grow on Karis.  The Kimdori had managed to find one tribe that was curious enough to leave their precious homeworld, and that tribe had come to Karis, built their hide huts in a newly reclaimed area of grassy hills on the northern tip of Karsa, and planted their oye trees.  The trees were now about ten feet tall, but wouldn’t start producing fruit until they were about fifteen feet tall…which would be in about two years.  The newly invigorated soil and the nitrogen/oxygen balance of the atmosphere was well within both Parri and oye tolerance, and that strip of Karsa was in the perfect temperature zone for their precious trees.  The Parri themselves were very curious creatures.  They were cat-like, moving on all fours most of the time but having prehensile hands, rising up on their back legs to use them.  They were shamanistic in ideology and rejected technology, like the Amish back home.  They lived like they’d lived for thousands of years, in a simple harmony with nature, even the sterile, artificially produced nature of Karis.  But that was one of the reasons they’d came here.  Jason had talked to the shaman of the Parri tribe, their leader, and she had told him that the soul of Karis was in need of healing, and the Parri could understand the need to bring comfort to the land.  They saw the planet as a living thing, and they felt it their sacred duty to try to heal the soul of the land while the Karinnes tried to heal its body.  Since their oye trees would grow here, they saw it as their duty to come to this place and tend to the wounded soul of Karis.

        He didn’t believe in what they did, but he was happy to have them here.  Right now, every pair of hands helped, and the Parri were very devoted to trying to help restore Karis…but only in their own special way.

        “Very efficient,” Miaari noted as they looked down from the balcony.  There were six of them there looking down.  Jason and Jyslin, with Rann in Jyslin’s arms stood to one side, and Myleena, Kumi, and Miaari stood on the other.  This was the most elite of inner circles of the Karinne noble house.  The Grand Duke and his wife, the Duchess Myleena Karinne, who oversaw all technology and research, Duchess Eleri Karinne, who managed the house’s financial affairs, and the enigmatic Miaari Threxst, a Handmaiden who was the direct liaison between the Grand Duke and the many Kimdori who swarmed all over Karis.  The workers on the floor below could look up and know that they were looking at the four people who directed almost all activity on Karis, in one way or another.  The Grand Duke handled the overall direction and objectives of the house.  The Duchess Myleena ran the technological centers and directed research.  The Duchess Eleri handled all matters of finance.  The Handmaiden Miaari directed the Kimdori, both with and without the Grand Duke’s direct consent or knowledge…but they all knew that the Grand Duke trusted Miaari utterly, and allowed her to do what she thought best without his permission.

        “I thought you’d been here before, Miaari,” Kumi noted, looking at her.

        “Not since this facility was built,” she answered.

        “You like it, Jayce?” Myleena asked, brushing her hair away from her gestalt.  All of them except Miaari wore one of those devices, where Miaari wore a metal band around her wrist.  They all knew what they did, but those below only knew what they were told.  To them, they were interfaces, which allowed the Faey to control Karinne technology.  For the non-telepathic humans, Kizzik, and Makati, some alterations had to be made.  They used manual controllers that translated spoken commands into communal instructions for the equipment they used while on Karis.

        “Looks like a typical Myleena operation,” Jason chuckled.  “How different are the new exomechs?”

        “Not much.  It’s only taking the pilots about twenty logged hours to train to the new system,” she answered.  “I have the specs with Cybi, she can upload them to your gestalt and you can take one for a test flight.”

        Though Karinne was very small by Imperium standards, it had a formidable military…and their technology was only one reason.  When Jason first began, he used mercenaries to fill his need for an immediate standing army that knew what it was doing…and, well, they were still here.   But they were mercenaries no longer.  When Jason created the Karinne Military Service, all the mercenaries folded into it as regulars, because Jason paid them well and he really looked out for them.  The mercs had become his new army, but on the other side, with the Navy, it was a bit different.  Jason had started with the Faey conscripts he had captured from Trillane not long after the house began, and upon them was built a small but highly effective, devoted, dedicated Navy.  The Kimdori had, in five short years, built a veritable fleet of ships to make the Karinne Battle Fleet more than three ships.  They had 62 ships now:  24 destroyers, 18 light cruisers, 9 medium cruisers, 5 heavy cruisers, two battleships, and one huge command ship, which had just been commissioned last week.  Those ships didn’t count the Trillane ships that Jason had captured and salvaged, though.  Not all of them had been built at Kosigi either.  The heavy cruisers, battleships and command ship had been built at Kimdori Prime, then the biogenic systems had been taken there to finish the construction.  Kosigi was big enough to build ships that size, but right now quantity mattered more than size, so the lunar base had been working to build as many ships as possible.  And they had done amazingly well.  The navy was considered tiny by the standards of the huge Highborn houses, but what the Karinnes lacked in numbers, they made up for in sheer power and mobility.  Karinne technology was hand over fist better than Imperial technology, and a single Karinne destroyer was more than a match for anything but a Faey battleship.  It was more heavily armored, had shields that could resist MPAC technology, and had those deadly particle beam weapons that could slice a ship apart like a Thanksgiving turkey.  That combination made Karinne ships the most feared ships on this side of the entire galaxy.  Even other galactic civilizations had come to respect the might of the Karinnes, for the Karinne ships could beat the snot out of just about anything anyone had.  The other side of that was that since Karinne ships didn’t suffer the relativity delay when jumping through hyperspace, Jason could jump the entire fleet virtually anywhere, at any time, in real time.  That let him field his entire navy anywhere it needed to be, literally minutes after the order came for them to get there.

        The other civilizations were aware of the Karinne naval buildup, but didn’t fear it.  The neutrality of the Karinnes was almost as legendary as their technology.  The other civilizations didn’t see the military buildup of the Karinnes as a threat, they saw it as a means to make sure what happened to them in the Third Civil War didn’t happen again.

        Jason had done everything Miaari had told him to do, and it had worked out wonderfully.  Building on the experience of his Faey mercenaries and conscripts, Jason had, with the help of the ex-Marines and Kimdori advisors, built an efficient, effective, highly disciplined and very capable military, whose loyalty to House Karinne was unswerving.  His ex-mercs and the new Faey and human elements formed his army, piloting their deadly Gladiators, while the Navy protected Karinne space with their lethal ships and the only non-Karinne technology they used, Imperial Raptor fighters that had also been refitted with Karinne systems. The Karinne’s technical arm, mainly Kimdori, had designed a Karinne fighter based on one of the designs Cybi had in her memory, but production wasn’t slated to start until early next year.  But until then, the Raptors would do nicely.  Once they were outfitted with biogenic computers and Karinne armor, shields, and weapons, they were very, very effective.

        The military was Myri’s domain.  She was now Duchess Myri Karinne, and second in command of all Karinne military forces, with only Jason outranking her.  She often joked that it quite a promotion from being an Imperial Marine sergeant, going from a non-com to the commander of all military units for an entire noble house.  But she did well enough, since she had Kimdori advisors that had helped her settle into the role.  She was a good tactical and strategic commander.

        And boy, did that duchess title really make the others jealous.

        Not that they really had reason to be.  The ex-Marines were part of the inner core of the Karinne household.  The Kimdori had brought all the hidden Generations to Karis, but to Jason they were just house members.  Some of them were friends, like Ayuma who ran the Academy, but he didn’t know most of them very well.  The Marines were part of his family…literally.  Five of them had borne him children, part of the mandatory expansion of the gene pool that Cybi had mandated, but not the original plan the Marines had to have him father a child by all of them…on that, he drew the line, and bargained them down to five.  Rann, the Heir Apparent, had two half-brothers and two half-sisters to play with that were all close to his age..and they were just his children.  All ten of the Marines had borne a child by a Generation within the first two years of coming to Karis, and a few of them had already borne a second child by a different father, while the female Generations had managed to produce either one or two children on the average…though Viera, one of the first female Generations, had produced two sets of twins in that time in addition to a third child, so she was leading the race with five children among the women, while Meran, a rather tall, handsome male, currently was outstripping all the men with eleven children to his credit.

        To his surprise, the Faey Generations saw absolutely nothing wrong with the Karinne program of forced breeding, a program Jason himself didn’t particularly like.  After they got here and found out who they were and where they came from, and found out just how few there were left, they not only understood the need for it, they agreed wholeheartedly that it was necessary.   So, with typical Faey enthusiasm for sex, they had thrown themselves into it almost to the point where Jason felt he’d taken on a house full of debauched nymphomaniacs.  Generations would pair up both with other Generations and with normal Faey and keep at it until a pregnancy was confirmed.  The men would then go off and try to impregnate another woman as quick as they could.  But the frenzy had calmed down somewhat, since the babies were now everywhere, but the activity continued.  Even now, the Marines who had borne Jason’s first children were either pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or had already produced a child by another Generation male.  And they wouldn’t stop until they had borne three children by three different fathers, to maximize the effective expansion of the gene pool.  That was the target for all women who had agreed to participate in the program, three children.  Men too were to sire three children by three different mothers, but some of them were trying for quite a few more than that, and Jason had been all but commanded to produce five children by different mothers, because he was the only Terran Generation.  He was literally the last member of a splinter of the Karinne Generations, and his line had to be protected by any means necessary.

        And behind it all was Cybi, who kept careful record of the lineage of each child.

        Not all the children were the same, either.  Rann was blessed with tremendous talent at birth, and he wasn’t the only one.  Every single one of Jason’s children were telepathically sensitive at birth, but even Rann was eclipsed by the child of Jason and Yana.  Yana was one of the most powerful non-Generation telepaths—one of the most powerful Faey telepaths period—and Jason was officially documented as the strongest living male telepath in the Imperium.  Their child, a platinum blond girl that looked almost completely human that Yana had named Kyri, was definitely the product of a union between two telepaths of their calibre.  Kyri might be one of the most powerful telepaths alive…anywhere.  She was that strong, even as a newborn.

        And boy did she drive Yana nuts!  Kyri wasn’t just a telepath.  Like all Generations, she was also telekinetic, but unlike any other Generation child, she had full command of her talent since she was a baby.  Yana was worn ragged when her infant daughter kept making things fly all over the room, using her power almost without understanding what she was doing, and since she was telepathically aware, it gave her a frighteningly accelerated learning curve.  Most sensitive children’s talent faded a few months after birth and then remanifested later on, but Kyri’s talent never faded.  She had been born telepathically aware, and it had taken some careful training and work with her so she could control her talent, to close her mind.  But that talent allowed her to develop language skills at a frightening rate; Kyri was only four, but she had the vocabulary and reading skills of a high schooler.  She was a child and acted like one, but she was a child that threw out words that the adults had to go look up in a dictionary.

        By the time Kyri was an adult, she’d have more practical experience with her talent than Faey three times her age.

        Jason looked at the Gladiators, and thought a test flight might be fun.  Jason was probably the only Grand Duke in the Siann that had more than passing familiarity with mechanized weaponry.  Oh, he was sure that one of the other Grand Duchesses had a Class 3 and might be able to pilot a fighter or exomech, but Jason had practical experience.  He had been the one to test the Gladiator they’d found here to help Myleena get the data she needed for the refit.  Thanks to Kiaari, Jason had been implanted via Kimdori sharing with how to pilot both exomechs and top-line Faey military fightercraft.  He could fly almost anything, from a Karinne battleship to an airbike, but the main difference is that Kiaari’s sharing touch instilled him with a knowledge of using military machines in practical ways…her training also taught him to fight in one, and how to pilot a fighter in combat, including tactics to understand to get to the other side of that fight alive.  Myleena was rated for an exomech, but she didn’t have practical combat training that Kiaari’s touch had given to him, so he was the one flying the Gladiator.

        Now, though, half the army was rated on a Gladiator.  Gladiators were the standard issue for the mechanized infantry, with the rest of the entire military wearing armor systems that were designed over a thousand years ago, but were still considered superior to the best personal armor the Imperium had to offer.  Those suits, called Crusader armor systems, worked off the interface, and were much more efficient and effective than Faey powered armor.  Everyone in the military was issued a Crusader armor system, from the greenest recruit just out of basic training to Myri herself.  It was the basic, fundamental unit of equipment around which literally everything else was based.  Gladiator pilots literally plugged their Crusader armor right into the exomech, and the armor was the bridge between the interface and the mecha.  Gladiators and their refitted Raptors were designed around the pilot wearing Crusader armor, and the unit almost wouldn’t function without it there…which was in itself an additional security measure.  Crusader armor systems were so integral to Karinne that every member of the house also had a suit, and many of them wore them if for anything than the sheer convenience of having limited flight capability.

        “That sounds good to me.  I haven’t taken a Gladiator out in a while.  I’ll start thinking I’m getting rusty.”

        “What happened to the one you keep parked at Foxwood?” Myleena asked.

        “It got recalled for the refit,” he answered.  “  I haven’t had time to play with it anyway.”

        “That’s at least the proper thing to say about it,” Jyslin laughed.  “That’s all it is, a big toy.”

        “The best toys are big toys,” Myleena grinned.

        “Spoken like a true Karinne,” Miaari murmured.

        “I’ll make sure you get another one, Jayce,” Myleena said to him around the Kimdori.

        “What’s that, mama?” Rann asked, pointing down at the floor.

        “That’s a Kizzik,” she answered.  “They’re one of the races of the Imperium.  He’s a drone.  You can tell because he doesn’t have any wings.  See?”

        “I see,” he answered.

        “I hope you have a noble here,” Kumi noted, looking around.

        “Yeah, up in the control room right now,” Myleena said.  “She already gave the drones their orders, and they’re very effective once they know what to do.  They really got the assembly line going.  One Kizzik drone does the work of five Faey in half the time.”

        “All drones do is work, so naturally they’d be good at it.  How is the Kizzik handling getting around without an audio interface?  They don’t speak.”

        “Well, I adapted one that responds to their scent language,” Myleena said.  “It’s almost as effective as a Faey interface, since Kizzik can communicate real fast using it.”

        “Clever,” Kumi said with a nod.

        “Thanks, I try,” Myleena said with false modesty.

        “Isn’t today our anniversary, Jason?” Kumi asked.

        “Yeah.  Five years,” he said, then he sighed.  “Where does the time go?  It seems like last month I was staring at a camera giving that message to Earth.”

        “It has been a good five years, though,” Miaari said.  “Karinne prospers and grows.  Karis returns to life, and the house is well defended by its military and by its inaccessibility.”

        Jason wasn’t the only one to remain quiet a moment.  That inaccessibility wasn’t quite what it used to be.  Given there were six million people here now, so many vanishing could not be hidden for very long, and the Siann was starting to piece things together.  They knew that the Karinnes had to go somewhere when Jason picked up the human telepaths and the house members and vanished with them, and the list of possible places to go was very short.  Some had correctly reasoned that the only place Jason could have salvaged Karinne military ships, and disappeared with so many people, was Karis.  After all, it was the only planet that Karinne had owned.  In the last year, no less than 29 breaches into Karis space had been detected by the sensor ring that defended the interior of the system, and also hid the planet from sensor sweeps by making the interior of the system look like radioactive slag.  Those unmanned probes and scout ships prowled around the edges of the system, investigating, and then left.  Jason knew that the Siann wouldn’t be put off by those sensor readings forever.  Eventually, one of them was going to send a probe into the system itself to get visual confirmation on what their sensors were telling them.  When that happened, then Jason could either destroy the probe or reveal Karis to the Imperium.

        Neither option was very palatable.  Destroying the probe was the safest bet, but it would only incite repeat missions until one of them succeeded, which would turn into a running war.  Revealing Karis was also not a very good thing, because then the Siann would know exactly where to send their spies to try to steal the military secrets of the Karinnes.  They wouldn’t dare try to fight Karinne in a frontal war, but there wasn’t much stopping them from trying to steal Karinne’s secrets for themselves.

        That was one reason why Miaari was here.  While Kiaari ran Earth’s security, Denmother Zaa had told Miaari personally that the security of Karis was her responsibility, that safeguarding the secrets of the Karinnes was her job on Karis, just as safeguarding the Academy and the lower-priority secrets found on Earth were Kiaari’s duties.  Miaari was more than an ambassador to the Karinnes, she was the Karis Gamekeeper, the head of the formidable Karinne intelligence network.  Unlike most other house intelligence networks, Miaari had all the resources of the Kimdori at her disposal…and they both knew that she’d need them if the Siann knew where to send their spies.

        Security around Karis wasn’t too much of a worry to Jason.  Myri, through Miaari’s orders, dealt with the military aspects of security and the automated defense grid surrounding the entire inner system of three planets.  Miaari handled the physical security in conjunction with Myri, and handled computer security in conjunction with her lieutenant.  Jason wanted the best, so he hired a Moridon computer security company to partner with Miaari to protect Karis’ secret when he decided that they needed to have Karis connected to Civnet.  And when one wanted computer security, one went to the Moridons.  The Moridon company’s team was led by a project manager that was an eight foot tall female named Siyhaa, who was a sober, no-nonsense female that took her job as seriously as life itself.  She was hired to make Karis impregnible to a computer hack, and she performed that duty with the utmost devotion and attention to detail, so much so that she and three of her best computer engineers were physically present on Karis, sworn to the utmost secrecy, while the rest of the security team, who dealt mainly with Civnet security, was stationed on Draconis and Moridon.  Between Miaari and Siyhaa, Jason had no worries at all.  Siyhaa’s main job right now was carefully managing the link between Karis and the Imperium though Civnet.  Karis had been connected to Civnet for two years, but Siyhaa made sure that nobody on Civnet could hack into any computer the Karinnes had connected to it, nor could they use communications to try to track down the physical location of those computers.  Siyhaa’s team was efficient and discreet, and the secret of Karis was utterly safe with them.  Moridons were loyal to their employers when hired, and given who they were, they could keep secrets just as well as the Kimdori could.

        Sometimes, watching Miaari and Siyhaa interact was amusing.  Neither of them particularly liked the other, due to a bit of old rivalry between the security experts and the race of spies that tried to crack that security, but they worked well together, and respected one another.

        “I still think you should’ve planned a celebration or ceremony or something.”

        “I’m too busy for that kinda shit, Myleena,” Jason snorted.  “You have any idea how full my desk is right now?  I came here just for the opportunity to see something other than my in box.”

        “Tell me about it,” Kumi agreed.  “My in box is twice as full as yours.”

        “Delegate, hon,” Jyslin chided.  “You don’t have to do it all yourself.”

        “I haven’t found anyone yet with the right training I can trust with some of the shit I do,” she answered.  “Not even half of it’s even legal.  I’m not letting some greenhorn stick her hands in my kaba pod when she has no idea what she’s doing.”

        How serious is she? Myleena sent privately to Jason.

        Pretty serious, he answered.  She does do some pretty delicate stuff, and I can agree that it’s not something I’d want just anyone to try to do.  She is trying to find someone to help her, though.  I worry about her, it’s almost too much stress.

        Ah.

        “There will be time for celebrations later,” Miaari said calmly.  “Maybe in five more years, when Karis is fully secure and we have the naval forces at optimum strength, we will have the leisure to celebrate thusly.  Still we are in a weak position, and it worries both me and the Denmother.”

        Jason couldn’t disagree.  Though their navy was now strong in relation to the Imperium, both Jason and Miaari agreed that Karinne had to be able to stand up against the entire Imperium if it came to blows.  That plan really had little to do with the present, because the friendship between Dahnai and Jason, and the alliance between Karinne and Merrane, was strong.  Jason and Miaari were looking beyond the present, in a future where Jason and Dahnai were long gone and their descendents were in charge.  By setting the precedent now, it would keep Karinne ready to protect itself if the alliance between Karinne and Merrane broke down.  Karinne had to be a force unto itself, working within the bounds of the Imperium on its face, but prepared to defend itself against that same Imperium if they tried to repeat what happened in the Third Civil War.

        To Jason, it wasn’t if, it was when that happened.  Jason knew that there was going to come a reckoning between the Karinnes and the Imperium over their technology.  It wouldn’t be between Jason and Dahnai, but it was coming.  Some future Empress was going to demand the Karinne secrets, and that future Karinne leader was going to refuse.  And when that happened, the house had damn well better have the military force on hand and available to defend itself if that Empress decided to try to use force to get what she wanted.  Jason knew the Faey.  He knew them well, understood them, and he used that intimate understanding of them to comprehend that fundamental truth, that the Faey were too aggressive, too violent, too power-hungry for it not to happen.

        But God help him, how he loved them.  He was married to a Faey, had two Faey girlfriends, amu dorai, Symone and Dahnai…though it was more formal with one than the other.  Symone was a true amu dorai, which in Faey meant “courtly love,” where his relationship with Dahnai was more distant now.  She was smitten with her husband, and besides, he’d set foot off of Karis a grand total of five times in the last three years.  He hadn’t been to Draconis in three years, since Shya’s religious ceremony kind of akin to a Christian baptism, some kind of ceremony held by a Templar of Trelle.  Jason had been forced to bring his family to that, since it also entailed the formal signing of the marriage contract now that Shya had completed that ceremony.  Dahnai had managed to sneak him away from his family and remind him of old times back in her apartment…and he certainly didn’t object too much.  Dahnai was hot, and sex with her was almost as good as it was with Jyslin and Symone.

        “I don’t think it’s ever gonna get that bad,” Myleena said.  “But I can’t deny that it’s only smart to have an overwhelming military available, given how unstable things are in the Imperium right now.”

        “Why do you say that?” Jyslin asked as she handed Rann off to Jason, then worked a cramp out of her arm by rubbing her shoulder and rotating her arm in wide circles.

        “Just the usual,” Myleena shrugged.  “I talked to my aunt last week, and she said there’s some rumors going around that both the Shovalles and the Trillanes are either about to make a move, or are allying to try to break away from the Imperium.  It’s all nothing but rumor, of course, but my aunt usually can pick the truth out of the rumors with some decent accuracy.  She thinks there’s something major coming on the horizon.” Myleena glanced at Miaari.  “But I’m sure you’ve heard that.”

        “There is some truth to it,” Miaari nodded.  “My people are still trying to come to know the full truth of it.  But the Trillanes are definitely about to make some kind of move.”

        “I guess it’s about time.  Five years shoulda been long enough for them to recover from the spanking Dahnai gave them when Jason took the house,” Myleena noted.

        Miaari nodded.  “Though she is inscrupulous, you cannot deny that Maeri Trillane is cunning and dangerous,” she stated.  “Trillane has more than recovered from the setbacks handed to them by Empress Dahnai.”

        “Who is Twillane?” Rann asked.

        “Some people I hope you never have trouble with, son,” Jason chuckled.  “You hungry?”

        “Yah!”

        “Then let’s wrap up this tour and get down to the important business,” he winked at Myleena.  “Lunch!”

        “Oh sure, how can my Gladiators compare with a grilled cheese sandwich,” Myleena said scathingly, which made Jason burst out in laughter.

        In order to prepare a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches—Rann’s favorite—they returned to Foxwood.  Foxwood was on the far side of Karsa, on a very nice strip of land on the ocean.  Jason loved the ocean, and Foxwood East, as they called it, sat on a gentle rise that overlooked the sea.  There was a staircase that led down to the beach, and that beach was the communal area for the various nobles that lived along the shoreline.  Tim and Symone lived on one side, and Myleena on the other, and all the Marines lived along that strip as well, allowing them to be close so he could keep in touch and visit his kids.

        Dahnai would be scandalized if she could see his house, for it was very ordinary.  It was a four bedroom three story Colonial, built in the Terran style, that would not look out of place on any street in an affluent section of an American city.  The only parts of it that made it unusual were the two large paved landing pads behind the house, inland, and the small hangar that normally housed whatever vehicles he wasn’t using.  His Nova and a small dropship sat on one landing pad, and the hangar, which was the size of a barn, nearly as large as the house, held ships that Myleena sent over for him to play with, two more Novas, Jyslin’s personal dropship, two hovercars, and four airbikes.  The other landing pad was usually empty, for it was the pad that visitors used when they came to see him, but it currently held Miaari’s dropship.

        Every house along the strip was ordinary like that, making the strip look just like a middle class enclave, though a very multicultural one.  Jason’s house was the only one that was in the Terran architecture; the rest of the houses along the strip were Faey designs, which meant they were sloping and elegant, more square than rectangular, and they had flat roofs with stairs leading up to their tops.  Faey architecture treated the roof like a Terran would a deck, a recreational area.  But behind those houses was a reminder that these were not normal people, in the form of a security fence and roving patrols of Dukal guards.  Jason hadn’t wanted them, but both Myri and Miaari had been absolutely adamant that they be there…not to isolate Jason from the rest of Karis, but to protect the Dukal line.  Jason had no fear of anyone who lived on Karis, but even he couldn’t refute that there was always the outside chance that someone might flip out or go nuts, and that’s what the guards were there to stop.  Anyone could come see Jason at any time, but they had to to through security first, that was the only condition.  That was the purpose they served; not to isolate the Grand Duke from his people, but to make sure that meetings between the Grand Duke and his people were safe.

        This was his new life.  Here, he was surrounded by friends and family, and all his children were only a couple minutes’ walk down either side of the beach.  Yana and Maya were the closest, living on the far sides of Tim and Myleena, then Zora and Ilia, then Sheleese and the twins Lyn and Bryn, who lived together, then Myri and Min on the outsides.  Yana, Maya, Zora, and Ilia were the mothers of the four children he was forced to have outside of marriage, and they lived closest to him, so he could be near his children.  Yana had born Kyri, who was probably going to be the most powerful telepath in the history of the Imperium.  Maya had borne Aran, a bubbly little boy with lime green hair.  Zora had borne Sora, naming her after the root of the entire line of the Generations, a little redhead girl with a major attitude.  Ilia had born Zach, giving him a Terran name, a black-haired child with dark eyes and a mysterious smile gracing his face most of the time.  Zora jokingly called them the Brat Pack because they were all rather rambunctious and a bit disobedient, but they expected no less from the seed of Jason Karinne.  They ranged in ages from Rann’s five to Zach’s three, and they certainly had a gaggle of other kids to play with.  The area outside the security fence was also populated with more Generations, and nearly three quarters of them either had kids or had fathered children.  There was a veritable onslaught of toddlers, babies, and small children running around, and the kids never had to go far to find someone to play with.

        That was the other reason there were guards patrolling the area…to keep the kids safe, if only from themselves.  They never had to go far to find a patrol of two black-armored Dukal Guards that would give them a hand, or keep them out of trouble.

        It took Jason quite a while to get used to the idea of it, but he had to admit, he was very happy with the thought of it.  He was proud of his kids, and he loved them all…and the bonds between him and their mothers, through them, ensured that they would always be tight-knit.  He didn’t love them and no longer slept with any of them—it had been nothing more than a duty to him, and they didn’t hold it against him—but he couldn’t deny that the results of it made him very happy.

        The parents certainly had started working on those kids in their own ways.  Sora was already being taught how to fly by Zora, but Jason saw nothing wrong with that at all, given he too came from a flying family.  Yana was teaching Kyri about her talent, Ilia was teaching Zach all about military things; though he’d probably never fight, Ilia would probably make one hell of a general out of him.  Aram probably had it best, though, since he was just the youngest out of three, and Vell treated him like he was Aram’s father.  It really said so much about Vell that he was willing to be the father of a child that wasn’t even his, and Aram was lucky for their love and affection.  Aram had two fathers, Daddy Vell and Daddy Jason, and they both loved him deeply.

        That was his new life, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.  While they were having lunch, Zora stopped by with Sora, walking up along the wooden walkways that ran along the beach that served as the private avenues by which those closest to the Grand Duke traveled.  Sora immediately got handed a sandwich herself, and she was hefted up to the table by Jason’s strong arms, chatting with Rann about things that truly only mattered to children.

        Hey Zora, Jyslin sent as she came into the kitchen.  A house servant, Amaya, handed her a glass of chilled oye juice, which she took with a nod and a smile.  Amaya was one of two servants Jason kept, and only because he and Jyslin were so busy they often didn’t have time to cook or clean.  Amaya and Surin were the house’s servants, but they were also integral members of the family, often watching after Rann when Jason and Jyslin were either exhausted or busy.  Miaari had spent nearly a year to find these two, both of them commoners from the Imperium, carefully combing through thousands of potential servants to find two with the right mentality and loyalty to be directly attached to the house of the Grand Duke.  It seemed only natural to Jason that after they met here in the Duke’s employ, they fell in love and got married.  They were a good match, in his eyes.  Amaya was a total sweetheart, gentle and kind, and Surin was training to be a teacher while serving in House Saenne as a house servant, so he was a terrific tutor for Rann, gently teaching Rann while not making it apparent to the spunky child that he was receiving an education.  What you up to?

        Not much, just dicking around right now, she answered.  Myli wants me to help her with some stuff later today.

        What?

        Dunno, something to do with some engine modifications she made to one of her dropships.  She wants me to fly it while she takes readings to see how good they were. Myleena was still tinkering with Karinne spatial engines to solve a power problem.  She’d been messing with them for years, trying to adapt them to modern Moleculartronic technology, but she’d run into some major issues trying to bridge between the biogenic/cybertronic systems the engines used and adapting them to moleculartronic technology.  She tinkered with it mostly, since Karinne engines were still superior, the power drain they dealt to a ship their only major drawback.  Karinne engines were power hogs, and Myleena had been playing with solving that problem in her free time over the years.

        She’s still messing with engines?

        It keeps her out of trouble, Jason sent with amusement.  As long as she amuses herself with tinkering with engines, it keeps her from taking my cars and planes apart.

        She still does that?

        She always calls it preventive maintenance, but I know she does it just because she likes doing it.  And the only Novas around are the three in my hangar.

        Someday I’m gonna buy one of those from you, Jason, Zora sent with a laugh.

        Myleena said she’s going to have the shipyard build more of them, after they fill the quota for military production, Jason shrugged.  I’ll make sure you get one of the first ones off the line, but you’re not getting mine.

        Oh come on, you have three!

        Yes, and I used to have four, he sent cooly.

        Zora blushed.  That wasn’t my fault, and you know it.  Even Myli said it wasn’t my fault.

        Jason gave her a sly smile.  Zora flushed purple, then gave him a hot look.

        I hate you sometimes, do you know that?  Are you ever gonna let me live that down?

        No.  If I did, I wouldn’t be doing my job, he sent with a grin.

        Bastard.

        “Mama, can we go play?” Sora asked, looking up at her mother.  “I’m done, see?”

        “Sure, sweetie,” she answered.  “Are you done, Rann?”

        “Uh-huh, I’m all done,” he answered.  “Can we go to the beach?  I wanna swim!”

        “I can take them, your Grace,” Amaya offered.

        “Not without me, you’re not,” Jyslin teased playfully.

        “Fine with me,” Jason nodded.  “I have some paperwork to do, but I’ll try and come down and join you after a while.  At least I hope so,” he sighed.

        “Okay, papa,” Sora said with a loving smile.  “Mama said you have Duke things today.”

        Jason laughed.  “That’s about right, kidlet,” he agreed, scrubbing Sora’s blond hair with a hand.  “I should be doing those Duke things right now, but I want to talk to Miaari first before we go over some of it.”

        “Important?” Zora asked.

        “Fairly,” he affirmed.  “Important enough to want her opinion on some of it.  She should be here any time now.  She had some things to tie up at the Shimmer Dome.”

        While Jyslin, Zora, and Amaya took the kids down to the beach, Jason retreated to his study, with its large bay window that overlooked the sea.  This was his private domain, his office, where he did most of the work that being a Grand Duke entailed.  It was panelled in rich mahogany, with a blue carpet and pictures of his wife, children, and friends all over the walls, and a holographic pictures of Jyslin and his five children on his desk.  His desk had two panels on it, and a vidlink was on the wall facing his desk for video conferences.  Behind his desk was the window, and he spent quite a lot of time with his chair swung around and his elbow on the sill, looking out at the sea, or watching his children and their mothers playing on the beach.  There was a barbecue pit on a deck down on the edge of the beach behind the house, a volleyball net, horseshoe pit, and a little flat area for beach batchi.  Down below, Zora and Jyslin had pitched towels while the kids ran towards the sea with Amaya watching on.  Amaya was a tall, lithe Faey with sky-blue hair and a somewhat thin figure, narrow-hipped and a little flat-chested.  She wore a black one piece, but Jason could see with some amusement that Jyslin and Zora had already shed their bikinis  and were sunbathing nude on the beach.  That didn’t bother him, nor anyone else, really.  Faey modesty wasn’t the same as Terran modesty, and going around naked was entirely acceptable to a Faey girl at the beach.  In reality, there was no law against nudity anywhere in the Imperium, and Jason wasn’t so much the prude that he’d change that here on Karis, when nearly 60% of the Karis population was Faey.  He just wondered why they bothered putting them on, when all they did was wear them for like five minutes before stripping them off.

        One thing was for sure…his boys certainly already knew what women looked like naked.

        But he was here on business, so he put naked women out of his mind and concentrated on getting some of his work off the table.  While waiting for Miaari, he combed through quite a few missives and communications, and did some of the tedious paperwork that came with the job.  He would not allow a bureacracy to form, he would not allow himself to become separated from the affairs of the house and the needs of its subjects, so he had some work on his desk that some Grand Duchesses would fire their aides for even putting on their desks, it was so insignificant.  Yes, it made him busy, but he wasn’t about to allow himself to ever think he was above such duties.  Yes, he had a staff that helped him with much of it, and they worked in the “official” Dukal government offices over in Karsa, but he always ensured that he had direct say in almost every decision.  He preferred to work out of his study, so they sent it over to him, and he sent it back when he was done.

        He knew he wouldn’t be able to do it like this for much longer.  Karis was getting bigger and bigger, and it increased his workload every day, but he was resistant to the idea of allowing others to make decisions that would affect the daily lives of the Karinne commoners.

        He managed to work through quite a bit of it, applications for land grants, service requests, some suggestions about terraforming, quite a few applications for Karisians to bring family members to Karis, even a couple of marriage application permits, when Miaari arrived.  She strolled in scratching absently at her breast, and the move drew his eyes to that white band of fur that went from under her chin to her crotch.  The white band of a Handservant, the most highly respected of all the Kimdori.  They were Kimdori who had performed so admirably that they had earned the Denmother’s personal respect.  It was like earning the Congressional Medal of Honor back home in America, the highest award a Kimdori could receive.  “Jason,” she greeted when she came in and closed the door.  She tapped on the keypad by the door, and caused the room to enter a secured mode that would prevent any and all surveillance.  The window behind him shimmered, then turned dark as the glass entered secure mode, preventing anyone from being able to see in from the outside, but allowing them to see out.

        “Must be serious to use that,” Jason said grimly as he finished up approving a land grant request, then sent it off.  “Need me to shut these down?”

        “Please,” she nodded.  “But leave the vidlink open.  Denmother will be calling in a moment.”

        “No problem,” he said as he shut down both his panels.  “What’s this about?”

        “I think it best to allow Denmother to explain it,” she answered, and while she answered the vidlink beeped with an incoming call.  The red lights meant that it was a secured Kimdori channel, and that could only be Zaa.

        She appeared on the monitor, a majestic gray-furred Kimdori with a regal bearing, and Jason had to resist the urge to stand in her presence.  Never had he met anyone as royal as Zaa.  Her very presence was awe-inspiring, but the smile she gave him was anything but haughty.  “Cousin,” she greeted.  “Are you well?”

        “Outside of being busy as sin, well enough, Denmother,” he answered.  “What’s so important that you’d use this?”

        “This is information not yet available elsewhere, Jason,” she told him.  “It is a very serious matter, and it does concern your house.”  She looked down, and a handpanel flashed into view at the bottom of the screen.  For some reason, Zaa wasn’t wearing a memory band.  “We have received intelligence that the Trillanes intend to break away from the Imperium.”

        “I’ve heard that rumor myself, Zaa.”

        “This is not a rumor,” she said bluntly.  “We have intercepted their schedule.  They intend to make their declaration in six days.  Trillane has called up all its military units and amassed them at Arctus.”

        “They won’t stand a chance against the Imperial fleet,” Jason scoffed.

        “Normally I would agree, but the Urumi have decided to take sides in this issue,” Zaa stated.  “They have thrown in their lot with Trillane, and intend to support Trillane’s independence with a military alliance.”

        Jason frowned, leaning back in his chair.  “Are they nuts?  Things are quiet now, why do they want to stir up this trouble?”

        “The Urumi seem to have not taken Merrane’s attempts to atone at face value,” Zaa sniffed.  “How this concerns you, Jason, is that the Urumi are returning the people they abducted from Terra to Trillane, as soldiers.”

        Jason sighed.  For five long years, he had been locked in a frustrating war of words with the Urumi over those people.  Over three million humans had been abducted by Trillane and sent to Uruma, where the Trillanes used their talent to brainwash the people into being loyal soldiers of their house.  Trillane had denied it, of course, and there was never any viable proof they could have taken to the Empress that might get Trillane’s charter yanked.  Jason couldn’t even prove his people were there outside of Zaa’s intelligence, which the Urumi simply wrote off as so many lies.  Getting those people back had been one of the failures of his tenure as Grand Duke, because it would have literally taken a war with the Urumi, and Jason couldn’t fight that war with the limited resources available to the Karinnes.  The Imperium would not help, and he honestly couldn’t blame them for not helping in a political sense.  Tensions between the Urumi and the Faey had been a knife’s edge from war for over a thousand years.

        “Clearly, adding those humans to their own forces, it gives Trillane considerable military assets,” Zaa told him.  “And for the last five years, Maeri Trillane has been building her military back up after the fines imposed and the ships lost in battle with you.  Trillane believes that with what they have and the Urumi there to threaten all-out war with the Imperium should they not back off, that Trillane can successfully break away from the Imperium.”

        “Maeri must be insane,” Jason sighed, glancing at the sober-looking Miaari.  “She knows that Dahnai can’t just let her go.  It could make the entire Imperium fly apart at the seams.”

        “Perhaps that is what the Urumi desire,” Zaa noted.  “A fractured Imperium would be an inviting target.  And with her threatening to use your own people against you, perhaps she seeks to dissuade Karinne from aiding the Imperium in the war that would follow such a secession.  Maeri is more than aware of your care for your people.  To use them in such a manner is not above her.”

        “I know, she’s a cold bitch,” Jason grunted, putting his head in his hands for a moment as he thought things through.  Clearly, this was going to be a shitstorm no matter how things turned out.  But he couldn’t come up with anything.  “What do you think we should do, Zaa?”

        “For now, nothing. Give me time to amass more intelligence.  But the Empress must be warned, and you will have to do it.  She will know that the information comes from us if you deliver it, and we cannot appear to be openly involved in this.  You know our strictures.”

        He nodded.  “I know, and I can’t blame you for it.”  The Kimdori never openly took sides, and only worked for those who paid them…that was how they appeared.  But below that was another set of rules, and that was that they tried to keep a lid on things in this sector of the galaxy.  The Faey were a powder keg, and the Kimdori worked to keep them from going off, but they did it without actively interfering.  They were watchers, observers, trying to keep things peaceful, but also not interfering with other civilizations.  The Kimdori couldn’t actively do anything, they had to be asked to do it.  Them keeping an eye on things was active, but in this regard, to actually warn Dahnai wouldn’t be allowed.  “I’d better get ready to go, then, unless there was more you wanted to talk about.”

        “No, getting this to Dahnai quickly is vital.  I’ll warn Jinaami to tell Dahnai you are coming, but nothing more.”

        “That should be enough.  Let me get my armor on,” he grunted.  “I’ll call you back as soon as I get home and tell you what happened.”

        She nodded.  “Journey well, Jason Karinne.”  And then her image vanished.

        “Well, shit,” Jason sighed, standing up.  “There went my day.  Maybe even my month.”

        “I could not agree more, Jason,” Miaari said grimly. “Trillane may cause the entire Imperium to self destruct…and that might be exactly what they want.  I would not put it above Maeri Trillane to destroy her entire race over petty revenge.”

        “Amen,” he said, pulling his shirt over his head and walking towards the door.  Surin.

        Yes, your Grace?

        Go open the hangar.  I’m going out.

        Which ship are you taking?

        The Raptor.

        There was a long pause.  I, see, came a much more serious reply.  Jason wouldn’t be going in the Raptor if it was anything local.  And if he was leaving Karis alone, then it had to be very serious.  I will have the guards bring the ship out onto the pad for you.

        Miaari cancelled the secure mode for the room, then opened the door for him.  Thank you, Surin.  I’ll be down in a few minutes.

        What’s going on? Symone sent almost immediately.  Jason had sent privately to Surin, but Symone could hear private sendings, and from the sense of her sending, she was at home, next door.  That was within her hearing range.

        I have to go to Draconis.  It’s pretty serious, he answered.  But it’s not something I can discuss.

        Ah, I understand, hon.  One of those secret Grand Duke things.  See you when you get back, okay?

        I’m not sure how long I’m going to be.  Odds are, Dahnai’s gonna try to hold me over.  I haven’t seen her face to face in like six months.

        I don’t think she’s gonna be that horny, since she’s so obsessed with her husband, came a reply with a naughty tinge.  But she might want to bang you for old time’s sake.

        I can deal with it.

        I know, fucking someone with a body like EmpressDahnai’s is just such a chore, she teased.

        I doubt I’ll be in the mood, he answered with a very serious, almost grim undertone that forestalled any further banter.

        There was a startled silence as Jason entered the bedroom, then put his palm on the reader by the bed that opened the armory.  A metal door slid open, revealing two Crusader armor units, his and Jyslin’s, and a rack holding several weapons of various makes and models, including the latest generation of his railgun.  Jason sat down on the bed and started working out of his jeans.  Well, if it’s like that, I’ll let you get to it.  Good luck, baby.

        Thanks.

        It only took him about five minutes to armor up, since he did it so often.  He came out of the room in his black armor with the Karinne crest emblazoned on the chest of his armor in shimmering gold, two waves whose crests faced each other with a phoenix and a star above the trough between them.  Jyslin, he sent openly.

        Yeah love?

        I have to go to Draconis.  It’s business.  I’m not sure when I’ll be back.

        Okay.  Want me to go with you?

        No, it’ll be best if you stay here.

        Sounds serious.

        It might be.  Myri?

        She’s down at the command center, Yana answered.

        Fuck.  Listen, get in touch with her and have her mobilize the fleet, get all military personnel in off leave.  I want everyone in a state of readiness.  And someone call Kosigi and find out when the those new ships are gonna be finished with shakedown.  Yana, go track down General Eyna and tell her to step up getting the infantry rated on the new Gladiators.

        Jason, what’s going on? Ilia called.

        I’ll explain it when I get back, he called as he went out the back door and towards the hangar.  His Raptor was sitting on the pad waiting for him, a sleek black war machine with elegant lines and a deadly appearance, with its downsloped, triangular-shaped wings, double-tailfin in a V configuration, and angular cockpit glass.  It was an Imperium design, but it had been refitted with Karinne technology and the cockpit controls stripped out to make way for the interface.  The cockpit opened as Jason approached, and he used the Crusader drive system to float up to the cockpit.  Within was a featureless cockpit with no controls, no indicators, just three pieces of black backglass facing the pilot’s seat.

        Jason settled into the pilot’s seat, then felt the seat lock his armor into place, effectively immobilizing him.  He closed his eyes and accessed the Raptor through his gestalt, and felt it respond.  Using the mental communion with the Raptor’s systems, he started the engines and brought up all systems.  [Cybi.]

        [Yes, Jason?]

        [I’m going to Draconis, and it’s pretty serious.  I’d like you to do three things for me.  First, I’d like you to coordinate with Myri and Jyslin as they follow through on the orders I gave.  Second, please relay a message to Ayuma for me.  Tell her to increase security at the Academy, watch for anything unusual, and have Kiaari put extra people on the Urumi embassy.]

        [I will relay the message,] she acknowledged.  [What is happening?]

        [I’ll explain it when I get back,]  he replied.  [I know you surf Civnet when you’re bored, so could you, look around and see if you find anything unusual or suspicious concerning the Trillanes or the Urumi?]

        [I will start looking now,] she answered.  [Since this seems quite serious, shall I schedule a council when you return?]

        [That’s a good idea.  Tell Jyslin to have everyone at Kosiningi.  We’ll have this talk at your place, so you can participate.]

        [That reminds me, Jason, the Kimdori finished your house here.  Do you intend to move to Kosiningi permanently?]

        [No, I wanted a place to stay when I come visit you that feels like more than a hotel room, that’s all.]

        [Well, I do appreciate your thoughtfulness.]

        [You’re a member of the family, Cybi.  Now let me get to Draconis so I can get back.]

        [Of course.  I’ll have a report ready on anything I find ready for you when you return.]

        Jason felt the ship’s cameras come online, and when they did, Jason saw in his mind’s eye everything the cameras could see.  A heads-up display superimposed over that image as the ship directly fed data to his brain through his gestalt and armor, allowing him to literally become the ship.  Using that communion, the Generation ability to telepathically interface with biogenic computers, Jason had a control of the Raptor so effortless, so absolute, that he could fly circles around any pilot in a non-interface fighter.  Though his fighter pilots weren’t Generations and couldn’t do what he was doing, the system Myleena had devised was very nearly as good.  They too flew their fighters by interface, without manual controls, where their thoughts directed the units.  But their control was only one way, from pilot to machine, forcing them to rely on their eyes for targets and instruments to receive information they needed to be effective fighter pilots. Even with those limitations, however, a Karinne pilot in an interface-driven Raptor would blow the pants off any other Faey fighter pilot.  Karinne pilots reacted with the speed of thought and had utter control of their mecha due to the lack of manual controls, and that made them devastating.

        Jason used the interface to emulate audio, which translated his communal thought into gravband signals that could be picked up as normal communications.  [Kosigi, this is Karinne One.]

        [This is Kosigi, Petty Officer Malla, go ahead your Grace.] came the response, translated into communal thought by the computer.

        [Which ships are on standby?]

        [The Liberty, with the destroyers Washington and Gora.]

        [Get through to the Liberty and tell them to launch, but only them.  I’ll meet them outside the main doors.]

        [This is the Liberty, Lieutenant Jeya at the conn.  I picked that up, your Grace.  I’ll notify the Captain and get underway.]

        [Very good, Lieutenant.  Jeya…wait a minute.  Pink hair?  Tall?]

        [That’s me, your Grace.  I’ m surprised you remember me,] she said, her voice quite flattered.

        [I saw your scores, Lieutenant.  I thought we put you on your own ship.]

        She laughed.  [Not yet, your Grace, but a girl can hope.  Last I heard, I’m still under consideration, no official word yet from Central Command.]

        [I’ll ask Myri about it next time I see her.]

        [You don’t have to go out of your way for me, your Grace,] she said as the massive outer doors of the lunar base opened.  [We’re launching now, your Grace.  We’ll be exiting the doors in about two minutes.]

        [I’ll be waiting.  Kosigi,clear all traffic for my approach.  Sorry to pull rank, but I’m in a hurry.]

        [I’ve already cleared the lanes, your Grace,] the controller responded.

        Jason skillfully swung the fighter around to the side as the Karinne cruiser exited the lunar station.  It was a sleek, dangerous vessel, the same model as the Defiant, with its long triangular shape and slightly flared wing-like aft section.  The Karinne crest was emblazoned on the bow in red, and the ship’s name was written under it in both Faey script and English.  [Your Grace, Liberty here, Captain Meri commanding.  You are cleared to dock in the forward port landing bay.  The outer doors are already open.]

        [Understood, I’m on the way.]

        Jason expertly navigated the fighter into the open docking bay and set her down with a gentle touch.  He was already disengaged from the ship before the ship fully settled on its skids, and jumped down from the cockpit even as the canopy opened.  Three officers were there waiting for him, including Captain Meri.  Meri was one of his original conscripts, one of the non-coms among the Trillanes, a career servicewoman who had risen to the upper ranks of the enlisted.  But when Jason captured her and she took his offer, she became an officer in his Navy, and it didn’t take her long to get to the rank of Lieutenant Commander—though she was called Captain so long as she commanded her ship.  Most of his other command-level officers were transplants, Faey that the Kimdori had located and recruited to serve Karinne in the years since they moved to Karis, but Meri proved that good people came both with and without noble titles.  “Your Grace,” she said with a bow, then a salute.  “What course?”

        “Draconis,” he answered immediately as he lowered himself to the deck.

        Navigation, set course for Draconis, Meri’s sending boomed across the ship.  Prepare for hyperspace jump.

        Entering coordinates for Draconis, sir, a female sending answered.

        Jason walked with Meri and her two junior officers towards the bridge.  “I’m surprised to see you, your Grace.  What’s going on?”

        It’s a long story, and something I can’t talk about right now, Meri.

        Certainly, your Grace.  Would you like to sit at the conn for the jump?

        Actually, I think I’d like that.  I haven’t sat the conn on a jump for years.  Captains always want to put me in their cabin for some reason.

        Meri laughed.  Well, they want you to be comfortable.

        I thought Jeya was given command of a destroyer, he noted.

        I haven’t heard of it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.  She’s certainly competent.  I’ll hate to lose her, to be honest.

        Ah, so you sabotaged her hearing, eh?

        Meri gasped, then laughed loudly.  I most certainly did not, your Grace.

        A short ride on a lift brought them to the command deck, and a walk down a long hallway brougth them to the bridge.  It was laid out exactly like the Defiant, so it was all very familiar to him.  He followed Meri up to the conn, and she motioned for him to sit down.  He did so, but looked over to her.  I’m not running this, Meri.  I just want to sit in the chair.

        Of course, your Grace.  Take us out, Jeya.

        “Helm, bring us to bear,” Jeya barked.  “Do we have a lock?”

        “Aye, sir, coordinates locked for hyperspace jump.”

        All sections report jump readiness, Jeya’s powerful sending reached through the entire ship.  Jason listened as section officers reported in via sending.  Once all of them did, Jeya and Meri quickly went to empty chairs and strapped in.  Jason too strapped in as the bridge crew copied them.  Prepare for hyperspace jump in twenty seconds! Jeya sent openly.  “Take us through, Miss Suya.”

        “Aye aye, ma’am,” the pilot said, looking over her shoulder.

        Suya was good.  The ship swung around into position smoothly under the pilot’s deft control, as she used her interface to control the ship with a light touch that would have made Zora proud.

        Someday one of you Navy types is going to explain why you call the captain sir but everyone else ma’am, Jason sent with light amusement.

        It’s an affectation, since the captain is the voice of the ship, and the ship is naturally male, Meri answered as the cruiser slowed down in preparation of the jump.  It’s the only time a girl isn’t offended by being called sir, she winked.

        So you’d call a male captain ma’am?

        Hell no, he’s be called sir too, Meri chuckled.

        “Jump in five, four, three, hang on your Grace, here we go!”

        Hyperspace was something one never really got used to.  It was like he was both drunk and delerious, as sights, smells, sounds that were impossible assaulted his senses, as his limited mind tried to make sense of the higher dimensions of hyperspace.  For long seconds he was assaulted by a cacophony of chaotic sensory input, and then reality seemed to snap taut, then shudder, and then there was a flash of light that heralded their return to normal space.

        Jason shook his head and pinched his nose between two fingers as bridge personnel checked each other, looking for signs of hyperspace shock in their crewmates, a common minor condition for those who jumped hyperspace often.  All sections report in when jump checks are complete! Jeya boomed.

        Draconis loomed in the forward view, a blue marble hanging in space.  Because of traffic concerns, the cruiser jumped in well outside the orbital track of the moons.  “Make for Draconis, Miss Suya, full speed,” Meri ordered calmly.

        “Full speed, aye sir,” Suya answered, and the ship turned slightly as Draconis centered itself in the forward view.

        “Comm, send to Draconis control that the Grand Duke Karinne has arrived, and we request noble’s rights to approach Draconis,” she said, looking to her right.

        “I’m already in contact with Draconis control, sir,” the communications officer answered.

        How long til we get there? Jason asked.

        “About thirty minutes, your Grace,” Suya answered aloud.

        “All sections report normal, captain,” Jeya relayed when the last section sent in to the bridge.

        “Very good.  Take the conn, Lieutenant.  Your Grace, would you care for a drink in my ready room?”  I’d like to speak to you a moment in private, if that’s alright, your Grace.

        “Sure, that sounds nice.”

        In her stark ready room, a small office off the bridge that was something of a buffer room between the bridge and her private quarters, Meri sat down with him on a couch, and they talked briefly about Jeya and some other officers that Meri thought needed to be looked at for promotion.  Then she broached the subject that was really on her mind.  “I take it I should start doing battle drills, your Grace?” she asked soberly.  “I could tell from the texture of your sending that it’s something very, very serious.”

        “God, I hope not,” he said fervently.  “I’m here to try to prevent that kind of nonsense.  But a little preparation might be wise.  I’ve already sent in the order to Myri for the fleet to mobilize.”

        “Is it something you can explain, your Grace?”

        “Not yet.  I need to talk to Dahnai and get more information first.  I’m sorry.”

        “I understand completely.  And for what it’s worth, I’m not really worried.  When you took us in, you made it clear that you cared about us, and you never once did anything that made us feel any different.  If whatever it is goes sour on you and we end up in some kind of fight, we all know that you did everything you could to prevent it.  And hey, we’re in the most kickass navy in the Imperium,” she said with a sly smile.  “We’ll be just fine.”

        “I really appreciate that, Meri.  Trust me, if things turn out as bad as they look, at least I know I have the best military in the Imperium to defend Karis.”

        She put her hand on his armored shoulder, then leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.  “We’re proud of you too, your Grace.  Not a single girl you took in can look back on that day and regret it, and that’s Trelle’s honest truth.”

        “Flirt,” Jason chuckled.

        “Oh, no, not with the Dukal person I’m not.  Jyslin would strangle me.”

        Jason laughed.

        As the cruiser moved in through smaller traffic and took up orbit around the planet, Jason launched from the cruiser in his Raptor as the cruiser relayed communications for him and he used Call of Council to gain immediate access to Dahnai.  He landed on the north pad at the Imperial Palace and was out of the ship before Imperial servants could scurry out to greet him.  He met them almost at the door, then pushed right past them and forced them to rush after him.  “Your Grace, your Grace!  The Empress is in court, you need formal robes!”

        “No, I don’t,” he snapped over his shoulder.  Dahnai.

        I heard you came in, babes, she answered immediately.  It’s good to hear from you!  Kellin’s not home right now though.  He’s on Prius right now.  Go get in some robes and—

        No.  I need to talk to you in private.  Now.

        Now?  What’s going on?

        Tell your guards to let me in your apartment.

        Umm, sure.  There was a brief pause.  Alright, they’ll let you in.  What’s going on, babe?

        Come to your apartment now, Dahnai.  This can’t wait.

        Babe, you just got me both real curious and a little worried.  I haven’t seen you in months, and you show up making all these demands.  I’ll be happy to see you, but something tells me this isn’t social.  There was a pause.  I see it’s not.  Jinaami just got here, she just told me that you’ll be on your way, and you have something serious to talk to me about.

        She’s late, he growled mentally.

        She must have been at home when the Denmother contacted her.  I wasn’t supposed to hold court today, this was a change in schedule.  I’m going to Prius tomorrow to see Kellin.  He’s there on an archealogical dig.  I decided to hold this court to tie up a couple of loose ends before I go.

        Less talking, more getting to your apartment.

        Keep your dick in your shorts, I’m coming, she retorted.

        Jason reached her apartment first, and in the company of four Imperial Guards, he waited.  She’d redecorated since the last time he’d been there, a new couch, quite a bit of new art on the walls and on stands, and Terran recliner chair in the corner.  He tossed his helmet on the couch, then unlatched his armored gauntlets and put them on the coffee table.  The door opened, and Dahnai rushed in wearing her formal court robes, attended by three pages and a maid.  She was just as lovely as he remembered, with her bronze colored hair that tumbled down her back in glorious waves, and her statuesque height making her look so regal when she wore her robes.  “Alright, I’m here.  What’s so important that you’d drag me out of court?  And what’s with the armor?”

        Send everyone out, he sent tersely.  Even your guards.

        Dahnai’s eyes seemed to brighten a bit.  All this mystery just to fuck?  I’m not sure I like this game, babe, but I’m not about to say no

        That’s the last thing on my mind right now, he answered.  I’ll help you with your robe, but we have to be alone.

        “Everyone out,” Dahnai ordered crisply.  “Me and the Grand Duke are going to be indisposed.”

        That’s a new way of stating it, one of the Imperial Guards sent lightly as the servants and the armored guardians filed out with knowing grins. They all knew what happened when the Empress ordered a room cleared, because there was only one thing she would do that demanded complete privacy.

        After the last guard left, Jason gave Dahnai a glance.  Bring up your security.

        Now you really got me curious, babe, she said as she went over to the wall separating her bedroom from the sitting room and typed in a code on the keypad there.  The lights blinked red three times, then stayed steady.  “Alright, the room’s locked down,” she said aloud.  “Now come help me with the robe while you explain what the hell’s going on.”

        Denmother Zaa stumbled across some information she couldn’t just sit on, he began as he helped Dahnai start to undo the intricate ties and straps that held her ornate robes together.  She has it on good authority that the Trillanes intend to declare independence and try to break away from the Imperium.

        They’ve been thinking about that for years, ever since Maeri lost her chance to take the throne.  I guess she figures she’d rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.

        Yeah, well, Zaa says they already started, he told her.  And they mean to make it public in six days.  What’s worse is the Urumi are backing them, and Trillane is going to use my people as part of their army.

        Are they insane?  They’ll be crushed when I call in the military to reclaim Arctus!  I wouldn’t even need to use your fleet to do it!

        Even if the Urumi enter the war on Trillane’s side?

        Babes, if the Urumi declare war on the Imperium, we could wipe out half their colonized worlds inside a week, she scoffed.  Hell, I’d probably leave Trillane alone for the chance of taking a huge bite out of the Collective’s territory.  They have three arable planets along our border, and I’d be more than willing to have a little war with them to get my hands on those planets.  They’d be insane to declare war on us.

        Well, they’re insane, because I don’t doubt Zaa at all,  Jason told her.  Perhaps they think they can hold most of the Faey forces along the border and stall long enough for you and Trillane to reach an agreement.

        If Maeri does this, the only agreement I intend to reach with Trillane is having that annoying bitch’s head hanging on my wall as a trophy, Dahnai growled.

        Jason was about to say something, but held his tongue.  He considered that for a moment.  Yes…that was exactly what the Faey would do if they went to war with the Urumi.  They’d attack, come across the border between the Imperium and the Collective and fall on the border systems like vultures.  Surely the Urumi knew that would happen…unless that was what they wanted to happen.  But how would that aid the Urumi?  They might lose their border systems, and three of them had temperate climates that made farming viable.  Those were treasures as galactic civilizations reckoned planets, since so few could produce food.  So, what gain was in it for the Urumi to support Trillane?  He was fairly sure they weren’t going to start another war over the atrocity committed over a thousand years ago, when Urumi civilians were killed in the Merrane attack on the original Academy.  So, the question was…what was in it for the Urumi to fight a superior force and risk losing irreplacable territory to the Faey when they declared war?

        “What?” Dahnai asked as Jason knelt motionless, in the act of untying a strap.

        I’m pondering what the Urumi might gain from entering a war that they’d be almost destined to lose, that’s what, he answered.  I can see no gain in it for them anywhere, which means there’s more going on here than we can see.

        I can agree to that.  We’d crush them if they declared war.  If it wasn’t for the fact that declaring war on the Urumi would cause friction with the Alliance, we’d have conquered them hundreds—is that what they want?  Do they want to bait us into war with the Alliance?

        Possible.  It sounds like I need to go have a talk with Kiaari, Jason sent evenly.  She’s the Kimdori to talk to when it comes to intergalactic chicanery.

        Because of the Academy, Dahnai chuckled as Jason untied a series of straps holding her outer wrap on, which she removed quickly.  She untied her inner garment and pulled it open, revealing what many men went to bed dreaming about at night.  Dahnai was, quite simply, one of the hottest Faey in the entire Imperium.  She was tall, she was stacked, and her intense workout regimen gave her the tightest body Jason had ever seen on a woman.  Ripped abs enhanced her sleek waist, and developed pectoral muscles just thrust out those large breasts that much more, giving them one hell of a base.  Her developed back exaggerated her svelte figure, making her one of the most physically attractive women around.  Jason could never look at Dahnai in any state of undress and not feel desire for her.  Just thinking about Dahnai’s body was usually enough to make him go look for Jyslin or Symone, but to be fair, thinking about Jyslin or Symone that way made him feel the same way.

        “You done staring at my tits, babes?  As much as I love it, you can give me a hand with the chemise.  I can’t reach all the ties.”

        “Hold on, almost there,” he said, staring right at her ample breasts for another long moment, then reached up and fondled each breast in turn with a single hand, which made Dahnai laugh lightly.  “Okay, I’m good.”

        “Even with things so serious, you’re still Jason,” she giggled as he started working on the ties to the elaborately embroidered outer garment that went around her waist.  “But you just made a big mistake.  After we talk, you’re getting out of that armor and reminding me how big your dick is.  We haven’t fucked in months, and now I’m horny.”

        “That might not happen.”

        “It is going to happen,” she said adamantly.  “You started this, babe.  Kellin’s on Prius, you got me horny, and now you’re going to do something about it.”

        “If we have time.”

        “Oh, we’re going to have time,” she said flintily.  What else did Zaa say?

        That’s about it.  I hired her to take a deeper look into it, since you know, the Kimdori don’t do things like that on their own.  She brought me this information because of the Terrans, I hired the Kimdori to track them down for me, and since they’re tangled up in this independence plot she told me about it.  She’s looking into it more seriously now, and she’ll tell me when she finds out more, he lied, a bit artfully.  Even Dahnai didn’t know that Jason and Zaa’s relationship was different.  As far as the rest of the universe was concerned, the Kimdori only did things at the behest of another.

        How much did she charge you?

        I’m not going to tell you.

        Well, just send me a bill.  This matter isn’t just about the Karinnes, this is a plot against the Imperium.  I won’t make you pay that bill on your own.  So, it sounds like we just need to wait a couple of days to see what else the Kimdori find out.  In the meantime, I need to talk to the General Staff and start getting the fleet mobilized.

        I need to go talk to Kiaari.  She’s sure to have heard something around the Academy if this is some kind of plot to get the Faey and the Alliance into a war.

        She can wait a while.

        This is important.

        Yeah, and it’s also the middle of the night at the Academy, Dahnai sent, pointing at a clock on the wall labelled [The Terra Academy], showing it was 2:37 a.m. there.  So, you have a couple of hours to kill, Kellin’s not here, and I’m horny.  That sounds like a perfect combination to me.

        I take it I’m not talking you out of this?  We’re both really too busy right now.

        What, I’m not sexy to you anymore? she challenged, a bit hotly.  What’s with this resistance?  You’ve never been like this before!

        I’ve never been looking at the possibility of all-our war before, he answered.  I’m a little worried and distracted right now, Dahnai.  It’s not personal.  My mind just isn’t there right now.

        Pft, then a little pussy pounding is just what you need, she sent crudely.  A good fuck does wonders for your state of mind.

        You’re not thinking with your brain right now, Dahnai.

        That’s your fault.  Don’t go playing with my tits then expect to walk out of here without fucking me.

        Then I’ll be more careful next time, he sent with a chuckle as her desire, tainting her sending, began to affect him.  Besides, he had to admit, even he would love a nice little romp with Dahnai right now.  They hadn’t had sex in months, and she still had a powerful effect on his libido.

        Oh please, stop playing demure.  Now we don’t have much time, she sent, snapping a few straps as she pulled the lower robes off, then pulled the soft pajama-like trousers she wore under them down to her knees, baring her bronze pubic hair, so get out of that armor and show me how much you love me.

 

        The tryst didn’t do much for his state of mind, but it certainly did something for Dahnai’s, for she jumped out of the bed and immediately got to work.  As he put his armor back on, she called in members of her General Staff, and to Jason’s surprise, the first one through the door was Lorna Shaddale.  She wore the four diamonds of a full General, the highest rank an officer could achieve in peacetime, and she looked exactly as he remembered.  Lorna was a war horse, a face that was rugged and with a few scars from her past action, a gruff, insightful woman who had a brilliant grasp of military tactics, but also was a savvy player of political games necessary for an officer of her rank.

        “Lorna!  You’re on the Military Council now?” he asked in surprise.

        “You should look up from that hole you dragged my niece to, son,” she told him bluntly.  “I’ve been on the Council for three years.”

        “Huh.  I heard you got a promotion, but I didn’t hear that you were on the Council.”

        “Yup.  Is that a new design?”

        Jason rapped the chestplate of his armor meaningfully. “Yeah, a new design, based on my old ZPS system.  Myleena named it Crusader.  We got all the bugs worked out of it last year, and we’ve got it produced for our entire military.  It’s much better than standard issue.”

        “Someday you’re gonna tell me just where you have all this shit set up,” Dahnai said sourly.

        “Not a chance,” Jason answered.  “As long as we stay hidden, you don’t know where to send the spies.”

        Dahnai gave him a dark look.

        “Empress, don’t push him, you know he’ll just vanish for another six months,” Lorna warned.  “But you do need to come visit more often, son.  I haven’t seen Jyslin for over a year.”

        “Yeah, I know, it’s just we’ve been real busy, that’s all.  I’ll tell her to call you when I get home.”

        “It’s not the same.”

        “I know, but for now it’s about the best we can do,” he said, locking the arm greave to the shoulder of his armor, and reaching for the bracer.

        “Now then, what’s so important that you’d call in the Council, your Majesty?” Lorna asked Dahnai.

        “We should wait for the others, but I’ll explain some of it to you while they’re getting here,” Dahnai answered.  As Jason completed putting his armor on, Dahnai told Lorna what he told her.  Lorna’s face darkened, then she leaned back on the couch and scratched her pointed chin.  “There’s more here going on than what we can see,” she concluded immediately.  “The Urumi know we can thrash them if they declare war on us, unless our intelligence on them is very wrong.  So either we’ve badly underestimated their military power, or there’s something else going on that we need to find out.  Six days, you say, your Majesty?”

        Dahnai nodded.  “Jason already took some initiative and hired the Kimdori to investigate, so hopefully we’ll have some more information before Maeri throws the entire Imperium on its ear.  But we can’t wait for Zaa’s people to dig up the truth.  We have to get ready.”

        “Clearly so,” Lorna nodded.  “We can’t allow Trillane to just walk away.  The other Highborn houses might try the same thing the next time you do something that pisses them off, or vice versa.  Besides, the Trillanes have two arable planets in their domain, we can’t just let those go.  It would cause a food shortage.”  She drummed her fingers on her leg for a moment.  “Maeri must have gone insane.  There’s no good outcome for this for her house, no matter what happens.  Even if they do manage to gain independence, the Urumi will have a stranglehold on them, and I can name four different enemies that would fall all over them to try to capture their ships to get at our MPAC technology.”

        “I hadn’t even considered that,” Dahnai frowned, biting a fingernail.  “That means we can’t let them go, no matter what.”

        “I think you can write that off already,” Jason said bluntly.  “If the Trillanes are in bed with the Urumi, then they’d be nuts not to demand MPACs to use in the war that’s coming.  And it doesn’t take a genius to take something like that apart and figure out how it works.”

        “Well, hell,” Dahnai sighed.  “Our MPACs are our edge against the others.”

        “Not so much as you think,” Lorna said.  “Since we fight each other more than other civilizations, our defenses are based on dealing with MPACs.  All giving MPACs to others would do is make us not use our shields in combat.  Our armor technology is still more advanced, if only because we had to come up with something to deal with MPACs.”

        “Well, that’s true enough,” Dahnai admitted with a chuckle.

        [Contact the Liberty.  Tell them to get ready to pick me up, and plot a jump to Terra.]

        [Relaying.]

        “There’s not much more I can do to help with this, so I’m going to go do what I can,” Jason announced, picking up his helmet.  “I’ll go to talk to Kiaari and see if she knows anything.”

        “Jason, I need to be able to contact you,” Dahnai said urgently, looking in his eyes.

        He shook his head.  “If I did that, you’d have your people track me down, and I won’t risk it,” he said bluntly.

        She sighed.  “I already know where you are, Jason,” she told him heavily.  “It doesn’t take a Black Ops engineer to piece it together.  The only place you could have possibly salvaged so much equipment and recovered so much Karinne technology and data is from Karis.  The only real question I have is how you’re managing to survive there, given it’s a radioactive slagheap.  Hell, they can detect the radioactive corona from Karis from here.”

        “I’m not going to confirm or deny anything, Dahnai,” he stated flatly, though he was a little crestfallen in his own mind that he’d been right about his suspicions.  He had little doubt that several of those unmanned probes they’d detected at the edge of the Karis system were from the Imperial government, looking for him.  Clearly, he had to talk to Myleena and Cybi.  It was time for the techs to brainstorm.

        If people were going to discover Karis, then they had to come up with some way to prevent them from flooding the planet with spies and surveillance equipment.

        “I’ll send you a message if I hear anything worth passing along,” Jason told her as he seated his helmet and felt it seal.  “Lorna,” he said with a nod of his head.

        He left the palace feeling troubled on a new level.  Dahnai didn’t just let that slip, she wanted him to know that she knew where he’d been hiding.  But then again, he knew it wasn’t a secret they could keep forever.  After all, anyone who knew anything of history knew that the Karinnes only had one planet, and it was only logical to assume that the new Karinnes had salvaged their ships from Karis.  And since all the Karinnes left Earth, the only logical place for them to go and stay hidden was the same place where they recovered the ships…Karis.